14

The truth is, Tom does not have any idea of how he is to fight the Collector. As he hears Rose's high heels clattering into the wings of the stage, he remembers the scene in which the actor Creekmore impersonated Withers, and the impulse which led him to face this dreadful representation of Skeleton Ridpath begins to look like a fatal mistake. The Collector was the magician's best bodyguard - he had said that himself. It suddenly seems very likely to Tom that he is going to die - die none too pleasantly - in the Grand Theatre des Illusions, just as Withers had died in an alley outside a stage door.

'Vendpuris!' the Collector calls. 'I saw your owl, Vendouris.'

Tom edges away as silently as he can, wondering even now if he can get out of the theater and somehow snatch Del from Collins… leave the Collector wandering and calling inside the theater -but the Collector is a magic trick.

'I want to see some skin,' the Collector whispers. 'Where are you, Vendouris?'

He is a magic trick, and Tom is a magician. In the hallucinatory scene which had played out when Laker Broome had touched him, there had been the flicker of a clue, the smell of an answer strong enough to make some part of him know that the Collector could be made harmless.

'Some skin,' the Collector says, opening his mouth to show purple blackness. His empty eyes shine with delight. He is stumbling over the little theater's stage, going by a blind man's radar to the Grand Theatre.

Tom moves quietly down the front of the big stage, backing away. What is the clue, the answer? He can remember the auditorium filled with dead boys, himself floating over it in Skeleton's body.

It is there somewhere, the answer. He has to think. But how could you think, with your mind turning to jelly? It's just magic, that's all, he says to himself, getting as far as the wall and straightening his back against it and watching the Collector step off the little theater's stage. Two more steps would bring him into the larger room. The Collector is drooling, reaching out, and Tom remembers how it was to be inside Skeleton, feeling all that hate which was love knocked on its head, Skeleton's helpless, dumbstruck love for Collins and what he could do.

'I'm not Vendouris,' Tom says, still feeling his loathing for Skeleton lying like a weight in his chest.

'Aaah,' Skeleton moans, and focuses his ecstatic head toward Tom. He is shuddering with pleasure. He begins to stumble into a row of seats.

'Your name is Steve Ridpath,' Tom says. 'And you cheated on your exams. You're the unhappiest boy in the whole school. You're supposed to go to Clemson in the fall. Your father is a football coach.'

'Burn that ball back,' whispers Skeleton.

'Stay away from me,' Tom says.

'Burn that ball back!'

'You set a fire in the field house,' Tom says, searching frantically for the key which will find whatever remains of Skeleton inside the Collector. 'You wanted to see everybody die.'

'Get away from that fucking piano,' the Collector whispers. He is now at Tom's end of a row of seats, and about a dozen steps up toward the back of the big theater. Behind him and to the left, Tom can see the X of the wooden brace, irregularly stained with red.

But why was I Skeleton? Tom wonders. The awful toy is coming down the steps, brightly scanning for a sign of motion. 'Stay away,' he says, half-pleading.

The Collector descends another two steps: Tom is by now really almost too scared to move; and he knows that if he tries to run, Skeleton will gain on him effortlessly, and bring him down as happily as a lion brings down a zebra.

'Oh, Flanagini,' the Collector whispers, only four steps up from Tom. 'Not to hurt Mr. Collins, Flanagini - not to hurt Mr. Collins.'

'I will hurt him,' Tom says, and raises his useless hands.

'I can fly, Flanagini,' Skeleton whispers, and is nearly on him.

'You're a joke, Skeleton,' Tom whispers too, for he is unable to make his voice louder. Then his mind twists and he sees the interior of that room again, the gloom and the lacquered pictures. It is as if they paper the interior of his skull.

He's what you call a stooge.

Skeleton howls in pain or joy, lurches off the last step, and his hands find Tom's throat. The empty eyes glow before Tom, shine directly into his brain, and while the hands tighten about his throat, Tom can hear a mad babble of voices. Owl Dr. Collector see some skin skin owl out to stay now pictures window knew he was there FIRE! owl owlfire takes this life too, you too, Vendouris, coming from where? joy foxhead OWLFIRE FLANAGINIFIRE wolfhead baby on a spear light shining through blood glass thing moving in my pocket … an unending spool of gibberish which is Skeleton's soul and mind and is more purely frightening than even the hands around his throat.

Then Tom's mind twists again, and he raises his useless hands, defending himself from the pictures and knowledge there: Flanagini fire, Skeleton's melted consciousness sings to him, and the crushing hands continue to do their work.