A Graveyard for Lunatics. Ray Bradbury

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ He told everyone, I imagine, to shut up. There was silence. They were opening the coffin with the facsimile body in it.

      Roy looked at me, eyebrows up. I looked back, unable to breathe.

      There was a stir, some sort of outcry, curses. Manny swore above the rest. Then there was a babble, more talk, Manny yelling again, and a final slam of the coffin lid.

      That was the gunshot that plummeted me and Roy the hell out of the place. We made it down the stairs as quietly as possible, ran through another dozen doors, and out the back side of the carpenters’ shop.

      “You hear anything?” gasped Roy, glancing back.

      “No. You?”

      “Not a damn thing. But they sure exploded. Not once but three times. Manny, the worst! My God, what’s going on? Why all the fuss over a damned wax dummy I could have run up with two bucks’ worth of latex, wax, and plaster in half an hour!?”

      “Slow down, Roy,” I said. “We don’t want anyone to see us running.”

      Roy slowed, but still took great whooping-crane strides.

      “God, Roy!” I said. “If they knew we were in there!”

      “They don’t. Hey, this is fun.”

      Why, I thought, did I ever introduce my best friend to a dead man?

      A minute later we reached Roy’s Laurel and Hardy flivver behind the shop.

      Roy sat in the front seat, smiling a most unholy smile, appreciating the sky and every cloud.

      “Climb in,” he said.

      Inside the shed, voices rose in a late-afternoon uproar. Someone was cursing somewhere. Someone else was criticizing. Someone said yes. A lot of others said no as the small mob boiled out into the hot noon light, like a hive of angry bees.

      A moment later, Manny Leiber’s Rolls-Royce streamed by like a voiceless storm.

      Inside, I saw three oyster-pale yes-men’s faces.

      And Manny Leiber’s face, blood-red with rage.

      He saw us as his Rolls stormed past.

      Roy waved and cried a jolly hello. “Roy!” I yelled.

      Roy guffawed, said, “What came over me!?” and drove away.

      I looked over at Roy and almost exploded myself. Inhaling the wind, he blew it out his mouth with gusto.

      “You’re nuts!” I said. “Don’t you have a nerve in your body?”

      “Why should I,” Roy reasoned amiably, “be scared of a papier-mâché mockup? Hell, Manny’s heebie-jeebies make me feel good. I’ve taken a lot of guff from him this month. Now someone’s stuck a bomb in his pants? Great!”

      “Was it you?” I blurted, suddenly.

      Roy was startled. “You off on that track again? Why would I sew and glue a dimwit scarecrow and climb ladders at midnight?”

      “For the reasons you just said. Cure your boredom. Shove bombs in other people’s pants.”

      “Nope. Wish I could claim the credit. Right now, I can hardly wait for lunch. When Manny shows up, his face should be a riot.”

      “Do you think anyone saw us in there?”

      “Christ, no. That’s why I waved! To show how dumb and innocent we are! Something is going on. We got to act natural.”

      “When was the last time we did that?”

      Roy laughed.

      We motored around behind the worksheds, through Madrid, Rome, and Calcutta, and now pulled up at a brownstone somewhere in the Bronx.

      Roy glanced at his watch.

      “You got an appointment. Fritz Wong. Go. We should both be seen everywhere in the next hour except there.” He nodded at Tombstone, two hundred yards away.

      “When,” I asked, “are you going to start getting scared?”

      Roy felt his leg bones with one hand.

      “Not yet,” he said.

      Roy dropped me in front of the commissary. I got out and stood looking at his now-serious, now-amused face.

      “You coming in?” I said.

      “Soon. Got some errands to run.”

      “Roy, you’re not going to do something nutty now, are you? You got that faraway crazed look.”

      Roy said, “I been thinking. When did Arbuthnot die?”

      “Twenty years ago this week. Two-car accident, three people killed. Arbuthnot and Sloane, his studio accountant, plus Sloane’s wife. It was headlined for days. The funeral was bigger than Valentino’s. I stood outside the graveyard with my friends. Enough flowers for the New Year’s Rose Parade. A thousand people came out of the service, eyes running under their dark glasses. My God, the misery. Arbuthnot was that loved.”

      “Car crash, huh?”

      “No witnesses. Maybe one was following too close, going home drunk from a studio party.”

      “Maybe.” Roy pulled at his lower lip, squinting one eye at me. “But what if there’s more to it? Maybe, this late in time, someone’s discovered something about that crash and is threatening to spill the beans. Otherwise why the body on the wall? Why the panic? Why hush it up if there’s nothing to hide? God, did you hear their voices back there just now? How come a dead man that’s not a dead man, a body that’s not a body, shakes up the executives?”

      “There must’ve been more than one letter,” I said. “The one I got, and others. But I’m the only one dumb enough to go see. And when I didn’t spread the word, blurt it out today, whoever put the body on the wall had to write or call in today to start the panic and send in the funeral hearse. And the guy who made the body and sent the note is in here right now, watching the fun. Why … why … why … ?”

      “Hush,” said Roy, quietly, “hush.” He started his engine. “We’ll solve the half-ass mystery at lunch. Put on your innocent face. Make like naïve over the Louis B. Mayer bean soup. I gotta go check my miniature models. One last tiny street to nail in place.” He glanced at his watch. “In two hours my dinosaur country will be ready for photography. Then, all we need is our grand and glorious Beast.”

      I looked into Roy’s still burning-bright face.

      “You’re not going to go steal the body and put it back up on the wall, are you?”

      “Never crossed my mind,” said Roy, and drove away.

11

      In the middle of the СКАЧАТЬ