Trumps of Doom

Chapter 5

I came jogging up the street in the light of late afternoon and halted when I was abreast of my car. I’d almost failed to recognize it. It was covered with dust, ashes, and water stains. How long had I been away, anyhow? I hadn’t tried to reckon the time differential between here and where I’d been, but my car looked as if it had been standing exposed for over a month. It seemed intact, though. It had not been vandalized and my gaze had drifted past the hood and on ahead. The building that had housed the Brutus Storage Company and the late Victor Melman no longer stood. A burnt-out, collapsed skeleton of the place occupied the corner, parts of two walls standing. I headed toward it.

Walking about it, I studied what was left. The charred remains of the place were cold and settled. Gray streaks and sooty fairy circles indicated that water had been pumped into it, had since evaporated. The ashy smell was not particularly strong.

Had I started it, with that fire in the bathtub? I wandered. I didn’t think so. Mine had been a small enough blaze, and well confined, with no indication of its spreading while I was waiting.

A boy on a green bicycle pedaled past while I was studying the ruin. Several minutes later he returned and halted about ten feet from me. He looked to be about ten years old.

“I saw it,” he announced. “I saw it burn.”

“When was that?” I asked him.

“Three days ago.”

“They know how it started?”

“Something in the storage place, something flam — ”

“Flammable?”

“Yeah,” he said through a gap-toothed smile. “Maybe on purpose. Something about insurance.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. My dad said maybe business was bad.”

“It’s been known to happen,” I said. “Was anybody hurt in the fire?”

“They thought maybe the artist who lived upstairs got burned up because nobody could find him. But they didn’t see any bones or anything like that. It was a good fire. Burned a long time.”

“Was it nighttime or daytime?”

“Nighttime. I watched from over there.” He pointed to a place across the street and back in the direction from which I had come. “They put a lot of water on it.”

“Did you see anyone come out of the building?”

“No,” he said. “I got here after it was burning pretty good.”

I nodded and turned back toward my car.

“You’d think bullets would explode in all that fire, wouldn’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“But they didn’t.” I turned back.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He was already digging in a pocket.

“Me and some of my friends were playing around in there yesterday,” he explained, “and we found a mess of bullets.”

He opened his hand to display several metallic objects. As I moved toward him, he squatted and placed one of the cylinders on the sidewalk. He reached out suddenly, picked up a nearby rock and swung it toward it.

“Don’t!” I cried.

The rock struck the shell and nothing happened.

“You could get hurt that way —” I began, but he interrupted.

“Naw. No way these suckers will explode. You can’t even set that pink stuff on fire. Got a match?”

“Pink stuff?” I said as he moved the rock to reveal a mashed shell casing and a small trailing of pink powder.

“That,” he said, pointing. “Funny, huh? I thought gunpowder was gray.”

I knelt and touched the substance. I rubbed it between my fingers. I sniffed it. I even tasted it. I couldn’t tell what the hell it was.

“Beats me,” I told him. “Won’t even burn, you say?”

“Nope. We put some on a newspaper and set the paper on fire. It’ll melt and run, that’s all.”

“You got a couple of extras?”

“Well… yeah.”

“I’ll give you a buck for them,” I said.

He showed me his teeth and spaces again as his hand vanished into the side of his jeans. I ran Frakir over some odd Shadow cash and withdrew a dollar from the pile. He handed me two sootstreaked double 30’s as he accepted it.

“Thanks,” he said.

“My pleasure. Anything else interesting in there?”

“Nope. All the rest is ashes.”

I got into my car and drove. I ran it through the first car wash I came to, since the wipers had only smeared the crap on the windshield. As the rubbery tentacles slapped at me through a sea of foam, I checked to see whether I still had the matchbook Luke had given me. I did. Good. I’d seen a pay phone outside.

“Hello. New Line Motel,” a young, male voice answered. “You had a Lucas Raynard registered there a couple of days ago,” I said. “I want to know whether he left a message for me. My name’s Merle Corey.”

“Just a minute.” Pause. Shuffle. Then: “Yes, he did.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s in a sealed envelope. I’d rather not —”

“Okay I’ll come by.”

I drove over. I located the man matching the voice at the desk in the lobby. I identified myself and claimed the envelope. The clerk — a slight, blond fellow with a bristly mustache — stared for a moment, then: “Are you going to see Mr. Raynard?”

“Yes.” He opened a drawer and withdrew a small brown, envelope, its sides distended. Luke’s name and room number were written on it.

“He didn’t leave a forwarding address,” he explained, opening the envelope, “and the maid found this ring on the bathroom counter after he’d checked out. Would you give it to him?”

“Sure,” I said, and he passed it to me.

