Image of the Beast / Blown

by Philip José Farmer

  He called the LAPD and hung on for fifteen minutes.

  No luck. He then called the Beverly Hills Police Depart-

  ment and got the same result. He had no more luck

  with the Mount Sinai Hospital on Beverly Boulevard,

  which was within walking distance. He put drops in his

  eyes and snuffed up nose drops. He wet a handkerchief

  to place over his nose and put his goggles on top of his

  head. He stuck a pencil flashlight in one pocket and a

  switch-blade knife in another. Then he left the apartment

  building and walked down San Vicente to Beverly Boul-

  evard.

  In the half hour that he had been home, the situation

  had changed. The cars that had been bumper-to-bumper

  curb-to-curb were gone. They were within earshot; he

  could hear the horns blaring off somewhere around

  Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega, but there was not

  a car in sight.

  Then he came across one. It was lying on its side. He

  looked down into the windows, dreading what he might

  see. It was empty. He could not understand how the

  vehicle had been overturned, because no one could

  have gone fast enough in the jam to hit anything and be

  overturned. Besides, he would have heard the crash.

  Somebody—somebodies—had rocked it back and forth

  and then pushed it over. Why? He would never know.

  The signal lights at the intersection were out. He

  could see well enough across the street to make out the

  thin dark shape of the pole. When he got to the foot of

  the light pole on his corner, he saw broken plastic, which

  would have been green, red, and yellow under more

  lightened circumstances, scattered about.

  He stood for a while on the curb and peered into the

  sickly gray. If a car were to speed down the street with-

  out lights, it could be on him before he could get across

  the street. Nobody but a damned fool would go fast or

  without lights, but there were many damned fools driv-

  ing the streets of Los Angeles.

  The wailing of a siren became stronger, a flashing red

  light became visible, and an ambulance whizzed by. He

  looked up and down the street and dashed across, hoping

  that the light and noise would have made even the

  damnedest of fools cautious and that anybody following

  the ambulance would be blowing his horn. He got across

  with only a slight burning of the lungs. The smog was

  slowly rusting off their lining. His eyes ran as if they were

  infected.

  The sound of bedlam came to him before the hospital

  building loomed out of the mists. He was stopped by a

  white-haired man in the uniform of a security guard.

  Perhaps the old man had worked at an aircraft plant or

  at a bank as a guard and had been deputized by the

  police to serve at the hospital. He flashed his light into

  Childe's face and asked him if he could help him. The

  smog was not dark enough to make the light brilliant,

  but it did annoy Childe.

  He said, "Take that damned light away! I'm here to

  offer my services in whatever capacity I'm needed,"

  He opened his wallet and showed his I.D.

  The guard said, "You better go in the front way. The

  emergency room entrance is jammed, and they're all too

  busy to talk to you."

  "Who do I see?" Childe said.

  The guard hurriedly gave the supervisor's name and

  directions for getting to his office. Childe entered the

  lobby and saw at once that his help might be needed, but

  he was going to have to force it on the hospital. The

  lobby was jammed and asprawl with people who had

  been shunted out of the emergency room after more or

  less complete treatment, relatives of the wounded, people

  inquiring after lost or injured friends or relatives, and a

  number who, like Childe, had come to offer their services.

  The hall outside the supervisor's office was crowded too

  thickly for him to ram his way through even if he had

  felt like doing so. He asked a man on the fringes how

  long he had been trying to get into the office.

  "An hour and ten minutes, Mister," the man said

  disgustedly.

  Childe turned to walk away. He would return to his

  apartment and do whatever he could to pass the time.

  Then he would return after a reasonable amount of time

  (if there were such a thing in this situation), with the

  hope that some order would have been established. He

  stopped. There, standing near the front door of the hospi-

  tal, his head wrapped in a white cloth, was Hamlet

  Jeremiah.

  The cloth could have been a turban, because the last

  time Childe had seen Jeremiah he was sporting a turban

  with a spangled hexagram. But the cloth was a band-

  age with a three-pointed scarlet badge, almost a triskelion.

  The Mephistophelean moustaches and beard were gone,

  and he was wearing a grease-smeared T-shirt with the

  motto: NOLI ME TANGERE SIN AMOR. His pants

  were white duck, and brown sandals were on his feet.

  "Herald Childe!" he called, smiling, and then his face

  twisted momentarily as if the smile had hurt.

  Childe held out his hand.

  Jeremiah said, "You touch me with love?"

  "I'm very fond of you, Ham," Childe said, "although I

  can't really say why. Do we have to go through that at

  this time?"

  "Any time and all time," Jeremiah said. "Especially

  this time."

  "OK. It's love then," and Childe shook his hand. "What

  in hell happened? What're you doing down here? Listen,

  did you know I tried to phone you a little while ago and

  I was thinking about driving up to see you. Then ..."

