Garden of Evil Page 4

  He went through to the hallway, switching on the light. Through the hammered-glass porthole in his front door he could see a heap of blonde hair, with two pink ribbons in it, so he knew at once who it was.

  He opened the door and said, ‘Summer – come on in. You’re early.’

  ‘I know, Jimmy. But I was bored. Life is so boring sometimes. I blame God.’

  ‘You blame God?’

  ‘Well – He didn’t think of enough things to keep us entertained, did He? He was resting on the seventh day when he should of been making up stuff like different funny animals and upside-down rainbows and birds that flew backward.’

  ‘Even if He’d done that, Summer, you would have grown used to them by now, and you’d still be bored. Nice outfit, though. Very unboring. We’re only going to Barney’s Beanery, though. Not space.’

  Summer was wearing a silver short-sleeved jacket with a high collar and a zipper down the front that was open as far as her navel. She also wore tight silver pants and little silver boots with turned-down tops and very high heels.

  ‘That’s what I love about you, Jimmy. You’re so iconic.’

  ‘Laconic, sweetheart. But, good try.’

  He spooned out the last of Tibbles’ shrimp dinner, and refilled his bowl of milk. Then he shrugged on his tan leather coat and he and Summer left his apartment and went down the steps to his car. The evening was unusually humid, and over the Santa Monica Mountains they could see flickers of lightning, like snakes’ tongues.

  ‘I had such a scary nightmare last night,’ said Summer, as they drove southward on North Gower Street. She shifted herself closer to Jim and her silver pants made a squeaky noise on the vinyl seat. ‘I dreamed that I was standing in line with all of these hundreds of people and it was all dark all around us. Up ahead, though, I could see this orange light, like a bonfire? And it was hot, too, like a bonfire. Well, more like a furnace. I said to the guy in front of me, why are we all standing in line like this? I don’t want to be here. I want to be home in bed.’

  ‘So what did he say?’

  ‘He said, “We have to be here. It’s the end.” So I said, “The end of what?” And he said, “It’s the end of all of us. It’s arrived.”’

  Jim looked at her for about two seconds too long, and almost rear-ended a Toyota Prius at the intersection with Hollywood Boulevard.

  ‘That was some nightmare,’ he told her. ‘Maybe you saw something on TV that triggered it off? Or it could have been something you ate? I always have nightmares when I eat fajitas.’

  Summer shook her head. ‘It was more like, Biblical, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I think I do. Like Armageddon, the end of the world as we know it.’

  As if to emphasize what he was saying, the lightning flickered again, much closer this time, and they heard the indigestive rumbling of thunder.

  They parked outside Barney’s Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard and pushed their way in through the double doors. Although it was only 7.30, the bar was crowded and the music was playing at top volume. They made their way through to the big room at the back and found themselves a seat in the corner. Heads turned as Summer walked past, and there was an appreciative chorus of whoops and whistles.

  Every inch of the inside of Barney’s Beanery was covered in beer advertisements and license plates and Route 66 signs and newspaper cuttings, even on the ceiling. The two pool tables were already taken, so that their conversation was punctuated by the intermittent clacking of balls.

  Jim ordered a mimosa for Summer and a Fat Tire beer for himself, and asked to see the eight-page newspaper-sized menu, which boasted that ‘If we don’t have it, you don’t want it.’

  ‘Listen – I wouldn’t worry about that nightmare,’ Jim said to Summer. ‘I don’t think the end of the world is coming any time soon. Not in our lifetime, anyhow.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Summer. ‘I never have nightmares like that. All I dream about is sex, mostly. And dancing.’

  Whenever Jim came to Barney’s, he usually chose the Fireman’s Chili, but this evening for some reason he didn’t feel at all hungry. In fact he felt completely full, and slightly nauseous, too, as if he had been eating and drinking too much all day, and needed to go to the men’s room and stick his finger down his throat.

  Summer asked for the Mediterranean Salad, but with seasoned fries on the side. She cupped both breasts with her hands and said, ‘I can’t give up the carbs altogether. I don’t want to get flat chested.’

