The Man Who Melted Read online

  In return, Mantle shot Melzi, twice in the chest and once in the groin. It was as if Mantle's hand had a will of its own.

  “But she will attract the others,” Melzi whispered, referring to the Screamers. He looked nothing but surprised for a second, and then collapsed.

  Mantle heard a distant roaring like faraway breakers. For an instant he was a child again, listening to the ocean calling his name. Then he saw the first Screamers running toward him, heads thrown back as they howled at the heavens like wolves. Thousands of them crowded the streets and alleyways, turning Spacca into commotion. Melzi had been right. The mob would converge upon them. It was a many-headed beast screaming for blood and Mantle, as if in response to Victoria's call.

  Mantle had enough time to turn and run, but when he tried, Victoria rose before him like a ghost. She called to him, promised that she was Josiane. Her skin was translucent, her rags diaphanous, and her voice was that of the Screamers.

  He heard Josiane's voice calling him, then a thousand voices, all Josiane's….

  The Screamers were all around him, pushing him, pressing against him, tempting him, a thousand sirens promising darkness and cold love. Mantle looked around, shaking his head in one direction, then another; and saw that everyone looked like Josiane. Then everyone turned into Mantle's dead mother, and an instant later, the features of every Screamer's face melted like hot wax. The mob took on the angry face of Mantle's dead father, then his dead brother. Every Screamer was changing, melting into someone Mantle had known or loved or hated.

  “Stop it!” Mantle screamed as everyone turned into Carl Pfeiffer, an old friend and enemy. But Mantle was caught, another Screamer. He was running with them—south, past the Via Diaz, through the ruins of burned-out buildings and garbage-strewn streets, over the seamless macadam that covered the cobblestone roads once used by Romans. He screamed, lost in the mob. He could hear the thoughts of every other Screamer. Their cries and screams were the rhythms of fire and transcendence and death. He felt silvery music as the dark voices rustled his childhood memories like wheat in a field. He felt transformed, transported into the hot eye of a hurricane.

  But a part of Mantle's mind resisted the dark, telepathic nets of the screaming mob, even now. Like a man pulling himself out of deepest sleep, he wrenched himself away. But he was only swallowed again, submerged in the undertow of minds.

  Suddenly, he felt a blunt pain in his arm and shoulder—a Screamer running beside Mantle tripped and pushed him against the ragged stone side of the building. Although he couldn't stop himself from running or screaming with the others, he concentrated on the pain. He used it to close himself from the Circaen voices long enough to slow his gait until the mob was ahead of him. Then he fell to the macadam, exhausted and dazed.

  Later, he would remember everything but the Screamer attack.

  TWO

  The boardwalk creaked as Mantle walked, and the strong noontime sunlight turned the bistros, boardwalk feelies, and open-air restaurants white as bones in a desert. Once again he tried to remember what had happened to him last week in Naples, but his mind's eye was closed. Memory was lost in darkness.

  He shivered as if he had remembered something painful, which quickly slipped away from him. He knew that he had been attacked by Screamers in Naples; he just couldn't remember. He remembered finding Victoria and shooting Melzi—he winced, just thinking about that—and then waking up in a hospital hallway that was lined with cots. He had suffered a mild concussion, and his arms and chest were black and blue. He had left the hospital as soon as he could to recuperate in the privacy of his hotel room.

  Now that he was back in Cannes, he felt like himself again. Whatever had happened in Naples was like a dream. But he walked quickly, impatiently, as if he could walk his way through his amnesia: he was expecting an important phone call from Francois Pretre, a minister of the Church of the Christian Criers.

  To his right was the ancient Boulevard de la Croisette, elegant but deteriorated, its rare gardens untended and its cement promenade cracked and broken. But still, it was the meeting place of the gentry, especially in the winter when expatriates, spies, political exiles, and reporters from all over Europe and the Americas would gather. Since Naples had first fallen to the Screamer mobs, the Boulevard de la Croisette had become what the Via Roma had once been: an informal center for intrigue and exchange of information.

