imagination and maintained by my effort and ambition. I loaned it to you for awhile, that’s all . . . and now I’m taking
it back.”
“Finish telling me how you got in, will you do that much? I really want to hear.”
`Ìt was easy. I tore it apart, starting with the Demmicks, who were never much more than a lousy imitation of Nick and
Nora Charles, and rebuilt it in my own image. I took away all the beloved supporting characters, and now I’m removing
all the old landmarks. I’m pulling the rug out from under you a strand at a time, in other words, and I’m not proud of it,
but I am proud of the sustained effort of will it’s taken to pull it off.”
`What’s happened to you back in your own world?’ I was still keeping him talking, but now it was nothing but habit,
like an old milk-horse finding his way back to the barn on a snowy morning.
He shrugged. “Dead, maybe. Or maybe I really have left a physical self–a husk–
sitting catatonic in some mental
institution. I don’t think either of those things is really the case, though–all of this feels too real. No, I think I made it
all the way, Clyde. I think that back home they’re looking for a missing writer . . .
with no idea that he’s disappeared
into the storage banks of his own word-processor. And the truth is I really don’t care.”
`Ànd me? What happens to me?’
“Clyde,” he said, `Ì don’t care about that, either.”
He bent over his gadget again.
“Don’t!” I said sharply.
He looked up.
`Ì . . .” I heard the quiver in my voice, tried to control it, and found I couldn’t.
“Mister, I’m afraid. Please leave me
alone. I know it’s not really my world out there anymore–hell, in here, either–but it’s the only world I’ll ever come
close to knowing. Let me have what’s left of it. Please.”
“Too late, Clyde.” Again I heard that merciless regret in his voice. “Close your eyes. I’ll make it as fast as I can.”
I tried to jump him–I tried as hard as I could. I didn’t move so much as an iota. And as far as closing my eyes went, I
discovered I didn’t need to. All the light had gone out of the day, and the office was as dark as midnight in a coalsack.
I sensed rather than saw him lean over the desk toward me. I tried to draw back and discovered I couldn’t even do that.
Something dry and rustly touched my hand and I screamed.
“Take it easy, Clyde.” His voice, coming out of the darkness. Coming not just from
in front of me but from
everywhere. Of course, I thought. After all, I’m a figment of his imagination. `Ìt’s only a check.”
`À . . . check?’
“Yes. For five thousand dollars. You’ve sold me the business. The painters will
scratch your name off the door and
paint mine on before they leave tonight.” He sounded dreamy. “Samuel D. Landry, Private Detective. It’s got a great
ring, doesn’t it?’
I tried to beg and found I couldn’t. Now even my voice had failed me.
“Get ready,” he said. `Ì don’t know exactly what’s coming, Clyde, but it’s coming now. I don’t think it’ll hurt.” But I
don’t really care if it does–that was the part he didn’t say.
That faint whirring sound came out of the blackness. I felt my chair melt away beneath me, and suddenly I was falling.
Landry’s voice fell with me, reciting along with the clicks and taps of his fabulous futuristic steno machine, reciting the
last two sentences of a novel called Umney’s Last Case.
“ `So I left town, and as to where I finished up . . . well, mister, I think that’s my business. Don’t you?’ ”
There was a brilliant green light below me. I was falling toward it. Soon it would consume me, and the only feeling I
had was one of relief.
“ `THE END,’ ” Landry’s voice boomed, and then I fell into the green light, it was shining through me, in me, and