I seated myself in a lounge area off to the left. The ring was of pink gold and sported a blue stone. I couldn’t recall ever having seen him wear it. I slipped it on the ring finger of my left hand and it fit perfectly. I decided to wear it until I could give it to him.

I opened the letter, written on motel stationery, and read:

Hm. I phoned my travel agent and discovered that I could be on an afternoon flight to Albuquerque if I hustled. In that I wanted a face-to-face rather than a phone talk, I did that thing. I stopped by the office, picked up my ticket, paid cash for it, drove to the airport and said good-bye to my car as I parked it. I doubted I would ever see it again. I hefted my backpack and walked to the terminal.

The rest was smooth and easy. As I watched the ground drop away beneath me, I knew that a phase of my existence had indeed ended. Like so many things, it was not at all the way I had wanted it to be. I’d thought to wind up the matter of S pretty quickly or else decide to forget about it, and then visit people I’d been meaning to see for some time and stop at a few places I’d long been curious about. Then I would take off through Shadow for a final check on Ghostwheel, heading back to the brighter pole of my existence after that. Now, my priorities had been shuffled — all because S and Julia’s death were somehow connected, and because it involved a power from elsewhere in Shadow that I did not understand.

It was the latter consideration that troubled me most. Was I digging my grave as well as jeopardizing friends and relatives because of my pride? I wanted to handle this myself, friendly skies, but the more I thought about it the more impressed I became with the adversary powers I had encountered and the paucity of my knowledge concerning S. It wasn’t fair not to let the others know — not if they might be in danger, too. I’d love to wrap the whole thing up by myself and give it to them for a present. Maybe I would, too, but —

Damn it. I had to tell them. If S got me and turned on them, they needed to know. If it were a part of something larger, they needed to know. As much as I disliked the idea, I would have to tell them.

I leaned forward and my hand hovered above my backpack beneath the seat in front of me. It wouldn’t hurt, I decided, to wait until after I’d spoken with Luke. I was out of town and probably safe now. There was the possibility of picking up a clue or two from Luke. I’d rather have more to give them when I told my story. I’d wait a little longer.

I sighed. I got a drink from the stewardess and sipped it. Driving to Albuquerque in a normal fashion would have taken too long. Short-cutting through Shadow would not work, because I’d never been there before and didn’t know how to find the place. Too bad. I’d like to have my car there. Luke was probably in Santa Fe by now.

I sipped and I looked for shapes in the clouds. The things I found matched my mood, so I got out my paperback and read until we began our descent. When I looked again ranks of mountains filled my prospect for a time. A crackly voice assured me that the weather was pleasant. I wondered about my father.

I hiked in from my gate, passed a gift shop full of Indian jewelry, Mexican pots, and gaudy souvenirs, located a telephone, and called the local Hilton. Luke had already checked out, I learned. I phoned the Hilton in Santa Fe then. He had checked in there but was not in his room when they rang it for me. I made a reservation for myself and hung up. A woman at an information counter told me that I could catch a Shuttlejack to Santa Fe in about half an hour and sent me in the proper direction to buy a ticket. Santa Fe is one of the few state capitals without a major airport, I’d read somewhere.

While we were heading north on I-25, somewhere among lengthening shadows in the vicinity of Sandia Peak, Frakir tightened slightly upon my wrist and released the pressure a moment later. Again. Then once again. I glanced quickly about the small bus, seeking the danger against which I had just been warned.

I was seated in the rear of the vehicle. Up near the front was a middle-aged couple, speaking with Texas accents, wearing an ostentatious quantity of turquoise and silver jewelry; near the middle were three older women, talking about things back in New York; across the aisle from them was a young couple, very absorbed in each other; two young men with tennis racquets sat diagonally to the rear of them, talking about college; behind them was a nun, reading. I looked out the window again and saw nothing particularly threatening on the highway or near it. I did not want to draw to myself the attention that any location practices would involve either.

So I spoke a single word in Thari as I rubbed my wrist, and the warnings ceased. Even though the rest of the ride was uneventful, it bothered me, though an occasional false warning was possible just because of the nature of nervous systems. As I watched red shale and red and yellow earth streak by, bridged arroyos, viewed distant mountains and nearer slopes dotted with piňon, I wondered. S? Is S back there somewhere, somehow, watching, waiting? And if so, why? Couldn’t we just sit down and talk about it over a couple of beers? Maybe it was based on some sort of misunderstanding.

I’d a feeling it was not a misunderstanding. But I’d settle for just knowing what was going on, even if nothing were resolved. I’d even pay for the beers.

The light of the setting sun touched flashes of brightness from streaks of snow in the Sangre de Cristos as we pulled into town; shadows slid across gray-green slopes; most of the buildings in sight were stuccoed. It felt about ten degrees cooler when I stepped down from the bus in front of the Hilton than it had when I’d boarded in Albuquerque. But then, I’d gained about two thousand feet in altitude and it was an hour and a quarter further along in the direction of evening.

