Mirror (42 page)

And the skies would remain perpetually dark; and the streets would run with the blood of the innocents.

Father Quinlan drove at a snail’s pace along Santa Monica Boulevard, humming nervously to himself. He felt hot and uncomfortable because the Grand Prix’s air-conditioning had packed up, and he couldn’t afford to have it repaired. He found a crumpled Kleenex in his trouser pocket and dabbed his face with it.

He slowed down even more. He was caught between two trucks: an empty flatbed tractor-trailer in front of him and a huge grinding meat truck behind him. The noise of clashing gears and the stench of diesel added to his discomfort. He was more irritated when he reached a traffic signal and found that it was impossible to pull out from between the trucks because a shiny red Corvette boxed him in, its stereo blaring out Beastie Boys rock.

He glanced in his rearview mirror. All he could see was the dazzling chrome bumper of the massive Kenworth Trans-Orient behind him, and his own eyes. Then the traffic signals changed, and the truck in front of him pulled slowly away. But when Father Quinlan tried to shift into drive, he found that his gear lever was jammed.

The huge truck behind him blared its horn. Father Quinlan put down his window and tried to wave to the truck to move around him, but it was too close to the back of his car, and it couldn’t. It blared its horn again; and this time it was joined by a chorus of horns from the traffic that was stuck behind it.

Sweating, Father Quinlan wrestled with his gearshift. God forgive me for thinking uncharitable thoughts about truck drivers and auto mechanics. But then the Kenworth driver leaned out of his cab and yelled, ‘Get that heap of crap moving, you son of a bitch!’ and Father Quinlan stuck his head out of his window and shouted back, ‘I’m trying! I’m trying! The gearshift’s stuck!’

The truck driver sounded his horn in one long continuous blast. Father Quinlan felt his temper rising. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror and his face was white and his eyes were blazing blue and it wasn’t his face at all.

‘
You connived against me, Father
,’ whispered the face in the mirror.

Father Quinlan stared at the face in terror. He let out a low mewl and tugged even more furiously at his gearshift. It was the child of Satan: the one who comes before to prepare the way for Satan’s resurrection. He knew it; and he knew how cruel and powerful it was; and that was why he grappled with his car so furiously.
Let me get away! For God’s sake, let me get away
!

Again, the truck’s horn bellowed like a dragon.

‘
And he deceives those who dwell on the earth, telling those who dwell on earth to make an image of the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life
.’

Father Quinlan gripped his gearshift in both hands, wrestling it forward and sideways. His face was scarlet, and sweat was trickling down the sides of his face.

‘
All your life you have wormed and connived against me, Father, and now is the time for you to pay. Those who use their minds to work against me must lose their minds
.’

There was a moment of maximum resistance. Then the gearshift clonked into drive. Father Quinlan’s car lurched forward, its engine roaring, straight across the intersection, and straight toward the back of the flatbed truck that had been in front of him before, and which had now stopped for the next traffic signal.

Father Quinlan furiously pedaled the brake, but it went flat to the floor with no hydraulic pressure at all.

‘
Conniver
!’ screamed the white, white face in the mirror. ‘
Deceiver
!’

Father Quinlan saw the rear of the truck speeding toward him and the second truck was right behind him and he suddenly understood that he was going to die.

He didn’t even have time to think of a prayer. With a crushing, grating, screeching sound, the Grand Prix burrowed its nose deep beneath the truck’s bodywork, and the aluminium flatbed sheared off its roof at exactly four feet three inches above the roadway, straight through the front roof pillars, straight into Father Quinlan’s face, wrenching his head right off his neck, straight through the windows in a sparkling shower of glass, straight through the rear roof supports.

The second truck shunted the Grand Prix’s rear bumper and rammed it even farther beneath the first truck, so that it disappeared almost completely.

There was a prehistoric bellow, as one of the truck’s tires burst; and then there was extraordinary silence.

