“Imagine how surprised we would have been,” said William, “if we’d come across that article yesterday. It must be baffling the devil out of a number of people.”
Latzarel snorted in the middle of a swallow of coffee. He gasped violently, choking and sputtering. “It’s a commonplace to us,” he managed to say after his fit had passed. William nodded seriously, missing the irony in his friend’s statement.
“Here’s another,” said Edward, turning the page of the remarkable newspaper. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. ‘Professor John Pinion announced today the completion of his mechanical digging machine, a vehicle constructed for the purpose of exploring the interior of the Earth. The device, which is reported to be the product of several major discoveries in the area of physics and mathematics, will be launched in late March.’ “
“It’s finished then,” said William, frowning. “That’s news indeed.”
“I don’t see why it should be,” said Latzarel. “You don’t for a moment think that Pinion has made any sort of breakthroughs in physics and mathematics? This is all mummery.”
“No,” said Edward. “John Pinion hasn’t done anything at all, beyond financing the building of Giles’ machine. The problem here, if I understand William’s concern, is that if the machine is indeed done, then Giles Peach can be disposed of, at least kept under wraps. His immediate usefulness is past. They could put him on a bus to Arizona and he’d be as safe from us as if he were on the moon. We’d never find him.”
Latzarel was silent. William drummed his fingers on the aim of his chair. Edward squinted at his shoe. When you added it all up, they hadn’t played much of a hand; they’d only expended a great deal of energy, sailing across the channel to Catalina, running up and down sewers. Edward couldn’t help dwelling on the last pages of the journal, on the threatened cataclysm. It was small recompense to know that when the world burst open—probably on April Fool’s Day—and William’s wooly mammoths and Neanderthal men spewed out like popping coin, only the four of them would know why. They alone would have the answer to the last great scientific mystery, but it would avail them nothing.
Jim stood up and waved the journal at the front window, a look of grieved horror on his face. William, assuming at first that Yamoto had returned, was out of his chair and striding toward the door before he realized mat he was wrong—that two police cars were parked at the curb, and a pair of uniformed officers were putting on helmets and unhooking the straps on revolvers and nightsticks.
William fled toward the rear of the house. Jim dashed into his father’s room, stripped the blankets and sheets from the bed, and crammed the lot of it along with his father’s pajamas into the hamper in the bathroom. Professor Latzarel ran into the kitchen and jammed William’s plate, knife, fork, and coffee cup into the trashbag beneath the sink. Edward opened the door wearing a look of mock surprise, and met the two dripping policemen on the porch.
“We have a warrant for the arrest of William Hastings,” said one, pulling a paper from beneath his yellow raincoat.
Edward lurched inwardly even though he had known the blow was coming. He shook his head sadly. “I’ve heard about the altercation,” he said, giving them a chagrined look. “Dr. Frosticos informed me of it yesterday morning. There was a report that he was hiding in the sewers. Have you looked there?”
Neither of the two answered. One, however, stepped past Edward and peered into the living room. Professor Latzarel waved out at him. “We’re authorized to search your house,” said the other officer, a burly man with a nose like a golf ball. “This is the house belonging to the alleged suspect?”
“To Mr. Hastings?” Edward asked. “Yes, it is. I’m his brother-in-law.” He showed the two in. “Cup of coffee?”
“No,” said the one with the nose.
“What is it, exactly, that you were looking for?”
“Didn’t we just say?” said the other, scowling at Edward. “William Hastings.”
“Oh!” Edward said, feigning surprise. “Here?”
Both of them gave him a long tired look, as if to suggest that he’d best think twice about cracking wise.
Edward decided to brass it out. “I had no idea he’d headed this way. None at all.”
“Right,” said the burly one.
“In fact,” said Edward, following the two into the hallway, “I suggested to Dr. Frosticos that Mr. Hastings had fled north—to Humboldt County. He’s done it before. He’s not entirely well, if you catch my meaning, and he has the peculiar notion that northern California is a sort of magical place.”
“Do you have any knowledge of his actual whereabouts?”
