Carrion

by Gary Brandner

  The woman was obviously a crank. He supposed he would have to get used to that now — people using all sorts of phony stories to get close to him. The price of fame. He could learn to deal with it.

  Sure, that’s all it was. A crank.

  So why did he feel so cold inside?

  Chapter 20

  Riding in the back of his custom Rolls-Royce, Elliot Kruger adjusted the reading light to his newspaper. He read carefully the account of McAllister Fain’s new triumph in restoring the life of the young black basketball player. The paper treated Fain very respectfully, in contrast to the stories that followed his work with Leanne, and even when he revived the Mexican boy.

  Kruger expelled a long breath and ran a hand through his hair. It was falling out in clumps these days, leaving bare patches of scalp, but Kruger hardly cared. He raised his eyes from the paper to the square shoulders of Garner, the chauffeur, seeking something solid and familiar in a world that had been suddenly knocked askew.

  Although the morning was warm and he wore a suit and vest, Elliot Kruger shivered. He adjusted the rear-seat heater control, but the warm air that flowed instantly from concealed vents could not ease the bone-deep chill.

  Again this morning Leanne had refused to have breakfast with him. She no longer left the bedroom; nor would she allow him in. The only people she saw now were Rosalia and Dr. Peter Maylon.

  How long had things been going badly? Kruger tried to calculate when was the last time he and his wife had been together, relaxed and happy. But his mind was blurred with worry and lack of sleep. He could not count up the days. Too damn long — he knew that much. And it started less than a week after McAllister Fain had restored Leanne to him. That was when she had begun to change.

  He started trying to reach Fain when he read about the Mexican boy and had called repeatedly with no luck. There was no answer at the Echo Park apartment. This morning he got a phone-company recording telling him the number was no longer in service. There were ways a man with his resources could find the occultist, but Kruger was reluctant to involve other people.

  He had also tried Fain’s assistant, or girlfriend, or whatever she was — Jillian Pappas. She had been cordial enough but said she had not seen Fain for weeks and did not know where he could be reached. She gave him the number of a man named Lendl, who she said might help, but he, too, denied any recent knowledge of Fain.

  Now, sick with worry about his wife, Kruger was going hat in hand to the old friend he had dismissed for speaking his mind about McAllister Fain and what he had done to Leanne.

  Garner pulled to the curb before one of the tall, featureless buildings in Century City, and Kruger got out. He entered the lobby and walked across the terra-cotta floor to the bank of elevators. Inside the car he pushed the button for the thirtieth floor.

  The Thousand and One Strings played “You Light Up My Life” as the car rose silently. The music was wasted on Elliot Kruger.

  The carpeting in the hallway, a dark rust color, was deep enough to muffle his footsteps. Kruger found the office bearing the name of Dr. David Auerbach. He hesitated a moment, squared his shoulders, and walked in.

  The receptionist gave him a professional smile. “Good morning, Mr. Kruger. You can go right in. Doctor is waiting for you.”

  At least Doctor did not make him sit in the chilly chrome-and-glass waiting room. Considering the way Kruger had treated him, Auerbach would have been justified. And Kruger would have sat there and waited as long as he had to.

  He found David Auerbach sitting behind his neat, polished desk. The doctor did not offer to rise as Kruger entered. Behind him, the window overlooked broad Olympic Boulevard to the east. The morning was still overcast, and the view did nothing to lighten Kruger’s mood.

  “Hello, David,” he said. “How have you been?”

  “Well enough.” The doctor motioned Kruger into a chair. Reflected light from the desk lamp glinted off the lenses of his tiny spectacles.

  “I guess the best way to start is with an apology,” Kruger said.

  “Not necessary,” Auerbach told him.

  “Maybe not for you, but it is for me. I brushed aside a friendship of many years because I was so blindly happy at having my wife back. That was all I could think of. I would not, could not, listen to anybody who questioned my happiness. What it amounts to, David — I was a damn fool.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me on that,” Auerbach said.

