Wake Up and Dream (38 page)

“Resolving April’s plans was never any particular challenge. The poor woman even stopped her car when she saw me standing by that overlook on the way up to her lodge because she imagined I was trying to warn her of something ahead. But Dan—he was of interest. I’m sure the process was largely subconscious, but I believe that the Thrasis presence was what led him to write about Lars Bechmeir in the first place, and then to find April’s hidden feelie reel. I think he was even clumsily attempting to recreate what he was experiencing when he commissioned that peculiar wraith…

“I suppose one great discovery is more than any one person can expect to encounter in a lifetime. But this is something else again. I believe it has a kind of intelligence, a sort of consciousness. Yet clearly, for all that there are human elements in it, it is not human. Perhaps people in older times would have called it an angel. I really don’t know. It’s certainly drawn to Dan for some reason I don’t pretend to understand, and most strongly when he is in a hallucinatory state. But, as you can see, I can only make the presence appear by using all this energy. Effectively, it’s a whole series of feedback loops. And look what happens when I reduce the power…”

She crossed the stage-set, flicked a few switches. Like a guttering candle, the presence in the cage immediately dimmed. “You see—in these controlled conditions, it isn’t self-sustaining.” She shrugged, shook her head. “And that, at least for now, is about as far as I can currently get.” She then walked slowly and carefully around the tripods and wires to the very far stage of the set. There was a small steel table there which Clark hadn’t previously noticed. On it were a serious of bottles and small glass objects. She raised one bottle up, tapped it, and proceeded to fill first one and then a second syringe. Once again, a soft whistle crept from her lips.

“I’ve seen it,” Clark said.

“Seen what?” She was still mostly absorbed in what she was doing.

“That presence—that bloody thing.”

“You
have
…” She turned slowly, laid down the syringe, and walked over to him. Her manner, as she leaned forward to study him, hands on knees and a few strands of hair fallen loose across her clear brow, was still somehow curious and compassionate rather than threatening. “I do believe you have.” She straightened. Considered. Then, in a characteristically neat gesture, she took out the tortoiseshell glasses which she herself must have placed in Clark’s top pocket and hooked them over his ears and down across his nose. “I suppose it does make a kind of sense.” Once more, head slightly cocked, she examined him. “After all, you have been pretending to be Dan. In which case…” She turned away to consider the stage-set, and raised her hand for a moment and twirled her fingers as if the thought which she was chasing might be grabbed from the passing air. “… perhaps we
could
try something before I’m finished with you. After all, faint heart never won fair maiden, did it?”

Clark wasn’t sure what exactly he’d won for them here as Penny Losovic disconnected and rearranged equipment until the blind white eye of one of the several iconoscopes was turned and staring back at him. Except perhaps an hour’s extra torment. He heard Barbara mutter,
This is fucking preposterous
, which, he thought with an odd, sad, twinge was as bad as he’d heard her swear. She had a sweet tongue on her, too. Was a nice piece of ass, as well. God alone knew why he hadn’t done the obvious thing last night when he had her leaned up beside her door… Then, as Penny Losovic began to remake connections and pull switches, even the kind of stupid, jagged thoughts and regrets which any man might allow himself in his last few minutes on earth were blown away.

The dreadful sense of the Bechmeir field was overwhelming, yet he was being sucked in and back through what seemed to be tiers of his own memories. All those stupid arguments and the endless electrical breakdowns which had ruined his acting career, and then that first session with bucktooth Hiram and his friends in the depths of MGM. But from there he was back on board that gambling boat, and down in the scuppers with Hilly Feinstein. And the cards, the symbols, were flickering, and he was The Star and Peg was The Falling Tower, and then he was sitting up with Peg beside that Goddamn sign again, yet the city which was spread below them was peeling as if it was composed of nothing but cheap canvas and paint.