“Actual knowledge of his actual whereabouts? No. Not actual knowledge. Just a hunch. He used to take a cabin every spring off Trinity Head. Last time he escaped they found him holed up there.”
“Take this down,” said the burly one to his partner, who hauled a little notebook out of his pocket and scribbled into it.
Professor Latzarel wandered in from the living room. “Can I be of any help?” he said.
“No.”
“I know a good bit about human psychology,” Latzarel said, as if that revelation would change things entirely.
“Me too,” said the one with the bulbous nose. “Piss-cology is what I call it.” He pushed open the door to Edward’s room, freezing at the sight of the mobile of stuffed bats that hung in the center of the room and at the mummified head and shoulders of a human being that sat in a glass case on the dresser. The floor around the bed was a whirlwind of books and papers.
Golf ball nose squinted at Edward, unsure, perhaps, whether he hadn’t ought simply to shoot him at once. “Take this down,” he said to his younger companion, waving generally at the room. Then under his breath he muttered, “Some people live like pigs,” and pushed down the hall past Edward and Latzarel who followed along, both of them wondering exactly how the bats and mummy contributed to Edward’s living like a Pig.
The rest of the house yielded nothing revealing. They tramped in a procession out the back door and into the maze shed, where the axolotl and the baithouse octopus drew more utterances of contempt. Finally, after glancing into the aquarium shed, they shined flashlights under the house, having heard, perhaps, that William had been known to hide there. They left without a word.
Five minutes passed before Edward dared give William the all clear. It was entirely possible that the two would simply circle the block and return, hoping to catch them out. But there was no further sign of them. The street was empty and the rain began to pour. Edward and Professor Latzarel hurried out into the back yard and around the maze shed, tapping three times on the side of a fifty gallon plastic trashcan. The lid tumbled off, followed by a cardboard carton of grass clippings that fit neatly into the can. William came smiling out from beneath it, his hair fall of cut grass.
Chapter 17
The weeks passed. William would have supposed they’d fly by, since time was so short and their efforts to locate Giles so entirely futile. But they didn’t. They crept along like bugs, peering at them day to day, crawling toward the end of March and—William was increasingly certain—an end to all things, to human dreams and illusions.
With the approach of the first day of spring—dismal, upended days that never really dawned but simply murked into a sort of gray drizzle that continued into the evening—came an ice cream truck. Whether it was Pinion’s truck, Edward couldn’t say. Neither he nor Jim had paid enough attention to it to identify it for certain. And anyway, Pinion wasn’t driving it. An Oriental man, not Yamoto, hunched behind the wheel, playing tinny jingles through a speaker perched on the top of the truck. He appeared from the mist, driving slowly but apparently pointlessly along the street. For when Edward, in a sudden fit of suspicion, hailed him through the drizzle waving a dollar bill, the truck rumbled away down the block unheeding. The same thing happened the following afternoon.
The two policemen returned twice, asking about the alleged suspec
t, but William was too quick for them, going to ground in his trashcan until the baying of the hounds faded. On their second visit they performed a cursory sort of search—a tired search, as if under orders. On the third visit they stood on the porch and threatened Edward with a jail term for harboring a criminal. Edward played the fool.
Mrs. Pembly, blessedly, was off visiting a sister for the first week, and so was unaware of William’s return. And later, when she spied him one afternoon through the window, it was possible that she had no way of knowing that he was a wanted man, that he hadn’t been released from the asylum. Edward made it a point to be obsequiously nice to her, giving her a bagful of avocados once and assuring her in heartfelt tones that William, finally, had come to his senses. Edward himself would guarantee his good behavior. Twice he had to talk William out of going for her when the mysterious and inexplicable globs of dog waste appeared under the elm. It was almost more than William could bear.
Professor Latzarel haunted the bluffs at Palos Verdes, standing on the cliffs like Moses, hoping that the seas would swirl and part to reveal a long straight corridor into the Earth, or that Giles Peach would rise out of the depths like an undernourished Neptune and give him a sign. But there was nothing but seagulls and wind and the sound of breaking waves until the end of the second week of William’s freedom.
