Masques

by J N Williamson

  “I’ll bet you’ve taken a hundred women here,” she kidded him.

  “You’re the first,” he lied. “I’ve come here alone before, just working things out. But with you—I wanted to share it. I wanted to show you off to the heavens.”

  She sipped her wine and shook her head, as if in wonderment. “The things you do say,” she whispered. A gentle wind had blown her blond hair over one eye; candlelight danced in the other.

  “Carla,” Harry said after watching her for a moment, “I can’t hide the way I’ve come to feel about you.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “I’ve fallen in love with you. I can’t even think of Lynn anymore. And I don’t want to. I think I’ve known from that moment outside the apartment when I turned around and saw you. I’ve never been so heady. Like every moment in my life had conspired to bring you to me.” He stood and walked toward the edge of the overlook. Then he gestured to the universe overhead. “I’ve come up here thinking about us. About what to say to you. What to think about you. When I met you, it was as if my past had been erased. There was only the present, only you. Nothing else mattered. Now,” he said in a softer voice, “I think that if I lose you my future will be erased as well. Gone before I live it because it won’t be worth living.” He turned to face her. She was still on the blanket, legs curled beneath her. Lights played on her features as a breeze brushed the candles. A solitary tear made its way down her face. “I know I could lose you by telling you all this. But we have to deal from a base of truth.” He turned away from her and back to the distant lights. A moment later he felt her presence behind him. Then her arms snaked beneath his and wrapped tightly around him.

  “So what do you want to do about it?”

  The drive down through Mexico was hot. And every mile was an agony for Harry. He thought of Nuñez and the zombies, the drunken sailors, the lives abbreviated through the ravages of heroin; of the air and the odor, the way it was absorbed by the people of Puerta Valencia until they no longer noticed it, until they emitted it themselves, until, indeed, they passed it on to their offspring.

  And there was Carla. Guileless, loving, innocent Carla. He thought of the things he’d said to her on the overlook. He’d said them many times before, to many women. But he had meant them for her. The others were—rehearsals. Now that his act had finally opened for real, he was going to give it up after one performance. To Nuñez.

  The thought of returning there with Carla, of selling her, of leaving her to the nightmares of the cove of Puerta Valencia, finally became unbearable.

  “We’re not going,” Harry said. He pulled the car off onto the shoulder of the road.

  Carla had been riding along, head reclined, eyes closed, listening to the radio. She turned to Harry and said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Let’s head back to L.A. We can get married there. This is a miserable time of year for Mexico, anyway.”

  “What do you mean? It’s green and warm, the sea is beautiful, we’re together . . .” She let it trail off, then looked out her window, away from Harry. “So that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “What’s ‘it’?” Harry asked.

  “You’re having second thoughts about us.”

  “Yes, I am,” he said, “but not the way you think.”

  “How then?”

  “Trust me, love,” he told her. “There are better places for us to be.”

  She turned to him and studied him for a moment, as if trying to divine the truth. “You don’t look like you feel well, Harry. Is everything all right?”

  “I’m hot,” he said, “and homesick.”

  “Okay,” she relented; “then we’ll go back. But I’ll drive. You look horrid.” She reached beneath her seat and produced a thermos. “Here’s some iced tea I fixed at home. Maybe you’ll feel better if you drink some.”

  They traded seats, and Harry settled comfortably back with a cup of tea. He drank it in one long swallow, then poured another and sipped at it. Out from behind the wheel he felt a drowsiness come over him. He didn’t fight it. He hadn’t slept well since the night at the overlook. Now things would be different.

  Before he slumped into sleep, it occurred to him, only in passing, that during the entire trip he’d never seen Carla take a sip from the thermos.

  It was a stiff, endless awakening for him, and though vision, hearing, speech and touch hovered collectively just beyond his reach, his olfactory senses were jarred awake by the acrid stench of fuel and oil. Harry cracked open his eyelids, breaking a seal of sleep that had congealed on them. Two featureless figures leaned over the bed on which he lay.

  “Did you have a nice sleep, darling?” he heard Carla’s soft voice inquire.

