“Mary Mixup. Right.”
“Was the victim actually Mary? The one you met?”
“No, just the same type. Nobody’s really unique; we all have personality dupes and/or physical look-alikes. Now, the second outrage in the Theaterthon with the Golem actor?”
Shima recognized the pattern she was shaping. “Of course. Sarah Heartburn, the actress manqué.”
“The girl who took sanctuary in the Church of Saint Jude?”
“That well-bred one who objects to five-letter words. Miss Pot, is it?”
“No, Miss Priss, as in prisspot. The distinguée hostess in the Freeport Restaurant?”
“Queen Regina, of course. And the girl at the rallye assaulted by the Golem lesbian. She was the Yenta Calienta type. But who was the GoFer in Studio 2222?”
“Nellie Gwyn.”
“Ildefonsa? Impossible? Ildy’s a looker; you said so yourself. That GoFer was a crow.”
“But the same personality.”
“How d’you know?”
“Wait for it. Wait for it. Last of all, that career-type in the Therpool?”
“The one Ind’dni thinks I assaulted?”
“Yes, because she’s the one who identified you.”
“I can’t understand how she made such a mistake.”
“It wasn’t any mistake. The Golem did look like you.”
“How could it?”
“Because the career gal was me.”
“You!”
“Me, personalitywise. That’s what opened it up for me.” Gretchen nodded with assurance, then leaned forward intently. “Now try to grasp this, Blaise. It’ll be tough because we’re past facts and into the psychic process of the Phasmaworld.”
“Your Subworld. I’ll try.”
“Given: a plastic, protean creature making appearances in different human shapes. Given: seven of its victims, each a personality match for one of the bee-ladies.”
“So far you’ve got the left-hand side of an equation. What comes after the equals sign?”
“Each of the victims was attacked by a creature created by the outflow of a bee-lady’s libido and shaped by that libido.”
“Oh Jesus!”
“Oh yes.”
“You’re asking me to buy your phasma fantasy.”
“I’m not selling you anything. Just look at the facts. Mary Mixup yearns for a man who’ll make her smart. Sarah Heartburn—a dynamic artist-type. Miss Priss—a holy, well-bred lover. Regina—Lord Nelson. Nellie Gwyn—a King Charles the Second stud. That’s how I knew the GoFer was Ildefonsa; the Golem was carrying a King Charles spaniel. Yenta—a butch bulldyke. Me—you. Q.E.D.”
“What about those twins with the Russian names? Why were they left out?”
“Maybe they weren’t. Maybe the report hasn’t reached. Ind’dni—or the outrages went unnoticed, like hundreds more in this lunatic Guff which takes horrors for granted.”
“But—”
But there was no interrupting Gretchen. “You know about the id, the deep reservoir of libido energy in every man, a hellhole of primal drives. Sure you do. Maybe you can remember that line from Hamlet? Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! That’s the id buried in the basement of the human animal; you, me, all of us.”
“We can’t all be monsters,” Shima protested.
“Deep down inside, in our Underworld, we are. Up here, at the top of the iceberg, we censor and control it; but what happens when that brute beast in us escapes control, breaks out of the cage, and runs wild? Then you have Golem100.”
“How does it break out of the cage?”
“Sharpen a wit, baby. The bee-ladies get together in Regina’s hive. They play witchcraft games. Of course they never succeed in raising the Devil because he doesn’t exist. That’s just folklore.”
Shima nodded.
“But their ids combine to generate a different demon. There isn’t any inferno, but there is an Infraworld, and our remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless ids live down there. The ladies’ libidos merge down there, and that’s the genesis of the Golem. It takes the shape of any one or all of some of their unconscious savageries and appears in our conscious world to ravish and slaughter without sense or reason… just savage pleasure. Erotic libido and death libido.”
“You’re claiming that the bottom line with the bee-ladies is the Golem100?”
“Yes. It’s the gut-reality. Energy eruption.”
“Why the bee-ladies in particular? Why don’t we all generate Golems down there?”
“Three little words. Catalyst.”
“Holy Saints! The Promethium.”
“It’s a hell of a thing to cope with, Blaise, but until that radioactive Pm got into the act the world has never been confronted with the gut eight-ninths of the iceberg.”
Shima sighed. “What a rotten thing to happen to a beautiful legend,” he said sadly. “Prometheus, the Fire-Bringer, teacher of the arts of life, friend and benefactor of Man. And now look at the foul fire he’s generating in those filthy women!”
“They’re still nice ladies, Blaise.”
“No. How can they be?”
“They don’t know what they’re doing.”
“There has to be a conscious clue.”
“They don’t even know their gut-drives.”
“We all know that we have them in this day and age.”
“The fact, but not the hideous details. Our conscious can’t bring itself to examine the primal ferocity. That’s why people have to suffer through psychoanalysis for years before they can come face to face with their bottom line.”
“Have you come face to face with yours?”
“I doubt it. I know you haven’t.”
“Me?”
“You. Do you know what primal passion drives you into the personality of Mr. Wish?”
Shima was stunned.
“But you are driven, aren’t you? And yet you’re a nice guy… As nice as the bee-ladies.”
“Oh Jesus! Christ Jesus! Then Ind’dni is right. I am a Golem.”
“Easy, baby. You’re not alone. Most of us are Golems, one way or another. The rare exceptions get sainted. So cool it and I’ll whip up another slug of the secret formula, prized by the cognoscenti, and famed in song and story.”
She went into the galley which was so rarely used that it was almost as sterile as Shima’s laboratory at CCC. Gretchen’s secret formula was the extravagant equivalent of two weeks in a spa: coffee, butter, sugar, egg yolks, cream, cognac. While she was heating and churning the hellbrew in a double boiler, her sight began to fade.
“Hey! Open your eyes,” she called cheerfully. “I’m going blind.”
He didn’t answer. Her primary vision failed altogether, and she was left with the secondary kaleidoscope. “Damn. He’s fallen asleep.” She felt her way out of the galley to the bath. “Blaise! Wake up!”
No answer. She groped around the tub. It was empty. She felt the tile floor with her palms. It was wet. “He’s getting dressed. Mr. Modesty!” She went into the bedroom. “Blaise?” No answer. In the lounge she called, “Blaise Shima! Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Nothing. And nothing from the terrace except the Guff’s distant pandemonium.
“Damn the man. He’s funked out and gone to hide in his lab. Patience, Gretchen. Patience.” She allowed an impatient half hour for traveltime and called CCC. No, Dr. Shima’s laboratory did not answer. No, Dr. Shima was not to be found in the CCC complex. She called the Organic Nursery. No, Dr. Shima was not dining there. Anyway, Dr. Shima always had his meals delivered.
She called the stock exchange, Theaterthon, the Church of St. Jude, the Freeport Restaurant, Station WGA, the Sheep Meadow racetrack, the Therpool. No one answering to the name or description of Blaise Shima. Now genuinely alarmed she thought of contacting Salem Burne or the P.L.O.; instead she settled for the Guff Precinct Complex and asked for Subadar Ind’dni.
“And are you calling from your mystic Subworld, Miz Nunn?” he inquired. “You did not give me to understand that it had communication with reality.”