“What kind of trouble?” Barney asked, rising from the bed, stretching luxuriously. He had slept beautifully last night, weary bones and muscles soothed by sleep, aided by the nightly capsule, of course.
Allie became self-conscious again, arms jerking and mouth working futilely. “C … c … co … co … come … come …” he managed to say finally.
As he followed Allie Roon down the corridor, Barney’s sense of well-being began to disappear. He’d awakened this morning with the memory of Cassie’s face bright and clear and also with the knowledge that he had done a good job yesterday taking the car apart, of accomplishing something instead of passing the day uselessly.
Allie led him to a window that looked out on the rear grounds of the Complex. Furious activity met his eyes as painters came and went in the yard, carrying scaffolds and ladders and other paraphernalia, apparently preparing to paint the building. They shouted to each other good-naturedly while a large man checked items off sheets of paper. He was the only person out there without smears of paint on his clothing, his beefy face red in the morning sunlight.
“Damn it,” Barney said.
Billy the Kidney came wheeling up, the bearer of more bad news. “They’re using the cellar to store their cans and brushes and stuff. They’ll be in and out of there all day long.”
Shouts from the men outdoors pierced the window, punctuating Billy’s news.
“H … h … ho … ho … how …?” Allie Roon began.
Barney finished the sentence for him, something he ordinarily didn’t do, figuring Allie should be given the right to end his own sentences.
“How am I going to do it? Right, Allie? Sneak the car into the cellar with all that action going on?”
“I knew we’d get screwed up,” Billy said. “Nothing ever goes right.”
Anger surged through Barney.
“Shut up, Billy.” He needed time to think.
“There’s going to be people running all over the place. Inside and outside,” Billy said, whining now like the child he so quickly became when things went wrong.
Allie began to croon a sad song.
Jesus, Barney thought, I’m not going to let this happen. Refusing to be discouraged, to let his great plan explode in their faces.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said, “before we find out what’s really going on. I’ll find a way. We haven’t come this far for nothing.”
His words transformed Allie, who stopped his sad crooning and managed to arrange his lips into a smile, head nodding eagerly. Billy turned his wheelchair away, trying to hide the disappointment in his face.
“Where you going?” Barney asked.
“Nowhere. I’ve got no treatments today.”
“Okay,” Barney said. “I want you to do something. Keep a watch on the painters.” Probably a futile gesture, but he figured Billy would feel better if he had something to do, something to make him believe the theft was still on. “First of all, find out where they’re starting to paint. Maybe they’ll be in the front of the place and I can still get the car in the back.”
“Okay,” Billy said, wheeling away. But calling over his shoulder: “Nothing ever goes right, nothing.”
Allie begged for attention, arms signaling like a spasmodic traffic cop.
“And you, Allie,” Barney said, doing some rapid thinking, trying to find something to keep Allie occupied and happy. “Listen, keep watch at this window. Count the painters. Find out how many there are. That may be important.”
The boy nodded eagerly. Barney patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Allie. We’re not calling it quits yet,” he said, speaking with a confidence he didn’t really feel. But he couldn’t let them down, could he? Couldn’t let Mazzo down, either. And somehow Cassie was mixed up in all this.
By the time he had finished his eggs and toast, tasting the food but not hungry suddenly, Billy was back, wheeling rapidly toward Barney across the dining area.
“Good news and bad news, Barney,” he called.
“Okay, give me the good news first,” Barney said, wiping his face with the paper napkin.
“The good news is that they’re not painting the back of the building or the front of the building or the side where the junkyard is,” Billy said, bright and enthusiastic, proud of his swift investigation. “They’re setting up their stuff and junk on the other side.”
“Good job, Billy. Now the bad news.”
“They’re using the cellar to store their paint and drop cloths. They’re going to be in and out of there all the time, Barney. How can you put the car together with all that going on?”
“At night, maybe,” Barney said, not giving up, not yet, if ever.
