by Robert Bloch
So the thing to do was take the play away from Blix and call the police himself. Tell them exactly what had happened, lay it right on the line, name the others, cooperate. Sure, he’d have to clear his own part in it, and there’d be a lot of publicity. But it could be good publicity—good for him, good for the business. Simple, how everything fell into place once you stopped thinking drunk.
Standing there in the darkness, Lorch started to close the cabinet door. As he did so, he noticed there was a gap right in the middle of the top shelf. One of the bourbon bottles was missing. Blix didn’t drink—who could have taken it?
The answer came out of the shadows behind him. Jack Lorch turned just in time to see the blurred motion of the bottle descending to smash his skull.
Then he fell, and the cabinet toppled forward and glass shattered on the floor and in his flesh. In the darkness blood and bourbon mingled and Lorch’s thought—his last thought—was that Griswold had been right. It was liquor that killed him, after all.
CHAPTER 12
The man on night duty was named Lubeck. He arrived at Karen’s apartment shortly before ten and had a little private conversation with Doyle outside in the hallway.
Then Doyle left and Lubeck took over. He was a few years older than his predecessor and a good twenty pounds heavier, but his very size and bulk seemed reassuring. Like Doyle, he made the rounds, checking closets and doors and windows.
“You intend to keep the air-conditioning on all night?” he asked. “Good. Then you won’t be opening any windows.” Lubeck walked back into the living room and adjusted the night chain on the door. Karen watched him from the bedroom.
“Mind if I use your phone?” he said. “I want to call in.”
“Go right ahead.”
Karen stood in the doorway as Lubeck dialed. She felt awkward coming back into the living room while he was phoning, but perhaps she could catch the conversation from where she was standing.
It didn’t work out that way. Lubeck spoke very softly, and the air-conditioning drowned out his voice.
Karen shook her head. Why was she acting this way—afraid to walk into her own living room? She wasn’t a prisoner.
Or was she?
A man in armor is his armor’s slave. Robert Browning said that, in “Herakles.” Why the quotation lingered in her mind all these years Karen had never known, but suddenly she realized it was true. We’re all armored, and all enslaved. Just having Lubeck here made her a prisoner—a prisoner of her own need for protection. And Lubeck, armored with his badge and his service revolver, was a prisoner, too—the prisoner of a system that made him report to his superiors. And his superiors were prisoners of the politicians, and the politicians were the prisoners of the people, and the people were, like herself, serving a life sentence while trying to protect themselves against the world. Some of them, of course, were under a death sentence. And it could be carried out anytime—
Karen pushed the thought aside, forced herself to move forward from the doorway just as Lubeck replaced the phone in its cradle.
“Any news?”
Lubeck shook his head. “Nothing.” He stood up. “But don’t worry, everything’s under control. They’ll have a patrol car cruising the area all night. Which reminds me—”
“Yes?”
“I’ll be reporting in a couple of times later on. So if you wake up and hear me on the phone, you’ll know the reason.”
“You’re going to sit out here all night?”
“That’s right. I won’t bother you unless I have to. But keep your door open. And if you hear anything, give a holler.” Lubeck smiled at her. “I know how you feel, it’s a little embarrassing, but don’t let it get you down.”
“It doesn’t,” Karen lied.
“Oh, one thing more. You take anything when you go to bed—any sedative, sleeping pills?”
“No.”
“That’s good.”
Karen wasn’t so sure, but she concealed her doubts. Right now she wanted something that would really knock her out. Undressing in the bathroom, she felt only too wide-awake, fully conscious of the stranger in the other room. She couldn’t possibly fall asleep with him here—and on the other hand, she couldn’t possibly fall asleep if he left. A man in armor is his armor’s slave.
Karen took the spread off without turning on the bedroom light and crawled in under the sheet. She wouldn’t be able to sleep but at least she could rest. The light from the living room filtered dimly along the hall. She closed her eyes against it, and went into the alpha cycle within thirty seconds after her head touched the pillow.
Somewhere in her dreams, Bruce appeared.
He was wearing armor and there was a sword in his hand.
A bloody sword.
CHAPTER 13
Louise Drexel heard it first.
Roger was in the study, working on his stamp collection, and she was in the library. Louise had always been fond of reading, and lately it seemed to occupy her time more and more. Theirs was probably the only house in Bel Air without a television set, and she really missed having one, but Roger was absolutely adamant. “Why stuff your ears with garbage?” he said, and she knew he felt very strongly about it, because he seldom used that sort of language. Louise was tempted to remind him that at one time he’d not only watched television but actually sponsored a program; it was only after he’d sold the business that he changed his mind. He stopped getting the newspaper, too, when he retired. “I’m sixty-five years old and entitled to a little peace and quiet,” he told her. “We have enough troubles of our own without having to worry about other people’s problems.”
