Officer Louis is not at rest. This night, as on so many other nights, he is awake. Standing with his ratty-tatty old robe open as if to display all the burn scars from the top of head right down the side of his body to the waistline, he looks at all the dusty awards and commendations lining the walls of his kitchen. But in the end his gaze returns to the black-framed photo of his dead son Philip. Out comes the bottle of Courvoisier and Louis takes another Dixie cup of comfort, keeping his mind off the darker, more final remedy residing in his service pistol. It waits for him on his end table as always.
Like his friends, Speedy is dreaming as well. It’s another nightmare about the last time he was with his dad, one that causes Speedy to spasm into wakefulness like an opening switchblade and sit there bolt upright in bed gasping, looking down at Carmel in relief as he realizes that he’d escaped from dad’s dreamland clutches one more time.
Ghost is dreaming too, in bed next to Marla.
In his dream, Ghost lies trembling in an ecstasy of anticipation, that ever present sense of imminence welling up within him like poisoned molasses filling a jar: he is something special, and something important is about to happen to him.
The Others have finally stopped pretending he’s not the star of this particular cartoon. They’re outside the door to Marla’s apartment right now; Ghost can feel their presence radiating through the door in a pulsing intangible aura.
All at once Marla’s door crumbles into a heap of dust, instantly rotted by their touch. The Others stand there crowding the doorway, maggots clamoring at an open wound. All of them staring at Ghost with identically gloating eyes, grinning at him in unison.
It’s no novelty to Ghost to see the Others appearing so interchangeable; all of them part of an assembly-line agenda he could never partake of. He knows from other dreams that this shared consciousness is their true mode of behavior, even though they’re all such good actors that he can’t fully see through their disguises when he’s awake.
Their deception has never been perfect even in the waking world: in ‘reality’ their grins are just a little too predatory out the corner of his vision; their teeth gleam just a little too much when they fake friendliness at each other (even if the friendliness sheds from them instantly whenever they pretend to acknowledge Ghost’s existence).
A sea change had come over the Others, so far back that Ghost can’t even envision when it wasn’t so: some malign intelligence wears their bodies like suits of clothing or the flayed skin of a screaming sacrificial victim.
Everyone on earth is a mere semblance, no more than a hollow mask. Mere disguises all, no matter how harmless the Others try to appear in daylight. But how could they ever have thought to fool Ghost?
In his dream, with the whistling roar of the wind that haunts the void between the worlds, the walls of Marla’s apartment tumble away like a toppled house of cards and Ghost is standing in the middle of a limitless ashen gray plain, surrounded by blackness – and by the Others.
They encircle Ghost now, wearing the mask faces so familiar to him: here Ghost sees the Sikh convenience store clerk; there’s the businessman who turned away from Ghost in disgust yesterday; next to him is the heroin dealer who (in blithe ignorance of his close call) escaped Ghost’s clutches the week before; and, surrounding all three is all the anonymous ‘human’ flotsam that drift through Ghost’s life whenever he is forced to go out in public.
Liberally peppering the crowd, Ghost sees all the Others he’s been forced to kill over the years in the course of his eternal one man war.
Ghost has sometimes wondered if they even really died when he made them stop breathing – what if that was just one more of their fakes, one more way for the Others to laugh up their sleeves at him? What if they were just using him, and they wanted him to ‘kill’ them? He’s grateful at least that it’s so enjoyable to watch their ‘dying’ performances, even though he knows he’d feel rage if he ever found proof he was no more than a cat’s paw serving their sinister purposes.
Here, safe in their dreamland sanctuary, the Other’s eyes burn in their sockets with a silver light, like stainless steel marbles glittering with alien thoughts. Their steely teeth gleam razor sharp, with no more attempt at concealment.
This is the proof of why they all deserve to die. This shows Ghost one more time that its only self-defense when he does what he does – no matter that it’s coincidentally what he wants to do anyways.
Sherman steps from the throng to confront, Ghost’s semi-latest prey taking precedence over the others. A tall crystalline crown is perched on Sherman’s now misshapen head and he carries a bundle of filthy rags in his arms.