“Not at night, Barney. They check the beds all the time. And this place is so quiet that anything unusual would be noticed.”
“Okay, okay,” Barney said, impatient.
“Besides, some painter might find the car down there. What would happen then?”
“Christ, Billy, you’re a real pessimist, know that? You always look on the black side. The cellar’s not the only place to work on the car. How big is this building? Six stories high, isn’t it? Must have a hundred rooms. Probably all the rooms aren’t occupied. I don’t need much space. They must have storerooms all over.”
“Wait a minute,” Billy snapped. “How about the attic? Every building’s got an attic.”
“Now you’re talking, Billy. Now you’re thinking positively. That’s what we need.”
He walked beside Billy as the boy wheeled himself along the corridor, realizing that Billy didn’t try to walk anymore. The thought saddened him. But he turned from the sadness. Think good things, he told himself.
“I’m going to do a little exploring, Billy. I’m going to sneak up to the attic and see what’s what. Maybe it’ll be better than the cellar.”
They spotted Allie Roon keeping watch at the window, counting the painters as they trudged through the backyard.
“What’s Allie doing?” Billy asked.
“Counting the painters.”
“Why?”
“I want to know how many painters there are,” Barney said lamely.
“You’re crazy, you know that, Barney?”
“Maybe,” Barney said, wondering if Billy was right, that he was crazy, after all, out of his mind. “It helps if you’re crazy in a place like this.”
Billy laughed, as if Barney had made a joke.
But Barney wasn’t joking. He felt, in fact, like crying.
He waited for the quiet hours of early afternoon, when the Complex seemed to fall into a deep slumber after the frantic busy morning of treatments and examinations. The corridors were empty, doctors and nurses having retreated into their own recesses, patients napping or lying quietly in their beds.
Barney waited a few moments outside the freight elevator. He had never used it before and distrusted new gadgets, paraphernalia, equipment, anything that ran mechanically. Finally, he pushed the button and the doors slowly parted. It was an old elevator with a wooden floor and wooden slats for walls. Like an elevator he had seen once in a factory, although he couldn’t remember where. He stepped in, saying, Tempo, rhythm. The control panel listed the usual stuff along with the numbers of the floors. Barney pushed 6. The doors closed, creaking noisily, which did not cheer him up too much. The rise was slow and laborious, the machinery grinding away someplace. He could see the brick walls of the shaft between the slats. He felt queasy, wished for the old feeling of wooziness again to take the edge off his apprehension. The elevator arrived at the sixth floor, bumped and lurched as it came to a halt. Barney held his breath until the doors parted once more. Grateful, he stepped out of the elevator without hesitation, and into the attic.
It was like stepping into the rib cage of some prehistoric beast. The floor, walls, and ceiling unfinished, wooden studs and joists visible. Dust motes danced in dim light coming from the single skylight in the slanting roof. The ceiling slanted in a single sharp slope. An
open stairway led to the skylight.
Barney stepped cautiously forward, testing the floor for durability. He had to step over the studs, which were placed about two feet apart. The floor seemed to be sturdy enough. Walking on the studs, as if doing a balancing act on a high wire, Barney made his way to the wooden stairs. He tested the strength of the bottom step and was satisfied it could hold him. He began to climb the stairs gingerly, testing each one before continuing. The skylight was located at the highest point of the ceiling. Reaching the final step, Barney stepped out, again carefully, warily, onto a small platform. He looked down, the open elevator door directly beneath him. The skylight glass was covered with soot and dirt, admitting little light. Barney reached up and turned a small knob at the base of the skylight. He swung it outward, admitting a blast of sunlight that dazzled his eyes. Cold air rushed at him as he poked his head out. He squinted against the dazzle of light, looked down at the pitched roof, felt dizzy, and looked away to the landscape.
