Doyle After Death (17 page)

A ragged, bearded man stepped into the image, from out of frame, and seemed to be defiantly raving at the creature, shaking his fist and head, telling the beast to be damned and go away. The creature had eyes that seemed made of mushrooms; it had teeth made of broken crystals; it had a black, quivering gullet, exposed wide and wider as it opened its enormous maw—­it emerged only halfway from the ground, like a sea serpent rising partway from the water; dirt trickled down its rugged sides, as it rose. It reared over the man, who shouted wildly, defiantly—­madly. The creature angled its head down—­and lunged, taking the raging man into its maw, so only the fellow's wriggling bare feet remained. The monster swallowed—­and the feet disappeared. A black, muddy tongue smacked along the stony jaws and then withdrew. The creature drew its head back, thrust it forward, as if about to belch—­but out of its mouth came a fat blue spark, about the size of a bird . . . which flickered up and out of the frame.

The monster began to ripple away in the ground, like a swimming snake, the ground seeming to part for it like muddy water. The text undulated to cover the image and . . .

And then I felt a jolt of psychic intrusion, darkness and pinwheels, and I heard Arthur Conan Doyle's voice, ruminating, muttering, miserable, as if echoing from some dark pit in the world . . .

“
She would not die, she would not go, her unfailing kindness a wall between me and my love, my only love, and I must atone, atone forever for love, so long as she . . .”

I looked up at Doyle, but he wasn't speaking. Yet I could hear his voice.

“
. . . so long as she lives . . .”

Doyle gave me a startled look. “I seem to be picking up a wandering bit of something from your memories, Fogg. About—­a woman in Las Vegas?”

I blinked. “Me?
My
thoughts?”

“You are hearing something from me?”

“Um—­yeah. It was like your voice, something about atoning? But . . . you weren't talking. Not out loud.”

“I see. Yes. It's not reading one's
mind,
per se, not usually.” His eyes seemed suddenly flat, dead; his voice toneless. “It's a sort of recording, an echo from the deep unconscious. The psychic charge from the storm transmits it quite inadvertently. Normally we have a protective sheath against unintended telepathy. It can be rather . . .”

He didn't finish what he was saying, his voice breaking as he picked up the book from my lap and walked to the desk, his back turned to me. He cleared his throat. “The charge is seeping away. The books will . . . will show us only their text now . . .”

“I couldn't read the text until the charge happened. Then the writing changed . . .”

He sniffed. “It
can
be read, with application, you simply have to get used to the calligraphy style.”

“What was that thing, in the second picture? The monster?”

“It's called the Scargel. We don't know who named it that or why. We are not entirely sure what its place here is. Sometimes it . . . seems to sort ­people out.” He let out a long, slow, windy breath. “But that is enough for now, Fogg. I will meditate on all this.”

He was still standing with his back to me.

I looked out the window. I could see the psychic storm in the distance, fulminating like heat lightning in dark clouds, seeming to shrink within itself, diminishing. The discordant choir was barely audible.

“I'll . . . see what else I can find out about Morgan Harris,” I said, not at all sure how I would do that.

“Ah, yes.” He sat at the desk, his shoulders slumped. “Yes, do. I expect Touie is in the storm shelter so . . . you will have to see yourself out.”

There was an uncomfortable, indefinable embarrassment between us, palpable in the air itself. Doyle wasn't pleased that I'd heard that echo from his dark places.

I turned away, and went downstairs, and let myself out the front door. I didn't see Touie.

I walked past the ironic tombstone of Arthur Conan Doyle, and out the gate, into the kindly refreshment of the cleansed air soughing softly over the street.

The birds sang. Most of it was instrumental stuff; bird soloing. But I thought I heard one of them singing, “
She would not die, she would not go, her unfailing kindness a wall
. . .
so long as she . . .”

 

NINTH

I
was walking from the Avalon Coffee Shop over to Brummigen's Bar when I saw Doyle, striding along the walk, with another Old Journal under his arm. He looked grim and focused as he went into a shop—­a little place that looked like something from a 1930s British movie about middle-­class ­people in a British village. Deidre's Dry Goods.

