Mirror (22 page)

Theo opened his eyes and stared at the door in alarm. ‘Did you open it?’ he asked Martin.

Martin shook his head.

‘Did you touch it at all?’

‘I didn’t go anywhere near it.’

Theo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I have to tell you, Martin, I don’t know what’s going on here, and I don’t particularly
want
to know. I’ll talk, yes, I’ll tell you whatever I can. But I’m not staying here any longer, and I sure as hell am not going anywhere near that mirror of yours.’

‘All right,’ said Martin. ‘Agreed. Let’s go down to Butterfield’s, I’ll buy you a drink. You look like you could use it.’

Theo replaced his spectacles. As he did so, the sitting room door slammed so thunderously loudly that one of the panels was cracked.

‘God, what was that?’ Martin asked him.

Theo smiled grimly. ‘That was your mirror, saying good riddance.’

Martin left a note on the door for Ramone, telling him that they had gone to Butterfield’s. They drove there in Theo’s Rabbit. Theo steered like a taxi driver, grinding the gears with every change, sweating, swearing under his breath, challenging every other car he encountered on the Strip, whether they were Porsches or Rolls Royces or Eldorados.

‘I don’t believe in being protean,’ he remarked as he parked halfway up the curb outside Butterfield’s. ‘Sometimes it’s refreshing to do something really badly.’

Butterfield’s was on the south side of Sunset, with steps leading down through frondy palms and flowering shrubs to the table areas, where lean brown people in designer khaki sat under green and white umbrellas and talked about movies and other people’s diets and themselves, but mostly themselves. There was plenty of fresh fruit and yogurt and Perrier water in evidence. Of all people, Morris Nathan was there, his wide backside bulging out on either side of a small white cast-iron chair. Alison was leaning against his shoulder, her face shaded by a dipping white hat, her eyes concealed by Mulberry sunglasses, her darkly suntanned breasts bulging out of a small white Fiorucci sun top. The Nabobs of Bulge, thought Martin.

‘Martin!’ called Morris, waving one fat arm. ‘Join us!’

But Martin’s need to talk to Theo was urgent: and, besides, Martin was sitting with Ahab Greene, an independent producer with wavy blond hair and protuberant eyes and white cowboy boots who always reeked of Armani after-shave, and Martin couldn’t sit next to Ahab Greene for more than six and a half minutes without starting a blistering argument.

‘Thanks!’ he called back. ‘But – you know – business!’

Morris peered suspiciously at Theo, wondering if he was another agent, but Alison whispered something in his ear and he was obviously reassured. Alison wasn’t particularly bright, but she was one of those well-connected Hollywood girls who knew every modish astrologer and every up-to-the-minute masseuse and every fashionable beautician; she had once been a manicurist, and she had probably come across Homer Theobald more than once. After all, Hollywood husbands were always dying, and Hollywood wives were always feeling a need to get in touch, if only to reassure their loved ones that their money was being well spent.

A pretty, disinterested waitress found them a table, and Martin ordered champagne. ‘Champagne?’ queried Theo, although he was obviously used to champagne.

‘I feel like it,’ said Martin. ‘What the hell.’

Theo leaned his elbow on the table. ‘Let me tell you something, Martin. When people die, their spirits move on. There’s no question about that. Like I said, the place they move on to – the beyond, if you want to call it that – it’s totally different from the world we know here. It doesn’t abide by the same rules. Morally, physiologically, or scientifically. I don’t know. It’s very hard to describe. You can’t think of it in normal terms – left, right, top, bottom. But it’s there. It’s where people go when they die.’

Martin looked away for a while. In spite of everything that had happened in the past few days, he still found it difficult to believe in Theo’s beyond. He still found it difficult to believe in Theo.