  ‘Summer, the Mojave Desert will freeze over before you get flat chested.’

  ‘So what are you eating?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing for now.’

  It seemed to Jim that the talking and laughing and music was growing progressively louder. He found himself having to shout at Summer to make himself heard, and he could hardly hear what she was saying back to him. He began to feel more and more nauseous, and when he took his first swallow of beer out of the bottle, it immediately came back up again and filled up his mouth, so that he had to swallow it a second time, flat and warm and far too sweet.

  A large balding man in a horn-rimmed eyeglasses and a pea-green suit was sitting on his left, and talking very loudly with his friends. ‘This script is shit, that’s what I told him. The Second Coming? Jesus is working as a mechanic for American Brake and Muffler? If that had been Satan, working for Century Twenty-One, then I could have believed it!’

  Summer was frowning at him. ‘Are you OK, Jimmy? You’re looking kind of bloopy.’

  ‘I’ll be all right. My stomach’s a little upset, that’s all.’

  As he said that, however, something drew his eye toward the long wooden bar at the front of the restaurant. All of the twelve red-leather bucket seats were filled with drinkers, most of them laughing and leaning on the counter. But almost at the far end, one of them had turned his seat around so that he was staring directly in Jim’s direction.

  Jim stared back at him. There was no question about it – he was the same man whose face kept appearing in Ricky’s painting. He was blond, and very pale, and dressed entirely in white. White linen shirt, white linen pants, and sandals. He looked very much like Simon Silence, except that he was older, like The Storyteller. He was smiling at Jim as if he were taunting him.

  The waitress came up with Summer’s salad and her bowl of seasoned fries. Jim said, ‘Give me a moment, Summer, would you? There’s somebody here I have to talk to.’

  ‘Jimmy – are you sure you’re OK? You’re acting so antsy.’

  ‘I’m fine. I really am. I have to talk to this guy, that’s all.’

  As he got up from the table, however, he knew that he wasn’t fine at all. He felt suddenly hot, and very angry. He had never felt so angry in his life about anything. He elbowed two customers out of the way as he made his way through to the bar, and one of them said, ‘Hey – watch who you’re pushing, dude!’ Jim ignored him and headed straight for the man in white.

  The man in white stayed where he was, still smiling that calm, taunting smile. Jim went right up to him and said, ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ the man replied. ‘Is something troubling you?’ His accent, like Simon Silence’s, was distinctly Southern. The pupils of his eyes were so pale that they were like blue glass pebbles that had been washed for years in the ocean. Jim noticed that around his neck he wore several gold chains, with medallions and stars attached to them. The largest medallion had the face of a woman on it, with staring eyes.

  Jim could hardly catch his breath, as if he had run all the way to the restaurant. He didn’t know this man at all, except that he looked like Simon Silence, and could well have been his father, the Reverend John Silence. Yet for some reason he had provoked him into such a boiling fury that, when he spoke, he was almost incoherent.

  ‘You were looking at me,’ he panted. He turned around and pointed to the table where Summer was just starting to eat her salad. She smiled at him and give him a little finger-w
ave. ‘I was sitting over there, right? – and you – you were looking at me.’

  The man ran his fingers through his thinning blond curls. ‘I think you’re mistaken, my friend. I was miles away. I was looking into the future, not at you.’

  Jim grasped the man’s shirt and twisted it, pulling him closer. ‘You – were – fucking – looking – at me.’

  The man said, ‘All right. Supposing I was. This is a restaurant, open to the public. There’s no law that says the customers can’t look at each other.’

  ‘You were looking at me!’ Jim screamed at him, right into his face. ‘Don’t pretend you weren’t! You were looking at me and I want to know why!’

  The barman said, ‘Hey, buddy. That’s enough. Go back to your seat and shut up or I’ll throw you out.’

  Jim turned to the barman and screamed at him, too. ‘What the fuck do you know? This man – this man here – he’s in a painting! My friend wants to paint The Storyteller and what happens every time he tries to paint this jolly old man? He gets him! Him and his creepy white face! And now I come in here for a drink and here he is again – looking at me! How did he know I was coming here? Ask him that! And ask him why he’s looking at me! Ask him!’

