She grabbed his wrist with her free hand, so she was holding him with both hands, and pulled with all her strength. It was like pulling on a tree stump.
She opened her eyes. The light overwhelmed her. She saw nothing.
She closed her eyes. "Jack, I don't want to leave you here!" she shouted.
But she did want to leave him here, she realized. She wanted desperately to save herself. She let go of his hand and ran blindly through the light.
The operator of the street sweeper stared wide-eyed at the driver of the Cadillac and murmured, "Oh, Lord, what have I done now?"
Sam looked at the man and said, "Can you see me?"
The man said nothing.
"He can't see us," Harry said.
The man reached into the broken driver's window of the Cadillac and patted the driver's face gently. The collision had knocked the Cadillac onto its back. "Hey, mister, you're all right, ain'tcha?"
But the driver wasn't all right. Three of his cervical vertebrae had been cracked when he'd fallen to the roof of the car. "Ambulance," he mouthed.
The operator of the street sweeper reached in with his other hand and grabbed the driver, by the shoulder. "It's okay, fella. I'll get you out of there!"
"Idiot!" Sam yelled. "Don't do that!"
But the man did it anyway, and as he did, he dragged the driver's neck over a twisted section of the car's metallic window frame, lacerating his jugular vein.
The driver was dead two minutes later.
Harry and Sam scrambled from the passenger's side of the car and started walking again.
"Bad experience," Harry said as they went along. He was staring at his feet, making sure he didn't sink into the sidewalk.
"More for him than for us," Sam said.
"Do you think it means anything?" Harry asked.
"Like what?"
"That we're ... I don't know . . ." He shrugged. "The kiss of death?"
"That's stupid," Sam told him.
Harry glanced at him. "No, it isn't."
"We have no proof." Sam nodded. "Harry, you're floating."
Harry looked quickly at his feet. "Jesus, I am!" He was a foot above the sidewalk.
"And you're ... losing yourself," Sam went on.
"Losing myself?" He looked down at his torso, his arms, his legs.
"Stop levitating first, before someone sees you."
Harry concentrated on the sidewalk and within moments was only an inch or so above it. "That's the best I can do," he explained. "I feel so damned... tired. I feel like someone's ... I don't know, tugging at me."
"You need a nose," Sam told him.
Reflexively, Harry put his hand to his nose. "But I can feel it." He looked cross-eyed at it. "And I can see it too."
"Well, I can't!" Sam declared, but then, suddenly, he could see it again, because Harry had concentrated on it. Sam went on, "You're not very good at this, are you?"
"Maybe I'm just not as practiced as you are."
"Yeah, maybe."
"And I think I'll get better at it in time. If I have time."
"Sure you do. And you will."
They turned a corner and blundered into heavy pedestrian traffic. People were moving briskly about, bustling here and there—to little bookstores that stayed open late, to coffee shops, bakeries, restaurants, doors opening and closing. They moved in the way that New Yorkers move—with purpose and agility.
There were singles and couples—man, woman; man, man; woman, woman—although few children and old people.
"I've always liked it here," Harry said.
"Yeah, it's all right," Sam agreed grudgingly.
They stopped walking. They had no idea where they were going exactly and they needed a moment to consider their situation.
"We know that Sydney's in New York City somewhere," Harry said.
"Yeah, we know that."
"And my guess is that if we just. . . set our minds to it—"
"No, no," Sam cut in. "I don't believe that's going to work. It's a Zen thing, I think."
Harry looked curiously at him. "A Zen thing? Somehow, I find it odd to hear that phrase coming from you."
Around them, people continued bustling here and there. There was lots of talking, but it was of the close, confidential kind, as if the private lives of these people meshed with the tone of the place, but not loudly.
"C'mon, Harry," Sam protested, "how could I not know what a Zen thing is?"
Harry shrugged. "So tell me how it's going to help us find Sydney?" he asked. "Is that the way you worked when you were alive? Did you go after errant husbands that way?"