It was really Edna he was referring to when he talked about trouble, but neither of them wanted to discuss the matter any further. They’d done their best, and now it was up to the physicians. She was getting the very finest care and they could do no more. And after Roger’s last attack there was simply no point in upsetting him by dwelling on unpleasant things. At first Louise had felt guilty about it—after all, Edna was her daughter, and one doesn’t like to pretend that one’s only child isn’t a matter of concern—but then she reminded herself that her first duty was to her husband.
During his lengthy convalescence, they gave up entertaining and gradually lost touch with most of their friends. Since then neither of them had made any effort to renew social contacts. Again, it was because of Edna—no one outside of the doctor and the part-time help even suspected what had happened to her and where she was now, and it would be awkward to explain.
For a time Louise had felt lost and a bit lonely, but after a while she came to realize that Roger was right. The way things were today, it was better to deal with the world at one remove. As a philatelist, Roger collected little bits and pieces of the world and stuck them into books. As a reader, Louise extracted little bits and pieces of the world that would stick in her mind.
Tonight, for example, she was learning about Khumaraweh. He lived in a palace with walls of lapis lazuli and gold, surrounded by trees with trunks and branches coated in sheets of gilded copper, and he kept lions for pets. His favorite lion, Zouraik, had blue eyes. As a remedy for insomnia, Khumaraweh built an artificial lake, thirteen hundred feet square, in the palace garden, and filled it entirely with mercury. Here he slept on a mattress of inflated skins, lulled to slumber by the movement of the mercury.
It all sounded like something from a fairy tale, but she was reading history—Khumaraweh actually ruled in what has since become the city of Cairo, over eleven hundred years ago. And like Roger, all he desired was peace and quiet.
Louise had just started on the section of the book describing Khumaraweh’s room of golden statues when the peace and quiet was shattered by the sound.
The noise wasn’t loud, but it was persistent, and it seemed to be coming from the rear of the house. Louise’s first thought was that a shutter might be banging against one of the kitchen windows.
Frowning, Louise put her book aside and made her way along the ha
ll.
Even before she entered the kitchen, she could see that the window-shutters were firmly secured. The noise was someone pounding on the back door.
Louise wondered if she ought to get the gun—everyone in the neighborhood kept a gun in the house, ever since those movie people down the street had been robbed—but the revolver was in a desk drawer in the study, and she’d have to disturb Roger. No excitement, the doctor had said.
Louise hesitated. The door was locked and bolted. Perhaps if she just picked up the phone very quietly and called the police—
The pounding became a frantic hammering. And above it, Louise heard the voice.
“Let me in! Let me in—”
Quickly, Louise crossed the room and fumbled with the bolt and key.
She opened the door and Edna fell into her arms.
“Mama—” She was panting, sobbing, her hair stringy and disheveled, her face grimy and streaked with tears.
“What happened?”
Edna looked up and shook her head. Then she turned swiftly and closed the kitchen door. As Louise watched, she locked the door again, slid the bolt fast, moved to the wall switch and extinguished the outside lights for the patio and pool.
As she did so, Louise realized what Edna was wearing—it was just a soiled smock of some sort, with absolutely nothing underneath. There were sandals on her stockingless feet, and ridges of swollen flesh puffed and protruded between the thongs. Her sunburned forehead was raw and red.
Edna nodded. “Quick, get me out of here before he comes—”
Louise put out her hand. “Wait. You father is in the study. He’s been very ill. We mustn’t alarm him.”
“I’m not alarmed.”
Louise turned. Roger was standing in the hall doorway, staring at them. He seemed quite calm.
“Daddy?” Edna wasn’t calm. She began to sob again, moving towards Roger, arms outstretched.
Roger stepped back. “None of that,” he said. “You’re a grown woman, Edna. You’re forty-two years old. I think you owe your mother and me an explanation for all this—”
It sounded cold, it sounded cruel, but Louise knew what he was doing, and why. You’ve got to stop treating her like a child, Dr. Griswold had said. It’s the only way to halt her retreat into these fantasies.
Of course Dr. Griswold had said a great deal more, but Louise could hardly accept all that. All she and Roger had ever done was to try and protect the girl from harmful outside influences, keeping her away from bad companions and seeing to it that she didn’t fall into the hands of some fortune hunter. The idea that all these years of careful shielding were actually the cause of paranoid symptoms was obviously absurd, and what Griswold said about sexual repression was downright indecent. Still, there was no denying Edna’s need for treatment, and Dr. Griswold came highly recommended for his discretion.
“Suppose you tell us just what happened,” Roger was saying.
Edna shook her head. “He might hear—”
Louise started to reply, but Roger’s look silenced her. “We’ll go to the study,” he said. He turned and led the way down the hall.
Edna was limping badly, Louise noticed, but she seemed to be controlling herself; the disturbing facial tic she’d had during the last months before going to the sanatorium was gone now. And in the study, when she sank into the big chair, she looked like a child in her oversized gown—a frightened child, with gray in her hair.
“Can I get you something, dear?” Louise asked. “A glass of milk—”
“No, Mama.”
Louise stared at her daughter’s feet. “At least let me help you take those sandals off.” She started forward, but Roger stepped in front of her. He smiled down at Edna.
