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Manny was even more suspicious. I could imagine him hearing the report from Doc Phillips: Roy hanged on Stage 13, cut down, carted off, burned.
I continued as naïvely as possible: “You still got all his animals locked in Stage 13?”
“Er, yes,” Manny lied.
“Roy can’t live without his Beasts. And I went to his apartment the other day. It was empty. Someone had stolen all of Roy’s other cameras and miniatures. Roy couldn’t live without those, either. And he wouldn’t just run off. Not without telling me, after twenty years of friendship. So, hell, Roy’s dead.”
Manny examined my face to see if he could believe it. I worked up my saddest expression.
“Find him,” said Manny, at last, not blinking.
“I just said—”
“Find him,” said Manny, “or you’re out on your ass, and you’ll never work at any other studio the rest of your life. The stupid jerk’s not dead. He was seen in the studio yesterday, maybe hanging around to break in Stage 13 and get his damned monsters. Tell him all is forgiven. He comes back with a raise in salary. It’s time we admit we were wrong and we need him. Find him, and your salary is raised, too. Okay?”
“Does that mean Roy gets to use that face, that head, he made out of clay?”
Manny’s color level sank. “Christ, no! There’ll be a new search. We’ll run ads.”
“I don’t think Roy will come back if he can’t create his Beast.”
“He’ll come, if he knows what’s good for him.”
And g
et himself killed an hour after he punches the time clock? I thought.
“No,” I said. “He’s really dead—forever.”
I hammered all the nails into Roy’s coffin, hoping Manny would believe, and not close down the studio to finish the search. A dumb idea. But then insane people are always dumb.
“Find him,” said Manny and lay back, frosting the air with his silence.
I shut the icebox door. The Rolls floated off on its own whispering exhaust, like a cold smile vanishing.
Shivering, I made the Grand Tour. I crossed Green Town to New York City to Egyptian Sphinx to Roman Forum. Only flies buzzed on my grandparents’ front-door screen. Only dust blew between the Sphinx’s paws.
I stood by the great rock that was rolled in front of Christ’s tomb.
I went to the rock to hide my face.
“Roy,” I whispered.
The rock trembled at my touch.
And the rock cried out, No hiding place.
God, Roy, I thought. They need you, at last, for ten seconds anyway before they stomp you into paste.
The rock was silent. A dust-devil squirreled through a nearby Nevada false-front town, and laid itself out like a burning cat to sleep by an old horse trough.
A voice shouted across the sky: “Wrong place! Here!”
I glanced a hundred yards over to another hill, which blotted out the city skyline, a gentle rolling sward of fake grass that stood green through every season.
There, the wind blowing his white robes, was a man in a beard.
“J. C.!” I stumbled up the hill, gasping.
