Mirror

'Grandpa, I like it here. I'm happy.'

Mr Capelli looked toward Martin for support; but Martin was too busy examining their reflections in the mirror for something which gave him a clue to how this apparent hallucination actually worked. Yet there seemed to be nothing, no tricks at all. He was seeing a blond-haired motion-picture star of the late 1930s whose reflection in the mirror was a dark-haired Italian boy of the late 1980s, and that was all there was to it.

'Emilio,' Martin said, 'if I told you that you could come back over here, right now, right this second, what would you say to me?'

'I like it here,' Emilio repeated. 'I'm happy.'

But there was an edginess in Emilio's voice that made Martin feel that he wasn't telling the whole truth.

'Emilio,' he asked, 'what's it like in there? Is it really like home? Boofuls said it was different.'

'Well, sure, it's different,' said Emilio. He wasn't smiling at all.

'Listen, I have a suggestion,' said Martin to Boofuls. Boofuls wasn't smiling either. 'Why don't you get back into the mirror while I start putting your movie package together? It's going to take months before anybody's going to tell us yes or no; and months more to rewrite and cast the picture; and even more months before they can get around to set building and costumes. We'll be lucky to have this production finished in eighteen months, two years. And Emilio can't stay behind that mirror for two years.'

Boofuls' eyes tightened and darkened. 'I was trapped in the mirror for fifty years, Martin. Fifty! If I don't get out now, I'm never going to get out, ever.'

'But you can't possibly expect Emilio to stay in that mirror-world until he's seven!'

'The picture won't take two years to make,' said Boofuls.

'Oh, yes, and how can you be so sure about that?'

'I'm sure, that's all. Once it starts production, it'll be easy. None of the sets were destroyed; none of the costumes were spoiled.'

'How do you know that?'

'I know, that's all. They're all at a warehouse in Long Beach.'

'Well, well,' Martin replied, trying not to sound too bitter about it, 'we're all ready to roll, then. We've got the star, we've got the screenplay, we've got the costumes, we've got the sets. All we seem to have forgotten is that minor detail called finance. Twenty-five million dollars for a full-scale musical, and that's the bottom line.'

Boofuls didn't respond to Martin's sarcasm, but smiled and said, 'We'll see.'

Mr Capelli, confused, called out to Emilio. 'Emilio, hey, I love you?'

'I know, Grandpa,' said Emilio. 'But Boofuls can't rest if I come back now.'

'Emilio, listen —'

'You must help him,' little Emilio insisted in a tone far graver than any that Martin had heard him adopt before.

'Martin,' begged Mr Capelli, 'what can I do?'

'Quite seriously, Mr Capelli,' said Martin, 'if I were you I'd demand —

But Mr Capelli's dilemma was settled for him; because at that moment a cat's tail swished black and gingery from behind the door in the reflected sitting room, and Emilio immediately darted after it, out of the door, and disappeared. Martin turned around. Boofuls had run out of the room too. They heard him giggling in the kitchen, as if he were playing with a pet.

'What can we believe?' asked Mr Capelli, stretching his arms out wide. Martin could see that he was very close to collapse; and the shock of this morning's events was beginning to make him feel swimmy and light-headed, too. Too much caffeine, not enough sleep, not enough to eat.

Martin said, 'I don't know, Mr Capelli. I really don't know. Maybe your Father Lucas will tell us what to believe.'

Sister Boniface was kneeling at early prayer in the chapel of Sisters of Mercy Hospital; her head bowed; her eyes tightly closed; her mind very close to God.

The chapel was modern and very simple. Plain oak pews, plain oak floor, an altar of polished gray marble.

Its richest feature was its stained-glass window, depicting the Madonna holding the naked Christ-child, with rays of multicolored light transporting her up to the clouds. Sister Boniface adored this window. The light strained through it differently at different times of the day. Sometimes it looked peaceful and slightly melancholy: at other times, when the sun shone fully, it blazed with holy glory.

Today Sister Boniface was praying in particular for the soul of Homer Theobald. She had learned through the hospital grapevine that he had died; and she had learned from Sister Michael that Martin and Ramone had been with him. However, she had been afraid to call Martin to confirm her deepest anxiety - that the key which she had given him had attracted the attention of a vengeful Satan. She was mortified that she believed in evil spirits; and she was wracked with guilt for having given Martin the key.

When she met him last week, it had seemed to Sister Boniface that Martin could well be the messenger for whom she had been waiting for fifty years: the man who would settle her torment once and for all, and give her peace. She had sensed an aura of honesty about him; an aura of blessed destiny. But now she was beginning to suspect that Satan might have been deceiving her, and that all he wanted to do was to relieve her of the key which she had guarded for so long.

She had no idea what the key unlocked, but she knew that it was more terrible than anybody could imagine.

She prayed for her fellow sisters, she prayed for the hospital, she prayed for a small boy in St. Francis of Assisi ward who was dying of AID S from a contaminated blood transfusion. She prayed for peace and fulfillment, and that Homer Theobald had found his place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

She was finishing her prayers when a voice whispered, 'Sister Boniface'.

She looked up; looked around. There was nobody there. The chapel was deserted.

'Sister Boniface.'

She listened. At last, she stood up, brushing down her white habit, and said in a quavering voice, 'Who's there? Is anybody there?'

'Sister Boniface, you betrayed me,' the voice said.

'I betrayed no one,' said Sister Boniface. 'I have always kept my word and my sacred trust.'

' You gave away the key, Sister Boniface.'

Sister Boniface stepped out into the aisle and walked toward the altar, looking from left to right for any sign of the whisperer hiding behind the pews or the pillars.

' You betrayed me, Sister Boniface, now you will have to be punished.'

Sister Boniface stopped in front of the altar. On her right, beside one of the smooth Italian-marble pillars, scores of votive candles burned brightly and were reflected in her eyes. The dear Madonna smiled down at her from the stained-glass window. She knew that nothing terrible could happen to her in the sight of the dear Madonna.

'Nobody can betray me and go unpunished,' the voice said, just as close to her ear as it had been before.' Warm hands, warm, the men have gone to plough; if you want to warm your hands, warm your hands now.'

Sister Boniface said, 'Who are you? What are you? What do you want?'

'She gave you the key to keep,' whispered the voice. 'She gave you the key to keep. Not to lose, not to give away. To keep forever, and to take with you to your grave.'

Sister Boniface whirled around, but there was nobody behind her, nobody anywhere to be seen. Her mouth felt suddenly parched, and she started to tremble. 'O Holy Mother, protect me,' she prayed. But she was beginning to feel that prayer alone was not going to be enough. 'In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. . .'

'Warm hands, warm,' murmured the voice. 'The men have gone to plough. If you want to warm your hands, warm your hands now.'

It was then that she caught sight of his face; and she screamed out loud. Her scream echoed in the chapel, but there was nobody there to hear her.

He was smiling at her from the small mirror just above the banks of votive candles — childish, white-faced. The same boy who had floated over his grandmother's bed all those years ago. The same boy whose unearthly appearance had tormented Sister Boniface for the rest of her life.

'Ah,' whispered Boofuls, 'you've seen me.'

Sister Boniface walked towards the mirror, her left foot dragging slightly, her habit rustling on the marble floor. Boofuls watched her approach and his eyes were tiny piercing lights.

'I never betrayed you,' said Sister Boniface, her voice shaking.

' You were supposed to take that key to your grave, you miserable old witch,' Boofuls spat back at her. 'When you gave that key away, you gave away part of my secret. You should have known better than that, witch, even you.'

Then, in a slow, measured rhythm, he sang, 'Warm hands, warm; the men have gone to plough; if you want to warm your hands, warm your hands now.'

Sister Boniface shuddered. 'You are Satan,' she declared, 'I know you now! You are Satan!'

Boofuls laughed. He laughed and laughed. He laughed so much that - for one peculiar second — his face in the mirror almost seemed to turn itself inside out, and reveal something dark and gristly and insectlike. Sister Boniface cried out 'Satan!' and reached up over the banks of votive candles to take the mirror down.

It was then that she felt every muscle in her body lock tight. She was paralyzed, with her arms held over the candles. She tried to move, tried to cry out, but her nervous system simply refused to obey her.

Satan, she thought wildly. Satan!

There were more than seventy candles burning just below her outstretched hands. What at first had felt like a wave of warmth now began to feel like a furnace. The boy's face in the mirror watched her in delight as Sister Boniface gradually began to realize what was going to happen to her.

0 Mother of God, protect me, the pain! thought Sister Boniface. But she was completely powerless to move her hands away from the heat of the candles, or to scream out for help. She had never known anything so agonizing. Her hands began to redden, and she began to smell a strong aroma of scorched meat. Each finger-nail felt as if it were white-hot.

Please, she begged Boofuls inside her mind. Please release me, please! I'll get back the key, I promise you! I'll take it to the grave with me, just as you ask!

But all Boofuls did was to chant, ' Warm hands, warm, the men have gone to plough; if you want to warm your hands, warm your hands now!'

Slowly, inch by inch, Sister Boniface found that she was lowering her hands toward the candle flames. The heat was so intense that she could scarcely feel it. The skin on the palms of her hands blackened and shriveled, and strips of it dropped off and fell onto the candleholders, where it hung, smoking. The sleeves of her habit began to smolder; and as her hands came lower and lower, they burst into flame, so that her bare wrists were licked by the fire as well.

Tears poured from Sister Boniface's eyes and down her wrinkled cheeks. The agony was thunderous. She wanted to do nothing but die, even though her paralysis made it impossible for her to turn and see the face of the dear Madonna.

The flesh of her hands was actually alight now, and it burned with a sputtering sizzle. Gradually the layers of skin were burned through, and the flesh charred, and the bones were exposed, her own fingerbones bared in front of her eyes.

' Warm hands, warm, the men have gone to plough!'

It was just when the agony reached its greatest that Boofuls released Sister Boniface from her paralysis. She didn't realize what had happened at first; but then she let out a scream of sheer tormented pain that pierced the chapel from end to end.

She lurched back, away from the candles, holding her blazing arms out in front of her like a sleepwalker. The holy water, she thought in desperation, I can douse my hands in the holy water.

She began to make her way step by step along the aisle. Her hands were nothing but blackened stumps now, and her sleeves were leaping with orange flame. Her wimple, incendiary with starch, suddenly flared up like a crown of fire and set light to her short-cropped hair underneath.

By the time she had managed to make her way half-way down the aisle, her habit was ablaze from hem to shoulder. She was a shuffling mass of fire, her head alight, her eyes wide with shock and terror, no longer able to scream or even to whimper.

She knew that she would never be able to reach the holy water. She twisted, collapsed, then fell onto her side. She could hear the fire roaring in her ears. She could see the flames dancing past her eyes.

In a last agonized effort, she managed to lift her head, just long enough to glimpse the stained-glass window behind the pews. The dear Madonna still smiled at her, as she had always done. Sister Boniface tried to say something, the smallest of prayers, but her habit had burned through to her underclothing now, and the skin on her legs was alight, and she died before she could whisper even one word.

Although he was patrolling the second floor, one of the hospital security officers had heard Sister Boniface screaming, and had gone to investigate. He had thought at first that it was one of the cleaners laughing or larking about. He opened a dozen office doors before he eventually reached the chapel.

'Jesus,' he said when he opened the doors.

The chapel was dense with smoke. In the middle of the center aisle, a blackened figure was huddled on the floor, a few last flames still flickering on its chest. The security officer felt his throat tighten with nausea, and he didn't know whether he ought to go into the chapel or not. There was no chance at all that the figure on the floor was still alive.

Eventually, he took a deep breath, masked his nose and mouth with his padded-up handkerchief, and cautiously stepped inside. He made his way up the aisle until he reached Sister Boniface's body. Then he just stood and stared at it in horror.

Her head had been burned so fiercely that most of her skull had collapsed into ashes. Her ribs curved up from an indistinguishable heap of burned cloth and carbonized flesh; her pelvis lay like an unwanted wash-basin.

The only way in which the security officer could tell at once that it was Sister Boniface was her crucifix, a large bronze cross, mottled with heat, from which the figure of Christ had melted into small distorted blobs of silver.

He thought he heard a rustling noise in the chapel, like somebody moving about on tiptoe, but when he peered through the smoke he saw nobody at all.

He unhitched his walkie-talkie from his belt, switched it on, and said, 'Douglas? This is Andrej. Listen, you'd better get down to the chapel. Sister Boniface has had some kind of an accident. No, burned. I don't know, maybe she got too close to the candles. No, dead. No, dead. Are you kidding? She hasn't even got a mouth left to give the kiss of life to.'

He clipped the walkie-talkie back on his belt and then stood staring at the ashes of the woman who had made the mistake of giving away Boofuls' key.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Father Lucas had sprained his ankle that weekend playing baseball with the boys of St Ignatius' Little League team. He came heavily up the stairs to Martin's apartment, rocking himself between the banister rails, and grunting noisily. Mr Capelli came up behind him, trying to make himself useful, but proving to be more of an irritation than a help.

'It's all right, Mr Capelli,' Father Lucas insisted. 'I've worked out my own rhythm. Don't upset it, or you'll have me falling down the stairs backward.'

'Watch for this corner,' fussed Mr Capelli. 'Sometimes I trip here myself, and how long have I lived here?'

Upstairs in the sitting room Boofuls sat placidly watching Sesame Street. Martin stood by the window, watching Maria Bocanegra sunning herself before going off to work. She must have fallen asleep, because one of the Sno-Cones had been blown off by the morning breeze, and one nipple was bared. It looked like a soft, wrinkled prune, thought Martin. The kind you could gently sink your teeth into.

From time to time, he glanced at Boofuls. As soon as Father Lucas had visited, he was going to take Boofuls out to Sears and buy him some new clothes. T-shirts, sneakers, so that at least he looked like a kid from the 1980s. He thought it was extraordinary that he had come to accept Booful's presence so easily. Yet if somebody's actually there, he thought, talking and walking and living and breathing, what else can you do? It doesn't matter if they came out of a mirror or down from the moon.

Father Lucas knocked at Martin's front door. 'Hello there! Mr Williams!' Martin lowered the Venetian blind and came away from the window. 'This'll be the priest,' he told Boofuls. He had already told him that Father Lucas was coming to visit, but Boofuls had appeared to be completely uninterested. He didn't seem to be any more interested now.

Without waiting to be shown in, Father Lucas appeared at the sitting room door. He was a barrel-chested man with a leonine head that seemed to be far too big for the rest of his body. His silver hair was combed straight back from his forehead. He wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses that reminded Martin of a pair of 1950s television sets, side by side, each showing a test transmission of a single gray eye.

Father Lucas swung himself into the room and grasped Martin's hand. 'Mr Capelli tells me you've been having some trouble, Mr Williams.' He looked around and then he said, 'You won't mind if I have a seat? I was trying to show my Little Leaguers how to throw a forkball, and I got rather carried away.'

He limped across to the sofa where Boofuls was sitting watching Sesame Street. 'Hello, young fellow!' he said, beaming and ruffling Booful's hair. 'You don't mind if I park myself next to you, do you?'

Without even looking at him, Boofuls said, 'Yes, I do mind. And don't scruff up my hair again. You're not allowed to.'

Father Lucas stared at Boofuls in bewilderment. He had always liked to think that he was 'pretty darn good' with children, especially young boys.

Mr Capelli snapped, 'Hey! You! Kid! You're talking to a priest here! You're talking to a holy father!'

Boofuls reluctantly took his eyes away from Kermit the Frog and looked Father Lucas up and down.

'I'm Father Lucas. And you are -'

For one moment - so quickly that it was like a rubber glove being rolled inside out and then the right way round again -an expression rippled through Boofuls' face which made Martin shiver. He had seen hostility in children's faces before; but nothing like the concentrated venom which disfigured Boofuls. He scarcely looked like a child at all: more like an evil-tempered dwarf.

But then the hostility vanished, and Boofuls was smiling and pretty once more - so angelic, in fact, that Father Lucas smiled back at him with pleasure, and said, 'Well, now, aren't you the uppity one?'

All the same, he backed off, and sat down at Martin's desk, and nodded and smiled at Boofuls almost as if he were afraid of him.

'It's the mirror,' said Mr Capelli, his eyes glancing from Boofuls to Father Lucas and back again.

Tm sorry? The mirror?' asked Father Lucas. He turned around in his chair and looked at himself in the mirror on the far wall. 'Oh, yes. The mirror. Well, it's very handsome, isn't it?'

'It took my grandson,' said Mr Capelli.

'It -?' asked Father Lucas, lifting his spectacles, not at all sure what Mr Capelli meant.

'It took my grandson, took him away. He's in there now.'

Father Lucas looked at Martin for some reassurance that Mr Capelli was quite all right and not suffering from some temporary brainstorm. The heat, you know. Maybe the male menopause. Men of this particular age sometimes acted a little feverish. But Martin gave him a nod to assure him that it was true.

'We didn't expect for one minute that you were going to find this easy to believe,' he told Father Lucas. 'But this definitely isn't your ordinary common or garden mirror. It's like a way through to another world.'

'Another world?' said Father Lucas, looking even more unsettled.

'It's still Hollywood in there,' Martin told him. 'But it's Hollywood the other way round. And the reflections that appear in that mirror aren't always the same as the real people and objects that are standing in front of it. Did you ever read Alice Through the Looking-Glass?

'Yes, of course,' said Father Lucas, still baffled.

'Then that'll give you some idea of what's happening here. You remember in Alice how the looking-glass world was completely different once Alice was out of sight of the mirror. I think this mirror's similar. Once you walk through that sitting room door in there, the whole world's turned on its head.'

Without looking at Boofuls, Martin said, 'I know for a fact that people can survive after death, inside that mirror.'

'You know that for zfact? queried Father Lucas.

Martin nodded.

There was a lengthy and embarrassing silence. Boofuls continued to watch Sesame Street with no obvious concern at Father Lucas' presence. Father Lucas sat on his chair with his double chins squashed up by his dog collar, his eyes fixed on the floor, his forehead furrowed like a Shar-Pei, trying to think of an appropriate response. He had known Mr Capelli for years and years, and he had never known him to be anything but sincere. Pompous, occasionally irascible; but never foolish or dishonest.

Father Lucas had never met Martin before, but Martin certainly didn't look wild or eccentric; or like a malicious practical joker.

'You'll have to forgive me,' he said. 'I'm not at all sure that I understand what you're asking; and even if I could understand what you're asking, I'm not at all sure why you're asking me.'

He stood up and walked toward the mirror. 'You're trying to tell me that people can walk in and out of this mirror?'

Martin said, 'Sometimes. Not always.'

Father Lucas knocked on the glass with his knuckle.

'Seems pretty solid to me. What's behind it?'

'An outside wall. Back of the house.'

Father Lucas breathed on the mirror's surface and wiped it with his cuff. 'And you say that if you can get into the mirror ... then beyond that sitting room door, things are very different from the real world?'

Mr Capelli put in, 'We saw a ball, yes? A child's ball. In here it was blue and white, in there it was a tennis ball.'

He swallowed hard, and then he added, 'I saw Emilio in there, my own flesh and blood; but here it was —' He lifted one arm towards Boofuls, then dropped it against his side. 'In here it was this boy.'

'This boy?' queried Father Lucas, inclining his head toward Boofuls.

Uneasy, Mr Capelli wiped his sweating palms on the sides of his pants. Father Lucas walked back toward Boofuls and hunkered down beside him, inspecting him through his television-set spectacles as if he were a doctor and Boofuls had been brought to him with suspected mumps. Boofuls completely ignored him and carried on watching television.

Father Lucas held out his hand, but Boofuls, without looking at him, moved his own hand away.

'What's your name, son?' Father Lucas asked him in a gentle voice.

Boofuls' eyes remained fixed on Grover. 'My name is Lejeune,' he said.

'Lejeune? Is that French?'

Boofuls shook his head. Father Lucas waited for him to say something else, but when he didn't, he rose to his feet and said, 'He's a relative of yours?'

'He's my -' Martin began; but Mr Capelli immediately interrupted.

'He's a friend of Emilio's; a good, good friend. Best buddies. His parents had to go away for a week or two. So — well — he's staying with us. With me and Mrs Capelli.'

Boofuls didn't make any attempt to deny this fiction; but kept on smiling.

'Well . . .' said Father Lucas. 'I'm not too sure what it is you want me to do.'

