Another Kingdom

by Andrew Klavan

  Schuyler pushed out of the kitchen just as I was sitting down with them.

  “What the hell happened to you?” she said, scowling.

  Both Wexler and Wren Yen glanced at me with minimal interest, then looked away.

  Holding a tray in one hand, Schuyler stood next to me, her enormous figure hanging over me like a tight deadline. With her free hand, she gripped my cheeks painfully and turned my face to her.

  “Uhwuh?” I said, the word squeezed into incomprehensibility by her painful grip.

  “Your forehead. The bruise is gone. It’s not even discolored.”

  Oh, right. In spite of everything that had happened, only a few hours had passed since I’d last seen her.

  “Some nude nymphs bathed me in the healing water of a magic grove, then stroked me to the greatest orgasm of my life, renewing me body and soul,” I didn’t tell her. I said instead, “I ess it wuh …”

  “What?” Schuyler barked.

  I pulled her fingers out of my cheeks. “I guess it wasn’t as bad as it looked,” I said.

  Schuyler continued to stare down at me with harsh, unforgiving skepticism, but it made no difference. Even if I told her the truth, she wouldn’t believe it. A second later, she lifted her eyes. I saw her angry cherub face go soft beneath her spiky red hair, and I knew Jane Janeway had come in.

  It was an intricate moment. I turned and saw Jane by the door in all her slumped, mousey, secret loveliness. There was no mistaking the pleasure in her eyes at the sight of me, even though she shyly turned away so I wouldn’t see it. There was no mistaking Schuyler’s gloomy brooding as she hurried off to deliver someone’s breakfast. Wexler smirked. Wren Yen watched through her tea steam. The whole thing was fraught with social complexity.

  Myself? It was strange. As soon as I saw Jane, I knew something had changed in me since yesterday. I had changed, and my feelings toward Jane had changed as well. I couldn’t figure it out just then. Not with all the threats hanging over me from every side. Not with my mind churning and burbling with anxiety. But before, the sight of Jane had always filled me with guilt and uncertainty. I knew she liked me. And I—well, everyone—liked her. She was so incredibly sweet, so nurturing, so kind—the sort of girl you wanted to build a life with.

  But was I willing to build a life with her? With anyone? Was I willing to risk hurting her if I wasn’t ready? And not to sound like some shallow Hollywood cliché but … well, but what about my career? Schuyler was right about Jane. She was the sort of woman who would give all of herself to her family, her husband and children. Was I ready to support a woman like that? A family like that? I had always fancied myself a high-minded artist in the making. Would I give up that dream to make the money we’d need?

  Those were the questions that had paralyzed me before—just yesterday. But now …? I was different. The misty nymphs of Shadow Wood had brought out some natural manly something in me I’d never quite felt before. And my bizarre, preternatural memories of Lady Betheray—and my memories of the man who was me when I was with Lady Betheray in the past, if you get my drift—had planted a new idea of myself in my brain, or maybe an old idea, or maybe just a different idea than the one I’d been operating on until now.

  Anyway, the upshot was, when I saw Jane this time, I felt something—a quick, deep, bright premonition that she was going to be mine, and not mine in a polite, modern, equitable, easygoing partnership sort of way either, but totally mine, in my possession and in my care, body and soul, forever.

  Well, the feeling came and went, just a flash of insight here and gone, a split-second shock of raw, organic understanding. It was crowded out immediately by a fresh rush of worry about what I was going to do next. Still, a sort of undercurrent clarity lingered as I watched sweet Jane, in her oversized sweater and ugly tennis shoes, shuffle across Hitchcock’s to our table.

  She stopped when she reached me. Her gentle blue-green eyes went wide. Her cheeks pinkened.

  “Austin, your head,” she said.

  “I know. It healed fast, didn’t it?”

  “Well … yeah! I mean, it’s crazy how fast.”

  I pulled out the chair beside me. “Sit down with me, Jane. I need to talk to you.”

