Last Call (Last Call 1)

He remembered having once, while drunk, sunk in a vision down to the Archetype level below his mind and then come up through the wrong personality well and found himself in a woman's body. Maybe he could do that intentionally now, and come up in the Hanari body, and order this young man to throw his gun into the lake and leave. Crane closed his eyes and let his mind descend deeply, beginning to lose the mental outriggers and nets and emblems of his own individuality as he sank toward the level everyone shared.

But he found himself instead in a vivid hypnagogic dream, in which he was sunk in the darkness of the lake's deep water. He knew he was still sitting at the card table aboard his father's houseboat, he could see the paneled walls and the glowing lamps and the Hanari body standing and rocking on the carpet, but he could also see now, dimly, the walls of Siegel's Flamingo penthouse, and dark lake water beyond the aquarium-like windows, and the cupboard behind which had been concealed the shaft that led down to the basement tunnel.

Now, in the dream, the shaft led away upward instead. And a voice in his head, so faint that he couldn't be sure he wasn't imagining it, said, You're too big now to fit. There's only a little bit of me left. I'll go.

Thank you for helping me, Crane thought, and a moment later he was afraid the deteriorated personality out there might have caught the feelings behind the consciously projected thought: doubt, and embarrassment, and repugnance.

But the voice seemed wryly jocular: Happy to. Be a good one, now, and one day help someone else.

I'm grateful to you, thought Crane, more sincerely. Thank you for my family.

There was a faint flicker of associations in Crane's head: a slight bow, a touched hat, a smile.

Crane sensed the remains of the Siegel identity climbing or swimming away up the narrow shaft.

And the dream dissolved, and Crane was wholly sitting in the chair and staring at the Hanari—

—Which blinked and opened its mouth.

Crane darted a glance at Doctor Leaky, but the old man in the wheelchair was just staring at the blank television and drooling.

"Outside," said the Hanari body slowly. "Both of you."

Crane stood up and led the way out onto the breezy deck, closely followed by the Amino Acid. The sun was not yet visible over the Black Mountains, but a dazzling corona shone over the distant peaks.

Crane looked away from the brightness and saw Mavranos and Stevie sitting stiffly in deck chairs on the dock. Stevie was holding the shotgun across his knees.

"Scott Crane," said Hanari, "slowly, with your left hand, take the gun out of your belt, and drop it over the side."

At the mention of a gun, Stevie stood up and raised the shotgun and the other Amino Acid stepped back to have a clear field of fire.

Crane dragged his left palm up the tail of his shirt and tugged at the Pachmayr grips of the gun. When he had got it free of his belt, he paused.

If it's my father in the Hanari body, he thought, I should just spin and try to shoot him, and both of the Amino Acids, too.

He was cold with sweat, but he began to bend his knees in a slight crouch, and he tried to think about how he'd hike the gun to slap well back into his palm and where he'd fall after the first shot.

"Bolt-hole and hidey-hole," said Hanari softly.

That was what Siegel had said to him in the vision under the lake.

I've got to trust in somebody, Crane thought, blinking against the sting of sweat in his eyes. Shall I trust in … Bugsy Siegel?

He straightened and tossed the gun out over the rail, and it splashed into the water. He took a deep breath and let it out.

"Now you, Frank," said Hanari, "into the lake with it."

After a moment's hesitation a revolver flew past Crane's shoulder and into the water.

"Stevie," said Hanari, "bring me the shotgun."

Crane turned to the dock and saw Stevie scramble onto the deck and hand the shotgun to the purple-faced Hanari body, then step respectfully back.

Hanari hefted it and racked the slide, chambering a shell.

He pointed the gun at Frank.

"Stand over with Stevie, boy," said the baritone voice wearily. "On the dock. There's a new King, and you two have nothing to do with him."

Frank and Stevie scrambled off the boat, and the two Amino Acids stood together fearfully on the planks of the dock.

White light touched the street, and Crane looked back and was dazzled by the first sliver of the new sun over the peaks of the Black Mountains.

"Go far away," called the ghost of Benjamin Siegel through the mouth of the Art Hanari body. "Forget all these ambitions. Go!" He walked toward the two Amino Acids, and they retreated up the dock toward the parking lot.