Ghost feels no rancor toward Sherman, just as he feels no hatred toward any of his victims – now, in this ‘dream,’ Ghost wants to graciously forgive Sherman for having made his arm bleed.
But Ghost holds his tongue as he is suddenly aware of a crude stone bench before him, about waist high and covered with eldritch carvings and dark stains. The bench appears ancient beyond belief.
Sherman lays the bundle on the bench and unwraps it. It is a baby wearing Little Willy’s face, shivering against the unholy cold of this place, the cold so intense that Baby Willy does not even cry.
Without preamble Sherman rends this helpless infant like a cabbage and buries his snout in Willy’s steaming entrails. Sherman brushes Little Willy’s sodden remnants aside to fall off the bench altar and onto the ground.
One of the surrounding congregation of Others darts forward lizard-quick and scoops up the bloody rags. It returns to its brethren gnawing greedily on the dismembered Willy babe’s winding cloth, snarling at its companions when they attempt to pilfer this meal.
Now another filthy bundle is passed forward from the rabble to be unwrapped atop the altar. Another boy baby is revealed, perfect in every member, pink and healthy – this one has Speedy’s face. The Speedy Baby lies there on that cold dark plinth and squalls protest, his infantile cries so pregnant with rage that Ghost nods in agreement and understanding, feeling almost . . . familial? Parental?
Sherman’s taunting gaze has not left Ghost’s face, as if he were making some unspoken challenge or demand. The throng presses close, their talons atwitch.
But Sherman shoots his skeletal arms out to both sides to hold the crowd back, his scaled fingers spread in denial. The crowd of Others holds its distance, though now it seethes with savage impatience.
Ghost’s gaze roves over the pack surrounding him. Their disguises have finally worn paper thin, here in their lair. How could he ever have mistaken these Others for being anything like him?
They have all become increasingly stooped now; they stand hunched over like leprous upright weasels. Their skin has taken on the phosphorescent sheen of dead fish bellies. Sherman’s mouth is a grinning toothy maw incapable of fully closing, and his body shines with the glow of something rotting under a rock.
Ghost waits for Sherman to reach for the Speedy baby. Ghost waits, and waits – and comes to realize through some unspoken communication that he is the one required to kill the Speedy babe and eat it. If Ghost but does this one thing, he will finally be able to join these alien obscenities that call themselves the ‘human race,’ and live forever as one of the Others. Ghost will finally get to be real; finally find his way to the other side.
The crowd leans forward in lustful expectation, yearning toward Ghost like a bush full of hungry leeches as Sherman continues to leer at Ghost with eyes of glowing slag.
But the strangest thing happens: Ghost hesitates.
In the crowd behind Sherman, Ghost can see the beautiful blond whose Berkeley home he’d visited a few days before, and Marla as well – both of them are pointing their steel ball bearing eyes at Ghost in jealous accusation: why should Ghost show Speedy any more mercy than he’d shown them?
But Ghost doesn’t want to do it, doesn’t want to treat Speedy like the Others. Ghost shakes his head, trying to fight for Speedy’s life, trying to feel.
&nb
sp; And, upon Ghost’s defiant refusal, Sherman reaches out his paw toward Ghost with one razor claw extended and slashes Ghost’s throat from ear to ear.
Ghost awakes with a gasping intake of breath and an incredulous involuntary laugh, his hand clutching his unharmed neck in response to Sherman’s Dreamland farewell.
Ghost almost feels guilt for Speedy’s plight. But Ghost had done his best for Speedy even if he’d failed, and he knows Speedy will understand.
How could Speedy possibly be angry with him? Speedy is the key, Speedy is the one Ghost has been searching for his whole life – Dreamland Sherman had shown Ghost the error of pity most convincingly.
Sherman had even told Ghost without words how to absorb Speedy’s power, and what part of him to eat. Ghost will have Speedy’s soul then – he will have rescued Speedy after all, despite the Others’ best efforts.