I registered and found my room. I tried phoning Luke, but there was no answer. I showered then and changed into my spare outfit. Rang his room once more then, but still no answer. I was getting hungry and I’d hoped to have dinner with him.

I decided to find the bar and nurse a beer for a while, then try again. I hoped he didn’t have a heavy date.

A Mr. Brazda, whom I approached in the lobby and asked for directions, turned out to be the manager. He asked about my room, we exchanged a few pleasantries and he showed me the corridor leading off to the lounge. I started in that direction, but didn’t quite make it.

“Merle! What the hell are you doing here?” came a familiar voice.

I turned and regarded Luke, who had, just entered the lobby. Sweaty and smiling, he was wearing dusty fatigues and boots, a fatigue cap, and a few streaks of grime. We shook hands and I said, “I wanted to talk to you.” Then: “What’d you do, enlist in something?”

“No, I’ve been off hiking in the Pecos all day,” he answered. “I always do that when I’m out this way. It’s great.

“I’ll have to try it sometime,” I said. “Now it seems it’s my turn to buy dinner.”

“You’re right,” he answered. “Let me catch a shower and change clothes. I’ll meet you in the bar in fifteen, twenty minutes. Okay?”

“Right. See you.”

I headed up the corridor and located the place. It was medium-sized, dim, cool and relatively crowded, divided into two widely connected rooms, with low, comfortable-looking chairs and small tables.

A young couple was just abandoning a corner table off to my left, drinks in hand, to follow a waitress into the adjacent dining room. I took the table. A little later a cocktail waitress came by, and I ordered a beer.

Sitting there, several minutes later, sipping, and letting my mind drift over the perversely plotted events of the past several days, I realized that one of the place’s passing figures had failed to pass. It had come to a halt at my side — just far enough to the rear to register only as a dark peripheral presence.

It spoke softly: “Excuse me. May I ask you a question?”

I turned my head, to behold a short, thin man of Spanish appearance, his hair and mustache flecked with gray. He was sufficiently well dressed and groomed to seem a local business type. I noted a chipped front tooth when he smiled so briefly — just a twitch — as to indicate nervousness.

“My name’s Dan Martinez,” he said, not offering to shake hands. He glanced at the chair across from me. “Could I sit down a minute?”

“What’s this about? If you’re selling something, I’m not interested. I’m waiting for somebody and — ”

He shook his head.

“No, nothing like that. I know you’re waiting for someone — a Mr. Lucas Raynard. It involves him, actually.”

I gestured at the chair.

“Okay. Sit down and ask your question.”

He did so, clasping his hands and placing them on the table between us. He leaned forward.

“I overheard you talking in the lobby,” he began, “and I got the impression you knew him fairly well. Would you mind telling me for about how long you’ve known him?”

“If that’s all you want to know,” I answered, “for about eight years. We went to college together, and we worked for the same company for several years after that.”

“Grand Design,” he stated, “the San Francisco computer firm. Didn’t know him before college, huh?”

“It seems you already know quite a bit,” I said. “What did you want, anyway? Are you some kind of cop?”

“No,” he said, “nothing like that. I assure you I’m not trying to get your friend into trouble. I am simply trying to save myself some. Let me just ask you —”

I shook my head.

“No more freebies,” I told him. “I don’t care to talk to strangers about my friends without some pretty good reasons.”

He unclasped his hands and spread them wide.

“I’m not being underhanded,” he said, “when I know you’ll tell him about it. In fact, I want you to. He knows me. I want him to know I’m asking around about him, okay? It’ll actually be to his benefit. Hell, I’m even asking — a friend, aren’t I? Someone who might be willing to lie to help him out. And I just need a couple simple facts — ”

“And I just need one simple reason: why do you want this information?”

He sighed. “Okay,” he said. “He offered me — tentatively, mind you — a very interesting investment opportunity. It would involve a large sum of money. There is an element of risk, as in most ventures involving new companies in a highly competitive area, but the possible returns do make it tempting.”

I nodded.

“And you want to know whether he’s honest.”

He chuckled.

“I don’t really care whether he’s honest,” he said. “My only concern is whether he can deliver a product with no strings on it.”

Something about the way this man talked reminded me of someone. I tried, but couldn’t recall who it was:

“Ah,” I said, taking a sip of beer. “I’m slow today. Sorry. Of course this deal involves computers.”

“Of course.”

“You want to know whether his present employer can nail him if he goes into business out here with whatever he’s bringing with him.”

“In a word, yes.”

