Sleepeasy

by Wright, T. M.

  He looked incredulously at her. "What the hell do you know about last night?" What could she know? he wondered.

  "More than enough, Harry," she answered.

  Sure, he thought, she was just talking, just picking up on what he'd said about having had a lousy night. It was no more than that. It couldn't be.

  "Are you threatening me, Amelia?"

  She grinned. "Yes, Harry. I am."

  "And what about Barbara?"

  "Forget her."

  "Just like that?"

  "You have no choice."

  "I think that I do."

  "No, you don't. Trust me."

  "I'd sooner trust a sea snake."

  Amelia grinned. "My point exactly." And she turned and left the room.

  Harry went to the open door and watched her moving across the brightly lit parking lot. She had made him very puzzled, frustrated and angry. But he enjoyed watching her move. "Hey, sister," he called, "you got quite a walk."

  She raised one arm, as she walked away from him, and flipped him the bird.

  Harry smiled. What a dame.

  Picnicking in the Corporeal World

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two picnickers in the corporeal world were swatting at bees and having a generally lousy time. They had chosen an attractive spot for their picnic and, as they were much in love, the day had looked promising. But then the bees arrived.

  The picnickers had laid their red blanket out on a narrow stretch of sand on the shore of Cooper's Lake, which was really nothing more than a large pond. Most of the perimeter was swampy, so the sand looked inviting, and the picnickers wanted to be alone.

  It was the red blanket that attracted the bees. And the clothes that the picnickers wore too—her multicolored flower print shirt on a stark white background and his blue T-shirt.

  They were both looking for a chance to abandon the place—though neither wanted to admit that their little private love place had turned into a dismal failure—when the man pointed toward the center of Cooper's Lake and said, "Who's that?" But then he saw nothing, and he dropped his arm and looked puzzled.

  "Who's what?" she asked.

  "Someone in a boat. A fat man in a boat."

  The day was clear and still. "I don't see anyone," she said.

  "Neither do I. But he was there. Now he isn't. He was wearing a black suit, for Christ's sake. A fat man in a black suit in a little boat. It was fucking odd."

  "Let's leave, okay?" she said. "It's spooky here." It was the chance she'd been looking for.

  "Sure," he said. "Let's leave."

  And they packed up their picnic goodies and hurried to their car.

  But they weren't quick enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was night and Harry was drifting into sleep when he heard: "Mr. Briggs? Are you awake?"

  Harry's eyes popped open. He stared numbly at the dark ceiling.

  The voice in the room said, "Do you know what my greatest fear is?"

  "Uh," Harry managed.

  "My greatest fear is that I'll have to make a living as a stand-up comedian." The man chuckled softly. The sound was very distant. "Which would be awful, because I don't know any good jokes, and if I did, I wouldn't know how to tell them."

  Harry turned his head toward the room's far corner and saw the man there. He was only a dark beige, elongated lump in the darkness. "What are you doing in my room?" Harry whispered.

  "Comedians," the man went on, "rely on timing, delivery, presence, and what do I know about such things? I know that I'd tell my joke, and then I'd laugh, which would be a cue to my audience that they should laugh too. But they wouldn't laugh, because I'm not a comedian. They'd just sit there, as quiet as the dead. Quieter, actually!

  "It would be awful. I'd be a stinking rank amateur and I wouldn't make any money at all. The audience would boo me off the stage. Shit, I'd have to become a plumber or an accountant, and I'd spend the rest of my life trying to forget the whole thing."

  Harry pushed himself up on his elbows. He thought that the man was less fearsome now. He seemed... lost somehow. Even pathetic. "You're not making any sense," Harry said.

  "I think that I've always harbored this fear," the man said. "I don't have any other fears that I'm aware of—I'm not afraid of snakes, or of falling. And I'm not afraid of deep water either. Or death.

  "It's just that I really can't remember any goddamn jokes. Good Lord, I must have heard thousands of them, millions of them, who knows?