  The boardwalk ended, and Mantle crossed over to the boulevard. The computer plug whispered it was time for his pill. He felt a surge of anger and took the plug from his ear. He didn't need drugs to calm himself. He counted trees and inhaled the salty, decaying odors of the Mediterranean. Torn pieces of newsfax capered toward him in the wind like pigeons chasing bread. He passed an old woman cleaning the street in front of a dingy bistro called “Club California.” She gave him a nasty look and stirred dust devils into the air.

  He nodded to her and walked toward the old La Castre Museum. He would be home soon. The sea was behind him; the streets noisy with vendors and children and congregating neighbors. He passed his friend Joan's apartment and felt the old pangs of guilt. But he didn't stop. He would make amends later. She would understand. She always had.

  He could feel a sort of electricity around him, as if a storm were brewing. Yet, there was not a cloud in the sky. But today would be a good day. It would bring him closer to Josiane. Perhaps Pretre would finally call to grant him permission to hook-into a dead Screamer.

  Perhaps Mantle could find Josiane inside a dead man's mind.

  Carl Pfeiffer stood outside Mantle's house in Old Town.

  Mantle lived in a faded, dirty-looking yellow house with common walls and noisy neighbors—just under the clock tower, the grand machine that ruled ancient Cannes. Before the close-packed, tile-roofed, chimneyed houses were the square and the Church of Good Hope; then more houses and shops, less deteriorated and with a better view of the harbor and the misted island of Ste-Marguerite.

  Before Mantle could change direction, Pfeiffer saw him and was shouting and waving his hands.

  What the hell is he doing here? Mantle asked himself, already feeling trapped. Too late now to turn back on the Rue Perrissol, to try to find Joan and kill time until Pfeffer grew tired and left. He wouldn't even have to miss Pretre; Mantle would have an excuse to call him.

  “I've been waiting here for an hour,” Pfeiffer said, taking a backward step as if Mantle had given him a push. Indeed, the thought had crossed his mind. “I left a message on your telie yesterday,” Pfeiffer continued. “Haven't you been home? Don't you check the Net for messages?” He gave Mantle a condescending look.

  The Reverend Pretre refused to leave any messages on the Net, so Mantle had not bothered to check it.

  “You could at least pretend to be happy to see me,” Pfeiffer said. “It's been a long time.”

  “This is a surprise, Carl,” Mantle said, worrying his keys out of his pocket. His voice was still hoarse. “Yes, it has been a long time.”

  “You're still angry about the past, aren't you?” Pfeiffer asked—more a statement than a question. “After all these years, let things die.”

  “I can't remember the past, remember?” But Pfeiffer could, and Mantle hated him for that.

  “Whatever you may think, I was always your friend.”

  “Let's not go into that.” Their friendship had been ruinous, built upon the premise that Pfeiffer would succeed and Mantle would fail. Pfeiffer had always done his part. Now that Mantle's life had caved in, he was making an entrance.

  “This is just a visit, not work-related at all,” Pfeiffer said as if Mantle had asked a question. Again that condescending look, but that was Pfeiffer's way. He was a stout man with a boyish face and a shock of blond and silvery-gray hair. Pfeiffer looked like the successful reporter: expensive clothes that seemed slightly worn, sureness of manner, steady stare—an apple-pie, good-old-hometown boy, definitely a media man, not a shut-in newsfax technician like Mantle, but an actor, a holographic ima
ge seen every night in the millions of American living rooms. Pfeiffer was the good doctor who could make the daily dose of bad news palatable to his patients. Mantle, on the other hand, looked too menacing to deliver news. He had a tight, hard face, high cheekbones, deeply set pale blue eyes, and a strong, cleft chin. He looked younger than his forty years.

  Mantle was surprised that Carl had not yet recited his latest accomplishments and good fortune.

  “I must say that things have been going quite well for me,” Pfeiffer said as if on cue. “Have you seen any of my shows?” He picked up a thin brown suitcase behind him.

  “Did you camouflage your bag?” Mantle asked, but Pfeiffer only chuckled.