"There was a lot of legwork, a lot of paperwork, a lot of questions to be asked. I don't know exactly how we're going to find Sydney. Maybe we're going to have to let him find us."
"That means sticking around, doesn't it?"
"Sticking around?"
"Here. In New York City."
Sam nodded. "I think so. I don't know for how long. A while. If Sydney's been killing people, then the cops are looking for him too. We'll just follow them."
Harry shook his head. "I don't think I've got the time for that, Sam." He paused. "Actually, I don't think I've got any time at all. I feel like I'm… imploding." He gave Sam a feeble smile. "And I feel so exhausted. Something doesn't want me to be here, Sam." He shrugged. "I feel like I simply don't exist."
When he shrugged, he levitated a few inches and his right arm disappeared. "Harry," Sam warned, "you're losing it."
Harry grimaced and was quickly whole and earth-bound again. "I don't think I'll ever get the hang of this," he said. "I just feel so damned tired."
"Did I see what I think I saw?" a woman behind them asked.
Sam turned toward the woman's voice. She was tall, athletically built, short-haired and red-cheeked, and she was wearing a gray, skin-tight exercise suit that seemed very much out of place this winter night. As she spoke, she jogged in place and smiled at the same time, as if at a feat of magic she couldn't figure out. "Did you just… float?" she asked Harry.
He shook his head a little and muttered, "No. Of course not. No one can float."
"But you can. I saw it. You're better than David Copperfield." She continued jogging in place.
"Actually," Sam explained, "it was only an illusion."
"Of course it was only an illusion," she said, still smiling, though her tone was scolding. "I know that."
"Aren't you cold?" Sam asked, nodding at her exercise outfit.
"You keep moving, you don't get cold," she said. "So, go ahead, do it again. I'll pay you."
"You'll pay him?" Sam said incredulously.
"Sure. I don't have any money on me at the moment." Her smile broadened. "Well, that's obvious, isn't it?"
Sam felt himself blushing.
"But I will pay you," she went on.
"No, thanks," Harry said, and then to Sam, "C'mon, let's get going. We've got a killer to find."
"Please, don't go," the jogger said. "I didn't mean to… offend you. Did I offend you?"
Sam shook his head. "It's all right. We're in a hurry"
"Everyone's in a hurry," she scolded. "Even me." She stopped jogging in place. "Okay, if you're not going to levitate again, I'm going to stand here until I freeze to death."
"No, you aren't," Sam said, and he and Harry turned away from her and started walking again.
"But I am, I will!" the woman called after them.
Sam said, "I think we can safely assume that the people who see us aren't normal."
"Yeah, I've noticed," Harry said.
Sam felt someone tapping him on the shoulder. He stopped, turned. The jogger was there. "Okay, so I won't freeze myself to death," she said, smiling. "Just tell him to levitate again, okay?"
Sam sighed, looked at Harry and said, "Levitate, Harry."
"I wish I could," Harry said, but then he did. He rose half a foot, hesitated, rose another foot, two feet, three feet, while the jogger watched, wide-eyed and openmouthed.
"Uh, Sam," Harry said tentatively, when he stopped rising at about the level of Sam's elbow, "I don't think I can come back down."
"Shit," Sam muttered.
"I'm thinking about the sidewalk, but it doesn't work. I'm too damned tired to concentrate." He glanced about at the people bustling here and there. "This is humiliating."
The jogger looked about quickly, then whispered, "Why doesn't anyone ... else . . . see him?"
Sam considered her question a moment and answered, "Because he's not really there. You've got ... toys in your attic and he's one of them."
"He must be," she breathed. "My God, I'm nuts. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I could see the signs. Talking to myself. All this ... jogging. Too many endorphins. Too much pleasure." She smiled again. "But you know what? It's all right. At least I'm not seeing bug-eyed monsters crawling on the ceiling. I'm seeing a levitating man in a trench coat." Her eyebrows furrowed. "Hey, what's he supposed to be anyway?"
