?How is it such a small church has such rich interiors?? I said. ?The baptistry alone could finance a cardinal and elect a pope.?
?Once,? Father Kelly gazed into his empty glass, ?I might have gladly consigned you to the fires of hell.?
The glass fell from his fingers. He did not move to pick up the pieces. ?Goodbye,? I said.
I stepped out into sunlight.
Across two empty lots and a third, heading north from the back of the church, there were weeds and long grass and wild clover and late sunflowers nodding in a warm wind. Just beyond was a two-story white frame house with the name in unlit neon above: HOLLYHOCK HOUSE SANITARIUM.
I saw two ghosts on the path through the weeds. One woman leading another, going away.
?An actress,? Father Kelly had said. ?I forget the name.? The weeds blew down the path with a dry whisper. One ghost woman came back on the path alone, weeping. ?Constance??? I called out quietly.
62
I walked around down Gower and over to look in through the studio gate.
Hitler in his underground bunker in the last days of the Third Reich, I thought.
Rome burning and Nero in search of more torches.
Marcus Aurelius in his bath, slitting his wrists, letting his life drain.
Just because someone, somewhere, was yelling orders, hiring painters with too much paint, men with immense vacuum cleaners to snuff the suspicious dust.
Only one gate of the whole studio was open, with three guards standing alert to let the painters and cleaners in and out, checking the faces.
At which point Stanislau Groc roared up inside the gate in his bright red British Morgan, gunned the engine, and cried: ?Out!?
?No, sir,? said the guard quietly. ?Orders from upstairs. Nobody leaves the studio for the next two hours.?
?But I?m a citizen of the city of Los Angeles! not this damn duchy!?
?Does that mean,? I said through the grille, ?if I come in, I can?t go out??
The guard touched his cap visor and said my name. ?You can come in,
?Strange,? I said. ?Why me??
?Dammit!? Groc started to get out of his car.
I stepped through the small door in the grille and opened the side door of Groc?s Morgan.
?Can you drop me at Maggie?s editing room? By the time you?re back they?ll probably let you out.?
?No. We?re trapped,? said Groc. ?This ship?s been sinking all week, and no lifeboats. Run, before you drown, too!?
?Now, now,? said the guard quietly. ?No paranoia.?
?Listen to him!? Groc?s face was chalk-pale. ?The great studio-guard psychiatrist! You, get in. It?s your last ride!?
I hesitated and looked down into a face that was a Crosshatch of emotions. All the parts of Groc?s usually brave and arrogant front were melting. It was like a test pattern on a TV screen, blurred, clearing up, then dissolving. I climbed in and slammed the door, which banged the car off on a maniac path.
?Hey, what?s the rush!??
We gunned by the sound stages. Each one was wide open and airing. The exteriors of at least six of them were being repainted. Old sets were being wrecked and carried out into the sunlight.
?On any other day, lovely!? Groc shouted above his engine. ?I would have loved this. Chaos is my meat. Stockmarkets crashed? Ferryboats capsized? Superb! I went back to Dresden in 1946 just to see the destroyed buildings and shell-shocked people.?
?You didn?t?!?
?Wouldn?t you like to have seen? Or the fires in London in 1940. Every time mankind behaves abominably, I know happiness!?
?Don?t
?No, no.? Groc sped on. ?
I almost yelled.
For Calvary was gone.
Beyond, the incinerator lifted great plumes of black smoke.
?That must be the three crosses,? I said.
?Good!? Groc snorted. ?I wonder?will J. C. sleep at the Midnight Mission tonight??