“I give up,” I said. “It would take a better man than me to answer that. Intellectual properties represent a tricky area of the law. I don’t know what he’s selling and I don’t know where it comes from — he gets around a lot. But even if I did know, I have no idea what your legal position would be.”

“I didn’t expect anything beyond that,” he said, smiling. I smiled back.

“So you’ve sent your message,” I said. He nodded and began to rise.

“Oh, just one thing more,” he began.

“Yes?”

“Did he ever mention places,” he said, staring full into my eyes, “called Amber or the Courts of Chaos?”

He could not have failed to note my startled reaction, which had to have given him a completely false impression. I was sure that he was sure I was lying when I answered him truthfully.

“No, I never heard him refer to them. Why do you ask?”

He shook his head as he pushed his chair back and stepped away from the table. He was smiling again.

“It’s not important. Thank you, Mr. Corey. Nus a dhabzhun dhuilsha.”

He practically fled around the corner.

“Wait!” I called out, so loudly that there was a moment of silence and heads turned in my direction.

I got to my feet and started after him, when I heard my name called.

“Hey, Merle! Don’t run off! I’m here already!”

I turned. Luke had just come in through the entrance behind me, hair still shower-damp. He advanced, clapped me on the shoulder, and lowered himself into the seat Martinez had just vacated. He nodded at my half finished beer as I sat down again.

“I need one of those,” he said. “Lord, am I thirsty!” Then, “Where were you off to when I came in?”

I found myself reluctant to describe my recent encounter, not least because of its strange conclusion. Apparently, he had just missed seeing Martinez.

So: “I was heading for the john.”

“It’s back that way,” he told me, nodding in the direction from which he had entered. “I passed it on the way in.” His eyes shifted downward.

“Say, that ring you have on — ”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “You left it at the New Line Motel. I picked it up for you when I collected your message. Here, let me…”

I tugged at it, but it wouldn’t come off.

“Seems to be stuck,” I noted. “Funny. It went on easy enough.”

“Maybe your finger’s swollen,” he remarked. “It could have something to do with the altitude. We’re up pretty high.”

He caught the waitress’s attention and ordered a beer, while I kept twisting at the ring.

“Guess I’ll just have to sell it to you,” he said: “Give you a good deal.”

“We’ll see,” I told him. “Back in a minute.”

He raised one hand limply and let it fall as I headed toward the rest room.

There was no one else in the facility, and so I spoke the words that released Frakir from the suppression spell I had uttered back aboard the Shuttlejack. There followed immediate movement. Before I could issue another command, Frakir became shimmeringly visible in the act of uncoiling, crept across the back of my hand and wound about my ring finger. I watched, fascinated, as the finger darkened and began to ache beneath a steady tightening.

A loosening followed quickly, leaving my finger looking as if it had been threaded. I got the idea. I unscrewed the ring along the track that had been pressed into my flesh. Frakir moved again as if to snag it and I stroked her.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks. Return.”

There seemed a moment of hesitation, but my will proved sufficient without a more formal command. She retreated back across my hand, rewound herself about my wrist, and faded.

I finished up in there and returned to the bar. I passed Luke his ring as I seated myself, and took a sip of beer. “How’d you get it off?” he asked.

“A bit of soap,” I answered.

He wrapped it in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket. “Guess I can’t take your money for it, then.”

“Guess not. Aren’t you going to wear it?”

“No, it’s a present. You know, I hardly expected you to make the scene here,” he commented, scooping a handful of peanuts from a bowl that had appeared in my absence. “I thought maybe you’d just call when you got my message, and we could set something up for later. Glad you did, though. Who knows when later might have been. See, I had some plans that started moving faster than I’d thought they would — and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

I nodded.

“I had a few things I wanted to talk to you about, too.”

He returned my nod.

I had decided back in the lavatory definitely to refrain from mentioning Martinez yet, and the first things he had said and implied. Although the entire setup did not sound as if it involved anything in which I had any interest any longer, I always feel more secure in talking with anyone, even friends — when I have at least a little special information they don’t know I have. So I decided to keep it that way for now.

“So let’s be civilized and hold everything important till after dinner,” he said, slowly shredding his napkin and wadding the pieces, “and go somewhere we can talk in private then.”

“Good idea,” I agreed. “Want to eat here?” He shook his head…

“I’ve been eating here. It’s good, but I want a change. I had my heart set on eating at a place around the corner. Let me go and see if they’ve got a table.”

“Okay.” He gulped the rest of his drink and departed.

…And then the mention of Amber. Who the hell was Martinez? It was more than a little necessary that I learn this, because it was obvious to me that he was something other than he appeared to be. His final words had been in Thari, my native tongue. How this could be and why it should be, I had no idea. I cursed my own inertia, at having let the S situation slide for so long. It was purely a result of my arrogance. I’d never anticipated the convoluted mess the affair would become. Served me right, though I didn’t appreciate the service.

