Darker Masques

by J N Williamson

  Hedstrom started to laugh, then smothered it quickly under the captain’s harsh stare.

  The sign read: BLACK LEATHER CAFE. When the door opened the stench of stale smoke poured out of it like steam from a caldron and mingled with the sea fog. A shadow, hidden by the mist, slid under the sign and lingered near the entrance. The door opened and two young men holding hands came out. They paused in the open doorway to kiss, passionately. The shadow slid past them, inside.

  The smoke was thick. The smell of sweat and urine was strong. The flickering jukebox played low, perverted jazz. Conversation was low and rumbling, stopped when the door shut. Bloodshot eyes under visored leather caps looked up. Mustaches bristled, chains rattled, leather squeaked as the men in the bar strained to get a look at the newcomer. Lips were licked, eyes winked, heads nodded, but the stranger in the long black cape stared through them. Moving as if he rode a cushioned wave of air, he traversed the floor and went into the bathroom. A collective chill ran through the patrons of the bar, was shrugged off. The conversations resumed.

  In a corner, a thin young man in tight pants and a fishnet jersey eyed the stranger as he floated past. Their eyes met momentarily and the young man nodded. A trembling smile quivered on his lips. He knew what the glance meant. He had exchanged the same glance with men hundreds of times at the cafe. This time, though, there was something different. A thrill like nothing he’d ever felt coursed through his loins like an electrical current.

  He ran his tongue over dry lips and followed the stranger in the bathroom.

  The captain stood in the doorway of the men’s room, fought back the sickness rising in him. “All right, you know what to do,” he said to the officers outside the door. “Question everyone who was in here tonight. Move it! Stop gawking like a bunch of idiots.”

  The officers moved off to carry out his orders and Hedstrom stepped forward. “What do we call this, Chief?” he asked. A sarcastic smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “A homocide?”

  “There’s someone to see you, Captain.”

  The door opened and a woman in black entered the office. She was in her fifties, with gray hair and stern, rock-hard features. The first impression the captain had was that she looked like Indira Gandhi. The second impression was that she was a weirdo. She remained near the door, eyes staring straight ahead lips moving silently as if she were reciting the rosary.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” the captain asked, making a mental note to chew out whoever had let her in his office.

  “I know what he is,” she said.

  A chill ran over the captain’s brow.

  “And I know how to stop him,” she added. She continue speaking and the captain listened with amusement, fascination and finally, dread.

  The DA and Hedstrom were back in the captain’s office. The former smoked a cigarette nervously while Hedstrom stared at the ceiling.

  “Before I say anything, I want to get one thing straight,” the captain said to Hedstrom. “This is no joking matter. We have a serious situation on our hands that has reached a point where I’m ready to take drastic measures. If you feel the need to joke—don’t!”

  Hedstrom coughed into his hand and nodded sheepishly.

  “What I’m about to suggest is unorthodox but at this point I’ll try anything. If we let this go on any longer, it’s going to attract national attention. The local media has been cooperative, but that can only last so long. Sooner or later, this story is going to break big. That’s why I want you both to listen to me seriously.”

  The DA and Hedstrom nodded.

  “As you may know already, I had a visitor yesterday who was a little strange. Strange or not, she made sense about how to nab this guy.”

  “What did she say?” Hedstrom asked.

  “She claimed to be psychic and most of what she said was crap, delusions about the killer being a demon; she called him an incubus, which I gathered is some kind of sexual vampire. But that isn’t important. While she was babbling she gave me an idea of how we can get him. We need someone he can’t kill.”

  The DA looked mystified and leaned forward. “I don’t understand.”

  “She said this guy feeds on death created through sex. I think that’s true, though not in a literal sense. If we can get someone, a hooker—even a gay—who can handle his size, we might frustrate him to the point where we can nab him. We bait this guy with someone he can’t kill in his usual manner and, with surveillance, we’ll grab him. Or at least have an eyewitness description.”

  “You really think it will work?” the DA asked. “I think he’s too smart. He’s been baiting us all along.”

  “Yeah,” Hedstrom interrupted, “this guy’s been a real master baiter.”

  The captain ignored Hedstrom.

  “Yes, I think it’ll work.” He turned to Hedstrom. “And you, Mr. Comedy, are going to find the right bait!”

  Hedstrom’s face turned crimson. For the first time in days, the captain smiled.

