By DarkMark
There are times when the Subreality Cafe is a very nice place to pay a visit. Full of smiling people hoisting mugs of ale, with a jukebox playing everything from Al Jolson to Oasis, and a tall, powerfully-built, mustachioed bartender called Major Mapleleaf and a bouncer a bit more friendly than most, and a clientele who are sometimes raucous but usually friendly and well-intentioned.
There are times when none of this, or very little, applies.
A man came in from the night outside. It was not raining. He was not wearing an overcoat or a hat, but he seemed chilled and was short of breath. He stopped close enough to the batwinged doors for them to hit him in the back.
He had sandy-colored hair and brown eyes and was a couple of inches under six feet. He wore a blue turtleneck and jeans and shoes definitely made for tough wear and there was a bulge over part of his chest which does not normally protrude that far on the human anatomy. He was in the Subreality Cafe and he seemed not to be aware of this. He looked around, with slight jerks of his head, and the people at the tables and at the bar looked back at him, both parties to the looking being silent.
The Bouncer caught him before he had gone another step. "Gun, sir."
"What?"
"The gun." The Bouncer blocked his way, his palm outstretched. "We don't allow firearms in the Subreality."
"The gun?" The man was trying to wrap his mind around the English language, it seemed. "You want to take my gun?"
The Bouncer stood there silent, his palm still outstretched, and Major Mapleleaf's hands were below the level of the bar, though he might just have been polishing a glass.
The man breathed heavily, twice, seeming to count up his options. Then he reached in his collar, ran his hand down his shirt, and pulled out a .38 revolver. The only audible sound was the swish-creak-swish-creak of the four-bladed fan overhead.
The man handed the gun over to the Bouncer with a quick motion. The Bouncer took it, pointing the barrel away from himself before it left the man's hand, and held it behind his back. "Is that all your armament, sir?"
"All my what?"
"Your weapons. Have you any more weapons?"
"No. I--no, no."
With his free hand, the Bouncer indicated the way to the bar. Those standing at the rail drew back to make a place for the newcomer, and continued to draw back. Some of the patrons got up to get their hats and coats, but Major Mapleleaf looked out at the crowd, surveying them with a calm and deliberate demeanor. He was not even apparently taking notice of the new customer, who was standing only a few feet in front of him.
A few left. Most kept their places.
"What'll it be, sir?" said the Major, finally addressing the man.
After a moment, the man said, "A drink?"
"That's generally what we sell, sir."
"Oh, god. Scotch, straight up. Listen, does this joint get raided?"
Major Mapleleaf kept his eyes on the bottle and glass he was attending to as he spoke. "We don't usually refer to the Cafe as a ‘joint', sir. And no, it doesn't usually get raided. Not by the police, if that's what you mean."
He handed the glass with the drink over to his customer. "5 pound seven, if you please, sir."
The man looked suspiciously at the Major. It was something of a relief, as it was the first expression he'd had since coming in that looked different from fear. "You want me to pay before you know how many drinks I'm having?"
"I believe 5 pound seven will cover all the charge, sir."
The man reached in his pocket and pulled out some bills. More fell to the floor. Those who were near enough to see noticed the high denomination. The man stooped, stuffed the straggling banknotes into his pocket. He held a $100 out to the Major. "Can you. Uh. Can you break this?"
"Believe so, sir." Major Mapleleaf took the bill, reached over, levered the cash register open and placed it in the proper slot, counting out other bills in change. He stood before the man and handed them over. "By the way, sir. You lied."
"What?" The man's gaze suddenly became feral. His right hand hovered near his waist, its fingers not quite trembling.
"You said you've no other weaponry than that gun you turned over to the Bouncer. But you've a thin switchblade stuck in your pants where your sweater is covering it. Hand it over, please."
"How'd you see that?"
"Hand it over. Please."
The Major's gaze was, if anything, more no-nonsense than the Bouncer's. The man might have been thinking of several things in the next three-second interval. He might have been contemplating what kept the glasses and ice machine company in back of the bar, where he couldn't quite see, not even in the mirror reflection. He might have been wondering whether or not there was a gun back there, and whether or not to test the theory.
In the end, he reached under his sweater, pulled out the switchknife, still folded, and handed it over. "I want this back," he said. "I want it back when I leave. It's mine."