“Okay,” Luke said, rounding the corner, digging into his pocket, and tossing some money on the table. “We’ve got a reservation. Drink up, and let’s take a walk.”

I finished, stood and followed him. He led me through the corridors and back to the lobby, then out and along a hallway to the rear. We emerged into a balmy evening and crossed the parking lot to the sidewalk that ran along Guadaloupe Street. From there it was only a short distance to the place where it intersected with Alameda. We crossed twice there and strolled on past a big church, then turned right at the next corner. Luke pointed out a restaurant called La Tertulia across the street a short distance ahead.

“There,” he said.

We crossed over and found our way to the entrance. It was a low adobe building, Spanish, venerable, and somewhat elegant inside. We went through a pitcher of sangria, orders of pollo adova, bread puddings, and many cups of coffee, keeping our agreement not to speak of anything serious during dinner.

During the course of the meal Luke was greeted twice, by different guys passing through the room, both of whom paused at the table to pass a few pleasantries.

“You know everybody in this town?” I asked him a bit later.

He chuckled. “I do a lot of business here.”

“Really? It seems a pretty small town.”

“Yes, but that’s deceptive. It is the state capital. There’re a lot of people here buying what we’re selling.”

“So you’re out this way a lot?”

He nodded. “It’s one of the hottest spots on my circuit.”

“How do you manage all this business when you’re out hiking in the woods?”

He looked up from the small battle formation he was creating from the things on the table. He smiled.

“I’ve got to have a little recreation,” he said. “I get tired of cities and offices. I have to get away and hike around, or canoe or kayak or something like that — or I’d go out of my gourd. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I built up the business in this town — quick access to a lot of good places for that stuff.”

He took a drink of coffee.

“You know,” he continued, “it’s such a nice night we ought to take a drive, let you get a feeling of what I mean.”

“Sounds good,” I said, stretching my shoulders and looking for our waiter. “But isn’t it too dark to see much?”

“No. The moon’ll be up, the stars are out, the air’s real clear. You’ll see.”

I got the tab, paid up, and we strolled out. Sure enough, the moon had risen.

“Car’s in the hotel lot,” he said as we hit the street. “This side.”

He indicated a station wagon once we were back in the parking lot, unlocked it, and waved me aboard. He drove us out, turned at the nearest corner, and followed the Alameda to the Paseo, took a right leading uphill on a street called Otero and another onto Hyde Park Road. From then on traffic was very light. We passed a sign indicating that we were heading toward a ski basin.

As we worked our way through many curves, heading generally upward, I felt a certain tension going out of me. Soon we had left all signs of habitation behind us, and the night and the quiet settled fully no streetlights here. Through the opened window I smelled pine trees. The air was cool. I rested, away from S and everything else.

I glanced at Luke. He stared straight ahead, brow furrowed. He felt my gaze, though, because he seemed to relax suddenly and he shot me a grin.

“Who goes first?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” I answered.

“Okay. When we were talking the other morning about your leaving Grand D, you said you weren’t going to work anywhere else and you weren’t planning on teaching.”

“That’s right.”

“You said you were just going to travel around.”

“Yep.”

“Something else did suggest itself to me a little later on.”

I remained silent as he glanced my way.

“I was wondering,” he said after a time, “whether you might not be shopping around — either for backing in getting your own company going, or for a buyer for something you have to sell. You know what I mean?”

“You think I came up with something innovative and didn’t want Grand Design to have it?”

He slapped the seat beside him.

“Always knew you were no fool,” he said. “So you’re screwing around now, to allow decent time for its development. Then you hunt up the buyer with the most bread.”

“Makes sense,” I said, “if that were the case. But it isn’t.”

He chuckled.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Just because I work for Grand D doesn’t make me their fink. You ought to know that.”

“I do know it.”

“And I wasn’t asking just to pry. In fact, I had other intentions completely. I’d like to see you make out with it, make out big.”

“Thanks.”

“I might even be of some assistance — valuable assistance — in the matter.”

“I begin to get the drift, Luke, but — ”

“Just hear me out, huh? But answer one thing first, though, if you would: You haven’t signed anything with anybody in the area, have you?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so. It would seem a little premature.”

The roadside trees were larger now, the night breeze a bit more chill. The moon seemed bigger, more brilliant up here than it had in the town below. We rounded several more curves, eventually commencing a long series of switchbacks that bore us higher and higher. I caught occasional glimpses of sharp drops to the left. There was no guard rail.

