The World of the End (13 page)

Marian stood in the center of the apartment, beautiful and radiant as ever. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said.

Ben stared at her in disbelief.

“So,” she said, striking a come-hither pose, “did you come all this way just to get clocked on the back of the head?”

Ben walked straight toward her, holding her gaze, eager to verify with his hands what his eyes had registered. Only when he caught the raspberry scent off her skin did he know for sure that she was there, in the flesh, a step away. For the better part of an hour, the two of them hugged and giggled, like kids who had pulled off the ultimate practical joke. Marian bit his ear lightly. “Mmm, how I missed this little lobe…”

Ben arched his neck in the direction of her mouth, offering more skin, and then, as though unsatisfied with the intensity of her emotion, he asked dryly, “How did you know I was here?”

Her lips sought his, and between long pulls she whispered, “The Announcer.”

Ben smiled knowingly. “You heard the announcement?”

Marian didn’t answer. Busy reacquainting herself to his new and improved form, kissing every old nook rendered fascinating by time, she accompanied each kiss with a metallic intoning: “John Dart, Mahmud Davul, Svetlana Devchokshenski, Francoise Deveroux…”

“Just a second,” Ben said, pushing her away. “Marian, what’s going on? Why are you saying all of these names?”

She smiled angelically, continuing, “Deidre Didskin, Bernie Dole, Manny Dole, Sam Dole.”

“Marian, stop, please,” he said before being hit with another wave of names.

“Marian, I’m begging you, please stop. Stop right now or I’m leaving.”

His threats making no impression on her, he walked to the door, stunned by the sheer number of Doles in this world and by the amount of them that had left the world together. He swung it open, went outside, heard seven more names, and slammed it behind him.

The noise shook him and he opened his eyes. In the background he heard the lifeless voice of the Announcer reading the list of names in a monotone and he knew that there was no way Marian had heard his name, even if she had been listening for it. Ten names and the brain sealed itself off. Ben got off the floor, exhaled as he stretched, wandered around his empty apartment, and considered his next move. The Announcer’s voice, which was still ringing in his ears, and his vivid memory of the dream, brought a resolution to mind: from now on he’d hit 3 once on the godget each time he wanted to sleep. He’d also get a radio to drown out the jarring intonations and the inevitable headaches that accompanied them. For now, though, a shower would suffice.

A hot shower always had a soothing effect on him. Under the warm stream of water he thought of the moment he pulled the trigger and retraced his steps to see if he had missed anything. As he finished his mental checklist, he turned off the faucet, remembered he had no towel, and rushed out of his apartment, pushing 2 on the godget ten times as he stepped into the elevator. For twenty-three floors he was subjected to the fat sax player’s wanderings up and down the musical scales. Ben preferred the piano player at Marian’s building; when the doors opened, at long last, he charged out of the elevator and boarded the nearest multi-wheel heading in the direction of the central bus station. Ten minutes later, he thanked the driver as he got off, and, in his haste, while crossing the avenue, got run over twice, recovered both times, sprinted through a gaggle of kids, and pulled to a stop at the edge of the crisply manicured lawn leading to the doors of the white room.

Thousands of moonstruck dead, fresh out of the white room, stumbled to the multi-wheels waiting behind Ben. They cast quizzical looks in his direction, trying to figure out why a dead man was walking against the flow. Had Ben been in a more playful mood, he would have told them he was tired of being dead but, in need of the love-struck Belgian, he pocketed the idea. Four hundred and seven plane crash victims later a smile came to his lips. He threw a hand in the air and hollered, “Robert!”

The Belgian, surveying the crowd with weighty eyes, swiveled his wheelchair and smiled back.

Ben walked up to him and clasped his hand. “How you doing?”

“Not bad,
mon ami,
not bad,” Robert said, “how ’bout you?”

“Could be a lot better.”

“Hmm…,” Robert said, sucking his cigar and pursing his lips knowingly. “I see you haven’t found her yet.”

“No.” Ben winced. “I need a favor.”

Robert extended his hand. “Help me up? His card’s in the cigar box.”

“You have no idea how grateful I am,” Ben said, smiling, as Robert produced the card. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Robert grinned. “Find her and bring her by for a visit. I could use a shot in the arm.”

“She’ll come,” Ben said, placing an assuring hand on the Belgian’s shoulder, “I’m sure of it.”

