Chapter Twenty·four―Card Tricks and Cheap Tricks

Meanwhile, back yet again in the sub-basement of the Hotel Taft on New York City's Seventh Avenue, the Fata Morgana said, "Thursday... But, but..."

"That's a give or take," said the Eidolon. "You have but one Great Year to negotiate a fix or we go kaput. 25,800 earth years, remember―a full precession of the equinoxes. A wink and a whistle, actually, to such ambitious godlings as yourselves. Nature doesn’t allow paradoxes. I repeat: What the doers have done, the doers must undo. I am but a messenger. And that's the message." The Eidolon turned to stare at El who was fiddling with a watch fob in a pocket of his host body's vest. "Isn't there something you should be doing? I mean somewhere else."

"They say New Jersey is lovely at this time of the year," said the Orange Virgin with an un-goddess-like smirk. There was, however, an icy note of calm in her voice.,

"Nonsense. I am everywhere," said El, the demiurge. "I can make holes in time and start new solar systems spinning, upend the pyramids and unwind the skein of probability in a dozen different realities, but he can't go home till I let him." El specified the burly bearded frame of Gershon Meyrowitz with a two-handed gesture. Gershon bowed. The cat hissed. He hissed back, chagrined at perhaps having said too much. He looked mildly frantic and waved the omelette pan in the cat's face. "Not Teaneck..." El/Gershon flapped his arms and brandished the scorched omelette pan in a futile gesture of menace.

"You have burned your quiche, godling. An insignificant farrago," said the Eidolon. "Compared with..."

"Funny." Linda Winkelman giggled.

"Funny? I don't think any of this is one bit funny," said the Fata Morgana, Orange Virgin, Queen of Heaven, etc., etc. "Forget this, Linda. Forget everything. I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

"...Teaneck, New Jersey," continued the Eidolon. "There is no option. You may interpret this as a direct pronouncement from the Old Ones. You are underfoot and together the two of you are creating an incredible hash of things. One of you should be elsewhere. You. And get that poor man a bath," said the Eidolon. Squaring his shoulders, the demiurge shambled to the service elevator.

"And now for you, Miss Piggy." The Eidolon and the cat turned as one to stare at the Fata Morgana.

There was a dislocation and she stood below the railings of the diner on posts watching the flight of a metal bird; a bird freighted with a tiny cargo―one soul. As she watched the departure of Oswaldo―newly dead and likewise resurrected as a traveler in a realm of wonder, she felt abruptly weak. She sat down on the rocky shore. "Ouch." She had hurt herself. She stood to check her rear end. There was a curly pink tail―the tail of a piglet―protruding at the base of her spine. "A cheap trick," she bellowed at the sky. "El. I know this is his doing. This on-again off-again piglet business. I thought it was a convenience for befuddling this pig-killer of mine, this Harry Pease. While I realize I am at your mercy, Master Eidolon, and here under your sufferance, there is no requirement in our dispensation to thus be constantly hectored. Return my own regal fundament to its proper condition. Please?"

"Please and Thank you―the magic words. No. Not immediately, O Beautiful One. There is an issue." The dislocation traveled on, taking her with it as the Eidolon flapped leisurely alongside.

There is a photographic compression that cheats time with a single motion picture frame exposed at regular intervals that holds to scrutiny the mechanics of flight of a hovering bee, falling water, or the unfolding blossom hidden in a bud. This, of course, is not the real thing but a cinematic trick for the delectation of a posterity that should properly have better things to do during the leisure hours that follow good works. However, posterity doesn't care. In all their deliberations and with all their tedious wisdom the stones had not discovered this. In the cellars of the Queen, the stones were holding converse. There was no sound, but the stones' deep resonances crept between their joins, leaping basaltic fissures with a lethargic iridescence.

"The child of clay―he will be one of them."

"And yet of us, do not forget."

"He is mine." The stones ignored her. "Uh, hello?" Again, no answer. Morgana grasped what had happened to her, though why and to what purpose, malign or beneficent, she could not guess. She knew for sure that she had gone far and fast. With Oswaldo Patricio Melendez O'Rourke y Nuñez she shared the perverse affliction that is the heritage of all who travel far and fast: she had to pee. Why? And why me? Divinity has no calls of nature. And now?  In the stress of her need she reached for a braid to chew, an idle habit, and found it was not there. "Well! Here I am, and my body must therefore have accompanied me through to this wheresis. We shall be reunited in good time when the whatsis who perpetrated this admits to culpability and properly apologizes. Till then, it's watch and ward. So! When my body catches up with me, then I will attend to its needs. For now it can just hold it."

The stones had resumed their deliberations. If she wanted this Biff Bangtree fella―not an entirely unprepossessing name―if she wants this Biff out of the way, why not just squash him like and insect and be done with it like in the good old days?”