“Look,” he said, “I’m not trying to cut myself in for nothing. I’m not asking you for a piece of the action for old times’ sake or anything like that. That’s one thing and business is another — though it never hurts to do a deal with someone you know you can trust. Let me tell you some of the facts of life. If you’ve got some really fantastic design, sure, you can go sell it for a bundle to lots of people in the business — if you’re careful, damn careful. But that’s it. Your golden opportunity’s flown then. If you really want to clean up, you start your own outfit. Look at Apple. If it really catches on you can always sell out then, for a lot more than you’d get from just peddling the idea. You may be a whiz at design, but I know the marketplace. And I know people — all over the country — people who’d trust me enough to bankroll us to see it off the ground and out on the street. Shit! I’m not going to stay with Grand D all my life. Let me in and I’ll get us the financing. You run the shop and I’ll run the business. That’s the only way to go with something big.”

“Oh, my,” I sighed. “Man, it actually sounds nice. But you’re following a bum scent. I don’t have anything to sell.”

“Come on!” he said. “You know you can level with me. Even if you absolutely refuse to go that way, I’m not going to talk about it. I don’t screw my buddies. I just think you’re making a mistake if you don’t develop it yourself.”

“Luke, I meant what I said.”

He was silent for a little while. Then I felt his gaze upon me again. When I glanced his way I saw that he was smiling.

“What,” I asked him, “is the next question?”

“What is Ghostwheel?” he said.

“What?”

“Top secret, hush-hush, Merle Corey project. Ghostwheel,” he answered. “Computer design incorporating shit nobody’s ever seen before. Liquid semiconductors, cryogenic tanks, plasma — ”

I started laughing.

“My God!” I said. “It’s a joke, that’s what it is. Just a crazy hobby thing. It was a design game — a machine that could never be built on Earth. Well, maybe most of it could. But it wouldn’t function. It’s like an Escher drawing — looks great on paper, but it can’t be done in real life.”

Then after a moment’s reflection, I asked, “How is it you even know about it? I’ve never mentioned it to anyone.”

He cleared his throat as he took another turn. The moon was raked by treetops. A few beads of moisture appeared upon the windshield.

“Well, you weren’t all that secret about it,” he answered. “There were designs and graphs and notes all over your work table and drawing hard any number of times I was at your place. I could hardly help but notice. Most of them were even labeled ‘Ghostwheel’. And nothing anything like it ever showed up at Grand D, so I simply assumed it was your pet project and your ticket to security. You never impressed me as the impractical dreamer type. Are you sure you’re giving this to me straight?”

“If we were to sit down and build as much as could be constructed of that thing right here,” I replied honestly, “it would just sit there and look weird and wouldn’t do a damned thing.”

He shook his head.

“That sounds perverse,” he said. “It’s not like you, Merle. Why the hell would you waste your time designing a machine that doesn’t function?”

“It was an exercise in design theory,” I began.

“Excuse me, but that sounds like bullshit,” he said. “You mean to say there’s no place in the universe that damn machine of yours would kick over?”

“I didn’t say that. I was trying to explain that I designed it to operate under bizarre hypothetical conditions.”

“Oh. In other words, if I find a place like that on another world we can clean up?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“You’re weird, Merle. You know that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Another dream shot to shit. Oh, well… Say, is there anything unusual about it that could be adapted to the here and now?”

“Nope. It couldn’t perform its functions here.”

“What’s so special about its functions, anyhow?”

“A lot of theoretical crap involving space and time and some notions of some guys named Everett and Wheeler. It’s only amenable to a mathematical explanation.”

“You sure?”

“What difference does it make, anyhow? I’ve got no product, we’ve got no company. Sorry. Tell Martinez and associates it was a blind alley.”

“Huh? Who’s Martinez?”

“One of your potential investors in Corey and Raynard, Inc.,” I said. “Dan Martinez — middle-aged, a bit short, kind of distinguished-looking, chipped front tooth…”

His brow furrowed. “Merle, I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about.”

“He came up to me while I was waiting for you in the bar. Seemed to know an awful lot about you. Started asking questions on what I can now see as the potential situation you just described. Acted as if you’d approached him to invest in the thing.”

“Uh-uh,” he said. “I don’t know him. How come you didn’t tell me sooner?”

“He beat it, and you said no business till after dinner. Didn’t seem all that important, anyway. He even as much as asked me to let you know he’d been inquiring about you.”

“What, specifically, did he want to know?”

“Whether you could deliver an unencumbered computer property and keep the investors out of court, was what I gathered.”

He slapped the wheel. “This makes no sense at all,” he said. “It really doesn’t.”

“It occurs to me that he might have been hired to investigate a bit — or even just to shake you up some and keep you honest — by the people you’ve been sounding out to invest in this thing.”

