14
Bizarre Aeronautical Circumstances
For the third time in the past three days, Ben found himself sitting opposite the smiling midget, wondering what it was about this supremely confident man. “Quit looking so worried, Ben. I guarantee you that within several months at the latest you’ll be back with your wife again.”
“Why such confidence?” Ben asked.
“Why such doubt?” he answered, smiling and pouring himself a glass of wine.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m finding it hard to be optimistic when my wife has disappeared and I don’t have a clue where she is.”
The Mad Hop sipped the wine, shut his eyes, and purred, “There’s always a clue.”
Before Ben had a chance to figure out where his friend was going with that last morsel, the latter opened his eyes, licked his lips and asked, “What kind of music does Marian like?”
Ben smiled. “She likes it all. Operas, jazz, country, punk, world music, trip-hop…”
“Rock. What about some old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll—does she like that?” the Mad Hop cut him short.
“Sure! She’s crazy about rock.”
“When you say crazy…”
“I mean she was always buying CDs, never wanting to miss a new album. She was … she is enormously curious. If you haven’t picked this up already, Marian was a culture fiend, went from one thrill to the next, movies, books, discs, plays, exhibits, shows. One time I asked her why she buys so many CDs, and she smiled and said it was all part of her retirement plan. Eyes glistening, she said, ‘Ben, think how much fun it’ll be. We’ll have time to listen to everything, see everything, get to know everything.…’
“I laughed and asked her if she thought that at age sixty-five we’d be listening to The Smashing Pumpkins. She nodded and whispered, ‘Yes, albeit at a lower volume.’”
The Mad Hop poured some more wine, his face shining with satisfaction. “Told you there’s always a clue.”
“Once again you insist on opacity.”
“Not at all,” the Mad Hop said, fitting his fingers together. “I know, for example, where Marian is going to be during the coming three days.”
“Excuse me?” Ben said, his body coiling.
“It’s a safe bet to say you know nothing of the Forever Young Festival, eh? Every year, between the twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh of June, the Other World has its biggest rock concert. Three straight days of gigs. It’s the big event for rockers. Morrison, Lennon, Joplin, Mercury, Hendrix, Buckley, Drake, Cobain, Bonham, Curtis, and friends all share the same stage. Fifty brilliant artists that ended their lives under tragic circumstances but never lost their hunger for music. Your wife will definitely be in the mix with all the rest.”
“Where’s it held?” Ben asked.
The Mad Hop smiled forlornly. “I wouldn’t get excited. Park 1945. Nine million fans attended last year. Could be a bit tricky spotting a woman in the middle of nine million revelers.”
“So what do you suggest?” Ben asked.
“Such a shame she died in a car accident,” the Mad Hop said, lighting a cigarette.
Under his appraising gaze Ben started to blink at a rapid rate. “What do you mean?”
“Had she died in a less common manner, it might have been of help.”
“In what way?” Ben asked, unable to keep the tremor out of his voice.
“What does it matter, she died in a car accident, didn’t she?”
Ben was ready to respond, but he held the words on his tongue when the private investigator dropped the chattiness from his voice and said, “Or are you finally going to tell me how she really left the previous world, a fact that may well help the investigation get off the ground.”
“How did you know?” Ben asked, evading the quick hunter’s eyes.
The Mad Hop stretched, outwardly pleased. “Remember when you told me that your wife died in a car accident and I had one of those uncontrollable laughing fits?”
“How could I forget?”
“Good. You may not believe me, but I wasn’t laughing because I lack tact.”
“Why else would you laugh?”
“I laughed because you lied.”
“How did you know I lied?”
“I laughed.”
Ben chuckled. “Clearing the lines of communication between us wouldn’t hurt.”
“I already mentioned you might not believe me, but still I wouldn’t want to deny you this piece of information. At a young age I realized I had a special radar. You could say I’m a walking, talking polygraph machine.”
Ben sat at attention. “Polygraph? You’re telling me you can detect liars?”
“Lies,” he corrected. “One lie doesn’t make you a liar, otherwise I never would’ve taken on your case. You see what I’m saying? The bursts of laughter are my needles, dancing to the tune of someone’s lie. You’ve the right to regard this information as you see fit, but I ask that you not test me on purpose—I’m not a toy.”
“Samuel, hold on, what you’re saying is sensational. As soon as someone lies your body reacts with uncontrollable laughter. How does it know?”
“That’s the gift, my mysterious talent, I reckon.”
After a silence, he added, “And now if you’d be so kind as to explain why you lied, I’d be ever so grateful.”