  As he followed Mantle up a flight of stairs, he told him of his recent books—he was a readable, if somewhat pedantic essayist, and sold everything he wrote to the popular fax magazines. It was depressing to think of Pfeiffer's gems of wisdom oozing out of every living-room computer terminal in America. His collected essays were bound in hardcover, an honor indeed; and the best thing of all was that he had also been doing fiction again (his fiction was terrible); and of course, he was selling it under a pseudonym; and, yes, he had sold a novel, finally, and it would be in covers first and then go to fax for a huge amount of money; and he was taking a leave of absence to complete the book.

  Are you still jealous? Mantle asked himself, or was that burned out too? But that was unimportant now. Only one thing was important: Pretre must call today.

  The hallway was dark, windowless except for the top landing, which had a yellow and red and orange stained-glass window, and, in marked contrast to the rest of the hall, was also clean. Mme. Acte and her flabby-fat daughter swept daily, but neither bothered to use a dustpan, and Mantle did not care enough to clean up the mess they left on his landing. They were his only tenants.

  As Mantle opened the door to his flat, he excused himself and rushed into the living room to make a quick check of the computer for coded messages. There were none.

  “It's all right, come in,” he said to Pfeiffer, who was waiting at the door.

  “You did get my messages, didn't you,” Pfeiffer said. It wasn't a question.

  Ignoring that, Mantle said, “I'm afraid everything's a bit of a mess.” Mme. Acte and her daughter used to clean house for him in lieu of rent, but he couldn't stand them fumbling about in his rooms, arguing, and fingering through his personal effects. They suffered the indignity of free housing by sweeping their dirt onto his landing.

  Pfeiffer set his bag down in the middle of the living room (and surely he intended to stay as long as he could), then sniffed around like a tawny, compact animal. The room had large high windows that caught the morning light. Situated before the windows, upon a brightly colored drop cloth, were two easels and a ruined satinwood desk littered with broken paint cylinders and brushes. Piled upon and around a paint-smeared video console and the ever-present computer terminal were piles of books in covers, fax and fische, and disordered stacks of gessoed canvas boards.

  The plaster-chipped walls were covered with Mantle's own paintings and graphics, with the exception of a few etchings and woodcuts by Fiske Boyd, a little-known twentieth-century artist. Most of the paintings were land- and seascapes; Mantle especially loved the perched villages, such as Eze and Mons. As he frequently traveled the old Esterel Road, many of the paintings depicted the red porphyry of the Esterel Massif and the Calanques, the deep, rugged inlets. Upon first look, some of his paintings appeared to be vague, almost smoky-looking, but shapes seemed to form as one stared into the milky canvases enclosed in heavy frames; they gained definition and color, as if the viewer were somehow superimposing his own imagination upon them. Then, for an instant, the paintings would appear to be as clear and defined as old photographs.

  Mantle watched Pfeiffer inspect the room. Short, squat, freckled Pfeiffer with his baby face and widely set eyes and high cheekbones. How long have we known each other? It must be twenty years. All that hate and love wasted like a bad marriage. Now there was the old silence between them and all the walls of the past. Although he wanted to push through the barriers and reach Pfeiffer, kindle the warmth of the old days (and extract Pfeiffer's memories of Josiane like teeth), he felt repelled by this familiar stranger. Stymied, Mantle kept quiet, watched, and waited.

  “This one is very good,” Pfeiffer said, staring at a large fantastical painting of a dead bird in the woods. It was centered on the far narrow wall of the living room. The painting commanded the space; one would not even notice the floral-figured easy chair beneath it.

  Mantle laughed softly.

  “What's so funny?” Pfeiffer asked, turning around, then back to the painting. “I think this is a very good piece of work, even though the subject matter is a bit depressing.”

  “I know the work is very good,” Mantle said, walking across the room, taking the advantage. “That wasn't what I was laughing at.”

  “Well…?”

  “I was laughing at you, old friend.” Pfeiffer scowled, as expected. “I painted this for you some time ago,” Mantle continued. “You can take it back with you, if you like.”

  “Well, thank you, but I don't know.” Pfeiffer's voice lowered in register. “Why did you laugh?”