  Jeremiah held up his hand and laughed and said, "One

  thing at a time! I'm out of my Sunset pad because my

  wives insisted we get out of town. I told them we ought to

  wait a day or so until the roads were cleared. By then,

  the smog'd be gone, anyway, or on its way out. But

  they wouldn't listen. They cried and carried on something

  awful, unreeled my entrails and tromped on them. One

  good thing about tears', they wash out the smog, keep

  the acids from eating up your corneas. But they're also

  acid on the nerves, so I said, finally, OK, I love you both,

  so we'll take off. But if we get screwed up or anything

  bad happens, don't blame me. Stick it up your own lovely

  asses. So they smiled and wiped away the tears and

  packed up and we took off down Doheny. Sheila had a

  little hand-operated prayer wheel spinning and Lupe

  was getting three roaches out so we could enjoy what

  would otherwise be a real drag, or so we at least could

  enjoy a facsimile of joy. We came to Melrose, and the

  light changed to red, so I stopped, being a law-abiding

  citizen when the law is for the benefit of all and well-

  founded. Besides, I didn't want to get run into. But the

  son of Adam behind me got mad; he thought I ought to

  run the light. His soul was really ruffled, Herald, he was in

  a cold-sweat panic
. He honked his horn and when I

  didn't jump like a dog through a hoop and go through

  the fight, he jumped out of his car and opened my door

  —dumb bastard, I, didn't have it locked—and he jerked

  me out and whirled me around and shoved my head

  against the handle. It cut my head open and knocked me

  half-silly. Naturally, I didn't resist; I really believe this

  turn-the-other-cheek dictum.

  "I was half in the next lane, and the other cars weren't

  going to stop, so Sheila jumped out and shoved the man in

  the path of one and pulled me into the car. That Sheila

  has a temper, you got to forgive her. The man was hit;

  he bounced off one car and into ours. So Sheila drove the

  car then while Lupe was trying to heave the man out. He

  was lying on the back seat with his legs dragging on the

  street. I stopped her and told Sheila to take us to the

  hospital.

  "So she did, though reluctantly, I mean reluctant to

  take the man, too, and we got here, and my head finally

  got bandaged, and Sheila and Lupe are helping the nurses

  up on the second floor. I'll help as soon as I get to feeling

  better."

  "What happened to the man?" Childe said.

  "He's on a mattress on the floor of the second level.

  He's unconscious, breathing a few bubbles of blood, poor

  unhappy soul, but Sheila's taking care of him, too. She

  feels bad about shoving him; she's got a hasty temper

  but underneath it all she truly loves."

  "I was going to offer to help," Childe said, "but I

  can't see standing around for hours. Besides ..."

  Jeremiah asked him what the besides meant. Childe told

  him about Colben and the film. Jeremiah was shocked.

  He said that he had heard a little about it over the radio.

  He had not received a paper for two days, so he had no

  chance to read anything about it. So Childe wanted some-

  body with a big library on vampires and on other things

  that boomp in the unlit halls of the mind?

  Well, he knew just the man. And he lived not more

  than six blocks away, just south of Wilshire. If anybody

  would have the research material, it would be Woolston

  Heepish.

  "Isn't he likely to be trying to get out of town?"

  "Woolie? By Dracula's moustache, no! Nothing, except

  maybe an atomic attack threat, would get him to desert

  his collection. Don't worry; he'll be home. There is one

  problem. He doesn't like unexpected visitors, you got to

  phone him ahead of time and ask if you can come, even

  his best friends—except maybe for D. Nimming Rodder

  —are no exceptions. Everybody phones and asks permis-

  sion, and if he isn't expecting you, he usually won't an-

  swer the doorbell. But he knows my voice; I'll holler

  through the door at him."

  "Rodder? Where have … ? Oh, yes! The book and

  TV writer! Vampires, werewolves, a lovely young girl

  trapped in a hideous old mansion high on a hill, that sort

  of thing. He produced and wrote the Shadow Land

  series, right?"

  "Please, Herald, don't say anything at all about him

  if you can't say something good. Woolie worships D.

  Nimming Rodder. He won't hit you if you say anything

  disparaging about him, but you sure as Shiva won't get

  any cooperation and you'll find yourself frozen out."

  Childe shifted from one foot to another and coughed.

  The cough was only partly from the burning air. It indi-

  cated that he was having a struggle with his conscience.

  He wanted to stay here and help—part of him did—but

  the other part, the more powerful, wanted to get out and

  away and on the trail. Actually, he couldn't be much

  use here, not for some time, anyway. And he had a feel-

  ing, only a feeling but one which had ended in something

  objectively profitable in the past, that something down

  there in the dark deeps was nibbling at his hook.

