“Well? What is it?”
Tomlin shook his head. “Sit down at my desk here. Take a look. You have to see it yourself.”
Marks sat down at the small desk, which was dominated by a huge computer monitor, bigger than any Marks had ever seen. On it was displayed a clear scan of the Polaroid: Marks, blurry, crushed against the camera lens, the Thin Man, dark and skeletal, grinning over his shoulder, holding something awkwardly in his hand.
“Okay.” Marks said testily.
“Now, here’s a blowup and clarification of the lower right-hand corner of the photo, where that guy’s ‘hand’ is. I use the air quotes because that really isn’t a man, Phil.”
“I knew that, considering that he wasn’t in the room when I took the photo.”
“No, I mean nothing was there, Phil. The figure we see there is an optical illusion, a collection of dots: white and black. He’s a black-and-white halftone, is what he is. But here’s the disturbing part: the blowup. He’s holding a card, Phil. For want of a better term, I’d say it was a business card.”
Ralph clicked a key and stepped back as the picture on the screen changed to a detail of the photo: a rectangular, white space, surrounded by the blurred and indistinct lines of the Thin Man’s hand. The card, at this magnification, and with the aid of clarifying software, had words printed on it:
I AM DEATH
Marks leaned back in the chair, let out an explosive burst of breath. “Oh, shit.”
Tomlin nodded, staring raptly at the fuzzy image. “Oh shit is right.” He grinned. “Phil, ever since you started down this weirdo path of yours, you’ve shown me some really odd things from time to time. This one gave me chills. So, what do you think?”
Marks shook his head dazedly, his eyes locked on the fuzzy words on the screen. “About what?”
Tomlin snorted and glanced down at Marks. “Is he coming for your subject,” he asked, “or you?”
Marks finally tore his eyes from the screen. “Is that supposed to be helpful in some way?”
Tomlin shrugged happily. “I’d just get your subject into an emergency room, if I was you, buddy. If Death’s following him around like that, there’s got to be a reason.”
Marks’s smile was barren. “Unless he’s after me now, right?”
V
Marks walked the dark streets after hours, smoking ill-advised cigarettes and pondering his new concern. As the sun disappeared and the shadowed streets stopped looking cheerily familiar, he wondered unhappily if he was being stalked by a specter, if a photo taken by a helpful stranger might reveal a companion. They were not cheering thoughts. He stopped in a favorite bar, the Full Moon, and ordered a double bourbon on ice, sat in the back by himself, and sipped it slowly, staring at the wall.
“What’s the story, Phil?”
Marks glanced up, surprised, and found Jerry, the jowly owner. “Sorry, Jer, I was woolgathering.”
“Can see that, Philly. Everything okay?”
“Sure.” Marks paused, studying his drink, then looked up again. “Jer, what if you had to tell someone something bad. Something… sad. Something that maybe they didn’t need to know, but you felt duty-bound to tell them.”
Jerry laughed, his belly bouncing within its tight shirt. “I do, every night, Phil, round closing time.”
Marks smiled faintly. “What if you had to tell someone they were going to die?”
Jerry looked away. “Jeez, Phil-”
Marks shook his head, leaned back in his chair. “Shit, I’m sorry, Jer. Just got a lot of stuff on my mind. Don’t pay any attention to me.”
“Easy enough.” Jerry turned away and then hesitated, looking back over his shoulder. “You weren’t going to tell me that, were you, Phil?”
Marks shook his head. “No, no, Jerry. Not you. Just someone I’ve been working with.” He paused, and just as Jerry was about to turn back, Marks continued. “Hey, Jer, you got a camera around here?”
Jerry started walking back to the bar. “Yeah, actually. Keep an old Polaroid on hand for when we get troublemakers and have ta ban ’em. I got quite a wall of shame in my office.” He glanced back as he walked away. “Why, Philly?”
Marks gulped the last of his drink. “Take my picture, okay?”
Jerry retrieved the camera from behind the bar and hefted his bulk back toward Marks’s table. “Sure, sure. Why not?”
Marks nodded absently, pushing his hands through each of his pockets until he’d recovered a small pad of paper and a black-ink pen. He wrote quickly and tore a sheet off, holding it up under his chin as Jerry approached.
“Ready?”
Marks nodded. The flash went off, and Jerry lowered the camera as the picture was spit out. “Who’s this for? With the note and all?”
Marks crumpled the piece of paper up and tossed it on the table. “I’ll know in a moment, Jer. Let me see the print.”
Jerry tore it from the camera and handed it gingerly to him. Marks took it between two fingers and shook it carefully, drying it in the air, then held it up and studied it, silently, for a few seconds.
“You see something strange?” Jerry asked. “I’m prepared for anything, after the last few times you brought your work in here.”
Marks laughed, a grim bark that made Jerry frown. “Jer, sometimes I guess I ought to just leave everything alone, you know?” He stood up and tossed a bill on the table. “I gotta go track down my subject.”
Jerry let Marks push past him and watched him walk out of the bar purposefully, head down. Then he turned back to the table and plucked the photo from it. Looking down at it, squinting in the bad light, he gasped. Sitting at the same table as Marks was a tall, thin man in a dark suit… or at least that’s what it looked like to Jerry. The man was shadowed and indistinct.
Jerry’s eyes flicked to the table and then back to the photo. In his bar, the table was gouged by a million nervous hands and a few serious vandals. In the photo, words had been carved onto the table:
I LIKE YOU BETTER
VI
It was an innocuous-enough apartment door, but Marks gave in to instinct and looked the whole hallway over before stepping forward and knocking firmly. After a moment, there was a shuffling from inside and then:
“Who’s there?”
“Mr. Harrows, it’s Phillip K. Marks.”
The metallic sounds of locks being undone, and then the door cracked open slightly. Marks waved sardonically at the eye that appeared to look him over. The door shut again and reopened quickly.
“Mr. Marks. I’m sorry, I’ve been a little on edge since we had our discussion. I apologize.”
“No need.” Marks said smoothly. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”
Harrows nodded pleasantly, then looked around the hallway. “Mr. Marks-why are you here?”
Marks looked around. “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Harrows, but I have to ask you for two favors.”
“Favors?”
“First, and most importantly, do you have anything to drink?”
Harrows studied Marks for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes, Mr. Marks, I think I have a bottle of Old Smuggler in the kitchen. It’ll give you one hell of a headache in the morning.”
Marks nodded. “Thank you. I’ll take a double.”
Harrows shrugged his eyebrows and turned to enter the kitchen. “You said you had two favors to ask of me, Mr. Marks?”
“I’d like to take your picture one more time.”
Harrows paused and then continued into the kitchen. “May I ask why?” he called back.
Marks glanced around the room. “Let’s just say I need to confirm an unfortunate suspicion. The good news is, I’ll probably be able to set your mind at ease about the whole situation in a few minutes.”
Harrows returned with Marks’s drink. “Jelly glass, sorry.”
Marks shrugged and took the drink eagerly. “Christ, that’s terrible.” He drained it with a grunt and a grimace, and handed it back, pulling a small camera from his pocket. “Smile!”