,,They forget so easily," Erwin said. "Just this afternoon@' "I know what happened," Ammiano replied. "I felt it.",,We're like smoke," Erwin said, remembering Dolan's first lessons in ghosthood.
"We're not even that. At least smoke can make people weep. We can do nothing."
"That's not so," Erwin told him. "You'll see when we find this woman Tesia. She can hear me. At least she could once. She's quite a woman, believe me. The way she acts, it's like she couldn't give a damn whether she lived or died."
"Then she's a fool.
"No, I mean, she's brave. When she was at my house, I told you, about Kissoon@' "I remember, Erwin," Coker said politely. "I never saw anything braver.",,You're talking like you're in love, my friend."
"Nonsense."
"I believe you're quite enamored. Don't be embarrassed."
"I'm... I'm not."
"You're blushing."
Erwin put his palms to his cheeks. "It's so absurd," he said.
"What is?"
"That I have no blood in my body@on't even have a body-yet I blush."
"I've had a lot of time to try and puzzle that out," Coker Ammiano said.
"And did you come to any conclusions?" "A few.
"Tell me."
"We invented ourselves, Erwin. Our energies belong to some great oneness-I don't care to give it a name or I'd be trying to invent that too-and we've used them, these energies, in the recreation of Erwin Toothaker and Coker Ammiano. Now those men are dead, and much of that power has returned to its source. But we hold on to a bit of it, just to keep our fictions alive a little longer. And we clothe ourselves in what's familiar, and we fill our pockets with things to comfort us. But it can't go on forever. Sooner or later"he shrugged-"we'll be done."
"Not me," said Erwin. "I saw what happened to Dolan and Nordhoff and-"
"What things look like from the outside and what they are on the inside can be very different, Erwin. Perhaps all that was happening at the crossroads was that Dolan was going back where he came from."
"Into your oneness?"
"It, s not mine, Erwin." He paused, musing on this. Then he said, "No, I take that back. I think it is mine. And you know why?"
"No. But I think you're about to enlighten me."
"Because once I'm there, I'm everywhere." I-le smiled, well pleased by this. "And the oneness is mine as much as it is anybody else's."
"So why haven't you just given in to it?" Erwin wanted to know. "I wish I had an answer to that. I think sometimes it must be some evil in me."
"Evil?" pp
"As in something done in error. Against what's good.
Erwin interrupted him in mid-flow. "That man!" he said, pointing across the street.
"I see him."
"He was with Tesla. His name's D'Amour."
"He's in quite a hurry."
"I wonder if he knows where she is."
"There's only one way to find out."
"Follow him?"
"Precisely."
D'Amour had put in a call to New York before he left the Cobb house. Norma had been pleased to hear from him.
"I had a visitor yesterday," she said, sounding more unnerved than Harry could ever remember her sounding before. "She just came in through the window, and sat down in front of me."
"Who the hell was it?"
"She said her name was Lazy Susan. At least at first. Then it changed its mind, and God knows probably its sex as well, and started calling itself the Hammermite-"
"Then Peter the Nomad?"
"It got round to him after a while," Norma said. "So is this thing what it claims it is?"
"Yes.
"It killed 14ess?"
"He was one of many. What did it want?"
"What do these things ever want? It crowed a bit. It did a dump on the floor. And it asked to be reminded to you@' "How exactly?"
Norma sighed. "Well... it started talking about how the Devil was coming, how we'd all be crucified for what we'd done. It harpe I d on that quite a bit. Gave me a brief history of crucifixion, which I could have done without. Then it said: 'Tell DAmour-"'
"Let me guess. 'I am you and you are love-"' He didn't bother to finish.
"That's it," Norma said.
"Then what?" "Nothing. It told me I had very lovely eyes, and it was sure they were all the prettier because they were useless. Then it left. I still can't get rid of the smell of its shit."
"I'm sorry, Norma."
"It's okay. I got some air-freshener-"
"No. I mean the whole damn thing."
"I tell you what, Harry. It made me think."
"About-?" "About our conversation on the roof, for one."
"I've thought a lot about that myself"
"I'm not saying I was completely wrong. The world does change, and it keeps changing, and I don't think it's going anywhere soon. But this thing, this Lazy Susan... The words fell away for a moment. All Norma could find to say was: "Horrible." Harry said nothing. "I know what you're thinking," Norma said. "You're thinking, why doesn't the old cow make up her mind?"
"No I wasn't."
"Truth is, I don't know anymore."
"Don't let it get you crazy."
"Oh it's too late for that," Norma said, the laughter coming back into her voice. "What is it with these demons anyhow? Why are they so damn excremental?"
"'Cause that's what they want the world to be, Norma."
"Shit." "Shit."
They'd talked on for a while, but it had been little more than chatter. Only at the end, when Harry said he had to be going, did Norma say,
"Where?"
"Up the mountain," he told her. "to see what the Devil looks like, face to face."
Now, an hour after that conversation, he was climbing, the trees so dense he was almost blind as Norma, and after all the pursuits and losses of recent times-Dusseldorfs death, the massacre of the Zyem Carasophia, the events in the Badlands, and the murder of Maria Nazareno-it was a relief that things were coming to an end.
He thought of the portrait Ted had made-DAmour in Wyckoff Street, with that black snake crushed under a hero's heel. How simple that seemed. How blissfully simple. The demon writhes. The demon withers. The demon is gone.
It had never been that way, except in stories, and despite what the child at the crossroads had said (leaves on the story tree), Harry had no expectation of a happy ending.
Despite his hectoring and cajoling, only four members of the band had turned up at Larry Glodoski's house: Bill Waits, Steve Alstead, Denny Gips, and Chas Reidlinger. Larry broke out the scotch, and laid out his interpretation of events.
"What we've got here is some kind of mind manipulation," he said. "Maybe chemical, maybe something put in the water-"
"Least it's not in the scotch," Bill said. "This is serious," Larry said. "We've got a catastrophe on our hands, gentlemen."
"What did everyone see?" Gips asked the room.
"Women," said Alstead.
"And light," Reidlinger added.
"That's what they wanted us to see," Larry said.
"Who's they?" Waits wondered. "I mean, we got over the Red Menace, we got over UFOS. So what the hell is it? Don't get me wrong, Larry, I'm not saying you're crazy,,cause I saw some shit too. I'd just like to know what we're up against."
"We're not going to find out sitting here," Alstead replied. "We have to go look for ourselves."
"And what are we going to defend ourselves with?" Waits wanted to know.