  The phone rang in the middle of the night. The captain started from sleep, cursing loudly. Without turning on the light, he fumbled on his nightstand for the receiver.

  “Chief? It’s me, Hedstrom. I think I’ve got something.”

  The captain threw back the covers, got out of bed. Next to him, his wife groaned and rolled over. “What is it?” he asked quietly.

  “I called a friend of mine in San Francisco. We went to collage together; now he’s a pornographic film producer. One of his stars is willing to help us. You ever hear of the movie Deep Throat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve got someone who makes Linda Lovelace look like a lollipop sucker. I’ve got Long Lips,” Hedstrom said proudly.

  “What the hell is that? “

  “Lorna Lipps, of course—Linda Lovelace’s suckcessor! She’ll do if for ten grand plus expenses. Pretty expensive blow job, but considering the risks, she won’t do it for less.”

  The captain nodded his head in the dark. “Okay. Get her on a plane out here and keep her quiet.”

  The captain was surprised by how tall and blond she was. He wondered briefly if she was a natural blonde. She towered four inches over him, and he was five-nine. She was a pretty woman, not scuzzy-looking like most porno queens. There was a little age showing in the wrinkles around her eyes and in the tiny lines at the corners of her mouth, but those small flaws were easy to overlook when gazing into her large, crystal-blue eyes. They held and mesmerized. Her mouth was full, sensual under a thin, noble nose. Her chin melted gracefully into a neck that was long and aristocratic. Her shoulders were broad, supporting breasts that were huge, firm mounds pushing out the seams of her tank top.

  The captain caressed her with his eyes and found it hard to look away. She smiled at him and cocked her hips. Her hot pants looked as if they’d been painted on. They rode up her thighs, creased around her crotch and firm buttocks. The captain licked suddenly dry lips.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Lipps.”

  “I can see that.” She smiled down at him.

  “Did Lieutenant Hedstrom give you the plan?” he asked nervously and crossed his legs.

  “He gave it to me, all right,” she said.

  The captain mumbled “I should have known.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, placing a leather travel bag on the desk. “He also told me what I’m supposed to do.” She opened the bag to pull out a pair of black satin pants and a red see-through peasant blouse. She laid them carefully on the desk.

  “First things first. You have some money for me?”

  The captain fumbled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it across the desk to her. She took it, tucked it inside the bag.

  “While I get changed into my working clothes, why don’t you give me the details of this operation?” She slid the tank top over her head. Her breasts bulged and lifted before flopping free of the stretchy material. They made a soft smacking sound as they settled back against her body—full, luscious things with s
mall, ripe-red, perpetually hard nipples.

  The captain couldn’t take his eyes off her. She smiled at him and ran her hands over her breasts. She unbuckled her belt and slid the tight shorts seductively down her thighs. With a sharp intake of breath, the captain noticed she was wearing no underwear. He smiled.

  She was indeed a natural blonde.

  Hedstrom clicked the radio off and watched Lorna Lipps standing on the corner in her tight black pants and flimsy blouse. He smiled, glanced at the captain in the seat next to him. He was holding his head as if it hurt.

  “She’ll give you a real headache if you let her, Chief,” he chuckled.

  The captain frowned, but not at Hedstrom. The thought of banging Lorna Lipps had certainly crossed his mind. He knew he’d had his chance when she stripped in his office. But unlike Hedstrom, the captain had a conflict; namely, marriage. Even though his wife showed all of her forty-five years, he didn’t think he could ever cheat on her.

  Not that he hadn’t been tempted.

  “Where’d she go?” Hedstrom asked suddenly. The captain glanced up. The corner was empty. Lorna was gone.

  The captain sipped coffee, looked at the clock. It was 3 a.m., and Lorna Lipps had been missing for five hours. A dragnet had failed to pick up any trace of her. The captain was afraid he was going to have to chalk her up as another victim. The problem was, she wasn’t just another victim; she was a celebrity of sorts. He was responsible for her.

  The telephone rang, startling him. He snapped up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was distant and weak. His heart skipped a beat.

  It was Lorna Lipps.

  The small, dingy hotel room was at the end of a long, dark corridor. The captain hurried toward the room, his footsteps echoing like ghostly shots. The building smelled ol sweat and garbage; it reeked of perversion, and of death itself.

  He called Lorna’s name, heard a muffled explosion. Panting, he reached for the doorknob, afraid of what he would find. The knob felt as if it was coated with Vaseline. He opened the door. Gasped.

