Umney's Last Case (7 page)

and Hemingway, not to mention

pulp-writers like--''

I held up my hand. ``Let's skip the lit class and get down to the bottom line. This is

crazy, but--'' My eyes drifted to

the picture of Roosevelt, from there they went to the eerily blank blotter, and from

there they went back to the haggard

face on the other side of the desk. ``--but let's say I believe it. What are you doing

here? What did you come for?''

Except I already knew. I detect for a living, but the answer to that one came from my

heart, not my head.

`Ì came for you.''

``For me.''

``Sorry, yes. I'm afraid you'll have to start thinking of your life in a new way,

Clyde. As . . . well . . . a pair of shoes,

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let's say. You're stepping out and I'm stepping in. And once I've got the laces tied,

I'm going to walk away.''

Of course. Of course he was. And I suddenly knew what I had to do . . . the only thing

I could do.

Get rid of him.

I let a big smile spread across my face. A tell-me-more smile. At the same time I

coiled my legs under me, getting

them ready to launch me across the desk at him. Only one of us could leave this

office, that much was clear. I intended

to be the one.

`Òh, really?'' I said. ``How fascinating. And what happens to me, Sammy? What happens

to the shoeless private eye?

What happens to Clyde--''

Umney, the last word was supposed to be my last name, the last word this interloping,

invading thief would ever hear in

his life. The minute it was out of my mouth I intended to leap. The trouble was, that

telepathy business seemed to work

both ways. I saw an expression of alarm dawn in his eyes, and then they slipped shut

and his mouth tightened with

concentration. He didn't bother with the Buck Rogers machine; I suppose he knew there

was no time for it.

`` `His revelations hit me like some kind of debilitating drug,' '' he said, speaking

in the low but carrying tone of one

who recites rather than simply speaking. `` Àll the strength went out of my muscles,

my legs felt like a couple of

strands of al dente spaghetti, and all I could do was flop back in my chair and look

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at him.' ''

I flopped back in my chair, my legs uncoiling beneath me, unable to do anything but

look at him.

``Not very good,'' he said apologetically, ``but rapid composition has never been a

strong point of mine.''

``You bastard,'' I rasped weakly. ``You son of a bitch.''

``Yes,'' he agreed. `Ì suppose I am.''

``Why are you doing this? Why are you stealing my life?''

His eyes flickered with anger at that. ``Your life? You know better than that, Clyde,

even if you don't want to admit it.

It isn't your life at all. I made you up, starting on one rainy day in January of 1977

and continuing right up to the

present time. I gave you your life, and it's mine to take away.''

``Very noble,'' I sneered, ``but if God came down here right now and started yanking

your life apart like bad stitches in

a scarf, you might find it a little easier to appreciate my point of view.''

`Àll right,'' he said, `Ì suppose you've got a point. But why argue it? Arguing with

one's self is like playing solitaire

chess--a fair game results in a stalemate every time. Let's just say I'm doing it

because I can.''

I felt a little calmer, all of a sudden. I had been down this street before. When they

got the drop on you, you had to get

them talking and keep them talking. It had worked with Mavis Weld and it would work

here. They said stuff like Well,

I suppose it won't hurt you to know now or What harm can it do?

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Mavis's version had been downright elegant: I want you to know, Umney--I want you to

take the truth to hell with you.

You can pass it on to the devil over cake and coffee. It really didn't matter what

they said, but if they were talking, they

weren't shooting.

Always keep em talking, that was the thing. Keep em talking and just hope the cavalry

would show up from

somewhere.

``The question is, why do you want to?'' I asked. `Ìt's hardly the usual thing, is

it? I mean, aren't you writer types

usually content to cash the checks when they come, and go about your business?''

``You're trying to keep me talking, Clyde. Aren't you?''

That hit me like a sucker-punch to the gut, but playing it down to the last card was

the only choice I had. I grinned and

shrugged. ``Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I really do want to know.'' And there was no

lie in that.

He looked unsure for a moment longer, bent over and touched the keys inside that

strange plastic case (I felt cramps in

my legs and gut and chest as he stroked them), then straightened up again.

`Ì suppose it won't hurt you to know now,'' he said finally. `Àfter all, what harm

can it do?''

``Not a bit.''

``You're a clever boy, Clyde,'' he said, `ànd you're perfectly right --writers very

rarely plunge all the way into the

worlds they've created, and when they do I think they end up doing it strictly in

their heads, while their bodies vegetate

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in some mental asylum. Most of us are content simply to be tourists in the country of

our imaginations. Certainly that

was the case with me. I'm not a fast writer--composition has always been torture for

me, I think I told you that--but I

managed five Clyde Umney books in ten years, each more successful than the last. In

1983 I left my job as regional

manager for a big insurance company and started to write full-time. I had a wife I

loved, a little boy that kicked the sun

out of bed every morning and put it to bed every night--that's how it seemed to me,

anyway--and I didn't think life

could get any better.''

He shifted in the overstuffed client's chair, moved his hand, and I saw the cigarette

burn Ardis McGill had put in the

over-stuffed arm was also gone. He voiced a bitterly cold laugh.

`Ànd I was right,'' he said. `Ìt couldn't get any better, but it could get a whole

hell of a lot worse. And did. About

three months after I started How Like a Fallen Angel, Danny--our little boy--fell out

of a swing in the park and

bashed his head. Cold-conked himself, in your parlance.''