Feeling an undefined concern for Doyle, I risked annoying him and went into the shop.

A little bell tinkled on the door when I came in. The place was packed with dry goods, cloth especially; and there were shelves of paper, in many colors; there were bagged goods and racks of tools.

Doyle was pondering a display table of fountain pens where a sign said
Sale on Pens, Two Fionas Each
.

“Garden Rest could use coinage,” I said. “I volunteer my face for the fifty-­cent piece.”

Doyle glanced up. He didn't seem surprised to see me. Nor pleased. “Ah. Fogg.”

“How the hell do they make fountain pens here?” I asked, picking one up.

“You'll meet the chap who makes them, later. You'll meet everyone. Including Deirdre—­here she is.”

Deidre came in, smoothing her white ruffled apron. She wore it over a blue-­and-­black flowered dress with puffy sleeves. She had a wry, cheerful expression, dark red lipstick, and her hair was done up so much like one of the Andrews Sisters I expected her to break into “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.” But she said, “Gents, how can I help?” Sounding too British to be an Andrews sister.

“Just fifty sheets of the onion skin, Deirdre,” Doyle said. “And perhaps some wrapping for this book. It's a Journal loaner from the mayor.”

“Right.” Fingers working efficiently, she packaged up the paper and the book “And the other gent?”

“Um—­just sort of following poor Doyle here,” I said. “Getting on his nerves.”

Deirde laughed gently. “Not difficult to do, but if he's gruff with you, just let it go by. Sir Arthur doesn't mean it.”

“No need for honorifics, Deirdre,” Doyle said. “Call me anything but Ignatius. This fellow you can call Nicholas Fogg. New chap. Doing some work with me.”

I shook her small hand. “Mr. Fogg,” she said, her smile widening.

The door jangled chirpily and I turned to see Roscoe Higgs come in. He was scowling, looking hurried, impatient. He carried a piece of paper in his hand. “I need some . . . damned thread. Why, I don't know. But I do. Here.”

He slapped the scrap of paper down on her wooden counter.

She sighed, but bustled over to him. “Which ‘damned thread' would that be, Mr. Higgs?”

“It's there on the paper. He asked me for it. I don't know . . . red.”

“Scarlet, in fact,” she said, picking up the paper. She went into the back room.

I felt a sort of tingling, and glanced at the door—­saw Charles Long outside, looking in the window, past a display of shoes. He seemed startled to find me looking back at him. He hesitated, then came into the shop.

“Well. Mr. Doyle and Mr. Fogg. Here we are again.”

“Long,” I said, nodding. “If you're looking for Higgs, guess what, I've found him.” I hooked a thumb at Higgs.

“You are an impressive detective,” Long said, playing at sarcasm. He seemed to be working hard to be chummy.

“She's getting the thread, Long,” Higgs said. “Why couldn't
you
get it?”

“I thought I could trust you with it,” Long said. “Then I rethought it. After all I trusted you not to try to impale the neighbors.”

“Did you say
impale?
” Deirdre said, coming in with a small bag in her hand.

“Just a misunderstanding about fencing, at the mansion,” Doyle said.

“They overdo it, out there,” I said.

“That's all over with,” Long observed, taking the bag from Deidre. “You guys should come out to dinner in my wing of the mansion, in fact, next week,” Long added, nodding to us. “I need someone to talk to besides Merchant and Higgs here.”

“Oh sure,
you're
such a joy to talk to,” Higgs muttered.

Long gave her a Fiona and turned to go. “Come on, Higgs. Let's hit the road. Trust you with one thing . . .”

He seemed to hustle Higgs out of the shop.

“Scarlet thread,” Doyle said, looking after them. “I didn't reckon either man to take an interest in needlepoint.” Doyle turned to me. “I'm for home. I've decided to check another Journal . . .”

“Looking for anything specific?”

He glanced at Deirdre, who was straightening up reams of paper. She seemed to be primly hanging about. Felt to me more about picking up gossip than spying.