"A detective," Sam answered.
She nodded. "Yeah. Fits. Detective. I like detectives. Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe. Sure. I go nuts and I see levitating detectives. It's all kind of . . . primal, I think." She gave Sam a once-over. "But how about you? Why am I seeing you too?"
"So I can explain him," Sam answered at once.
"I can explain myself," Harry managed wearily from above.
"Don't get testy," the jogger scolded. "I think your friend has a point. I think what he represents is my . . . weird but rational self explaining my weird but irrational self to my pragmatic self. We're all trilateral. Look at The Three Faces of Eve. Why three? Because she was trilateral. We're all trilateral." Her smile broadened. "I'm so happy I met you two. Really. Now I can get in touch with my true self at last."
And with that, she turned away and jogged off, straight into an opening glass door. She crashed through it and fell face forward onto the sidewalk, glass shards cascading and blood pooling at various points around her body.
Sam said, "I'm afraid you were right, my friend."
"Yeah," Harry sighed from above. "We are the kiss of death."
Sleepeasy
Chapter Thirty-six
Amelia couldn't guess how long she'd been running blind—afraid to see—through the fields of nodding sunflowers, under that flat blue-green sky, before she dared to open her eyes and stop running. It could have been hours. The bleak landscape where she'd left Morgan and Freely and Jack South was probably miles away—who knew in what direction?—and she supposed that she had no real hope of finding them again.
She was on her own.
And perhaps, after all, that was precisely as things were meant to be. Here. In this place. This afterlife. Perhaps it was a place where she was supposed to confront herself at last. A place where she was supposed to define herself from her creations. A place where she would learn, most importantly, that she had no control over them.
Or maybe that was all just more bullshit. More Rationalization. She'd run out on her friends and now she was trying to make excuses for it.
If so, this was an exquisite punishment for that cowardice. Lost in God only knew how many square miles of sunflowers and sky. No monster Buick, no quirky people, no lake, no pleasant existence in which she confronted nothing but warm days and cool nights.
Well, for Christ's sake, she sure as hell was confronting nothing now. Acres and acres and acres of it.
She sighed, sat down yoga-style on the fertile earth, smelled clay—a familiar smell. She put her elbows on her knees, propped her head on her palms and stared straight ahead. There were sunflowers stalks everywhere she looked. They were like the individual hairs on a giant's head.
"Shit," she whispered. If only she had the road. The Buick. Even the Buick without its blessed air-conditioning.
Then she did. She shrieked in surprise. The Buick sat a dozen feet away, on a rutted dirt road that snaked off into the endless square miles of sunflower fields.
She looked about and smiled. So that was it. The sunflowers themselves were the spaces in the emptiness. The wishing spaces. Good Lord, Morgan and Freely and Jack Smith could be building their own existence at that very moment if only she'd realized this basic fact.
She would have to find them. Somehow, she'd have to find them.
She stood, swiped at the seat of her white shorts, went to the Buick and climbed into the driver's seat. She felt for the ignition. No keys. Goddammit! She needed the car keys. How was she going to go anywhere without them? And as she thought this, the keys appeared in the ignition.
"Good," she whispered, starting the Buick. She flicked on the switch for the air-conditioning. Nothing.
Dammit to hell. She couldn't drive through this heat without air-conditioning. She needed air-conditioning.
She smiled again. That wish had probably done the trick. She flicked the air-conditioning switch off, then on. Still nothing. She frowned. So that's the way it was. She'd been right. One wish to a customer.
She got out of the Buick, slammed the door and stalked off, until she was well into the sunflowers again and couldn't see the rutted road, or the Buick.
She sat down again and put her head in her palms. Gee, she thought, it would be great to have a Corvette on a four-lane highway.
Nothing. The sunflowers kept nodding at her.
Dammit to hell, it would really be great, she thought, to have a Corvette on an empty four-lane highway that took me anywhere I wanted to go!