  Harry tried to move, but stopped abruptly when he felt a pain tear through his abdomen.

  “Lie still, sweetheart. You’re in no condition to go anywhere.” He felt her hand begin to stroke his hair. “Besides, you’re home now.”

  Harry swallowed. The familiar stench grew stronger. “We’re in Puerta Valencia,” he said in a dry whisper.

  “Indeed we are,” she told him.

  Harry looked at the other figure, forcing the image into focus. It was Raoul. His mouth was stretched into some hideous, toothy grin. It was then a bolt of fear tore through his body. Instinctively, Harry tried to get up, but he was bound spread-eagle by leather straps. And there was that pain in his lower abdomen again.

  He tried to shout, but his voice was imprisoned in a whisper. “Damn you, what have you done?” His heart was beating furiously. “Carla, what’s happening!”

  “Don’t get upset, darling,” she soothed. “You’ve been through a trauma and have been sleeping for awhile.” She smiled. “Almost three weeks now, in fact.”

  “Why?” The pain tore at him.

  She glanced at Raoul, then back to Harry. “You’ve had an operation and needed time to recover.”

  He could barely form the word. “Operation?”

  “Yes, Crawley,” Raoul thundered, and grabbed Harry by his hair, jerking up his head to face down the length of his prostrate body. He held it long enough for Harry to see how they’d mutilated him—his naked, hairless limbs and torso, the still raw scars near his crotch, the small, white, adolescent’s breasts. Harry’s scream was stifled when the Mexican shoved a gag in his mouth and knotted it behind his neck.

  “There’s a hospital in Zacetecas, about a hundred miles east of here, Harry,” Carla said. “They’re quite adept at this type of operation actually. Transsexual surgery has really become rather commonplace, although I admit we had to pay a premium since we didn’t exactly have your consent. Fortunately the surgeon is a bit of a heroin trader on the side, so we were able to strike a bargain.” She stroked his hair again. “Of course, this is just the beginning. There are a number of other treatments involved. Hormones and all that. But as you can see, the basics have been taken care of. I suspect you’ll grow more amenable to the rest—out of necessity, if nothing else.” She smiled that familiar smile, the one Harry had thought so full of love. “I could have just killed you, you know. But knowing you and your past, this seemed so much more appropriate.”

  Blue veins straining the skin on his forehead, Harry bellowed through the gag until he sank back, broken, weeping. Carla cupped his chin in her palm and turned his head toward one of his bound arms.

  “As you can see, Harry,” she said, indicating a large scabby bruise in the fold of his elbow, “you’re being administered heroin. I’m sure you don’t need an explanation as to why.”

  Eyes stinging with hate and frustration, Harry stared at his betrayer.

  “Please understand it was business, Harry,” Carla said with quintessential detachment. “You see, I’m Nuñez’ other supplier. I can get closer to the girls—better girls—in a shorter period of time. I’ve even sold a few of them on making a living down here. It saves dear Ramiro on that staggering drug bill. And this business with you, this alteration—well, it was my idea, but R
amiro loved it. You really didn’t have many friends here, you know.”

  Above the gag, Harry’s nostrils flared at the stinging scent of Puerta Valencia.

  “I do have to run, sweet. I’ll be seeing you in a week or so. Do take care now.” She turned and strode calmly toward the door. Raoul followed.

  “NO!” Harry pleaded through the gag. “Don’t leave me!”

  “Goodbye, Harry.”

  “But I loved you,” he bellowed, as if by the act he should be foreverafter immune to any violation.

  Carla hadn’t made out the words. “Isn’t it amazing,” she said to Raoul, “how they always look at you the same way when you leave. I always wonder what they’re trying to say.” She glanced at Harry, smiled, shrugged, and left.

  Harry’s head fell back to the hard, grimy bed. For minutes he wept quietly, and of all things he thought that now—now—he finally knew what the women had wanted to say to him.