"And so it is, sir," said the Major, taking the cold object and stashing it behind the bar. By this time, he and the newcomer were the only ones at the bar. The rest had melted into the array of tables on the floor, and nobody was occupying the ones closest to the Major and his most recent guest. The Bouncer stood near the doors, his arms folded.
The man took a long pull at the glass and it burned down. It burned down well. The sensation seemed a nice thing, an anchoring thing for him. He sighed and set the glass back on the bar, his fingers caressing the stem of it. "I don't suppose you have...too many customers like me."
"That would depend, sir. We get all kinds in the Subreality."
"You have rooms here, maybe? A place to stay?"
"Oh, we've places to stay, sir. We have those aplenty. Just let me know."
"Thanks. Thank you. I really needed a drink."
"Do you need another one, sir?"
"Yeah. Yeah, go ahead." He watched the Major fill the half-full glass to near the brim. When his hand was steady enough to grasp the neck of it again, he brought it to his lips and drank again. Burn. Sweet burn.
The man finally seemed to calm a bit. "Don't know how I got here. Never saw a bar in this part of town before."
The Major took a rag and began swabbing the bar. "How did you end up in this part of town, sir?"
"My business."
"It would be, sir."
"You want another five whatever for this drink?"
"No, sir." The Major looked up. "As I said, five pound seven is the cover charge for you tonight."
"This is crazy. You can't be making money off of me tonight."
"Strength in numbers, sir. I'm sure you'll agree, in time."
The man twirled his glass a bit. "You trying to be funny with me?"
"Not really, sir. Just a poor barkeep attending his trade. Scotch satisfactory?"
"Yeah. I don't mind this at all." He took another drink. "You know, I don't believe this place."
"What's unbelievable about it, sir?" The Major looked at the man casually.
"I don't know. I was running and...well, never mind that. I saw mists, but it wasn't foggy anyplace else tonight. Then I saw this place, at least, the lights of it. And I...hell, I can't tell you why. But I felt like I'd be safe if I went in here."
"Well, that could be, sir. Safe but...occasionally rowdy."
The man vouchsafed a look about the barroom. "Seems you got a nice crowd tonight. Not rowdy."
"No, sir, they're not the rowdy ones."
"You get bikers here?"
"Not often, sir."
"Well, how rowdy does it get?"
"Depends, sir. On the time of the month, the phases of the moon, the sound of the bell in the old church tower, the whim of the writer and..."
The pause was so long that the man jerked his head towards the Major.
"...the perception of the visitor," the Major finished.
"You stringing me along?"
"Wouldn't think of it, sir." The Major polished a shaker. "You often use firearms in your line of work?"
The man looked at him, calculatingly.
"Simple question," said the Major, careful to let the man see both of his hands on the shaker.
"Sometimes," admitted the man.
"Tough world out there," allowed the Major. "A man sometimes needs a refuge from it."
"You can say that again," said the man. "What about the room?"
"Oh, we can talk about that later," said the Major. "Another drink?"
"We'll talk about it now."
The Major shrugged. "If it becomes necessary, there's a room upstairs we can let you have for as long as necessary."
"Well? How much?"
The Major stopped polishing the shaker and regarded the man. "Maybe only a story."
The man started, spilling a bit of what remained in his glass. "You want too much."
The Major shrugged. "Your decision. That's the price."
The man rummaged in his jeans pocket again, while the Major filled the glass one more time. The man's hand came out knuckles up, the bill concealed in his palm. He slapped it gently on the bar, his hand covering it. Then he lifted it gently, a bit, to show the Major the denomination. "Ever seen one of these?"
The Major looked at it. "Not for quite a while, sir. Not in here. But yes, I have seen such money before."
"Put me up and it's yours."
"No, sir."
"What?"
"No, sir. That's not the price."
"Why not?"
The Major smiled, slightly. "We deal in stories here, more than in money."
"What the hell is this kind of place?" The man was defensive, his hands reflexively feeling for the knife that wasn't there.
"Depends on the story, sir," said the Major. "Yours seems a bit cut-and-dried, if you don't mind me saying."
"Suppose I do mind?"
"Doesn't make the least bit of difference."
"What's cut-and--"
"The gun. The knife. The money. The look on your face, sir. They've been done in cheap or expensive detective fiction since the days of Race Williams, and probably before that. One of the easiest stories to tell, sir. One of the most predictable."
"Predictable?"
The Major waited. The man finally spoke again.
"You think you know about me?"
"Even if I did, sir, the price would be the story."
