Things Beyond Midnight (22 page)

The dreams... always the dreams.

“Are you cold, Lewis?”

“Yes. Yes, cold.”

“Then go out, dearest. Into the sun.”

“I can’t. Can’t go out.”

“But Los Angeles is your world, Lewis! You are the last man in it. The last man in the world.”

“Yes, but they own it all. Every street belongs to them, every building. They wouldn’t let me come out. I’d die. They’d kill me.”

“Go out, Lewis.” The liquid dream-voice faded, faded. “Out into the sun, my darling. Don’t be afraid.”

That night, he watched the moon through the street gratings for almost an hour. It was round and full, like a huge yellow floodlamp in the dark sky, and he thought, for the first time in years, of night baseball at Blues Stadium in Kansas City. He used to love watching the games with his father under the mammoth stadium lights when the field was like a pond, frosted with white illumination, and the players dream-spawned and unreal. Night baseball was always a magic game to him when he was a boy.

Sometimes he got insane thoughts. Sometimes, on a night like this, when the loneliness closed in like a crushing fist and he could no longer stand it, he would think of bringing one of them down with him, into the drains. One at a time, they might be handled. Then he’d remember their sharp, savage eyes, their animal ferocity, and he would realize that the idea was impossible. If one of their kind disappeared, suddenly and without trace, others would certainly become suspicious, begin to search—and it would all be over.

Lewis Stillman settled back into his pillow; he closed his eyes and tried not to listen to the distant screams, pipings, and reedy cries filtering down from the street above his head.

Finally, he slept.

He spent the afternoon with paper women. He lingered over the pages of some yellowed fashion magazines, looking at all the beautifully photographed models in their fine clothes. Slim and enchanting, these page-women, with their cool enticing eyes and perfect smiles, all grace and softness and glitter and swirled cloth. He touched their images with gentle fingers, stroking the tawny paper hair, as though, by some magic formula, he might imbue them with life. Yet, it was easy to imagine that these women had never
really
lived at all, that they were simply painted, in microscopic detail, by sly artists to give the illusion of photos.

He didn’t like to think about these women and how they died.

“A toast to courage,” smiled Lewis Stillman, raising his wine glass high. It sparkled deep crimson in the lamplit room. “To courage and to the man who truly possesses it!” He drained the glass and hastily refilled it from a tall bottle on the table beside his cot.

“Aren’t you going to join me, Mr. H.?” he asked the seated figure slouched over the table. “Or must I drink alone?”

The figure did not reply.

“Well, then—” He emptied the glass, set it down. “Oh, I know all about what one man is supposed to be able to do. Win out alone. Whip the damn world single-handed. If a fish as big as a mountain and as mean as all sin is out there, then this one man is supposed to go get him, isn’t that it? Well, Papa H., what if the world is
full
of killer fish? Can he win over them all? One man, alone? Of course he can’t. Nosir. Damn well
right
he can’t!”

Stillman moved unsteadily to a shelf in one corner of the small wooden room and took down a slim book.

“Here she is, Mr. H. Your greatest. The one you wrote cleanest and best—
The Old Man and the Sea.
You showed how one man could fight the whole damn ocean.” He paused, voice strained and rising. “Well, by God, show me,
now
, how to fight this ocean! My ocean is full of killer fish, and I’m one man and I’m alone in it. I’m ready to listen.”

The seated figure remained silent.

“Got you now, haven’t I, Papa? No answer to this one, eh? Courage isn’t enough. Man was not meant to live alone or fight alone—or drink alone. Even with courage, he can only do so much alone—and then it’s useless. Well, I say it’s useless. I say the hell with your book, and the hell with
you!
”

Lewis Stillman flung the book straight at the head of the motionless figure. The victim spilled back in the chair; his arms slipped off the table, hung swinging. They were lumpy and handless.

More and more, Lewis Stillman found his thoughts turning to the memory of his father and of long hikes through the moonlit Missouri countryside, of hunting trips and warm campfires, of the deep woods, rich and green in summer. He thought of his father’s hopes for his future, and the words of that tall, gray-haired figure often came back to him.

“
You’ll be a fine doctor, Lewis. Study and work hard, and you’ll succeed. I know you will.
”

He remembered the long winter evenings of study at his father’s great mahogany desk, poring over medical books and journals, taking notes, sifting and resifting facts. He remembered one set of books in particular—Erickson’s monumental three-volume text on surgery, richly bound and stamped in gold. He had always loved those books, above all others.

What had gone wrong along the way? Somehow, the dream had faded; the bright goal vanished and was lost. After a year of pre-med at the University of California, he had given up medicine; he had become discouraged and quit college to take a laborer’s job with a construction company How ironic that this move should have saved his life! He’d wanted to work with his hands, to sweat and labor with the muscles of his body. He’d wanted to earn enough to marry Joan and then, later perhaps, he would have returned to finish his courses. It seemed so far away now, his reason for quitting, for letting his father down.

Now, at this moment, an overwhelming desire gripped him, a desire to pour over Erickson’s pages once again, to recreate, even for a brief moment, the comfort and happiness of his childhood.

He’d once seen a duplicate set on the second floor of Pickwick’s bookstore in Hollywood, in their used book department, and now he knew he must go after it, bring the books back with him to the drains. It was a dangerous and foolish desire, but he knew he would obey it. Despite the risk of death, he would go after the books tonight.
Tonight.

One corner of Lewis Stillman’s room was reserved for weapons. His prize, a Thompson submachine gun, had been procured from the Los Angeles police arsenal. Supplementing the Thompson were two automatic rifles, a Lüger, a Colt .45, and a .22 calibre Hornet pistol equipped with a silencer. He always kept the smallest gun in a spring-clip holster beneath his armpit, but it was not his habit to carry any of the larger weapons with him into the city. On this night, however, things were different.

The drains ended two miles short of Hollywood—which meant he would be forced to cover a long and particularly hazardous stretch of ground in order to reach the bookstore. He therefore decided to take along the .30 calibre Savage rifle in addition to the small hand weapon.

You’re a fool, Lewis, he told himself as he slid the oiled Savage from its leather case, risking your life for a set of books. Are they
that
important? Yes, a part of him replied, they are that important. You want these books, then go
after
what you want. If fear keeps you from seeking that which you truly want, if fear holds you like a rat in the dark, then you are worse than a coward. You are a traitor, betraying yourself and the civilization you represent. If a man wants a thing and the thing is good, he must go after it, no matter what the cost, or relinquish the right to be called a man. It is better to die with courage than to live with cowardice.

Ah, Papa Hemingway, breathed Stillman, smiling at his own thoughts. I see that you are back with me. I see that your words have rubbed off after all. Well, then, all right—let us go after our fish, let us seek him out. Perhaps the ocean will be calm.

Slinging the heavy rifle over one shoulder, Lewis Stillman set off down the tunnels.

Running in the chill night wind. Grass, now pavement, now grass beneath his feet. Ducking into shadows, moving stealthily past shops and theatres, rushing under the cold, high moon. Santa Monica Boulevard, then Highland, then Hollywood Boulevard, and finally—after an eternity of heartbeats—Pickwick’s.

Lewis Stillman, his rifle over one shoulder, the small automatic gleaming in his hand, edged silently into the store.