Free Mirror by Graham Masterton Page A

heard him!’
    Morris thought about this for a long time, his hand poised just in front of his open lips. ‘Boofuls is stuck inside your mirror?’
    ‘I knew it!’ said Martin. ‘I knew you’d think I was crazy! But it’s true, Morris. I don‘t know how it’s happened and it’s scaring me shitless; but he’s there!’
    ‘You’ve seen him?’
    ‘No, I haven’t, but I heard him crying.’
    ‘How do you know it’s Boofuls if you haven’t seen him? How do you know it wasn’t some kid crying in the next apartment?’
    ‘Because there are no kids in the next apartment, and because I’ve watched every single movie that Boofuls ever made, over and over and over. If I don’t know Boofuls’ voice when I hear it, then nobody does!’
    Morris pressed his grape into his mouth, burst it between his bright gold teeth, and flapped his chubby little hand at Martin dismissively, almost effeminately. ‘Martin, you’re letting this whole thing get to you, that’s all. It’s got to your brain! It happens, I’ve seen it happen before. Some writer called Jack Posnik wanted to make an epic war picture about the Philippine War, that’s another one of those hoodoo subjects. He ended up wearing an army uniform and calling himself Lieutenant Roosevelt.’
    ‘Morris,’ said Martin, ‘I went back to my room and my poster was wet. My poster of Boofuls had tear stains on it, I swear it!’
    Morris looked at him narrowly. ‘Are you a Catholic?’ he asked him, and his tone was unusually fierce. ‘You know, I’ve heard of weeping madonnas, stuff like that –’
    ‘Morris, listen to me, for God’s sake. Think what kind of a story we’ve got here! Think what kind of a picture this could make!’
    At that moment, Alison came padding into the room on wet bare feet. Today she was wearing a bright yellow bikini that scarcely covered her at all. She was a darker shade of brown than she had been before, apart from that white blob of sunscreen on her nose.
    ‘Martin!’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought it was you!’
    ‘Well, I think I was just leaving,’ said Martin.
    ‘I guess you were,’ Morris told him. ‘But listen –
please
– for your own sake and for mine, too, let this Boofuls business rest for a while. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Next week, you and I will fly down to San Diego together, and we’ll spend a lazy weekend on my boat, yes? Fishing and eating and drinking wine, and we’ll talk this whole thing through, unh? See if we can’t come up with something a little more acceptable, yes? Something with a little more taste? And, you know, something you can
sell
, already, without raising everybody’s hackles.’
    Martin looked at Alison, and Alison laid her hand possessively on Morris’ shoulder and gave Martin an encouraging smile. Nice girl, he thought, not so much of a
tsatske
as he had first thought. She deserved better than Morris and his chauvinistic garbage about jugs.
    ‘My mother used to adore Boofuls,’ she said by way of being conciliatory.
    ‘Sure,’ said Martin. Then, to Morris, ‘Enjoy the rewrite. I may be a
shlemiel
but I can still write first-rate dialogue.’
    He walked back out into the hot sunshine. This was one of those times when he felt like buying himself a very large bottle of chardonnay and sitting in his room listening to ZZ Top records and getting drunk.
    On his way home, he felt so hot that he stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought two frozen juice bars, one for himself and one for Emilio. When he arrived home, however, carrying one empty stick and one leaking juice bar, he found Emilio’s toy cars lying in the dust beside the front steps, but no sign of Emilio.
    ‘Emilio!’ he called around the side of the house. The sticky orange juice was already running down his wrist.
    A small boy in a rainbow-striped T-shirt was walking a scruffy ginger mongrel along the sidewalk. ‘Hey, kid!’ Martin called. ‘How would you like a juice bar? It’s a little runny but it won’t kill