Dreaming Jewels (13 page)

He owned, however, miles of magnetic tape on which was recorded a magnificent collection of music. Horty’s fabulous mind could retain the whole mood of a book, and recall any part of it. It could do the same with music; but to recall music is to generate it to a certain degree, and there is a decided difference in the coloration of a mind which hears music and one which makes it. Horty could do both, and his music library made it possible for him to do either.

He had the classics and the romantics which had been Zena’s favorites, the symphonies, concerti, ballads and virtuosic showpieces which had been his introduction to music. But his tastes had widened and deepened, and now included Honnegger and Copland, Shostakovitch and Walton. In the popular field he had discovered Tatum’s somber chordings and the incredible Thelonius Monk. He had the occasionally inspired trumpet of Dizzy Gillespie, the bewildering cadenzas of Ella Fitzgerald, the faultless production of Pearl Bailey’s voice. His criterion in all of it was humanity and the extensions of humanity. He lived with books that led to books, art that led him to conjecture, music that led him to worlds beyond worlds of experience.

Yet for all these riches, Horty’s rooms were simply furnished. The only unconventional article of furniture was the tape recorder and reproducer—a massive incorporation of high-fidelity components which Horty had been led to assemble because of an ear that demanded every nuance, every overtone, of every instrumental voice. Otherwise his rooms were like anyone’s comfortably appointed, tastefully decorated apartment. It occurred to him, fleetingly and at long intervals, that with his resources he could surround himself with automatic luxury-machines like back-kneading chairs and air-conditioned drying chambers for after his shower. But he was never moved in such directions. His mind was simply and steadily acquisitive. His analytical abilities were phenomenal, but he was seldom moved to use them extensively. Therefore to acquire knowledge was sufficient; its use could wait for demand, and there was little demand coexistent with his utter and demonstrable confidence in his own powers.

Halfway through his book he stopped, a puzzled expression in his eyes. It was as if a special sound had reached him—yet none had.

He closed the book and racked it, rose to stand listening, turning his head slightly as if he were trying to fix the source of the sensation.

The doorbell rang.

Horty stopped moving. It was not a freeze, the startled immobilization of a frightened animal. It was more a controlled, relaxed split second for thought. Then he moved again, balanced and easily.

At the door he paused, staring at the lower panel. His face tightened, and a swift frown rippled on his brow. He flung the door open.

She stood crookedly in the hallway, looking up at him with her eyes. Her head was turned sidewise and a little downward. She had to strain her eyes painfully to meet his; she was only four feet tall.

She said, faintly, “Horty?”

He made a hoarse sound and knelt, pulling her into his arms, holding her with power and gentleness. “Zee… Zee, what happened? Your face, your—” He picked her up and kicked the door shut and carried her over to the studio couch, to sit with her across his knees, cradled in his arms, her head resting in the warm strong hollow of his right hand. She smiled at him. Only one side of her mouth moved. Then she began to cry, and Horty’s own tears curtained from him the sight of her ravaged face.

Her sobs stopped soon, as if she were simply too tired to continue. She looked at his face, all of it, part by part. She brought her hand up and touched his hair. “Horty…” she whispered. “I loved you so much the way you were…”

“I haven’t changed,” he said. “I’m a big grown-up man now. I have an apartment and a job. I have this voice and these shoulders and I weigh a hundred pounds more than I did three years ago.” He bent and kissed her quickly. “But I haven’t changed, Zee. I haven’t changed.” He touched her face, a careful, feathery contact. “Do you hurt?”

“Some.” She closed her eyes and wet her lips. Her tongue seemed unable to reach one corner of her mouth. “I’ve changed.”

“You’ve
been
changed,” he said, his voice shaking. “The Maneater?”

“Of course. You knew, didn’t you?”

“Not really. I thought once you were calling me. Or he was… it was far away. But anyway, no one else would have—would… what happened? Do you want to tell me?”

“Oh yes. He—found out about you. I don’t understand how. Your—that Armand Bluett—he’s a judge or something now. He came to see the Maneater. He thought you were a girl. A big girl, I mean.”

“I was, for a while.” He smiled tensely.

“Oh. Oh, I see. Were you really at the carnival that day?”

“At the carnival? No. What day, Zee? You mean when he found out?”