  “And about that ticket to Hawaii …”

  “Ah, yes, the bribe.”

  “I have no defense for that, either.”

  “That was what really pissed me off,” Auerbach said. “That you thought you would have to bribe me not to talk about what I saw at your house that night. And you thought I would take it. Elliot, you should have known me better.”

  “Yes, I should have. I was sure of it when you sent the ticket back by messenger. I tried to call you then, but all I ever got was your answering service.”

  “I know.”

  “And no call back.”

  “You were not a patient.”

  Kruger spread his hands beseechingly. “David, I’ve told you I’m sorry. I’m not much good at groveling. What more do I have to say?”

  Dr. Auerbach leaned forward across the desk. “You’re not looking good, Elliot. Are you eating all right? Getting exercise? Enough sleep?”

  “No to all three questions,” Kruger said. “But it’s not about me I came to see you.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s Leanne. She isn’t doing well, David.”

  Auerbach stroked his cropped beard and said nothing.

  “She stays in the bedroom all day long with the curtains drawn. She won’t come out and won’t let me in. The maid takes her meals in and brings back the tray barely touched. I’m worried sick about her.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to come and take a look at her. Find out what’s wrong. Take her to the hospital if you have to.”

  “You took me off the case, remember?”

  “I’m putting you back on. If it’s a matter of money — ”

  He caught the sudden tightening of Auerbach’s facial muscles.

  “Sorry, David. Please come back.”

  “Isn’t she still in the care of your new doctor?”

  Kruger frowned. “Maylon. That was another mistake. He seemed competent enough at first, but lately I can’t get anything out of him. He gives me a lot of medical double-talk and won’t look me in the eye. He’s coming over this morning. I plan to dismiss him. Then will you take over?”

  “Once Leanne is no longer his patient, I’ll be glad to see her.”

  Kruger dropped his head into his hands. When he looked up, his eyes were moist. “Oh, God, thank you, David. I can’t tell you what this business has taken out of me.”

  “You don’t have to,” Auerbach said. He scribbled on a prescription pad, tore off the top sheet, and handed it to Kruger. “Have this filled and take one at mealtime and one before going to bed. You’re a mess. You should have a complete physical.”

  “Later.” Kruger took the prescription and stuffed it into a pocket without reading it. He pushed himself out of the chair. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get rid of Dr. Maylon.”

  The doctor stood up and came around the desk. The two men walked out together through the waiting room. Auerbach said, “Have you seen any more of that Fain fellow?”

  “No, but I’ve been reading about him.”

  “So have I, and I don’t like what I read.”

  “I should have listened to you, David. You were right about him from the start.”

  The doctor shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. At the time, I thought he was a fraud and a con man. Now I’m afraid he may be something far more dangerous.”

  They shook hands at the door. Kruger strode back down in the elevator, left the building, and climbed into the waiting Rolls.

  • • •

  He h
ad been home less than twenty minutes when Dr. Peter Maylon was admitted. The young doctor looked thinner. There were brownish shadows around his eyes, and he had missed a patch of his jaw in shaving that morning. It was as though everyone associated with Leanne shared her affliction.

  Kruger moved into his path as Maylon headed for the stairs. “Doctor, I’d like to have a talk with you this morning when you’ve finished with my wife.”

  Maylon faced him with some strange emotion in his eyes. Then he looked quickly away. “Yes, sir. There’s something I want to tell you, too.”

  “I’ll be in my study.”

  The young doctor continued up the stairs. Kruger watched him out of sight, then walked to the sideboard and poured himself a highly uncustomary morning brandy.

  • • •

  Leanne Kruger’s room was, as usual lately, in deep shadows. On her orders, Rosalia had removed all the bright light bulbs from the fixtures. Heavy draperies were pulled across the windows day and night. The only illumination came from a low-wattage pink bulb in one of the bedside lamps.

