Fools Read online

  “Aw,” said the tint. “Lovers’ farewell? And here I thought you were off the stuff, Anwar. Maybe we oughta stop at supply and get you a bigger pump, eh? Just to keep you honest.”

  “Sure,” said Anwar. “Let’s do that. I don’t think this one’s working right and I’ve had all I can take of her.”

  The tint chuckled. “Gotta cancel out those nasty old brain chemicals that make you think you’re in love before they make you do something everybody’ll be sorry for. Maybe you oughta go all the way and get your blood changed.” He turned to the control panel.

  I started to say something. Anwar gave me a hard shove. Then the tint was lying on the floor of the lateral with blood welling up from the gash in his forehead where Anwar had slammed his face into the wall.

  “This’ll buy you two, maybe five minutes,” he whispered to me, pulling me into a far corner of the lateral, which had begun to descend now. “You’re a big pain in the ass, Mar, but I can’t let them do this to you. Supply’s on an exit level. You shove us out there and take this thing to the out-door. Then run like a rabbit. I’ll tell a story.”

  “Where do I go?” I said, feeling helpless.

  “How should I know? Go back to where you’ve been for the last week, I don’t know!” The lateral came to a stop and the doors opened. Anwar hauled the tint up and threw him out bodily before turning to me and pointing at his chin. “As hard as you can.”

  I didn’t get it.

  “Punch me, goddammit!”

  I’d never punched anyone in my life. My fighting experience was limited to stage combat, showy stuff that wouldn’t even smear anyone’s makeup. Then the funny vision on the left flared suddenly, spreading over to the left and I felt—

  sorry, this is all for shit and it isn’t even my own fault except for taking the job. But there was no choice about that, either, Bateau doesn’t exactly let us pick and choose the clientele. I want to tell Anwar to keep wearing a pump because feeling like you can’t let some’ thing happen to somebody in this business is pretty god’ dam inconvenient. He’s better off pumping out whatever that funny stuff is that makes him think he loves me. And I want to tell him I’m sorry that I don’t need a pump myself, and whether it’s because of something that being a memory junkie did to me, or whether it’s that fatal flaw that makes me a memory junkie in the first place—none of that makes any difference. But maybe that I can feel sorry about it counts for something. Maybe being sorry makes me a better person than when I was just someone who couldn’t feel too bad about anything.

  Above all, though, I’m sorry I’m hitting him instead of anyone else. And if you always end up hurting the one you don’t want to hurt, then maybe that means I lo—

  He was staggering backward out of the lateral. I saw him start to fall over the tint and then the door slid shut. The flavor of whatever thoughts had just been in my head was still whirling around but I couldn’t catch the sense of it. My hand slapped the exit button without any prompting from me and the lateral started moving again.

  I must be of two minds about this, I thought giddily, holding a hand over my mouth. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry, but I knew if I started either, I wouldn’t stop until Pajamas caught up with me again and finished me off. And maybe not even then.

  —two minds about this. No, not really. Not anymore. The funny split-vision effect was all gone now, leaving me with a strange, off-balance feeling. I thought I’d go crazy waiting for Pajamas’ voice to come out of some hidden speaker and tell me there was a reception committee standing by, but the lateral kept moving in silence. Then it began to slow and I had a fast flash of panic until I saw the words street exit flashing on the control panel. I hugged the wall next to the door and held my breath.

  The door slid open; nobody barreled in to grab me. I risked a peek. The small, enclosed vestibule was empty and the out-door, plain, grey, blinking FUNCTIONAL in bright green at the access panel, looked so unremarkable, I suddenly wasn’t sure that the last few minutes hadn’t been some kind of delusional waiting dream.

  No; the hand I’d used to punch Anwar hurt too much for a delusion. I rushed for the out-door.

  “You’ll need your keystrip to reenter.”

  I whirled around, flattening against the out-door, but there was still no one in the vestibule.

  “Weather and traffic patterns are available from the wall console to the left of the exit,” the voice added politely. Standard canned exit message, I realized, and looked for the console.