The view commanded the junkyard, a row of bleak tenement houses, and in the distance, on the side of a hill, an old cemetery with tombstones like small teeth scattered on a rug. The sharp slant of the roof drew his eyes again and he held on for dear life, afraid he would somehow tumble over the sill and go hurtling downward. Trembling, he tore his eyes away from the slope and took one last lingering look at the landscape before he drew back onto the platform, heart beating fast, breath in quick gasps, eyes watering from the bright sunshine. Standing there, looking down at the deserted and abandoned attic, he knew this was a perfect place for his purpose. For the first time that day he felt that the project could—and would—succeed.
In the elevator once more, buoyed by the success of his mission, Barney felt adventurous, didn’t want to return to the boredom of the downstairs area, where he’d have to wait for Billy and Allie to wake from their afternoon dozings. He realized how seldom this elevator was used and felt master of it. Looking at the panel of buttons once more, he pressed 5, for no reason at all, just for the hell of it. He felt like exploring, to see what was happening on the fifth floor. But as the button glowed brightly, the 5 echoed in his memory, the glowing number pulsing to the rhythm of his heartbeat, the 5 imprinted on his mind as if stamped there a long time ago. As the elevator reached the fifth floor—Barney had been only dimly aware of the descent—a memory flashed across his mind. He knew without any doubt what lay beyond the door, saw the long narrow hallway, bright blue, knew the sound of footsteps on the blue tiled floor, saw a white door with the numeral 9 on it, a 9 in dull brass.
The elevator doors parted, groaning as if in protest. Barney stepped into the hallway like a sleepwalker. Saw, unsurprisingly, the blue walls as expected, and the brighter garish blue of the floor. Saw the closed doors all along the narrow corridor. Heard the elevator door squeaking closed behind him as he began to walk down the hallway to Room 9. Found no Room 9. Other numbered rooms, 4 … 6 … 8. Disoriented now, puzzled. Wheeled around and realized what had happened. On those other visits to this floor and this hallway, he had emerged from the regular elevator, located on the wall opposite the freight elevator. Now he saw the 9 door. But paused. Did he want to go in there? Funny thing, he knew what the inside of this office looked like, knew he would see the plain gray metal desk, the filing cabinet also steel gray, the digital clock on the wall, the single chair in front of the desk. But there was a room beyond the office. And the key to the door of that room was in the top left-hand drawer of the desk. All this knowledge came to him as a series of small flashes in his mind, like slides on a screen.
Sucking in his breath, he opened the door, stepped into the darkness of a room without windows. Closed the door and touched the light switch, knowing its location on the wall next to the door. The fluorescent light brought the room into harsh view, gray everywhere, desk, floor, filing cabinet. His eyes were drawn to the white door that led to the inner chamber. Where he had been before. Didn’t know when, didn’t know why. But knew he had been there. He walked to the desk, pulled open the drawer, found the key, a single key on a small silver chain. The key was cool to his touch.
He inserted the key in the lock, heard the satisfying click, turned the knob, and swung the door open. Another windowless room. He groped for the light switch, found it, flipped it, and light flooded the room. He stepped inside and there were no more flashes. He was here and now. A bank of television monitors, blank and dull, on the wall to his right. To his left, panels that resembled the control room of a radio or television station. Facing him, on the wall opposite the doorway, was a huge television monitor or movie screen, blindingly white. The whiteness produced the flash again, him in the car and the car slanting down the street. In front of the screen a green sheet covered—what? He knew and he did not know. The flash again, rain on the windshield and the glistening pavement. Tempo, rhythm, he whispered, as he approached the object hidden by the sheet. Drew the sheet off and stared at what had been revealed before him. Moving mechanically, mind blank, he slipped into the seat. He placed his hands on the steering wheel, studied the dashboard, swept his eyes along the windshield. He was sitting in a car that was not a car, only the front seat and steering wheel and dashboard and windshield, like the kind you find in amusement parks to test your driving ability for a dime or quarter. He had sat in this car many times—but when? why?—and he knew what to do now. He touched a button on the dashboard. A humming in the walls, growing louder. The huge screen in front of him glowed green, and the seat began to rock under him as if he were sitting in a real car and the car had started to move. Then the screen burst into life and he found himself in the middle of his nightmare.
