``You come from Sunnyland Sanitarium, more like it,'' I croaked.
``But not exactly like a pulp science-fiction story,'' he went on, ignoring what I'd said. ``No, not exactly.'' He pushed a button on the side of the plastic case. There was a faint whirring sound from inside the gadget, followed by a brief, whistling beep. The thing sitting on his lap looked like some strange stenographer's machine . . . and I had an idea that that wasn't far from the truth.
He looked up at me and said, ``What was your father's name, Clyde?'‘
I looked at him for a moment, resisting an urge to lick my lips again. The room was still dark, the sun still behind some cloud that hadn't even been in sight when I came in off the street. Landry's face seemed to float in the gloom like an old, shrivelled balloon.
``What's that got to do with the price of cucumbers in Monrovia?' I asked.
``You don't know, do you?’
`Òf course I do,'' I said, and I did. I just couldn't come up with it, that was all-it was stuck there on the tip of my tongue, like Mavis Weld's phone number, which had been BAyshore something-or-other.
``How about your mother's?'‘
``Quit playing games with me!'‘
``Here's an easy one--what high school did you go to? Every red-blooded American man remembers what school he went to, right? Or the first girl he ever went all the way with. Or the town he grew up in. Was yours San Luis Obispo?’
I opened my mouth, but this time nothing came out.
``Carmel?’
That sounded right . . . and then felt all wrong. My head was whirling.
`Òr maybe it was Dusty Bottom, New Mexico.'‘
``Cut the crap!'' I shouted.
``Do you know? Do you?’
``Yes! It was--'‘
He bent over. Rattled the keys of his strange steno machine.
``San Diego! Born and raised!'‘
He put the machine on my desk and turned it around so I could read the words floating in the window above the keyboard.
``San Diego! Born and raised!'‘
My eyes dropped from the window to the word stamped into the plastic frame surrounding it.
``What's a Toshiba?' I asked. ``Something that comes on the side when you order a Reebok dinner?’
`Ìt's a Japanese electronics company.'‘
I laughed dryly. ``Who're you kidding, mister? The Japs can't even make wind-up toys without getting the springs in upside down.'‘
``Not now,'' he agreed, `ànd speaking of now, Clyde, when is now? What year is it?’
``1938,'' I said, then raised a half-numb hand to my face and rubbed my lips.
``Wait a minute--1939.'‘
`Ìt might even be 1940. Am I right?'‘
I said nothing, but I felt my face heating up.
``Don't feel bad, Clyde; you don't know because I don't know. I always left it vague. The time-frame I was trying for was actually more of a feel . . . call it Chandler American Time, if you like. It worked like gangbusters for most of my readers, and it made things simpler from a copy-editing standpoint as well, because you can never exactly pinpoint the passage of time. Haven't you ever noticed how often you say things like `for more years than I can remember' or `longer ago than I like to think about' or `since Hector was a pup'?'‘
``Nope--can't say that I have.'' But now that he mentioned it, I did notice. And that made me think of the L.A. Times. I read it every day, but exactly which days were they? You couldn't tell from the paper itself, because there was never a date on the masthead, only that slogan which reads `Àmerica's Fairest Newspaper in America's Fairest City.'‘
``You say those things because time doesn't really pass in this world. It is . . .'‘
He paused, then smiled. It was a terrible thing to look at, that smile, full of yearning and strange greed. `Ìt is one of its many charms,'' he finished.
I was scared, but I've always been able to bite the bullet when I felt it really needed biting, and this was one of those times. ``Tell me what the hell's going on here.'‘
`Àll right . . . but you're already beginning to know, Clyde. Aren't you?’
``Maybe. I don't know my dad's name or my mom's name or the name of the first girl I ever went to bed with because you don't know them. Is that it?’
He nodded, smiling the way a teacher would smile at a pupil who's made a leap of logic and come up with the right answer against all odds. But his eyes were still full of that terrible sympathy.
`Ànd when you wrote San Diego on your gadget there and it came into my head at the same time . . .'‘
He nodded, encouraging me.
`Ìt isn't just the Fulwider Building you own, is it?'' I swallowed, trying to get rid of a large blockage in my throat that had no intention of going anywhere. ``You own everything.'‘
But Landry was shaking his head. ``Not everything. Just Los Angeles and a few surrounding areas. This version of Los Angeles, that is, complete with the occasional continuity glitch or made-up addition.'‘
``Bull,'' I said, but I whispered the word.
``See the picture on the wall to the left of the door, Clyde?'‘
I glanced at it, but hardly had to; it was Washington crossing the Delaware, and it had been there since . . . well, since Hector was a pup.
Landry had taken his plastic Buck Rogers steno machine back onto his lap, and was bending over it.
``Don't do that!'' I shouted, and tried to reach for him. I couldn't do it. My arms had no strength, it seemed, and I could summon no resolve. I felt lethargic, drained, as if I had lost about three pints of blood and was losing more all the time.
He rattled the keys again. Turned the machine toward me so I could read the words in the window. They read: On the wall to the left of the door leading out to Candy-Land, Our Revered Leader hangs . . . but always slightly askew. That's my way of keeping him in perspective.
I looked back at the picture. George Washington was gone, replaced by a photo of Franklin Roosevelt. F.D.R. had a grin on his face and his cigarette holder jutting upward at that angle his supporters think of as jaunty and his detractors as arrogant. The picture was hanging slightly askew.
`Ì don't need the laptop to do it,'' he said. He sounded a little embarrassed, as if I'd accused him of something. `Ì can do it just by concentrating--as you saw when the numbers disappeared from your blotter--but the laptop helps.
Because I'm used to writing things down, I suppose. And then editing them. In a way, editing and rewriting are the most fascinating parts of the job, because that's where the final changes--usually small but often crucial--take place and the picture really comes into focus.'‘
I looked back at Landry, and when I spoke, my voice was dead. ``You made me up, didn't you?’
He nodded, looking strangely ashamed, as if what he had done was something dirty.
``When?'' I uttered a strange, croaky little laugh. `Òr is that the right question?’
`Ì don't know if it is or isn't,'' he said, `ànd I imagine any writer would tell you about the same. It didn't happen all at once--that much I'm sure of. It's been an ongoing process. You first showed up in Scarlet Town, but I wrote that back in 1977 and you've changed a lot since then.'‘
1977, I thought. A Buck Rogers year for sure. I didn't want to believe this was happening, wanted to believe it was all a dream. Oddly enough, it was the smell of his cologne that kept me from being able to do that--that familiar smell I'd never smelled in my life. How could I have? It was Aramis, a brand as unfamiliar to me as Toshiba.
But he was going on.
``You've grown a lot more complex and interesting. You were pretty one-dimensional to start with.'' He cleared his throat and smiled down at his hands for a moment. ``What a pisser for me.'‘
He winced a little at the anger in my voice, but made himself look up again, just the same. ``Your last book was How Like a Fallen Angel. I started that one in 1990, but it took until 1993 to finish. I've had some problems in the interim.