  Harry closed his eyes. He breathed the stench, felt it creeping into his flesh, into his mind, into his soul. He twisted, straining at his bonds. They held. Then he wept, agonized, praying for death. His sweat drenched the sheetless mattress beneath him. A hundred insects blackening the ceiling above him now drifted down to alight on him, his blood a new food source. Harry convulsed silently as they ate at him. His dizzying horror, his hoarse and hideous screaming, his tendon-tearing struggle with his bonds didn’t begin until he recognized the grunted step—step—step, the monstrous groaning of the staircase, and he knew Nuñez was coming to have him.

  Trust Not a Man

  William F. Nolan

  When Bill Nolan’s first story appeared (1954), he’d already been a Hallmark cards cartoonist and water color painter. Since then, over 600 Nolan pieces have been published plus a varied array of 42 books: from the sf novel Logan’s Run (its co-written screenplay was one of Bill’s three-dozen film/TV deals) to bios of hardboiled Dashiell Hammett, actor Steve McQueen and racing Speed King Barney Oldfield, to the line-blurring Space For Hire (Special Edgar award scroll from Mystery Writers of America in ‘71)—and its recent sequel, Look Out for Space.

  Born March 6, 1928, in “ole K.C.,” Bill left the Midwest at 19 for California, where he stayed. While his first H&O collection (Things Beyond Midnight) did not develop until 1984, Nolan vows, “Horror was my meat and potatoes as a kid.” He became a close friend of Ray Bradbury, Charles Beaumont, and Ray Russell, whose yarns Bill reprinted in his 1970 anthology, A Sea of Space. Bradbury’s Long After Midnight (‘74) is dedicated to Nolan. No writer in any genre today may have more loyal friends. His recollections of Beaumont, Bradbury, Richard Matheson and others were invaluable to Marc Scott Zicree’s Twilight Zone Companion (‘82), which repeatedly quotes him—this delightful Good Guy who still sketches Creatures on his letters and all over his envelopes!

  If it’s true that the line between horror and hypothetically “serious” fiction fades when the writer works effectively with psychological aberration, which someone surely must have written, I wonder why. Is it because the author eschews “real” monsters to enter the single realm science considers both sacred and presently unknowable—inner space? More than other types of fantasy, horror encourages such explorations. Or could it be because writers were first to examine the human mind as it exists, and often do so better than psychologists?

  “Trust Not a Man” seems to support all these theories—with one exception. When William F. Nolan turns his talents to horror, the only things cast aside are the reader’s incredulity and his last frail strands of courage . . .

  For many years she had refused to believe she was pretty. She considered her nose too thin, her lips too full, her ankles too narrow. But a lot of people, mostly men, kept telling her how pretty she was and, in time, she came to accept it. She had always known she was bright. That was what Daddy always called her: “My bright little girl.” She’d made top grades all through high school and college. She could have earned her degree, easily, if she had chosen to remain in college, but she got bored.

  Professor Hagemann had been quite upset with her when she told him she was quitting at the end of her second year. He felt she could become a prize-winning botanist. She remembered how flushed and angry he looked: “Spoiled, that’s what you are, Elise! Your father gives you too much, and you depend on him for everything. It’s as if he owns you. Where’s your spirit, your incentive? You’ve let him spoil you—and I say it’s a damn waste!”

  Of course, he was right about her; she had been spoiled by her father. All the stocks and bonds in her name when she was a child. The new Mercedes on her sixteenth birthday. The diamond necklace from Tiffany’s for her twentieth. And, when she turned twenty-five, this large beach house in Malibu. It had cost $600,000 and was worth three times that much now.

  After her evening shower, Elise sat cross-legged, in a yoga lotus position, on the woven tatami mat in front of the fireplace, listening to the ocean. To the surf coming in . . . going out . . . coming in . . .

  Following her father’s death she had remained in the house for a full month. Had groceries delivered. Ate alone. Saw no one. Just sat here, listening to the ocean, letting it talk to her.

  Surf in . . . “Pretty,” it said in a sibilant whisper.

  Surf out . . . “Bright,” it said.

  And, finally, what it kept saying to her, over and over through the long nights: “Lonely . . . Lonely . . . Lonely . . .”