When he spoke, it was almost a complaint – an aggrieved and baffled student asking his lecturer to explain some inconceivable theory about space and time. ‘But how can this place – how can this world beyond – how can it appear in a mirror? And not just appear, but send things jumping out? I mean, I haven’t told you the half of it. I saw a child’s ball in that mirror that wasn’t there at all. And Ramone’s cat was sucked right into it – literally sucked into the glass. And then there was Pickle, the cat who came out of the mirror – at least I believe that was Pickle – he came out of that mirror and I can prove it, because the door was locked and the windows were locked and there was no way that cat could have gotten into my sitting room. And he almost killed me – well, look at me. And then Ramone’s cat came back out of the mirror and he was like some kind of snake, like a python, you know, or a boa constrictor, and we had to burn him to death, I mean literally burn him. And that’s why we called you. But of course you can’t help. Or won’t.’

The girl poured out their champagne. It wasn’t very good quality, but it was cold and fizzy, and that was all Martin wanted. ‘Okay,’ he told her, and she went prancing off.

Theo sipped his champagne and then said heavily, ‘That happened, all of that stuff?’

Martin said,’You don’t believe me, do you?’

‘Oh, I believe you,’ said Theo. ‘Martin – let me tell you this – mirrors are no joke. Mirrors never
have
been a joke, particularly for us sensitives. A mirror is, what? People think of them like pictures on the wall; but they’re into pictures, they’re more like cameras. Think about it. You look at your mirror with more
intensity
than anything else you look at in your whole life. People don’t even look at their husbands and wives with the same intensity they do their mirror.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Martin admitted; and he really didn’t.

‘Listen,’ said Theo, ‘you’ve heard of rooms that somehow retain the feelings of stressful or tragic events that happened in them, long after those events are over? Sometimes it happens not just to rooms, but to whole houses, like Amityville. Oh, they turned that into a series of horror flicks, but the house was truly afflicted as many houses are. Some people can sense it the moment they walk into a place, some people can’t. Some people have an ear for music, others don’t. Being sensitive to the world beyond isn’t something you can study in night class.’

‘What are you trying to say?’ asked Martin. ‘You’re trying to tell me this mirror has kind of
remembered
what happened to Boofuls?’

Theo winced. ‘I did ask you not to mention his name.’

‘I’m sorry. But you must have guessed.’

‘Oh, certainly. Who else could it have been? So you bought a mirror that belonged to Boofuls, did you, and you hung it on your wall? In psychic terms, that’s a little like buying Adolf Eichmann’s toothbrush and using it. Do you know where the mirror used to hang? What I’m trying to say is – is there any chance that it might have been a witness to what happened to him – that the mirror might have seen Boofuls die?’

Martin said, ‘It was hanging over the fireplace in the main living room. That was where Boofuls was killed.’

Theo took a deep breath and sharply drummed his fingers on the table. ‘That accounts for it. That’s why you’re having all this trouble. The mirror
remembers
Boofuls being killed. Now all of those feelings, all of that fear, all of that pain, all of that hatred, it’s all coming back to you. It’s like a delayed reflection, that’s all. But it can seem real. It can take on real shape, and it can do real damage. That cat Pickles – for some reason it was obviously important to Boofuls. Boofuls loved it but his grandmother didn’t want him to keep it. So the situation about the cat was all part of the stress.’

Martin set down his glass. ‘I don’t know. It seems to me that there’s more to this than just reflections. People must have murdered other people in front of mirrors before. I mean, almost every house has a mirror someplace. But you don’t hear about cats and monsters and God knows what jumping out of mirrors all the time, do you?’

Theo said, ‘You asked me for an explanation. I gave it to you.’

‘But what about the third voice you heard? That voice that was supposed to sound like somebody in a box or something?’

Theo was beginning to sweat. ‘Don’t you think it’s hot out here? Maybe we should go inside.’

Martin reached into his shirt pocket and produced the key that Sister Boniface had given him. ‘When you said box, I thought about this key, because this key was given to one of the nurses at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital by Mrs Crossley, Boofuls’ grandmother, the night she killed him. And what I was wondering was –’

Theo stared at the key with bulging eyes. The sun reflected from it and played a bright key pattern on his forehead.

‘My God, put that away,’ whispered Theo.

‘But Theo – what I want to know is – since you’re sensitive – maybe you could hold this key and tell me –’

‘
Put it away
!’ Theo ordered him, his voice so hoarse and penetrating that several people looked around.