"Extirpation is a queenly prerogative."

"No, that would be too easy," said the stones.

“This is important,” said the Orange Virgin. “The eidolons are off course on this migration and somebody has got to do something or we are facing oblivion, me included. This is Big Bang II staring us in the poozle. If I or someone like me―and there is no one like me―doesn't act now we will have had it. Even history will be history.”

The stones nattered on, a slow-motion rumble that consumed several days. "They invent themselves, going backwards from the moment of their deaths, prey to violence, wistful longings and silly enthusiasms."

"These creatures have no sense of proportion but an immense capacity for forward motion. We will not become involved."

"But the child must be elsewhere―we would not be comfortable with the, hmmm... state of affairs. There is a duopoly, an overlapping here. Let the child be with those he resembles. Inform the Orange Virgin."

"Pompous pile!" Morgana kicked the wall.

The stones were unperturbed. "Incompatibility―you are foreign to us, but we have tolerated you. It were best, hmmm... yes, best for all concerned―you and we―if you and he, this Cowboy Trueheart..."

"Bangtree. Biff Bangtree." The Orange Virgin stamped her foot.

"As you will. Trueheart, Bangtree, whatall... The golem must go, you too. Our comfort is in disarray. However in his hour of final need he may return to us, if he wills. In his terminal agony he shall find us waiting, as always."

In the cellars of the Hotel Taft, Linda was left alone with the cat. There was an insistent scratching at the door. She tried to rise and found her knees stuck under the table. She was wedged in tight. "Dumb table. It's open." She must have ordered out for Chinese.

The scratching was louder now, more insistent. "I said come in, godammit," Linda shouted as he fumbled around for loose cash. She was broke. Where was the checkbook...

Half rising, Linda grasped the table's edges and began fine-tuning it, trying to reconcile its wobbly legs with the irregularities of the floor.

"Damned floor."

The door splintered and fell open. The cat gave out with a yowl of abject terror and departed vertically, up the side of a stand of stainless steel shelving that reached to the ceiling.

“You wouldn’t have a match on you would you, girlie?” the visitor asked hopefully. The creature was a distillation of the fears that grow best alone and in the dark: a Manticore, a myth. Between its bared fangs was installed the now-defunct butt of a thick, short black cigar. The Manticore exuded the odor of rainy childhood afternoons, pious old people and the chemical composition of the afterlife. The creature’s eyes flashed lime-green highlights, verdigris and gold: a summer housefly buzzing at the window.

Linda Winkelman breathed in the odor of her great-grandmother’s kitchen curtains: wood smoke and cinnamon, a smell of fly-speckled pictures, peeling kitchen paint and the slops bucket under the sink. With the smells came a recollection of Sundays and hellfire from a pounded pulpit, a reluctant child dragged along to hear the litany. The apparition was a visitor from her great-grandmother’s blameless grave.

“Do you believe in Hell?” Linda asked. “Sorry, that was a dumb question.”

The Manticore sighed, a draft of wet paper matches sputtering. “No question is dumb. This is how we learn, girlie.” He was diffident. “Hell, though―no, can’t say that I have." He scratched his ear with a foot. "Heard of it, that is. Believing is something else. My turn. What is Hell and why do you ask? I mean, I have suggested this to you, right?”

"The red-haired woman with no clothes on, that skanky guy who needs a bath. They are your partners? A duck in drag, ancient gods and goddesses, whatever? You don't have to worry about giving anything away. Everything they said was gibberish to me."

"Sorry about that. And this, too. I am only trying to be helpful." He batted his eyes at her and flashed a grin. Weird and strange, the creature reminded Linda of the big, dumb, loving collie dog she had as a child. And, like the dog, its smile showed many rows of sharp teeth. She cast about for something―anything―to defend herself with. Ah, the frying pan. The Manticore regarded the charred remains that clung to the pan. "A kidnapper's quiche. Mighty tasty, I hear. I am the Manticore. It was chloral hydrate, Mickey Finn, you know―that was what they injected you with."

Linda rubbed her ankles. "That may be your name, but who are you? All of you; there seems to be a porcupine in there with you. I know where we are but why are we here? More to the point why are you here. And what the hell are you?"

The Manticore again scratched at an ear. "Actually, the story is much more interesting than the mere facts. The stones," he said.

"The stones..."

"Bedrock, the castle keep. I mean tens of thousands of years―more or less―and a fellow buried up to his neck in cement there's a lot of time for reflection. My companions were not much for serious conversation. The Goat―a joker, I couldn't get a word in edgeways. The Cow―all wrapped up in his own affairs. A silent fellow, Cow."

"He..." Linda rubbed at her chafed wrists. The Supreme Being's cords had left a bruise. "A cow is a she. You are confused whatever you are."