Then, back in something which was vaguely closer to the real world, he was looking up at the same view, before which hung the feelie cage, and the thing within was flowing, enormous. If such creatures had ever existed, it really could have been an angel. And still all the many machines were spinning, and the wraith seemed to be drawing in all the dust and the light—all the humming noise—which filled this stage-set. He remembered the thing he had glimpsed on the pier back at Venice, and again at the overlook, and in the restroom at City Hall, and under the tree shadows of Pershing Square—and how it had somehow always composed itself out of whatever lay around it. It seemed to be doing the same here. But the sense of presence and purpose was far stronger. The cage swayed. Then one of the wires which was attached to it flew off in dark zigzags, spewing sparks. It hit a book flat at the far end of the stage as it landed, which crashed over. Then another wire flew loose, and this time the flying sparks caught on a trailing rope, which had grown as dry as tinder in this hot and empty soundstage and instantly caught light.

We’re all going to burn to death
, Clark thought. But Penny Losovic, who surely could have pulled the plugs and cut down that rope and stamped the flames out before they took hold, was still just standing there. And her mouth was still moving in a continuation of that same quiet conversation in which she had long been engaged, although by now as other wires thrashed and hissed the noise was so great that it was hard to hear what she was saying. But she seemed happy. She seemed unconcerned. Her words, if anything, were things like
marvelous
and
wonderful
and
achievement
…

Another bookflat crashed over and flakes of paint, whole strips of rotting canvas, joined with the smoke and dust which were pouring toward the cage. Ribbon-like strips of torn set were flapped across the bars before they were sucked in like litter down a stormdrain. In another moment, the entire backdrop of Los Angeles was in flame. The next thing to catch were the ropes which were holding the cage. The thing yawed, then collapsed in a tornado of light and dust and fragmenting set props.

The entity stretched its arms then hollered a feedback roar. It was formed by now mostly of smoke and flame, but Clark could see the smog of this city inside, and its teeming lights and shadows as well. Loops of celluloid and wire writhed out as the projectors and recorders unspun. Just as with everything else, the entity sucked them in. It was far bigger than anything human now. Its head seemed to reach as high as the soundstage roof. There was an enormous shudder, and chunks of lighting rig rained down around him. He was knocked sideways, and as he went sprawling he felt something break in the chair to which he was bound. He kicked and pulled until it fell apart, then stumbled up, pulling trailing scraps of rope and canvas from his wrists.

He looked around. Barbara was still tied to her chair, but rocking back and forth as the flames licked closer. He tried to step toward her, and immediately fell across the rope which still bound his ankles.

“Jesus, Clark! Can’t you just get me out of this…”

But he was. Or at least he was trying. Although his fingers were numb and he could scarcely breathe. Then the ropes gave and he was helping Barbara, fighting with her really, to get the fucking chair from off her arms and legs. Something huge—a crane perhaps—rushed by them in a gale of sparks. Although it was hard to imagine that the air could get any hotter, it was doing so by the moment. Retching and coughing, Barbara stumbled to her feet.

“This way!” he shouted, although he’d lost any sense of which way was out.

Barbara spat, shook her head, mouthed the word
Dan
.

They ploughed through a maze of thrashing wires and burning equipment. The air shimmered. Everything was dissolving into flame. But Daniel Lamotte was still seated on the stage-set, and still unconscious. With no time left to do much else, they hauled him across the floor, still attached to his director’s chair. But wait, wait… There was another figure behind them. Penny Losovic’s arms were outstretched, and somehow they could still hear her quiet exclamations as she walked, arms outstretched as if in welcome, toward a thing of living flame. Then, in a final cataclysmic shudder, some central strut of the building gave and they staggered away.

All the fake forests, plaster mountains and tinfoil lakes were ablaze as they dragged Dan off. They reached a wall and were beating their way along it—it was impossible to see through the smoke—when the whole soundstage fell up and away, and they were blasted out.

Later, Clark was to wonder about that moment; why, as the fire did what all fires did and sucked in more air, they should be flung away. But at the time, as he and Barbara picked themselves up on the concrete and looked back to see the galvanized flanks of Soundstage 1A tumbling into the sky, all he could think of was taking another breath and crawling further from the flames.

For all the heat at their backs, the night felt blessedly cool as he and Barbara loosened Daniel’s Lamotte’s arms and legs. The man gave a drooling groan. His eyes flickered. Momentary puzzlement crossed his face. Bells and sirens were already growing loud. The first firetruck swung into view as they dragged him toward a grassy bank. A fleet of white ambulances and black police cars followed as they laid him down.