The windshield wipers began to swing, back and forth, swishing, back and forth, and the screen became the slanting cobblestoned street of his dream, the wetness and the streetlights reflecting on the stones, and the roar of the motor and the pounding of the rain and the howling of the wind. He gripped the steering wheel frantically as the car began to rock furiously, his foot reaching for the brake pedal he knew wouldn’t work. His eyes were fastened on the street, that glistening tilting street, and he knew what to expect: that figure stepping off the curb exactly as she had done a million times.
In the dream but not in the dream, in the car but not in the car, he wanted to close his eyes to shut out the street before him on the screen but was unable to do anything, unable to do anything but hold on, gritting his teeth against the rocking of the car and the sound of the engine and the buffeting wind and rain.
His hand traveled a thousand miles as he reached for the button on the dashboard. Pressed the button. The screen began to break up into a jagged jigsaw puzzle, scattered images clashing and colliding, the sound fading, the car slowing down, everything gentle suddenly, the images gone from the screen and the screen glowing green again, the wind giving one last sad shriek before falling away into silence. His hands trembled, his body shook as he let the meaning of the room and the car and the screen reach full flower in his mind. His nightmare had been manufactured in this room, in the simulated car and the movie on the screen.
He rested his head on the steering wheel, trying to calm his racing heart, trying to keep from running in panic out of the room and down the corridor and into the streets.
He felt the presence behind him a moment before he heard the voice.
“I am sorry you had to learn about it this way, Barney,” the Handyman said.
Barney didn’t move, didn’t want to move, didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want to know what had happened, what was happening to him. But in the darkness of his closed eyes he was in the car again, slanting down the street.
And the only way he could flee the nightmare was by opening his eyes and facing the Handyman.
16
LET me tell you what a screen is, Barney,” the Handyman said.
“I know what a screen is,” Barney replied, angry, but the anger hiding something else inside him: a growing, numbing fear. To hold back the fear, he force
d himself to concentrate on what the Handyman was saying and keep up his part of the conversation. “There are a lot of screens, doctor. Movie screens, window screens.” Pleased with himself. In control.
“Yes,” the Handyman agreed. “And still others. For instance, the screen that keeps people hidden while they dress. You have seen them in films, perhaps. You find them in the dressing rooms of theater people.”
Barney nodded, impatient but concealing his impatience, waiting for the explanation the Handyman had promised a few moments ago in that terrible room upstairs. “Come,” the Handyman had said, “let us leave this dreadful place and go to my office, and I shall tell you everything.” He had held out his hand to Barney but Barney hadn’t taken it, had kept his arms stiffly at his sides. Feeling betrayed and deceived, he had walked silently beside the Handyman as they went to the elevator, the regular one, and descended to the first floor. And now, here in his office, the Handyman seemed to be playing games with words—all this talk about screens—with Barney deciding to wait him out, take it easy, tempo, rhythm.
“Screens are also used in the functions of the brain,” the Handyman said. “Memory in particular.”
Dropping the word memory like a coin down a well, an expectant look on his face as if waiting for Barney to hear it land. And maybe explode like a bomb on landing.
“You remember, of course, how I explained to you about short-term memory and long-term memory. How we retain what happened yesterday and forget what happened, say, twenty years ago.”
“Yes,” Barney said, waiting, watching, trying to fathom what was going on in the Handyman’s brain, behind those brilliant green eyes.
“But do we really forget, Barney? Is it possible, after all, that there is no such thing as forgetting? That what we learn throughout our lifetime remains recorded permanently in our brains?”
“Then why can’t we remember everything?” Barney asked, curious. More than curious: knowing this was leading somewhere and it involved him.