“Go back,” said Eddie. “Climb through The Second Big O up there and hope it leads back to our own world.”
“Perhaps I put it poorly,” said Jack. “What I meant to say was, now that we are here, to stay, until the job is done, what should we do next?”
Eddie yawned mightily. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” he said, “that there is a vast city down the hill, all lit up in the night. How about us finding somewhere safe and taking a bit of a sleep?”
Jack did further yawnings, too. “Good plan, Mister Bear,” said he.
As going forward was fearsome for Eddie, they tramped back to the Hollywood sign. And from there Jack looked out at the lights of the big city that lay below. And it was (and is) an impressive sight. And Jack was suitably impressed. And behind the sign they located the little hut where the bulb-man who had tended to the lights way back in the nineteen-thirties had spent his illuminating existence.
The door was padlocked, but Jack soon had the padlock picked. The two exhausted detectives crept into the little hut, pulled shut the door and settled down in the darkness upon ancient light-bulb boxes. And in less time than it takes to interpret a Forgotheum conundrum, using as your baseline the Magwich/Holliston Principle, they were both quite fast asleep.
A big smiley sun rose over the Hollywood Hills. It didn’t have a big smiley face like the one that rose over Toy City, but it got the job done and its rays slipped in through the dusty panes of the little old hut and touched upon sleeping faces.
Jack awoke with a yawn and a shudder, blinked and sniffed and clicked his jaw. Hopes that the doings of the previous night had been naught but dreamstuff ebbed all away as Jack surveyed his surroundings.
Man-sized shed with a man-sized door. Man-sized tools hanging on a rack. A pile of what looked to be newspapers tied up with string. “A world of men,” said Jack to himself. “Hardly a nightmare scenario. I grew up in a town inhabited by men and women; Toy City has to be the only city inhabited by toys. Probably everywhere else, no matter on which world, is inhabited by men.” Jack paused for a moment then, before adding, “Except those inhabited by an advanced race of chickens, that would be.” A further pause. “But looking on the bright side, Eddie didn’t smell chickens last night, only men.”
“Talking to yourself again?” asked Eddie, awakening.
“Only time I ever have an intelligent conversation,” said Jack.
“Most amusing.” Eddie now looked all about himself. “Shame,” said he. “As you know, we bears never dream, but I really hoped that I might have dreamed this last night.”
“I’m sure there’s nothing to get alarmed about, Eddie. As I was just saying to myself, I come from a town exclusively inhabited by men.”
“Nice place, was it?” Eddie asked.
“Well,” said Jack.
“Well,” said Eddie, “I seem to recall that you hated it so much that you ran away from it.”
“Which doesn’t mean to say that this Hollywood place won’t be nice. Chin up, Eddie, let’s look on the bright side, eh?”
Eddie’s tummy rumbled. “Breakfast would be nice,” he said. “Perhaps there’s a farm nearby where we could steal some eggs, or something.”
“Steal some eggs? Have you decided to give up detective work and pursue a life of crime?”
“You possess local currency, then?”
“Well.”
Eddie was up now and peeping through the door crack. “Much as I hate to do it, then,” he said, “let’s wander carefully into this world of meatheads and see what there is to be seen.”
“Trust me,” said Jack. “Everything will be fine.”
And so down Mount Lee they went,[21] with Jack whistling brightly in order to disguise his nervousness and Eddie quoting and requoting Jack in his head. “Everything will be fine,” he requoted. “What a load of old toot.”
Eventually they reached a fence, climbed over it and found a road.
“See,” said Jack, “nothing to be worried about.”
“I’ve never had a particular terror of roads,” said Eddie. “You gormster.”
“There are houses here, nice houses,” said Jack. “Should I knock and ask for a glass of milk or something?”
“Let’s head on down,” said Eddie. “We saw all the lights last night – this must be a very big city. Big cities have alleyways, many of them behind restaurants. We’ll just rifle through some bins.”
“I’m not doing that!”
“Well, you make your own arrangements, then. I’m as hungry as.”
It’s a long walk down to LA proper. But you do pass some very nice houses on the way. Homes of the Hollywood stars, they are, although Jack and Eddie weren’t to know this yet.
“These are really swish houses here,” said Jack.
“Probably the homes of the local P.P.P.s.” Eddie peered in through magnificent gates, curlicues of bronze and steel, intricate and delicate, held fast by padlock and chain.
“Ra! Ra! Ra! Ra! Ra!” It was a most excruciating sound, loud and raw and fierce. Something huge slammed against the gate, causing Eddie to fall back in alarm. A monstrous hound yelled further Ras! and snarled with hideous teeth.
“Down, boy,” called Jack. “Nice doggy, down.”
“Run for your life,” howled Eddie.
“It’s all right, it can’t get through the gates.”
“I hate it here, Jack, I hate it.”
They walked along the centre of the road. To either side of them now, growly dogs appeared at padlocked gateways and bid them anything but a warm welcome.
“You don’t think,” said Jack, “that you might have got it all wrong, Eddie? We’re not in Dog World, are we?”
“Gormster.”
And then they had to get off the road and off the road with haste.
“Ba! Ba! Ba! Ba! Ba!” went this scary something.
And then something wonderful rushed by.
Jack looked on and he did so in awe. “An automobile,” he said.
And such an automobile was this. An electric-blue Cadillac Eldorado, circa 1955. Big fins, fabulous tail-lights, all the trimmings. Nice.
“Wow,” went Jack as the Cadillac sped on. “Did you ever see anything quite like that?”
Eddie shook his shaken head. “Did you see the size of it?” he said. “I’ve seen swimming pools smaller than that. And …” And Eddie rubbed at his nose and coughed a little, too. “That wasn’t clockwork, was it, Jack? It had smoke coming out of the back.”
Jack shrugged and Jack said, “Let’s keep moving.”
“I’m hungry.”
“So am I.”
And so they wandered on. But for the Ra-ing dogs and the Ba-ing car they saw no more signs of life.
“Where is everybody?” Eddie asked.
“Sun’s just up,” said Jack. “I suppose it’s early yet.”
“What time do you have on your wristwatch?”
Jack checked his watch, shook it, put it to his ear. “It’s stopped,” he said. “That’s odd, it’s never stopped before, although –”
“Although what?”
“Well, I never understood how it worked anyway – it doesn’t have any insides, just a winder connected to the hands.”
“I thought that was all a watch needed,” said Eddie.
“No,” said Jack, and they wandered on.
And at last reached Hollywood Boulevard.
Eddie looked up and Eddie was afeared. “Jack,” whispered Eddie, “Jack, oh Jack, those are very large buildings.”
“A world of men,” said Jack. “Look – there’s a hotel, what does it say? The Roosevelt.”[22]
Jack looked up with considerable awe. “I love that,” he said.
“I hate it,” said Eddie. “But there is one thing I do know about hotels: they always have a lot of dustbins round the back.”
Now it is a fact well known to those who know it well, and those who know it well do not necessarily harbour a particular interest in the foibles of architects, that the rears of hotels are always rubbish. Which is to say that whilst the front façades display all the architectural splendours that those who commissioned their construction could afford, the rears of the buildings are a proper disgrace. They’re all waste pipes and rusty fire escapes and dustbins, lots of dustbins.
22
The Roosevelt Hotel is a magnificent Spanish-colonial-style affair, built in 1927 and thoroughly unspoilt, and it is to be noted that not only were the very first Academy Awards presented there, but Marilyn Monroe did her first ever professional photo-shoot beside the pool.