by Robert Bloch
“Where’s Edna?” she said.
No one answered. It wasn’t necessary; when Louise glanced down the hall into the kitchen beyond, she could see the open door leading out to the grounds at the rear of the house. All the floodlights were on, and in the distance other figures in blue uniforms were moving back and forth beside the swimming pool. Louise blinked to clear her blurring vision.
“She heard you and ran away,” Louise murmured. “Why don’t they go after her?” She tried to wrench free from Roger’s arm, but he held her firmly.
“Don’t go out there,” he said.
It wasn’t necessary to go out there, because the men in the blue uniforms were coming in, moving very slowly, and Louise saw what they were carrying. And now everything was very clear, as clear as the drops of water which fell from the soaking white gown, the hanging, stringy hair.
Edna. She’d run out in a blind panic. She’d fallen into the pool—drowned—
For a moment Louise thought she was going to pass out again. But they wouldn’t let her look at the body, they made her go back into the study and lie down, and Roger gave her some brandy.
It wasn’t until later that they told her Edna hadn’t fallen into the pool. They’d found her lying beside it, with only the upper portion of her body hanging down submerged over the edge. Even though her head was under water, she hadn’t died of drowning.
Edna had been strangled.
CHAPTER 14
On Sunset Strip the vibes were good.
At the porno theatre the skin-flick buffs were lining up for the midnight show—a nudie film featuring the misadventures of an Indian girl named Split Beaver.
Down the street, the outdoor tables of the hamburger joints were crowded with customers partaking of both hamburgers and joints.
And on the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Tony Rodell stood statue-still, blowing his mind. He was into everything and everything was outta sight.
The bumper sticker on the dune buggy with its neat lettering, Scrou Yew.
The dude in the Christian Dior tank-top, screaming at his companion—“How could a boy like you fall in love with Ronald? Why, he’s old enough to be your mother!”
The chick with the Afro yelling to someone on the sideway, “Come over on Saturday for the Black Mass. We’re having it catered.”
Oh wow!
This is where it was at and it was good to be back. The biggest light show on earth, action everywhere you looked; the whole street filled with midnight cowboys, and looking down on the scene from the oversized painted billboards, the hairy-glary faces of the gods themselves: The Up Yours, The Wall-To-Wall Sewer, Stockyard Slim and The Pigs.
Last year Tony had been on the boards himself. That was when the record came out and the group was set to play Tahoe. Then everything went down the tubes, they busted the gig the first night, and his own mother—his own frigging mother—gave him the shaft.
It had been a real rip-off, and at first Tony had psyched out on the whole scene. It wasn’t until after that he realized she must have known about the bust in advance and made a deal; she’d finger the group if they dropped charges on him. But the only way the fuzz would go for it would be if she promised to keep him clean. That’s why the old lady put him on ice at the san. Shred a lot of bread to stash him away there, and if she and Griswold had their way he’d probably be playing with himself forever, or at least until the loot ran out.
But something else had run out for Griswold before the loot did, and he wasn’t going back. No way. His hair was short now and the beard was gone; his own mother wouldn’t recognize him. Not until it was too late—
Late. It was past midnight, and nobody’d showed.
Tony shifted his feet and then his gaze, scanning the oncoming traffic along Sunset. Twelve o’clock across from Schwab’s, that’s what the man had said, and he’d been standing here for over twenty minutes. The vibes were getting bad now, and he remembered last night’s conversation.
It was after the man came back to the parked car and found everybody had split and Tony lying across the back seat, knocked out with the butt of the gun he was supposed to keep them all covered with. The man slapped Tony until he came around, and for a minute Tony was uptight because he had seen what the man could do when he got angry.
“I couldn’t help it,” Tony kept saying. “They all jumped me at once. If you’d only let me put the goddam bullets in the gun—”
“So you could blast somebody and bring the heat down on us?” The man sighed. He gave Tony one of those weirdo looks and then he said one of those weirdo things. “How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.” And laughed his weirdo laugh, which meant everything was all right. “Don’t worry, I didn’t expect to keep them together much longer. Maybe it will even be easier now that they’ve cut out—unless one of them gets picked up before.”
“Before what?” Tony said.
But the man just laughed again and put the gun in his pocket. “Leave it to me. Now let’s get moving.”
“Want me to drive?”
The man shook his head. “We’re ditching the car here.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason I’m going to get rid of this.” And he patted the pocket with the gun in it. “From now on, we cover our trail. Good military strategy, as von Clausewitz would say.”
“Von who?”
“Friend of mine.” The man helped Tony sit up and climb out of the car. “You look all right,” he said. “Think you can walk?”
“Sure. I was just stunned for a minute.”
“Good. Then start walking.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
The man shook his head. “He travels the fastest who travels alone.” He kept looking at Tony, and you could almost see the gears turning inside his head. Tony wondered whether anybody had ever gotten inside his head; maybe Griswold. But Griswold had been chewed up in the machinery, and Tony wasn’t about to go that route. “Tomorrow night,” the man said. And that’s when he made the date.
“But why can’t I stick with you?” Tony asked.