  “Because I painted it for you and, predictably, you took the bait. You nosed over to the Dead Bird without a hesitation.”

  “So what?”

  “I'll show you,” Mantle said. He stood before the painting; it was at eye level. “Look at the sky. There, where the dark, fist-shaped cloud meets the lighter one, what do you see?”

  “I see two clouds. What should I see?”

  “Step back a bit, and don't stare into the painting as if to burn a hole in it,” Mantle said. “You see the black cloud as the figure and the white as the ground because there is so much more white area. That's a decoy. Try looking at the white area as figure and the dark as ground. Now what do you see? Don't strain to look: it will come into focus.”

  “I see letters, I think,” Pfeiffer said.

  “And what do they spell?”

  Pfeiffer shook his head; it was more like a twitch. “T-O-D. Tod. Why, that's the German word for death. Is that really in there?”

  “Yes,” Mantle said. “It's part of a mosaic using tod and tot. If you look closely, you can also make out the words death and variants such as deth, over there.” Mantle pointed to a shaded area in the sky.

  “Why did you do that?” Pfeiffer asked.

  “They're subliminal embeds. Surely you're familiar with them—”

  “Of course I am,” Pfeiffer replied, his voice a bit loud. “But why use death, or tod, or whatever—other than to be morbid.”

  “They're subliminal triggers. Your greatest fear was death, remember? You used to talk about it all the time.” Mantle waited a beat, “Step back a bit and look into the forest—there, in the left corner where the crawlers are. What do you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Look away from the painting,” Mantle said. “Now look again.”

  “Why it's Caroline's face, I can see it. It's a real trompe l'oeil.” Pfeiffer's face seemed to darken. “What else have you hidden in there?”

  “That you'll have to discover yourself,” Mantle said. He couldn't tell Pfeiffer that the subliminal portrait of his wife was surrounded by genitals. Sweet, sexless, self-contained Caroline, radiant in a wreath of cocks.

  “Then there are more subembeds?”

  “Quite a bit more,” Mantle replied, feeling relieved yet guilty. He was acting like a vengeful child. The past was dead, let it be, he thought.

  “Do you really expect me to take that painting?”

  “That's up to you.” Mantle walked into the sitting room where he kept a small bar, and Pfeiffer followed. This room contained another desk, this one walnut with a drop front, several austere high-backed chairs, a discolored gilt frame mirror, and a blond Kirman carpet, which brightened the room considerably. This room had one small slat window;
bookcases covered the walls. Mantle stepped behind the bar. “Fix you a drink?”

  “You did that to hurt me, didn't you,” Pfeiffer said—more a statement than a question. Pfeiffer the innocent, Mantle thought, and in a way it was true. Pfeiffer the paradox.

  “Yes, I suppose I did. Old wounds heal slowly and all that. I'm sorry.”

  “Well, let's try to forget it,” Pfeiffer said. “It was a long time ago that we had our trouble, wasn't it, although even now I'm not sure what happened, what was going on in your mind.”

  You sonofabitch, Mantle thought. You were feeding on me, that's what was going on in my mind. Don't take the bait, he told himself. Don't let him manipulate you into confession. It's the old trap. But the net that Pfeiffer dragged could still catch him. “Bourbon?”

  Pfeiffer nodded, and Mantle poured him a shot. “Are all the other paintings like the Dead Bird?” Pfeiffer asked.

  “They all contain subliminals, if that's what you mean,” Mantle said, coming around from behind the bar. Shock the little fisherman and maybe he won't leave his bags, Mantle told himself. I don't need a guest tonight.

  “And not all the triggers are visual,” he continued. “There are some audio and olfactory sublims. I've even got several inductors hooked up; they're like very subtle tachistoscopes.”

  “You're perverse,” Pfeiffer said, but he craned his neck and looked into the other room. “Why are you painting that crap, you're a fine artist.”

  “I'm an illustrator, remember? A subliminal technician.” He thought it a confession rather than a statement of fact. “And why should subliminals affect the quality of art? Rembrandt used embeds in the seventeenth century. Did that make him a lesser painter?”