Things Beyond Midnight (33 page)

... when the snow came I’d rush for the basement to dig out my old sled. Rust had coated the runners with a thin red film and I had to get them shiny again with sandpaper, doing it fast, wanting to get out on the hill and cut loose. School closed, the hill waiting, Tommy Griffith yelling at me to get a move on and then the long whooshing slide down from Troost with snowdust in my nose and steering to miss Tommy’s sled and picking up speed coming onto Forest, mittens and yellow snow goggles and warm under the coat Uncle Frank bought me for Christmas...

The sons of bitches were worried about the fucking score while his father was
dying.
Okay, okay—pull back, cool down, all the way down—because if he wasn’t dying he’d want to know the score too. It was the Series and he’d want to know the score like the others did. The hall smelled of white paint and starch and, faintly, of urine. Hospital smells. The young priest had been emotionless about it, kept smiling at him and saying “a passel of years” when he told him how old his father was. He was glad to be out of Holy Mother Church, because she didn’t really give a damn about him or his father. Maybe God did, somewhere, but not Holy Mother Church. What did it matter how old his father was? So what? He was still dying of cancer and you never want to go that way no matter how fucking old you are, even if...

“
My country tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty
...”

Sing it boy, sing it loud and let the world know that you’re an American. Sure, he was too young to fight, but he was proud. And scared, too. They were giving us hell on those beaches. Giving us bloody hell...

born in 1928... into space when I was sixty... Moon first, then Mars... If I could just tell them straight and they didn’t... keep trying to force all the... said I was too old, but nobody listened. Experience.
We
need you out there, Fred. Help chart the new Systems. Warps did it, make it all possible... one jump and into another galaxy. Fact. Cold reality. All right then, I volunteered... but not for this... didn’t know I’d ever be... goddam sick of being sucked dry this way... without my having any choice in how I
...

“That’s it, oh, that’s fine! Keep coming, honey!” Mom, with her arms out. Wobble. Almost into the lamp. “C’mon, son, you can do it.
Walk
to me!” Daddy there, kneeling next to her, looking excited. The room swaying. Terror. Falling. Rug in my face. Sneezing with them laughing and pulling me up and me trying again, with it better this time. Steady now, and Daddy was...

Feeding her power, letting her drift out, then snapping her back. “You’re great, Fred,” Anne told me. “Nope. Cars great,” I said. “Handles, doesn’t she? Richie did the suspension. Short throw on the shift. Four downdraft carbs. She’ll do 200 easy. And a road like this, she eats it up.” Life was good. Power under my foot and power in my mind and the future waiting.

“... when the sniper got him.” “What?” “Sniper. In Dealy Plaza.” “Where’s that?”“Texas?”“What was he doing there?” “Wife was with him. They were—” “She dead too?” “No, just him. Blood all over her dress, but she’s fine, she’s fine...”

“Let’s see what he looks like under that mask?” Oh, oh, they
had
him now. Guns on him, his hands tied, no chance to get away. “Yeah, Jake, let’s us have a good look at him.” Spaaaaang! “What the—” Oh, boy, just in time. Neat! “It’s the durn Injun! Near killed me. Looks like he’s got us boxed in.” What are they going to do? “Better untie me, Jake, and I’ll see to it that you both get a fair trial in Carson City.” Deep voice. “You have my word on it.” They won’t. Or will they? Not much choice. Spaaaang! “His next shot won’t miss, Jake.” Oh, they’re scared now, all right. Look at them sweat. “We’d best do as the masked man says,” the big one growls. Spaaaang! Boy, if they don’t...

“But, Fred, the job’s on Mars. We can’t go to Mars!” I wanted to know why not. “Because, for one thing, our place is
here,
our friends, everything is here. The Moon is our
home
.” I told her I was going, that it was a chance I couldn’t afford to miss. But she kept up the argument, kept...

... on his stomach under the porch with the James Oliver Curwood book, the one about the dog who runs away and falls in love with a wolf and they have a son who’s half dog and half wolf. Jack gave it to him for his fourteenth birthday. It was his favorite James Oliver Curwood. Rain outside, making cat-paw sounds on the porch, but him dry and secret underneath with all the good reading ahead of him. He pushed a jawbreaker, one of the red ones, into his mouth and...