Still nothing. She stood. So that's the way it was! She looked about. Where in the hell had she left the Buick? She mentally retraced her steps. Had she turned around before sitting down? Had she gone right or left after leaving the road behind?
"Oh, hell," she whispered. She'd really put her foot in it this time.
A metallic flash caught her eye through the sun-flowers. She ran toward it and within minutes was seated behind the Buick's steering wheel. She rolled the window down, started the engine and was on the road again.
Kennedy Whelan was tired of answering questions. So many questions. So few answers.
"No one was there," he said, for what seemed like the thousandth time. "Spears choked himself to death. It's the fucking truth!" His rear end had fallen asleep from sitting so long.
"I'm sorry, Ken," said the officer from internal affairs. "But that sort of thing just doesn't happen, does it?"
"Yes, it does happen. I saw it,"
"The past twenty-four hours have been pretty . . . strange, haven't they, Ken?"
"Get to the point."
"The point is, you've been under a lot of stress. This guy you say was connected with our Sydney Greenstreet character jumps into his own pool and disappears. I don't know how it happened. You don't know how it happened. But it happened. So when you tell me that Spears and your partner both choked themselves to death—"
"I didn't say that Ian choked himself to death."
"Correct. You didn't. But he's dead, his throat was crushed, same as Spears—"
"Please, just let me go home. I need some sleep. I'm tired, for Christ's sake." He pulled a cigar from his pocket and stuck it into his mouth without lighting it.
"Sorry, Ken. The shrink wants to see you first."
"Fuck that. She can talk to me later. Tomorrow." He stood. "Now, unless you're actually charging me—"
"Of course we're not charging you, Ken. We just have a lot of questions that need answering and apparently you're the only one that can answer them. Hell, we've got two dead cops, another cop who's apparently walking a thin line between sanity and insanity, and a madman loose in the city—"
"There are lots of madmen loose in the city," Whelan interrupted, then, punctuating his words by jabbing the air with his cigar, he added, "No one can catch them all!" And with that, he scooped up hisjacket from the back of the chair, left the room and went out to his car to drive home.
"I think you're doing this to be funny," Sam said, and glanced at Harry, still walking at the level of his elbow.
"I wish I were," Harry said. "I wish I had that ability. I'd give anything to have that ability. But it's like I'm at the mercy of ... something—"
Plooped! Sam thought.
"Like when you get thrown back and forth in time," Harry went on. "Don't you feel that something's… I don't know, having its way with you?"
"Yeah, I do," Sam said glumly. "It's like something… someone—who knows who, maybe God, for Christ's sake?—is having fun with me. And I'll tell you, my friend, I don't like it."
"Well, that's the way I feel now, Sam. Like I'm being made the butt of a joke. The way Amelia—I mean Barbara—always did. Even when, she was alive. Something is picking me up off the sidewalk and holding me in midair. Because I really am thinking about the surface of that damned sidewalk, Sam. Trust me on this." A quick pause. "I just feel so damned tired. I can't explain it."
An ambulance roared past, siren blaring.
"Poor woman," Sam said.
"Maybe we'll see her again," Harry said.
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."
"And the driver of the Cadillac too."
Sam nodded. "What a crazy world we live in."
Harry managed a grin. Sam was being ironic.
Sydney itched. He scratched and scratched, but the itch remained. He scratched everywhere. On his arms, his legs, his chest, his bald head, his nose. Everything itched.
Sydney had never itched before, so this was something awful and new. And as he scratched and scratched furiously, he thought that pieces of himself were shredding and falling off. When he scratched the back of his hand, he felt certain that the skin was falling off in strips. And when he scratched at his chest, he felt just as certain that his black suit was splitting and tearing under his fingernails. But when he looked, he saw that it wasn't so. His hand was whole. His suit was whole. He was whole. He simply itched abominably.
Around him, on Second Avenue, there were people who gasped, pointed and screamed at him as he walked and scratched and itched. Still others wanted desperately to know what the fuss was all about.
"What in the hell is going on?" someone said.
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