Graham Masterton - Mirror

Boofuls smiled at him. Martin wasn't too keen on his smiles. They had a sly coldness to them that he couldn't quite pin down. Boofuls said. 'That you in the mirror is more like you than you are.'

'And what's that supposed to mean?'

'Look in any mirror, Martin, and you'll see the truth.'

It wasn't only Boofuls' smile that Martin found disturbing, It was the way he talked. Sometimes he was quite childish, only using eight-year-old words, and eight-year-old ideas. But occasionally the mask of childhood would slip slightly, and he would say something that was too calculating and too philosophical for a boy of his supposed age. Although, what was his age? He was ageless; he was dead. He was nothing more than a glamorous memory that had stepped out of a mirror.

'Tell me something else,' said Martin after a while. 'If I lay a mirror flat on the ground and look down into it, the world looks upside down, as well as the other way around. Everybody's clinging onto the ground by the soles of their feet. How do you guys cope with that?'

Boofuls finished his milk and wiped his mouth with his hand. 'It's different, that's all.'

Til say,' Martin remarked.

Boofuls propped his chin on his hands and stared at Martin with supreme confidence. 'The thing is, Martin, she didn't kill the real me. That's why she hanged herself. When she was doing it, she suddenly realized that she wasn't killing the real me.'

Martin thought about that. Then he said, 'All right, if she didn't kill the real you, which one of you was the real you? The Boofuls in this Hollywood or the Boofuls in Hollywood the Other Way Around?'

Boofuls smiled. 'Which one of you is the real you, Martin? If I were to kill this you, who would be left? What would be left?'

'I really don't know, to tell you the truth,' Martin admitted.

'Well, you'd know if it happened. You'd know.''

'All right,' Martin agreed, 'she didn't murder the real you. But what happened then, after the you who wasn't you got himself chopped up into two hundred eleven pieces?'

'There was nothing I could do but go away,' said Boofuls. 'Everybody thought I was dead. They closed down Sweet Chariot and everybody was paid off. Have you seen any rushes from Sweet Chariot?

Martin shook his head. 'I've seen everything else you've done. I've even seen your screen tests for Flowers From Tuscaloosa. They were pretty dire, weren't they?' 'I had the grippe. I still got the part.' 'Well, sure you did. There was nobody else. There was only one Boofuls. Well — is only one Boofuls.'

The hot coffee had steamed up Martin's glasses. He took them off and polished them with the pulled-out tail of his shirt. Boofuls watched him for a little while and then said, 'We could finish that picture, couldn't we?'

Martin peered at him. He was shortsighted, and without his glasses Boofuls' face appeared white and fuzzy, with dark circles around his eyes. Almost — for a moment — like a skull. 'What do you mean we could finish the picture?' 'Well, imagine it,' said Boofuls, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue. 'Screenwriter discovers boy who can sing and dance and act just like Boofuls, just like Boofuls, and plans to finish Boofuls' last unfinished picture.'

'But I don't plan to finish Boofuls' last unfinished picture. I plan to present a musical of my own called Boofuls!'

Boofuls was silent for a long time. He traced a pattern on the Formica tabletop with his finger. At last he said, 'I want to finish Sweet Chariot.'

'Well. . . it's a possibility, I suppose,' said Martin. 'But it's going to be pretty difficult finding backing. I had enough grief trying to sell my own musical. And the whole idea of Sweet Chariot is pretty much out of date these days. A boy turning into an angel? Everybody's done it - Warren Beatty, Michael Landon ... all that Heaven Can Wait stuff. George Burns even played God.'

'George Burns is still alive?' asked Boofuls in surprise. 'Well,' said Martin, 'some people like to think so.'

'I want to finish Sweet Chariot,' Boofuls repeated. His eyes widened in sudden ferocity. 'It's important!'

'Come on, you're talking about a twenty-five-million-dollar production here. I don't think many producers are going to risk that kind of money on a remake of a 1939 musical.'

'But it's a Boofuls musical,' Boofuls insisted.

'Ho, ho, ho, don't tell me that,' replied Martin. 'In this town, there are half a dozen names that stink, and as far as I can make out, Boofuls is the Least Desirable Aroma of the Year.'

Boofuls slowly shook his head. His eyes had a tiny, faraway look, as if he were peering down the wrong end of a telescope. 'You're wrong, Martin. Things are going to change. Boofuls is going to be famous again. Boofuls is going to be loved!'

Martin stood up and collected Boofuls' bowl and glass. 'All I can say to that is, convince me.'

'I will. I promise.'

'Meanwhile,' said Martin, 'I have something a whole lot more serious to talk about. I want to get Emilio back.'

'I told you. You can't get him back.'

'Does that mean ever?'

Boofuls was silent. Martin leaned forward across the table and snapped. 'Does that mean ever? Or what?'

'There is a way,' said Boofuls.

'Oh, really? And what way is that?'

Boofuls glanced up and smiled, and looked away again. 'We could make a deal. If you help me to finish Sweet Chariot, if you take care of me, then when it's finished, you can get Emilio back.'

'Why not before?' Martin demanded.

'Because I won't,' said Boofuls.

'What the hell do you mean you won't?'

'I won't, that's all. I can, but I won't. That's the deal.'

Martin banged the kitchen table with his fist. 'Listen to me, you beady-eyed sprout! There's an old couple downstairs and Emilio is all they've got in the whole entire world! Either you get Emilio back or you don't get squat from me, com-prende?'

'I won't,' Boofuls repeated.

'What do you want me to do?' Martin challenged him. 'Put you over my knee and spank you?'

'You mustn't shout at me,' Boofuls replied. 'If you shout at me, it brings on my fits.'

'I want Emilio back,' Martin told him in a soft, low, threatening voice.

'I want to finish Sweet Chariot?

Martin tried to stare Boofuls out; but there was something about the little boy's eyes that made him feel unnerved; almost vertiginous; as if he were about to fall into a cold and echoing elevator shaft forever.

He backed away. Boofuls didn't take his eyes away from him once.

'I don't lift one finger until I get Emilio back,' Martin told him, but much less convincingly than before.

'But - if you do get Emilio back - how will I be sure that you will still help me to make Sweet Chariot?' Boofuls asked him.

'You don't know. You'll have to trust me.'

'I don't trust anybody.'

Martin finished his cup of coffee. 'Maybe it's time you started.'

At seven-thirty that morning, Martin tugged up the Venetian blinds and greeted the bright California sunshine. Boofuls was sitting at the desk, solemnly doodling with Martin's black Conte pen: clouds and faces and disembodied smiles.

Martin turned around and looked at him. He was a real boy, right enough, flesh and blood, freckles and buck teeth. His legs were lightly tanned, and there was a grazing of white skin on his knee where he must have fallen. Martin crossed the sitting room and watched him drawing for a while, and Boofuls even smelled like a boy - biscuity and hot. Without even thinking about it, Martin ruffled his curls.

Boofuls immediately knocked his hand away. 'Don't do that. Nobody's allowed to do that.'