"I've just got to tell you a story, and you'll give me a room?"
"Depends on the story, sir. But if I were you...I wouldn't lie."
The man looked around. He took in the entire surroundings of the cafe. He hadn't exactly memorized the details of the place when he came in, but he could have sworn that a few details were different from the way it had been then. What the hell, that was a few Scotches back.
He pushed the glass towards the Major and the Major filled it up and pushed it back.
"I've done a thing," said the man. "I've done a thing tonight."
The Major waited and found some more glasses to polish.
"With what your man took from me at the door," said the man. "I've done it, all right. Done it proper. Almost proper. Can you keep a secret?"
The Major said, without looking at him, "I'm a barkeep, sir."
"Yes. So you are. Priests, barkeeps, hairdressers, cops. You all hear a lot, don't you?"
The Major said nothing.
"I've done a thing with the thing your man took from me. It was what I planned to do. In the place where I took a lot of the things what you've seen in my pocket. Came off almost slick as snot."
"Almost, sir?" said the Major, gently.
"Almost," said the man. "There was some things went off not as planned. I had to use the...the thing. Damn well had to use it. There was a cheeky bull with a gun and he thought he could give my partner a lead Valentine. Well, he did, but I gave him a Valentine, too. Real forget-me-not. Last one he'll ever read." The man softly snorted. "But my man was wounded, pretty bad."
"Sad to hear, sir."
"So I had to take care of him. I had to. You understand that, don't you? It wasn't a personal thing at all. Just business."
"As you say, sir. Just business."
"Got out of the premises and the bastard had turned in an alarm. He must've. A cop was running up. Plus some other guy. A big guy, but...it was weird."
"Weird, sir?"
"Yeah. Big guy. Blue suit, blue hat, and a damn blue mask. On his eyes. A little blue mask."
"A blue mask, sir?"
"Yeah, blue. Little blue mask. Well, they cut me off from me car, they was between me and it, and the cop was about to tell me to freeze or something like ‘at. But I pulls and lets him have it first. Lead Valentine. Boom. In the chest."
"In the chest, sir."
"Yeah." The man laughed. "In the freakin' chest. Now the masked guy didn't have no gun. I was surprised as hell about that. But he didn't, or he would've pulled it on me. Anyway, hell, he was still coming at me. So I gave him one, too. I think he took it in the shoulder or arm or, hell, what's it matter? Knocked him over, up against a trash can, and I'd gotten enough attention by then that I just hit the alley and ran. I ran. And I ran. I think I looked back once, think I saw that blue mask guy up against one wall of a buildin', at the end of the alley. I don't think I shot back at him, or maybe I did. But I didn't get shot at. You ask me, the guy's crazy."
"Perhaps, sir."
"Ain't no perhaps about it," said the man, throwing down the last of the glass and pushing it forth for another fill. "Man ought to know when he has to have a gun. When he's up against somebody who's doin' what I was doin', he damned well ought to know he has to have a gun."
"Did your partner have a gun, sir?"
"Him? Oh, yeah, yeah. But he didn't think I'd plug him. We were friends, see? But what I did was about friendship. Because I knew he wouldn't have wanted me to be held back by him, and probably caught. And I knew he wouldn't want to end up in the joint again, see? I mean, I knew he wouldn't want it. So I took care of things for him. I made a logical decision. That's all it's about. Thinkin' logically." He laughed. "Hell, a man without a gun goin' after a man with a gun, that is not thinkin' logically."
"Don't suppose so, sir."
"So you've got your story, now. You have got what you wanted, right?"
"Well, sir, most of it."
"What else do you want?"
"I mean, we've got most of the story. But yes, sir, I believe we've got all the input we need from you. Thank you, sir." He pushed the filled drink back to the man. "Drink up."
"This is the very last. I got plans to make tomorrow, and I'm tired as hell tonight." The man upended the glass and drained it, chugged it, downed it in one go. His eyes were shut with the burning. He slammed the glass down and gasped for air.
"Funny damn place, this place," he said. "Almost expect to see Jack Nicholson sittin' beside me. You ever see that movie, barkeep? And who's this Grace Williams you was talkin' about?"
Silence.
The man opened his eyes.
The Major was no longer behind the bar.