  He put his hand on Jeremiah's bony shoulder and said,

  "I'll try to phone him, but if …"

  "No use, Herald. He has an answering service, and it's

  not likely that'll be working now."

  "Give me a note of introduction, so I can get my foot

  in the door."

  Jeremiah smiled and said, "I'll do better than that.

  I'll walk with you to Woolie's. I'm just in the way here,

  and I'd like to get away from the sight of so much

  suffering."

  "I don't know," Childe said. "You could have a con-

  cussion. Maybe you ..."

  Jeremiah shrugged and said, "I'm going with you. Just

  a minute while I find the women and tell them where

  I'm going."

  Childe, waiting for him, and having nothing to do but

  watch and listen, understood why Jeremiah wanted to get

  away. The blood and the groans and weeping were bad

  enough, but the many chopping coughs and loud, long

  pumping-up-snot-or-blood coughs irritated, perhaps even

  angered him, although the anger was rammed far down.

  He did not know why coughs set him on edge so much,

  but he knew that Sybil's nicotine cough and burbling

  lungs, occurring at any time of day or night and especially

  distressing when he was eating or making love, had

  caused their split as much as anything. Or had made him

  believe so.

  Jeremiah seemed to skate through the crowd. He took

  Childe's hand and led him out the front door. It was three

  minutes after 12:00. The sun was a distorted yellow-

  greenish lobe. A man about a hundred feet east of them

  was a wavering shadowy figure. There seemed to be thick

  and thin bands of smog sliding past each other and thus

  darkening and lightening, squeezing and elongating ob-

  jects and people. This must have been an illusion or some

  other phenomenon, because the smog was not moving.

  There was not a rumor of a breeze. The heat seemed to

  filter down through the green-grayishness, to slide down

  the filaments of smog like acrobats with fevers and sprawl

  outwards and wrap themselves around people.

  Childe's armpits and back and face were wet but the

  perspiration only cooled him a little. His crotch and his

  feet were also sweating, and he wished that he could wear

  swimming trunks or a towel. It was better outside than in

  the hospital, however. The stench of sweaty frightened peo-

  ple had been powerful, but the noise and the sight of the

  misery and pain had made it less offensive. Now he was

  aware that Jeremiah, who was, despite being a "hippie," a

  lover of baths, a true "water brother" as he liked to say,

  stank. The odor was a peculiar combination of pipe to-

  bacco, marijuana, a pungent heavy unidentifiable some-

  thing suggestive of spermatic fluid, incense, a soupçon of

  rosewater on cunt, frightened sweat, extrusion of excited

  shit, and, perhaps, inhaled smog being sweat out.

  Jeremiah looked at Childe, coughed, smiled, and said,

  "You smell like something washed up out of the Pacific

  deeps and two weeks dead yourself, if you'll forgive my


  saying so."

  Childe, although startled, did not comment. Jeremiah

  had given too many evidences of telepathy or mind-

  reading. However, there were other explanations which

  Childe did not really believe. Childe's expression could

  have told Jeremiah what he was thinking, although Childe

  would have said that his face was unreadable.

  He walked along with Jeremiah. They seemed to be in a

  tunnel that grew out of the pavement before them and fell

  flat onto the pavement behind them. Childe felt unaccount-

  ably happy for a moment despite the sinus ache, throat and

  eye burn, insidious crisping of lungs, and stabbing in his

  testicles. He had not really wanted to be a good servant in

  the hospital; he wanted to sniff out the tracks of crimi-

  nals.

  6

  "You see, Ham," Childe said, "the vampire motif in the

  film could mean nothing—as a clue—but I feel that it's

  very important and, in fact, the only thing I can follow up.

  But the chances ..."

  His voice died. He and Jeremiah stood on the curb of

  the north side of Burton Way and waited. The cars were

  like elephants in the grayness, gray elephants with trunks to

  tails, huge eyes glowing in the gloom. The lanes here were

  one-way for westward traffic, but all traffic was moving

  eastward.

  There was only one thing to do if they wished to cross

  today. Childe stepped out into the traffic. The cars were

  going so slowly that it was easy to climb up on the hood of

  the nearest and jump over onto the next hood and onto

  a third and then a fourth and onto the grass of the divider.

  Startled and outraged drivers and passengers cursed and

  howled at them, but Jeremiah only laughed and Childe

  jeered at them. They crossed the divider and jumped from

  hood to hood again until they got to the other side. They

  walked down Willaman, and every house was unlit. At

  Wilshire and Willaman, the street lights were operating,

  but the drivers were paying no attention to them. All were

  going eastward on both sides of Wilshire.

  The traffic was a little faster here but not too fast. Childe

  and Jeremiah got over, although Jeremiah slipped once

  and fell on top of a hood.

  "Middle of this block," Jeremiah said.

  The houses and apartments were middle middle-class.