  Holding her teacup to her lips, Wren Yen’s eyes shifted toward us inscrutably, brightened inscrutably, and shifted inscrutably away.

  Jane sat down next to me, all earnest and caring and Jane-like. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she said. “You look worried.”

  It wasn’t a romantic “sweetheart.” It was just Jane being darling Jane. She probably didn’t realize yet that one day soon I was going to lay claim to her flesh and spirit and fill her belly with children and redefine her life by the force of my passion. Actually, I wasn’t sure I knew that either, but I sort of did know it too. Like I said, the scenery in my brain was moving too fast for me to get a good view of it.

  “Aw, what’s da mattuh, sweetie-tum-tums?” Wexler mimicked her, making a kissing noise in his best asshole-in-training manner.

  “Shut up, Wex,” said Schuyler. She had returned to the table in order to assure Jane that her morning yogurt would fly to her with wings as swift as meditation and the thoughts of love. She loomed immensely, glaring mournful death, first at Wexler, then at me. Then she returned to the kitchen.

  Jane went on gazing into my face expectantly in that sisterly-motherly-loverly Jane way of hers, waiting for me to tell her my troubles so she could kiss them and make them better. Not for the first time, I reflected what a waste of womanhood it was for her to spend such sweetness taking care of a movie star who didn’t give a crap about her.

  “I’ve got a problem,” I said.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s this script I’m working on. I’ve written myself into a total corner, and I need to talk it out with someone.” I dreamed up this story on the spot. I knew it would sound natural. Jane was sometimes dragooned into reading script submissions for her movie star boss. I had used her as a sounding board for ideas myself once or twice. She was at least as good a story analyst as I was. “It’s been keeping me up at night.”

  “I can see. You look so tired.”

  “Snookums,” muttered Wexler.

  Schuyler came out of the kitchen again and set Jane’s yogurt in front of her. Jane barely interrupted our intense eye contact to smile her thanks. Which made Schuyler glower at me before she charged back through the kitchen door.

  “Okay,” I said, “it’s about this ordinary guy who finds himself in a totally locked room with a murdered woman, and he’s got amnesia so he doesn’t know how he got there.”

  “Oh, that’s original,” drawled Wexler, rolling his eyes.

  “It is the way I do it,” I snapped at him.

  “Stop now, Wex,” Jane told him quietly.

  Wexler rolled his eyes again, but he shut up and returned his attention to his phone. Because Jane was Jane.

  “So now he’s on the run, and the police are after him for the murder,” I went on. “And all he knows is he’s got to find this book that will explain how he got into this situation. But the woman who has the book has totally vanished, and he doesn’t even know where to begin to look for her.”

  “Is the woman with the book hiding from him?”

  “No. No, she actually wants him to have the book, but she’s afraid if she gives it to him her enemies will get hold of it.”

  Jane gave a slow nod, raising her eyes thoughtfully to the ceiling. I used the moment to steal a glance out through the glass of the restaurant storefront to make sure Sera hadn’t left his car to come and get me. There was no sign of the kitten-faced assassin out there—but as I was turning back to Jane, my eyes passed over the television set behind the bar.

  My lips parted. My breath caught. I felt the blood drain from my face.

  The local news was on—and they were covering the murder of Sean Gunther. There was a picture of the house in the Hollywood Hills where I’d been last night. There was video of Gunther�
��s body being carried out on a stretcher. A caption under the picture read: “Death of an Author.”

  It wasn’t that I’d forgotten Gunther’s murder. Not exactly. It’s just that so many other dangers had been weighing on me it had kind of fallen to the bottom of the pile. I hadn’t reported the murder, of course, because Orosgo had hinted he’d have me killed if I did. But now, for the first time, it occurred to me to think about how that would look. I’d witnessed a man being killed and I hadn’t said anything. If the police found out I’d been there …

  “Okay. How about this?” said Jane.

  “What?” I said, startled. I turned from the TV to stare at her, my head swimming.

  “If the woman actually wants your hero to find this thing, but she’s in hiding because she’s afraid of her enemies, would it be plausible for her to find a way to slip the hero a clue?”