There’s something in Ghost’s free hand, the hand not caressing his own still pulsing and intact carotid. It’s a knife, a beautiful blade.
He’d found it earlier that evening when he was prowling the neighborhood around Willy’s squat for the umpteenth time. The dead possum was still there in Willy’s shit-bucket every time Ghost had checked. The rocks of crack were still there too, so Ghost figured Willy hadn’t been back yet.
Walking down an alley after inspecting Willy’s basement, out of the corner of his eye Ghost had seen something glinting in the moonlight. He reached into the trashcan where it glimmered and pulled it out: a big kitchen knife, good and sharp. Ghost had large hands and the handle was a little small for him – but he took it anyway.
Now, as he lies next to Marla on the bed, Ghost brandishes the knife at the ceiling in triumph. He’s found his Excalibur.
“With this knife, I’ll cut through everything that keeps Speedy from me,” Ghost explains to Marla, finally able to speak to her as if she were real. “I’ll cut all the way to his true face, his secret face – this time it’ll be there, it won’t be like when I opened up the Others. I’ll take what I need from him, and then he’ll be mine forever. Sherman promised.”
An unfamiliar feeling washes over Ghost, almost tasting like regret. Was he still hesitant? Did he not want to be with Speedy after all?
“I tried to spare him,” Ghost says to Marla, as if she were accusing him of something; as if he had to defend himself. “I really tried. I can’t save him. But it’s all right as long as we become one, isn’t it?”
Even though his mind is already made up, Ghost looks down at Marla as if actually awaiting an answer. But Ghost knows he’ll have a long wait if he really does expect her to reply. He’d finally gotten around to killing Marla the night before, when he’d brought home the knife to show off to her.
Now Ghost lays on the edge of the bed, letting Marla have the wet spot as always – only this wet spot is red, and takes up most of the mattress. Occasionally he can hear splashes from the growing puddle under the bed as Marla’s blood soaks through and drips to the floor.
Marla’s at that cool, lovely stage of death between when he finally shut her up, and when decomposition started becoming a problem. Ghost knows from experience he has a little while before Marla starts to smell; he could still play around with her – but it’s only a matter of time before that old stink begins, and before Marla’s downstairs neighbors notice their ceiling is growing a red bloodstain.
But all that’s irrelevant: Ghost is getting more and more excited about having finally reached the only possible decision regarding Speedy, about finally knowing their mission together.
Ghost longs to see Speedy again; he wants to talk to him ever so bad. Ghost looks forward to getting together with his worst friend, his best enemy in the world. Ghost knows Speedy will make him real again.
Chapter 34
After the nightmare Speedy was unable to get back to sleep, scared he’d see his dad again if he dreamed.
Speedy left the house, figuring maybe a walk would do him good; that the fresh night air might clear some of the darkness from his brain. He cut over onto Lincoln Avenue, planning on strolling to the east end of the Island and doubling back – it was only a couple miles. Alameda Island itself was only about five miles long after all, even including the Naval Air Station.
As Speedy came up on a street corner bar he saw a man fumbling to get into a Beamer parked at the curb. This drunken Citizen was older, wearing a black silk tux with loosened tie and weaving on his feet, unable to get his key into the driver door lock.
The Citizen turned to blink at Speedy, closing one eye and squinting to fight off double vision.
“I need help,” the Citizen slurred, breathing out the fumes of a distillery. “I need help, fella.”
Speedy sized it all up reflexively: easy meat. This guy stank of the cash. He was so drunk he wouldn’t even be able to give a description of Speedy, and by the time the Citizen sobered up his Beamer could be parted out at a chop shop, disappeared.
“Give me the keys,” Speedy said.
The Beamer handled like a dream; the interior smelled pleasantly like money as well.
“Where do you live?” Speedy asked as he drove.
“Down off High Street.” The Citizen gave him the address, sitting slumped over in the shotgun seat of his own car.
Speedy pulled up in front of the Citizen’s house: a nice brown-trimmed English-Cottage-style on Gibbons Drive in the Fernside District, one of Alameda’s nicest neighborhoods.