  "I remember bits of jokes, sure. Punch lines. Names of characters. I remember that lots of the jokes I heard had to do with salesmen. Farmers too. And sheep. I even remember this:

  In the garden of Eden lay Adam,

  Complacently stroking his madam,

  And loud was his mirth,

  For on all of the earth,

  There were only two balls....

  I know there's more, but I can't remember. I can't finish it." He paused. "Can you finish it?"

  "No," Harry said. "I'm sorry. I can't."

  "Sure," the man said, clearly disappointed. "Of course you can't. No one knows jokes anymore. Jokes are . . . out of date. They're passé. Like me. Like anyone."

  "'And he had 'em,' " Harry said.

  "Huh?"

  "That's the way the limerick ends. 'There were only two balls, and he had 'em.' I remember now."

  The man laughed. "Then in that case, it's funny, isn't it? 'There were only two balls, and he had 'em.' "

  The man fell silent.

  "Are you there?" Harry said.

  The man said, "Slowly, Mr. Briggs, we all become shadows."

  And he was gone.

  "Barbara, If you die before I do, I want you to haunt me."

  "No. Sorry. Can't do it. I won't have the time."

  "But if I went first, I'd haunt you."

  "Thanks for the warning."

  "You wouldn't want me to haunt you?"

  "It depends on a couple of factors, I think. Most importantly, I'd have to know what you're going to look like, and smell like. Dead people tend not to be very attractive. Being dead has become socially unacceptable."

  "So you're not going to haunt me if you die before I do?"

  "First of all, my love, I do not intend to die before you. I intend to become a very old and very exquisite pain in the ass, and I intend to exit this life only after great protest. And secondly, when I do die, it's not you I'm going to haunt. Hell, when I'm dead, I plan on enjoying myself."

  Mr. Sloat and the Rat Puppy

  Chapter Eighteen

  Amelia, livid with anger, stormed into the room. Harry was holding a towel around himself: he'd been taking a shower when she pounded on the door. She gathered up his gray suit, his trench coat, his shoulder holster and underwear, which he'd piled on a chair near his bed, brought them back to him at the door and said, "Take them! Get out!"

  "I'm naked," he told her.

  "No, you're not. You've got a towel."

  "But if I take my clothes from you, it'll fall to the floor, and then I'll be naked."

  She pursed her lips. Even then he thought she was beautiful. "Goddammit, Harry, you were annoying in life and you're annoying even now."

  "In life?"

  She sighed. "Just take the damned clothes. I'll turn my head if you're modest. It's not as if I haven't seen it all before."

  "You have?"

  She turned her head.

  He took his clothes from her. The towel fell.

  She looked. She smiled. "No wonder you carry a snub-nosed .38!"

  He scrambled to hide himself with the trench coat. "For Christ's sake, Amelia…"

  "It was small then, and it's small now. I guess you really don't know where you are, and what you can do."

  He wrapped himself in the trench coat. "It's not so small, sister. I've seen smaller."

  She pursed her lips again. "Harry, sit down." She nodded at the bed. "We have to talk again."

  He liked sitting beside her on the bed. She
smelled of baby oil. As always, she was wearing her white shirt and shorts, and her good, even tan was wonderful to look at. Barbara had never been able to tan easily. She burned.

  Amelia leaned forward, so her elbows were on her knees, looked sideways at him and asked, "If God wasn't God, who would he be?"

  "I don't understand."

  She sighed. "If God wasn't God, if God was someone else, someone imperfect, .who would he be?"

  Harry shrugged. He wasn't sure that he was up to a philosophical discussion. "I don't know," he said.

  "I think he'd be Mr. Sloat," Amelia said.

  "God would be Mr. Sloat?"

  "It's an awful name, isn't it? It's so harsh. You don't say it, you spit it."

  "Yes, I understand."