“Negative. Suppose somebody does get picked up and describes us? It’s hard to slap a make on anyone from just a verbal description—but when you’ve got two people together and two identifications to go on, it’s a lot easier. Besides, I’ve got things to do.”
“You mean I’m supposed to hang loose for twenty-four hours?”
“No. You’re going to hang tight.” The man gave him some bills—probably from old Griswold’s wallet. “Go to a motel, get some rest. Grab yourself something to eat tomorrow, but stay indoors as much as possible until dark.”
“Why in hell not just head for my pad?”
“Because if the fuzz does get the word, that’s the first place they’ll look for you. We’ll wait until we’re sure there’s no heat.”
“And then what?”
“Don’t worry. Have I ever let you down?”
Both of them knew the answer to that one. If it hadn’t been for the man and his plan, Tony would still be doing couch-time in Shrink City. But he’d listened to the man, and that’s what had brought him this far; might as well go all the way.
So the man walked west and Tony walked east, holing up in a raunchy little motel over on Ventura where nobody worried about luggage; like the man, he was wearing civvy threads instead of a patient’s gown, and that helped.
Sleeping didn’t come easy, not with all the pictures that popped into Tony’s head the minute he closed his eyes; he hadn’t seen Griswold or the nurse, but he’d watched Herb die. It was pretty bad the first time, and the rerun wasn’t any better, except that Tony kept reminding himself that it was all over. And there was no sense worrying about the others; they’d be just as hot to get away as he was, and play it just as cool. The man knew what he was doing, and he always kept his word. He said they’d crash out, and they’d crashed; now he said they’d make it the rest of the way, and they would.
Along towards dawn
Tony managed to fall asleep, and when morning came, he felt better. Today he’d hopped a bus down to Hollywood Boulevard and lost himself in one of the continuous-performance movie houses, seeing a double feature. In the first picture, the blue-clad, middle-aged U.S. Cavalry disemboweled innocent young redskins; in the second, the blue-clad middle-aged cops disemboweled innocent young rioters. Right on, until after dark; then Tony had just enough left for a couple of hot dogs at a Boulevard stand. It wasn’t such a good idea, because the hot-dog casings reminded him a little of the intestines he’d seen hanging out in the films, but of course those were only movies, and GP-rated at that. Nobody rated the hot dogs.
Then Tony started to walk up the Boulevard, past the windows of the bookshops (Historic Privies Of The Old West) and the record stores (1971’s Oldies But Goodies). He wondered idly if his disc was still in stock, but decided against going inside and looking around. Better keep moving.
Keep moving, past the straights sniffing around the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese (“Look, Mom—is that a real hippie?”) and down La Brea to Sunset, and then along Sunset itself past the organic-food hangouts for the health freaks and the gay bars. And then onto the Strip, the other side of Fairfax, and here he was, and where the hell was the man?
Somebody honked a car horn, and Tony turned his head, recognizing the sound. As well he might, because he recognized the car, too. It was his own MG, and the man was behind the wheel, angling over to the curb in the right-lane traffic.
“Hurry,” said the man, which was ridiculous, because everyone had stopped for the light anyway.
Tony hopped in, and when the light changed, the MG turned and started up Laurel Canyon.
“Hey, man, where’d you get my wheels?” he said.
The man smiled. “From those wonderful folks who brought you the Crucifixion.”
He was wearing a new outfit—dark jacket and slacks. Courtesy of Griswold’s wallet, Tony figured. And his smile told him that everything was copasetic.
“You hit my pad,” Tony said.
The man nodded. “Wanted to check it out, make sure we wouldn’t have problems.”
“What about fuzz?”
“If ignorance is bliss, they’re the happiest people on earth.”
“Nobody blew the whistle?”
“Not a living soul.” The man pulled up at the Hollywood Boulevard intersection, then gunned forward as the green signal came. “Quite a place you’ve got.”
“I told you it was groovy.”
“Somehow I didn’t expect all that much elegance. At some point the architect must have decided to risk everything and go for baroque.”
“Used to belong to a producer. Business manager picked it up cheap last year. He said it was a good deal.”
“He’s the one who’s been looking after it for you?
“No. We cooled the contract when I went to the san. My old lady comes by a couple of times a week. Keeps the car battery going, cleans the joint up, sees that the dogs get fed.” Tony grinned. “How about those dogs?”
“Scared the living Jesus out of me. They started barking when I went over the wall, and I almost changed my mind.” The man wheeled over to the left-turn lane at Lookout Mountain. “Good thing she keeps them chained.”
“You’ve got to, with Dobermans. But guard dogs are a good idea, up in the hills. Of course both of them know me, and they’re used to my old lady, too, but any stranger comes around—look out!”
“They kept howling all the time I was in the house. Figured they were hungry, so I got a can of dog food from the kitchen and took it out to them. But believe me, I didn’t get too close.”
“When they see us together, they won’t give you any trouble. Like I say, they’re just like puppies with me and my old lady.”
The MG was climbing up Lookout now, past Horseshoe Canyon to the school, then taking the fork-off on Wonderland Avenue. Even in the darkness the route was familiar to Tony, and suddenly, for the first time, he had this coming-home feeling. He realized how much he’d been missing being in his own pad, seeing Tiger and Butch.