‘Theo … the nurse told me that Mrs Crossley couldn’t speak, but the nurse was absolutely convinced that this key was very important. If you could just touch it, hold it, see if it gives off any kind of vibration. It could be the key to the whole darn thing.’

‘Put – that – key –’ Theo began; but then abruptly his nose fountained blood, all over his Waikiki shirt, all over his twill pants, spattering the tablecloth and turning his champagne cloudy pink. A girl at the next table screamed. Martin dropped the key and reached out for Theo at once.

‘Theo! What’s the matter? Theo!’

‘
Lung
!’ gasped Theo; and then vomited up a basinful of startling red blood that splashed all over Martin and all over the flagstones and dripped from the white-painted chair like glutinous paint.

‘Ambulance!’ Martin shouted. ‘Somebody call an ambulance, for Christ’s sake!’

Theo lurched sideways in his chair. Martin tried to keep him upright, but he was enormously heavy and off-balance and slimy with blood. At last, with the help of one of the waiters, Martin managed to lower him gently onto the ground.

‘Is he dying, or what?’ the waiter asked him, his eyes wide open with fright.

‘Martin – are you okay?’ shouted Morris. ‘They’ve just called for the paramedics.’

Alison gave him an anxious little wave, too. Martin waved back to tell them they were doing all they could. Theo was lying with his face against the paving stones, a bubble of blood between his lips, his eyes filmy.

‘
Key
…’ he whispered. He lifted his right hand and took hold of Martin’s wrist, drawing him closer.

‘
Key
…’

‘What about it?’ asked Martin. ‘Listen, Just rest. They’ve sent for an ambulance.’

‘Key … acts like … lightning conductor …’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘Mirror … doesn’t want me to pry … punctured my lung. Located us … you got it? … moment you said … Boofuls.’

Martin said, ‘I’m sorry, Theo. I didn’t have any idea.’

‘Well … not your fault,’ Theo grunted. ‘I should have said no … right from the very beginning … moment I felt that coldness … moment I felt that
black
.’

‘I felt that, too,’ Martin told him.

Theo coughed a gout of blood. In the distance, they could hear the ambulance siren whooping. ‘Come on, Theo,’ said Martin. ‘You’re going to make it … the paramedics are almost here.’

‘Where’s that … key?’ asked Theo.

‘I don’t know. I guess I dropped it.’

‘Find it … give it to me. Come on, quickly.’

‘Theo – if it’s that dangerous –’

Theo lifted his head. His mouth was so bloodstained he looked as if he had been cramming raspberries into it all morning. Sticky, red, peculiarly childish.

‘If you don’t give me that key, I’m never going to speak to you again.’

The threat was so absurd that Martin realized Theo was serious. He dabbled around in the spreading lake of blood, and there by the leg of Theo’s dark-stained pants was the key. Theo reached out for it, and Martin pressed it reluctantly into his hand.

The ambulance had parked on Sunset, outside the entrance to Butterfield’s; and the paramedics were already hurrying down the steps. Theo closed his eyes and for a moment Martin, kneeling in his rapidly cooling blood, was sure that he was dead. The paramedics came up to him and lifted the table aside and said, ‘Okay, sir, give us some space, will you?’

Theo lifted one bloody arm. ‘Martin …’ he mouthed. ‘Martin …’

Martin tried to get close to him, but one of the paramedics backhanded him away. ‘Come on, friend, this man needs space.’

‘Martin!’ Theo choked. ‘Martin!’

Martin pleaded with the paramedic, ‘I have to get close. Listen, I have to hear what he’s got to say.’

‘You want to kill him, or what?’ the paramedic demanded. ‘This man has a punctured lung. Now, do us all a favor, and take a powder – and that’s being polite.’

They were testing Theo’s vital signs and unwrapping an oxygen mask. But before they could press the mask over Theo’s face, he propped himself up on one elbow and bubbled, ‘Martin! Martin, listen to me! The Hollywood Divine! The Hollywood Divine!’