Mr Capelli grasped his arm and spoke to him racetrack-confidential. 'I want you to tell me if that mirror is a good mirror or an evil mirror. I want you to tell me what you feel when you touch it. Also, I was hoping that maybe you could think of some way to get Emilio out. Some holy way, do you understand what I mean by holy? Just so that nobody gets hurt. You see Lejeune here, well, I wouldn't want him to get hurt, for instance.'

'Why should there be any danger of him getting hurt?' asked Father Lucas.

'Father,' Mr Capelli replied, 'I just don't know. But maybe prayer can help. You know - maybe you can ask God.'

Father Lucas tried to look benign. 'God isn't exactly an agony uncle on some local radio station, somebody you can call up just whenever you feel like it.'

'I know that. He's better. Look at His ratings. God has better ratings than anybody you can think of, on any station.'

'Mr Capelli,' said Father Lucas, 'let's just take this one step at a time. You're asking me to tell you whether the mirror is good or evil. Well, let's find out. There's a little test we can do. I suppose you could call it a litmus test for blasphemy.'

'Litmus?' frowned Mr Capelli, as Father Lucas took a small phial of silver and dark blue glass out of his coat pocket.

'Didn't you do any science at school?' Martin asked him. 'Litmus is a powder that turns red in acid and blue in alkali. They make it out of moss.'

'And this is litmus?' Mr Capelli asked, pointing to Father Lucas' phial.

Father Lucas smiled and shook his head. 'Not quite, Mr Capelli. But it has a similar effect. It is water from the Holy Shrine at Lourdes, mixed with salt from the Sea of Galilee. It is said that if it touches any evil or desecrated object or person, it will burn them, like acid.'

Boofuls looked across in interest when Father Lucas said this; but after a while he returned to the television. Little House on the Prairie seemed to entertain him more than foolish priests who sprained their ankles playing baseball.

Father Lucas unscrewed the cap of the phial and lifted it up in front of the mirror. 'In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,' he intoned, and cast drops of holy water at the surface of the mirror in the sign of the cross.

To his astonishment, the holy water flew right through the surface of the mirror and splattered onto the floor in the reflected sitting room.

Father Lucas stared at the image in the mirror, then touched the glass of the mirror itself, then stepped back to stare at the real floor.

'My God,' he whispered. 'It's there, in the mirror, but it's not here.' He licked his lips anxiously. 'It went right through. How could that happen? It's solid glass.'

Martin said, 'Now you know why we called you.'

Father Lucas waited for a moment, plainly unsure what he was going to do next. 'There could be some scientific explanation,' he suggested. 'I always look for the scientific explanation before I start imagining that I'm face-to-face with something demonic. Well, it's only right. Science in itself is a wonder of the Lord; and if a phenomenon eventually turns out to defy science, well then, it's all the more wonderful for that.'

'So what are you going to do?' asked Mr Capelli. 'All you lost in there was some holy water. I lost my grandson.'

'Well,' said Father Lucas. 'This isn't really my bag, so to speak. I'm not an exorcist; and I'm not too sure that an exorcist is what you need. You may be better off with a physicist.'

Boofuls laughed out loud, but it wasn't at all clear whether he was laughing at the television or at Father Lucas. Mr Capelli gave him a stern look, and he said, 'I'm sorry.'

Stiffly, Father Lucas got down on his hands and knees and patted the floorboards where (in the mirror) they were wet. Martin had done the same thing when Boofuls' ball first bounced into the reflected room; and with an equal lack of success.

'I can see myself touching it,' he said, 'and yet my fingers aren't wet. It's quite astonishing.'

He held out his hand to Martin to help him back up again; but just as he did so, something came flying out of the mirror in exactly the same parabola as the holy water had flown in. It splattered onto Father Lucas' forehead and down the side of his cheek.

He cried out 'Ah!' in surprise, and lifted his fingers to his face. He had been hit by several white glutinous droplets, which dripped onto the floor, and hung from his fingers in thin sticky strings.

'Here,' said Mr Capelli, taking out a large clean handkerchief and unfolding it. 'Here, Father, wipe yourself with this.'

'What in God's name is it?' Father Lucas asked in disgust. He lifted his fingers to his nose and sniffed. Then he sniffed again. Then — his horror so strong that he almost panicked — he snatched the handkerchief from Mr Capelli's hand and wiped and wiped his face until it was bright scarlet all down one side.

'Semen!' He quivered. 'Semen!'

Mr Capelli crossed himself, and then crossed himself again. Martin helped Father Lucas to climb to his feet. Once he had steadied himself, Father Lucas stared at the mirror in anger and frustration. 'This is the work of the devil, you must have realized that from the very start.'

'But what can you do?' Mr Capelli begged him. 'The work of the devil is something that priests are trained to handle, eh? So you can do something for us?'

Father Lucas was about to say something when he turned unexpectedly and looked at Boofuls. Boofuls was staring at him with one of his triumphant, expressionless faces.

For a moment, their eyes engaged in a silent, careful game of question and answer. Then Father Lucas walked over to him and said, 'What do you know about this mirror?'

Mr Capelli caught hold of Father Lucas' arm. 'Listen, Father, he doesn't know nothing at all. He's only been in town since yesterday.'

Father Lucas continued to stare at Boofuls in the way that a confident man stares at a dog which has a reputation for being vicious and mad. 'Lejeune,' he said. 'That's your name, is it? Lejeune.'

Boofuls smiled fleetingly and said nothing, but he didn't take his eyes away from Father Lucas, not once. Martin didn't like the look of that smile at all. It made him shudder, as if somebody were stepping on his grave.

They went downstairs to Mr Capelli's apartment, leaving Boofuls on his own. 'Come in and have coffee,' Mrs Capelli begged Father Lucas. 'I have some beautiful polenta.'

Martin said, 'Go ahead, Father, please. There's something I want to show you.'

'All right, all right,' Father Lucas agreed. He took out his handkerchief and gave his reddened cheek yet another rub. 'But I can only stay for a quarter of an hour.'

'It won't take any longer,' Martin assured him.

While Mr and Mrs Capelli took Father Lucas through to the parlor, Martin ran downstairs and out into the street. He unlocked the trunk of his Mustang and carefully lifted out the black-tissue package that he and Ramone had discovered at the Hollywood Divine. Then he returned to the house with it and carried it upstairs.

Mrs Capelli was setting the table with plates and cups. She looked fretful and unsettled, and her braided hair was coming loose on one side. Father Lucas was talking to Mr Capelli about the mirror. They obviously hadn't told Mrs Capelli that it had ejaculated in Father Lucas' face. But Father Lucas looked extremely worried.

'You always associate this kind of demonic event with the Middle Ages,' he was saying, 'but the truth is that the devil never rests, any more than the Lord Almighty.'

'Amen, amen,' put in Mrs Capelli, clattering coffee spoons.

Martin came in and laid the black-tissue package on the lace tablecloth. Father Lucas shifted his chair around to examine it. 'What's this?' he wanted to know. 'Is it anything to do with the mirror?'

'I think so, but I don't know what. Let me tell you something, Father, before you open it. A man was killed yesterday, helping me to find this stuff. Whether it was an accident or not, I can't say. He might just have hemorrhaged. But I don't really think so.'

Mrs Capelli crossed herself. 'Holy Mother of God, what is it?'

Father Lucas untied the braided hair and teased open the tissue paper. He lifted one sheet up, and the black claws tumbled out onto the table with a rattling sound.

'God protect us,' Mr Capelli said hoarsely.

'Where did you get these?' Father Lucas asked, picking one of the claws up and turning it over.

Martin said, 'Just at the moment, I don't want to tell you. Well, I want to tell you, but I can't. It's all to do with protecting Emilio. But they do seem to have some connection with the mirror. A very strong connection.'

Father Lucas wrinkled up his nose as he took out the piece of dried scalp. Then he found the key.

'Do you have any idea what this opens?'

'A safe-deposit box, I think, in the same place where we found all this stuff. But there are dozens of them, and we don't know the number.'

'What was the number of the box you found these in?'

Martin dug into the pocket of his jeans and took out the key that Sister Boniface had given him. 'Here it is, 531.'

Father Lucas examined it carefully. 'Well .. .' he said. 'I know only a little about occult numerology, but I know enough to recognize the Number of the Beast when I see it.'

'The Number of the Beast?'

'Satan's number, 666. Don't you remember that film The Omen? They made great play of it in that.'

'Oh, yes . . .' said Martin. 'Wasn't it tattoed on Damien's scalp or something? I mean, is that real? Is that really the number of the devil?'

Father Lucas looked almost embarrassed. 'The story was fiction, of course, but the number was real. As far as I know it came from biblical times. But, you know, it used to be disguised by Satanists . . . split into quarters or tenths or halves or whatever. This is one of the things they taught us at Bible college. You see — what is the reverse of 531?'

Martin said without hesitation, '135.'

'Quite right . . . but if you add them together? 135 and 531?'

Martin said nothing. Mrs Capelli stood in the doorway with a dangerously tilting plate of polenta with pine nuts and stared at Father Lucas openmouthed, even though she didn't have the slightest idea what was going on.

Father Lucas gestured toward the claws. 'It would appear to me that what you have come across here is half of the artifacts used in the satanic Sabbat. It doesn't take a genius to guess that the other half can be found in locker number 135.'

Martin slowly sat down. He picked up one of the claws and held it up to the light. It was jet black, opaque, and extraordinarily heavy. 'So what are these things? What are they used for?'

Father Lucas said, 'I'm not an exorcist.'

'But?' asked Martin, catching the implication in his voice that he probably knew more.

'Well,' said Father Lucas, 'they used to tell us at St Patrick's that there were relics of Satan, just as there were relics of the True Cross, and the Holy Shroud, and the crown of thorns.'

'And that's what you think these are? Relics of Satan?'

'Well, now, who can tell? It could all be nonsense.'

'But it isn't nonsense, is it?' said Martin. 'You saw that mirror for yourself. You threw the holy water and it went right through. You know that something evil is going down here, just as well as we do.'

Father Lucas sat and stared for a long time at the scattered claws. Then he said, 'They taught us at St Patrick's that the beast had been beaten, years ago, and that his body had been torn to pieces and scattered to the ends of the earth.'

'And?' asked Mr Capelli impatiently.

'And that's all,' said Father Lucas. 'Except that what you have here - these claws, this skin, this hair - they are all pieces of the beast. And whoever left them in that locker was obviously determined to bring them back together again - all the pieces, no matter where they were scattered - and re-create the creature that the Bible calls Satan. The true Satan, the very core of all evil - in the flesh.'

Martin rearranged the claws by nudging them with the tips of his fingers; but he didn't feel like holding them as tightly as he had before. Satan may be an oldfashioned concept, but it was still frightening.

Father Lucas asked, 'You really can't tell me where you found these, or where the remaining pieces might be?'

Martin thought about it for a while, but then he shook his head. He wanted to know more about Boofuls' monthly meetings at the Hollywood Divine before he let Father Lucas get involved. He wanted to know more about Boofuls himself. He had a feeling that if Father Lucas realized who Boofuls was, he would be back at the house within the hour with a busload of exorcists; and that their chances of getting Emilio back whole and undistorted would be put at serious risk.

What would be worse, the slightest hint of an exorcism would bring out the newspaper reporters and the television cameras, and Boofuls' appearance would be turned into a three-ring media circus.

Maybe there was another reason why Martin didn't want to divulge everything to Father Lucas just yet, a selfish reason. Maybe he wanted to see through this proposed remake of Sweet Chariot. If it could ever be filmed, it would be the sensation of all time — the only motion picture to star a reincarnated murder victim - and Martin would have his name on it.

There would be no stopping his career after that. He would become a movie legend. Notorious, perhaps, but never forgotten.

Father Lucas cut himself a slice of polenta and ate it thoughtfully. Martin found it rather dry, with too many pine nuts in it. At length, wiping his hands on one of Mrs Capelli's best white embroidered napkins, Father Lucas said, 'That boy upstairs; your grandson's friend, Lejeune. Does he have anything to do with this in any way?'

'What makes you say that?' asked Martin before Mr Capelli could answer.

'He has a presence about him, that's all. I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it's nothing more than a freshness of youth.'

'He's a very bright young boy,' said Martin.

Father Lucas looked at him challengingly for a moment; and Martin looked back at him and steadily held his eye but gave nothing away.

'You're asking me to help you, yet you won't tell me the whole story,' Father Lucas told him. He turned around to Mr Capelli. 'Isn't that so, Mr Capelli?'

Mr Capelli looked embarrassed. But Martin said, 'Father -let's just say that we're hedging our bets a little. We're not quite sure what we're up against yet; and it could be dangerous if we go storming in with bells, books, and candles, trying to exorcise something that may not even need exorcising; or may not even respond to being exorcised.'

He paused for a moment, and then he said, 'We're not trying to be obstructive, Father. It's just that we're very worried about Emilio. One wrong step and we may never see him again; not whole, anyway; and not the way he was before. We need your help very badly. If there's anything you can find out about mirrors and worlds beyond mirrors - well, we're looking for anything, anything at all. But Emilio is at serious risk; and if we lose him forever simply because we weren't careful enough .. . well, I don't think our souls are going to rest, either.'

Father Lucas frowned. 'What do you mean by that? Your souls aren't going to rest, either'} Who else has a soul that isn't at rest?'

Martin was almost tempted to tell him; but then he shook his head and said, 'Please, Father. Let's just take one step at a time.'

Father Lucas stood up and brushed crumbs from his coat. 'I really have to go now,' he said. 'But - all right - I'll accept your word that you can't tell me everything about the mirror. After all, Emilio's safety should be our first concern.'

He reached across the table and picked up the black-tissue package. 'Let me take these, however. I have a friend at St Patrick's who may be able to throw some light on these, and may even be able to tell us what the other safe-deposit box contains, before we risk opening it.'

Martin took hold of Father Lucas' hand and grasped it firmly. 'Thank you for having faith in all this,' he told him.

Father Lucas gave him a wry smile. 'I am regularly required to believe in the impossible, Mr Williams. It's not so hard for me to believe in the outrageous.'

Out on the landing, Father Lucas said good-bye to Mr and Mrs Capelli and thanked Mrs Capelli for her coffee and her cake. He was just about to go down the stairs when Boofuls appeared at the doorway of Martin's apartment. He stood there silently, staring down at Father Lucas with undisguised contempt.

'Good-bye, Lejeune,' Father Lucas called out, trying to be cheerful.

'Good-bye, Father,' Boofuls replied.

There was a moment of awkward silence. 'Well, then,' said Father Lucas, 'I must be off.'

'Father Lucas!' said Boofuls in a clear voice.

'What is it, my boy?'

Boofuls smiled at him. Then he said, 'Take care of your teeth, Father Lucas.'

Father Lucas laughed. 'Don't you worry, my boy. I brush them three times a day!'

Boofuls laughed, too; and then turned and disappeared back into Martin's apartment.

Martin looked serious. 'Take care of your teeth?' he said. 'What on earth did he mean by that?'

Father Lucas grasped Martin's arm. 'You just take care of yourself, Mr Williams. I'll call you if I find out anything about these relics. You work at home, don't you?'

Martin nodded. He stood at the head of the stairs watching Father Lucas go.

'I don't like this,' said Mr Capelli, rubbing his chin. 'I don't like this at all.'

Martin clapped him on the shoulder, and then slowly went back upstairs to see what Boofuls was doing.

CHAPTER NINE

The following morning was dull and humid; one of those overcast Hollywood days when all the buildings look tawdry and unreal, like a low-budget movie set. They drove up to Morris Nathan's house shortly after eleven o'clock. Morris had told Martin on the phone that he was too busy that morning to see anybody, but Martin had persisted. In the end, Morris had agreed to wedge him in between Joe Will-more and Henry Winkler. 'But four minutes only —four — no more.'

Because the day was so gray, there was nobody in the pool. Alison's inflatable sunbed circled around on its own, speckled with flies. Martin could see Alison herself in the sun-room, wearing a white silk caftan. Her manicurist was sitting at her feet like a religious supplicant, painting her toenails the color of 1956 Cadillacs. Alison waved as Martin and Boofuls walked across the patio to the front door.

Inside, Morris was saying good-bye to Joe Willmore. There was a strong smell of cigar smoke around. 'Come on in, Martin,' said Morris as Joe Willmore nodded to Martin, winked at Boofuls, and left. Martin followed Morris into his huge oak-paneled office with its sage-green shag-pile carpet and its framed photographs of Morris arm in arm with everybody who was anybody, from Frank Sinatra to Ronald Reagan.

'It's one of those days, you know?' said Morris. 'Thatfonfer David Santini has been arguing about the percentages on Robot Killer III; and don't ask me what Fox is trying to pull over Headhunters?

'What is Fox trying to pull over HeadhuntersT Martin inquired.

'I said don't ask,' said Morris. 'Believe me, if I told you, you wouldn't want to know.'

Martin laid a hand on Boofuls' shoulder. Boofuls had stayed quiet all this time, looking around. Today, he looked very much like any other small boy: Martin had taken him out yesterday afternoon and bought him shirts and T-shirts, shorts and jeans. He had stuck his hair down with gel, too, so that he didn't look quite so girly and ringleted.

Boofuls was still pale; and there was still something about him that wasn't quite ordinary; but at least he wasn't quite so obviously quaint.

'This is Lejeune,' said Martin. To avoid complications, they had decided to stick to the name that Boofuls had given to Father Lucas.

'Oh, yeah?' said Morris, leafing through a red-jacketed screenplay on his desk. 'Pleased to meet you, Lejeune. Don't tell me you're unlucky enough to have this letz for an uncle?'

'We're not related,' Martin explained. 'Lejeune here is my choice to play Boofuls.'

Morris slowly raised his eyes and stared first at Boofuls and then at Martin.

'Martin,' he said, 'I can spare you four minutes to talk about anything except Boofuls.'

'Will you listen for just one minute?' said Martin. 'I've decided to shelve my original idea. Instead, I want to put together a remake of Boofuls' last movie — the movie he never finished.'

Morris lowered his eyes toward the screenplay again. 'Martin,' he said with exaggerated patience, 'how long are you going to keep on mulshing me about Boofuls? Can't you take some advice? It's a loser. It's a dead duck. It's deader than a dead duck.'

But now Boofuls took one step forward and said in a high-pitched voice. 'No, sir. It's not dead at all.'

Morris looked at Martin in displeased surprise. 'Who's the mazik? he wanted to know. Mazik was Yiddish for a mischievous little devil. It was less insulting than mamzer, the way Morris said it, but not very much less insulting.

Boofuls lisped, 'The picture was called Sweet Chariot. Maybe you don't remember it.'

'Remember it?' Morris protested. 'Of course I remember it. And if I hadn't remembered it, this uncle of yours would have reminded me, in any case, as if he wouldn't.'

'He's not my uncle,' Boofuls corrected him. 'He's my script editor, that's all.'

Morris couldn't believe this. 'He is your script editor?'

Boofuls nodded. 'We're going to make this picture, Mr Nathan, and you're going to help us.'

'Martin, is this some kind of a practical joke?' Morris demanded. 'I'm a busy man, can you come to terms with that? I just can't stand here listening to all of this —'

He stopped in midsentence, with his mouth open. Because — without any further hesitation, and with stunning grace — Boofuls lifted both his arms, and began to dance slowly around Morris Nathan's office. His head was held high, his eyes were penetratingly bright, his arms and legs flowed through one complicated dance movement after another. Martin stepped back so that Boofuls could twirl past him, his toes scarcely touching the carpet as he went. He seemed to be unaffected by gravity — light and soundless, keeping perfectly in time with some unheard music. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, around and around and around.

Morris stared in fascination as Boofuls completed his dance, and bowed, and paused; and then clasped his hands together and stared up at the ceiling with an expression of pathos.

'I never saw anybody -' he began, but Martin shushed him, because Boofuls had started to sing. Martin had never heard this song before, although he had read the score. It came about halfway through Sweet Chariot, when the dead-end kid rises from his body as an angel.

Boofuls' voice was clear and sweet and penetrating. It sounded inhuman, as if it had come from the silvery throat of some long-forgotten musical instrument, rather than a child's larynx. It was so moving that Martin couldn't believe what he was hearing — and nor could Morris, from the expression on his face. There were tears in his eyes, and Martin had never ever seen tears in Morris Nathan's eyes before, and (except for his mother, when he was a tiny baby) neither had anybody else.

