Free Mirror by Graham Masterton Page B

you.’
    The boy stuck out his tongue and ran away, sneakers pit-patting on the sidewalk, all the way to the corner of Yucca. Martin shrugged. He guessed it was better that children didn’t talk to strange sweating screenwriters with melting juice bars. He dropped the bar into the gutter, and across the street an elderly woman in a cotton hat stared at him as if she had discovered at last the man responsible for polluting the whole of the Southern California environment.
    Martin went into the house and climbed the stairs. It smelled of disinfectant and Parmesan cheese, but at least it was cool.
    Morris had depressed him this morning. He didn’t mind so much that Morris disliked the idea of a Boofuls musical; he was professional enough to accept that some people were going to regurgitate their breakfast at nothing more than the mention of motion pictures that other people swooned over. But he was deeply upset that June Lassiter could have called up Morris behind his back and complained about him. It made him feel like a clumsy amateur, an outsider; as if he hadn’t yet been accepted by Hollywood Proper.
    He had almost reached the top landing when he heard Emilio laughing. Too bad, he thought philosophically – the juice bar wouldn’t have survived the climb from the street in any case. But as he turned the corner of the stairs he saw that his own apartment door was ajar and that the upper landing was illuminated by a triangular section of sunlight.
    He approached the apartment door as quietly as he could. He heard Emilio giggling again.
    ‘You can’t throw it! You can’t throw it!’ And then more laughter. Then, ‘You can’t throw it, it won’t come through.’
    Martin eased open the door and tiptoed as quickly as he could along the hallway toward the sitting room. Emilio was scuffling around, his sneakers squeaking on the wood-block floor, and he was giggling so much that Martin was worried for a moment that he was choking.
    Martin tried to see through the crack in the doorjamb. He glimpsed Emilio’s faded red sneakers, flashing for a moment, and then Emilio’s black tousled hair. But the door wasn’t open wide enough for him to be able to see the mirror on the end wall; and if he had opened it any farther, he suspected that he would scare away
who
ever or
what
ever Emilio was playing with.
    Emilio laughed. ‘Stop throwing it!’
    But then Martin heard another voice – a voice that didn’t sound like Emilio’s at all. A young, clear voice, echoing slightly as if he were talking in a tunnel or a high-ceilinged bathroom. ‘
Get another ball! Get another ball!
’ And then a strange ringing giggle.
    Martin felt as if somebody had lifted up his shirt collar at the back and gradually emptied a jug of ice water down his back.
    What had he said to Morris?
If I don’t know Boofuls’ voice when I hear it, then nobody does
.
    Emilio said, ‘What? What? Another ball?’
    ‘
We have to have two! If you throw a ball to me, I can throw a ball back to you!
’
    A moment’s hesitation. Then Emilio saying, ‘Okay, then, wait up’, and dodging toward the door on those squeaking sneakers.
    At once, Martin swung the door open wide. It banged and shuddered against the wall. He lifted Emilio bodily out of his way and jumped right into the middle of the room.
    He thought he saw a blur that could have been an arm or could have been a leg. But then again, it could have been nothing at all.
    The mirror was empty, except for himself and the room and the late morning sunlight; and just behind him, a bewildered-looking Emilio.
    Martin swung around. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded, his voice cracking.
    Emilio shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    ‘The boy, the real boy. Where is he?’
    ‘He’s –’
    ‘Listen, Emilio, I was standing right behind the door. I
heard
him. I heard him with my own ears.’
    Two clear tears unexpectedly dropped onto Emilio’s cheeks, and rolled down on either side of his mouth, and