  “A clue …” I murmured gormlessly.

  “Yeah, you know, something subtle enough to lead him to her but without the bad guys catching on.”

  “I … like … what?”

  Jane smiled. She couldn’t hide how beautiful she was when she smiled. “Well, come on, sweetheart! You’re the writer. That’s your superpower! Come up with something.”

  I went on staring at her. The thought of Gunther’s murder was still pinballing around in my head, and for a second, I couldn’t even take in what she was saying. But then I did take it in and …

  Well, it was nuts, I know, but yes, it was plausible when you thought about it. What Jane was suggesting—it made total sense. If Ellen Evermore had sent me Another Kingdom but had withdrawn it when she realized I worked for Orosgo, mightn’t she have left a trail to help me find it again?

  A new thought came to me at once: the picture! The photograph of Ellen in Gunther’s phone. Had she meant for me to see it? Did it contain a clue?

  “You know what?” I said softly. “You’re right. That’s good, Jane. That’s actually possible. That might work.”

  Jane’s face went bright. She was so pleased to have helped me. Even her shlumpy getup and her limp hair couldn’t hide how lovely she was just then.

  Was it possible? I wondered. Could Ellen Evermore really have left that picture with Gunther in order to lead me to her—to her and Another Kingdom? I remembered the shot. She was in a museum. She was standing in front of a painting on the wall behind her.

  I took out my phone. I called up my search engine. I tapped in a description of the painting as I remembered it: a man in a skin of some kind standing between two women.

  Yay, internet. It came up almost at once. The Choice of Hercules. There were several paintings of the subject, but the one I wanted was right here, in LA, at the Getty Museum. I looked at the picture. I didn’t see anything particularly unusual about it. But maybe there was some message in the museum itself …

  “Hey, look. It’s you,” Wexler said.

  “What?” said Jane and I in unison.

  Wex held his phone out toward us. I felt something stick in my throat as I looked at the picture on the screen. It was a grainy photo—like a photo taken from a security camera. It showed two figures standing at the gate of Sean Gunther’s house. It was me and the call girl, the girl who had seized on my arrival to make her escape.

  Wexler drew the phone back and read the photo’s caption aloud: “‘Police are looking to question two people who were outside the author’s residence on the night of the murder.’ So like—you killed a guy now?”

  “I didn’t kill a guy,” I said, trying to make it sound as if the idea were ridiculous.

  “That did sort of look like you,” said Jane.

  “It is you,” said Wexler.

  “It’s not me,” I lied.

  Wex showed the picture to Wren Yen. She shrugged her graceful shoulders inscrutably.

  So many thoughts were racing through my mind at once, I could barely make sense of any of them. Would the police be able to identify that picture? Had I left fingerprints? Were my fingerprints on record? I had called Candy Filikin at Mythos to get Gunther’s address. Would she hear about the murder, see the picture, and call the police? Maybe I needed to go to the police myself no matter what Orosgo was threatening. But how could I?

  No. I knew what I had to do. I had to get to the Getty Museum. I had to see if Ellen Evermore had left a trail for me there to lead me to the book. I didn’t know—I couldn’t imagine—what good Another Kingdom would do me. I only knew it was the one thing that linked all my troubles together: Galiana, Gunther, Orosgo. Everything. If there was a cure for the madness that was happening to me, it was in that book.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “Sure,” said Wexler. “Run away, but you won’t get far.”

  “Just shut up, Wexler.”

  “You can’t outrun John Law,” he said.

  “I’m not trying to outrun anyone. I just …”

  Schuyler came out of the kitchen with another tray.

  “Hey, Schuyler,” Wex said. “Look at this. Austin is wanted for murder.”

  “I’m not wanted for murder!”

  “What?” said Schuyler—and I couldn’t help but notice the note of hopefulness in her voice. She took Wexler’s phone with her free hand and examined the photo there.