“You say your mother stops by several times a week?” the man asked.
“Don’t worry, she won’t be around again until Thursday.”
“How do you know?”
“I told you—she called the san day before yesterday. Said she was going to Vegas for a couple of days.”
“What if she taps out? Wouldn’t she come back earlier?”
“She doesn’t go there for the action. When there’s a big convention at the Flamingo, she runs up and works the tables. Cocktail waitress.” Tony nodded. “Look at her, you’d never figure she had a grown son. Why, a couple of years ago, over on Western, she was working topless.”
“I saw a real topless waitress once,” the man said.
“Real topless?”
“That’s right.” The man smiled. “Somebody had cut off her head.”
Tony smiled, too, even though the gag was old. Or was it a gag? With this cat you never knew. One minute he was making funnies, the next he was rapping philosophy. But he was the one who could put it all together, and that’s what counted.
The MG turned onto Wonderland Park, still climbing. The road was narrower here, and darker; the higher you went, the narrower and darker it got. No yard lights, no lights in the hillside houses. Hard to believe it was only ten minutes’ driving from here to the Strip. Living up here, you were really hiding out. Most of the time you were above the smog and it was usually a lot cooler than down below. The people were cool, too. That’s why Tony went for it in the first place.
It would be good to be home again, even for a little while. Only for a little while, of course, because once the fuzz got organized, there’d be too much heat from below.
Tony glanced at his companion. “What happens next?” he asked.
“I’ve got a few ideas about that. Wait until we get inside where we can relax.”
Tony noticed that the MG was crawling along in low now, making the turns that led up to the house at the very top almost in slow-motion. And the man was keeping an eye on every shadow, every parked car, making sure no one was watching, no one was waiting. A damn good thing, too; this was no time to start talking about futures. Play it by ear.
Now his ear told him that the dogs had heard the car coming. They were growling behind the wall. The MG pulled up in front of the driveway and halted, motor running.
The man reached into his jacket pocket and tossed a keychain into Tony’s lap. “You won’t have to go over the wall,” he said. “I found these inside your desk.”
Tony opened the door and slid out. He could hear Tiger and Butch whining and sniffling, hear their claws scratching and scraping the wall as they got excited. Well, he was excited, too; just seeing the house was enough after all this time. He must have missed it more than he’d known.
Tony glanced at the man. He still sat behind the wheel. “Aren’t you coming in?”
“Not until I put the car in the garage. Somebody sees it parked on the street tomorrow, they might get ideas.”
Good thinking. Tony circled his approval with thumb and forefinger, and the man nodded.
“You go ahead in and see if you can keep those dogs quiet.”
Tony walked over to the gate and opened it. Even the feel of the key turning in the lock was somehow comforting and familiar.
He moved inside the patio, closing the gate behind him as the dogs snarled. Over the noise he heard the sound of the MG’s motor, revving up and pulling away. But before he could think about it, Tony turned and saw Tiger and Butch. To his surprise, they were unchained, and they were racing towards him, fangs bared and dripping, red eyes glaring in the moonlight. Then the moonlight was blotted out as they leaped. Tony screamed and turned, but it was too late.
CHAPTER 15
The earth rotates on its axis in four minutes less than twenty-four hours. It orbits around the sun at approximately eighteen and a half miles per second, while at the sa
me time whirling through space at a speed of more than ten thousand miles an hour.
Lieutenant Franklyn Barringer accepted all this because the scientists said it was so. Accepted, but did not truly believe.
Sitting behind his desk with both feet firmly on the floor, he could not completely comprehend he was actually spinning around in a circle on a ball that was simultaneously revolving around another sphere at a dizzying pace, while at the same time whizzing up or down or sideways. And yet, he told himself, it’s happening, it’s a demonstrable fact even if it seems incredible. So one accepts the evidence and dismisses it.
The trouble is, there’s some evidence, equally incredible, which can’t be disposed of so easily. Such as the portfolio accumulating on Barringer’s desk this morning; the memos of phone calls, the taped transcriptions, the reports.
“All right,” he muttered. “So I’ve got to accept it. I still can’t believe—”
“And you want me to convince you, is that right?” said Dr. Vicente.
“Not necessarily.” Barringer poured himself a cup of coffee. “You’ve gone over this stuff. I want your opinion.”
“In other words, an educated guess.” Vicente reached for the coffee urn and refilled his own cup. “To begin with, could one man possibly commit all of these murders within the space of about four hours? Under certain conditions, the answer is a qualified yes.”
“What are the conditions?”
“That he had the names and addresses of the victims—which he could have obtained, either from them directly, or from Griswold’s files before he burned them. That he had the means of transportation—and we know from the tire-marks at the house he was driving Tony Rodell’s car, or at least a car which had occupied Rodell’s garage. Lastly, that he had some reasonable assurance these people would be turning up at their homes or places of business at various times yesterday evening—”
“Edna Drexel told her parents they scattered in all directions out in Sherman Oaks.”
“She also said she felt someone was following her.”