Slowly DeClercq reached out and placed the Enfield revolver on the bedside table.
'This belonged to your grandfather. To Inspector Wilfred Blake. Your father left it with me, the last time we met in Quebec. I want it to be yours.
'But there's something else I have to say, and I hope I say it right.
'That time in Montreal when you were just a baby crawling on the floor, your father turned to me and said: 'Robert, do you see it? There's something in those eyes. Have you ever seen a child's eyes sparkle quite that way?' And then he turned to you and said: 'Sparky, come to Daddy,' and you began to crawl.
'Even then it showed, though you were just a child. That determination in your eyes. That will to be somebody.'
Abruptly there was a jerk, and then a movement on the bed. DeClercq leaned even closer, emotion in his voice.
'I know you're going to do it. That you'll carry on the legend. Just keep on going like you are and you might — just might — outdo even Wilfred Blake.'
Slowly, the eyes opened and looked up at him.
Then from the bed, ever so faintly, Katherine Spann smiled.
Epilogue
Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that 1 held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the graveworms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created.
The Mask
Tuesday, December 28th, 10:15 a.m.
It could have been 1944, deep in the Ardennes.
For it would have looked like this at dawn that bleak December morning, when General Omar Bradley's GIs awoke to face Hitler's Sixth SS Panzer Army. Their first warning would have been the explosion of shells on the woodlands and ridges around them. For at H-hour — 5:30 a.m. precisely — two thousand German guns on one second fuses had opened up on the American positions all along the Bulge. There would have been the roaring noise of V-ls overhead, and the rumble of Panther and Tiger tanks sliding down twisting roads. There would have been also the voice of war in the shouts and the cries of the dying. And then — as now — there would have been the snow and the swirling fog.
Not forty feet away, the tank appeared in the mist and vapor.
He could hear the whir of its motor and the mesh of its turret gears, and from where he stood he could just make out a ghost in the murky gloom.
And then the tank began to move and he knew he couldn't wait. He raised his rifle. He sighted the ghost in the fog down its long, cold, blue-gray barrel. Abruptly, the tank stopped. Now another figure appeared in the mist, stepping down from the driver's door to join the man on the ground. And he was just about to pull the trigger to cut the German down, when through the mist there came a shout that smashed the scene to pieces.
'Hey, kid. You can stop your dreamin'. It's time for a coffee break.'
Yes, it could have been 1944 at the Battle of the Bulge.
But it wasn't.
With a sigh, the young man picked up a garbage can in each gloved hand and walked over to the rear of the truck. He dumped the refuse into the collecting trough at the back, then pulled the hydraulic lever. With a whir of meshing gears, the mechanism began to lift, rolling the garbage up and into the dustcart. He put the second can down and took off his gloves, then he walked around to the driver's door to join the other two men.
'First day's a little early, kid, to be gettin' bored with the job.'
The man who spoke was a string bean who went by the name of Slim. He was a tall, skinny dude somewhere in his late fifties. Dressed in a floppy farmer's hat and baggy blue coveralls, he had the face of a man who has spent all his life working outdoors. As he spoke, Slim was pouring coffee from a beat-up thermos into a styrofoam cup. When he handed the cup to the young man he flashed him a stained-tooth smile. Slim rolled his own.
The other man was short and squat, with a ruddy drinker's complexion. He too was in his fifties, but a year or two younger than Slim. He was wearing overalls with a seaman's stripes on both arms. This man was called the Perfesser by those in the sanitation department, and if he had another name the young man hadn't heard it. The Perfesser was sitting on the driver's doorstep, spiking his steaming coffee with a shot from a silver flask. As Slim spoke, the Perfesser was watching the young man intently.
'When you bin at this job twenty years,' Slim said, 'then you can start to git bored.'
The young man merely nodded, for to speak would be an impertinence.
'Jest how'd a young fella like you git this job anyway, son? These sure ain't the very best of workin' times.'
'Just luck,' the youth replied.
'Job as a garbage collector ain't really what I call luck.'
The young man sipped his coffee and looked at the Perfesser. The Perfesser had yet to speak.
'I just finished first semester out at UBC. The city's got a program to help us students find jobs. Mine's just over Christmas, so the Union doesn't mind. Besides, I need the money. Every little bit counts.'
'Ah,' said the Perfesser, finding a point to interrupt. 'So we've an academic in our midst. Do tell me, Jeff, just what is your field of expertise?'
'History,' the young man said.
'Ah, history,' the Perfesser said. 'A Sherlock Holmes of the past.'
'Well, actually history is just the beginning. I really want to be an archaeologist.'
'An archaeologist! My, my!' the Perfesser said slyly as he slipped a look to Slim. 'And you thought he was bored with the job. What better job could he have to practice his future craft?'
Slim shook his head sadly, chagrined at his own stupidity, and fished a package of Export rolling papers out of the pocket of his overalls. The Perfesser took a slug straight from the silver flask. 'Are you bored, kid?' he asked, looking the youth in the eye. 'Do you think this job is beneath you? Is that your attitude?'
Jeff blinked. 'No, no, of course not,' he said.
'I hope not. 'Cause if you do, son, it's time that you grew up and opened your eyes. I don't like to see anyone look down on another man's job. Most of all I don't like arrogant pricks who think they're better than everyone else. Every job can teach you something about life. And this one more than most.'
Slim began tapping some loose tobacco onto the rolling paper. 'Perfesser says a man ain't worth shit if he thinks he's above cleanin' up the garbage in the world around him. You should listen to the Perfesser, kid. He's a man who's bin around. World's foremost authority, for my money, on women, liquor and life.'
With one hand Slim rolled the paper into a perfect cigarette. He licked the gum, sealed it, and stuck the cigarette in his mouth.
'An archaeologist, eh?' the Perfesser said, revolving the word on his tongue. 'That's one of those fellows
