I shook my head.
?Clarence!?
It was such a shout as would shake the field beasts and the shepherds asleep. It was the start of a sermon on darkness.
J. C. leaped up, head back. Tears spilled from his eyes.
?? Clarence??
And he began to walk, eyes shut, down the Mount, away from the lost sermons, toward the other hill, Calvary, where his cross waited. I pursued.
Striding, J. C. asked:
?I don?t suppose you got anything on you? Liquor, booze. Hell! It was going to be such a
We reached the cross and J. C. searched in back and snorted a bitter laugh of relief, pulling out a sack that made liquid sounds.
?Christ?s blood in a brown bag in an unmarked bottle. What
?God, boy, it?s a matter of time! Then I?m spiked through the wrists, hung by my ballistics! Clarence is
?Smothered under his photographs.?
J. C. stiffened. ?Who
?
?Nothing!? J. C. shook his head terribly. ?No!?
?Clarence, outside the Brown Derby two nights ago, recognized a man. The man raised his fists! Clarence ran! Why??
?Don?t try to find out!? said J. C. ?Lay off. I don?t want you dragged down with me. There?s nothing I can do now but wait?? J. C.?s voice broke. ?With Clarence killed, it won?t be long before they think
?
And me? I thought. Did you write to ask me to be there, too!?
?Who was it, J. C.
?Roy?? J. C. paused, furtively. ?Dead? He?s lucky. Hiding? No use! They?ll get him. Like me. I knew too much for years.?
?How far back??
?
?It was too far away.? J. C.?s voice shook.
?Did you see the face of the man who put the body
?It was dark??
?Was it the Beast??
?The
?The man with the melted pink wax face and the fleshed-over right eye and the awful mouth? Did he shove that fake body up the ladder to scare the studio, scare you, scare me, and blackmail everyone somehow for some reason? If I must die, J. C., why can?t I know why? Name the Beast, J. C.?
?And
A truck veered around the studio backlot corner. It ran by Calvary, throwing dust, blowing its horn.
?Watch out, idiot!? I yelled.
The truck dusted off.
And J. C. with it.
A man thirty years older than I, running fast. Grotesque! J. C. a-gallop, robes flapping in the dusty wind, as if to take off, fly, shouting gibberish to the skies.
Don?t go to Clarence?s! I almost shouted.