Ben sank deep into his chair. “I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Why?”
“Samuel, the cause of my wife’s death is so strange it seems to defy human logic … it…”
“How the hell did she die?” the Mad Hop yelled, cutting him short.
Ben answered with an equally angry scream. “She fell off the fucking Ferris wheel.”
* * *
Twitches and ticks spread across the Mad Hop’s face like a crack through ice, his body started to palpitate, and he hammered the table with his fist. Had Ben not seen the strange nature of the private eye’s laugh before, he wouldn’t have known how to put an end to the fit. He snapped open the drawer, pulled out the gun, aimed at the Mad Hop’s head, and squeezed the trigger.
Between heaves of laughter, the private eye sounded jovial. “Ben, I forgot to get bullets.…”
Ben tossed the useless weapon back in the drawer and slammed it shut. “You still don’t believe me?”
The Mad Hop shook his head vigorously. “No, this time it’s just funny! Woman flies off Ferris wheel, perishes. God, just when you feel like you’ve seen it all, death does you one better. Ben, wife or no wife, you must admit this is hilarious.”
Although, after fifteen months of captivity, there was a giggle squirming to get out, Ben pursed his lips and kept it caged. The Mad Hop showed no sign of relenting, tapping Ben’s arm, growling, “Ben, please, don’t be such a self-important old fart, and show me you’re human. I know it’s your wife, and she’s the most precious thing in the whole world, but look me in the eye and tell me that if this happened to someone else you wouldn’t be bent over with laughter. Ben, your wife flew … off the Ferris wheel. That’s the most slapstick death I’ve ever heard of … We’ve seen this kind of thing in the cartoons, but in real life … oh, my jaw’s breaking … imagine what would have happened had she lived through the whole thing. What would she tell people when they asked her how she’d been paralyzed? I flew off the giant Ferris wheel and into a wheelchair?!”
Ben covered his mouth, his hand shaking, his head bobbing in abrupt bunny hops, and gave in to the contagious laughter. The two cackled for a while, wiping tears from the corners of their eyes, enflaming the atmosphere with nasty jokes about Marian’s flying abilities, her hidden wings that didn’t pass their big test, the smash of impact, and the shock of the kids who witnessed their teacher disengage from her seat and plummet to her moronic death.
The Mad Hop sobered up first. “What kids?” he asked.
Ben explained, his voice still carrying traces of giddiness. “I told you, she was an English teacher … that morning she took her s
tudents, the kids from the consulate, to the amusement park, and that’s where it happened.”
“How the hell does something like that happen there? The rides are supposed to be perfectly safe. How does one go from an immobile, seated position to a freefall?”
Ben shrugged. “No one was able to explain it. Maybe she wasn’t seated. Maybe she was standing. When they asked the kids, they were too shocked to answer. They were pretty self-involved.”
“Who was sitting next to her?”
“Some old guy she invited to join them. One of the kids said she saw him next to the ride and that he looked like a homeless guy. She must’ve felt sorry for him, wanted to give him a few minutes of fun. It’s so like her. But the police couldn’t find the guy for questioning. Too bad. He could’ve solved the mystery.”
“Did she die instantaneously?”
“Luckily. Even though the damage was permanent.”
“What a strange comment.”
“If you’d seen her face, you wouldn’t say that. It was totally disfigured.…”
“She was identified by her dental records then?”
“Yeah. And by a beauty mark.”
“Don’t tell me Kolanski got it right.”
“In all but location. It was between her big toe and the one next to it on her right foot.”
“I see. I’m sorry to raise such sore points.”
“Don’t be sorry. The woman lying on that bed in the morgue only symbolizes Marian for me. Nothing more. Her smashed face, surprisingly, didn’t make much of an imprint on my memory. Marian remained, and will always remain, the same beautiful woman that left the house at ten thirty that morning.”
“And with the reconstructive surgeon’s full overhaul upon arrival in the Other World, you can take it easy. The Marian we’re looking for is not the woman you lost with the smashed face.”
Ben’s smile slackened. “Oh my God, she’s probably paralyzed!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, like Robert. The reconstructive surgeons weren’t able to fix…”
“Forget it,” the Mad Hop said, rising to his feet. “Marian isn’t a cripple, trust me. Now let’s get going and stop wasting time.”
“Where we going?” Ben asked.
“I’ll explain on the way.”