It took the wrecking crew over two hours to winch Father Quinlan’s car out from under the flatbed truck. A curious crowd stood on the sidewalk in the hot afternoon sunshine, watching and waiting. There was very little for them to see. The paramedics covered the Grand Prix with a sheet and backed the ambulance up close. Father Quinlan’s body was lifted out and zipped into a bright blue body bag. It was only when one of the paramedics followed the gurney carrying another smaller plastic bag that somebody in the crowd said, ‘Jesus, that’s his head’.

Martin and Boofuls and Miss Redd drove past the accident on their way back from McDonald’s. Martin said, ‘Look at that, God, guy must’ve been killed instantly.’

Boofuls said nothing, but smiled at Miss Redd, and reached across to take hold of her hand.

That night, Martin went downstairs to play chess with Mr Capelli. He had been to the market with a shopping list that Miss Redd had given him. Veal, chicken, wholemeal bread, fresh fruit and vegetables. Miss Redd had announced that she was going to do the cooking: Boofuls needed his special diet. Martin was welcome to join them, she said; but Martin had no appetite for anything cooked by Miss Redd. It had been difficult enough, taking Boofuls and Miss Redd to McDonald’s. To sit in his own apartment watching them eat would be like having dinner at the mortuary.

They were both dead creatures, as far as he was concerned; no matter how appealing Boofuls could be, no matter how courteously Miss Redd behaved.

Mr Capelli looked worn out, even though his doctor had given him Tranxene to help him sleep. Mrs Capelli had gone to spend the rest of the week with her sister in Pasadena. Her sister’s husband ran a successful drain-cleaning business, Rothman’s Roto-Rooter.

Martin and Mr Capelli shared a six-pack of beer and played chess for about an hour. The apartment seemed empty and depressing without Mrs Capelli. There was no singing from the kitchen, no chopping of garlic and onions, no aroma of bolognese sauce. Mr Capelli chain-smoked small cigars and wearily misplayed most of his moves.

‘This woman, then,’ he asked Martin, ‘what is she? Is she real? Is she a ghost?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Martin. ‘I suppose she’s pretty much the same as Boofuls. A kind of walking, talking image out of a mirror.’

‘I got a very bad feeling about all of this,’ Mr Capelli remarked, moving his queen. ‘I got the feeling they’re just using us, you know, for something worse, something bad.’

Martin hadn’t told Mr Capelli what Father Quinlan had said about the second coming of Satan. He swallowed beer and moved his bishop to counteract Mr Capelli’s queen.
Satan cannot live and breathe until those one hundred forty-four thousand lie massacred
.

Mr Capelli said, ‘You know what I feel? I feel like this is my house, but it’s not my house anymore. Not when Emilio’s stuck in that mirror, and those people are living upstairs.’

Martin nodded. He knew exactly how Mr Capelli felt. He was glad that Stephen J Cannell productions had just sent him a check for four months’ worth of rewrites, because with Boofuls and Miss Redd in his apartment, smiling, talking, prowling, planning, he couldn’t get near his typewriter; and even if he had been able to, he probably couldn’t have written a single word worth squat. He was too worried about Emilio. He was too worried about what he had let loose on the world at large.

Satan? It seemed ridiculous. But Father Quinlan had believed it; and Father Lucas had believed it. Maybe one priest could be crazy; but two?

The decorated clock on Mr Capelli’s bureau struck nine. Almost at the same moment, the door chimes sounded.

‘Visitors?’ asked Martin. ‘You expecting anybody?’

Mr Capelli shook his head. ‘My cousin Bernado’s coming down next week, but that’s all.’

‘Let me get it,’ said Martin, and went to the door. Outside, on the landing, stood Miss Redd, wearing the clinging black-satin dress she had bought this afternoon at Fiorucci, with black stockings and black stiletto shoes. With her high cheekbones and white skin, she looked like a page torn out of a 1940s fashion magazine.

‘I’m not bothering you,’ she said, so flatly that it was scarcely a question at all.

‘What do you want?’ asked Martin, closing the door behind him so that Mr Capelli wouldn’t see her.

‘I wanted to tell you that Lejeune and I will be moving out tomorrow.’

‘Oh, yes?’