Like the dew, rising To kiss the morning sun Fm rising, I'm rising To kiss the ones I love

Like the light, dancing Where the river waters run Tm dancing, I'm dancing To that joyful place above

Boofuls finished the song and then stood with his head bowed and his eyes closed. There had been no music; no accompaniment; and yet Martin was almost sure that he had heard a sweeping orchestra; and that when Boofuls had finished singing, a single melancholy violin had laid his last note to rest. As for Morris, he dragged out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly and looked toward Martin and lifted one hand as if to say, Amazing, I take it all back, whatever I said about Boofuls, whatever I said about anything.

Boofuls opened his eyes and smiled a sly little smile that only Martin saw.

'Well?' said Martin. 'What do you think?'

'I think I should shoot myself,' Morris told him, shaking his head in admiration. 'Then I should talk to June Lassiter.'

'You really like it?'

Morris came around his desk beaming. He laid his arm around Martin's shoulders and gave him an affectionate squeeze. 'Let me tell you something, Martin, there's a world of difference between concept and product. If you're talking concept, the idea of reviving Boofuls totally stunk. I told you it stunk, didn't I, how many times?'

He stretched over to ruffle Boofuls' hair, although Boofuls stepped back so that he was out of reach.

'What you have here, Martin, this is different, this is product. This is something that a studio can understand in terms of box office. What did you say your name was, kid?'

'My name is Lejeune,' said Boofuls.

'Well, we're going to have to think about that.'1 Morris grinned. 'Don't want you sounding too Frenchified, do we? Perhaps we can call you Boofuls II. Martin — you fix yourself a drink. How about you, Lejeune? What about a Seven-Up? Let me call Alison; she can take care of Lejeune for a while so that you and I can talk a little business.'

'I'd rather stay here and listen,' said Boofuls.

'Well, you don't want to do that,' Morris told him. 'This is grown-up talk; very boring. Alison will show you the peacocks. We have five now, did you know that, Martin? They make incredible watchdogs. Anyone come within five hundred feet of the house, they scream out like somebody strangling your grandmother.'

Boofuls suddenly looked white. 'I want to go,' he said.

'We won't be long,' said Morris, parking half of his enormous bottom on the side of his desk and punching out the sun-room telephone number. 'We just have to talk about how we're going to lick this whole thing into some kind of shape.'

'/ want to go,' Boofuls insisted.

'Sure,' said Morris, 'sure. Just as soon as we've sorted things out. Oh — Alison? How are you doing, sweetie-pie? Would you mind coming into the den for a moment? Well, I've got a cute young friend here I'd like you to meet. All right, then, okay. Bysie-bye.'

The phone rang again. Morris picked it up. 'Hello? Oh Henry, how are you? Where are you calling from? You're kidding! Well — if it's unavoidable. What time can you get here? Okay, all right, that's fine. I can see you at two-thirty. Fine.'

'That was Henry Winkler,' he told Martin as he put down the phone. 'He's been held up at ABC. Now, how about that drink? I could use one myself. Lejeune, my friend, the lovely Mrs Nathan is going to show you around the yard while Martin and I have a little pow-wow, all right?'

Tm going,' said Boofuls, his lips blue with rage; and he turned around and stalked out of Morris' study and slammed the door behind him.

'Morris,' Martin appealed, 'just give me a moment, will you?'

He went after Boofuls and saw him marching past the swimming pool, his chin lowered, his arms swinging angrily. 'Boofuls!' he called out. 'Just hold up a minute, will you?'

At that moment, however, Alison came out of the sun-room and began to walk toward the swimming pool in the opposite direction. When she saw Boofuls she waved and smiled and quickened her pace. Her white silk caftan floated in the gray daylight like a Pacific roller photographed in slow motion. She had almost reached Boofuls, however, when she covered her face with both hands, so that only her eyes were visible; and for no apparent reason at all she let him pass straight by, and disappear down the steps toward the front gate.

Martin hurried across the flagstones and took hold of Alison's hand. 'Alison? Are you okay?'

Alison nodded. She was shuddering. 'I think I'm going to have to sit down,' she said. Martin brought over a cast-iron garden chair, and she sat on it unsteadily and hung her head between her knees, breathing deeply.

'Who was that?' she managed to ask Martin at last.

'You mean that boy? He's a child actor I discovered. You know, singer and dancer. I brought him along to meet Morris because he's really got something special.'

Alison was still quaking. 'Is he sick?' she wanted to know.

Martin couldn't help letting out a grunt of amusement. 'Not so far as I know.'

Alison sat up straight, and clung on to Martin's sleeve. 'If he's not sick - why does he look so white? He looks so sick, like he's dead already.'

Martin said, 'What do you mean by that?' He glanced up. Morris was walking toward them now, his white sandals flapping loudly on the flagstones. 'What do you mean, he looks like he's dead already?'

'His face ... oh, God, Martin - it was just like a skull.''

Martin found Boofuls sitting in the passenger seat of his Mustang, throwing stones at lizards, and usually missing. Martin climbed in behind the steering wheel and sat there saying nothing for two or three minutes, drumming his fingers on top of the dash.

At last, Boofuls said, 'I'm sorry, Martin. I didn't mean to spoil things. I haven't lost my temper like that in a long time.'

'You could have screwed things up permanently,' said Martin. He took off his glasses and breathed on the lenses, buffing them up with his handkerchief. 'If Morris Nathan can't or won't fix anything for you, then you might just as well pack your suitcase and go back to wherever you came from.'

'Back through the mirror, you mean?' asked Boofuls. He hesitated for a while, and then he said, 'No, never. I'm never going back through there.'

'I'm talking in terms of making this movie,' Martin told him.

'The movie has to be made,' Boofuls insisted, not for the first time that day.

'The movie will be made,' Martin assured him. 'And when you've done that, you can do whatever the hell you like, just so long as we get Emilio back. But right now, be nice to Morris, because if Morris starts to think that you're unreliable or flaky, then this picture will take us years to get together -even if we can manage to get it together at all.'

Just then, Alison appeared at the gate. Boofuls moved his head to one side so that he could look at her. Alison said, 'Morris says he's sorry and do you want to came back in and talk turkey?'

Martin couldn't take his eyes off Boofuls' expression. It was both adult and lecherous. It was more like the gilded face of Pan than ever - hairy, wily, foxy-eyed. Alison was standing in the gateway with one hand raised against the gate. The faintest wash of late morning sunlight shone through the sheer white fabric of her caftan, and she was obviously nude underneath. She peered at Boofuls a little shortsightedly, and brushed the breeze-blown hair away from her face.

Boofuls climbed out of the car and walked ahead of them back to the house. Alison stayed close to Martin; and when Boofuls turned around from time to time to make sure that they were following, she hesitated, as if she were frightened of him.

'Was it that scary, what you saw?' asked Martin.

Alison nodded. 'He looked like a Halloween mask, you know? Just for a second. Then he looked normal.'

'Well, I don't know,' said Martin, trying to be reassuring. 'He's a pretty funny sort of kid.'

'Is he your nephew or something? You don't have children, do you?'

Martin shook his head. 'He's what you might call my protege.'

Alison stopped and took hold of Martin's forearm. 'I don't want you to think I'm stupid or anything, I'm not exactly Miss I Q_of America but I'm not stupid. All my life I've been able to see things that other people can't see. Even when I was little. I mean nothing important but kind of auras. Like when somebody's happy they shine; or when somebody's sad or sick or something bad's going to happen to them, there's this kind of dark smudge over their face, so that I can hardly see what they look like.'

Boofuls had reached the doorway. He turned around and waited for them. Martin lifted a hand and waved to him, to show him that they were coming.

Martin asked Alison, 'Seeing Lejeune's face like a skull... do you think that was the same kind of thing?'

Alison nodded. 'My aunt always said that I was — what do you call it? - psychic. She used to say that everybody's psychic, just a little bit. You know when you get feelings that something's going to go wrong, you shouldn't get on that particular airplane, or you shouldn't cross the street. She said that was all part of being psychic. But some people can see much more than others. Some people can see things that haven't even happened yet: like when other people are going to die.'

She paused and glanced toward Boofuls. 'I don't mean to be rude or anything, but Lejeune gives me the weirdest sensations. I look at him, and I feel like I'm going down in an express elevator.'

Martin took hold of her arm and led her toward the house. 'Can you do me a favor?' he asked her. 'Can you keep these feelings to yourself, just for now?'

'Is there something wrong? Alison asked him.

'I don't know. Right now, it's too difficult to explain; and even if I did explain it, I don't really think that it would help. But trust me.'

Alison hesitated for a moment, looking at Martin carefully as if she wanted to make quite sure that he wasn't lying. 'All right,' she said at last. 'But he's not sick, is he, Lejeune? He's not going to die? It wasn't just his face that upset me. There was a kind of smell about him, like something gone bad, and a noise, like hundreds of flies buzzing.'

'Are you coming, Martin?' called Boofuls impatiently.

'Sure, I'm coming. Let's go see what we can do to get this motion picture on the road.'

Martin led the way into the house. Alison stayed where she was, on the patio, her caftan ruffled in the breeze. Just as he stepped into the house, Boofuls turned around and stuck out his tongue at her in a lascivious licking gesture.

Alison stayed where she was, shocked and frightened. Boofuls had licked at her so quickly that it was impossible for her to tell for sure, but she could have sworn that his tongue was long and narrow and gray, the color of a snail's foot, and cloven at the end, like a snake's.

In spite of his disturbing precociousness, Boofuls ate and drank and slept like a normal boy. Martin gave him supper at eight o'clock, ravioli out of a can, and tucked him up on the sofa in the sitting room. He insisted on sleeping in the sitting room so that he could lie awake and watch the surface of the mirror. Martin didn't even like to look at the mirror now: all he could think about was Emilio, trapped in some unimaginable world where everything was back to front.

'You see,' said Boofuls as Martin went to turn off the light. 'I told you that it wouldn't be difficult, finding somebody to remake Sweet Chariot?

'We're seeing June Lassiter tomorrow,' Martin told him. 'I think you're going to find her a whole lot tougher to win over than Morris Nathan.'

Boofuls smiled to himself. Martin switched off the light and stood in the doorway for a moment. He found it particularly disturbing the way Boofuls' eyes glittered blue in the darkness. It was the blue of decaying mackerel; the blue of cutting torches. He said, 'Good night, Boofuls,' and closed the door. He thought that he had probably never been so consistently frightened in the whole of his life, not just for himself, but for Emilio, too.

He went through to the kitchen, opened up the refrigerator, and helped himself to a red apple and a can of Coors Lite. Then he sat down at the kitchen table, where he had set up his typewriter, and began to peck out a few lines of corrected dialogue for Sweet Chariot. Boofuls had wanted him to update some of the story line, 'so that it isn't old-fashioned, and so that people really believe it'.

He had asked Boofuls yet again why he wanted so badly to make this film; but Boofuls had ignored his question and given him a brassy laugh.

He typed for almost an hour, gradually changing a bunch of 1930s kids from the Lower East Side into a gang of 19805 Hollywood Boulevard scuzzballs. The changes came surprisingly easily, and Martin began to feel quite proud of himself. 'Once a pro, always a pro,' he remarked, zipping out another piece of paper.

It was then that the phone rang. He scraped back his chair and picked up the receiver. A familiar voice said softly, 'Mr Williams? Is that you? I haven't caught you at an inconvenient moment?'

'Father Lucas? Is that you?'

'The very same, Mr Williams. Can I safely speak?'

'I'm not sure what you mean.'

'Is the boy there, that's what I mean.'

'No, no. He's asleep in the other room.1

'Very well, then, good enough. I have some news for you. I went to see my old friend Father Quinlan at St Patrick's this afternoon, and I took the relics with me. I also told him about the mirror.'

'And?'

'He wants to see you. He says it's desperately urgent. He says that something terrible is about to happen and that he must speak to you at once.'

Martin checked his watch. It was twenty after nine. 'Do you mean now} He wants to see me nowT

'He says there's no time to waste. Please, Mr Williams. It's very urgent indeed.'

Martin wearily rubbed his eyes. 'All right, tell me how to get there. Hang on - let me get my pencil. Okay, left off Alden Drive, just past Mt Sinai. All right. .. give me fifteen minutes at least. I have to make sure that Mrs Capelli can keep an eye on the boy.'

He folded the sheet of paper with Father Quinlan's address, tucked it into the pocket of his jeans, and then went through the hallway to the sitting room. The door was slightly ajar. Martin listened, and all he could hear was steady childish breathing. The little mazik was asleep.

Martin closed his apartment door quietly, then crept downstairs and knocked at Mrs Capelli's door. Mrs Capelli crossed herself when she saw who it was.

'Mrs Capelli, can you keep an eye on the boy for me ... just for an hour or two?'

'Hmh! I should keep a watch on the devil's own? The one who stole my Emilio?'

'Mrs Capelli, please. The chances are that he's completely innocent.'

Mrs Capelli pointed fiercely upstairs. 'If that child is innocent, then God has abandoned this world altogether!'

Eventually, however, Mrs Capelli agreed to keep an ear open for Boofuls, no more. 'If he cries, he cries. I don't like that child. I don't trust him.' Martin gave her two quick kisses, one on each cheek, and galloped downstairs. He U-turned his Mustang on Franklin Avenue and headed westward. He didn't want to waste any more time. Father Lucas had sounded as if he expected the Apocalypse at any moment, or worse.

St Patrick's Theological College was one of those extraordinary 1930s structures that give Hollywood the appearance of being somewhere you remembered from a dream. It had been designed in the style of an English Tudor mansion, with latticed windows and red-brick battlements. It was easy to imagine Errol Flynn in doublet and pantaloons, rapier-fighting up and down the staircases.

Martin parked at the side, where Father Lucas had instructed him, and went up to the illuminated porch marked History Dept/Maintenance. He rang the doorbell and waited. A distant electrical storm flickered like snakes' tongues over the Hollywood Reservoir.

A young priest with a gray tweed sports coat and a shaven head answered the door. 'Yes?'

'I've come to see Father Quinlan. He said it was urgent.'

'Urgent?' the young priest asked. Nothing urgent ever happened at St Patrick's Theological College. The faculty had been discussing the implications of verses 20 and 21 of the first chapter of St Peter's second letter for the past seventeen years, 'no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will', and were still no nearer to an agreement on what they meant.

Martin followed the young priest along a narrow corridor with paneled walls and a highly waxed floor. At the very end of the corridor was a table with a flower arrangement on it; and above the flower arrangement, a painting of St Peter with a radiant gilded halo. Martin's shoes squeaked busily on the floor.

The young priest knocked at the second-to-last door. Martin didn't hear anybody inviting him to come in, but the young priest opened it and admitted Martin to a large untidy study, with leather sofas, side tables stacked with books, and a desk crowded with files and Bibles and framed photographs and dirty coffee cups.

Father Lucas was sitting next to the fireplace, although there was nothing in the hearth but an arrangement of dried flowers. Beside him stood a thin tall priest with a pinched face and long white hair and dark expressive eyes. He came forward to greet Martin with all the easy, stylized movements of a ballet dancer.

'I appreciate your promptness, Mr Williams,' he said, smiling. 'I am Father Quinlan, the head of historical studies here at St Patrick's.'

The young priest had been standing in the doorway, obviously hoping to pick up some gist of what they were going to discuss; but Father Quinlan, still smiling, waved him away. 'Do sit down,' he said to Martin. 'Perhaps you'd care for a glass of wine.'

'Don't mind if I do, thanks,' Martin told him, and sat down on one of the leather sofas. The seat cushion let out a loud exhalation of dusty air. Martin gave Father Lucas an embarrassed smirk. On the low coffee table between them, the black-tissue package had been opened out and the horny claws neatly laid out in a line. The fragment of hair had been laid to one side, along with the key.

Father Quinlan went to his bureau and stood with his back to Martin, carefully pouring out a glass of red wine from a Baccarat decanter.

'Mr Williams,' he said, 'it seems that you have managed to open up what you might call a Pandora's box.'

'You said it was urgent,' Martin commented.

Father Quinlan came over and handed him his glass. The wine smelled strong and aromatic. ' "Urgent" was actually an understatement.' He smiled. 'Actually, it's critical.'

He watched as Martin sipped the wine and then beamed. 'Stag's Leap, 1976.1 thought you'd enjoy it.'

'Tell me what's critical,' said Martin. He wasn't a wine connoisseur. As far as he was concerned, wine in itself was nothing important. It was the occasion on which you drank it, and whom you drank it with - that was what made an average wine into a memorable wine. Tonight he felt sour and edgy and any wine would have tasted the same.

Father Quinlan sat down at the opposite end of the sofa and elegantly crossed his legs. 'Father Lucas came to me yesterday and told me how worried he was. He described his experience with the mirror. Quite frightening, yes? to say the least. And he told me that both you and Mr Capelli appeared to be extremely anxious about what had happened to Mr Capelli's grandson.'

'If you want to talk about understatements,' Martin remarked, '"extremely anxious" is an understatement. Emilio disappeared into that mirror and we still haven't been able to get him out again.'

Father Quinlan nodded, to show that he understood, or — even if he didn't understand — that he was willing to help. 'Let's talk about mirrors first,' he suggested. 'Mirrors in general, and then your particular mirror.'

Martin glanced toward Father Lucas; but Father Lucas took off his magnifying spectacles and nodded reassuringly. 'All right,' said Martin, 'let's talk about mirrors in general.'

'There's an old Yiddish story about mirrors,' said Father Quinlan. 'A rich man tells his rabbi that he sees no point in giving charity to the poor. So the rabbi takes him to the window and tells him to look out over the marketplace, and then says, "What do you see?" The rich man says, "People, of course." So then the rabbi holds up a mirror in front of him and says, "What do you see now?" and he says "Myself." Well, the rabbi smiles and says, "Window and mirror, two pieces of glass, that's all. But it's extraordinary how a little silver makes it impossible for a man to see anything through that glass but himself.'"

Father Quinlan sipped his wine, obviously conscious that he may have sounded too simplistic and patronizing; a fault with most priests, even when they mean it kindly. But then he said, 'Mirrors capture the soul, Mr Williams. Not metaphorically, but literally. They really do. They capture living pieces of our lives and our characters whenever we pass in front of them. Sometimes, in moments of terrible stress, they can take almost all of us.'

Martin deliberately said nothing but waited for Father Quinlan to continue.

Father Quinlan looked at Martin keenly, as if he were challenging him to not to believe in what he was saying. 'A mirror is like a living camera, Mr Williams. It's no coincidence that silver forms the backing for mirrors; and that silver salts are the light-sensitive medium which makes photography possible. Neither is it a coincidence that silver bullets kill those unfortunate afflicted people who are popularly known as werewolves. Like a mirror, like a photograph, a silver bullet instantaneously absorbs the wolf-image which has overwhelmed the human-image.'

'Werewolves?' asked Martin cautiously. He didn't want to hurt Father Quinlan's feelings, but really -

Father Quinlan said, 'I'm afraid I'm getting ahead of myself, Mr Williams. You can mock me if you like. But the historical records concerning the appearance of werewolves are quite clear. And so are the records concerning the extraordinary properties of mirrors.'

He paused, and sipped his wine, and watched Martin - do you know anything at all - closely. Then he said, 'Your mirror all about it?'

Martin shrugged. 'I'm not sure that it's a good idea to tell you.'

'Where did you get it?'

'I bought it from a woman up on Hillrise Avenue, near the Reservoir.'

'And was she the original owner?'

Martin shook his head.

Father Quinlan waited for a moment in the hope that Martin was going to tell him who the original owner was, but when Martin stayed silent, he said, 'Let me give you some background, Martin. Then perhaps you and I can come to some arrangement and do what we can to deal with this situation.'

'I'm listening,' Martin told him.

'These claws,' said Father Quinlan, picking up one of the black hooked nails that was laid out on the table. 'These are the claws of Satan himself, do you understand what I'm saying? The real claws of Satan himself, in the dragon manifestation that was clearly predicted in the Book of Revelation.'

He went across to his desk and picked up one of his Bibles. 'Here it is. "And I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he spoke as a dragon. And there was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast might even speak and cause as many who do not worship the image of the beast to be killed."'1

Father Quinlan was silent for a moment, and then he read, '"Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six."'