“First things first,” he said. “Before we go into anything else, I want you to know that your mother and I are glad to see you home again.”
“Are you?”
“Of course. I’m sure you understand that our only concern is for your welfare. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Edna’s voice was faint and she didn’t look at him.
“Good.” Roger nodded approval. “Then you must realize that we arranged your stay in the sanatorium because the doctor said it was the only way to help you. And you were helped there, weren’t you?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Roger’s Smile never faltered. “Then why did you run away?” he said.
Edna glanced up quickly. “I didn’t run away! They took me—”
“Who took you?”
“The others. I had to go with them, I couldn’t stay there alone after what happened! We went in Dr. Griswold’s car, last night—”
“And he let you go?”
Edna shook her head. “Dr. Griswold is dead.”
Roger wasn’t smiling now. He frowned at Louise, then faced his daughter. “Go on,” he said softly.
And Edna went on, but not softly. As she spoke, her voice honed itself to a hysterical edge, cutting through all composure.
Listening, Louise remembered the screams and the raving she’d heard before they took Edna away. During the long months those screams had faded to faint echoes, and even Edna’s image had paled to a ghostly presence which haunted her only in troubled sleep. Now, once again, the voice was real and Edna was real. But what she was saying—
Dr. Griswold was dead, the night nurse was dead, Herb Thomas the orderly was dead, too. He had planned it, he killed them, and now he said they would all be free. And he took the car and told them he’d drive them into town, take them wherever they wanted, but he stopped somewhere in the Valley. He’d made them stay in the car while he went off, first giving Tony a gun and telling him to keep them there until he came back. That was when Edna knew he was lying, he wouldn’t ever let them go, he would kill them all. The others seemed to know it too, because they started to fight with Tony in the back seat. So she jumped out of the car and started to run, hiding at night on the way up Beverly Glen and then coming down by the side roads into Bel Air today. She would have been here sooner except that by noon she began to have this feeling that she was being followed, and she knew he was coming after her. So she had to wait until dark and move very slowly, because if he ever caught up with her—
“Who?” Roger said. “What’s his name?”
“I—I don’t know his name.”
“You don’t know?”
Edna shook her head. Her eyes darted to the drawn drapes on the windows. “He could be out there now,” she whispered. “If he heard me tell, he’d kill you, too.”
“But that’s ridiculous—” Louise checked herself as Roger shot her a warning glance.
Edna huddled up as though she was trying to hide in the big wing chair. “His eyes,” she said. “I can feel his eyes. Like knives stabbing. He’s crazy, you know. The rest of them, they’re just sick, but he’s really crazy. He can look at people and make them do whatever he wants. That’s why Tony helped him. He even had Dr. Griswold fooled. He can look at you and tell just what you’re thinking. He burned everything up in the fireplace, but first he found out where all of us lived, so if we got away, he could come after us. Because he doesn’t want anybody to know. If he ever finds me—”
Her left cheek began to twitch; the tic was back. Roger went over and put his hand on her shoulder.
“He won’t find you,” he said. “I promise.”
“Maybe we can run away,” Edna said. “We could go away right now in your car.”
“That’s an idea.” Roger turned to Louise. “Take her upstairs and get her some decent clothes. She can’t travel like this.”
“But, Roger—”
“Do as I say.” He winked quickly. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
Roger turned, smiled at Edna, and went out into the hall. A moment later, Louise heard the sound of the library door closing softly.
“All right, Edna,” Louise said. “Let’s go.”
Edna shook her head. “No.”
“What’s the m
atter?”
“He didn’t believe me.”
“Of course he believed you.” Louise reached down and took hold of Edna’s wrist. Her hand was filthy and the nails had been bitten to the quick. Louise could feel the pulse jumping as she pulled Edna to her feet. “Please,” she said. “We’ve got to hurry and get ready to leave when your father joins us.”
“Do you believe me, Mama?”
“Yes.” Louise led her daughter to the doorway. “Now, come along. You’ll have a nice hot shower, and then we’ll pick out a pretty dress for you.” Louise kept talking, raising her voice as she moved down the hall past the library door to distract Edna’s attention. “You remember that lovely new outfit you got just before you went away? Well, it’s still in your closet—I’ve kept all your things spic-and-span—”
Behind the closed door of the library she could hear Roger’s muffled voice on the telephone. “—emergency. Get me the police—”
Edna’s hand jerked free. For a moment Louise was taken by surprise; all she could think of was how strong Edna was. And then she felt that strength explode against her temple, felt her head snap back against the wall, felt—nothing.
When Louise finally came to, she looked up and saw Roger bending over her, shaking her shoulder. As her vision cleared, the figure behind him came into focus, blue uniform and all.
“Police—here already?” she murmured.
“I’ve been trying to bring you to for fifteen minutes,” Roger said. “Easy—don’t move!”
“I’m all right.” Louise felt a pounding as she sat up, a sickening throbbing spreading from the spot where the back of her head had struck the wall. But they helped her to her feet and she found she was able to stand. Roger put his arm around her shoulders.