77 Shadow Street (62 page)

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One

From pole to pole, I pause in my entirety, every manifestation utterly still, the world hushed in anticipation. The boy escapes me, as does the ex-marine, but my messenger has gone with them. Moment by moment, my triumph seems to be validated. I am the prince of this world not just for a time but for all time. The two geniuses of the institute will proceed as required, and I will be well. I will be well and all will be well in this best of all possible worlds
.

34

77 Shadow Street

I
n the basement corridor, the gap in the ceiling was closed as if it had never opened. No creaking issued from within the walls or ceiling, no slithering, no voices. The demonic multitude had vanished before their eyes, as had Witness.

Having been released by Tom, one hand still clamped to his shoulder wound, Ignis said, “You won’t regret sparing me, Bailey. I
will
fix it. Everything. I’ll make it all right.”

Bailey said, “Silas, can it be coincidence that this one house in all the world happens to be built over a fault in space-time?”

“In the courtroom, it’s cause and effect, motive and intent. We don’t like coincidence.”

“Neither do I. Tom, can it be coincidence that the man who will ruin the future just happens to live in the one house in the world that’s built over a fault in space-time?”

“Coincidence is mere random chance,” Tom Tran said. “I believe in patterns and mystery.”

Grimacing in pain, impatient, Ignis said, “What’s the point of this? I’m bleeding here. I need medical attention.”

“Padmini,” Bailey said, “if the real ruiner of the world was a man named Von Norquist, why wouldn’t
his
residence have been the one preserved as a shrine?”

“Your question is a riddle I can’t solve,” Padmini said.

Sitting at the table, Mickey Dime said, “My mother liked you, Dr. Ignis. She said you had vision. She didn’t mean just eyesight.”

To Ignis, Bailey said, “Time and fate are complicated things. Is there just one future … or many possible futures?”

“This is all moot,” Ignis said. His face had gone pale. Fine beads of sweat stippled his brow. “I will not let that future happen. It will never come to pass.”

Bailey said, “Which came first—the work you did to ruin the future or your glimpse of that possible future where the One rules? Did you make that future before we saw it … or after seeing it, have you now been inspired to make a ‘better’ future?”

“What are you saying? Look, I’m in pain here. I’m not thinking clearly. I’m not following you.”

“Time and fate,” Bailey repeated, “are complicated things. Do you think each of us, every person in the world, is an instrument of destiny?”

Shaking his head, Ignis said, “I don’t know what that means.”

“I do,” Padmini said. “I am an instrument of destiny, Mr. Hawks. We all are.”

“What power employs you?” Bailey asked Ignis. “What dark destiny works through you to be born?”

“Don’t be stupid, Bailey. I know you’re not a stupid man. Don’t talk to me about crap like destiny. I’m not doomed to that future we saw. I have the power to shape a better world, a freer world, a world as safe and clean as Eden, a world where the human impulse to corrupt and destroy is put back in the bottle forever.”

Bailey shot him three times point-blank in the chest with Mickey
Dime’s pistol, perhaps saving the world as he had been unable to save his mother from a drunk and violent father.

Hugs had never felt so good to Sparkle Sykes. After a minute or so, Iris stiffened in her mother’s embrace, but the girl continued to allow the affection. No less amazing, to the degree that she was able, she returned it.

Thereafter, the eight of them worked as one, not as a single mind, but as a community with a mutual purpose.

Tom erased the past twenty-four hours of recordings from the security-video archives.

With welding gear provided by Tom and with some assistance from Twyla, Bailey repaired the underset hinges of the iron manhole cover that had been blown off by the blue surge that rushed out of the lava pipe.

Because she was a novelist with a vivid imagination, Sparkle sat on the floor of the vault with Mickey Dime, explaining in what order and for what psychopathic reasons he murdered Senator Blandon, Logan Spangler, Sally Hollander, and the Cupp sisters. For a cold-blooded professional killer, he was surprisingly sweet, almost like a child, and was fascinated to be reminded of how he had shot all those people and then dropped their wrapped bodies down the lava pipe. As sweet as he seemed, she nevertheless kept a gun on him the entire time. He had, of course, actually killed Jerry Dime and Vernon Klick, and she talked with him about them as well, and about how he had shot Dr. Kirby Ignis.