  “It isn’t me!” I said. I turned to Jane again. “It’s just … you’ve given me a great idea. I have to go work on the script, that’s all. That’s all it is.” I reached out and touched her hand in gratitude. “You really helped me.”

  She squeezed my hand back and I saw the pleasure of the touch in her wonderful eyes. “I’m glad.”

  “She’ll wait for you—won’t you, Jane?” Wexler said. “Hell, he’ll probably only do twenty-five years to life.”

  “Wex,” said Jane, blushing with irritation.

  “That is you,” said Schuyler. “Look, he’s wanted for murder,” she told Jane.

  “It’s not me,” I said. “I’m not wanted.”

  “Then why are you running away?” said Wexler.

  “I’m not running away!” I got up from my chair to get the hell out of there.

  “Would you guys stop it already,” Jane scolded the others.

  “He’s trouble, kid. He’ll only break your heart,” Wexler told her.

  “No, I’m serious, this is really him,” said Schuyler. “Look. Isn’t this him?”

  “It’s not me. I gotta go. I’ll see you soon,” I said to Jane.

  I rushed across the restaurant, leaving my friends squabbling behind me. I reached the glass door. I was so confused and in such a rush to get out of there, I didn’t even think that I could be charging right out of Los Angeles and back to Netherdale, back to the sword fight with Aravist, back to the final seconds of my life.

  BUT NO. I WENT OUT THROUGH THE DOOR AND WAS still here, in real life, or in Los Angeles anyway, racing through the fine, warmish autumn day toward the restaurant parking lot. What’s more, I came around the corner and saw that the black Mustang was gone. Sera was gone. I had no clue what that meant, but I was glad to be rid of him if only for the moment. I hurried to my Nissan and pulled the door open. This time, I did brace myself for the transition, trying to remember some of the sword-fighting moves I’d gleaned from the videos.

  Again though, there was no transition. I was in the car.

  I peeled out and headed for the Getty.

  I raced along the cliffs of Mulholland with the valley spread out far below me, hazy and serene in the morning sun. I wanted to use the drive time to calm my mind and think. I couldn’t. I wanted to try to figure out some strategy to evade Sera … and the police … and Sir Aravist … but nothing came to me.

  By the time my car was sputtering up the rising road to the museum complex, I had lost hope, even in what I was doing right now. What real chance was there that Ellen Evermore had left a trail for me? I had seized on Jane’s idea out of desperation back in Hitchcock’s, but now that I was here, it seemed too outlandish to believe.

  I pa
rked in the museum garage and jogged out to catch the monorail up to the top of the hill. The little white tram car was uncrowded in the midweek morning. I sat and stared through the window across from me. A recorded announcer droned something over the address system. As the freeway sank beneath me and green, hilly wilderness rose on the horizon, I drifted into a hazy fugue state, barely thinking anymore at all.

  The tram wound its way up to the museum. The trees of the surrounding park crowded in close. I was still gazing distantly into the leaves when for a second—really just a split second—I thought I saw Sera again. I thought I saw the kitten-faced killer standing amidst the purple blossoms of a willowy jacaranda tree. I blinked out of my fugue state, my blood racing. But he was gone. The blossoms drifted over empty space in an autumn breeze.

  Had he followed me here? Tracked me? Had he withdrawn from Hitchcock’s parking lot so I would reveal where I was headed?

  But there was no sign of him. I must have imagined it.

  Still, when the tram reached the top and I stepped out onto the platform, I was wide awake and all vigilance. I headed into the museum complex wide-eyed. Were there dreamy gardens and plashing fountains all around me? Majestic white towers of cleft-cut travertine linked together by bridges of sunlit glass? Were there stately views of the far-off city that made it seem the capital of an antique paradise rather than the rootless mall-and-freeway maze it seemed up close? It didn’t matter. I saw none of it. My eyes were studying faces, face after face, searching for my assassin.

  He was nowhere, nowhere I could see. I kept telling myself I was spooked, fantasizing. He wouldn’t kill me here—not with the tourists all around. He wanted a private place where he could do his dirty work slowly, a place where no one would hear me scream.