  A dark-haired, smooth-looking man in a red shirt came up behind Jim and gripped his arm, very hard. ‘OK, sir, let’s head for the exit, shall we?’

  Jim tried to twist himself free, but the smooth-looking man was extremely strong.

  ‘Ask him,’ Jim insisted. His chest was heaving with rage and breathlessness. ‘Ask him why he was looking at me, go on!’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Now, let’s go quietly, OK? I’m sure you don’t want me to call the cops.’

  Jim turned back to the man in white, but there was no man in white, only an empty barstool. He looked around the bar in bewilderment, and then toward the exit, to see if the man in white was walking away down the street. But the sidewalk was deserted, apart from a woman with an undulating bottom walking her over-clipped poodle.

  ‘You didn’t see him?’ said Jim. ‘He was sitting right here, and you didn’t see him?’

  ‘Let’s go, sir. Please.’

  Conversation and laughter in the restaurant had completely died, with curious customers craning their necks to see what was going on. There was only the music playing, Werewolves of London. Summer had obviously heard Jim shouting and now left her seat and came tripping up to him in her little silver boots. ‘Jimmy, what’s wrong? Jimmy?’

  ‘This gentleman is just leaving, ma’am,’ said the smooth-looking man. His grip on Jim’s arm was unrelenting.

  ‘I told him he looked bloopy,’ said Summer.

  The smooth-looking man escorted Jim outside. ‘Whatever you ordered, it’s on the house,’ he said. ‘Just one thing, though. Don’t ever come back. Either you or your girlfriend or your imaginary enemy.’

  Jim and Summer walked back to his car. Jim didn’t start the engine at first, but sat behind the wheel with his head bowed, trying to make some sense of what had just happened to him. Summer stroked and tugged his hair at the back of his neck.

  ‘You’ll be OK, Jimmy. It’s stress, that’s all. Starting a new semester and everything. You’re a very sensitive man, that’s what I love about you. You can’t help it if you go nuts now and again.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ said Jim. ‘So you didn’t see him, either? That man in white, sitting at the bar?’

  ‘I saw you there, but nobody else. I wasn’t really looking, to tell you the truth. I dropped an olive down the front of my jacket and I was trying to hook it out.’

  Jim drove back to Briarcliff Road, and walked Summer back up to her apartment. Thunder was still banging away, over the mountains, but it was further east now.

  ‘I’m sorry I spoiled your evening,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’re right, and I am going nuts.’

  ‘I could always come up for a drink,’ Summer suggested.

  Jim kissed her cheek and said, ‘Not tonight, sweetheart. Tonight, I think I need Pepto-Bismol and Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”, in that order.’

  Summer put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. ‘One day,’ she whispered, in his ear.

  Jim trudged up the last flight of steps. He felt exhausted, as if he had been teaching a rowdy class all day. He didn’t turn around as he unlocked his front door, or else he would have seen the man in white standing on the opposite side of the road, his linen pants flapping in the evening breeze, smiling at him still.

  ‘I’m very, very pleased with you, Mr Rook,’ he said, under his breath, although he may not have been talking entirely to himself. ‘You’re coming along famously.’

  FIVE

  Next morning he was woken up at 7.11 by Tibbles jumping up on to his chest.

  ‘Aaahhh!’ he shouted, and sat bolt upright. Tibbles weighed over six pounds, and had badly winded him, but more than that, he had abruptly jolted him out of his dream.

  He had been wandering around the college parking lot in a dense yellow smog, trying to find his car. It was no longer in his usual parking space – or rather Royston Denman’s space – but he couldn’t imagine who would have wanted to move it, apart from Royston Denman. On the other hand, Royston Denman had given up complaining about it years ago, especially since these days he had become a climate-change fanatic and usually came to college by bicycle, wearing a streamlined helmet.

  Jim couldn’t imagine who would have wanted to steal it, either. A 1971 Mercury Marquis, in metallic green? Hardly a collector’s car. You could pick one up online for less than twenty-five hundred dollars.