* * *
The Mad Hop explained during the hour-long trip to September 1980: “Ben, in the Other World I’ve come across a phenomenon of ‘anti-phobia’ quite a few times. People who perished under tragic circumstances are often drawn to the type of environment in which they died so that they can confront the now-entrenched fear. A bloke who, say, drowned can spend an eternity at the sea until he can get the best of his phobia and, trust me, it takes time.”
“So, what are you saying? Marian is out wandering like some freak through amusement parks?” Ben asked.
“I suppose,” the Mad Hop said.
“Okay, and how many such places are there in the Other World, Samuel?”
“Loads, Ben. But I’m not really interested in them.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re going to the amusement park, a kind of Disney World for the dead.”
“Don’t get upset, Samuel, but I have a hard time believing that Marian’s spending all her time on Ferris wheels.”
“And yet you don’t seem to be hopping off the multi-wheel. That’s the beauty of the doubt nestling inside you, the paradox of your certainty. She could be anywhere and nowhere. So long as that doubt lingers, you’ll keep looking. But enough with shallow pep talks. You need to know that the people in the park can be divided into three easily discernable groups: kids, grown-up couples, and druggies.”
Ben laughed. “Drug addicts?”
The Mad Hop smiled patiently. “I think it’s some kind of new trend. I’ve seen it mostly over the past two years. People roll up to the park with their heads completely lit, take one of the rides, and scream like children. Someone told me their high takes on a new dimension.”
* * *
Ben felt a tepid disappointment wash over him as he looked out at the masses of people roaming the park, which stretched out before them like a long highway dotted with games and rides. “We’ll never find her with all of these people,” he said.
The Mad Hop offered a sideways glance. “Ben, it only seems complicated. All we have to focus on is the Ferris wheel. I suggest we split up. The park’s built like an estate. Cut into twenty-six plots. Look to your right and you’ll see a large gate with the letter A above it. Look to your left and you’ll see a similar sight with the letter Z. We’ve got to cover all of the plots—thirteen for each of us—and meet in the middle, at M Gate. Don’t worry, we won’t need to backtrack. You can exit the grounds from any one of the gates.”
“Hang on a minute, I see the big wheel in area A.”
The Mad Hop pointed over to the left. “And what do you see over there?”
“Another big wheel. Please, Samuel, don’t tell me that…”
He nodded. “Each section’s got a big wheel of its own. Let’s say five hours from now at M Gate, alright?” He turned, started to walk, stopped, and turned back. “Remember, don’t pay any attention to the kids and the druggies. Focus on the adults walking on their own. Good luck.”
* * *
Ben reached the meeting point forty minutes late. The investigator, shifting his weight from foot to foot, was in a foul mood. “You’re late and empty-handed?” he called out.
Ben disregarded the comment. “It was madness. I kept looking for her, afraid I’d miss her in the crowd, or on the wheels, till my eyes registered nothing. Unbearable commotion. When I got to the sixth area, I even thought I saw Uncle David, but when I got near.…”
“Uncle? You have a dead uncle?”
Ben sounded indifferent. “My entire family is dead. But…”
“Halt!” the Mad Hop commanded, his face stern. “What did you just say? Tell me I misheard you.”
“What do you want?”
“Did you just say your whole family is dead or am I suddenly the only deaf person in the Other World?”
“Yeah,” Ben said, “no one’s left of my family in the previous world. They all died. I was the last of the lot.”
The Mad Hop fixed his gaze on a faraway spot on the horizon, examined it for some time, and then hightailed it over to a waiting multi-wheel, hopped in, and disappeared into the belly of the accelerating vehicle, which left in its dusty wake a shocked and downtrodden righter, who sat down on one of the big stone blocks outside the gate and dropped his head in his hands.
15
The Element of Surprise
Once a week the current forest director met with the former forest director in the latter’s luxurious wooden cabin. Sipping schnapps, they regaled each other with tales from the field. The host, who retired after one hundred and five satisfying years, offered sage advice and urged his successor, who was only three short decades into his term, to come to him with any professional queries. At this week’s meeting, the former director took immediate notice of the shadow hovering over the young director’s ordinarily sunny face.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked him.
The youngster leaped at the chance to explain. “There’s something that’s keeping me up at night. I’m sure I’m just getting carried away, but I can’t get this out of my mind.”
Billion leaned back and threaded his fingers together. “I’m listening.”
Halfabillion didn’t let his smile intrude on the sincerity of his question. “In your day, what was the highest rate of expiration you ever saw?”
“In times of war or peace?”
“Peace. War’s another story altogether.”
“Good. I always said you were a quick learner. Let’s see. In 1906 we had one family totally wipe out another one.”
The World of the End Page 14