“Yes. Four—no; five days ago. You weren’t there. I don’t under—” She shrugged. “Anyway, a girl came to see the Maneater and the Judge followed her and thought she was you. The Maneater thought so too. He sent Havana looking for her. Havana couldn’t find her.”

“And then the Maneater got hold of you.”

“Mm. I didn’t mean to tell him, Horty. I didn’t. Not for a long time, anyway. I—forget.” She closed her eyes again. Horty trembled suddenly, and then could breathe.

“I don’t… remember,” she said with difficulty.

“Don’t try. Don’t talk any more,” he murmured.

“I want to. I’ve got to. He mustn’t find you!” she said. “He’s hunting for you right this minute!”

Horty’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Good.”

Her eyes were still closed. She said, “It was a long time. He talked very quietly. He gave me cushions and some wine that tasted like autumn. He talked about the carnival and Solum and Gogol. He mentioned ‘Kiddo’ and then talked about the new flat cars and the commissary tent and the trouble with the roustabouts’ union. He said something about the musicians’ union and something about music and something about the guitar and then about the act we used to have. Then he was off again about the menageries and the shills and the advance men, and back again. You see? Just barely mentioning you and going away and coming back and back. All night, Horty, all, all
night!”

“Sh-h-h.”

“He wouldn’t ask me! He talked with his head turned away watching me out of the corners of his eyes. I sat and tried to sip the wine, and tried to eat when Cooky brought dinner and midnight lunch and breakfast, and tried to smile when he stopped for a minute. He didn’t touch me, he didn’t hit me, he didn’t
ask
me!”

“He did later,” breathed Horty.

“Much later. I don’t remember… his face over me like a moon, once. I hurt all over. He shouted. Who is Horty, where is Horty, who is Kiddo, why did I hide Kiddo…. I woke up and woke up. I don’t remember the times I slept, or fainted, or whatever it was. I woke up with my blood in my eyes, drying, and he was talking about the ride mechanics and the power for the floodlights. I woke up in his arms, he was whispering in my ear about Bunny and Havana, they must have known what Horty was. I woke up on the floor. My knee hurt. There was a terrible light. I jumped up with the pain of it. I ran out the door and fell down, my knee wouldn’t work, it was in the afternoon and he caught me and dragged me back again and threw me on the floor and made the light again. He had a burning glass and he gave me vinegar to drink. My tongue swelled, I—”

“Sh-h-h. Zena, honey, hush. Don’t say any more.”

The flat, uninflected voice went on. “I lay still when Bunny looked in and the Maneater didn’t know she saw what he was doing and Bunny ran away and Havana came and hit the Maneater with a piece of pipe and the Maneater broke his neck he’s going to die and I—”

Horty’s eyelids felt dry. He raised a careful hand and slapped her smartly across her undamaged cheek. “Zena.
Stop it!”

At the impact she uttered a great shriek, and screamed, “I don’t
know
any more,
truly
I don’t!” and burst into painful, writhing sobs. Horty tried to speak to her but could not be heard through her weeping. He stood, turned, put her down gently on the couch, ran and wrung out a cloth in cold water and bathed her face and wrists. She stopped crying abruptly and fell asleep.

Horty watched her until her breathing assured him that she was at peace. He put his head slowly down beside hers as he knelt on the floor beside the couch. Her hair was on his forehead. Half-crossing his arms, he grasped his elbows and began to pull them. He kept the tension until his shoulders and chest throbbed with pain. He needed to be near her, would not move, yet must relieve the black tension of fury which built in him, and the work his muscles did against each other saved his sanity without the slightest movement to disturb the sleeping girl. He knelt there for a long time.

At breakfast the next morning she could laugh again. Horty had not moved her or touched her except to remove her shoes and cover her with a down quilt. In the small hours of the morning he had taken a pillow from the bedroom and put it on the floor between the studio couch and the door, and had stretched out to listen to her breathing and, with feline attention, to each sound from the stairway and hall outside.

He was standing, bent over her, when she opened her eyes. He said immediately, “I’m Horty and you’re safe, Zee.” The spiraling panic in her eyes died unborn, and she smiled.