He closed the Bible. 'The legend, Mr Williams, is that Satan was cast out of heaven by the angel Michael, and fell, and was shattered, so that the pieces of his body were strewn all over the earth. A claw here, a horn there, a hoof beyond the horizon.

'But the legend also says that — seconds before he struck the earth - his image was momentarily reflected in a river, and that the image in the river became the spirit of Satan, although he had no body in the real material world. His real body was spread around everywhere . .. rather like the body of somebody who has died in an air disaster, except that Satan had fallen not from 23,000 feet, but from the vaults of heaven itself.

'For thousands of years, Satan was trapped inside the reflected world. Behind glass, behind mirrors, in rivers and lakes. He was able to influence the events of the real world. He was able to enter it, in a limited way, by possessing the souls of children and gullible people who were prepared to give him admission. But he was never able to escape. To escape, he required his material body to be reassembled. He needed somebody else to put back together again the jigsaw of his shattered body. Hence these claws, Mr Williams; hence this scalp. Whoever used to own these was undoubtedly the agent of Satan — trying to reincarnate the devil himself in the modern world. In the second deposit box, you will probably find more pieces; and you may even find another key, which will lead you on to yet more pieces.'

Martin said, 'Satan. I can't believe it. You mean the real genuine Satan?'

Father Quinlan nodded. 'The real genuine Satan, from the Bible.'

'But if he ever gets back together again, what will he do?'

Father Quinlan gave a tight smile. 'He has only one purpose in life, and that is to tear apart whatever God has created. That means us. He wants to bring the world to a spectacular and grisly end.'

Martin was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have believed any of this stuff. I wouldn't have wasted my time.'

'But now?'

'Well - maybe it's a little different. I've seen enough to understand that what you're trying to say is true. Well, partly true; or mostly true. These bits of Satan, these claws and stuff — they were used by devil worshippers in Hollywood in the late 1930s. They used to meet once a month at the Hollywood Divine, and hold a what-d'you-call-it, don't tell me, Sabbath.'

Father Quinlan smiled in admiration. 'You know about the Hollywood Divine?'

Martin said, 'Yes. That's where we found these relics.'

'Well,' said Father Quinlan, 'I congratulate you. I've been looking for them for years. It never occurred to me that they might still be there.'

'In the basement,' Martin told him, 'in the safe-deposit boxes.'

Father Quinlan was silent for a moment; then he said, 'As far as I can discover, it all started in the winter of 1935. There were so many stars in Hollywood who felt insecure. The studio system was tyrannical. One minute you were adored; the next minute you were sliding into oblivion. It was all alcohol and drugs and fast cars and promiscuity. You see those actors smiling and waving: my God, they lived on the very edge of their nerves. If there was any group of people who were ready for the promises of Satan, it was them.'

'What happened?' asked Martin.

Father Quinlan tapped the side of his nose with his finger. 'Father Lucas may have Coke-bottle eyeglasses, my friend, but he isn't blind and he isn't stupid. He saw all those pictures of Boofuls on your wall; and he found out that you've been trying to sell a musical of Boofuls for the past six months.'

'Oh he did, did he?' said Martin.

'You're offended?' asked Father Quinlan.

'I don't know, a little.'

'How can you be offended? Don't you realize how serious this is? Don't you realize how dangerous it is? Oh, we're talking about Satan, are we? What a laugh! But my God, my friend, we're talking about the very antithesis of peace and happiness; we're talking about plague and war and famine and destruction. My dear Mr Williams, we're talking about the world torn from pole to pole!'

He stopped for a moment, breathing deeply, and then he said, 'And why do we face such an appalling Apocalypse? Let me tell you why, Mr Williams. Because of the vanity of a handful of poor insecure actors who lived in Hollywood in the 1930s. Those glamorous people of the silver screen, Joan Craw-ford, Errol Flynn, John Barrymore, those people we used to idolize! They weren't glamorous at all, they were obsessed with the fear of failure. They were little and frightened, and terrified of the adoration that was showered on them. So they sought encouragement. They sought reassurance. And when one small boy came among them and said that they could be successful and happy forever, how do you think they reacted?'

Martin said nothing, but finished his wine and set down his empty glass next to the black-tissue package.

Father Quinlan said, 'I've been through St Patrick's files for the late 1930s. You wouldn't believe it, but we were given anonymous tip-offs year after year that somebody, somewhere in LA, was holding Black Sabbaths on a monumental scale. Phone calls, scrawled letters; one or two photographs. The Hollywood Divine was mentioned several times. But almost all of those tip-offs were ignored - even though one of the letters specifically warned that "they have the relics"?

'But what were these actors actually trying to do?' asked Martin.

Father Quinlan ran his hand through his wild white hair. 'They were trying to do nothing more than bring back Satan. The real, reincarnated Satan, in the flesh. It was a pretty straightforward arrangement. In return for bringing him back, Satan would give them youth and glamor and eternal popularity.'

Martin said nothing, but lowered his head in silent acknowledgement. He had seen too much in the past few days to be a disbeliever.

Father Quinlan said more quietly, 'It all started, somehow, with Boofuls. I had my suspicions, from the moment I started researching. I found a letter written by Bill Tilden . . . well, you know what he was like, Stumpy Tilden. Tennis coaching for pretty young boys, that kind of thing. In 1936, he wrote a letter to a close friend, and said that he had met an exquisite child who had offered him hope and happiness, "unimaginable" hope and happiness. The boy's name was Walter Cross-ley, a.k.a Boofuls. But Bill Tilden wasn't the only one. Every- | body in Hollywood, whether they were homosexual or not, j was entranced by Boofuls: his sweetness, his apparent purity, and the feeling that, when they were around him, he made them feel confident and happy and capable of everlasting success.'

Father Quinlan said more seriously, 'He was nothing more and nothing less than a child possessed by Satan. That's my opinion, anyway, I was never able to confirm it. How can you confirm such a thing? I could never discover who his father was, and I could never discover the identity of the woman who always used to accompany him to the Hollywood Divine.'

'Miss Redd?' put in Martin.

Father Quinlan nodded. 'That's right, the mysterious Miss Redd. I've never been able to find any pictures of her or press references or anything at all. But several anonymous letters that were sent to the church in 1938 mention Miss Redd.' He reached over and poured Martin some more wine. 'However,' he said, 'let's get back to your mirror.'

'Boofuls' mirror,' Martin admitted.

Father Quinlan smiled. 'I thought so. Well - Father Lucas thought so.'

'He was quite right,' said Martin. He turned to Father Lucas and gave him a nod of admiration. Father Lucas, in return, lifted up his glass of wine.

Father Quinlan said, 'This isn't easy to piece together. Some of the faculty here think that I'm obsessive about it. But the Revelation contains some remarkably clear facts and figures, apart from scores of extraordinary implications. Miss Redd, for example. In the Revelation, Satan appears as a red dragon. Perhaps it means nothing at all. Perhaps I'm being paranoid. Oh, yes, priests can be paranoid. But we have one more important authority to turn to; and I'm rather proud of this.'

He walked across the room to a large oak cabinet, carved with bunches of grapes. He took a small key out of his vest pocket and opened it. Inside, there were rows of small shelves. Father Quinlan drew out a small package of papers, closed the door, locked it, and returned to the sofa.

'This,' he said, 'is an unpublished commentary'on Unusual Properties of Looking-Glasses, by Charles Lutwidge Dodg-son.'

Martin said, in astonishment, 'Charles Lutwidge Dodgson? You mean Lewis CarrolR'

Father Quinlan untied the faded silk ribbon which held the papers together. 'The very same; and we've had it authenticated, too, by the British Museum.'

'But it must be worth a million dollars. An unpublished book by Lewis Carroll?'

'Well . .. another Alice adventure might be worth something. But not so many people know that Lewis Carroll was more of a mathematician than a storyteller. He wrote A Syllabus of Plane Algebra and an Elementary Treatise on Determinants, as well as Euclid and His Modern Rivals.''

Father Quinlan turned the musty leaves of the manuscript; and there was a smell of dust and burned cream. 'This is all very scrappy .. . not what you'd call a book at all. Notes, really; and some of them very disjointed. But the most interesting part about it is what he has to say about mirrors. He always believed that there was some kind of wonderland on the other side of mirrors; but his first real revelation about mirrors came early in the winter of 1869 when he became extremely ill, pneumonia probably, and he lay in bed at his home in Oxford quite close to death.'

Father Quinlan looked Martin straight in the eye. 'Carroll may have been delirious; but he tells in this commentary how he walked through the mirror in his sickroom in just the way that Alice did. "The glass melted away, just like a bright silvery mist." He found himself in looking-glass land, where everything was reversed.

'He writes here, "Not just writing, and pictures, but Christian morality itself had been turned from left to right. Inside the mirror was the domain of demons, the ante-room of Hell itself."'

Father Quinlan said, 'He tried to tell his friends; he tried to tell the Bishop of Oxford. But after Alice in Wonderland they chose not to believe him. So he wrote Through the Looking-Glass as an Alice story . . . mainly because he knew that it would find the widest audience. It was a warning, expressed in childish language, in the hope that — even if adults refused to believe the danger they were in - then perhaps children would. Through the Looking-Glass is the single most specific warning about the return of Satan since the Revelation itself.'

He handed Martin one of the pages. On it, in Lewis Carrol's own handwriting, was written 'Jabberwocky':

Beware the jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Father Quinlan brought over some more wine. 'Later in the book, Carroll explains away this gibberish-poem with all sorts of nonsensical definitions. But ask any child about the Jab-berwock, and he or she will tell you about nothing except a dark wood, and a ferocious dragonlike creature, and a boy who slays it by chopping it into pieces. Alice herself says, "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas — only I don't exactly know what they are! However somebody killed something". See what it says here:

"Thejabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!"

Then,

"One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back."'

Father Quinlan smiled. 'Well, it's pretty amusing stuff. But these notes aren't amusing at all. Carroll says here, "7 believe that I came as close to death as a man may go and yet return to the real world. I saw darkness; and I saw unimaginable beings; human-beings with heads as huge as carnival-masks; creatures with hunchbacks; dogs that spoke. It seems to me now like a dream, or rather a nightmare, but I am convinced that I saw Purgatory, the realm in which each man takes on his true form. In the land beyond the looking-glass, in the world of reflections, is the life after death, and the life before death. I understand now the closeness of Christianity, which teaches each man that he will have his reward or his punishment in the world beyond, and the Hindu religion, which teaches that a man will be reincarnated according to the life he has led."'

'But the Jabberwock?' asked Martin. 'What does the Jab-berwock have to do with Boofuls, and my mirror?'

'Absolutely everything,' said Father Quinlan. 'The Jabberwock is the mirror image of Satan. Carroll derived the name from Jabbok, a mountain stream of Gilead, one of the main tributaries of the River Jordan. It was in the waters of Jabbok that Satan's image was supposed to have been reflected when he fell from heaven. It may or may not be a coincidence that CarrolPs doctor at the time was called Dr James Crowe, and that the letters c-r-o-w-e make up the remainder of the name Jabberwock.'

Martin put down his glass of wine and dry-washed his face with his hands. 'God, this seems so farfetched.'

'Any more farfetched than holy water flying straight through a mirror and landing only in the reflected room? Any more farfetched than your friend Emilio disappearing into a mirror and refusing to come back? No, Mr Williams, this isn't farfetched at all. What we are seeing here is Satan's plan for his own resurrection, as foretold in the Book of Revelation. Somehow, he possessed the boy Boofuls; and the boy Boofuls regularly held blasphemous Sabbaths at the Hollywood Divine; and he used his money and his influence to gather together the scattered remnants of Satan's physical body.'

Father Quinlan tugged out one of the sheets of CarrolFs notepaper, and on it was CarrolPs own sketch for the Jabberwock, on which the final drawing by Sir John Tenniel had been based. A snarling creature with dragon's wings and scaly claws and blazing eyes. 'You see,' he said, in quiet triumph, 'the jaws that bite, the claws that catch — and here they are.' He picked up the black horny claws from the table. 'Almost exactly the same; and to the same scale.'

Martin said nothing. He was overwhelmed by tiredness and by the magnitude of what Father Quinlan was trying to tell him.

Father Quinlan said, 'When he had recovered from his pneumonia, Carroll spent a great deal of time at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, researching the legend of the fallen devil. He discovered that, according to Jacob and Esau, who met by the waters of the Jabbok, Satan and the children of Satan can be killed only by a sword blessed in the name of God and in the name of the angel Michael and engraved with the motto "Victory Over Ruin, Pestilence, and Lust". Hence the vorpal sword in the poem — V-O-R—P—A-L. And hence, I strongly suspect, the chopping up of Boofuls by his grandmother.

'They never found the murder weapon, did they? But it must have been very sharp and very heavy. She was an elderly woman, remember. She could have dismembered him only with a weapon that had considerable weight of its own, like a Chinese cleaver, or a large two-handed machete — or a two-handed sword.'

Martin lifted his hand. 'All right — supposing this is all true — supposing Mrs Crossley killed Boofuls because she thought he was trying to bring back Satan - how do you think she found out about it? How do you think she found out what to do, to stop him? And where did she get hold of a sword blessed by God and the angel Michael?'

Father Quinlan smiled. 'Every mystery has its unanswered questions, Mr Williams. I'm a theological historian, not a police detective. Perhaps you ought to ask Boofuls himself.'

Martin didn't answer that. He wasn't yet prepared to admit to Father Quinlan or Father Lucas that the curly-headed boy at his apartment was actually Boofuls. Father Lucas may have suspected it, having seen the boy. But before Martin enlisted the help of men like Father Quinlan, he wanted to be quite sure that he could rescue Emilio unharmed from the world beyond the mirror.

'You told me this was urgent,' Martin told Father Quinlan, deliberately changing the subject. 'I'm afraid I don't quite see the urgency. If we have these claws here, and the key to the rest of the relics — well, there's not very much that anybody can do to bring the devil to life, is there?'

Father Quinlan nodded. 'You're quite right. But Satan is not to be underestimated. Neither is the prophecy that, to be given life, and to win back control over the world, Satan must be given as a sacrifice the lives of one hundred forty-four thousand innocent people.'

'Is that a special number?' asked Martin. 'In the Book of Revelation, it's the number of people who defied lies and wickedness and followed the Lamb. The first fruits of God. Satan cannot live and breathe until those one hundred forty-four thousand lie massacred.'

Martin raised his eyebrows. 'Pretty hard to massacre that many people in this day and age.'

'Hard, yes,' Father Quinlan agreed. 'But not impossible.'

Afterward, Father Lucas walked Martin out to his car. The night was warm. Martin couldn't help thinking of the Walrus and the Carpenter. 'The night is fine,' the Walrus said. 'Do you admire the view?'

Martin opened his car door. A police siren echoed high over Mulholland, where it twisted through the hills. Mulholland's hair-raising curves always attracted coked-up young drivers who believed they could fly.

'What do you think?' asked Father Lucas.

'I don't know,' said Martin. 'I'm pretty confused, to tell you the truth.'

'Father Quinlan is probably the country's greatest expert on theological legend. I know he rambles - but his research is quite extraordinary.'

Martin started up his engine. 'The question is, can anybody believe what he's saying?'

Father Lucas shrugged and smiled. 'That, of course, is a question of faith.'

'Let me think about this,' Martin told him. 'Call me tomorrow; maybe we can talk some more.'

'Before you go,' said Father Lucas, holding on to the car door, 'there's one question I have to ask you.'

Martin made a face. 'I think I know what it is.'

'Lejeune . . . that boy I met at your apartment. He does look awfully like Boofuls.'

'That's why I chose him.'

'It isn't remotely possible that when your young friend Emilio went into the mirror -?'

Martin cut him short. 'Father, anything's possible.'

'Well,' replied Father Lucas. He made the sign of the cross over Martin's head. 'If it is Boofuls, please take extraordinary care.'

'Lejeune is -' Martin began; and then he said, 'Lejeune is Lejeune, that's all. He's just a boy.'

'Perhaps you should study your Bible better,' smiled Father Lucas. 'Mark 5, Chapter 5. "And when He had come out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him. And Jesus was saying, 'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!' and He was asking him, 'What is your name?' And the unclean spirit said to Him, 'My name is Legion; for we are many.""

Although the night was so warm, Martin shivered. Through the oyster-shaped lenses of his spectacles, Father Lucas looked down at him with magnified, serious eyes. 'He is having a little joke with us, Mr Williams. I only wish it were funny.'

CHAPTER TEN

Boofuls was still asleep when Martin returned to Franklin Avenue. Mrs Capelli said she hadn't heard a sound. 'There was some scratching, that's all, but it was probably the squirrels, burrowing through the trash.'

Martin went quietly upstairs, let himself in, and then tiptoed along the hallway to the sitting room door. Boofuls was still huddled up on the sofa, breathing deeply, although there was an odd burning smell in the room, as if somebody had been trying to set fire to feathers or horsehair.

Boofuls was breathing deeply and regularly, and when Martin came up close to tuck him in, he remained pale-faced and still, sleeping a dreamless sleep; the sleep of those for whom reality is back to front, and who are ultimately damned.

'My name is Legion; for we are many.'

Martin looked at the mirror. He could see himself standing in the narrow band of light that crossed the room from the open door. He looked sweaty and exhausted. He wondered how the hell he had managed to get himself into all this.

He went up close to the mirror and leaned to one side, still trying to see through the sitting room door to the world where everything was different. He wondered how much of Father Quinlan's theories he ought to believe. A musty manuscript by Lewis Carroll proved nothing at all. Yet it was remarkable how closely CarrolPs description of the life after death matched that of Homer Theobald, who had described 'talking turtles' and people with elongated heads.

At last, Martin closed the sitting room door and went to take a shower. As he soaped himself under the hot, prickling water he almost fell asleep. He was too tired to make coffee, so he drank three cold mouthfuls of milk straight out of the carton.

In his bedroom, on the wall, the poster of Boofuls stared at him and smiled. He stood looking at it for a long time; then he reached up and ripped it right off the wall, crumpling it up and tossing it across the room.

Breathing a little too quickly, he climbed into his crumpled futon, covered up his head, and made a determined effort to go to sleep.

He dreamed of claws, scratching on polished woodblock floors. He dreamed of cats, sliding between impossible railings. He dreamed of hot breath, and flaring blue eyes, and furry things that were as long as hosepipes. He sweated, and cried out, and clutched at his bedcover, but he didn't wake up.

'Pickle-nearest-the-wind,' somebody whispered. 'Pickle-nearest-the-rpind.'

Two things happened while he slept.

The first was that Boofuls suddenly sat up in bed, his small figure lit by the early moonlight. He stayed quite still for a long time, listening. On the far side of the room against the wall, the mirror was cold and clear.

After three or four minutes, Boofuls climbed out of bed and padded on bare feet across to the mirror and stood in front of it with his hands by his sides.

In the mirror, the sitting room door opened, and another boy appeared, wearing striped cotton pajamas. It was Emilio. He looked white and distressed, and he couldn't stop fidgeting.

'Where's Pickle?' whispered Boofuls. 'I told you to bring Pickle.'

'Pickle didn't want to come.'

'Pickle has got to come.'

'Well, I can bring her in the morning.'

Boofuls' eyes flared. 'You'd better, otherwise you can stay in that mirror forever and ever and ever!'

Emilio said, 'Please.'

'Please, what?'

'Please let me out. I want to get out.'

'What's the matter? You've got your grandpa and grandma, haven't you?'

Emilio's eyes filled with tears. 'Yes, but they're not the same. They're different.'1

'Everything's different in the mirror.'

'Boofuls, please let me out. Please.'

Boofuls let out a little hissing laugh. 'You'll get out when the time comes. And if I feel like letting you out.'

'But I hate it here. It's frightening!'

Boofuls leaned close to the mirror, puckered his lips, and blew Emilio a kiss. 'You'll get used to it. You can get used to anything if you try hard enough!'

'Please,' begged Emilio.

'Bring Pickle in the morning,' Boofuls insisted. 'If you j don't, you can stay there forever and ever, amen!' i

Emilio covered his face with his hands and began to sob quietly. Boofuls watched him for a moment with a malicious look on his face and then went back to bed. When he looked around, Emilio had gone, and the sitting room in the mirror was empty. He smiled to himself and slept. i

The second thing was that Father Lucas finished one last glass of wine with Father Quinlan and then prepared to leave.