“Merle, do you think I’m so damn stupid I’d waste a lot of time digging up investors before I was even sure there was something to put the money into? I haven’t talked to anybody about this except you, and I guess I won’t be now either. Who do you think he could have been? What did he want?”

I shook my head, but I was remembering those words in Thari.

Why not?

“He also asked me whether I’d ever heard you refer to a place called Amber.”

He was looking in the rearview mirror when I said it, and he jerked the wheel to catch a sudden curve. “Amber? You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Strange. It has to be a coincidence — ”

“What?”

“I did hear a reference to a kind of dreamland place called Amber, last week. But I never mentioned it to anybody. It was just drunken babbling.”

“Who? Who said it?”

“A painter I know. A real nut, but a very talented guy. Name’s Melman. I like his work a lot, and I’ve bought several of his paintings. I’d stopped by to see whether he had anything new this last time I was in town. He didn’t, but I stayed pretty late at his place anyway, talking and drinking and smoking some stuff he had. He got pretty high after a while and he started talking about magic. Not card tricks, I mean. Ritual stuff, you know?”

“Yes.”

“Well, after a time he started doing some of it. If it weren’t that I was kind of stoned myself I’d swear that it worked — that he levitated, summoned sheets of fire, conjured and banished a number of monsters. There had to’ve been acid in something he gave me. But damn! It sure seemed real.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyway,” he went on, “he mentioned a sort of archetypal city. I couldn’t tell whether it sounded more like Sodom and Gomorrah or Camelot — all the adjectives he used. He called the place Amber, and said that it was run by a half mad family, with the city itself peopled by their bastards and folks whose ancestors they’d brought in from other places ages ago. Shadows of the family and the city supposedly figure in most major legends and such whatever that means. I could never be sure whether he was talking in metaphor, which he did a lot, or just what the hell he meant. But that’s where I heard the place mentioned.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Melman is dead. His place burned down a few days ago.”

“No, I didn’t know.” He glanced into the mirror again. “Did you know him?”

“I met him — after you left this last time. Kinsky told me Julia’d been seeing him, and I looked the guy up to see what he could tell me about her. You see — well, Julia’s dead.”

“How’d it happen? I just saw her last week.”

“In a very bizarre fashion. She was killed by a strange animal — ”

“Lord!” He braked suddenly and pulled off the road onto a wide shoulder to the left. It looked upon a steep, tree-filled drop. Above the trees I could see the tiny lights of the city across a great distance.

He killed the engine and the headlights. He took a Durham’s bag from his pocket and began rolling a cigarette. I caught him glancing upward and ahead.

“You’ve been checking that mirror a lot.”

“Yes,” he replied. “I was just about sure a car had been following us all the way from the parking lot down at the Hilton. It was a few turns behind us for the longest while. Now it seems to have disappeared.”

He lit his cigarette and opened the door. “Let’s get some air.”

I followed him and we stood for a few moments staring out across the big spaces, the moonlight strong enough to cast the shadows of some trees near to us. He threw down the cigarette and stamped on it.

“Shit!” he said. “This is getting too involved! I knew Julia was seeing Melman, okay? I went to see her the night after I’d seen him, okay? I even delivered a small parcel he’d asked me to take her, okay?”

“Cards,” I said. He nodded.

I withdrew them from my pocket and held them toward him. He barely glanced at them there in the dim light, but he nodded again.

“Those cards,” he said. Then: “You still liked her, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I guess I did.”

“Oh, hell,” he sighed. “All right. There are some things I’m going to have to tell you, old buddy. Not all of them nice. Give me just a minute to sort it all out. You’ve just given me one big problem — or I’ve given it to myself, because I’ve just decided something.”

He kicked a patch of gravel and the stones rattled down the hillside.

“Okay,” he said. “First, give me those cards.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to tear them into confetti.”

“The hell you are. Why?”

“They’re dangerous.”

“I already know that. I’ll hang onto them.”

“You don’t understand.”

“So explain.”

“It’s not that easy. I have to decide what to tell you and what not to.”

“Why not just tell me everything?”

“I can’t. Believe me — ”

I hit the ground as soon as I heard the first shot, which ricocheted off a boulder to our right. Luke didn’t. He began running in a zigzag pattern toward a cluster of trees off to our left, from which two more shots were fired. He had something in his hand and he raised it.

Luke fired three times. Our assailant got off one more round. After Luke’s second shot I heard someone gasp. I was on my feet by then and running toward him, a rock in my hand. After his third shot I heard a body fall.

I reached him just as he was turning the body over, in time to see what seemed a faint cloud of blue or gray mist emerge from the man’s mouth past his chipped tooth and drift away.

“What the hell was that?” Luke asked as it blew away.

“You saw it, too? I don’t know.”

He looked down at the limp form with the dark spot growing larger on its shirtfront, a .38 revolver still clutched in the right hand.