A brief smile, every bit as cold and bitter as the laugh had been, crossed his face.

It came and went at the speed of grief.

``He bled a lot--you've seen enough head-wounds in your time to know how they are--and

it scared the crap out of

Linda, but the doctors were good and it did turn out to be only a concussion; they got

him stabilized and gave him a pint

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of blood to make up for what he'd lost. Maybe they didn't have to--and that haunts me -but they did. The real

problem wasn't with his head, you see; it was with that pint of blood. It was infected

with AIDS.''

``Come again?''

`Ìt's something you can thank your God you don't know about,'' Landry said. `Ìt

doesn't exist in your time, Clyde. It

won't show up until the mid-seventies. Like Aramis cologne.''

``What does it do?''

`Èats away at your immune system until the whole thing collapses like the wonderful

one-hoss shay. Then every bug

circling around out there, from cancer to chicken pox, rushes in and has a party.''

``Good Christ!''

His smile came and went like a cramp. `Ìf you say so. AIDS is primarily a sexually

transmitted disease, but every now

and then it pops up in the blood supply. I suppose you could say my kid won big in a

very unlucky version of la lotería.''

`Ì'm sorry,'' I said, and although I was scared to death of this thin man with the

tired face, I meant it. Losing a kid to

something like that . . . what could be worse? Probably something, yeah--there's

always something--but you'd have to

sit down and think about it, wouldn't you?

``Thanks,'' he said. ``Thanks, Clyde. It went fast for him, at least. He fell out of

the swing in May. The first purple

blotches--Kaposi's sarcoma--showed up in time for his birthday in September. He died

on March 18, 1991. And

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maybe he didn't suffer as much as some of them do, but he suffered. Oh yes, he

suffered.''

I didn't have the slightest idea what Kaposi's sarcoma was, either, and decided I

didn't want to ask. I knew more than I

wanted to already.

``You can maybe understand why it slowed me down a little on your book,'' he said.

``Can't you, Clyde?''

I nodded.

`Ì pushed on, though. Mostly because I think make-believe is a great healer. Maybe I

have to believe that. I tried to get

on with my life, too, but things kept going wrong with it--it was as if How Like a

Fallen Angel was some kind of

weird bad-luck charm that had turned me into Job. My wife went into a deep depression

following Danny's death, and I

was so concerned with her that I hardly noticed the red patches that had started

breaking out on my legs and stomach

and chest. And the itching. I knew it wasn't AIDS, and at first that was all I was

concerned with. But as time went on

and things got worse . . . have you ever had shingles, Clyde?''

Then he laughed and clapped the heel of his hand to his forehead in a what-a-dunce-Iam

gesture before I could shake

my head.

`Òf course you haven't--you've never had more than a hangover. Shingles, my shamus

friend, is a funny name for a

terrible, chronic ailment. There's some pretty good medicine available to help

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alleviate the symptoms in my version of

Los Angeles, but it wasn't helping me much; by the end of 1991 I was in agony. Part of

it was general depression over

what had happened to Danny, of course, but most of it was the agony and the itching.

That would make an interesting

book title about a tortured writer, don't you think? The Agony and the Itching, or,

Thomas Hardy Faces Puberty.'' He

voiced a harsh, distracted little laugh.

``Whatever you say, Sam.''

`Ì say it was a season in hell. Of course it's easy to make light of it now, but by

Thanksgiving of that year it was no

joke--I was getting three hours of sleep a night, tops, and I had days when it felt

like my skin was trying to crawl right

off my body and run away like The Gingerbread Man. And I suppose that's why I didn't

see how bad it was getting with

Linda.''

I didn't know, couldn't know . . . but I did. ``She killed herself.''

He nodded. `Ìn March of 1992, on the anniversary of Daniel's death. Over two years

ago now.''

A single tear tracked down his wrinkled, prematurely aged cheek, and I had an idea

that he had gotten old in one hell of

a hurry. It was sort of awful, realizing I had been made by such a bush-league version

of God, but it also explained a

lot. My shortcomings, mainly.

``That's enough,'' he said in a voice which was blurred with anger as well as tears.

``Get to the point, you'd say. In my

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time we say cut to the chase, but it comes to the same. I finished the book. On the

day I discovered Linda dead in

bed--the way the police are going to find Gloria Demmick later today, Clyde--I had

finished one hundred and ninety

pages of manuscript. I was up to the part where you fish Mavis's brother out of Lake

Tahoe. I came home from the

funeral three days later, fired up the word-processor, and got started right in on

page one-ninety-one. Does that shock

you?''

``No,'' I said. I thought about asking him what a word-processor might be, then

decided I didn't have to. The thing in

his lap was a word-processor, of course. Had to be.

``You're in a decided minority,'' Landry said. `Ìt shocked what few friends I had

left, shocked them plenty. Linda's

relatives thought I had all the emotion of a warthog. I didn't have the energy to

explain that I was trying to save myself.

Frog them, as Peoria would say. I grabbed my book the way a drowning man would grab a

life-ring. I grabbed you,

Clyde. My case of the shingles was still bad, and that slowed me down--to some extent

it kept me out, or I might have

gotten here sooner--but it didn't stop me. I started getting a little better-physically, at least--right around the time I

finished the book. But when I had finished, I fell into what I suppose must have been

my own state of depression. I went