Then a postcard arrived—from Giles. It had been mailed in Windermere a week earlier. He’d sent it to his mother who brought it along at once to Edward. Giles had gone off to find his father, and to “think things through.”
“Think things through?” said Professor Latzarel. “Why the devil would anyone go to England just to think things through? It’s a miserable place in March. Nothing but cold and rain. And why couldn’t he have stayed here and thought?”
“He wanted to confront his father, I suppose,” said Edward.
Latzarel shook his head as if he found the whole thing hard to believe. “I hope so. Because once Basil finds out that Frosticos has gotten hi? hands on Giles, he’ll take steps. How much do you think he knows about Reginald’s fate?”
Edward shrugged.
“I rather think,” said William, lighting his pipe, “that there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
“Isn’t there always?” asked Latzarel.
“I mean to say that Giles didn’t come to this decision alone. He was sent to Windermere. Frosticos and Pinion were through with Giles, and they feared that we’d get hold of him. They’re more worried about us than we give them credit for. They’ve shipped him off.”
“But they need him,” Edward complained. “To run the machine. They wouldn’t dare take the chance of letting him roam so far. Not now.”
William shook his head, playing devil’s advocate. “How do you know they need him? That’s speculation. The digger is finished—all signs point that way. Perhaps whatever magic Giles put into it is there to stay.”
Latzarel wasn’t convinced. “I don’t think so. His devices are built of nasal irrigators and bundles of twine. They can’t work. It must be Giles himself that motivates them.”
“Take your blinders off, Russel!” William admonished, poking his pipe in Latzarel’s direction. “Assume nothing about the physical universe or you’ve boxed yourself in. I don’t know a thing about these nasal irrigators you keep referring to, but I’m very willing to believe in the magic of a bundle of twine. Have you really ever studied twine, after all?”
“No,” admitted Latzarel, “but …”
“No buts,” said William conclusively. “The bird has flown. And if we sit around here smug, assuming he’ll return for the launching on the twenty-first, our goose is cooked. Who says they’ll launch on the twenty-first anyway? The newspaper, quoting Pinion. What a combination. And the journal, of course. But how do we know it’s entirely accurate? How do we know Pinion and Frosticos won’t gum the whole thing up and launch early?”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” asked Edward. “What choice have we but to wait for his return?”
“We jolly well go after him. That’s what choice we have. What does it cost, a few hundred dollars? Fat lot of buying you’ll do with your money when the world is breaking up like a dirt clod.”
“The money’s not the issue,” said Latzarel, always willing to spend a few dollars for the sake of existence. “But let’s be practical for a minute. …”
William interrupted him by removing and waving his pocket watch. “You’ve got about sixty thousand left to be practical in. Then you’ll be scaling the stars with cave men.”
“Sixty thousand what?“ asked Latzarel, beginning to lose his temper.
“Minutes, man. We haven’t half enough time to be practical. We hate practicality. Practicality didn’t build Pinion’s leviathan. You’ve said as much yourself. Where’s the old sewer rat Latzarel who outfoxed that mob up on Patchen Street? Old one-shoe Latzarel, popping in at the window?”
Latzarel grumbled and slouched in his chair. Edward shrugged and raised his eyebrows. From the kitchen, Jim said, “You’re not going without me this time.”
“There’s a man for you!” cried William. “Damn the filthy torpedoes! They won’t be looking for us in Windermere. We’ll pop over there and snatch him. Basil will come in on our side. They’ve made a fatal error here, that’s what I think, and we’re going to trip them up. It’s that or we sit around here and mope. What do you say?”
“I say I go along,” Jim repeated. “You’ll need me when it comes to talking Gill into all this. He’ll listen to me.”
“He’s right,” said William. “By God if you two won’t come along, Jim and I will do the deed ourselves. It won’t take a week. We’ve already got the family passport. It’s good for seven years, isn’t it?”