'You have a safe at St Theresa's, don't you?' Father Quinlan asked him. 'Perhaps you'd better take these relics and lock ' them safely away. I don't altogether trust the cleaners here at St Patrick's. I lost a fine briar pipe once and a walking stick with a silver top.'

'That's not a very good advertisement, is it?' Father Lucas smiled. 'Theological College Is Den of Thieves, Claims Holy Father.' ;

Father Quinlan laughed, and wrapped up the claws and the ! hair, and carefully slid them into a padded envelope. 'Here's j the key, too. We don't want to lose that.'

Father Lucas opened the study door. 'I'm not altogether sure that Mr Williams believes in the Book of Revelation,' he remarked. !

Father Quinlan shrugged. 'It's rather lurid, I suppose, as prophesies go.'

'That boy at his apartment .. . I'm ninety-nine percent j certain that it's Boofuls.'

'Yes,' said Father Quinlan. 'It's a pity that Mr Williams doesn't yet feel able to take us into his confidence. Still — it's a lot to swallow, all in one go. The Revelation and Lewis Carroll all tied up together. I found it quite difficult to believe myself when I first looked into it.'

'But you have no doubts now?' asked Father Lucas.

Father Quinlan shook his head. 'None at all.'

Father Lucas said good night and left the college by the side door. He had left his dented red Datsun parked in the shadow of the chapel. He climbed in, and the suspension groaned like a dying pig. He started up the engine and was just about to back out of his parking space when he happened to glance at the padded envelope lying on the seat beside him.

Supposing he drove down to the Hollywood Divine and opened up the second safe-deposit box? The sooner he did it — the sooner he locked the relics in his safe at St Theresa - the less risk there would be of somebody else locating them first and trying to reassemble the scattered body of Satan.

He checked his watch. It was twenty after eleven, but he was pretty sure that there would be somebody on the desk at the Hollywood Divine. After all, most of its customers didn't know day from night.

He drove eastwards on Santa Monica. From time to time, he glanced at his eyes in the rearview mirror. They looked a little glassy and bloodshot, although he didn't know why. Too much of Father Quinlan's Pinot chardonnay, probably. He wasn't used to drinking. But, all the same, he was surprised how strange he felt; how detached; as if his body were taking him to the Hollywood Divine even though his mind wasn't too keen on coming along.

Father Lucas had always liked to think of himself as traditional and pragmatic. He believed in the forces of darkness; and he believed that people could be possessed by evil spirits. He even believed that Boofuls had somehow reappeared through the mirror in Martin's sitting room - like a sort of living hologram. But it hadn't been easy for him to accept Father Quinlan's theories about the second coming of Satan. To think that Satan the king of all chaos might actually appear in Hollywood in the late 1980s in the flesh — well, that was one of those concepts that his well-disciplined mind was unable to encompass.

He drove along Hollywood Boulevard. At this time of night, it was at its sleaziest — the sidewalks crowded with punks and weirdos and junkies and strutting streetwalkers. One immaculately dressed black man drew up alongside Father Lucas in a white Eldorado convertible and raised his leopard-spotted fedora. 'Good evening to you, your reverence. What's going down in heaven these days?'

'Good evening, Perry,' Father Lucas replied. 'I'll tell you when I get there.'

'Don't you worry, your reverence, I'll be there first.' Father Lucas smiled. 'I'm sure you will, Perry, I'm sure you will.'

He turned into Vine and parked outside the Hollywood Divine. A small Mexican boy no older than eight came up to him and offered to protect his car radio. 'Long gone, I'm afraid,' Father Lucas told him. 'Then what about your hubcaps?'

'Take them, if you think they're going to be more use to you than they are to me.'

'I don't want your hubcaps. If I was going to take anything, I'd take your whole crapping car.'

Father Lucas bent down over the boy, his hands on his knees, so that he could look him straight in the eye. 'If you so much as lay one greasy finger on my crapping car, I'll tear your crapping head off. And don't ever use language like that to a priest ever again; or to anyone; ever.'

The boy stared at him, wide-eyed. 'No, sir. Sorry, sir. I'll take care of your car, sir.'

Father Lucas made his way past the hookers and the hustlers to the steps of the Hollywood Divine. Somebody had vomited tides of something raspberry-colored all over the side of the steps, and hundreds of shoes had trampled it everywhere.

Father Lucas pushed his way through the shuddering revolving doors and crossed the dimly lit lobby. One of the Hollywood Divine scarecrows was shuffling around the perimeter of the lobby with a bottle in a brown paper bag, singing,' You play . . . such shweet mushic . .. how can . . . I resish ... every shong . . .from your heartshtrings . .. makes mefeelFve .. .jush been kissh.'

Boofuls, thought Father Lucas. It seems like he's everywhere. Like a storm that's brewing, and everybody can feel it in the air.

The desk clerk was sitting with his feet on the counter reading an Elf Quest comic and smoking a cigarette. A half-empty bottle of Gatorade and a half-chewed hot dog showed that he was halfway through dinner. He glanced up when Father Lucas approached the desk and sniffed loudly.

'How're you doing, Father?' he asked. 'Come to save our souls?'

'Would that I could,' said Father Lucas.

The young man flipped away his comic and swung his feet off the counter. 'Okay, then, what's it to be? Half an hour with Viva and Louise? For an extra ten bucks, they can dress up in nun costumes. Or how about a short time with Wladislaw? He's been doing great business dressing up like the Pope. The Catholic guys love it. He balls them, and then he forgives them, all included in the one price.'

'Careful, Gary,' Father Lucas warned him.

'All right, Father, forgive me, for I do not have the faintest idea what I do. Now, how can I help?'

Father Lucas held up his key. 'The safe-deposit boxes,' he said. 'I understand they're down in the basement.'

'That's right,' said Gary, narrowing his eyes. 'But it'll cost you. You're the second one in just a couple of days.'

Father Lucas reached into his pocket and counted out five bills. 'I'm sorry, I'm not exactly Aaron Spelling.'

'Well .. .' said Gary. 'Seeing as it's you.' He pocketed the money, unhooked the basement key from the board, and led Father Lucas across the lobby. One of the scarecrows called out, 'Bless you, Father! Bless you!' and dropped onto his knees on the filthy carpet, pressing his forehead to the floor. Father Lucas made the sign of the cross; and then followed Gary along the narrow corridor that led to the kitchens and the basement door.

Gary unlocked the door, reached inside, and switched on the light.

'Just watch your step, Father, okay? There's a whole lot of junk and trash down there. The safe-deposit boxes are way in back, by the wall. There's some kind of an African statcher back there, they're right behind it.'

'Thank you,' said Father Lucas.

'Hey, don't mention it,' Gary told him.

Gary went off; and Father Lucas climbed cautiously down the steps into the basement. He paused for a moment at the foot of the steps, looking around. The basement was utterly silent, a grotesque landscape of upturned chairs, hat stands, foldaway beds, and bureaux. Father Lucas caught sight of the 'African statcher' and began to make his way toward it, climbing over stacks of chairs and walking along rows of bedside tables.

Down here, he felt peculiarly shut off from the world; and a small familiar surge of claustrophobia rose in his chest. He didn't suffer from it very often or very severely; only in times of stress. But there were times when he had been forced to bite the inside of his cheek when he was traveling in a crowded elevator, to stop himself from shouting to be let out.

The worst thing was imagining the weight of the entire hotel bearing down on top of him, tons of concrete and steel, all those carpets and furnishings and staircases and people.

He gripped the back of a chair to balance himself, and hesitated for a moment, sweating. He wasn't obliged to open this safe-deposit box. He could turn around and go back and nobody would be any the wiser. Yet supposing he turned around, and somebody else got here first, somebody who was dedicated to resurrecting Satan? What would he think of himself then, as the world cracked from pole to pole?

Father Lucas mopped his face with his handkerchief, took a deep steadying breath, and then carried on, stumbling over the furniture like a lame goat. At last, however, he reached the safe-deposit boxes. He struggled his way around the African lady with the bodacious ta-tas; and then managed to climb up on top of the stacks of boxes. He was panting hard; and he had to take off his Coke-bottle spectacles and wipe steam off the lenses. God knows, he could never go down a mine.

He found box number 531, with its lid still open. What he needed now was 135. He slid down the side of the stack of boxes and pushed the top bank sideways - finally managing to lever them out of the way using a brass pole with a board on one end pointing the way to the Starlight Bar.

He was lucky. The next bank of boxes was 1-199. The numbers were quite clear, too. He found 135, and took out the key that Martin and Ramone had discovered in the first safe-deposit box.

He was about to fit it into the lock when he thought he heard a noise on the other side of the basement. He listened, sweating. There it was again. A faint scratching sound, like rats tearing the stuffed-cotton entrails out of a couch; or somebody stealthily making his way nearer across the furniture. He listened and listened, his key still poised, but the noise wasn't repeated.

'Overactive imagination,' he told himself, and inserted the key into the lock.

The lock was extremely stiff. He grunted and strained at it, and the key cut into his fingers. He wished he had thought of bringing a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, although he probably would have ended up breaking the lock that way. He twisted the key again, grunting with effort, and at last he felt it budge.

'One more try,' he gasped to himself. 'Come on, you bastard; open up!'

He was struggling so hard that he scarcely heard the singing. High, and clear, but oddly ghostlike, as if it could have been very close or very far away.

Apples are sweeter than lemons

Lemons are sweeter than limes

But there's nothing so sweet as the mem'ry of you

And the sadness of happier times.

He allowed himself to catch his breath; then with quivering fingers he turned the key all the way around and felt the levers in the lock slide rustily open.

The singing continued, but Father Lucas didn't hear it. He lifted the lid of the safe-deposit box and peered inside. The lighting in this part of the basement was so poor, however, that he couldn't see anything at all.

'Well, now,' he told himself, 'it can't be anything to be frightened of. Only claws and tissue paper, and more of that hairy stuff.'

He cautiously inserted his left hand, groping around the sides of the box. It seemed to be empty. Perhaps somebody else had gotten here first and taken the contents away. Perhaps the claws and the hank of hair were all that was left.

He reached a little farther; and then his fingertips touched something wrinkled and supple and faintly oily; like a sack of soft and heavy leather. He didn't like the feel of it at all, but he ran his hand all the way around it, trying to make out what it was. He tried to lift it, so that he could see what it looked like in the light, but it was too heavy, and seemed to be fastened to the back of the safe-deposit box.

Father Lucas took his hand out. He found his handkerchief, wiped his fingers, and sniffed them. The thing in the safe-deposit box had a curious smell; rather like machine oil lightly mixed with fish.

He bent over and strained his eyes, trying to catch even the faintest reflection from the thing inside the box. 'Now, what the hell are you?' he whispered. 'If you're part of Satan, I'd darn well like to know which part.'

He was about to reach inside the box a second time when he heard a high, childish giggle. He looked up, alarmed, his heart pumping in huge, slow spasms. At first he couldn't make out where the laughter was coming from, but then right across the basement, on the far side, he caught sight of a face. Or rather, the reflection of a face in the tilted mirror of a discarded hotel dressing table.

Father Lucas shuddered. His eyesight wasn't very clear, but he had no doubt who it was. Those clear pale features, unnaturally white; those bright-burning eyes.

'Boofuls,' he whispered.

'Hello, Father.' Boofuls smiled. 'What are you doing here? Interfering? Poking your nose in where it's not wanted?'

Father Lucas crossed himself. 'Almighty Lord, Word of God the Father, Jesus Christ, God and Lord of every creature: Who didst give to Thy Holy Apostles power to tread upon serpents and scorpions - by Whose power Satan fell from heaven like lightning —'

'Father Lucas!' cried Boofuls. ' You meddled in matters which were nothing to do with you, and now you have to be punished! Look after your teeth, that's what I told you! Look after your teeth!'

Father Lucas caught sight of a glint of glistening white down in the darkness of the safe-deposit box. He was so terrified that he was unable to move; literally unable to do anything but kneel where he was, open-mouthed. His mind told him to scramble down and run for his life, but his body refused to obey.

'Meddler!' screamed Boofuls. 'Meddler! Meddler!'

His voice reached a pitch of unintelligible hysteria.

And then something reared out of the safe-deposit box that was all shiny gray gristle, a thick tangled column of unspeakable muscles and naked arteries. It was like nothing that Father Lucas had ever seen - blind, swollen, dangling with rags of slimy gray skin, reeking of oil and dead fish.

'Almighty Lord, Word of God the Father,' Father Lucas babbled. But then the thin skin around the top of the column peeled slowly back, revealing row after row of razor-sharp teeth, five, six - seven rows in all, glutinous with fluids. Father Lucas' voice disappeared, and all he could do was stare at this terrible apparition; trying not to believe in it, trying to tell himself that this was only a nightmare; and that any moment now he would fall off the safe-deposit boxes and find himself in bed.

His nervous system suddenly reconnected itself. He thought, Jump! But he was a fraction of a second too late. The glistening gray column swayed swiftly toward him and burst straight into his mouth, smashing all his teeth aside, dislocating his jaw, cracking his palate apart from front to back.

He couldn't scream: the thing filled his mouth. Blood sprayed wildly across the safe-deposit boxes and onto the basement ceiling.

Choking, he thought, Out! Out! Got to get it out! but it slithered through his hands, greasy, rubbery, unstoppable.

It forced its way down his throat, tearing away his larynx. The agony was all the more unbearable because his lungs were full and yet his windpipe was blocked and he couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe!

He struggled and thrashed and kicked his legs; and at last he lost his balance and toppled off the side of the safe-deposit boxes onto the floor, with the gray thing's tail still protruding from his stretched-open mouth. It had a tail like a soft, collapsed sphincter, a sphincter that contracted and expanded each time the thing forced itself farther down his throat.

Something had jarred in his back when he fell. He lay paralyzed on top of a folding chair, his eyes bulging, his face blue, his mouth bloody. And the gray creature pushed its way with tearing teeth down to his stomach, ripping soft membranes into shreds - inflicting on him the greatest pain that it was possible for a man to suffer. It was worse than seppuku, the most agonizing form of Japanese suicide, because it came from deep inside him, and it wouldn't stop, and it scissored and wrenched and ripped at every part of his vitals.

The thing's tail disappeared into his mouth. He felt its dry palpating sphincter slide down his throat. He choked, gagged, sicked up blood and pieces of flesh. He was conscious of every expansion and contraction as the thing bulged and heaved, bulged and heaved, caterpillaring its way into his abdomen. The most terrifying thing of all was that he knew that he was already dead. Nobody could survive this ruination inside the body and survive.

He felt his stomach straining. He looked down at himself, his eyes wide. There was a moment when he felt as if his pelvis were breaking apart; and that the whole world was collapsing on top of him. The Hollywood Divine, the night sky, everything. Ton upon ton of agony and humiliation.

'O God, help me,' he bubbled.

And then the gray column exploded out from between his thighs, its teeth bloody and decorated with viscera of all colors, his own torn manhood hardly recognizable among the shreds; and it stiffly swayed, nearly four feet long, the swollen member of the Lord of Darkness, mocking him, arrogant, obscene, Satan's penis between a priest's legs. Now he knew why the mirror had spat semen at him. Satan relished the sexual degradation of the clergy.

'O God . . .' Father Lucas whispered.

One by one, the rows of teeth were concealed by sliding skin. Then the gray thing dragged itself away from Father Lucas, its body rustling on the dusty floor, and burrowed itself deep beneath the stacks of folding chairs, into the darkest corners, where it shrank into dryness, like an abandoned sack, and waited for the day that was near now; nearer than ever. The day that was almost here.

And Father Lucas' blood slid stickily across the basement floor and in between the painted toes of the African statue. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home.

That morning at eight o'clock sharp, Boofuls danced and sang for June Lassiter at 20th Century-Fox.

They used the set which had been built for the television mini-series Ziegfeld Follies, partly because nobody else was using it, and partly because it included a mock-up of a theater stage. June Lassiter sat right in front in her director's chair, dressed in an off-white suit by Giorgio Armani. Beside her sat her executive assistant and the bearer of her Filofax, Kathy Lupanek, all frizzy hair and huge spectacles and radical opinions.

Morris Nathan was also present, of course; with Alison. So was Chubby Bosanquet, the Fox finance director; John Drax, the choreographer; and Ahab Greene.

Martin sat at the very back, in darkness, feeling tired and withdrawn. He was praying in a way that 'Lejeune's' audition would prove to be a complete flop. If that happened - if it was obvious that nobody wanted to remake Sweet Chariot - maybe Boofuls would retreat back into his mirror and let Emilio go.

Some hope, thought Martin. If Father Quinlan's theory about the reincarnation of Satan were even half true, Boofuls would make sure that, this time, he accomplished what he had been born to accomplish. No more interfering grandmothers this time. No more vorpal swords.

At last, Boofuls appeared on the soundstage, and bowed.

He was wearing a royal-blue Little Lord Fauntleroy costume that he had borrowed from wardrobe, and Martin found it totally uncanny to watch him, fifty years after his death, strutting into the spotlights as if time had stood still, as if World War II and Korea and rock'n'roll and President Kennedy and going to the moon had never happened.

'Doesn't he look adorable? June cried out, and clapped her hands.

Martin felt a sinking in his stomach. She was won over already: give him five minutes and Boofuls would have her eating out of his adorable hand.

Morris said, 'He's a natural; an absolute natural. Never seen a child star like him.'

'And what did you say his name was? Lejeune?'

Morris nodded. 'That's right. But don't worry about his name. You just listen to him sing.'

Boofuls knelt and sang 'The Sadness of Happier Times'. His voice was so pure and poignant that even Martin was moved. June Lassiter was unashamedly wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, and Morris blew his nose so loudly that Kathy Lupanek jumped.

When all of them were dewy-eyed, or very close to tears, Boofuls suddenly sprang up and danced the sunbeam dance from Sunshine Serenade. He kicked and flew and pirouetted as if gravity had no effect on him whatsoever; his blue-slippered toes scarcely touched the floor. Ahab Greene started applauding long before he had finished, and the rest of them joined him. Morris even stood up and shouted out, 'Incredible! That's incredible! Would you look at that, June? That's incredible!'

Boofuls finished his dance and bowed low. Still they clapped him. At last, his cheeks flushed, breathing hard, he came down the steps at the side of the mock-theater stage and walked directly up to Chubby Bosanquet, completely ignoring June Lassiter.

'Well?' he asked in his high-pitched voice. 'Will you do it?'

'Lejeune —' put in June. 'That really isn't Mr Bosanquet's decision.'

'He arranges the financing, doesn't he?'

'Well, certainly but -'

'Then that's okay. I know you like it, Ms Lassiter. All I have to know now is whether Mr Bosanquet is going to come up with twenty-five million dollars.'

Morris Nathan came forward and was about to lay his hand on Boofuls' shoulder, but Boofuls stepped away.

'Come on, now, Lejeune,' said Morris, smiling uncomfortably. 'Let's not go over the top about this. It's up to Ms Lassiter whether Fox makes this picture or not. And it's a little impertinent, don't you think, to assume that she likes it even before she's had a chance to read the screenplay or listen to any of the songs?'

Boofuls pouted. 'If I didn't think she was going to like it, I wouldn't have bothered to come down here.'

June Lassiter stood up and came closer. Boofuls beckoned to Martin to bring him the revised screenplay. Martin handed it over and said, 'Sweet Chariot, a total rewrite. Updated, dialogue altered, motivations overhauled, characterizations sharpened up.'

'And what makes you think I'm going to approve it?' asked June. 'Remember, it was only last week when you tried to persuade me to do the Boofuls musical; and I turned you down very, very flat.'

'That was then," said Martin. 'This is now.'

'So tell me the difference.'

Martin scruffed up Boofuls' hair. He was the only one whom Boofuls allowed to do it. 'This is the difference, and you know it. He sings and dances better than Boofuls. He's going to be the greatest child star there ever was.'

Kathy Lupanek pulled a so-what, child-stars-yuck kind of face. But June Lassiter gradually allowed herself to break into a smile.

'Do you know something, Martin, you're probably right. I'm going to recommend this project. Morris — you and I ought to talk some business.'

Boofuls said clearly, 'Mr Nathan is not my agent.'

Morris looked perplexed. 'Hey, come on, now! Didn't I set up this audition for you? You have to have an agent! You can't work without an agent! He's such a mazik, this kid!'

Boofuls approached Morris and stared at him with those welding-torch eyes. 'Not a mazik, Mr Nathan. A dybbuk? Not a little devil, Mr Nathan, but a demon from hell.

