Graham Masterton - Mirror

'Sometimes I don't know why I stay in this town,' said Ramone. 'It's tatty and it's tawdry and where the hell are its values? Sometimes I feel like finding myself a small place in Wyoming and raising horses.'

'You'd hate that,' Martin remarked.

Ramone nodded. 'You're right, I would. Shit.'

They drank in silence for a long while, and then Ramone said, 'What are you going to do if he doesn't let Emilio go?'

Martin shrugged. 'I haven't thought about it. I don't think I've even dared to think about it. He promised after all.'

'I was thinking about it this afternoon, though,' Ramone went on 'and I couldn't quite get the whole deal to balance in my head.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well. . . what I'm trying to say is, as far as we know, Boofuls can't stay in the real world, can he, unless Emilio stays in the mirror-world? So the only way that Emilio is going to get free from that mirror is if Boofuls goes back into it?'

Martin nodded. 'I guess that's true.'

'Right,' said Ramone, 'but what I'm saying is - if this mirror-world is as disgusting as it appears to be from where we're standing, why should Boofuls agree to go back at all? I mean, / wouldn't, if I were him, would you? I'd say forget it, no matter what I promised. Unless — and this is what I was trying to get my brain around — unless he doesn't need to go back, once this movie's been premiered. Do you see what I'm trying to get at? Maybe there's something in the movie, maybe the movie changes things. Maybe Boofuls is going to become real, once people have seen his picture on the screen, and the reason he wants a worldwide premiere is that the more people who see it, the more real he gets. I don't know. This whole thing's got me baffled, I really hate to think, Martin. It's bad for my sinus. But this thing's making me think.'

Martin swallowed wine and nodded. 'I don't know, Ramone, maybe you're right. Boofuls was real anxious to start remaking Sweet Chariot — right from the moment he stepped out of the mirror.'

'So it was important to him, right?' said Ramone.

'That's right; it was crucial.'

'And if it was crucial, if it was life and death, maybe it was more than just a comeback, right?'

'Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't,' said Martin. 'It depends whose comeback you're talking about.'

'You mean -'

'Ramone, for Christ's sake, I don't know what I mean. But maybe this movie is like an up-to-date equivalent of the rituals in the Bible, the rituals that are supposed to resurrect Satan. I've been reading it and reading it and I still don't understand it, but the Bible talks about the great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and how his tail swept away a third of the stars from heaven and threw them to earth. But who the hell knows what it's all supposed to signify, because I don't?'

Ramone turned around and stared at the mirror. 'Maybe we ought not to wait. Maybe we ought to try getting Emilio out of there now.'

Martin shook his head. 'Too dangerous. Boofuls said we might kill him.'

'Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?'

'Supposing we did kill him?' Martin retorted. 'Would you tell Mr and Mrs Capelli?'

Ramone thought for a while, then chucked the last of his wine down his throat and wiped his mouth. 'Let's watch some television. I'm tired of thinking.'

Up at his house on Mulholland Drive, Morris Nathan was working late, reading over the boilerplate of a television contract with MTM. He sat in his study under a circle of light from his desk lamp, a cigar perched in the ashtray beside him. Alison didn't allow him to smoke anywhere else in the house.

He was almost finished when the doorbell rang. He took off his reading glasses, tightened the belt of his peacock-blue bathrobe, and walked through to the Mexican-tile hallway. Alison was just coming down the curved stairway, dressed in nothing but a loose pink T-shirt with Andy Warhol 1928-87 printed in red over her breasts, and a red silk scarf knotted around her hair.

'It's okay,' said Morris. 'It's Benny Ito, he promised to call by this evening. And in any case, I wouldn't let you answer the door dressed like that.'

'Dressed like what?' Alison protested. 'I'm not dressed like anything.'

'Exactamundo,' Morris agreed.

The bell rang again. Morris pressed the intercom button and said, 'Who is it?'

'It's Benny, Mr Nathan. I brought the stuff you wanted.'

'Come on in, Benny.'

Morris opened the door and a young Japanese with a spiky black haircut and a black cotton jumpsuit came into the hallway, carrying a large padded envelope under his arm. 'Here you are, Mr Nathan. None of it's terrific; just outtakes. But you can't get near to the finished footage with a Sherman tank.'

'You promised me a complete print,' Morris protested.

'Believe me, I tried. But the Fox lot is up to its ass in security guards. And they won't deliver the prints to the movie theaters until one hour before they're due to start screening. That's what Walt Peskow told me, anyway, and he should know.'

Morris opened the envelope. Inside was a single can of movie film. He prized it open and looked inside disparagingly. There couldn't have been more than three hundred feet of stock in it, little bits and pieces spliced together to form one single reel.

'You expect five hundred dollars for this fhazzerei?'

Benny shrugged and sniffed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. 'Maybe two-fifty.'

'Two-fifty? Half? For what? For not even half of a movie?'

'Hey, come on, man, the risk was the same. I could have lost my job.'

'For this, you should have lost your balls.'

Nevertheless, Morris reached into the pocket of his bathrobe and took out a thick roll of twenty-dollar bills, neatly held together with a rubber band. He stripped off two hundred dollars and handed it to Benny Ito without a word.

Benny counted it and said, 'Two hundred? Is that it?'

Morris slapped him on the back and guided him toward the door. 'There's an old saying, Benny. Half the failures in life are caused by pulling in your horse, just when he's leaping. You know who said that? Well, neither do I. But you just did it. Good night.'

He closed the door, locked it, and then walked back across the hallway with the can of film. Alison had been watching him from the staircase. 'What's that, Morry?' she wanted to know.

'The one and only piece of Sweet Chariot that isn't in the vaults of 20th Century-Fox. It's not what I wanted. This is all shtiklech und breklech, and I wanted the whole damned movie. But at least we'll have some idea of what June Lassiter got for her $32.4 million, and if it looks like a real stinker we'll make absolutely sure the press get to see it first thing tomorrow morning.'

Alison came down the stairs, her breasts double-bouncing under her T-shirt. 'I wish you hadn't,' she told him.

'You wish I hadn't what? You wish I hadn't gotten hold of this footage? Did you think I was going to let that eight-year-old faigeleh treat me like a dumb stupid idiot, introducing him to June Lassiter, here you are, June, look at this hotshot kid, June, and what happens, all of a sudden I'm not his agent at all. Do you know what they paid that kid to appear in Sweet Chariot? Nine hundred eighty thousand dollars! And do you know what ten percent is of nine hundred eighty thousand dollars?'

Alison stared at Morris for a moment, dumbfounded. Then she whispered, 'No. I flunked math at school.'

Morris put his arm around her and led her through to the sitting room. 'Let's just say that "Pip Young" or "Lejeune" or whatever he calls himself has cut me out of enough profit to keep myself in new Ferraris for the rest of my natural days.'