Clive Barker - The Great and Secret Show

"I'll answer your questions as best I can, as long as you limit them to Buddy's professional life." Her speech was devoid of accent. A European education, perhaps? "I know nothing about his other wives so don't bother prying. Nor will I speculate on his addictions. Would you like some coffee?"

"That'd be most welcome," Grillo said, aware that he was doing what he did so often during interviews: catching a tone from his interviewee.

"Coffee for Mr. Grillo, Ellen," Rochelle said, inviting her guest to sit. "And water for me."

The room they'd entered ran the full length of the house, and was two stories high, the second marked by a gallery which ran around all four walls. These, like the hallway walls, were a painted din. Invitations, seductions and warnings fought for his eye. "The Ride of a Lifetime!" one modestly promised; "All the Fun You Can Stand!" another announced, "And Then Some!"

"This is just part of Buddy's collection," Rochelle said. "There's more in New York. I believe it's the biggest in private hands."

"I didn't know anybody collected this stuff."

"Buddy called it the true art of America. It may be that it is, which says something..." She trailed off, her distaste for this hollering parade quite plain. The expression, crossing a face so devoid of sculptural error, carried distressing force.

"You'll break the collection up, I suppose," Grillo said.

"That depends on the Will," she said. "It may not be mine to sell."

"You've got no sentimental attachments to it?"

"I think that comes under the heading of private life," she said.

"Yes. I suppose it does."

"But I'm sure Buddy's obsession was harmless enough." She stood up and flipped a switch between two panels from a ghost-train facade. Multicolored lights came on beyond the glass wall at the far end of the room. "Allow me to show you," she said, wandering down the length of the room, and stepping out into the soup of colors. Pieces too big to be fitted into the house were assembled here. A carved face, maybe twelve feet high, the yawning, saw-toothed mouth of which had been the entrance to a ride. A placard advertising The Wall of Death, written out in lights. A full-size, bas-relief locomotive, driven by skeletons, appearing to burst from a tunnel.

"My God," was all Grillo could muster.

"Now you know why I left him," Rochelle said.

"I didn't realize," Grillo replied. "You didn't live here?"

"I tried," she said. "But look at the place. It's like walking into Buddy's mind. He liked to make his mark on everything. Everybody. There was no room for me here. Not if I wasn't prepared to play things his way."

She stared at the mammoth maw. "Ugly," she said. "Don't you think?"

"I'm no judge," Grillo said.

"It doesn't offend you?"

"It might get to me with a hangover."

"He used to tell me I had no sense of humor," she said. "Because I don't find this...stuff of his amusing. The fact is I didn't find him very amusing either. As a lover, yes...he was wonderful. But funny? No."

"Is all this off the record?" Grillo wondered.

"Does it matter if I say it is? I've had enough bad publicity in my life to know you don't give a fuck for my privacy."

"But you're telling me anyway."

She turned from the mouth to look at him. "Yes I am," she said. There was a pause. Then she said: "I'm cold," and stepped back inside. Ellen was pouring coffee.

"Leave it," Rochelle instructed. "I'll do it."

The Vietnamese woman lingered at the door a fraction of a moment too long for servility before exiting.

"So that's the Buddy Vance story," Rochelle said. "Wives, wealth and Carnival. Nothing terribly new in it I'm afraid."

"Do you know if he had any premonition of this?" Grillo asked as they resumed their seats.

"Of dying? I doubt it. He wasn't exactly attuned to that kind of thinking. Cream?"

"Yes, please. And sugar."

"Help yourself. Is that the kind of news your readers would like to hear? That Buddy had seen his death in a dream?"

"Stranger things have happened," Grillo said, his thoughts inevitably tripping back to the fissure and its escapees.

"I don't think so," Rochelle replied. "I don't see much sign of miracles. Not any more." She extinguished the lights outside. "When I was a child, my grandfather taught me to influence other children."

"How?"

"Just by thinking about it. It was something he'd done all his life, and he passed it on to me. It was easy. I could make kids drop their ice creams. Make them laugh and not know why: I thought nothing of it. There were miracles then. Waiting round the corner. But I lost the knack. We all lose it. Everything changes for the worse."

"Your life can't be that bad," Grillo said. "I know you're grieving at the—"

"Fuck my grief," she said suddenly. "He's dead, and I'm here waiting to see what the last laugh's going to be."

"The Will?"

"The Will. The wives. The bastards who're going to pop up from nowhere. He's finally got me on one of his damn mystery rides." Her words were charged with feeling, but she spoke them calmly enough. "You can go home and turn all this into deathless prose."

"I'm going to stay in town," Grillo said. "Until your husband's body is found."

"It won't be," Rochelle replied. "They've given up the search."

"What?"

"That's what Spilmont came up to explain. They've already lost five men. Apparently the chances of finding him are slim anyhow. It's not worth the risk."

"Does that upset you?"

"Not having a body to bury? No, not really. It's better he be remembered smiling than being brought up out of a hole in the ground. So, you see, your story finishes here. There'll be a memorial service for him in Hollywood, presumably. The rest, as they say, is television history." She stood up, marking an end to the interview. Grillo had unasked questions aplenty, most of them about the one subject she'd pronounced herself willing to talk about yet hadn't touched: his professional life. There were a few loopholes Tesla couldn't plug, he knew. Rather than press the widow Vance beyond her patience he let the questions go. She'd supplied more insights than he'd expected.

"Thank you for seeing me," he said, shaking her hand. Her fingers were as thin as twigs. "You've been most kind."

"Ellen will see you out," she said.

"Thanks."

The girl was waiting in the hallway. As she opened the front door she touched Grillo's arm. He looked at her. She made a hushing face and pressed a scrap of paper into his hand. Without a word being exchanged he was ushered out on to the step and the door was closed behind him.

He waited until he was out of video range before he looked at the scrap. It bore the woman's name—Ellen Nguyen—and an address in Deerdell Village. Buddy Vance might be staying buried but his story, it seemed, was still digging its way out. Stories had a way of doing that, in Grillo's experience. It was his belief that nothing, but nothing, could stay secret, however powerful the forces with interests vested in silence. Conspirators might conspire and thugs attempt to gag but the truth, or an approximation of same, would show itself sooner or later, very often in the unlikeliest form. It was seldom hard facts that revealed the life behind the life. It was rumor, graffiti, strip cartoons and love songs. It was what people gabbled about in their cups, or between fucks, or read on a toilet wall.

The art of the underground, like the figures he'd seen in the spurt, rising to change the world.

Jo-Beth lay on her bed in darkness and watched the breeze by turn belly the curtains then draw them out into the night. She had gone to talk to Momma as soon as she returned to the house, and told her that she would not be seeing Howie again. It had been a promise made in haste, but she doubted whether Momma had even heard it. She'd had a distracted air about her, pacing her room, wringing her hands and murmuring prayers to herself. The prayers reminded Jo-Beth that she'd promised to call the Pastor and hadn't. Composing herself as best she could, she went downstairs and called the church. Pastor John was not available, however. He'd gone to comfort Angelie Datlow, whose husband Bruce had been killed in the attempt to raise Buddy Vance's body. This was the first Jo-Beth had heard of the tragedy. She curtailed the conversation, and came off the telephone, trembling. She needed no detailed description of the deaths. She'd seen them, and so had Howie. Their shared dream had been interrupted by a live report from the shaft where Datlow and his colleagues had died.