Miss Redd smiled. ‘I just spoke to June Lassiter at 20th Century-Fox and she will provide a private bungalow for us on the Fox lot while
Sweet Chariot
is being filmed. So – you will be pleased to know that we will not be trespassing on your hospitality any further. We leave tomorrow morning.’

‘What about the mirror?’ asked Martin. ‘Are you leaving that here?’

Miss Redd said, ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The mirror cannot be moved; not yet.’

‘And Emilio?’

‘Emilio will be safe just as long as you do not attempt to break the mirror or get him back out of it.’

‘And when are you going to set him free?’

‘Lejeune has made that quite clear.’

‘Don’t call him Lejeune to me, lady,’ Martin retorted. ‘That’s a poisonous and ridiculous joke. His name is Walter Lemuel Crossley, also known as Boofuls.’

Miss Redd smiled provocatively. ‘Anger makes you handsome, did you know that?’

‘It also makes me determined,’ Martin told her, although his voice was shaking. ‘And if there’s one thing I’m determined about, it’s getting Emilio back in one piece. Now – how long is it going to take to finish this movie of yours?’

‘Fifteen weeks,’ said Miss Redd. ‘Fox is going to put everything possible into it. All the best technicians, the best lighting cameramen, the best choreographers, the best musicians. They’ve already chosen Marcus Leopold to direct. It’s going to be a marvel.’

‘And you give me your solemn oath that when it’s finished, you’ll let Emilio go?’

‘On the night of the premiere, we will let Emilio go.’

Just then, Mr Capelli came to the door. He stood and stared at Miss Redd in silent indignation.

Miss Redd said, ‘I sincerely apologize for all the pain we have caused you, Mr Capelli. But sacrifices have to be made in all great causes.’

‘They’re moving out,’ Martin told Mr Capelli. ‘They’re going to stay on the Fox lot until the picture’s finished; then they promise they’ll let Emilio go.’

‘There is one more thing,’ said Miss Redd. ‘During the production of the picture, you will not attempt to come near us; nor speak to us; and neither will you speak to anybody else about us. You will remain silent and patient, and you will guard the mirror.’

Mr Capelli said, ‘You, lady, are a harlot from hell.’

Miss Redd slowly and elegantly blew him a kiss. ‘And you, sir, are more right than you will ever know.’

With that, she climbed the stairs back to Martin’s apartment and closed the door.

Mr Capelli shook his head. ‘We should call the cops, you know that?’

‘Oh, yes? And what do you think the cops are going to say? “These people kidnapped your grandson, sir? Okay, where is he? In the
mirror
? Excuse me, sir, while I call for the men with the butterfly net.”’

‘Well, you’re right,’ said Mr Capelli tiredly. They went back into the apartment and closed the door behind them.

‘There’s just one other possibility,’ said Martin. ‘I could call Father Quinlan at St Patrick’s Theological College. He’s an exorcist – you know, a proper official exorcist. Once Boofuls and his lady friend have moved out – well, maybe, he could try to exorcise the mirror, I don’t know – maybe he could get Emilio back for us that way.’

‘Exorcist?’ asked Mr Capelli, shaking his head.

Martin looked up St Patrick’s in the telephone directory and then dialed the number. The phone rang for a long time before anybody answered. It was a solemn, young-sounding man.

‘Can you put me through to Father Quinlan, please?’ asked Martin.

‘I’m sorry, I regret to tell you that Father Quinlan died this afternoon.’

Martin was shocked. ‘He
died
? Oh, my God. How?’

‘There was a car crash on Santa Monica Boulevard. He was killed instantly, I’m afraid.’

God, thought Martin, we actually drove past that crash. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Did you know Father Quinlan well?’ the young man asked him.

‘I only just met him. My name’s Martin Williams. I met him along with Father Lucas.’

‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ the young man replied. ‘I was the one who let you in. Actually, Father Quinlan had an envelope for you in his car. He must have been on his way to give it to you. The police found it in his car, down the side of the seat. I’ve got it here if you want to collect it in the morning.’