The Universe Twister (11 page)

At least it was peaceful here in the cell. But going back was a last resort; he couldn't just vanish without even a chance to explain to Adoranne how he had happened to be in her bedroom with a sackful of loot.

What could he do? If things hadn't happened so fast, he could have dreamed up some way out, some last minute rescue. Maybe it still wasn't too late. Nicodaeus, maybe;
he
could get him out of here. Probably he hadn't heard about his protégé's arrest yet—or, O'Leary amended, he had just heard a few minutes ago. By now he'd be coming along the hall, passing the iron-barred door, ordering guards around, demanding O'Leary's immediate release—

There was a sound from the door. A tiny panel opened; light glared in. O'Leary jumped up as he saw the face at the opening.

"Daphne! What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Sir Lafayette, I knew something terrible would happen!"

"You were right; there's dirty work afoot. Look, Daphne, I have to get out of here! I'm worried about Adoranne; whoever led me to her room—"

"I tried to tell them, sir, but they think I'm your confederate."

"What? Nonsense! But don't worry, Daphne, Nicodaeus will be along soon."

"He tried, sir—but the king was furious! He said it was an open-and-shut case, that you were caught red-handed—"

"But it was a frame-up!"

"At least you won't have a long wait in that awful cell. It's only three hours till dawn; it comes early this time of year."

"They're letting me out at dawn?"

"For the execution," Daphne said sadly.

"Whose execution?"

"Y—yours, sir," Daphne sniffled. "I'm to get off with twenty years."

"But—but they
can't
! King Goruble needs me to kill the dragon, and—and—"

"OK," a guard's rough voice interrupted, "you seen him, kid. Now how about that smooch?" the panel slammed with a bang. O'Leary groaned and resumed his seat. He'd not only reduced his own credit to zero, but dragged an innocent girl down with him. It looked like the end of the line—the second time in the last few hours that imminent death had stared him in the face. Some dream! What if he failed to wake up in time, and the sentence were actually carried out? He'd heard of people dreaming they were falling, and hitting, and dying in their sleep of heart failure. A hard story to check, but that was one experiment he couldn't afford to try. There was no help for it; he'd have to wake up.

Sitting against the wall, he relaxed, closed his eyes.
Mrs. MacGlint's house
, he thought, picturing the front porch in the gray predawn light;
the dark hall, the creaky stairs, the warped, black-varnished door to his room with its chipped brown-enameled steel knob; and the room itself, the odor of stale cookery and ancient woodwork and dust . . .

He opened an eye. The candle flame across the cell guttered, making shadows bob on the stone wall. Nothing had changed. O'Leary felt uneasiness rising like water in a leaky hold.

He tried again, picturing the cracked sidewalk in front of the boarding house, the dusty leaves of the trees that overhung it, the mailbox at the corner, the down-at-the-heels shops along the main street, the tarnished red brick of the Post Office . . .

That
was real, not the ridiculous dream about princesses and dragons. He was Lafayette O'Leary, aged twenty-six, with a steady if not inspiring job at which he was due in a very few hours. Old Man Biteworse would be hopping mad if he showed up late, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. There was no time to waste, idling in a fantasy world, while his real-life job waited, with its deadlines and eyestrain and competition for the next two-dollar raise.

O'Leary felt a faint jar. A breath of warmth touched his face. His eyes snapped open. He was staring into a bright mist that swirled and eddied. The air was hot, moist. Abruptly, he was aware of dampness soaking into the seat of his trousers. He scrambled up, saw vague pale shapes moving in the fog. Out of the steam, figures appeared—the pink bodies of young girls with wet hair, wearing damp towels, carelessly draped. Lafayette gaped. He had made his escape—not back to Mrs. MacGlint's, it appeared, but to a sort of Arabian paradise, complete with teen-age houris.

There were sudden startled yelps; the nearest girls fled, squealing. Others bobbed into view, saw O'Leary, hastily hitched up towels and dashed away, adding to the outcry.

"Oh, no," Lafayette muttered. "Not again . . ." He moved off quickly to his left, encountered a corner and the sound of running water. He tried the other direction, spotted the darker rectangle of a doorless arch, made for it—and collided with a vast bulk in bundlesome tweeds hurtling through from the room beyond. There was a bleat like the cry of an outraged cow hippo defending her young; a rolled umbrella whistled past O'Leary's ear. He ducked; the shadowy giantess charged again, emitting piercing shrieks against the background of lesser yelps. Lafayette backed away, warding off a rain of blows from the flailing implement.

