Graham Masterton - Mirror

'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.'