  The compact screen was displaying a short menu, but there was nothing on it about me. Glancing nervously at the lateral, which was still standing open as if it were waiting for me to change my mind and get back in, I tapped the access panel.

  “You’ll need your keystrip to reenter,” the voice reminded me, and that was all. The exit swung open silently.

  Run like a rabbit.

  I tried, but my hand was throbbing so much, all I could manage was a peppy dogtrot. But at least I found a cab before my endurance gave out.

  The driver charged me fare-and-a-half because she wasn’t licensed to pick up anywhere higher than lower midtown and so would have to go back empty. I’d expected that, but I didn’t like it anyway. The pickup boundaries were supposed to be for the benefit of the populace and the ground cabs alike, to keep the drivers from stepping on each other’s toes and spread service evenly throughout the city. But people seldom took cabs within a service district, so now it was just half again as expensive to get from one part of the city to the other.

  I wasn’t in complaint mode; I just paid the extortion, added a barely acceptable tip, and climbed out. The sight of Sir Larry’s Storefront Theatre would have been reassuring if I hadn’t been so drained. I didn’t even want to flay anyone alive anymore. All I wanted now was a few answers and twenty-four hours of undisturbed coma. Then I could get back to my real life.

  Or not. I was about to punch in my entry code when I caught sight of the mini-marquee on the front door. The schedule for the season was scrolling along at a leisurely, readable pace, but it was the time/date display, blinking in alternation with the box office phone number, that got my attention. I watched it through five cycles, just to make sure I hadn’t picked up some kind of reading deficit. The date given as today’s was a week later than it should have been.

  Go back to where you’ve been for the last week. I remembered the phone rejecting my bypass code. “Shit,” I muttered and tried my entry code anyway, hoping that wasn’t out-of-date as well. Damned memory lane, damned famine fancier; my brains were probably scrambled so badly that I’d have to see a doctor.

  By some miracle, the entry code was still correct. I went through the empty lobby and stopped in the open doorway leading to the theatre. There were half a dozen people on the large, in-the-round stage. Rehearsal in progress.

  Em-Cate spotted me first and broke out of the group, moving to the edge of the stage as I came down the center aisle. Her hair was stoplight red now, or maybe arterial-bleeding red; it matched the angry flush coloring her cheeks. Em-Cate hated being interrupted even more than she hated being called Catey. The rest of them turned to look at me, but the only one who showed any sign of recognition at all was Sovay. His skin was all bleached out and under the soft yellow lights, it was the exact color of urine. Very unfortunate, I thought.

  “Deliveries in the rear,” Em-Cate said snappishly, fists on her hips. “How many times do we have to tell you people that? Who gave you the entry code, anyway?”

  In spite of everything, I couldn’t help chuckling. “I’m not here for a delivery.”

  Twill moved to her side and said something in a low voice. All I caught were the words Davy Jones’. Em-Cate gave him a disbelieving look and then turned to me again. “Sorry, but the troupe’s full up now, no vacancy. Whoever you think you are.”

  “That’s an interesting way to put it, Em-Cate,” I said, boosting myself up onto the stage. “But what I’d really like, among other things, is
a new bypass code for the phone so I can call in the next time I need a ride home. The cab from the Downs cost me a fortune and a half.”

  She turned to the others, who all looked bewildered. I was rather bewildered myself. Except for her and Twill and Sovay, I only half recognized most of them and there was one woman I couldn’t place at all. I wondered if I’d be able to get Sir Larry’s to foot my restoration bill.

  “It’s a situation for certain,” Em-Cate said, “and it’s all yours, Sovay. You’re the one who said it was just temporary and if she was removed from the context, it wouldn’t happen again. But look, here she is, all pumped up and ready to play the part. What about that, Sovay? What do you think we should do, throw a welcome-back party?”

  Migod, I thought; had I gotten so badly messed up that I’d crapped out on a performance and been fired?

  “Em-Cate,” Sovay said warningly.

  She gave him a dirty look. “It’s a situation. How do you think we should handle it now, Eisenstein?”