“Just . . . biographical material on newcomers. Perhaps even you, Fogg!”

“Cool. Great. I won't ask who wrote it or why. I'm going to get a drink. The psychic storm took it out of me . . .”

“Wasn't that an awful one, though?” Deirdre said, gazing out the window.

She waved cheerfully good-­bye to us as we left.

Just outside, I almost stumbled into Fiona.

“Oh . . . Fiona. Hi. I was uh . . .”

She smiled at my nervousness. “Mr. Nicholas Fogg and Mr. Conan Doyle! How you fellas doing?”

“Very well, Fiona, and yourself?”

Doyle was putting himself out to be polite, but I could tell he wanted to be on his way.

“I'm swell, Mr. Doyle.”

Swell
? Then I remembered when she'd died. The 1940s.

I stood there, trying not to gape at her. She'd attracted me the first time I'd seen her—­now the feeling was even stronger. “You look . . .” Actually she looked just the same. I felt like I wanted to say, “charming, lovely, appealing . . .” But out loud . . . I didn't want to say that. “You look . . . great. And—­you're wearing shoes!”

“Yes, I always put on shoes when coming into town,” she said, showing me her white button-­up boots. “They're awfully old-­fashioned. I like them that way. I bought them here, at Dierdre's!”

“Did you?” Was that the best thing I could think of to say?

Doyle looked back and forth between me and Fiona. He rolled his eyes. “I see. Och, Fogg—­I must be off.”

He tipped his hat to Fiona, and hurried off.

“Bye, Mr. Doyle!” she called after him. She turned to me. “I like that old guy. My dad would have said, ‘Doyle is jake with me.' Dad was in World War One.”

“He's jake with me too, then. Going to buy some more shoes?”

“No, sewing stuff. Needles, a few bobs and bits. Or is that bits and bobs?”

I wanted to go in with her and just watch her buy bits and bobs. But I didn't want to follow her like a lost puppy. “Going to use Fionas—­to buy Fionas?”

I winced inwardly. She'd probably heard that joke too often.

“I am! You'd think they'd give me extra Fionas, but no. I got enough, though.”

“Okay. Well. See you around town. Or . . . out in the fog or . . . something.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “See you, Nick.” She went inside, jangling the bell on the door.

And I went to the bar. Some habits seem to follow us everywhere.

T
hat evening, I took my chances playing poker with Bertram, in Brummigen's bar, trying to get over feeling like a fool with Fiona. And trying not to think too much about the psychic storm and that awful feeling of looking into Doyle's darkness . . .

When Jocelyn came in. (Remember? Tall, shapely woman with a streak in her auburn hair? The streak was probably there when she died.)

She was wearing a tight red dress, low cut, slit up the side, and red heels, like something from Central Costuming on a Hollywood lot.
The Scarlet Lady enters.
There was some black slip showing.

“Whoa,” said Ripp—­you remember Ripp Finch. Turns out that's the name of the spiky-­haired, wide-­faced kid with the
High Stakes Poker
sweatshirt. He and I sat across from Bertram in one of Brummigen's booths.

Ripp was pouting over his cards. Not much poker face on the kid.

Jocelyn didn't look at us as she crossed the room. She went directly to the bar, and sat on stool, exchanging the time of day with the major. He brought her a drink and she paid for it with Fionas.

I was sitting half turned in my seat, goggling at her. I hadn't had the nerve to make a move on Fiona. But I'd had some drinks and was feeling bolder. And somehow Jocelyn was more in the field of my experience.

“You're going to make the lady pay for a drink, there, hoss?” Bertram muttered.

I looked at him and whispered, “She's already got one . . .”

“Because you're too damn slow. All right then. If I got to get you rollin', I got to. And you each owe me forty Fionas for this hand.”

He smacked down his cards. He had a full house.

“How do you know I don't have a better hand?” I demanded. But I didn't. I had a pair of jacks.

Ripp threw down his cards in disgust as Bertram left the table. “I know he cheats. I just don't know how. Does that count?”