June tried to break the tension by saying, 'Lejeune, honey -Mr Nathan's right. You do have to have an agent, just to protect your legal interests. I mean, if you don't want to use Mr Nathan, I can talk to your parents and recommend plenty more -'

'I don't have any parents,' said Lejeune. His voice was high but expressionless.

June'looked uncomfortable. 'You must have somebody to take care of you. Some legal guardian.'

Boofuls paused for a moment, looking around. Martin could recognize that cunning strangeness in his face; the wolfish expression of an adult man. 'My grandmother,' he said. 'I live with my grandmother. She's my legal guardian.'

'Well, I'll call her myself and explain that you have to have an agent,' said June.

'I should work off my toehes fixing this audition and then I don't even get ten percent of thankyouverymuch?' Morris demanded.

'I'm sorry, Morris, it's Lejeune's choice,' June told him.

Morris turned on Boofuls and stabbed a stubby finger at him. 'You're not a mazik and you're not a dybbuk. You're the gilgul of my old dead partner Chaim Selzer, that's what you are!'

Martin came forward and took hold of Morris' arm. 'Morris, forget it. I'm sorry. I just automatically assumed that Lejeune would want you to be his agent.'

Alison squeezed Morris close and said, 'Come on, Morry, forget it. It's better you don't represent him, believe me. If he can't be grateful for what you've done for him, Martin's right, you should forget it.'

Morris tugged his large white sports coat tightly around his stomach. 'Forget it, you bet I'll forget it. And you, Martin, you bet I'll forget you, too!'

'Oh, come on, Morry, don't be upset!' Alison cooed; but glanced across at Martin at the same time with an expression which meant don't worry, I'll cool him down.

'All right, all right already!' Morris snapped. 'I'm not upset, I'm nice! Just don't let me have to look at that kid's face again, ever! And I don't want to hear his name, neither!'

Boofuls meanwhile had eerily circled around so that he was standing in Morris' way as Morris prepared to leave. Morris stopped and stared at him. Boofuls stared back, and then gradually smiled.

'Are you sure that's what you want?' Boofuls asked him. 'Never to see my face again, never to hear my name?'

'Got it in one, Goldilocks,' Morris told him. 'Now, if you'll kindly ex-cuse us!'

Taking Alison by the arm, Morris waddled out of the sound-stage and into the sunlight.

'I didn't mean to make him cross,' said Boofuls, watching him go.

June Lassiter laughed. 'Don't worry about Morris. He'll get over it. Now—let's go get some coffee and cake, shall we, and talk about this musical of yours? We must talk to your grandmother, you realize that, don't you, since she's your legal guardian.'

'I understand,' said Boofuls sweetly, taking hold of June's hand. Martin followed behind them, with a feeling of increasing dread. He wished to God that Morris hadn't yelled at Boofuls like that. If he had killed Homer Theobald just for touching the key to the safe-deposit box at the Hollywood Divine, there was no knowing what he might do to Morris.

Kathy Lupanek, walking beside him with her clipboard clutched to her flat chest, said, 'I really hate child actors, you know? Especially snootsy-cutesy ones like Lejeune.'

Martin said nothing. He didn't know how sharp Boofuls' ears were. He wasn't even sure that Boofuls couldn't penetrate right inside his mind, and hear him silently screaming, ' You hideous evil son of a bitch! I'd kill you if I had half the chance, and I'd chop you up into pieces, just the way your grandmother did!'

They were back home in Franklin Avenue well before eleven o'clock. Martin wanted to go see Ramone, and so he told Boofuls to stay in the apartment and watch television.

'Can we go out later for hamburgers?' Boofuls asked him with a surprisingly childish whine.

'Sure. If you're hungry now, there's some baloney in the refrigerator, and some cake. Just don't drink the beer, that's all. You may be fifty-eight years old, but you're still underage.'

Martin left the house feeling shaky and scattered and fraught. He drove badly down to Hollywood Boulevard, bumping over curbs and arguing with a Ralph's delivery truck, and when he arrived at The Reel Thing he couldn't find anyplace to park, so in the end he left the car on Leland Way, which was almost as far away as Franklin Avenue.

Ramone was leaning on the counter with his shades pushed down right to the end of his nose so that he could read the small ads in Variety. He stood up when Martin came in and said, 'Hey, the wanderer returns! Where have you been, my man, I've been calling you for days! I even called round to your house this morning, around nine, and the Caparooparellis said you was away on biz-ness.'

Martin wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. 'When I tell you, you're not going to believe it.'

'Man - I saw that snake-cat. I'll believe anything.'

Martin said, 'Let's go get a beer. This is not one of those things that you can tell anybody about when you're stone-cold sober.'

'Okay, then. Kelly! Would you mind the store for a half

hour?'

They left the store and walked out into the hot mid-morning sun. Ramone said, 'I asked Mrs Capelli about Emilio; but she said there wasn't no sign.'

'Was that all she said?'

Ramone nodded. 'She seemed pretty uptight, so I didn't like to bug her any more.'

'She didn't tell you about Boofuls?'

'No, she didn't. What about Boofuls?'

Martin hesitated. Then he said, 'I promised myself I was going to keep this a total secret. The only people who know the truth so far are Mr Capelli and myself; and Mr Capelli found out by accident, although I guess he was entitled to know, Emilio being his grandson and everything. But — damn it — I can't keep it in any longer. I can't go around with a secret this big, especially when I have a friend like you to share it with.'

Ramone stopped dead in the street, and a punk who had been walking close behind him collided into the back of him. 'Hey, man,' the punk complained, but Ramone silenced him with a grotesque glare, like Mick Belker in Hill Street Blues. 'What are you trying to tell me?' Ramone asked Martin fiercely. 'What the hell has happened?'

'Lugosi went into the mirror,' said Martin. 'That hellcat came out.'

'Go on,' Ramone urged him.

'Well .. . Emilio went into the mirror .. . and guess who came out in his place?'

Ramone stared at Martin in horror. 'Boofuls,' he whispered. 'Oh, Jesus, Boofuls.'

Shortly before eleven o'clock, Boofuls got up from the sofa, walked across to the television, and switched it off. Then he marched smartly to the mirror, his hands by his sides, and called out, 'Emilio! Emilio! Come on out, Emilio!'

There was a short pause, and then Emilio came into the reflected room. He was carrying a huge brindled cat, so heavy that he could only manage to carry it under its front legs. The rest of its body hung down, and swayed as Emilio walked, and its eyes were slitted in displeasure.

'You shouldn't carry Pickle like that,' Boofuls admonished him. 'She doesn't like it.'

Emilio put the cat down on the floor. There were crisscross scratches all over his small hands. 'She's so heavy.'

'She's well fed, that's why,' replied Boofuls. 'She eats the tongues of telltale tits; and she drinks the blood of people who meddle; and she doesn't like anybody who doesn't love her as much as I do.'

'I love her,' said Emilio. He looked exhausted and hungry. His T-shirt was grubby and there were crimson bruises on the side of his forehead, as if somebody had been cuffing him. In mirrorland, everything is turned from left to right, even Christian morality.

'She looks cross,' said Boofuls. 'Have you been taking care of her properly?'

Emilio nodded. 'I play with her and I stroke her even when she scratches me.'

'All cats scratch,' Boofuls remarked scornfully.

He was just about to take another step toward the mirror when he heard footsteps on the stairs. 'Ssh!' he told Emilio, and listened. Somebody was coming up to the landing. Not Martin, the steps weren't heavy enough. Not Mrs Capelli, they were far too quick. He frowned and waited. Emilio waited, too, breathless, half hoping that somebody had come to rescue him at last.

There was a knock at the front door of the apartment; then another. Boofuls waited, not moving, not speaking. Then a girl's voice called, 'Coo-ee, Martin!'

'Go back,' Boofuls ordered Emilio.

'But you haven't —' Emilio began.

Boofuls snapped, 'Go back! Otherwise I'll never let you, ever!'

Reluctantly, Emilio left the reflected sitting room and disappeared through the door. The cat Pickle, however, remained, crouched on the sofa with its front paws tucked up. 'You stay there,' Boofuls told it, although it obviously had no intention of moving.

Boofuls went to the front door of the apartment and opened it. Standing outside in a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of excruciatingly tight emerald-green satin shorts was Maria Boca-negra, from next door. Her glossy black hair was wildly back-combed, her purple lips gleamed, and her fingernails were all frosted purple. She wore emerald-green high heels and she had sprayed herself with enough Obsession to overpower any aroma that dared to be subtle within a radius of twenty feet.

Miss Loud Pedal, 1989.

'Yes?' asked Boofuls, his face white with innocence.

'Well, who are you? Maria smiled. 'Aren't you just cute?'

'My name is Lejeune,' said Boofuls. 'Martin isn't here. But you can come in and wait if you wish.'

'Aren't you po-lite? Maria giggled. 'If all men were as polite as you! But, listen, I can't stay! I just wanted to invite Martin to my party on Saturday. We're having a wild, wild salsa party, can you imagine that? And since Martin loves South American rhythms, well I'm sure he'd love to be there! Can you tell him nine o'clock?'

'He'll be back in just a minute,' said Boofuls, straight-faced.

'Well, if you can't remember the message I'll call him,' said Maria. 'But I really have to fly!'

'I'm allowed to offer you a glass of wine, ma'am,' Boofuls told her.

Maria was captivated. 'Is that what Martin said? If a ravishing lady comes to the door, you're allowed to offer her a glass of wine?'

Boofuls nodded.

'Hm,' said Maria. 'How long did you say Martin was going to be?'

'Only a minute. Do come in, ma'am. I know that he'll be quite delighted to see you. He's always looking at you out of the window.'

'Ye-e-es, I know that, too,' said Maria. 'But all right, then, just one glass of wine. I don't want Rico thinking I've been fooling around with a strange man, do I?'

Boofuls opened the door and showed her through to the sitting room. She balanced her way around on her high heels, admiring it. Boofuls stood in the doorway watching her, his hands clasped together.

'Isn't this neat? Maria commented. 'Very male, though. Nothing around like flowers or cushions or china ornaments. But, you know, tasteful. I always thought that Martin was tasteful. And that mirror's something, isn't it? Is that an antique?'

Boofuls smiled. That dreamy little smile. 'It's supposed to be lucky.'

'Is that right?' said Maria, peering at the mirror shortsightedly. She should have worn glasses but she was far too vain. Besides, she scarcely could have fitted them over her sweeping false eyelashes.

Boofuls said, 'There's a legend that comes with the mirror that if you kiss your own reflection, you'll get everything you always wanted.'

Maria laughed. 'All I ever wanted was a billionaire. Or maybe a millionaire, you know, at a pinch.'

'Go ahead, try it,' said Boofuls. His voice was oddly echoey.

'Aw, come on,' said Maria. 'If I kiss that mirror, all that's going to happen is that I'm going to leave a big fat pair of lipstick lips on it.'

Boofuls shrugged. 'Martin kissed it, and Fox is going to make that musical about Boofuls that he's been working on for years and years.'

'No kidding?' asked Maria. 'They're really going to do that?'

Boofuls nodded. 'Go ahead. You try it.'

Maria giggled. 'I feel like such zfool.' But she waggled her way over to the mirror, and bent forward so that she was face-to-face with her reflection. 'What do I do, wish first and then kiss - or kiss first and then wish?'

'It doesn't matter.'

'All right, then,' said Maria, closing her eyes. 'I wish that I could meet a man with a net worth of one billion dollars, and by the way could he please be good-looking, too, I don't want some rich old character with a face like a month-old cante-loupe.'

She placed her lips against the cold surface of the mirror, her eyes still closed. Up above her, the gilded face of Pan grinned with demonic blindness.

'Mmmff,' she said. Then — immediately — 'Mmm-mmffffff!!!!' because she couldn't pull her lips free from the glass.

She waved her arms frantically and slapped against the surface of the mirror with her hands. But the mirror slowly and irresistibly dragged her in, so that she disappeared inch by inch into her own reflection. First her face, so that her head looked like a narrow football completely covered with wildly tangled hair. Then — when her head had dwindled into a dark tuft and vanished - her real neck was joined to her reflected neck like an angled pipe.

All the time this gradual process of absorption into the mirror was going on, she kicked and struggled and hammered at the mirror, reaching behind her again and again in a desperate attempt to seek help from Boofuls.

But Boofuls stayed where he was, watching her with a placid smile. He hummed to himself as she disappeared into the mirror.

Apples are sweeter than lemons Lemons are sweeter than limes

As she was drawn right up against the mirror, Maria pressed against its surface in a final effort to save herself. The heels of her hands skidded across the glass with a rubbery sound. But the mirror's suction was too demanding for her, and her hands were drawn in, too.

At last there was nothing left of Maria Bocanegra but her ankles and her feet - two separate triangles of human flesh with high-heeled shoes at the bases of them. One foot shuddered as it was sucked into the mirror's surface; the other remained still. A thin line of blood slid down one ankle and dripped off the metal tip of her stiletto heel just before she vanished completely. It fell onto the floor and remained there to mark Maria's passing.

Boofuls approached the mirror and stared at the reflection of the brindled cat Pickle sitting on the chair. 'Now, my beautiful darling,' he whispered, and held out his arms.

The cat's eyes, which had been squeezed shut, now opened a fraction. Then it lifted its head and stared at Boofuls haughtily.

'Come on, my beautiful darling,' Boofuls coaxed it.

At last the cat rose and stretched and yawned; and then dropped down from the chair onto the floor. It padded up to the mirror and sniffed at Boofuls. Then it sniffed at the single drop of blood that was all that remained of Maria.

'Come on, madam,' whispered Boofuls; and his whisper was cross and commanding.

The cat stepped back a little, hesitated, and then sprang. It jumped straight out of the mirror into Boofuls' arms. Boofuls staggered back two or three paces, because Pickle was so heavy, but he sank his little hands deep into her matted fur and held her up in front of him, and he tugged and tugged.

The cat spat and hissed at him, but he held it fast, and tugged even more forcefully. There was a tearing sound, like a Velcro fastener being torn apart, and he ripped the cat's stomach wide open, dividing the shaggy fur and revealing glistening flesh, mottled in red and purple. He paused, gasping for breath, but then he tore at the animal again, and now something extraordinary happened.

A woman's face emerged from the cat's stomach; a woman's head. She was completely bald, her eyes were closed, and she was covered in thin slime. But she was thin-faced, with high cheekbones, beautiful and severe; and as Boofuls tore more and more of the cat's stomach apart, her neck appeared and then her shoulders, and then Pickle's head was nothing more than an ugly flap hanging from her back, like the dried face of a fox on a fox-fur wrap.

The transformation was strange and prolonged. As Boofuls pulled the body of the cat wider and wider apart, the woman appeared with all the grace and dignity of a Chinese conjuring trick. When he dragged the last ripped-open remnants of cat away from her ankles, she stood naked and tall and silent, her eyes still closed, amniotic steam rising from her shoulders as if she had just been born.

Pickle was nothing more than an empty sack of brindled fur, like a diseased pajama bag.

Boofuls stepped back, a step at a time, and sat cross-legged on the sofa. 'Well, madam,' he said, and smiled, and rocked backward and forward.

The woman remained still for almost a half hour. Her eyes remained closed. Gradually, the slime on her body began to dry. She was very thin, very pale. Her skin was the color of ivory, with a tracery of blue veins branching through it. Her breasts were small and slanted, with nipples that were so pale pink that they scarcely showed. Her hip bones were high and prominent. She opened her eyes. The irises were pale amber; the pupils were wide and unfocused.

'Miss Redd,' smiled Boofuls.

Miss Redd smiled back; the taut smile of somebody who had just woken up.

'We're back,' said Boofuls. 'Aren't you happy, Miss Redd? After all those years, we're back.'

Miss Redd arched her head back and then circled it around to loosen her muscles. Then she worked her shoulders up and down. She looked around the room with eyes narrowed, trying to work out where she was; and what day it was; and what year it was. She was quite remarkable to look at. She could have been a Vogue model. There was something only half human about her; something feline and predatory; as if she had shrugged off a cat's body, but retained a cat's soul.

Boofuls came up to her and touched her thigh. 'Pickle-nearest-the-wind,' he said smiling.

Miss Redd ran her long thin fingers through Boofuls' blond curls. 'Never again,' she whispered.

'Why don't you wash?' Boofuls suggested. 'Then I can find you something to wear.'

'You always were the best of the boys,' Miss Redd told him.

'Martin will be back soon ... we don't have long.'

'Martin?' asked Miss Redd.

'He was the one who bought the mirror ... and brought it here. Our savior, if you like. He writes movies. He's going to help us finish Sweet Chariot. Miss Redd, it's happened at last. It's going to be wonderful. Fox wants to make the picture and everybody loves it and at last it's happened.'

Miss Redd got down on one knee and took hold of Boofuls' hand and kissed it. 'My Master,' she whispered.

Then she bowed her head forward so that her forehead touched the wood-block floor, and repeated, 'My Master . .. to whom I give my devotions.'

Boofuls leaned forward and touched the base of her knobby spine with a single fingertip. He ran it all the way up her back, in between her bare shoulder blades. She remained where she was, obeisant; as if she would have stayed there even if his fingertip had been a razor blade, and he had cut her open from top to bottom.

'You are the lowliest of slaves,' he told her. 'You are the most degraded of bitches.'

'Master,' she whispered, and opened her mouth wide and pressed it against the floor, licking the bare boards on which her master's feet had trodden.

Martin and Ramone came up the stairs about an hour later. Ramone was eager to see the real resurrected Boofuls for himself. Eager, but frightened, too. This all reminded him just a little too much of what used to happen at his grandmother's house. His grandmother used to call herself a witch and mix up potions of rum and gunpowder and licorice root, potions which were supposed to cure everything from plantar warts to pneumonia.

They reached Martin's door. Ramone laid a hesitant hand on Martin's arm and said, 'You'd better not be bullshitting me about this.'

'You said yourself you were ready to believe anything,' Martin replied.

'Well, I'm not sure about that. I mean if I died and I didn't realize and then somebody came up and told me I was dead, I wouldn't go much on believing that. I'd just as soon they hadn't told me in the first place.'

Martin was about to open the sitting room door when somebody opened it from the inside, swiftly and dramatically. A tall thin girl was standing there, dressed in nothing but one of Martin's checkered shirts, tied tightly around the waist with one of his two neckties, the red one, which he used for interviews with the IRS. The black one was for funerals. Around the girl's head was a turban, wound out of a red hand towel. Boofuls was sitting on the sofa, still cross-legged, like a little Buddha, still smiling.

'Look who came to see me!' Boofuls cried triumphantly.

'Oh, yes?' said Martin. 'Who's this?'

'It's Miss Redd!' Boofuls sang out. 'I told you she'd come!'

Martin stepped into the sitting room and looked Miss Redd up and down. She looked back at him, her eyes challenging him to speak. Ramone stayed where he was, in the doorway, still wide-eyed at the sight of Boofuls. It was true, Boofuls was actually alive. He was alive - and he was sitting here talking and laughing just like a normal child.

'How do you do?' Martin told Miss Redd. It seemed an absurdly formal thing to say, but he couldn't think of anything else. His mind was crowded with images of Boofuls in 1939, hurrying into the Hollywood Divine with Miss Redd close by his side, her black cape billowing like a thundercloud, her eyes as sharp as razors.

Miss Redd said in a faintly middle-European accent, 'You rescued Walter from the mirror. We should be grateful.'

It was odd the way she said 'we should be grateful' instead of 'we are grateful'. There was a subtle implication that they should be grateful but they weren't; as if they didn't feel the need to be grateful to anyone.

Martin walked up to the mirror and stood staring at his reflection. 'You came out of the mirror, too?'

Miss Redd smiled. She was exceptionally beautiful; but Martin found her too thin to be really attractive. She was right on the edge of looking anorexic — like a starving gazelle or the liberated victim of a concentration camp.

'I emerged from one stage of my life into another,' she said. 'You'll have to forgive me for wearing your shirt. My clothes ... well, my clothes became lost.'

Martin went over to the windowsill and poured two glasses of red wine without asking Miss Redd whether she wanted any. He glanced down into the yard, but Maria didn't seem to be around. Her sunbed was empty; her bent-back copy of Harold Robbins' The Storyteller was lying on the hammered-glass garden table. One of her Sno-Cones was floating in the pool. Martin handed one of the glasses of wine to Ramone and swallowed half of the other glassful himself, almost without breathing.