  “Einstein,” Twill muttered.

  Em-Cate gave him a swat. “Eisenstein. The great director. Sovay must think he’s another one.”

  “Shut up,” Sovay said. He was staring at me with a pained expression. Abruptly, I realized I was biting my nails.

  “Well, obviously, I’ve had a fairly serious glitch,” I said. “All I’d really like to know at the moment is why I was just left to stumble around in somebody else’s life instead of being rescued and treated. Is the competition around here getting that cutthroat?”

  Sovay’s pained look intensified. Migod, I thought, I had been fired. Fired and—I glanced at the woman I didn’t know—replaced. The woman looked away from me and I realized I was biting my nails again. What an incredibly vile habit. Leak-through from the character, perhaps? Just my luck—when I finally started getting something from her, it wasn’t anything useful, just disgusting.

  “Do you remember anything about being at Davy Jones’ Locker last night?” Sovay asked me. “And getting thrown out?”

  “Thrown out?” I gave a humorless laugh and held out some of my disastrous hair. “Looking like this, I’m not surprised I got challenged. But didn’t any of you very nice people bother to tell the bouncers I was in costume?”

  There was a short but heavy silence. “It was a private party,” Em-Cate said snottily, “and it was for some very nice people, not for us. There are still those who won’t sell their souls to be some very nice people.”

  “Shut up,” Sovay said. “Can’t you see she doesn’t get it? It doesn’t mean anything to her.”

  “Nothing ever meant anything to that woman,” Em-Cate said. “She was always just out for what she could get and this was the only way she could ever get anyone to say anything good about her, going off to be one of some very—”

  “Turn it off!” Sovay barked.

  Some very nice people … suddenly, it was starting to make sense.

  “Please,” I said, taking a step toward him. He looked as if he wanted to back away and if he had, I’d have fallen apart right there. “I think I’m in some kind of serious trouble with this character, but I can’t remember. I woke up this morning in a memory lane in the Downs and I was missing a week. Then I saw myself in a dataline ad—” I lowered my voice but the acoustics were too good. “I think for a franchiser. I think I did something, made a deal or something, in character. And I think the character did something else as well, because a green guy and another guy kidnapped me and threw me in a van and took me to—”

  “Don’t,” Sovay said.

  I pulled my fingers out of my mouth and wiped them on my pants. “Sorry. They—”

  “I mean don’t tell me anymore. Just don’t. I don’t need that kind of trouble. The only thing I can tell you to do is go back to the memory lane you woke up in and have them finish the job.”

  I stared at him. It would have been a pretty bad joke, but he wasn’t kidding. “Have you lost your mind? Or am I short in that department?”

  “Good question, don’t you think?” Em-Cate was standing right behind me now. “Whose mind got lost? And is it finders-keepers?”

  Sovay let out a noisy breath. “We can’t just leave her to—”

  “Oh, yes, we can,” Em-Cate said. “We are not responsible. This is not our business and I refuse to be a party to anything even remotely connected with it.” She gave me a hard look. “Regardless of who suffers.”

  “She’s right,” said Twill. “If we put ourselves in this, we all might end up in a van. If you want to take that ride, fine. Not me.”

  “Or me.” Em-Cate turned her back abruptly. “Rehearsal’s scrubbed. Everyone out of the pool.”

  They all jumped down from the stage, rushing for the stairs down to the dressing room as if they were running from—well, whatever I’d just run away from. Except for Sovay. Em-Cate looked back at him, shook her head, and followed the rest of them.

  I waited for Sovay to do something or tell me something, but he just stood there with that pained expression on his no-color face, as if he were the one in trouble.

  “Well,” I said with a weak laugh, “I guess I can assume I’m fired, too. On top of everything else.”

  “Christ, I feel so bad for you.” It burst out of him like he was confessing a secret sin he couldn’t five with a moment longer. “And for me. And for everything that happened. I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t know you.”

  “Quite an extraordinary expression of sympathy,” I said after a long moment. “Thanks, I don’t know where I’d be without your friendship and support.” I turned away from him.