Robert shut his eyes. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

Just before they parted, Ben suggested they exchange thumbprints on the telefinger. Robert shook his head. “You won’t be coming to see me again.”

*   *   *

At seven of noon, Ben reached his destination and knocked on door number 45 three times. The door opened to reveal a short, moonfaced pudgy man with quick blue eyes behind thick glass lenses, puffy, protruding lips, and a squeaky clean, hairless scalp. The man looked forward and twisted his lip, his chin quivering in disgust. His head was level with Ben’s belly button. Ben took a step back and cleared his throat.

“I’m looking for the Mad Hop.”

The small man looked up, suspicion draped all over his face. “What do you want with him?”

“I’m told he can track down missing people, and I can’t find my wife.”

“You should have kept a better eye on her,” he spat.

Ben, chastised, kept his mouth shut, appraising the sixty-year-old man in silence. After a moment of mutual inspection, Ben smiled. “You’re English, right?”

“And you’re Israeli,” he said flatly. “Even Babel can’t kill that accent.”

Ben, miffed that the strange man had not yet invited him in, took a step forward, amused by the midget’s quick retreat. “I thought…”

“Who gave you this address?” the man cut him short.

“Robert,” Ben responded, his brow wrinkling at the man’s condescending chuckle.

“Oh …
Le Malade Imaginaire
.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” Ben said. “That was
The Miser
.”

“Forget it,” he said, chuckling again as he put a hand on his invisible neck. “Small man, big mouth.”

“Robert?”

“No, me” the pugnacious host said, shaking Ben’s hand with paternal might. “Samuel Sutton, and I’d appreciate it if you refrained from making jokes about the initials.”

“Ben Mendelssohn, nice to meet you.”

“Before you ask any questions,” Samuel said, raising his index finger, “I’m the Mad Hop to clients and Samuel to everyone else. Now, let’s go inside before I strain my neck.”

Ben followed him into the apartment, which had been converted into an expansive office, furnished with three oak desks, each with a computer, four bookshelves lined with files, two faxes, a Xerox machine, and several towering stacks of paper. Sitting down, Ben’s feet encountered some more packages of paper under the Mad Hop’s desk, filling out the kingdom of office equipment he had established.

“I got to tell you, this place reminds me of the previous world more than any place I’ve seen,” Ben remarked.

The Mad Hop smiled. “I hope that’s a compliment.” Without further ado, he pulled a brown pad out of a drawer and cleared his throat.

“How old are you, Mr. Mendelssohn?”

“Forty, and call me Ben.”

“Where do you live?”

“June 2001. Circle twenty-one. M building, twenty-fourth floor, apartment seven.”

“You don’t waste time.”

“True. My wife and I are in love and I need to find her.”

“When did your wife arrive?”

“March seventeenth, 2000.”

“How did you come to this world?”

“Shot myself.”

“Hmm … courageous lad. Why’d you do it?”

“I wanted to join Marian.”

“Marian? Your wife. Marian Mendelssohn. Maiden name?”

“Marian Corbin.”

“And I thought the days when love could kill were long gone.”

“You were wrong.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“At first I was in shock. I didn’t know what to do. Slowly, a decision took shape. Six months after her death, I had already decided what to do.”

“And still you waited another year…”

“Marian always wanted me to work out. She claimed my body had great potential but I was lazy. I didn’t have the patience to go to the gym. The whole thing seemed ridiculous. A few months after she died, I remembered that on our last night together, we were in bed, and as she ran her hand over my chest, she asked, “Will you think less of me if I call you Van Damme in bed?” I worked out for a year. On her last birthday I committed suicide as a present to her. I’m sure she’ll be shocked when she sees me.”

“Just a second. I want to understand this. All of the beefing up was for her? For the suicide?”

“Yes, and before you ask, I don’t know why, but I was sure that life continues.”

“Did you consider what would have happened if you had been wrong?”

“Nothing. I would’ve died in good shape.”

“I’ve got to say, I’ve heard my fair share of stories but this one … how long were you married?”

“Eleven years. Happy ones.”

“And in the previous world, what line of work were you in?”

“I was a righter. An epilogist. I wrote endings for books, screenplays…”

“Interesting. I’d think someone like you might take death as something absolute. The grand finale, if you like.”

“Bit simplistic, don’t you think?”

“We’ll only be able to know that in the future.”