The man's eyes opened wider. The Major was not reflected in the mirror in back of the bar. The man grabbed the edge of the counter, heaved himself over, expecting to see the barkeep hiding under the damn countertop while that bouncer guy drew a bead on him, but he'd damn well use this Scotch-slinger for a shield, he would, and--
Except that the Major was not hiding behind the bar.
The man threw himself over the bar, expecting to hear shots ring out and shatter the silvered glass behind and above him. Nothing. No sound other than the swish-creak-swish-creak of the fan overhead.
He ventured a look, poking his upper head around the side of the bar. Nobody was sitting at the tables. Had they all taken a powder? All of them? In that short a time, and without making any noise?
Cautiously, he straightened up. He grasped the bar's top with both hands, looked around. Nobody. Nobody was in the room.
"You think this is funny?" he said, aloud. "You think this is funny? Somebody get back in here!"
Nothing.
He grasped a full bottle of Johnny Walker Red from behind the bar and ventured out. No knife, no gun, but anybody who didn't think this was a deadly weapon...well, they wasn't thinking logical.
"Get the hell in here! Right NOW!"
He stepped to the middle of the barroom. Light from the overhead fixture fixed him in the center of the glow. He turned around, slowly, in a circle. Best to check the corners, the dark corners.
Some stupid s.o.b. must have put a quarter in the jukebox.
A record, not a CD but a real damn vinyl record, from the "zoop" sound it made when it started up, began blaring at full volume. "I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I HAVE COME TO BRING YOU..."
He threw the bottle at the jukebox. It smashed open, but the plexiglas of the covering protecting the rotating black disc wasn't even scratched. The Johnnie Walker Red ran down it in rivulets.
The only evident effect was, apparently, to make the machine switch discs. But it didn't look like it'd switched discs.
"NO, NO, GOD HELP ME..."
"Shut up!" yelled the man. He threw a sugar container from a table at the jukebox. It banged off the body of the machine, and the music changed again.
"FATHER? YES, SON. I WANT TO KILL YOU..."
"SHUT UP!" The man grabbed one of the sturdy wooden chairs, lurched over to the music machine, and began to smash at it. The chair began to splinter.
"ANARCHY IN THE U.K. ...RIGHT...NOW..."
"Shut UUUUPPP!" More smashing.
"THE CURTAINS BLEW AND THEN HE APPEARED..."
"SHUT UPPPPP!!!" He was crying, now. He didn't know why, it wasn't logical, but he was crying. And there was a lot less left of the chair than when he started, but he couldn't stop smashing at the machine, which must have been constructed, the logically-functioning part of his mind reasoned, along the lines of the U.S.S. Arizona.
"TELL ME BABY...WHAT'S MY NAME?"
"Oh, my God. Oh, my God..." He dropped the pieces of chair left to him and clung to the jukebox like a sailor clinging to the mast of a ship in a storm. He tried to tip it over, but it wouldn't go. And now it was playing Creedence. Good old Creedence. Only it wasn't the kind of song he'd put a quarter in for.
"BETTER RUN THROUGH THE JUNGLE
BETTER RUN THROUGH THE JUNGLE
BETTER RUN THROUGH THE JUNGLE
WOH, DON'T LOOK BACK TO SEE..."
He staggered to his feet and tried to keep the damn floor under him from spinning, spinning worse than the damn turntable on that god-cursed jukebox, and there must have been something in that drink the barkeep gave him, sure, it must have been ecstasy or some of that mindcrap that kids took these days, even if this place didn't seem like that kind of place, but you could never be sure, and what kind of name WAS Subreality anyway, and why WAS this place here, and why DID he tell them his story, my God, why did he tell them any kind of story at all...
But the story had bought him something.
That was right. That had to be right. There was a room upstairs, and he'd bought it with his story.
The stairs. Where were the stairs?
He looked up. To the left of the bar, up against the wall. A flight of stairs. Funny, he hadn't seen them before. But had he been looking? Didn't matter much now, did it?
The jukebox was pounding again. Something new. Sounded like that guy who used to sing with Blood, Sweat, and Tears. "ON THAT DOWWWN...BOUND...TRAIN..."
He ran up the stairs. He ran and slipped and barked his shin and even cried about it, but he ran anyway, and didn't even think about getting something from behind the bar to bust over somebody's head until he was halfway up, and he sure as hell wasn't going to go back down there for it. Because he maybe heard some sounds around the edges of the music, something indistinct but something he had no desire to hear at all, ever.
He saw a door at the top of the stairs. A plain, wooden door. Good. Reassuring.