"Madam, you don't understand!" he shouted over the din. "I just wandered in by mistake, and—" his foot slipped. He had a momentary impression of a square red face like a worn-out typist's cushion closing in, the mouth gaping, tiny eyes glaring. Then a bomb exploded and sent him hurtling into a bottomless darkness.

"The way I see it, chief," a meaty voice was saying, "this character hides out over on the men's side last night, see? Then after the joint's locked up, he goes up a rope, out the skylight, across the roof, in the other skylight, down another rope, and hides out in the shower room until Mrs. Prudlock's early-morning modern dance class gets there—"

"Yeah?" a voice like soft mud came back. "So what'd he do with them ropes? Eat 'em?"

"Huh? How could a guy eat forty feet o' rope, chief?"

"The same way he done all that other stuff you said, lamebrain!"

"Huh?"

"Look, I think I got it, chief," an eager voice announced. "He dresses up like a janitor—"

"Only one janitor at the Y. Ninety years old. Checks out clean. Turned in a complaint last year he seen a nood dame.
Then
: You boys sure you checked that side door?"

"She was locked up tighter'n a card-sharp's money belt, chief."

"Now, my theory is," another voice put in, "he's come in dressed as a broad, like. And after he's inside—"

"—he puts on tight britches and a cape, and jumps out at old lady Prudlock. Yah!"

The discussion continued. O'Leary sat up, winced at a throb from the back of his head and others from various parts of his body representing blows from Alain's sword, jabs from the pikemen and a few assorted kicks, cuffs and falls. He looked around; he was in a small room with walls of white-washed cement, a bare concrete floor, a no-nonsense toilet minus a lid, a tiny washbowl with one water tap and a mirror above. Two bunks were bolted to the wall, on the lower of which he was sitting. Beyond a wide, steel-grilled door he could see a short stretch of two-tone brown-painted hallway, another barred door and beyond it a group of men in baggy dark blue suits with shiny seats and fat leather holsters strapped to wide hips.

O'Leary got to his feet, made it to the small barred window. Outside, early morning sunshine gleamed down on the drowsy view of the courthouse lawn, the park with the Civil War cannon and the second-best shopping street of Colby Corners. He stumbled back and sank down on the bunk. He was home—that much was clear—but how in the name of Goop had he gotten into the county jail? He had been in a dungeon under the palace—the present quarters were a marked improvement over their Artesian equivalent—and then . . .

Oh, yes. The houris and all that steam, and the big woman with the umbrella . . .

"Look, chief," a rubbery-voice cop was saying, "What's the rap we're hanging on this joker?"

"Whatta ya mean, what's the rap? Peeping Tom, trespasser, breaking and entering, larceny—"

"We didn't find no busted locks, chief. Illegal entry, maybe, but the Y is open to the public."

"Not the YW! Not to the
male
public, it ain't! Besides he probably swiped something!"

"Naw, he just come fer the scenery." Guffaws rewarded this sally. The eager one cleared his throat. "What's the penalty for looking at nood dames, chief?"

"Hey, chief, can we hang a peeping Tom on a guy if he's working in broad daylight?"

O'Leary tuned out the legal hassle. There was something very strange here. From what the cops were saying, it was clear enough that he'd actually
been
in the YW. That part hadn't been a dream, and the knot on the back of his head where the tile floor had come up and hit it confirmed it. The old battleaxe had called in the police, hence his presence in a cell. But how—and why—had he gotten into the shower room in the first place? It was a good five blocks from Mrs. MacGlint's; about the same distance, he realized with dawning comprehension, as that from the Ax and Dragon to the palace. Did that mean that he had actually covered the distances that he had dreamed of moving? Had he walked in his sleep? But he never wore pajamas, and—he looked down quickly, confirming that he was wearing pants—

Tight-fitting pants, of a deep blue, with tiny bows at the knee. And low-cut shoes, with thin soles and silver buckles.

He gulped, staring at himself. Excitement started up, like distant drums. There was something strange here, something more than a back-fired experiment with self-hypnosis.

Artesia was no dream; the clothes he had gotten there were real. And if the clothes were real—he tugged at the cloth, felt its reassuring toughness—then perhaps all of it . . .?