  Dr. Maylon stood in the doorway for a minute to let his eyes adjust. The air in the room was heavy with Leanne’s perfume and the floral incense she had taken to burning. Still, they could not mask the fetid smell that grew daily more offensive.

  “Come in, Peter. Close the door.” Leanne’s voice had lost its musical quality. She spoke now in a shrill, whining tone. “Come over here, where I can see you.”

  He approached the bed. Even in the faint and flattering pink light he could see the signs of her deterioration. Although the makeup was heavy on her face, lines showed through. Her eyes had a feverish brightness. A royal-blue satin coverlet was pulled up to her chin. The fingers of one hand, which played with the coverlet, had thinned and bent into bony claws.

  Leanne smiled at him. He winced at the effect, then removed his glasses and polished them to cover his embarrassment. Leanne’s gums were shrunken and pale. Her teeth were stained. Switching on his professional manner, the young doctor strode to the bed and took her wrist for a pulse count. He could feel the bones just beneath the rubbery skin.

  “Don’t I get a hello kiss?” she said.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Same as yesterday, only a little worse.” She seized his arm with her free hand. The strength in her skeletal fingers surprised him. “Come into bed and make me feel better.”

  He looked down into her face, clownlike with the heavy makeup. A trick of the shadows turned her eyes into empty sockets. And yet he felt the familiar surge of desire. He wanted this woman beyond reason. He would always want her.

  With an effort, he pried her fingers from his arm. “No more, Leanne. I want to end this now.”

  “Stop teasing me.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  She pushed herself to a sitting position. Her hair still held its luster. “You don’t mean it, Peter. You know you don’t. You love me.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not love. It was never love. I wanted you. I … lusted for you. And God help me, I still do. But it’s finished. The only reason I came today was to tell you that.”

  Leanne pushed aside the covers and stood up. Her pale blue nightgown hung to the floor, touching the tips of her breasts and the soft roundness of her belly.

  Even as the sight gave him the beginning of an erection, Maylon recoiled from the memory of the mushy, flaccid feel of her flesh. He backed away.

  She followed him, her brightly painted mouth turned down in an exaggerated pout. “Have you forgotten the talks we’ve had?” she said in her new harsh voice. “Don’t you remember what I told you Elliot would do if I told him about us?”

  “I’m going to tell him myself,” Maylon said. “There’s nothing he can do to me that’s worse than what I’m doing to myself.”

  She backed him up against one of the curtained windows. “And what about your loving, trusting wife, Peter? What was her name? Oh, yes, Ann; that was it. A simple name for a simple, trusting little wife. What do you think she will say when she finds out.”

  “She already knows,” Maylon said.

  “What?”

  “I told her. Last night. These weeks have been hell for me. I couldn’t keep it up any longer, so I told her. Do you want to know what she did? I’ll tell you. She cried, and she called me a bastard and a few other names that I richly deserve. Then she held me and said she loved me, and we both cried. I love her, Leanne, more than I could possibly love anyone or anything. I am going to devote the rest of my life to making her happy.”

  “You’re lying!” Leanne said.

  “No. For the first time in a month I’m telling everybody the plain truth.”

  “You can’t leave. You can’t. You love me, not your mousy little Ann. You love me!”

  The young doctor’s composure slipped. He snatched the heavy drapery away from the window and let the cruel morning light stream in through the glass.

  “Love you? You think I love you? Look at yourself! How could anybody love something that looks like that?”

  She stood frozen for a moment, face caked with makeup, eyes deeply shadowed, hands bony and spotted. Then she screeched wordlessly at him and seized him by the front of his jacket.

  Peter Maylon was jerked to one side as though he were a rag doll. He felt himself pushed powerfully backward. He hit the window, and the glass shattered as he lost his balance and flipped backward over the thigh-high sill.