“My mother liked Dr. Ignis,” Mickey Dime said.

“You mention her so often. You must have really loved her.”

“I did. I do. I love her so much that I wanted to kill Ignis a long time ago.”

“Is that so?”

“Because she liked him. I didn’t like her liking other men.”

“Yes, well, of course.”

“She liked Senator Blandon, too.”

“Did she really?”

“I wanted to kill him from the moment I caught them kissing.”

“You might want to mention that to the police.”

“I’ve always wanted to know who my father was.”

“It’s sad not to have a father,” Sparkle said.

“He’s my father, whoever he is, so he must have had sex with my mother at least once, and I’d love to kill him for that.”

“Understandable,” Sparkle said.

“Do you think they’ll let me take her lingerie to the sanatorium with me?”

“They very well might. What could be the harm in it?”

There was nothing to be done with the ruined chesterfield in the Cupp apartment. Who could say what had happened to it? Perhaps Mickey Dime tore the upholstery apart in his murderous frenzy. Even in a homicidal fury, however, he wouldn’t have had the strength to mangle their heavy ornamental fireplace screen; consequently, Silas and Padmini pried it out of the firebox and conveyed it to the storage room in the basement.

Through all of this, Winny kept silent company with Iris, who said no more to him for the rest of the evening.

The bodies of Jerry Dime and Vernon Klick were wrapped and waiting where Mickey had left them earlier, before the transition to the future. With them and the corpse of Kirby Ignis, with Dime’s confession and plea of insanity, the authorities would have all they needed and would not be likely to mount an expensive and dangerous exploration of the perhaps bottomless lava pipe. And even if they did, they would find nothing.

After finishing dinner at Topper’s, when Mac and Shelly Reeves walked back to the Pendleton through the chilly rain, police vehicles clogged the street in front of the building.

In the lobby, behind the reception counter, Padmini Bahrati greeted them with the terrible news of the murder spree. There was a moment of confusion when they thought Fielding Udell must have taken one last long step into paranoia, but they weren’t surprised that it was Mickey Dime. Who would have been?

His mother always said he should not trust men in uniform. But they were very nice to him. Of course, the ones questioning him were plainclothes detectives. When his throat began to feel dry from so much talking, they got him some nice herbal tea with a lovely lemony fragrance. And when he complained that his hands felt dry, they were able to locate a bottle of hand cream, which he enjoyed very much. They insisted he had to have an attorney, too, but the man was such a buttinski that Mickey had to keep telling him to shut up. They were not just interested in the killings at the Pendleton but also wanted to know about the other murders Mickey had committed, and it was rather fun reliving his career. After all, though they were on the other side from him, and though they were sane while he was not, they had for a while been in the same business, the business of homicide. Everyone loves sharing war stories.

Having gotten by on too little sleep for too many days, Fielding Udell woke well after dawn, rested as he had not been in a long time. Curiously,
he had fallen asleep on the floor in a corner of his office. He woke in the fetal position, drooling like a baby.

Either everything had been a dream or the Ruling Elite had been able to repair their Spin Machine. His apartment was as it ought to be, all his files in order, his computer ready for the workday.

At the window, he saw that the courtyard had been restored. The plants were not otherworldly anymore, and the fountains worked. Had it been a glimpse of the truth or a dream? Time would tell. Anything could happen at any time in this world of perpetual instability.

After a shower, he ordered his lunch and dinner delivered from two different restaurants. His lunch was moo goo gai pan, and when he ate it at his desk, he could neither see nor smell, nor taste, anything about it that suggested it was Soylent Green.

As the day progressed, his guilt grew. He had awakened with the conviction that he should donate 90 percent of his three-hundred-million-dollar inheritance to Dr. Kirby Ignis, for that good man’s most important work. It was the One thing he could do to make amends for being born to wealth that he had not earned. It was the One possibility that he had for redemption, yet he procrastinated. By four o’clock in the afternoon, he was so tormented by this strange new bout of guilt that he left his apartment and reluctantly set out for Apartment 2-F. In the hallway, he encountered his neighbor, Shelly Reeves, and was greatly relieved to hear that Mickey Dime had killed Ignis during the night.