“Only two,” Kwame said. “I only wrote two of them.”

“They were the best,” Michael said. “You ought to perform more of your compositions.”

A spasm contorted Kwame’s face.

“I don’t write songs now. Not for a long time.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t anymore.”

Kwame put his head down on the table and began to cry.

The other two were staring at Michael with naked hostility, but he hardly noticed. The fact that he did not understand Kwame’s distress did not lessen his feeling of guilt at having somehow provoked it. He felt as if he had struck out blindly with a club and maimed something small and helpless, something that responded with a shriek of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean-”

Kwame raised his head. The top fringes of his beard were damp, and tears still filled his eyes; but he made no move to wipe them away.

“You don’t know what you mean,” he whispered. “You see the shadows on the wall of the cave and you think they’re real. Man, you don’t know what’s out there, in the dark, on the other side of the fire.”

So they still read the old-fashioned philosophers. Michael recognized the allusion, it was one of the few images that remained from his enforced study of Plato. Humanity squatting in the cave, compelled to view the shadows cast on the wall by a flickering fire as the real world, never seeing the Reality that cast the shadows… But his original reading had not evoked the chill horror that gripped him at Kwame’s words. What Beings, indeed, might stalk the darkness outside the world, and cast distorted shadows? Whatever They were, Kwame knew about them. Michael had the irrational feeling that if he looked long enough into the boy’s wide, liquid eyes, he would begin to see what Kwame had seen…

Drugs, he told himself. Drug-induced hallucinations…His incantation of the conventional dispelled the shadows, and he said gently, “It’s all right. I’m sorry. Forget the whole thing.”

Kwame shook his head.

“Can’t forget…anything. I need something. Need…” His eyes turned toward the others, silent, defensive, watching. “You got anything? Grass? Acid?”

The blonde gulped, glancing at Michael. The boy, who seemed to have better control of himself, said calmly, “Nobody carries the stuff, Kwame, you know that. Not in here, anyhow.”

“Then let’s go someplace.” Kwame shoved futilely at the table and tried to stand. “Let’s go-”

The flutter of agitation had spread out beyond their table; other patrons were staring.

Michael sat perfectly still. Kwame’s agitation was beyond reassurance; all he could do was refrain from any move or comment that might seem to threaten or condemn. In fact he felt no sense of condemnation, only a profound pity. After a moment, Kwame relaxed. There was perspiration on his forehead.

“Sorry,” he said, giving Michael another of those sweet smiles. “We’ve gotta go now.”

“I’ve enjoyed talking to you,” Michael said. “And I enjoyed your performance. You’re really good.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help you.”

“That’s all right.”

“And thanks for the food.”

“It was a pleasure.”

The other two were standing, looking nervous as singed cats. But Kwame seemed to be bogged down in a mass of conventionalities.

“Sorry I couldn’t-”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Kwame brooded.

“I knew her,” he said suddenly.

“Who? Oh…” Michael knew how a policeman must feel when confronting, single-handed, a hopped-up addict with a gun. He didn’t know what was safe to say. Kwame spared him the trouble.

“Linda. She’s his wife now.”

“I know.”

“Beautiful,” Kwame said; Michael knew he was not referring to Linda’s face or figure. “A beautiful human being. We tripped together.”

Balanced between caution and curiosity, Michael still hesitated to speak. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Drugs might help to explain…Kwame seemed to sense what he was thinking.

“Not pot, nothing like that. She didn’t need it. She was on a perpetual trip.” He sighed. “Beautiful human being.”

“Yes,” Michael ventured. “Did Randolph take-”

Kwame shook his head.

“Oh, no,” he said gravely. “Not him. He didn’t need it either.”

He started to walk away, his companions falling in behind him like a guard of honor. Then he turned back to Michael.

“He always knew about it.”

“About what?”

“The dark,” Kwame said impatiently. “The dark on the other side.”

Chapter 6

I

MICHAEL SHOVED AT THE TYPEWRITER. GLUED TO the table top by a two-year accumulation of dirt, spilled coffee, and other debris, it did not move; but the movement jarred the table, which proceeded to tip half a dozen books, an empty coffee cup, and a box of paper clips onto the floor.

Michael spoke aloud, warmly. The only response was a growl from Napoleon, couchant before the door. He pushed his chair back, slumped down in it, and moodily contemplated the single sheet of paper before him.

It was raining in the city again. He could hear rain pounding on the windowpane and see the dirty trickles that slid down the glass inside, where the caulking had dried and flaked and never been replaced.

Rain. Like all words, this one had its accumulated hoard of images. Sweet spring rain, freshening the earth and washing the grubby face of the world…The trickles on his window were jet-black. There was enough dirt on the window, but God only knew what color the rain had been to begin with.

The desk lamp flickered ominously, and Michael cursed again. He had forgotten to buy light bulbs. There wasn’t one in the apartment. He had already taken the bulb out of the kitchen.

It might not be the bulb, of course. It might be the damned fuses in the damned antiquated building, or some other failure of the outmoded and overloaded electrical system.

From the dark kitchen came a pervasive stench of scorched food. In his mental anguish over the typewriter he had forgotten about the pan of stew till it turned to a charred mass. One more pan in the trash can… He stubbed his toe groping through the dark kitchen. The broken coffee cup was not one of the ones from the dime store, it was a tender memento of something or other Sandra had given him. Sandra? Joan? Hell.

The paper, the sole product of an afternoon of creative effort, brought no comfort. It was filled from top to bottom with a series of disconnected phrases that weren’t even passable prose.

I hate his bloody guts.

He saved my life.

A desperately unhappy man.

A brilliant scholar.

Sexiest man she ever met.

All-around competence.

Wonderful guy, a real chip off the old block.

Keen, incisive business brain.

Almost too sensitive.

After Budge, one of the greatest backhands I’ve ever seen.

Brilliant…brilliant…brilliant…

And, at the very bottom of the page, dug deep into the paper by the pressure of his fingers on the keys:

He always knew about it. The dark on the other side.

Damn the words, and damn the doped-up infantile little hippie who had produced them, Michael thought. But this verbal incantation didn’t bring relief. He saw his words too clearly for the empty things they were. They didn’t describe Kwame, and they didn’t cancel the impact of the words Kwame had used. He makes bigger magic than I do, Michael thought sourly. Heap strong magic…The words haunted him; last night he had dreamed of shadows and waked in a cold sweat, tangled in bedclothes as if he had spent eight hours battling an invisible attacker.

Still. Dismiss Kwame as a talented junkie, and what did you have left? A series of epigrams, and damned dull ones at that. He was heartily sick of that word “brilliant.”

Yet as the inconclusive interviews had proceeded, one concept began to take shape. One thing about Randolph that was significant, and hard to explain. Incompleteness.