While she bathed, he took her clothes to a neighborhood machine laundry and in half an hour was back with them washed and dried. The food he had picked up on the way was not needed; she had breakfast well on the way when he returned—“gas-house” eggs (fried in the center of slices of bread punched out with a water glass) and crisp bacon. She took the groceries from him and scolded him. “Kippers—papaya juice—Danish ring. Horty, that’s
company
eatments!”

He smiled, more at her courage and her resilience than at her protests. He leaned against the wall with his arms folded, watching her hobbling about the kitchen, draped from neck to heels in what was, for him, a snug-fitting bathrobe, and tried not to think of the fact that she had used it at all. He understood, though, seeing the limp, seeing what had happened to her face…

It was a gay breakfast, during which they happily played “Remember when—” which is, in the final analysis, the most entrancing game in the world. Then there was a silent time, when to each, the sight of the other was enough communication. At last Horty asked, “How did you get away?”

Her face darkened. The effort for control was evident—and successful. Horty said, “You’ll have to tell me everything, Zee. You’ll have to tell me about—me, too.”

“You’ve found out a lot about yourself.” It was not a question.

Horty waved this aside. “How did you get away?”

The mobile side of her face twitched. She looked down at her hands, slowly lifted one, put it on and around the other, and as she talked, squeezed. “I was in a coma for days, I guess. Yesterday I woke up on my bunk, in the trailer. I knew I had told him everything—except that I knew where you were. He still thinks you are that girl.

“I heard his voice. He was at the other end of the trailer, in Bunny’s room. Bunny was there. She was crying. I heard the Maneater taking her away. I waited and then dragged myself outside and over to Bunny’s door. I got in. Havana was there on the bed with a stiff thing around his neck. It hurt him to talk. He said the Maneater was taking care of him, fixing his neck. He said the Maneater is going to make Bunny do a job for him.” She looked up swiftly at Horty. “He can, you know. He’s a hypnotist. He can make Bunny do anything.”

“I know.” He considered her. “Why the hell didn’t he use it on you?” he flared.

She fingered her face. “He can’t. He—it doesn’t work like that on me. He can reach me, but he can’t make me do anything. I’m too—”

“Too what?”

“Human,” she said.

He stroked her arm and smiled at her. “That you are… Go on.”

“I went back to my part of the trailer and got some money and a few other things and left. I don’t know what the Maneater will do when he learns I’m gone. I was very careful, Horty. I hitch-hiked fifty miles and then took a bus to Eltonville—that’s three hundred miles from here—and a train from there. But I know he’ll find me somehow, sooner or later. He doesn’t give up.”

“You’re safe here,” he said, and there was blued steel in his soft voice.

“It isn’t me! Oh, Horty—don’t you understand? It’s you he’s after!”

“What does he want with me? I left the carnival three years ago and it didn’t seem to bother him much.” He caught her eye; she was looking at him in amazement. “What is it?”

“Aren’t you curious about yourself at all, Horty?”

“About myself? Well, sure. Everybody is, I guess. But about what, especially?”

She was silent a moment, thinking. Abruptly she asked, “What have you done since you left the carnival?”

“I’ve told you in my letters.”

“The bare outlines, yes. You got a furnished room and lived there for a while, reading a lot and feeling your way. Then you decided to grow. How long did that take?”

“About eight months. I got this by mail and moved in at night so no one saw me, and changed. Well, I had to. I’d be able to get a job as a grown man. I buskined a while—you know, playing the clubs for whatever the customers would throw to me—and bought a really good guitar and went to work at the Happy Hours. When that closed I went to Club Nemo. Been there ever since, biding my time. You told me I’d know when it was time… that’s always been true.”

“It would be,” she nodded. “Time to stop being a midget, time to go to work, time to start on Armand Bluett—you’d know.”

“Well, sure,” he said, as if the fact deserved no further comment. “And when I needed money, I wrote things… some songs and arrangements, articles and even a story or two. The stories weren’t so good. It’s easy to put things together, but awful hard to make them up. Hey—you don’t know what I did to Armand, do you?”

“No.” She looked at his hand. “It has something to do with that, hasn’t it?”

“It has.” He inspected it and smiled. “Last time you saw my hand like this was about a year after I came to the carnival. Want to know something? I lost these fingers just three weeks ago.”