The Mirror Thief(40)

A rushing hum is everywhere around them; it seems to come from falling water, or the rumble of hidden machines, or just the wind, though they’re never able to decide which. They pick up their pace, crashing through a ribbon of trees to discover more fake buildings, more elaborate now: the hulk of a steam locomotive, the parapets of a medieval fortress, a quaint city street. Hey, Stanley whispers as he hurries over the cobblestones. Is this supposed to be Paris?

Yes, Claudio says, glancing around nervously. Europe. I believe Paris.

You ever been to Paris?

I have never.

Well, then how do you know it’s supposed to be Paris? There ain’t no Eiffel Tower. There ain’t no whaddya-call-it.

Claudio doesn’t look at him. You said Paris, he says. I said Paris only after you.

Do we think it’s Paris just because it looks like Paris does in the movies? Maybe the Paris in the movies has got nothing to do with the real Paris. Maybe the real Paris looks like China. How’d we ever know?

There’s a circular fountain ahead, decorated with four winged lions, its dry basin filled with stray tumbleweeds from the fake mining town nearby. The wind wavers, shifts, and a charred smell comes from somewhere in front of them, stinging Stanley’s nose. It all seems deserted, he says.

No one lives here. Everything is not real.

Yeah, no shit. I know. That ain’t what I mean. I mean it’s like nobody’s been using this stuff. Like everything’s shut down.

Claudio looks around, preoccupied. The films of today often shoot on location, he says. To seem more true. Do you smell a burning?

Around the next bend they find themselves in front of a mountain of scorched plasterboard and twisted girders: a fake city block, recently up in flames. The street and its gutters are silted with black mounds of ash and soot; it hisses around their ankles when the wind blows. The air is painful to breathe. Stanley looks at the adjacent structures to figure out what this used to be—what it was supposed to be—and sees department stores, theaters, the granite bases of skyscrapers. New York.

Stanley and Claudio push ahead to get past the burn. They come to a block of brownstones with black banisters and barred windows and crooknecked streetlamps lining their sidewalks: a looking-glass Brooklyn. It’s nothing like the city he grew up in, not really, but Stanley knows that if he saw this place on a movie screen he’d buy it as New York, no questions asked. He thinks of movies he’s seen that were supposed to happen on streets he knows well. Some of them were probably shot right here. Looking back, they always looked fake, every time, but he never questioned it. It makes him feel like a sap.

Stanley! Claudio hisses, motioning him toward the stoop he’s crouched behind, but it’s too late: headlights catch him. They pass over, leaving him in darkness again, but then jerk to a halt with a squeak of brakes.

He and Claudio dash around the corner, across a street, and hide in the bushes beside a fake New England church. Behind them a car door slams, then another. Did they see you? Claudio asks.

Oh, they saw me, all right.

What will we do?

Stanley doesn’t answer. The cyclone fence isn’t far, but he doubts they could clear it in time; anyway, they’d have to drop straight into the sloped channel of the LA River to get away, and he doesn’t want to try that in the dark. But moving farther into the backlot is no good, either: they’re apt to get tripped up or boxed in if they can’t see where they’re going. And now the way they came from is blocked.

Two white beams are moving down the street of brownstones: heavy flashlights, the kind with big square batteries slung beneath. The two studio guards are moving like cops move—keeping plenty of space between them, holding their lights away from their bodies—and Stanley can tell they’ll be tough to shake. He didn’t see whether the guard at the gate was wearing a pistol, but he’d bet that these two are. They’re coming through the darkness like men with guns.

We have to run away, Claudio whispers. They will find us.

Just sit tight. We ain’t done here yet.

It is no good to sit tight. We can’t see where to hide. They know this place.

They damn well will see us if we run. That’s what they want, is to flush us out and shoot us. I didn’t come all the way out here to get rousted by these clowns.

Stanley, Claudio says. Your man is not here. No one is here but them. It is stupid for us to stay.

The guards are close enough now to make out their faces: handsome, cold-eyed, unworried. Each has what looks like a thirtyeight special revolver in his right hand. Off-duty cops, Stanley figures, moonlighting for extra cash. They won’t be slow to pull the trigger. He could use Claudio as a decoy, split them up, ambush one, take his gun away. If he can circle back to the mound of debris, there’s bound to be something there he could crack a skull with. A piece of rebar, maybe.

I will go to them, Claudio says.

Huh?

I will go to them. When they take me away, you will go back through the fence. I will meet you on the road. Where the bus dropped us.

Stanley unglues his eyes from the moving lights and looks at Claudio. Have you flipped your wig? he hisses. Whaddya mean, you’ll go to them? And do what?

Claudio’s still watching the guards; Stanley can see his dark irises click from one to the other. His right hand is firm and warm on Stanley’s shoulder. His expression is calm, alert. I will talk to them, he says.