In that singular voice and precise diction, Mr. Hitchcock said, “They must have reason to believe the world will end by diarrhea.”
I don’t recall my reply. I know I said something, but my own words were forever knocked out of my memory by the sudden realization that he had talked.
Twenty-eight
THE DEAD DON’T TALK. I DON’T KNOW WHY. I’VE ALWAYS thought that they are denied speech because, if they possessed it, they would be likely to reveal something about death that the living are not meant to know.
Mr. Hitchcock had died thirty-two years earlier. There had never been any crazy rumors about him having faked his death, as there had been about Elvis. Besides, he chose to manifest as about fifty years of age, when he’d been in his prime as a filmmaker; but if this was the real Mr. Hitchcock, he would be far past the century mark, having been born in 1899.
I stared at him, aware that my mouth hung open but unable to close it.
“Mr. Thomas,” he said, “the hour is late, the clock is ticking, and this scenario requires James Stewart, not Tab Hunter.”
“Sir … you’re talking.”
“Your powers of observation are impressive. But they alone will not ensure the safety of seventeen children. There are things—”
“But the spirits of the lingering dead don’t talk.”
“I died, as you know. But I have never lingered in my entire existence, either before death or after. One always has too much to do to linger anywhere. Now there are things I need to tell you, Mr. Thomas, but the telling will be pointless if you are not prepared to listen.”
“Call me Odd, sir. Or Oddie. That would be cool. I mean, since I’m such a fan. Your work was brilliant.”
“Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Some of it was quite good, some just all right, some unfortunate. Where you may have serious complaints, I imagine they should be addressed to the producer with whom I had to work on occasion, Mr. David O. Selznick—wherever he may be. Now shall we get to the matter of the children?”
“Wait a minute,” I said, thunderstruck by a sudden realization. “You can’t just—We’ve got to— If you’re talking— I mean, then what are you, sir? Are you my … my guardian angel?”
“I am touched by your high opinion of me, Mr. Thomas.”
“Call me Odd.”
“That’s very kind of you. But angels, Mr. Thomas, are born angels and are never anything else, except of course when they disguise themselves, when visiting Earth, as people or dogs, or whatever. I assure you that during my many years on Earth, I was not an angel pretending to be human, and I am not an angel now.”
“Then what are you?”
“The hierarchy of spirits and the assignment of various tasks and responsibilities after death are issues more complicated than Hollywood has portrayed them. No surprise there. But if you insist on my spelling out all of that, I assure you that by the time I finish, the children will be dead.”
He pushed out his lower lip, raised his eyebrows, and regarded me expectantly, as if to say, Shall we let them die, then, so your curiosity can be satisfied?
In defense of my temporary inability to focus on the children, I can only plead that I had recently fended off three attack dogs, toured a collection of severed heads, visited a satanic temple, just killed a man—killed, not murdered—was afraid that I would have to kill many more, had heard a spirit speak for the first time ever, and he was Alfred Hitchcock.
But his raised eyebrows and his pout of disapproval, subtle as they were, brought me to my senses, as I imagine that expression and others equally well-practiced had brought errant actors back to the script and to the intended tone of a production with little or no argument. I thought of him turning the same look on Gregory Peck or Rod Taylor—surely never on Cary Grant or James Stewart—and I couldn’t help but grin.
As soon as I saw his reaction to my delight, of course, I wiped the grin off my face. “Where are the children, sir?”
“They are under guard on the third floor, Mr. Thomas. Getting them down from there and out of this house will test your wits and courage.”
“But I thought they were here in the basement. Jessie, Jasmine, Jordan, and the others. When I thought about them, I was drawn down here to the basement.”
“You were drawn here by me. Had you gone to the third floor without certain knowledge that you must have, you would by now be stone dead.”
He had my attention. “What knowledge?”
“The people here tonight have come from four states in the West. Most of them know one another, but to some of them, there are new faces.”