  There was an instant of weightless terror as he saw the white face with its cavernous mouth growing smaller above him. The rushing air roared in his ears. His last thought was My God, I’m going to hit head fir —

  • • •

  Downstairs, Elliot Kruger heard the blatt out on the patio. He dropped his glass of brandy and ran to the French doors. Peter Maylon lay facedown on the flagstones, arms and legs spread in a skydiving position. His head was cracked open like a cantaloupe, a mess of blood and brains.

  Kruger’s stomach lurched. He spat out a mouthful of regurgitated brandy. A crow cawed raucously above him, snapping him out of a momentary shock. He whirled and ran inside. He took the stairs two at a time and burst into the dark bedroom. Leanne sat on the bed, her face buried in her hands. The curtains fluttered gently at one of the windows. Kruger ran to his wife and knelt before her.

  “Leanne, what happened?”

  “He — he started touching me. Pawing me.”

  “Maylon?”

  “Yes. I told him to stop. He’d never done anything like that before. He was like a crazy man. He p-pulled up my nightgown. He was going to … going to …” She broke off into a fit of sobbing.

  Kruger sat beside his wife on the bed. He put an arm around her shoulders. The flesh had an odd spongy feel through the silky fabric. There was a powerful mingling of odors in the room. Perfume, incense, and something very sick.

  “Take your time, darling,” he told her. “It will be all right.”

  Her sobs eased off. Still not looking at him, she said, “When he grabbed hold of me, I … I pushed him. He stumbled and fell backward. He … he went through the window.”

  “I know. Hush now, Leanne. I’ll call Orrin Bedlow. He’ll know how to handle this.”

  For the first time she let her hands fall away and looked up at him. At the same moment, a soft breeze moved the curtain just enough to let the morning light fall on her face.

  Elliot Kruger choked off a groan.

  Chapter 21

  The death of Dr. Peter Maylon was little noticed outside his modest home on the unfashionable side of Sunset in Beverly Hills. The whole thing was handled with quiet efficiency by the legal firm of Orrin Bedlow & Associates, attorneys for Kruger Industries. Although no liability was admitted, a generous cash settlement was arranged for the widow and a trust fund established for the young daughter.

  The media virtually ignored the story. It was covered sketchily by the Times in the page-two roundup of local news. The victim was identified as a “Beverly Hi
lls physician who died of head injuries in a fall from a second-floor window.” The names of Elliot and Leanne Kruger were not mentioned. Nor was that of McAllister Fain. The short paragraph was sandwiched between threats of a transit strike and the naming of a new president at Cal Poly.

  McAllister Fain did not read the story. He had little time these days for reading anything other than news about himself. Of that there was an abundance. After Ivy Hurlbut’s series in the L.A. Insider, both Time and Newsweek had done features on him. Los Angeles magazine was ready with a lead article. A couple of “unauthorized” paperback biographies were already on the Stands, while the Federated Artists ghostwriters rushed the official version to completion. The clipping service they employed provided a fat daily envelope of news stories from all over the country.

  Life at Eagle’s Roost had changed dramatically since the widely reported resurrection of Kevin Jackson. The sealed-off rooms had been opened. A full staff of servants was now employed. Federated Artists had a virtual branch office located in the house, with switchboard, secretaries, a receptionist, files, and a Xerox machine.

  Fain was on a balcony off his bedroom, eating a breakfast of poached eggs, ham, English muffins, and grapefruit, when Warner Echols found him. He looked up at the agent’s entrance and waved a spoon.

  “Warner, what do you say? Had breakfast?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Have some coffee, then.” He touched the side of the silver carafe. “You’d better call downstairs for a fresh pot. This is cold.”

  Echols hesitated only a moment, then went into the bedroom and used the newly installed intercom to call Fain’s order down to the kitchen. Then he rejoined Fain on the balcony.

  “Some good news,” he said. “We’ve got you all but signed on Carson for Wednesday.”

  “So soon?”

  “A piece of luck there. The San Diego zoo lady had to cancel, and they need somebody hot to fill in.”