"A Manticore, as I have told you. A long and illustrious line. Now set to tending after tumescent toddlers by the Queen of Heaven. Or one toddler. He looks full grown, our Biff. You haven't seen a male personage―stark naked with the lineaments of an ancient Greek god by any chance?"

"I am sure I would remember..."

"In the usual course of things, I agree. Remembering is what separates we sentient beings from the lesser creatures."

"I remember that I haven't seen a naked man hereabouts. This is the basement of the Hotel Taft; all sorts of things are possible on Seventh Avenue," said Linda. "Have you checked Times Square?"

"You will have to pay attention if we are to be getting on with things, young woman. We were speaking about cows and sex. A popular topic in the dungeons of the Lady of the Wild Things, let me tell you. Cow insisted that he was a bullock. Goat ragged on him mercilessly, thus raising the spiritual temperature of our fetid underground. Dudgeons were raised. We bickered and quarreled but to no avail. The tell-tale parts of Cow's anatomy were firmly ensconced in the stones. There was no possible way to ascertain the truth or falsehood of Cow's assertions."

"I'm afraid that you are only a figment. You are nothing but a bad dream and I shall presently wake up and get about my business."

"How distressing. That you do not believe in me. I do hope that you are asking a simple question of names, backgrounds and map coordinates. There could be a..."

"For starters, I would be pleased to hear anything about just what the hell is going on."

The creature looked crushed. Linda had a flash of recollection from that life before now, when she had been somebody else. When? A neighborhood boy had shown her his collection of matchbook covers and wild birds' eggs. She had laughed, then afterwards felt bad.

Linda paced. Though an infrequent smoker, she craved a cigarette. "You are not answering any question I ask. You are making a big show of making a big show. You are making every effort in fact, to avoid answering my questions while all the time trying to appear helpful and cooperative, and I simply don't believe you for one minute. You are a kidnapper plain and simple. I have been abducted and I want to know why. And right now, please."

The Manticore performed a stagy bit of legerdemain and pulled a package of cigarettes from behind her ear. "The tobacco's okay, pre-war. The good stuff. I get them out of the radio." He thumbed one up and offered her the pack. "Here."

Linda accepted gratefully. He gets them from the radio. She decided not to ask. The creature touched off a broom straw at the stove and offered a light. The kettle El the demiurge had set on to boil whistled a summons and the apparition busied himself with tea things. Filling a porcelain pot with leaves and water, he wiped off two cups and straddled the bench. Leaning an elbow on the table he stared at Linda. "You haven't asked me if I can read your mind."

"Can you?"

"No. Can you read mine?"

"I don't have to, and if you think coming on to me is going to get you off the hook, think again. I want some answers."

"Irony and venom both, pity. That you can't read my mind, that is. Because I find you quite fascinating and that is the simple unvarnished truth." It stood up. "One of our people can read minds but she's occupied on the Other Side right now. Uh, where you come from, that is. She can put on a real crackerjack of a show. Actually you have met her already. But here, our tea is done and I'm getting ahead of myself. The truth of why you are here is sort of complicated and doesn't lend itself to easy answers. Let us have a nice walkabout and you shall learn everything."

Linda stood, stamped her foot and smashed her teacup against the iron range. "I do not want to be diverted, I do not want to be talked down to like a child and I don't want your goddamned tea and unctuousness. I want to know what the hell is happening and I want to go home. Now."

"A violent punctuation. Your words would have been sufficient." The Manticore waved a taloned hand majestically in the air. "Get a load of this," he announced. A flickering blue and pink neon sign appeared. Its pink parts fluttered and sparked irregularly, something was arcing. There was a smell of ozone. Strong steady blue lettering proclaimed Say Goodbye To Unwanted Hair With The Amazing Remov-A-Tron.

"And you do tricks. How charming." The visitor with the tail of a lion and the quills of a porcupine definitely had her attention. Linda feigned indifference. "That's very nice, but I don't see..."

"Well, of course if you don't like that we can always try again. You will have to pardon me, but I am a little peckish today. I'm not used to impromptus. I think I can come up with something a little extra special." Linda was making him sweat. "Ta-Dah!" This time the sign was orange, the letters large and even. There was no smell of ozone. WELCOME TO THE NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE. REDUCE SPEED APPROACHING TOLL PLAZA.

"That's very nice. A regular touch of home." Linda walked around the letters expecting backwards writing, a mirror image. No matter which way she looked at the turnpike warning it read forwards. The letters had no back. "Neat. Does it do anything?" The sign vanished with a small 'pop'.

"Being is what it does. Or did," sighed the Manticore. He had tried, really tried. Next she would be asking for card tricks. "It's Art. It is its own reason for being―it doesn't have to do anything."

"You don't do any card tricks, do you?" Linda asked.

 

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