Slam your body against the door. Feel its wood, its very, very real wood. Grope for the knob. Cool solidity of brass. Yes. Very real. Very logical. Turn the damn thing.
The door gave way and he went through. All the way through. He sprawled upon the floor. It was stone. Very cold stone.
Behind him, the door slammed shut.
He sprang for it. Actually, he didn't need to do that. It was coming closer to him. Like it was on a track of some sort. What was this, some kind of carnival fun house? He banged his hands against it, bruised his knuckles, bloodied them. It was still coming forward.
He looked behind himself.
In back was only a row of stairs, going down.
If he stayed where he was, the damn door was going to push him down anyway, or smash him against the opposite wall. Nothing else to do but go down the stairs.
He leaped down them, a short hop in front of the advancing door. Stairs, maybe not wood. Definitely not wood. He could tell as he ran quickly down them. Not stone or metal, either. What?
As the door fit into whatever it was supposed to fit into above, it cut off the sole light overhead.
Darkness.
He tried to step back, to retrace his steps, and overbalanced, almost fell into...nothing...
With a jerk, he sent himself sprawling forward again.
The stairs. There were no stairs in back of him anymore.
And the ones he was sprawled upon seemed to be giving way.
With a cry, he started charging down the stairs again. Like a marathon sprinter, no, like a mile runner. Except this was going to be a lot more than a mile. (It couldn't be!) This might be a lot longer than any old mile.
Darkness. Darkness.
And only the stairs. And the running. And his gasping breaths.
And maybe something that sounded like the low beat of a heart, somewhere in back of him, or under him, maybe.
It was getting a little warmer. It was getting a little hard to breathe.
He cursed whatever the guy had slipped in his drink. Except that part of his mind which was logical knew that the barkeep had only given him straight Scotch. Nothing more, nothing less.
And that part of his mind kept him running.
That was the most logical part of all.
He would tire, sometime. He would be unable to escape before the stairs gave, and... Or he would give up and fling himself backward, and...
But in the meantime, it was better just to run. And run.
And run.
*****
The Cafe's batwinged doors opened again and two more newcomers came in, the shorter one helping the taller one a bit. The Bouncer waved them through. The patrons were still conversing, a couple were dancing to "Little Surfer Girl", and a few nudged their friends and pointed at the man in the blue suit and the blue mask with the sling on his arm, and his friend, who had a very, very square jaw, a pipe in his mouth, and one high white tuft of hair coming up from the center of his head and two others protruding from the sides.
"Excuse me," said the masked man. "We've been looking for a man on the run."
The Major swabbed the bar a bit. "Only the regulars around here, sir. Description?"
"Sandy hair, brown eyes. Wearing a blue turtleneck sweater. Jeans." The man seemed a bit pained. "And yes, he is armed and dangerous. Seen anyone of that sort here lately?"
"I wouldn't know, sir, but you can have a look around," said the barkeep. "We get all sorts at the Subreality. Sometimes they go upstairs. Right there." The Major pointed with his thumb.
"I'll check it out, Spirit," said the shorter man.
"Be careful, Dolan."
A few minutes later, the shorter man returned. "Doesn't seem to be anything up there but an office. Checked it for secret doors, turned it upside down. No way to get out, if he was up there."
"Okay." The masked man shifted his wounded arm's position a bit under his coat. "If you see the man I described, do not, I repeat, do not try to apprehend him yourself. He's killed two men already in a bank holdup. Just get hold of the police as soon as you can."
"Oh, we'll be sure to do that, sir," said the Major. "Anything I can offer you? Awfully rough night out there. Fog and all that."
"Thanks, no. We'll be going. Come on, Dolan."
The older, shorter man craned his head around to give the Cafe the once-over. "Nice place," he opined.
Then he walked out the batwinged door with his friend.
The Major looked after them. He called across to the Bouncer, "Anything for you before your shift's over?"
"Just some tea, sir," said the Bouncer. "Oh, and this."
He stepped away from the batwinged doors, walked across the floor to the bar, took the .38 from his pocket, and lay it gently on the bar. "Give this to the Manager, will you? I'm sure he can find a good home for it."
The Major slipped it into a pocket of his apron and went to prepare the tea.
*****
The Spirit and Commissioner Dolan are property of Will Eisner. No money is being made from this fict, no infringment is intended.
This one's for Rossi. Why not?