“Look, I’ve come to you because in the two days I’ve been in this strange place, I’ve tried desperately to find Marian and failed. I went to her apartment; she doesn’t live there anymore. I went to the multilingual labs; she doesn’t work there.”

“The labs?”

“She was an English teacher. She was … she’s in love with language.”

“I see. Kids?”

“No.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Under the circumstances I suppose it’s for the best.”

“Because if you had a kid you wouldn’t be sitting here opposite me, asking for help?”

Ben nodded and watched the quick strokes of the Mad Hop’s pen across his pad.

“How did she get here?”

“Sorry?”

“How did your wife die?”

“An accident.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“A car accident.”

“A car accident. I see.”

Ben heard a strange purring sound emanating from under the desk. He bent down, expecting to find a cat, but saw nothing. The deep purr only got stronger and, as fear started to whirl inside him, he watched the Mad Hop’s facial muscles quiver like jelly. Before he could make any sense out of the situation, the investigator’s cheeks inflated like Dizzy’s before a long blue note, and in front of his disbelieving eyes the fat man broke into laughter, shaking the desk with his full-bodied cough, pounding it with his fleshy fist, while he kicked the horrified righter’s armchair.

Ben shot up from his seat. “Samuel, is everything alright?”

The Mad Hop, his flabby cheeks coated in tears of mirth, pointed to a drawer by Ben’s side and rasped “Take it … take it out.”

Ben opened the drawer and stared at the gun. He pulled it out and set it on the desk.

“No,” the Mad Hop yelled, his voice rising, the color of his cheeks deepening from crimson to purple, “Pick it up! Fire it … fire!”

Ben took the pistol and aimed at the Mad Hop’s feet. Groaning, choking on his own laughter, he said, “The head, you idiot, the head.”

Ben set the pistol’s sights right between the Mad Hop’s wispy eyebrows and pulled the trigger. His fat head hit the table with a thump. Ben threw himself onto the armchair, let his head fall back, and closed his eyes.

Less than a minute later, the bass voice resurfaced from the opposing couch. “I apologize, Ben, for the poor taste I’ve exhibited.”

Ben opened his eyes and sighed. He thought his rest would last longer than a minute, but the Mad Hop shoved the gun across the desk and ordered him, in a dry voice, to put it back in the drawer.

“What was so funny?” Ben asked.

The Mad Hop sighed, too. “The human soul has its way. When you grow up in a conservative home, terrorized by your parents, who have given you nothing but a strict diet of discipline, you develop certain habits that come back and bite you in the ass. You asked why I laughed. Ever since I left home on my twentieth birthday, I’ve picked up certain neuroses, such as uncontrollable bouts of laughter. Are you with me? From me you can expect devotion, attention, understanding, but not, alas, tact. You’ll tell me that your wife died in an accident, and I’ll cackle like a poop. You have no idea how many times I’ve been thrown out of funerals, booted out of weddings, tossed out of beds. At least here there’s a way to put an end to these attacks … till the next time.”

“Have you tried to get treatment?”

The Mad Hop blinked twice, flipped through the scribbles on his pad, and answered without raising his head. “Too late. Ben, last question. Do you by any chance have a picture of Marian?”

Ben smiled. “I wish.”

The Mad Hop raised his head slowly, pinning him with a grave look. “I apologize up front for the cliché,” he said, “but she’s a needle in a haystack. It’s hard for me to turn down this kind of challenge, but I’m not making any promises. Finding missing persons in this world is ten times harder than in the previous one, which is precisely why I’m willing to take this case.”

*   *   *

After a brief pause, he continued, “Back there, in the old world, I worked for thirty-seven years as an investigator, and the truth is, despite all the experience, I never really made it up to the Premier League. I had a job, a small office in Manchester, a moderate caseload, mostly dead boredom, the dullest cases imaginable. When I moved to London, I couldn’t compete with the big offices. The clients started to thin out. From eighty-three to eighty-four I didn’t have a single case, believe it or not. I learned my lesson well. When I got here, I vowed to myself I’d be the best private investigator the Other World had ever seen, and, over the past fifteen years, I’ve established a reputation most wouldn’t even dream of. I unraveled cases where the victims had no idea who would ever want them gone; I found missing persons in places that nobody—alive or dead—would ever consider; and I changed my name. Few people know that Mad Hop is actually an acronym, comprised of my favorite detectives—Marple, Dalgliesh, Holmes, and Poirot.”