Bertram went to the bar and reached under it, came up with his acoustic guitar. “How about it, Major? Just one or two.”

I thought he meant drinks, but Brummigen shrugged and took a fiddle out from under the bar. “When did he learn to play fiddle?” I asked.

“Does it all the time,” Ripp said. “Just doesn't like to play outside the bar. Doesn't sell drinks, he says, if you play outside the bar.”

Bertram tuned the guitar for about two seconds and then half sat on a stool, legs stretched to the floor, and started playing. And then he began to sing, sounding just like Ernest Tubb. “
I'm walking the floor over you . . . I can't sleep a wink that is true . . .”

He was strumming the song in a shuffle, and the major was fiddling the high side, and then Ripp pulled a ­couple of drumsticks from his back pocket . . .

“You son of a bitch,” I burst out, gaping at Ripp. “You pull those drumsticks out of your ass? This isn't a goddamn musical!”

But Ripp didn't answer, it happens he always was a drummer and now he was playing on the tabletop, clattering right along and I realized Jocelyn was looking calmly at me from the bar, her eyes half closed.

My mama didn't raise a fool. Okay, she did, and it was me, but I'm not a fool in that way, and I got up and went to her and said, “Can I have this dance, ma'am?”

She tilted her head, seeming to consider, then put out a hand. “I suppose we can give it a whirl,” she said lazily, as I drew her onto our impromptu dance floor.

Fortunately I know how to swing a girl with this style of music, and that's what I did. We danced and I spun her around and it all fell into place like the eight ball in the corner pocket.

J
ust an hour and fifteen minutes later, give or take, I was walking her home.

The lamps were lit; an owl flashed through the corona of glow overhead, the owl making a screech that sounded like laughter when we reached her front door, and I said, “Early to go home, really.” I had the dopey idea that she was going to say good night to me at the door. A “not on the first date” thing. And who could blame her? But I was hoping to get her to the beach and do some making out—­some old-­fashioned canoodling. “We could walk along that Purple Sea. Maybe you could explain it to me . . . the sea, I mean. And why it's purple.”

“You need too much explained to you,” she said huskily. “I've been needing company at home ever since that storm today. They always have that effect on me. And you dance pretty good . . .”

She took me by the wrist and I let her lead me upstairs. I don't know why I was surprised, considering what she'd done the first time I'd seen her. I was disappointed, in a way. Something about having died and revived made me feel romantic. This wasn't romantic. It was more Earthly—­and earthy.

I barely remember getting up the stairs into her rooms. We were kissing before the door was closed.

The kiss was electric, a flowing back and forth of crackling energy, and it communicated directly with the lower part of me.

We found our way to the bed, and we were soon undressed and . . . when you screw in a lightbulb, if you get it in right, it lights up the instant it's in there, if the light is switched on at the wall and the filaments are intact. The light was switched on, and my filaments were intact: the bulb lit up with an almost frightening wattage.

Sex in the Before, back on Earth, was often awkward. But sometimes you got so gloriously carried away you forgot the awkwardness . . .

You're always that carried away if you make love in the afterworld.

In my mind I heard Bob Wills singing about being on top of the world. Penetration? Yes, with the usual fluids, or something like them, but fragrant as massage oils. Soon, the physical became metaphysical. There was a kaleidoscopic effect—­that's what sex becomes, here: I saw a mandala of intersecting flesh—­and not just in my imagination. Our coitus was a psychic event as much as a physical one. The motive force of this extra-­dimensional connection was a blue-­white electricity—­in my mind it was the exact color of stars on a clear night. It seemed to flow in a circuit between us, through the two of us, and the two sides of each of us: through a biological side and a mental one. When it was at its best, we were absolutely
there
in the moment, the working together of positive and negative, proton and neutron, pestle in mortar, a shark in a moonlit lagoon. We were endlessly tumbling dice that never did come up to any one set of numbers.

But something was missing, too. I could feel a resistance—­a stopping short of emotional intimacy. Deep emotional intimacy just wasn't there. I didn't usually miss it—­or hadn't, in the Before.