Miss Redd watched him without expression. Boofuls smiled and hummed 'The Sadness of Happier Times'.

'You're - what? Boofuls' nanny or something?' Martin asked Miss Redd.

'You could say that,' Miss Redd replied.

'To tell you the truth, I don't think he really needs a nanny. He seems to be doing all right for himself just the way he is.'

'There are some things which he is unable to do for himself,' Miss Redd answered.

'Like what?' Martin wanted to know. 'He seems to have gotten along okay so far.'

Ramone said, 'You came out of the mirror, too?'

Miss Redd smiled, but didn't reply.

'Well, if you came out of the mirror, you would know where Emilio is.'

'Yes,' agreed Miss Redd. 'I would. If I came out of the mirror.'

Martin finished his wine and set the empty glass down on the desk. 'If you didn't come out of the mirror, how did you get here? Stark naked, walking along Franklin Avenue?'

Miss Redd continued to smile. 'Emilio is quite safe,' she said. 'He's such a charming little boy, isn't he? Charming, but rather grave?

Martin said, 'I've warned Boofuls about this, and now I'm going to warn you. If you so much as scratch that boy, I'm going to kill you.'

Miss Redd nodded. 'Well, I believe you might.' She sounded just like Greta Garbo. 'But it wouldn't do you any good at all. Because if you killed us, you would lose the ability to be able to bring Emilio back through the mirror. He would be trapped there forever; just as Boofuls and I were trapped.'

Ramone shook his head like a dog trying to shake a wasp out of its ear. 'Martin,' he said, 'we got to get a grip on this thing. I mean these people are walking all over you. And Jesus, Martin, they're not even real people!'

Miss Redd turned to Ramone and held out her hand. 'Here,' she said coldly. 'Take hold of my hand.'

Ramone hesitated, but then slowly put out his own hand. Miss Redd at once gripped him tightly and dug her fingernails into the inside of his wrist. Ramone shouted out, 'Heyy! Ow! That hurtsl' But Miss Redd continued to dig her fingernails into him deeper and deeper.

'For Christ's sake, you're real! You're real!' Ramone protested. He twisted his hand free and then angrily nursed the scratches on his wrist. 'What the hell do you think you're trying to prove? You're worse than that cat!'

Boofuls laughed. Then he said, 'Miss Redd is going to take care of me now. Miss Redd will feed me and dress me and take me to the studios. You have served your purpose now, Martin, and I am grateful for what you have done. But there is nothing further for you to do.'

'What about Sweet Chariot?' asked Martin. 'Supposing they want some rewrites?'

'Miss Redd will supervise the rewrites. Your task is finished.'

'And Emilio?' demanded Ramone. 'When are you going to let him go?'

'When it suits me,' said Boofuls.

'Can you believe this runt?' appealed Ramone. 'He's eight years old and he's talking like he's my father or something. You listen here, runt —'

'Ramone,' warned Martin. 'Don't. Right now, Boofuls holds all the aces.'

Boofuls covered his face with both hands. They all watched him, saying nothing, holding their breath. When he eventually took them away again, he was smiling. Then he laughed, a high peal of laughter, bright as bells. 'You all look so frightened!' he crowed. 'You all look so terribly, terribly scared!'

For one unbalanced moment, Martin wondered whether Boofuls was playing them all for fools; whether he really did have power over Emilio; and whether the emaciated Miss Redd really had appeared through the mirror. But then Boofuls glanced at him quickly, and he saw the dead-certain coldness of those welding-torch eyes, and he knew that Boofuls was possessed by Satan just as surely as death sits on every man's shoulder.

Boofuls went across to Ramone and clung on to his sleeve. 'You shouldn't be frightened,' he told him. 'You have no cause to be frightened; no cause at all; just as long as you remember how long I have been gone and why I am here; and that no man speaks against me and lives to boast about it.'

Martin could see Ramone's anger rising up inside him. He could see his fists clenching and the veins in his neck swell. Don't, Ramone, for God's sake, he begged him in the silence of his mind.

Ramone looked across at him, and there was a look in his eyes which said, Bullshit, but he kept his mouth closed, and lifted his arm away from Boofuls' grasp, and gave the nearest thing to an agreeable smile that he could manage.

'Now,' said Boofuls, 'you promised me a hamburger, Martin. And we must take Miss Redd to buy some clothes. Miss Redd likes black, don't you, Miss Redd? Black, black, black! Black cloaks! black skirts, black silk stockings!'

Ramone came up to Martin and laid a hand on his shoulder. 'I think I'll take a rain check on the hamburger, man. Are you going to be okay?'

'Oh, I'm going to be fine,' said Martin. He nodded and smiled at Boofuls. 'I'm going to be absolutely fine.'

Boofuls said, 'Big Mac, no pickle, giant-size fries, a strawberry milkshake, and an apple pie to finish!'

'Sure,' Martin agreed, but very quietly. He had just noticed the single spot of blood on the floor. It was thick, arterial blood, and it was still glistening. The most terrible part about it was not the fact that it was there, but that he didn't dare ask, in his own apartment, in daylight, what it was.

The police came to St Patrick's at two o'clock that afternoon to tell Father Quinlan that Father Lucas was dead.

'They found him in the basement about three hours ago. The desk clerk was so spaced out he didn't even remember that he'd let him go down there. He was pretty badly mutilated. Some crazy person, no doubt about it. But, you know, what's a fifty-five-year-old priest doing at the Hollywood Divine at that time of night? It's asking for trouble, asking.'

Father Quinlan stared at the swarthy face of the detective sitting opposite and wondered how it was that such a man could be the bearer of such tragic news. He looked more like a comedian than a detective. He had a baggy face and a bulbous nose and hair that stuck up at the back like a cockatoo's crest.

'Do you know how?' asked Father Quinlan.

The detective sniffed blatantly and shook his head. 'The ME's going over him now. But he was torn up pretty bad. That's why I say some crazy person. And of course the basement's teeming with rats. They tore him up, too, threw in their five cents' worth.'

Father Quinlan nodded. He felt curiously detached, as if none of this were really happening. He could see every detail of the detective's face with extraordinary clarity. He could see the dandruff on the collar of his tan-colored sports coat. Yet he felt as if he weren't here at all. Not dreaming, but absent.

'What we can't understand is this,' the detective said. 'What was he doing down in the basement of the sleaziest roach palace in town? A priest like him?'

'Perhaps,' Father Quinlan began, but when the detective quickly lifted an eyebrow, he snapped back to alertness and continued, 'perhaps he was looking for old furniture. We always need chairs and tables, you know, for our youth club activities, and our prayer meetings.'

'That time of night?' asked the detective, puckering up his nose.

'It's only a thought,' said Father Quinlan.

The detective frowned for a moment and then said, 'I have to remember to pick up a rib roast on my way home. My wife'll kill me.'

'If I think of anything,' said Father Quinlan.

'Oh, sure. Call me anytime you like, this number here. Ask for Hector. Just say Hector. Or ask for my partner, Fernandez.'

'There's one thing more,' said Father Quinlan. 'Did Father Lucas happen to have any kind of package on him? A package of black tissue paper?'

The detective took out his notebook, licked his thumb, and turned the pages. 'Wallet, keys, loose change, handkerchief, that was all. No package. No package in his automobile, either.'

'Oh, well,' said Father Quinlan, trying to sound as if it weren't important. 'Maybe he left it at home.'

'Yeah, maybe he did,' agreed the detective.

Father Quinlan saw the detective to the door. The detective said, 'I'm sorry I brought you such bad news. It's all I get to bring in this business, bad news.'

Father Quinlan nodded and said, 'Bless you all the same.'

'Thanks, Father.'

'And don't forget the rib roast.'

'You bet,' the detective said.

Father Quinlan closed the door of his study and stood for a long time without moving, stunned and saddened and frightened, too. He had not only misdirected an officer of the law, he had, indirectly, defended Satan. He had betrayed his holy trust as a priest and brought the day of Armageddon even closer.

Yet what else could he do? The police would never believe that Father Lucas had been searching for the scattered relics of the true Satan; and even if they did, there was nothing at all they could do about it. Father Quinlan would have to get in touch with Martin Williams urgently, and warn him that the claws and the hair had gone unfound - and presumably whatever was in the second safe-deposit box had been taken, too.

He picked up the phone and called Martin's number, but there was no reply. But Martin had left him his address on Franklin Avenue: perhaps he should drive up there and leave him a message. He had been thinking of calling Martin in any case. He wanted to see Boofuls' mirror for himself.

Father Quinlan scribbled Martin a letter, licked an envelope, sealed it, then raked a comb through his hair, shrugged on a crumpled linen jacket, locked up his study, and went outside to the college parking lot. It was a hot brilliant afternoon; his shadow followed him across the parking lot like an obedient black dog. He climbed into his elderly Grand Prix and started the engine.

He drove slowly and carefully. Half of the car's front bumper was hanging down and made a dull clatter as he went along. He had never been mechanically minded. Ever since he had been a young man he had been fascinated by the myths and legends of Good and Evil, the supposed reality of demons and angels. In 1954 he had been ordained to the office of exorcist, although he had only ever been called to one full-scale demonic possession - a young girl in San Juan Capistrano who had somehow managed to scorch the walls of every room in which she was locked up.

He could remember the words of the bishop's admonition even now: 'Learn through your office to govern all imperfections lest the enemy may claim a share in you and some dominion over you. For truly will ye rightly control those devils who attack others, when first ye have overcome their many crafts against yourself.'

Over the years, Father Quinlan had grown to believe in the presence of demons. Not horned and cloven-hoofed; but evil nonetheless. He had seen their influence behind the actions of quite ordinary people; he had seen their eyes looking out from behind the eyes of politicians and financiers and movie stars and people in the street.

There was a look which Father Quinlan had grown to recognize. Only a demon looked at a priest in that particular way. Cold and sullen and viciously hostile. But you could see the look anywhere, when you least expected it. In the eyes of a bus driver. Behind a till at the Wells Fargo Bank. From a scrubwoman, sluicing the steps of a downtown office.

Through his belief in demons, Father Quinlan had evolved his belief in Satan himself. Actually, he had always believed in Satan, but now he knew for certain that the prophesies in the Revelation were based on verifiable fact. Satan had been defeated by the angel Michael; but he was due to return. Not in the shape of a man, but in his real demonic form, as the dragon of all destruction.

And the skies would remain perpetually dark; and the streets would run with the blood of the innocents.

Father Quinlan drove at a snail's pace along Santa Monica Boulevard, humming nervously to himself. He felt hot and uncomfortable because the Grand Prix's air-conditioning had packed up, and he couldn't afford to have it repaired. He found a crumpled Kleenex in his trouser pocket and dabbed his face with it.

He slowed down even more. He was caught between two trucks: an empty flatbed tractor-trailer in front of him and a huge grinding meat truck behind him. The noise of clashing gears and the stench of diesel added to his discomfort. He was more irritated when he reached a traffic signal and found that it was impossible to pull out from between the trucks because a shiny red Corvette boxed him in, its stereo blaring out Beastie Boys rock.

He glanced in his rearview mirror. All he could see was the dazzling chrome bumper of the massive Kenworth Trans-Orient behind him, and his own eyes. Then the traffic signals changed, and the truck in front of him pulled slowly away. But when Father Quinlan tried to shift into drive, he found that his gear lever was jammed.

The huge truck behind him blared its horn. Father Quinlan put down his window and tried to wave to the truck to move around him, but it was too close to the back of his car, and it couldn't. It blared its horn again; and this time it was joined by a chorus of horns from the traffic that was stuck behind it.

Sweating, Father Quinlan wrestled with his gearshift. God forgive me for thinking uncharitable thoughts about truck drivers and auto mechanics. But then the Kenworth driver leaned out of his cab and yelled, 'Get that heap of crap moving, you son of a bitch!' and Father Quinlan stuck his head out of his window and shouted back, 'I'm trying! I'm trying! the gearshift's stuck!'

The truck driver sounded his horn in one long continuous blast. Father Quinlan felt his temper rising. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror and his face was white and his eyes were blazing blue and it wasn't his face at all.

' You connived against me, Father,' whispered the face in the mirror.

Father Quinlan stared at the face in terror. He let out a low mewl and tugged even more furiously at his gearshift. It was the child of Satan: the one who comes before to prepare the way for Satan's resurrection. He knew it; and he knew how cruel and powerful it was; and that was why he grappled with his car so furiously. Let me get away! For God's sake, let me get away!

Again, the truck's horn bellowed like a dragon.

'And he deceives those who dwell on the earth, telling those who dwell on earth to make an image of the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.'

Father Quinlan gripped his gearshift in both hands, wrestling it forward and sideways. His face was scarlet, and sweat was trickling down the sides of his face.

'All your life you have wormed and connived against me, Father, and now is the time for you to pay. Those who use their minds to work against me must lose their minds.'

There was a moment of maximum resistance. Then the gearshift clonked into drive. Father Quinlan's car lurched forward, its engine roaring, straight across the intersection, and straight toward the back of the flatbed truck that had been in front of him before, and which had now stopped for the next traffic signal.

Father Quinlan furiously pedaled the brake, but it went flat to the floor with no hydraulic pressure at all.

'Conniver!' screamed the white, white face in the mirror. 'Deceiver!'

Father Quinlan saw the rear of the truck speeding toward him and the second truck was right behind him and he suddenly understood that he was going to die.

He didn't even have time to think of a prayer. With a crushing, grating, screeching sound, the Grand Prix burrowed its nose deep beneath the truck's bodywork, and the aluminium flatbed sheared off its roof at exactly four feet three inches above the roadway, straight through the front roof pillars, straight into Father Quinlan's face, wrenching his head right off his neck, straight through the windows in a sparkling shower of glass, straight through the rear roof supports.

The second truck shunted the Grand Prix's rear bumper and rammed it even farther beneath the first truck, so that it disappeared almost completely.

There was a prehistoric bellow, as one of the truck's tires burst; and then there was extraordinary silence.

It took the wrecking crew over two hours to winch Father Quinlan's car out from under the flatbed truck. A curious crowd stood on the sidewalk in the hot afternoon sunshine, watching and waiting. There was very little for them to see. The paramedics covered the Grand Prix with a sheet and backed the ambulance up close. Father Quinlan's body was lifted out and zipped into a bright blue body bag. It was only when one of the paramedics followed the gurney carrying another smaller plastic bag that somebody in the crowd said, 'Jesus, that's his head'.

Martin and Boofuls and Miss Redd drove past the accident on their way back from McDonald's. Martin said, 'Look at that, God, guy must've been killed instantly.'

Boofuls said nothing, but smiled at Miss Redd, and reached across to take hold of her hand.

That night, Martin went downstairs to play chess with Mr Capelli. He had been to the market with a shopping list that Miss Redd had given him. Veal, chicken, whole-meal bread, fresh fruit and vegetables. Miss Redd had announced that she was going to do the cooking: Boofuls needed his special diet. Martin was welcome to join them, she said; but Martin had no appetite for anything cooked by Miss Redd. It had been difficult enough, taking Boofuls and Miss Redd to McDonald's. To sit in his own apartment watching them eat would be like having dinner at the mortuary.

They were both dead creatures, as far as he was concerned; no matter how appealing Boofuls could be, no matter how courteously Miss Redd behaved.

Mr Capelli looked worn out, even though his doctor had given him Tranxene to help him sleep. Mrs Capelli had gone to spend the rest of the week with her sister in Pasadena. Her sister's husband ran a successful drain-cleaning business, Rothman's Roto-Rooter.

Martin and Mr Capelli shared a six-pack of beer and played chess for about an hour. The apartment seemed empty and depressing without Mrs Capelli. There was no singing from the kitchen, no chopping of garlic and onions, no aroma of bolognese sauce. Mr Capelli chain-smoked small cigars and wearily misplayed most of his moves.

'This woman, then,' he asked Martin, 'what is she? Is she real? Is she a ghost?'

'I don't know,' said Martin. 'I suppose she's pretty much the same as Boofuls. A kind of walking, talking image out of a mirror.'

'I got a very bad feeling about all of this,' Mr Capelli remarked, moving his queen. 'I got the feeling they're just using us, you know, for something worse, something bad.'

Martin hadn't told Mr Capelli what Father Quinlan had said about the second coming of Satan. He swallowed beer and moved his bishop to counteract Mr Capelli's queen. Satan cannot live and breathe until those one hundred forty-four thousand lie massacred.

Mr Capelli said, 'You know what I feel? I feel like this is my house, but it's not my house anymore. Not when Emilio's stuck in that mirror, and those people are living upstairs.'

Martin nodded. He knew exactly how Mr Capelli felt. He was glad that Stephen J. Cannell productions had just sent him a check for four months' worth of rewrites, because with Boofuls and Miss Redd in his apartment, smiling, talking, prowling, planning, he couldn't get near his typewriter; and even if he had been able to, he probably couldn't have written a single word worth squat. He was too worried about Emilio. He was too worried about what he had let loose on the world at large.

Satan? It seemed ridiculous. But Father Quinlan had believed it; and Father Lucas had believed it. Maybe one priest could be crazy; but. two?

The decorated clock on Mr Capelli's bureau struck nine. Almost at the same moment, the door chimes sounded.

'Visitors?' asked Martin. 'You expecting anybody?'

Mr Capelli shook his head. 'My cousin Bernado's coming down next week, but that's all.'

'Let me get it,' said Martin, and went to the door. Outside, on the landing, stood Miss Redd, wearing the clinging black-satin dress she had bought this afternoon at Fiorucci, with black stockings and black stiletto shoes. With her high cheekbones and white skin, she looked like a page torn out of a 19408 fashion magazine.

'I'm not bothering you,' she said, so flatly that it was scarcely a question at all.

'What do you want?' asked Martin, closing the door behind him so that Mr Capelli wouldn't see her.

'I wanted to tell you that Lejeune and I will be moving out tomorrow.'

'Oh, yes?'

Miss Redd smiled. 'I just spoke to June Lassiter at 20th Century-Fox and she will provide a private bungalow for us on the Fox lot while Sweet Chariot is being filmed. So - you will be pleased to know that we will not be trespassing on your hospitality any further. We leave tomorrow morning.'

'What about the mirror?' asked Martin. 'Are you leaving that here?'

Miss Redd said, 'That's what I wanted to talk to you about. The mirror cannot be moved; not yet.'

'And Emilio?'

'Emilio will be safe just as long as you do not attempt to break the mirror or get him back out of it.'

'And when are you going to set him free?'

'Lejeune has made that quite clear.'

'Don't call him Lejeune to me, lady,' Martin retorted. 'That's a poisonous and ridiculous joke. His name is Walter Lemuel Crossley, also known as Boofuls.'

Miss Redd smiled provocatively. 'Anger makes you handsome, did you know that?'

'It also makes me determined,' Martin told her, although his voice was shaking. 'And if there's one thing I'm determined about, it's getting Emilio back in one piece. Now — how long is it going to take to finish this movie of yours?'

'Fifteen weeks,' said Miss Redd. 'Fox is going to put everything possible into it. All the best technicians, the best lighting cameramen, the best choreographers, the best musicians. They've already chosen Marcus Leopold to direct. It's going to be a marvel.'

'And you give me your solemn oath that when it's finished, you'll let Emilio go?'

'On the night of the premiere, we will let Emilio go.'

Just then, Mr Capelli came to the door. He stood and stared at Miss Redd in silent indignation.

Miss Redd said, 'I sincerely apologize for all the pain we have caused you, Mr Capelli. But sacrifices have to be made in all great causes.'

'They're moving out,' Martin told Mr Capelli. 'They're going to stay on the Fox lot until the picture's finished; then they promise they'll let Emilio go.'

'There is one more thing,' said Miss Redd. 'During the production of the picture, you will not attempt to come near us; nor speak to us; and neither will you speak to anybody else about us. You will remain silent and patient, and you will guard the mirror.'

Mr Capelli said, 'You, lady, are a harlot from hell.'

Miss Redd slowly and elegantly blew him a kiss. 'And you, sir, are more right than you will ever know.'

With that, she climbed the stairs back to Martin's apartment and closed the door.

Mr Capelli shook his head. 'We should call the cops, you know that?'

'Oh, yes? And what do you think the cops are going to say? "These people kidnapped your grandson, sir? Okay, where is he? In the mirror? Excuse me, sir, while I call for the men with the butterfly net."'