  "And, whereas God—not Mr. Sloat—creates puppies and kittens and teddy bears, he also creates badgers and maggots and rats. He creates the cuddly and the cute. And he creates the vicious, the disgusting and the awful too. Mr. Sloat, on the other hand, would get it all mixed up. Mr. Sloat would create an obscene hybrid."

  "He would?"

  "Of course. Because Mr. Sloat isn't God. He's imperfect. So he'd create… a rat puppy."

  "Come again?"

  "You are Mr. Sloat, Harry. So am I, actually. Because we create, but we're imperfect too. At least, though, I have some conscious idea of what I'm creating. You don't. It's your subconscious at work here, and who knows what repulsive stuff goes on in a person's subconscious. We got a whiff of it with your Mr. Greenstreet, your rat puppy...."

  "Sydney Greenstreet? He's dead."

  "And now there's this other person."

  "What other person?"

  "Red hair, tweed suit. He's running around asking questions, but who knows what his agenda is."

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Barbara."

  She smiled.

  He said, "Did I just call you Barbara?"

  She nodded. "Yes, you did, Harry. Perhaps you're not as blind as I thought."

  "I'm not blind at all. I can see that you're not Barbara."

  She changed. Her tan lightened. Her auburn hair became blond. Her face became Barbara's face. "And now," she said, "you can see that I am."

  Harry's mouth fell open.

  "Close your mouth, Harry."

  He closed his mouth.

  "You're dead," Harry whispered.

  She nodded. "And you are too."

  "I am not."

  "You are too."

  "How?"

  "You drowned. You were trying to be a hero"

  "When?"

  "A million years ago. Yesterday. It doesn't matter. Time doesn't matter anymore. It's great, Harry. At least it was."

  "Where?"

  "In the pool. Our pool. Remember our pool? Big, heated pool. Nice design, but with one fatal flaw, I'm afraid. The diving board was too high above the water for winter swimming."

  "It was?"

  She nodded. "Uh-huh. Ice. You get out of the water, you climb up to the diving board, water drips, ice forms. You leap, you slip on the ice, you hit your head, you drown. Which is what happened to me."

  "I don't believe it."

  "Yes, you do."

  He stared at her a moment, then nodded glumly. "Yes, I do," he said. "I remember."It was the truth.

  "This is incredible, Barbara." Short pause. "Do you want me to call you Amelia?"

  "When I look like Amelia, I'm Amelia. When I look like Barbara, I'm Barbara."

  "Is it going to be a little game?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Thanks for warning me."

  "This whole thing is a game, Harry. Silver Lake. The people who live here. They're my rat puppies. My people. Remember what we were talking about, that last night, a million years ago?"

  "About what comes afterward? Yes."

  "Well, forgive me, Harry, but I was right. The universe is made of clay. At least this particular universe is. Mold it, shape it, make it into anything you want. I wanted a nice little community filled with quirky but pleasant people, and that's what I got. And then you showed up, with your own fantasies and your own agenda, and wrecked the whole thing."

  "And Sydney Greenstreet is mine?"

  "He's not mine."

  "And this other guy too?"

  "I think so. I don't see how it can be otherwise. Unless he slipped in here with you. I suppose that's regrettably possible."

  Harry remembered. In his mind's eye, he saw a man with a craggy face and tousled red hair, watching from a field of new snow. "I'm afraid that it's more than possible. I'm afraid that it's true. He was watching us that night. He's the one I hollered at, remember?"

  She did remember. Hey you! What in the hell do you think you're doing? She nodded.

  Harry said, "And that guy has followed me here. I don't know why. Maybe he feels responsible for me. For us."

  "Maybe."

  "Because he distracted me. And you. You slipped, you fell, you hit your head—" It was a question.

  She nodded. "That's what happened."

  He nodded. "And I, not knowing you were in trouble, went after him, lost him, came back to the pool and there you were. Floating. On your stomach."

  "I know," she whispered.

  "And you were very appealing. I thought you were just . . . floating. I didn't know anything was wrong.

  "Not at that point. But then you floated too long. And that's when I jumped in."