“I didn’t know you carried a gun,” I said.

“When you’re on the road as much as I am, you go heeled,” he answered. “I pick up a new one in each city I hit and sell it when I leave. Airline security. Guess I won’t be selling this one. I never saw this guy, Merle. You?”

I nodded.

“That’s Dan Martinez, the man I was telling you about.”

“Oh, boy,” he said. “Another damn complication. Maybe I should just join a Zen monastery someplace and persuade myself it doesn’t matter. I — ”

Suddenly, he raised his left fingertips to his forehead. “Oh-oh,” he said then. “Merle, the keys are in the ignition. Get in the car and drive back to the hotel right away. Leave me here. Hurry!”

“What’s going on? What — ”

He raised his weapon, a snub-nosed automatic, and pointed it at me.

“Now! Shut up and go!”

“But — ”

He lowered the muzzle and put a bullet into the ground between my feet. Then he aimed it squarely at my abdomen. “Merlin, son of Corwin,” he said through clenched teeth, “if you don’t start running right now you’re a dead man!” I followed his advice, raising a shower of gravel and laying some streaks of rubber coming out of the U-turn I spun the wagon through. I roared down the hill and skidded around the curve to my right. I braked for the next one to my left. Then I slowed.

I pulled off to the left, at the foot of a bluff, near some shrubbery. I killed the engine and the lights and put on the parking brake. I opened the door quietly and did not close it fully after I’d slipped out. Sounds carry too well in places like this.

I started back, keeping to the darker, righthand side of the road. It was very quiet. I rounded the first turn and headed for the next one. Something flew from one tree — to another. An owl, I think. I moved more slowly than I wanted to, for the sake of silence, as I neared the second turning.

I made my way around that final corner on all fours, taking advantage of the cover provided by rocks and foliage. I halted then and studied the area we had occupied. Nothing in sight. I advanced slowly, cautiously, ready to freeze, drop, dive, or spring up into a run as the situation required.

Nothing stirred, save branches in the wind. No one in sight.

I rose into a crouch and continued, still more slowly; still hugging the cover.

Not there. He had taken off for somewhere. I moved nearer, halted again and listened for at least a minute. No sounds betrayed any moving presences.

I crossed to the place where Martinez had fallen. The body was gone. I paced about the area but could locate nothing to give me any sort of clue as to what might have occurred following my departure. I could think of no reason for calling out, so I didn’t.

I walked back to the car without misadventure, got in and headed for town. I couldn’t even speculate as to what the hell was going on.

I left the wagon in the hotel lot, near to the spot where it had been parked earlier. Then I went inside, walked to Luke’s room, and knocked on the door. I didn’t really expect a response; but it seemed the proper thing to do preparatory to breaking and entering.

I was careful to snap only the lock, leaving the door and the fame intact, because Mr. Brazda had seemed a nice guy. It took a little longer, but there was no one in sight. I reached in and turned on the light, did a quick survey, then slipped inside quickly. I stood listening for a few minutes but heard no sounds of activity from the hall.

Tight ship. Suitcase on luggage rack, empty. Clothing hung in closet — nothing in the pockets except for two matchbooks, and a pen and pencil. A few other garments and some undergarments in a drawer, nothing with them. Toiletries in shaving kit or neatly arrayed on countertop. Nothing peculiar there. A copy of B. H. Liddell Hart’s Strategy lay upon the bedside table, a bookmark about threequarters of the way into it.

His fatigues had been thrown onto a chair, his dusty boots stood next to it, socks beside them. Nothing inside the boots but a pair of blousing bands. I checked the shirt pockets, which at first seemed empty, but my fingertips then discovered a number of small white paper pellets in one of them. Puzzled, I unfolded a few. Bizarre secret messages? No… No sense getting completely paranoid, when a few brown flecks on a paper answered the question. Tobacco. They were pieces of cigarette paper: Obviously he stripped his butts when he was hiking in the wilderness. I recalled a few past hikes with him. He hadn’t always been that neat.

I went through the trousers. There was a damp bandana in one hid pocket and a comb in the other. Nothing in the right front pocket, a single round of ammo in the left. On an impulse, I pocketed the shell, then went on to look beneath the mattress and behind the drawers. I even looked in the toilet’s flush box. Nothing. Nothing to explain his strange behavior.

Leaving the car keys on the bedside table I departed and returned to my own room. I did not care that he’d know I’d broken in. In fact, I rather liked the idea. It irritated me that he’d poked around in my Ghostwheel papers. Besides, he owed me a damned good explanation for his behavior on the mountain.

I undressed, showered, got into bed, and doused my light. I’d have left him a note, too, except that I don’t like to create evidence and I had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t be coming back.