“Christ, Fred, let her go! She doesn’t want to hear from you. She’s never going to answer. She wants to forget you.” That was all right. Sue was still his wife and maybe he could put it all back together. Maybe he could...

The stars... the
stars...
a massed hive of spacefire, a swarm of constellations... the diamonds of God... It was worth it. Worth everything to be out here, a part of
this.
Everything else was...

Enough!... Eve given enough... sick... exhausted... hollow inside, drained... They were lucky; the others were lucky and didn’t know it, dying with the ship... but they took us down here, two of us... and Steens insane. They got... Etc free formed until they... know now... know what they still want from me, what they have to experience along with all the rest of it... before they’re satisfied. They want to taste that too—the final thing... Well, give it to them. Why not? There’s no way back to anywhere... Your friends are gone... Steens a raving fool... so give them the final thing they want, goddam them... whoever they are... whatever they are. Just give them

THOUGHT TRANSCRIPT ENDS
.

00:19
COINCIDENCE

When Harry Dobson’s wife suggested they spend their last night together (before Harry’s trip) in a New York hotel he agreed. It was to be a kind of instant second honeymoon, and Harry savored the drive down from Westport with his wife cuddled close to him. It reminded him of the early days, before the house and kids had aged them both. The kids were grown and gone, but the house in Westport, with its high upkeep and higher taxes, dragged at Harry like a weight. He enjoyed the overnight stay in a New York hotel, enjoyed the sexual passion he was still able to inspire in Margaret.

What Harry Dobson
didn’t
enjoy was having his wife bump him awake with a naked hip at 6 a.m. in the morning.

“What’s wrong?” he wanted to know.

“Its the man in the next room,” whispered Margaret, pressing close to him in the double bed. “He’s been moaning. He woke me up.”

“So he’s probably sick, maybe drunk. Who cares?”

“It’s what he’s moaning that spooks me,” said Margaret. “I want you to listen. I think he’s some kind of maniac.”

“Okay, okay,” Harry grunted. And he listened to the agonized words which filtered through the thin walls of the hotel room.

“I’ve killed,” moaned the man. “I’ve killed. I’ve killed.”

“He keeps repeating that over and over,” Margaret whispered. “I think you’d better do something.”

“Do what?” asked Harry, propping himself against the pillow to light a cigarette. “Maybe he’s just having a bad dream.”

“But he keeps saying it over and over. It really spooks me. We could be next door to a murderer.”

“So what do you suggest?”

She blinked at him, absently stroking her left breast. “Call the manager. Have someone investigate.”

Harry sighed, kicked off the blankets and padded barefoot to the house phone on the dresser. He picked up the receiver, waited for the switchboard to acknowledge.

“This is Harry Dobson in room 203. There’s a character next door who’s moaning about having killed somebody. He’s been keeping us awake. Yeah... he’s in 202. Right next door.”

Harry listened, holding the phone, slowly stubbing out his cigarette on the glass top of the dresser.

“What’s happening?” asked Harry’s wife.

“They’re checking to see who’s in 202.”

“He’s stopped moaning,” she said.

“No, no,” said Harry into the receiver. “I’m in 203. Okay, forget it, just forget it.”

He slammed down the phone.

“What’s wrong?”

“The stupid idiot on the desk has my name down for
both
rooms!”

“Couldn’t it be a coincidence?” Margaret asked. “I mean, your name isn’t
that
unusual. There must be several Harry Dobsons in New York.”

“Not door-to-door in the same damn hotel,” he said. “Anyhow, they claim they can’t do anything about the guy and unless he gets violent in there to just ignore him.” He shook his head. “That’s New York for you.”

“I think we’d better leave,” said Margaret. She got up and walked to the bathroom.

Harry blew out his breath in disgust, got his pants off the chair and began dressing. He was scheduled to fly back to L.A. this morning anyhow, so he’d get to the airport a little early. He could have breakfast there.

He and his wife left the hotel room.

In the elevator she told him she’d write him at least once a week while he was gone. He was sweet, she told him, and if it hadn’t been for the maniac in 202 their night together would have been beautiful.

“Sure,” said Harry Dobson.

They said goodbye in the lobby. Then Harry checked out, giving the desk clerk hell for mixing up the room numbers.