“Hey!” Barbara shouted as uniformed figures emerged. “We got someone injured over here!”

“We can’t—”

“—what we
can’t
do, Clark, is leave him here.”

Clark and Barbara were already backing into the shadows as the ambulancemen turned their way. Soundstage 1A was beyond rescue—a roaring, groaning maelstrom—and the firemen were keeping well back from the flames. Ducking around to what had been the front of the building, Clark saw Penny Losovic’s black Mercury sedan. Barbara was ahead of him and had already run to swing open its door and slide into the driver’s seat before he could catch up.

“Can you drive?” he shouted.

“What the hell do you think I’m doing!”

Back through the rear window, the scene was amazing. Light from the soundstage pulsed against the sky. As Barbara swung the Mercury around a side alley toward the exit, Clark glimpsed the figure of a plump cop stood silhouetted against the flames. His cap was off, and he was staring their way.

“Where did you leave the Delahaye?”

They shot out into Overland Avenue past the first rush of arriving rubberneckers and journalists.

“East. Not that turn… The next…”

The car slewed. “There’s still time, Clark. If I can get Dale started with the printing, and you can reach the Biltmore, there’s no reason why you can’t—”

“—This isn’t some hold-the-front-page scoop, Barbara. This is—”

“Jesus, Clark! You’ve
got
to go to the Biltmore. You can’t, simply
can’t
just let this—”

“No, no. I’ll do whatever I can. And you should try to get that paper of yours out—who knows, there might even finally get to be some genuine truth in LA. What I mean, Barbara, is I can’t see how this can end for us in a good way.”

T
HE DELAHAYE’S GEARS
sounded like broken china, and this city had a steely, glossy look tonight—a mix of sea fog, smog and smoke from the fire at Soundstage 1A. It snagged in the palms and hazed the intersections and swirled around the streetlights, turning everyone and everything—the zigzag modern buildings, the women walking their diamond necklaced pooches, the shoeless bums trying to sell screenplays—into mist, plasm, dream.

The area around the Biltmore was almost as bright as the MGM lot had been. So many searchlights pillared the sky that it looked like one of those newsreels of London. All that was missing were the bombs and screaming planes. He parked at back of South Broadway and walked, weary and wary, toward the waiting bonfire of fame.

It was like the biggest kind of premier, with the three-tiered bleachers set up on either side of Olive and West 5th swept by sea-waves of excited commotion as each new limousine rolled in. All of Senserama’s stars were there, and so were most of this city’s other players. Harmensworth Fowley, with his trademark cravat and pipe. Mark Crave and Peyton Jones, still arm in arm despite the rumors about that dead Puerto Rican boy in their pool. Then came Monumenta Loolie, who made a far better performance out of squeezing herself out of the back of a Cadillac than any of her wooden efforts in the feelies. But tonight Herbert Kisberg was the biggest star. As he stepped from his limousine and pulled his cuffs and glanced around him with that
who me
? little boy smile he had, he seemed too real to be real, the way people did when they were on the verge of being great. No need for a Bechmeir field tonight—the crowd was already a rebounding collision of sweat and breath and need. Beneath the reek of underarms and cheap cigarettes and even cheaper perfume, you could smell the natural plasm of all those thought waves like churned seawrack on a beach.

Clark remembered how there was a knack to facing the glare. The flick of the hair, the flash of a smile, the eternal challenge of dealing with the same shouted question like it was something new. Anacondas of electricity powered a forest of lights, camera lenses and microphones. KFI were there, and KJH, as well as the Pathe and Movietone cameras, and NBC had gone one better and would be broadcasting the entirety of their flagship show
Star Talk
across the entire country tonight on a live feed.

Despite how he must look, Clark found that Daniel Lamotte’s name got him a tick on a clipboard and entry past the security goons. With his blackened clothes and face, they probably imagined that he was already in character for one of those nigger acts from which white performers made so much money. Not that he was allowed to walk up the red carpet itself, but, as the final rope was lifted and he was let into the Biltmore’s lobby through a plateglass sidedoor, he got an echo of what the old days had been like.