'Well, you're right,' said Mr Capelli tiredly. They went back into the apartment and closed the door behind them.

'There's just one other possibility,' said Martin. 'I could call Father Quinlan at St Patrick's Theological College. He's an exorcist — you know, a proper official exorcist. Once Boofuls and his lady friend have moved out - well, maybe, he could try to exorcise the mirror, I don't know - maybe he could get Emilio back for us that way.'

'Exorcist?' asked Mr Capelli, shaking his head.

Martin looked up St Patrick's in the telephone directory and then dialed the number. The phone rang for a long time before anybody answered. It was a solemn, young-sounding man.

'Can you put me through to Father Quinlan, please?' asked Martin.

'I'm sorry, I regret to tell you that Father Quinlan died this afternoon.'

Martin was shocked. 'He died? Oh, my God. How?'

'There was a car crash on Santa Monica Boulevard. He was killed instantly, I'm afraid.'

God, thought Martin, we actually drove past that crash. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I don't know what to say.'

'Did you know Father Quinlan well?' the young man asked him.

'I only just met him. My name's Martin Williams. I met him along with Father Lucas.'

'Oh, yes, I remember,' the young man replied. 'I was the one who let you in. Actually, Father Quinlan had an envelope for you in his car. He must have been on his way to give it to you. The police found it in his car, down the side of the seat. I've got it here if you want to collect it in the morning.'

Martin frowned. 'No, no. Open it, read it to me over the phone.'

'Are you sure? It'll take a minute to go get it.'

The young priest was away for almost two minutes. When he returned, Martin heard him pick up the receiver and tear open the envelope.

'Here it is. "To Mr Martin Williams. You may not have heard the distressing news that Father Lucas has been murdered.'"

'Oh, God,' Martin interrupted. 'I didn't know that either. That's both of them.'

'Do you want me to go on?' the young priest asked.

'Yes, please,' Martin told him. Mr Capelli was frowning at him and whispering, 'What's wrong? What's happened?'

The young priest read,' "He was found in the basement of the Hollywood Divine. The police think he was attacked by an addict. Somebody on angel dust perhaps. Father Lucas had the relics with him, but they are now missing. Whether you believe in the prophesies or not, it will do no harm to take all possible precautions. Remember the prediction of the innocents, the hundred and forty-four thousand lambs of God. Try to believe! Call me whenyouget back. Meanwhile make absolutely sure that no woman goes near the mirror, because Boofuls will have need of his witch-familiar, Miss Redd, and the only way he will be able to retrieve her from the mirror will be by —"'

The young priest paused. Martin urged him, 'Go on, why have you stopped?'

'Well, are you really sure you want to —? I mean, it's kind of odd, isn't it, to say the least? Father Quinlan was always known as something of an eccentric.'

'Please,' Martin insisted, 'will you just finish reading the letter?'

'All right, sir, if that's what you want. Where was I? Oh, yes - "the only way he will be able to retrieve her will be by trading one life for another — the way he did with the cat — and with your young friend Emilia. The witch-familiar will protect him and succor him until the day when he can revive his satanic parent. Witch-familiars usually have ancient and ribald names like Blow-Kate and Able-and-Stout and Pickle-nearest-the-wind.'" The young priest coughed in embarrassment.

'Please,' Martin begged him. 'This may sound like nonsense to you but it makes a whole lot of sense to me.'

'Well, there's only one more paragraph,' the young priest told him. 'Father Quinlan says, "Remember Alice, read it carefully; and remember, too, that only the child can destroy the child, and only the child can destroy the parent".''

Martin asked, 'Is that all?'

'That's all,' the young priest told him. He sounded more officious now that he had done his duty to Father Quinlan.

'I'll come by and collect the letter in the morning,' said Martin. 'Perhaps you can keep it safe for me.'

The young priest hesitated, and then he ventured, 'I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, Mr Williams, but you do realize that most of the time Father Quinlan was out on a limb, so to speak? I mean theologically. The church these days doesn't recognize the old biblical legends as strict fact. The Revelation in particular. I mean movies like The Omen have set us back decades. We can't have people believing in Satan, not these days. There are so many other problems for them to deal with. Unemployment, debt, divorce, drug addiction, street crime, isn't that enough to worry about without worrying about the fiery dragon of the Revelation?'

Martin was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'With all due respect, hasn't it ever occurred to you that all of those contemporary evils you're talking about - divorce and debt and mugging and everything — hasn't it ever occurred to you that these evils are nothing more than the modern face of the same old fiery dragon?'

The young priest said stiffly, 'Well, sir, I don't really think that this is an appropriate time to get into a religious discussion. You can collect the letter at the secretary's office. And — sir — I do not believe in Satan, nor ever will.'

'Your choice,' said Martin, and put down the phone.

Mr Capelli looked up from their chess game. 'What's happening?' he wanted to know.

Martin came around and stood beside him. 'We're on our own,' he told him. 'It's you and me and Ramone, because nobody else will believe us.'

Mr Capelli said, 'You've got something to tell me, don't you? Sit down, let's hear it. Tell me the worst. Come on, I'm an old man, I can take it. And aren't we friends? And by the way, I just took your bishop.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Principal photography started on Sweet Chariot in the second week of September. Fox took a full-page advertisement in Variety, trumpeting 'Pip Young, Geraldine Glosset, Lester Kroll, in Sweet Chariot, an angelic musical, words and music by Art Glazer and Michael Hanson'.

'Pip Young' was June Lassiter's inspired new name for Lejeune, the Fox board having decided that Lejeune was too foreign-sounding, especially for a boy with such a clipped foreign-sounding accent. Actually, Boofuls' accent wasn't foreign at all, it was simply fifty years out of date.

Martin kept in touch with Sweet Chariot's progress through Morris; and through Kathy Lupanek, with whom he had made a special effort to be friends. He had even taken her out for lunch at Stratton's and brought her flowers. Kathy Lupanek had spent two hours telling Martin about her abused childhood. Martin had sympathized.

Back at Franklin Avenue, week after week, Martin and the Capellis lived a life of empty restlessness, waiting for Sweet Chariot to be shot and edited and scored and premiered. As far as Martin was concerned, time inside the house seemed to stand still, while the days rushed silently past outside his window, a speeded-up movie of clouds, sunsets, thunderstorms, smog.

He tried not to watch the mirror. He took his typewriter into the kitchen and kept up his income by pecking out rewrites for Search for Tomorrow and The Guiding Light. But every now and then he would find that he had dried up; and that he had been staring at his keyboard for almost a half hour without writing a word. Then he would walk into the sitting room and stare at his reflection in the mirror and whisper 'Emilio? Where the hell are you, Emilio? Are you alive? Are you dead?'

But there was nothing. No answers, no apparitions, nothing but a cold and clear reflection of the world as it was.

Sometimes Ramone came by, and they would sit on the sofa and look at themselves in the mirror and drink a couple of bottles of wine. To begin with - when Martin had told him all about Father Quinlan and his threats about the Revelation — Ramone had been all for smashing the mirror to pieces. 'Just break the bastard to bits, why don't we?' But the days went by, and he became calmer and more philosophical, and maybe Father Quinlan had been nothing but an oddball, after all.

One morning soon after Boofuls and Miss Redd had left the house they saw police next door. Maria Bocanegra had disappeared; nobody knew where. At first her landlady had assumed that she had gone home to her parents in San Diego, but then a month later her parents had arrived to visit her. Her clothes were still strewn around her room, her bed unmade, her lipstick still open and melted across her dressing table. Her father declared, 'It's a total mystery, like that ship with breakfass on it and no people, the whassname, the Marry Sir Less:

They saw nothing at all of Boofuls and Miss Redd. Nobody was allowed anywhere near them, except at specially selected press calls, to which Martin was conspicuously not invited. Martin tried to call Boofuls on the telephone three or four times, but each time he was told that 'Mr Young is not accepting any calls, I'm sorry'. One Thursday afternoon, drunk on California Chablis, he had driven around to Boofuls' bungalow and yelled out, 'Boofuls! You bastard! You listen to me, you bastard! I want Emilio back!' He had been escorted off the Fox lot by two tetchy security guards, and June Lassiter had called Morris Nathan and told him to keep Martin Williams at least a mile away from Century City at all times; in fact, he wasn't even allowed to turn into Avenue of the Stars, on pain of never writing for 20th Century-Fox Television ever again, ever.

Martin bitterly wondered which was worse: Armageddon or never writing for 20th Century-Fox Television again.

Meanwhile, taking Father Quinlan's advice, he read and reread Through the Looking-Glass, and he studied the letter which Father Quinlan had been trying to deliver to him on the day he was killed.

'Only the child can destroy the child, and only the child can destroy the parent: What the hell did that mean?

Ramone remarked, 'My old man, he was always saying that I was going to be the death of him. Maybe that's what it means.'

In the first week of November, Mr Capelli came stamping up the stairs and walked into Martin's kitchen without knocking. He was holding up a folded-back copy of Variety. He slapped it with the back of his hand and dropped it on the kitchen table. Martin had been typing out some new dialogue for As the World Turns, and he froze for a moment, trying to remember the end of the sentence he had been writing.

'It's there!' Mr Capelli declared. 'Premiere date! There it is! November 12! That's when I get my Emilio back!'

Martin picked up the paper. Another full-page advertisement. 20th Century-Fox announces the world premiere of Sweet Chariot, an angelic musical starring Pip Young, Gerald-ine Glosset, Lester Kroll . .. unprecedented simultaneous premieres at Mann's Chinese Theater, Hollywood Boulevard, as well as Lux Theaters, Union City Theaters, Hyatt Theaters ... altogether four hundred movie theaters throughout the United States . . . plus special international openings in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome . . . Absolutely no previews.'

Martin slowly shook his head. 'Did you ever hear of anything like this? Simultaneous openings throughout the world? They're really going to send out four hundred prints before they have any idea whether anybody's going to like it or not?'

Mr Capelli didn't answer, but tapped the paper with his finger. 'That's the date, November twelfth. That's when I get my Emilio back.'

Martin pushed back his chair and went across to the telephone on the kitchen wall. He punched out Morris Nathan's number. 'Morris . . .?' he said at last. 'Yes, it's Martin. Listen, did you see how Fox is going to launch Sweet Chariot?'

'I saw it,' said Morris. 'And if you want my candid opinion, I think they're out of their tree. They've kept this whole picture secret. Nobody's seen any rushes; nobody knows whether it's good, or half good, or terrible. Still, they want to burn their fingers, who am I to tell them what to do? They're taking a hell of a chance. June told me the final production cost was $32.4 million. So I said, what's this, Heaven's Gate with music?'

'And what did she say?'

'She said, wait and see, that's what she said. And I said, just remember, I didn't have anything to do with this. If you lose $32.4 million because of some untrained juvey, don't come whining to me.'

'Do you know whose idea this was? This simultaneous premiere?'

'The kid's, or that nanny of his, who do you think?'

'And they gave in to him? June Lassiter gave in to an eight-year-old kid?'

'They had to. That's the way I heard it, anyway. They were three quarters of the way through shooting the picture and the kid appears in ninety percent of the scenes and sings every single song, and then he turns around and says they have to open worldwide in four hundred theaters and that's it, otherwise he walks. They could have sued him, but what for?'

'Okay, Morris, thanks,' said Martin.

'Did you finish that rewrite yet?' Morris demanded.

'Oh, sure, I'll run it up to you later this afternoon.'

Morris cleared his throat. 'You're a good writer, Martin. One of these days you're going to be a better than average writer.'

'Morris, you're an angel.'

'Don't talk to me about angels.'

The night before the premiere, Martin stood by his open window, looking out over the lights of the Hollywood Hills. Ramone turned the corner of the street and came walking toward the house, brandishing a large bottle of red wine. 'Hey, muchacho, fancy a little nerve suppressant?'

Ramone came upstairs and they stood side by side, drinking wine and feeling the cool night air blowing on their faces. Ramone lit a cheroot and blew smoke, and the smoke fled around the corner of the house as if it were trying to escape from something frightening.

'Sometimes I don't know why I stay in this town,' said Ramone. 'It's tatty and it's tawdry and where the hell are its values? Sometimes I feel like finding myself a small place in Wyoming and raising horses.'

'You'd hate that,' Martin remarked.

Ramone nodded. 'You're right, I would. Shit.'

They drank in silence for a long while, and then Ramone said, 'What are you going to do if he doesn't let Emilio go?'

Martin shrugged. 'I haven't thought about it. I don't think I've even dared to think about it. He promised after all.'

'I was thinking about it this afternoon, though,' Ramone went on 'and I couldn't quite get the whole deal to balance in my head.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well. . . what I'm trying to say is, as far as we know, Boofuls can't stay in the real world, can he, unless Emilio stays in the mirror-world? So the only way that Emilio is going to get free from that mirror is if Boofuls goes back into it?'

Martin nodded. 'I guess that's true.'

'Right,' said Ramone, 'but what I'm saying is - if this mirror-world is as disgusting as it appears to be from where we're standing, why should Boofuls agree to go back at all? I mean, / wouldn't, if I were him, would you? I'd say forget it, no matter what I promised. Unless — and this is what I was trying to get my brain around — unless he doesn't need to go back, once this movie's been premiered. Do you see what I'm trying to get at? Maybe there's something in the movie, maybe the movie changes things. Maybe Boofuls is going to become real, once people have seen his picture on the screen, and the reason he wants a worldwide premiere is that the more people who see it, the more real he gets. I don't know. This whole thing's got me baffled, I really hate to think, Martin. It's bad for my sinus. But this thing's making me think.'

Martin swallowed wine and nodded. 'I don't know, Ramone, maybe you're right. Boofuls was real anxious to start remaking Sweet Chariot — right from the moment he stepped out of the mirror.'

'So it was important to him, right?' said Ramone.

'That's right; it was crucial.'

'And if it was crucial, if it was life and death, maybe it was more than just a comeback, right?'

'Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't,' said Martin. 'It depends whose comeback you're talking about.'

'You mean -'

'Ramone, for Christ's sake, I don't know what I mean. But maybe this movie is like an up-to-date equivalent of the rituals in the Bible, the rituals that are supposed to resurrect Satan. I've been reading it and reading it and I still don't understand it, but the Bible talks about the great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and how his tail swept away a third of the stars from heaven and threw them to earth. But who the hell knows what it's all supposed to signify, because I don't?'

Ramone turned around and stared at the mirror. 'Maybe we ought not to wait. Maybe we ought to try getting Emilio out of there now.'

Martin shook his head. 'Too dangerous. Boofuls said we might kill him.'

'Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?'

'Supposing we did kill him?' Martin retorted. 'Would you tell Mr and Mrs Capelli?'

Ramone thought for a while, then chucked the last of his wine down his throat and wiped his mouth. 'Let's watch some television. I'm tired of thinking.'

Up at his house on Mulholland Drive, Morris Nathan was working late, reading over the boilerplate of a television contract with MTM. He sat in his study under a circle of light from his desk lamp, a cigar perched in the ashtray beside him. Alison didn't allow him to smoke anywhere else in the house.

He was almost finished when the doorbell rang. He took off his reading glasses, tightened the belt of his peacock-blue bathrobe, and walked through to the Mexican-tile hallway. Alison was just coming down the curved stairway, dressed in nothing but a loose pink T-shirt with Andy Warhol 1928-87 printed in red over her breasts, and a red silk scarf knotted around her hair.

'It's okay,' said Morris. 'It's Benny Ito, he promised to call by this evening. And in any case, I wouldn't let you answer the door dressed like that.'

'Dressed like what?' Alison protested. 'I'm not dressed like anything.'

'Exactamundo,' Morris agreed.

The bell rang again. Morris pressed the intercom button and said, 'Who is it?'

'It's Benny, Mr Nathan. I brought the stuff you wanted.'

'Come on in, Benny.'

Morris opened the door and a young Japanese with a spiky black haircut and a black cotton jumpsuit came into the hallway, carrying a large padded envelope under his arm. 'Here you are, Mr Nathan. None of it's terrific; just outtakes. But you can't get near to the finished footage with a Sherman tank.'

'You promised me a complete print,' Morris protested.

'Believe me, I tried. But the Fox lot is up to its ass in security guards. And they won't deliver the prints to the movie theaters until one hour before they're due to start screening. That's what Walt Peskow told me, anyway, and he should know.'

Morris opened the envelope. Inside was a single can of movie film. He prized it open and looked inside disparagingly. There couldn't have been more than three hundred feet of stock in it, little bits and pieces spliced together to form one single reel.

'You expect five hundred dollars for this fhazzerei?'

Benny shrugged and sniffed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. 'Maybe two-fifty.'

'Two-fifty? Half? For what? For not even half of a movie?'

'Hey, come on, man, the risk was the same. I could have lost my job.'

'For this, you should have lost your balls.'

Nevertheless, Morris reached into the pocket of his bathrobe and took out a thick roll of twenty-dollar bills, neatly held together with a rubber band. He stripped off two hundred dollars and handed it to Benny Ito without a word.

Benny counted it and said, 'Two hundred? Is that it?'

Morris slapped him on the back and guided him toward the door. 'There's an old saying, Benny. Half the failures in life are caused by pulling in your horse, just when he's leaping. You know who said that? Well, neither do I. But you just did it. Good night.'

He closed the door, locked it, and then walked back across the hallway with the can of film. Alison had been watching him from the staircase. 'What's that, Morry?' she wanted to know.

'The one and only piece of Sweet Chariot that isn't in the vaults of 20th Century-Fox. It's not what I wanted. This is all shtiklech und breklech, and I wanted the whole damned movie. But at least we'll have some idea of what June Lassiter got for her $32.4 million, and if it looks like a real stinker we'll make absolutely sure the press get to see it first thing tomorrow morning.'

Alison came down the stairs, her breasts double-bouncing under her T-shirt. 'I wish you hadn't,' she told him.

'You wish I hadn't what? You wish I hadn't gotten hold of this footage? Did you think I was going to let that eight-year-old faigeleh treat me like a dumb stupid idiot, introducing him to June Lassiter, here you are, June, look at this hotshot kid, June, and what happens, all of a sudden I'm not his agent at all. Do you know what they paid that kid to appear in Sweet Chariot? Nine hundred eighty thousand dollars! And do you know what ten percent is of nine hundred eighty thousand dollars?'

Alison stared at Morris for a moment, dumbfounded. Then she whispered, 'No. I flunked math at school.'

Morris put his arm around her and led her through to the sitting room. 'Let's just say that "Pip Young" or "Lejeune" or whatever he calls himself has cut me out of enough profit to keep myself in new Ferraris for the rest of my natural days.'

'I thought you said you didn't like Ferraris.'

Morris went across the room and flicked two switches on the wall. With a low hum, a movie screen unrolled itself from the ceiling, and a 35-mm projector rose out of the middle of the coffee table. He pressed another switch, and the beige velvet drapes jerkily closed themselves, all the way around the room.

'Do you want to pour me a drink?' Morris asked Alison as he took the movie out of its can and began to thread it into the projector.

Alison went over to the liquor cabinet and fixed them both an old-fashioned. Then they settled down together on the beige velvet couch, and Morris pressed the switches to dim the lights and start the movie running.

On the screen, there was a brief flicker of numbers; then without warning the face of Boofuls appeared, slightly unsteady, slightly out of focus, but staring intently into the camera.

Morris watched this impatiently for a moment, sipping his drink, and then said, 'What the hell is this? Two hundred dollars I paid for this! A screen test!'

Alison patted his arm. 'Wait a minute, there's probably more.'

'There'd better be probably more,' Morris declared. 'Otherwise Benny Ito is going to suffer good, believe me!'

He was just about to switch the projector off when the voice of Boofuls came out of the stereo speakers, high and clear.

'You said you never wanted to see my face again, didn't you, Morris? You said you never wanted to see my face and you never wanted to hear my name.'

Morris stared at the screen in shock and then turned to Alison. 'Did you hear that? He's talking to me personally!'

Alison said, 'Morris, switch it off, please!'

'But he's talking to me, out of the screen, just like he's here! What the hell is that Benny trying to pull? A joke, already?'

'Morry, please — Alison begged him. 'That boy Lejeune -he's bad, Morry, he's evil\ There's something about him! Martin thinks so, too!'

'A kaporeh on Martin! Listen to this! Did you ever see such cheek? Benny must have gotten together with the kid and filmed this on purpose!'