“It’s good for nothing, as far as you’re concerned,” said Edward. “You’ll never get out of the airport. This whole thing might be a ruse to flush you out, you know. A set-up.”
“Pah!” cried William, who wasn’t about to be left behind. “It’s been two weeks now. They don’t stake out airports for two weeks looking for a man who bonked someone with a flashlight. And I’ll be entirely safe outside the country. A free man. It’s just the thing, as far as …”
The phone rang, interrupting William’s argument. It was Velma Peach, overwrought. Confused. She’d just that moment had a phone call from Giles. Edward covered the mouthpiece with his hand and told his friends. This was news indeed. He listened for a moment, his face growing more serious. It hadn’t been a long distance call. At least it hadn’t sounded like one. Giles wanted to come home. Everyone, he said, was in terrible danger. He had wanted so desperately to complete his journey. To pierce the hollow Earth, to return to the land of his ancestors—the Promised Land, he’d called it. But doing so, he feared, would burst it like a soap bubble on the winds of space. What, asked Velma Peach, did it all mean? What was the nonsense about ancestors? Her side of the family had come from Lithuania by boat with their money sewed inside their clothes; Basil’s from the Lake District. What promised land?
Edward made half an effort to explain Giles’ reference, careful to euphemize the entire account, but incapable of concentration. Could the phone call, he kept wondering, have come from Windermere? And if not, then what about the postcard? Had Giles hurried home so soon? And where was he now, kept, apparently, against his will? Edward hung up, puzzled.
They smoked a pipe over it for a moment. Then Professor Latzarel, his doubts vindicated in part by this new turn, said, “You’ve been hoaxed. That’s what the case is. Giles isn’t in Windermere. He’s never been. The postcard was a forgery, either to smoke William out of here or to send us all off on a goose chase—run us around pointlessly. We’d have gotten to London and found new evidence and gone racing off in some other direction. It’s slow and easy that we want here; that’s what I think. Sixty thousand minutes isn’t time enough as it is. You were right there. It doesn’t leave us any to waste, does it?” He looked at William triumphantly.
William nodded. The phone call put a new coat of paint on the horse. “I’ve got an idea,” said William, slapping his knee. “We call Basil. Easy as that. Either Giles is at Windermere or he’s not. Perhaps he’s been and gone already. Perhaps he never intended to go. It would be an easy enough thing for men with Pinion’s and Frosticos’ connections to have a forged postcard mailed. Easy as pie.”
It took an hour to get through to Basil Peach, and William, for the length of their discussion, fancied he heard voices in the background, lost among general noise, scratching along, now fading, now growing in volume until Basil’s voice began to sound almost as distant as it was. Once, in the midst of a discussion of strange local events, the ghostly insinuating voice disappeared utterly for the space of five seconds, then burst in with the words, “a two-penny head!” so loudly that William dropped the phone. It made no sense to him, and struck him as being all the more suggestive as a result—particularly as Basil couldn’t hear a bit of it.
Basil was unaccountably disturbed. There was a feeling, he said, in the air. An electricity. A desperation. Over the past week dead animals had bubbled up out of Lake Windermere, rising to the surface like released balloons and floating ashore in the willows below the hall. Basil spent his days collecting them. There were enough rumors afoot regarding the manor—rumors that hearkened back hundreds of years—without adding to them a boatload of decayed beasts.
“Beasts?” asked William. “From the lake? Do you mean fish?”
“No,” said Basil. “Animals. An odd tailless monkey with webbed feet and paws, and a thing that looked like an armadillo but without the pointed snout. Then, yesterday afternoon, a rush of little creatures—some sort of scaled hedgehog—beached themselves, all drowned.” Basil had a basket of them. He hadn’t any idea what to do with them. Burn them? The stink would attract the attention of everyone within miles. He was throwing quicklime on them until he could bury them. But in the future, years hence, they’d be dug up and would confirm Lord-knew-what sorts of local suspicions. And on top of it all, who should drop in but Ashbless with an utterly cockeyed scheme.
The Digging Leviathan Page 22