But the whole thing was too idiotic! O'Leary came to his feet, grunted as his wounds throbbed—those were real enough, too—and took a quick turn up and down the cell. You
couldn't
go to bed and dream, and then wake up and find it had all really happened! Maybe he was at home, dreaming that he was in Artesia dreaming that he was in jail?

Hell, if that were so, he was already hopelessly skitzy. He put a hand against the wall; it was rough, cold, solid. If it wasn't real cement, it might as well be.

O'Leary went back to the bunk and sat down. This was all going to be very hard to explain to Mr. Biteworse. When the story got out that he had been arrested in the girl's shower at the Y, wearing funny pants and a shirt with ruffles—

Well, it was goodby job—even if the police released him, which seemed unlikely, in view of the charges being discussed in the outer office. He had to do something—but what? If he were back in Artesia, he could simply conjure up a key to the door, and be on his way. Things weren't quite that simple here in Colby Corners. Solid objects had a way of staying solid. If you wanted a telephone, say, you had to go find one previously installed by the Bell Company. You couldn't just whistle it up . . .

Lafayette sat up, holding a tight rein on a racing imagination. After all, he'd dreamed up all of Artesia; why not just one little old telephone? It could be out in the hall, maybe—mounted on the wall. And if he reached through the bars—

It was worth a try. O'Leary rose, eased over to the barred door and stole a look. The coast was clear. He closed his eyes, pictured a phone bolted to the brick wall, surrounded by scribbled numbers, with a tattered book dangling below . . .

Cautiously, he reached, and found nothing. He drew a deep breath, gathered his resources.
It's there
, he hissed.
Just a little farther to the right
 . . .

His groping hand encountered something hard, cool. He grasped it, brought it into view. It was an old-fashioned instrument with a brass mouthpiece. He lifted the dangling ear unit and paused. He hadn't seen a phone in Nicodaeus' lab, but that could be fixed. There had been a lot of locked cabinets with solid wood doors; the phone would be fitted inside one of them—the one just to the left as you entered the lab . . .

"Central," a bright voice said tinnily in his ear. "Number, please."

"Ah, nine five three four . . . nine oh oh . . . two one one," Lafayette said, noticing how the number seemed to spell itself out.

"Thank you. Hold the line, please."

He held the receiver, listening to the hum, punctuated by an occasional crackle, then a loud pop. There was a harsh buzz. Pause. Buzz. Pause. What if Nicodaeus wasn't home? The cops would notice him any minute now, and—

There was a clunk! and the sound of heavy breathing.

"Hello?" a deep voice said cautiously.

"Nicodaeus!" Lafayette gripped the earpiece.

"Lafayette! Is it you my boy? I thought—I feared—"

"Yeah, let's skip that for now. I seem to have made a couple of small errors, and now—"

"Lafayette! Where did you get my number? I didn't think—that is, it's unlisted. And—"

"I have my methods—but I'll go into all that later. I need help! What I want to know is, ah, where—I mean, how—oh, dammit, I don't know what I need! But—"

"Dear me, this is all very confusing, Lafayette. Where did you say you are now?"

"I'd tell you, but I'm afraid you wouldn't understand! You see, you don't actually exist—that is, I just thought of you—but then, when Goruble slapped me in the cell, I decided to wake up—and here I was!"

"Lafayette—you've hurt your head, poor lad. Now, about my telephone number—"

"To heck with your telephone number! Get me out of here! I've got half a dozen stupid cops debating which of six assorted felonies I'm to be held without bail for—"

"Dumb cops, huh?" an ominous voice growled. The phone was yanked from Lafayette's hand and he stared into the bovine countenance of a thick-lipped redhead with old boxing scars on his cheekbones.

"You don't talk to no mouthpiece without the chief says okay, see?" The cop put the phone out of sight. "An' that'll be a dime for the call."

"Put it on my bill," Lafayette said bitterly. The cop snorted and turned away.

With a groan, Lafayette stretched out on the hard bunk and closed his eyes. Maybe it was nutty, but his only chance seemed to be to try to get out of this idiotic situation the same way he'd gotten into it. All he had to do was slide back into some other dream; a nice, restful place this time, he decided; to hell with romantic old streets and cozy taverns and beautiful princesses . . . But Adoranne
had
been gorgeous—and that flimsy nightgown . . . Damn shame he had to go off like that, leaving her thinking he was a liar and a cheat.