  “Where are you going?” he asked quickly.

  “Well, let’s see. Unemployment office should be my first stop, I guess. I take it my termination notice is on file? Then I guess I’ll get my resume rewritten, put my name in for next season’s cattle calls—” I pretended to think hard and then snapped my fingers. “Oh, yah, guess I’ll hit a body clinic and get out of this ridiculous costume since it tends to encourage kidnapping.”

  He caught my arm before I could jump down off the stage. “Listen, M-mar …” Pause. “Marva. Marva. I can’t get over it. It really is you. Isn’t it.”

  The expression on his face was startling; it was as if he were transfixed. “Is that what this is all about—Em-Cate and Twill and everyone else just don’t recognize me?”

  Now he looked as if he were on the verge of tears. The boy always could run an emotional gamut on short notice. “I recognize you. I remember …” His voice died away.

  “Yah, I remember, too.” I shrugged. “But not as much as I’ve forgotten. Which I don’t think was by choice.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” He took a breath. “If I could figure out some way to help you—to help you, Marva—I’d do it. I miss you.”

  This was a light-year and a half from the never-again-I-love-my-wife agonizing I was used to hearing. It threw me so much I almost missed the strange emphasis he’d placed on my name. You, Marva. What in hell was that supposed to mean?

  “I still care,” he went on, embarrassed. “I couldn’t let it continue between us. Not because it didn’t mean anything but because it did.”

  I waved his words away. “Me, Marva as opposed to me, who? Who, Sovay? Me, the character? Me, Marce-line?”

  “Marceline’s—” He cut off so sharply that he didn’t even breathe. But I could hear the rest of the sentence so clearly in my head that I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t said it after all.

  Marceline’s not a character.

  I had the sudden wild notion that I hadn’t really gotten away from Pajamas and this was my mind chugging along at seventy-five percent of capacity in a box.

  Marceline’s not a character.

  Like a shot of absolute truth … like another shot of absolute truth, straight to the brain …

  … and the cop’s still here.

  Marceline’s not a character …

  … and the cop’s still here …

  You wan
t to check the line?

  Marceline’s not a cop …

  … and the cop’s not a character …

  … and Marceline’s still here …

  My head was full of noises and voices and a jumble of pictures that didn’t make any sense—Sovay, Sir Larry’s, Davy Jones’ Locker, the Downs at three A.M., Anwar. They whirled around and around like leaves in a cyclone, blurring, melting into each other to form a new image, unfamiliar but vivid and detailed and unmistakably mine:

  The edge of a cliff, high above some enormous, vague space. I felt a flash of something like agoraphobia, except that wasn’t quite it—this was more than being afraid of too much open space, this was a fear of nothingness, of nonexistence—

  A hand clamped onto my upper arm on the exact spot where the green guy had grabbed me, putting bruises on my bruises. The pain cleared my vision and I saw I was teetering on the edge of the stage.

  “Easy,” Sovay said, pulling me back a few steps. “You looked like you were going to faint.”

  “Not faint. I was going to do something, but it wasn’t faint.” I stared at the edge of the stage, seeing the cliff superimposed on it.

  “Ah, the prodigal has returned!”

  I looked up; the man coming down the aisle toward the stage had a thousand-watt smile, but as he got closer, I could see it didn’t really fit him. He had a long, bony face surrounded by a lot of wiry white hair so dried out, I was afraid it would catch fire from the scented cigarette he was smoking. His expensive clothes didn’t really fit him, either, as if he were wearing a costume put on in a hurry. I almost placed him … something about last night and Davy Jones’ Locker …

  The woman walking behind him didn’t flick any switches, either, but she was wearing one of those don’t-recognize-me getups, a floppy hat and sunglasses big enough to cover the upper half of her face.

  Somebody Big, I thought, replete with Mrs. S.B., or maybe Somebody Big and Mr. S.B. Come to Sir Larry’s to give some actor the Big Break everybody was praying for. I looked at Sovay. His gaze was locked on the guy, who was now climbing up onto the stage as if he owned it.