Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury Read Online Free PDF Page B

of a tombstone with the inscription HERE LIES HOLLYWOOD’S NUMBER ONE ASSHOLE, and all the while everybody studiously pretends not to notice the evidence of post-traumatic stress on Zuckerman’s face.
    Zuckerman considers surprise parties thinly veiled acts of passive-aggressiveness and hostility, and God knows there’s enough animosity around this place to wallpaper Bin Laden’s cave.
    After an hour of tippling and off-key crooning and gossipmongering and chortling at bad jokes, Mrs. Merryweather is the one who finally broaches the subject. “You do realize that everyone got a huge kick out of the look on your puss at the end there,” she says to Zuckerman over by the potted ficus.
    “Really had me going there,” Zuckerman concurs sourly. “Who’s the Golem, anyway?”
    Zuckerman jerks his thumb at the leviathan in the J.C.Penney sport coat skulking all alone in the corner. The contractor stands there like a dime-store Indian, staring into his paper cup. Somewhere in his late sixties, the man has a face no mother could love, a road map of creases circumnavigating a pair of eyes like smoldering craters formed by meteors.
    “Poor fella,” Mrs. Merryweather says. “Used to be somebody.”
    “As for instance?”
    “You’re in the picture business, Marvin, for God’s sake . . . don’t you recognize the man? They said you wouldn’t recognize him, but I didn’t believe it.”
    “You want to give me a hint, or is this twenty questions?”
    “1962? New Jersey Nocturne ? Alan Ladd and Barbara Stanwyck mean anything to you?”
    “Never saw it.”
    “That gentleman over there is Haywood Allerton.”
    The name rings no bells for Zuckerman. “And so?”
    “Once upon a time, that man was the greatest heavy in Hollywood.”
    With a shrug, staring at the giant with the ruined face, Zuckerman says, “What makes him a ‘poor fella’? I’m the guy got buffaloed.”
    Mrs. Merryweather lowers her voice, as though imparting something unseemly. “Poor guy’s in stage four I’m told, pancreatic cancer, inoperable.”
    Zuckerman thinks about this, sips his champagne, thinks about it some more, then decides to investigate further and walks over to the colossus.
    “You got me,” Zuckerman says to the giant, with as much conviviality as he can muster. “Not since I read my pre-nup with my third wife have I been that petrified.”
    All at once, as though by some stroke of magical alchemy, the giant’s face changes from its natural repose of sinister menace into a warm, open look of empathy—a transformation not unlike Godzilla pausing to help an old lady across the street. “I feel terrible about what I did, Mr. Zuckerman.”
    “Don’t sweat it.”
    “I will admit to you that I needed the money.”
    Zuckerman waves his hand. “No harm done.”
    “I wouldn’t harm a flea, Mr. Zuckerman; I have insurance issues is the thing.”
    “Completely understandable,” Zuckerman assures the man. “I meant what I said, however, about your . . . unique style. Turns out, if I may be so bold as to pat myself on the back, I was correct in my assessment of your unique proclivities.”
    Allerton looks down shyly, tries to stifle a smile jerking at the corners of his intimidating face. “I made a few pictures a long time ago,” he says, “but nobody wants an old tough guy no more.”
    Zuckerman gets an idea. Maybe the idea comes because Zuckerman had found himself staring into the abyss that night. Maybe it comes because he had been thinking about God. But whatever the source, it strikes him right then as all his epiphanies do: in the scrotum, then traveling up the base of his spine to the core of his midbrain. It would not only be a challenge but would also perhaps be an opportunity for Zuckerman to do something outside the realm of lies, exploitation, greed, and deception that customarily govern his daily existence. Perhaps it would be an opportunity to atone, to get himself on track with the Torah, to fulfill a