  "And sank like a stone."

  He nodded. "And sank like a stone."

  "Harry, we have a real problem, I think. It's not just—"

  "Wait a minute," he cut in. "That thing I saw floating in the lake: was that me?"

  "I think so. It's not important."

  "You mean, that was my ... subconscious creating a message for me." He was impressed.

  "I think so," Amelia answered, "but, Harry, there are more important matters to discuss—"

  He was on a roll. "And that body in Mrs. Conte's house? Or was it Mrs. Alexander's house—"

  "That body was my doing," Amelia confessed. "It was my creation. I was having a bit of fun."

  "Oh."

  "Well, sure. Here you are, Mr. Macho Private Investigator. I thought I'd give you something to investigate."

  "That was nice of you. Thanks."

  "But it doesn't matter anymore, Harry—"

  "And the spider?"

  "What spider?"

  "There was a spider in my car. It bit me. It made my arm swell."

  "What did it look like?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know. Very large. Jet-black. Long, thick legs. Red eyes."

  "Death," Amelia told him.

  "I don't understand."

  "Come on, get with the program, Harry. It was your subconscious again. The spider represented death—black cape, red eyes. It's amazing what the subconscious can conjure up, especially when we don't know, consciously, what's going on around us. I shudder to think what you might have produced if I'd left you in the dark."

  He grinned at her. "This is really fascinating stuff, Barbara—"

  "Amelia."

  "Amelia, yes. Sorry. I mean, think about it, think about this place we're in. Good Lord, it's a philosopher's paradise—"

  "Please, let me speak."

  He fell silent.

  "Harry, your Mr. Greenstreet, your villain, your particular rat puppy, has gone over to the other side."

  "The other side?"

  "Yes, Harry." She sighed. "That's the place we came from originally. Remember? The land of the living?"

  "Oh. That is serious, isn't it?"

  "Fucking serious."

  "What do you think he's going to do over there?"

  "What you created him to do, of course. Kill people."

  "I didn't create him to kill people."

  She sighed again. "Oh, Harry, don't be so dense. Of course you didn't create him to kill people. Your subconscious did. Your subconscious doesn't give a shit what it creates. It does what it needs to do."

&nbs
p; "That's awful."

  "No. Just human. But it's worse than you think, Harry. I'm not sure, but I believe that since he's your creation, your rat puppy, the people he kills are gravitating to this little community. And tragic though it may be that they've had their lives cut short, it's even more tragic that they're coming here. There's not enough room, for Christ's sake!" She shook her head in frustration. "Two of his victims have already shown up. They're very confused, Harry. Like you, they think they're still alive, poor things. They're carrying a picnic basket around, they're looking for a sandy beach." Her brow furrowed. "Which reminds me, I'd better go let them in on the bad news, otherwise they're going to start filling Silver Lake up with their subconscious junk." She looked earnestly at him. "Christ, Harry, you've got to do something about this!"

  "Do something? Like what?"

  "Like go and find this Mr. Greenstreet, of course."

  "Find him? On the other side? How do I get there?"

  "How the hell do I know? If he got there, so can you. And take the man in the tweed suit with you."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sam Goodlow thought that being eaten by rats wasn't so bad. It would be bad if it hurt, if he could feel it, if the rats' little pointed teeth sank into living skin and muscle. Then it would be bad, certainly. But, under some circumstances, it wasn't bad. It was good. It was natural. It was the way of the world. Things living sprang from things dead.

  But he was so tired. Had he ever been so tired before in his life? he wondered.

  Life . . . What was it? Barking dogs, meddlesome neighbors, fences, fragrances, music?

  Eaten by rats? Eating rats? Pigs, cows, horses, cats? Cats? Whiskers and fleas. Never say please.

  There was a young cat from Surrey

  Whose knees were nothing but furry. . . .

  Cats and nine lives and so many wives . . . Was there too little time in life for rhyme?

  "Mr. Goodlow, you were saying…?" June Alexander coaxed.