  He was almost about to give up looking for it when he heard the low whistling noise of its 7.1-liter engine. Someone had moved it, but they were parked somewhere close by, as if they were patiently waiting for him to find them.

  He followed the sound of the engine until the car gradually took shape through the smog. It was parked at an angle close to the entrance to the parking lot, with exhaust smoke billowing out its tailpipe. Its passenger door was wide open. It reminded Jim of the folk story told by the Irish poet W.B. Yeats about the death coach that arrives outside your house when you are about to die, the cóiste bodhar, and waits outside with its door open to take you away, because it cannot return to the underworld empty.

  Jim approached his car warily. As he came nearer, he bent down so that he could see who was sitting in the driving seat. When he did, he immediately felt a crawling sensation all over his scalp, as if he had lice.

  It was the shadowy figure that he had almost run over, and which had appeared on his balcony. He was shocked to see it sitting there, but for some reason he felt less afraid of it now than he had been when he had seen it yesterday. It seemed more solid now, more definite, although its cloak still seemed to flow and ripple as if it were being blown by an unfelt wind, and its face was concealed by a deep, floppy hood. Its left hand was resting loosely on top of the steering wheel, covered by a gray suede glove. On top of the glove, on its wedding finger, it was wearing an elaborate silver ring, like a mass of intertwined snakes.

  ‘Where would you like me to take you, Mr Rook?’ the figure asked him, in that reverberating voice. ‘A man with your gift – he could go anyplace he chose, believe me.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Jim demanded. ‘What do you want? This is my car, Charlie, not yours. If I want to go anyplace, I’ll drive there myself, thanks.’

  ‘Aha – but you can never go to the places to which I can take you,’ the shadowy figure replied. It turned its head slightly, and as it did so, Jim saw two glittering eyes inside the darkness of its hood.

  At that moment, Tibbles sprang on to his bedcover and he sat up in shock.

  He called Dr Ehrlichman’s secretary, Rosa, and asked her if college was going to be open today.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘You won’t be going back to your usual room, though, until the crime-scene people have finished with it, and it’s all been cleaned up and redecorated. We’ve
relocated you to Art Studio Four, on the second floor.’

  ‘Art Studio Four? Art Studio Four? That’s nothing but an expletive deleted storeroom.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Dr Ehrlichman said to tell you that the college is oversubscribed this year and we don’t have any other classrooms free. By the way, you won’t miss his assembly this morning, will you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You will miss it, Jim. I know you.’

  ‘I’ll try my best, Rosa. But I’ve always been allergic to Dr Ehrlichman’s inspirational speeches. And his academic forecasts, too. They bring on my asthma, and I don’t even suffer from asthma. I can’t even predict what I’m going to have for lunch, let alone what grades my students are going to get a year from now.’

  ‘Please try, Jim. It will make him so much happier.’

  ‘Rosa – you can only be happier if you’re happy to begin with.’

  ‘Well, all right. It will make him marginally less grouchy.’

  Jim made himself a Swiss-cheese-and-tomato sandwich for breakfast. He would rather have had pastrami, but he had used it all up yesterday and there was nothing else left in the fridge. He would almost have preferred to share Tibbles’ turkey dinner, which actually smelled quite tasty. Tibbles didn’t even look up at him, even when he tucked his briefcase under his arm and went to the front door and said, ‘Later, you obscenely fat cat.’ Tibbles had his head in his dish, gobbling.

  As Jim drove to college, his thoughts kept going around and around like some nauseating carousel ride that wouldn’t come to an end, no matter how much he wanted to get off. Again and again he saw that dark shadowy figure, twisting off his balcony like smoke; and the same shadowy figure in last night’s dream about his car. Those glittering eyes, inside that hood. Again and again he pictured the nightmare that Summer had described to him, about lines of people shuffling toward the final fiery furnace. Then he saw the pale self-satisfied face that kept appearing in Ricky’s portrait of The Storyteller, in spite of all his efforts to paint him differently, and the same man in white, sitting at the bar yesterday evening, mocking him.