The Urban Fantasy Anthology Part 12

of truth disguised as lies. You wear a veil.

I'm thinking about England in the rain...

The shapes repeat like some bizarre refrain

and here's a sword, a hand, and there's a grail

of fear and magic, memory and pain.

The wizard waves his wand and we turn pale,

tells us sad truths, but all to no avail.

I'm thinking about England, in the rain

of fear and magic, memory and pain.

I didn't know if it was any good or not, but that didn't matter. I had written something new and fresh I hadn't written before, and it felt wonderful.

I ordered breakfast from room service and requested a heater and a couple of extra blankets.

The next day I wrote a six-page treatment for a film called When We Were Badd, in which Jack Badd, a serial killer with a huge cross carved into his forehead, was killed in the electric chair and came back in a video game and took over four young men. The fifth young man defeated Badd by burning the original electric chair, which was now on display, I decided, in the wax museum where the fifth young man's girlfriend worked during the day. By night she was an exotic dancer.

The hotel desk faxed it off to the studio, and I went to bed.

I went to sleep, hoping that the studio would formally reject it and that I could go home.

In the theater of my dreams, a man with a beard and a baseball cap carried on a movie screen, and then he walked off-stage. The silver screen hung in the air, unsupported.

A flickery silent film began to play upon it: a woman who came out and stared down at me. It was June Lincoln who flickered on the screen, and it was June Lincoln who walked down from the screen and sat on the edge of my bed.

"Are you going to tell me not to give up?" I asked her.

On some level I knew it was a dream. I remember, dimly, understanding why this woman was a star, remember regretting that none of her films had survived.

She was indeed beautiful in my dream, despite the livid mark which went all the way around her neck.

"Why on earth would I do that?" she asked. In my dream she smelled of gin and old celluloid, although I do not remember the last dream I had where anyone smelled of anything. She smiled, a perfect black-and-white smile. "I got out, didn't I?"

Then she stood up and walked around the room.

"I can't believe this hotel is still standing," she said. "I used to f.u.c.k here." Her voice was filled with crackles and hisses. She came back to the bed and stared at me, as a cat stares at a hole.

"Do you wors.h.i.+p me?" she asked.

I shook my head. She walked over to me and took my flesh hand in her silver one.

"n.o.body remembers anything anymore," she said. "It's a thirty-minute town."

There was something I had to ask her. "Where are the stars?" I asked. "I keep looking up in the sky, but they aren't there."

She pointed at the floor of the chalet. "You've been looking in the wrong places," she said. I had never before noticed that the floor of the chalet was a sidewalk and each paving stone contained a star and a name-names I didn't know: Clara Kimball Young, Linda Arvidson, Vivian Martin, Norma Talmadge, Olive Thomas, Mary Miles Minter, Seena Owen...

June Lincoln pointed at the chalet window. "And out there." The window was open, and through it I could see the whole of Hollywood spread out below me-the view from the hills: an infinite spread of twinkling multicolored lights.

"Now, aren't those better than stars?" she asked.

And they were. I realized I could see constellations in the street lamps and the cars.

I nodded.

Her lips brushed mine.

"Don't forget me," she whispered, but she whispered it sadly, as if she knew that I would.

I woke up with the telephone shrilling. I answered it, growled a mumble into the handpiece.

"This is Gerry Quoint, from the studio. We need you for a lunch meeting."

Mumble something mumble.

"We'll send a car," he said. "The restaurant's about half an hour away."

The restaurant was airy and s.p.a.cious and green, and they were waiting for me there.

By this point I would have been surprised if I had recognized anyone. John Ray, I was told over hors d'oeuvres, had "split over contract disagreements," and Donna had gone with him, "obviously."

Both of the men had beards; one had bad skin. The woman was thin and seemed pleasant.

They asked where I was staying, and, when I told them, one of the beards told us (first making us all agree that this would go no further) that a politician named Gary Hart and one of the Eagles were both doing drugs with Belus.h.i.+ when he died.

After that they told me that they were looking forward to the story.

I asked the question. "Is this for Sons of Man or When We Were Badd? Because," I told them, "I have a problem with the latter."

They looked puzzled.

It was, they told me, for I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll. Which was, they told me, both High Concept and Feel Good. It was also, they added, Very Now, which was important in a town in which an hour ago was Ancient History.

They told me that they thought it would be a good thing if our hero could rescue the young lady from her loveless marriage, and if they could rock and roll together at the end.

I pointed out that they needed to buy the film rights from Nick Lowe, who wrote the song, and then that, no, I didn't know who his agent was.

They grinned and a.s.sured me that that wouldn't be a problem.

They suggested I turn over the project in my mind before I started on the treatment, and each of them mentioned a couple of young stars to bear in mind when I was putting together the story.

And I shook hands with all of them and told them that I certainly would.

I mentioned that I thought that I could work on it best back in England.

And they said that that would be fine.

Some days before, I'd asked Pious Dundas whether anyone was with Belus.h.i.+ in the chalet, on the night that he died.

If anyone would know, I figured, he would.

"He died alone," said Pious Dundas, old as Methuselah, unblinking. "It don't matter a rat's a.s.s whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone."

It felt strange to be leaving the hotel.

I went up to the front desk.

"I'll be checking out later this afternoon."

"Very good, sir."

"Would it be possible for you to...the, uh, the groundkeeper. Mister Dundas. An elderly gentleman. I don't know. I haven't seen him around for a couple of days. I wanted to say good-bye."

"To one of the groundsmen?"

"Yes."

She stared at me, puzzled. She was very beautiful, and her lipstick was the color of a blackberry bruise. I wondered whether she was waiting to be discovered.

She picked up the phone and spoke into it, quietly.

Then, "I'm sorry, sir. Mister Dundas hasn't been in for the last few days." "Could you give me his phone number?"

"I'm sorry, sir. That's not our policy." She stared at me as she said it, letting me know that she really was so sorry...

"How's your screenplay?" I asked her.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"Well-"

"It's on Joel Silver's desk," she said. "My friend Arnie, he's my writing partner, and he's a courier. He dropped it off with Joel Silver's office, like it came from a regular agent or somewhere."

"Best of luck," I told her.

"Thanks," she said, and smiled with her blackberry lips.

Information had two Dundas, P's listed, which I thought was both unlikely and said something about America, or at least Los Angeles.

The first turned out to be a Ms. Persephone Dundas.

At the second number, when I asked for Pious Dundas, a man's voice said, "Who is this?"

I told him my name, that I was staying in the hotel, and that I had something belonging to Mr. Dundas.

"Mister. My grandfa's dead. He died last night."

Shock makes cliches happen for real: I felt the blood drain from my face; I caught my breath.

"I'm sorry. I liked him."

"Yeah."