Free Three Days to Never by Tim Powers

Bozzaris was standing in the kitchen doorwayby the bowl of macaroni this time, silhouetted by the fluorescent ceiling light, and Sam Glatzer was sitting on the couch, asleep. The room smelled of salsa and corn tortillas.
    Lepidopt nodded. “No, they went straight home. Glatzer received another transmission.”
    Malk noticed the tape recorder on the coffee table, among a litter of greasy waxed paper and cardboard cups; apparently the transmission had arrived so suddenly that it had been easier to bring the recorder to Glatzer than to bring Glatzer to the recorder.
    â€œAny locators this time?”
    Lepidopt leaned his back against the curtained window and rubbed his eyes. “No, still no locators.” He lowered his hands. “Glatzer’s gamúr .”
    Malk looked again at the old man on the couch. Glatzer’s chin was on his chest, and he wasn’t moving at all. The holograph talisman lay on his belt buckle, its cord curled slackly across his shirt.
    â€œOh weh,” Malk said softly. “Was it…stressful?”
    â€œI’ll play it back for you. After dark we can drive him to Pershing Square, sit him at one of those chess tables, and then call the police to report a body there. Perishing Square. Poor Sam. Sit down.”
    Malk sat down in the chair next to the door, across from the couch.
    Lepidopt had apparently rewound the tape to the right place, for when he pushed the play button there was only a moment of silence and then the abrupt beginning of a recording.
    Lepidopt’s voice began it, a few syllables ending with “—go!” Then Malk heard Glatzer’s frail voice: “The girl, in a house, with cats. Now the Eiffel Tower—no, it’s just a picture of it—a bicycle race, in France—some crazy giggling guy in a gray suit is riding in it, passing everybody—he’s riding a red bicycle, not any kind of racing bike—he won, he broke the tape—”
    Bozzaris’s recorded voice interjected, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is what that is.”
    â€œâ€”crowd is carrying him to a lawn—”
    â€œWhat?” said Lepidopt’s voice.
    â€œIt’s a movie,” Bozzaris had explained then, “somebody’s watching it.”
    â€œIt’s a movie, on a TV set,” said Glatzer’s voice. “Now it’s a different movie, one woman playing two roles—no no, two women playing one role—” For several seconds the old man was as silent on the tape as he was now on the couch. Malk wished he’d asked for a cigarette before the tape started; he couldn’t shake the thought that the tape voice was Glatzer talking live from wherever dead people go.
    A hoarse cry shook out of the machine, and then Glatzer’s voice went on breathlessly, “I can’t follow her, she’s falling out of here and now. I almost fell out with her—Wait, she’s back—everything’s on fire, up the hall and the TV set—running through smoke—I’m fine, let me get this!—a man’s voice says, ‘Was there somebody in the house, at the door?’”
    Malk kept looking at Glatzer’s dead body in its shirt and tie, half expecting gestures to accompany these terse, fragmentary impressions.
    From the recorder Glatzer’s voice said, “‘I didn’t mean to burn Rumbold,’ says the little girl.”
    The tape recorder was quiet again for a while, though Malk could hear recorded panting. He made himself look away from the body.
    Glatzer’s voice went on finally, “‘I want to bury Rumbold,’ says the girl. ‘It was the movie—it wasn’t Pee-wee except for the first couple of minutes, then it was a black and white, a silent’—uh—‘She was a witch!’ Now—now a car is pulling into the driveway, an old guy in it, in a, a green station wagon—he’s—the girl is holding on to her