  Daddy had been her world, entire and complete. He gave her everything. Love. Approval. Companionship. Knowledge. The void, after his death, was black and deep and terrible.

  She’d sold the mansion in Beverly Hills, the Rolls, the inscribed Faulkner first editions, the Motherwell paintings, the collection of pre-Columbian art—even the Elly, the yacht which he’d named after her. Everything had been sold.

  Except the plants. They were also his children—her brothers and sisters—and she would never abandon them. She had a special greenhouse constructed for them right on the beach. Plenty of sun. Controlled temperature and humidity. Special soils. And she had moved her father’s lab, all of it, here into the house where she carried on his work.

  Maybe that’s why the advanced botany courses at UCLA had bored her. (Daddy taught me more about plants in his lab than any college professor ever knew.) She’d earned her real degree before she had ever set foot on campus. Her father had seen to that.

  “Lonely..the surf whispered to her. “Lonely . . .”

  And she was now. Oh, God, she was!

  Elise stood up.

  Time to get out again. Into the real world. Time to make contact, meet a new man, explore a fresh mind.

  She pulled the towel from her head and the shining red mass of her hair spilled loose. She combed it vigorously, put on a silk blouse, Gucci boots, and a pair of designer jeans, applied eye makeup and lipstick, and dabbed perfume between her breasts.

  Ready for combat. That’s how she thought of it. Field of battle: a singles bar. Opponent: male. His weapons: beach boy muscles, cool wit, blond good looks. Goal: seduction.

  At least that always seemed to be his goal; she had others. Maybe some night, among all the eligible young men in this vast city, she’d meet someone like her father. Sensitive, warm, intelligent, caring.

  Maybe.

  Some night.

  Fast Eddie’s was crowded. Hazed with cigarette smoke. Noisy with punk rock and a frenzied cross-mix of alcoholic conversation. It was always this way on a Friday. She had liked the romantic atmosphere of the place when it was called Starshadows, before it had been so rudely converted from a quiet oceanside restaurant to a fast-action singles bar—but she just didn’t feel up to driving into the city, and this was the best place in Malibu to make contact.

  She needed to find a man tonight.

  It was time.

  “What’ll yours be, hon?” asked the bartender. Female. Brassy and big-bosomed in a tight black leather outfit with her name silver-stitched over her left boob: Irma. My friend I
rma.

  “Johnnie Walker,” Elise told her. “Ice—no soda.”

  “A hard John on the rocks comin’ up,” said Irma. And she began fixing the drink.

  The bar was swarming with male predators. Why do I think of them that way? she asked herself. They’re not all here to make a quick night’s score. Some are just lonely, like I am. Decent guys. Maybe even a little shy. Looking for that “special” person. They’re not all sharks, she told herself.

  Elise was sipping her Scotch when she felt a hand touch her right shoulder. She turned.

  “Hi, doll!” said a tall young man in a textured burgundy shirt, slashed low to display his matted chest hair. He was smiling at her from a wide, sun-bronzed face. His teeth were very white and even. Probably capped. “Mind if I squeeze in?”

  “I’m a woman, not a doll,” she told him coldly. “And I know what you’d like to squeeze into. Take a hike.”

  He muttered a sharp obscenity and drifted back into the crowd. Taut with anger, she finished her drink, ordered another.

  The next two men who approached her were just like Mr. Bronze. Pushy. Obnoxious. Disgustingly self-centered. Sexually arrogant. One of them opened his hand to show her a white vial and asked her if she wanted to “powder her nose.” She told him she didn’t do drugs and he shrugged, moved away down the bar.

  Elise was getting discouraged. Maybe she should drive on into Westwood or Beverly Hills. She’d heard about a new dine-and-dance club that had opened on Wilshire, called Harper’s Hut. Might be worth a try. She’d obviously made a mistake in coming here tonight.

  “Are you . . . with anybody?”

  Nice voice. Deep and strong. She looked up from her drink—into a pair of intense eyes so darkly-blue they were nearly black. She liked dark eyes; her father’s eyes had been dark. “Alone,” she said.