Ritzy digs: the Island was known for them. But there were things going on beneath the Alameda’s Leave It To Beaver surface, that might have given Carmel pause if she’d known.
For instance, the Island had also always been a popular neutral zone hideout for the Bay Area’s more prominent sketchy folk, people that worshipped the low profile and the unobserved life: federal law enforcement; retired spooks; higher echelon members of the East Bay’s more prominent outlaw biker clubs; and even the Italians.
Part of the Island’s attraction was that it could be cut off from the mainland by the Estuary of s moat at any time during civil emergencies, just by raising all four of its draw-bridges and blockading both underwater Tubes. Security against the barbarian melanin-enriched hordes of Oakland was a watchword for the Man in Alameda.
At the home of the Citizen Speedy was chauffeuring, the porch light was off and the windows behind the manicured Rhododendron bushes were unlit. Speedy helped the Citizen out of the Beamer, supported him to the front door, and wrestled him inside.
No family dog charged from the dark; no wife or kid called out in querulous, sleep-dulled voices. The house had that empty feeling: no one was home. No one but Speedy and his drunk, that is.
Speedy found the master bedroom easy enough. He pulled back the spread on the king-size bed; laid down the now-passed-out Citizen, took off the man’s shoes and covered him.
Speedy peeked in the closet, twitched open a drawer in the dresser: men’s clothes only, no woman living here. He moved through the house, searching, seeking for something, he couldn’t say what.
One bedroom had two cots in it: kid’s stuff, toys and games. The beds hadn’t been lain in for a while and dust covered the toys. This home owner’s children didn’t live with him then. But in the kitchen, photos of two smiling boys were taped to the refrigerator, both of them in Peewee Football jerseys.
Speedy opened the fridge, snagged a beer and cracked it open. He walked to the living room and sat on the couch with his beer in his crotch, looked around.
The room was tastefully decorated, a woman’s touch evident in all the stylistic selections. But there was obviously no woman in this man’s life right now. The man now snoring back there in the bedroom was baching it.
How had this Citizen gotten his money? Had he made it through the sweat of his own brow, or by cracking the whip over wage slaves toiling for less than their labor was worth, to his ultimate profit? Or had this Citizen been an outlaw like Speedy once, now living fat and sassy from a long ago haul – a haul as big as Speedy
was hoping to make tomorrow night?
Speedy finished his beer, and put the empty bottle in the trash like a good boy. He made sure the front door lock latched when he left.
It was a bit of a walk back to Carmel’s but he’d wanted to stretch the legs anyway. She squirmed around a bit when he climbed into bed next to her, and he figured she was at some level of awareness approaching wakeful.
Speedy said, “This thing I’m doing, it’s shaping up like it’s going to make us a ton of money.” He turned to her. “Do you think it’s possible to buy your way into being a Citizen?”
Carmel thought about it sleepily, her eyes slitted half open. “Well, I think that’s pretty much the American Way, isn’t it?”
Chapter 35
Speedy and Fat Bob were pulling one more stakeout together in Carmel’s Vega; making sure things didn’t get funky in the house at the last minute.
The Kid – the one that had a passing family resemblance to the well dressed Honcho – was standing on the porch staring off into space. For an instant Speedy’s and the Kid’s eyes seemed to meet. Speedy instantly switched his focus to the aura above the Kid’s head so he wouldn’t feel the weight of Speedy’s gaze, even though Speedy knew the Kid couldn’t actually be looking at him.
Speedy had met some baby-faced killers in his time, but this Kid didn’t seem to fit the mold – he gave the impression of being all right people, from this distance at least. Still, it also seemed like strong emotions had worn a hole in him – he looked like he was carrying some major psychic weight.
Speedy had been young once himself, a million years ago; he felt something dangerously close to compassion as he studied this boy’s anguished face. Technically the Kid was the enemy, Speedy knew he’d be kicking in the front door to this boy’s crib soon enough. But that was just business, nothing personal to it – rancor wasn’t needed to succeed in this game.
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