  The room was filled with thick, pungent smoke. Waving his arms, the captain made his way inside. The air began to clear. Lorna lay on the bed, naked, covered head to toe in gooey black slime.

  She was alive.

  “Where is he?” the captain asked, his gun ready.

  “There,” she said, pointing at the wall. “And there,” she added, pointing to the ceiling and floor. The smoke was escaping into the hallway and the room was clear enough now for the captain to see.

  From the ceiling hung a hand, suspended by a string of gelatinous slime. The walls were covered with bits and pieces of goo-covered flesh: an eyeball over the door; part of a foot in the corner; an ear plastered against the grimy window. On the floor, he saw the twenty-inch piece of flesh that had been the murder weapon.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Lorna Lipps shrugged and smiled weakly. “Some guys just go to pieces when they can’t get off.”

  Ralph Rainwater, Jr.

  SINNERS

  RALPH Rainwater was an Air Force officer’s “brat” with degrees in political science and Russian literature when he graduated from Writer’s Digest School (in 1986) with one of the rare A + finals I parceled out during four years of student- and self-abuse. Ralph, Kathie Ramsland, D. W. Taylor, Jeannette Hopper, and Mark McNease were all budding writers with huge promise from the outset of their WDS studies. They had in common a powerful urge to write for a living—and talent.

  Rainwater is a man with insights and ideas who admits his characters are “rooted in tradition and place,” “obsessed with religion.” Last summer, he wrote to announce he was joining the Air Force and even his reason for doing so seemed stunning to me: He felt “a responsibility to produce more and better” fiction and no longer believed that was possible in civilian life.

  An unusual man, Ralph. An unusual writer.

  SINNERS

  Ralph Rainwater, Jr.

  I’D ALWAYS ADMIRED THE WAY David wedded intellect with action. But this latest terrorism went too far. Riding our bikes through the quiet back roads of the Georgian countryside, once again I gathered my courage and told him so.

  “Listen,” he replied, “you’re like a broken record. You keep repeating the same old doubts, yet you never convince me they’re justified.”

  “That’s not fair,” I argued. “You know that. Even when I’m right, you always win our arguments!”

  “Then you should learn to debate better. In any case, if you don’t like what we—and I emphasize that ‘we’—are going to do, why are you pedaling alongside me now?”

  “Because you’re my older brother,” I said simply. Given our rough family history, I knew this answer would soften him.

  In the dark separating us, I saw him nod and I sensed the smile on David’s face. “Okay, then, because you’re my younger brother, I’ll try to explain one more time.” He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.

  In the silence, the only sounds we heard in the still, humid night were those of our bikes rolling over the crumbling country road and of millions of crickets singing their mating songs. With no moon overhead, the weak headlights on our handlebars illuminated only a few feet of ground at a time, barely giving us enough opportunity to swerve around the abundant potholes and occasional crushed animals.

  The canvas bag, containing a plastic human skeleton David had ordered from a novelty horror catalogue, hung around his neck, resting on his back. Also inside the bag were several accessories: a claw-toothed hammer, some nails, and three pre-cut lengths of rope (in case pounding in nails proved too loud or difficult).

  Finally, he spoke again. “We’re agreed that this whole area is stuck in the past by willful ignorance, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And the biggest holdback keeping these rural people from joining the twentieth century is their primitive brand of religion?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “So it follows, then, that anything done to discredit religion is good. Think of what our little book did.”

  By “our” book, he meant the parody of the New Testament he’d written, “The Breeder’s Digest Condensed New Testament,” in which all the human characters had been replaced by dogs. I had merely provided a few ideas and helped distribute it by leaving copies in strategic points around town—at night, of course. The parody, printed on our home computer, created a stir that lasted for weeks. The local paper had been filled with letters from ardent churchgoers and civic leaders, expressing outrage and shock.

  I’d had doubts at first about belittling a holy book. But we bathed in private glory over the vehement reactions our parody’s anonymous authors had caused. The faithful had revealed their insecurity, just as David predicted they would.

  “Yeah, you were right that time. But isn’t this going to extremes?” I asked.

  “Yes, it is. But no more extreme than these fanatics are. It’s ‘an eye for an eye,’ Mark.”

  “We’re talking about nailing a skeleton to their cross. They’ll go nuts!”

  “Maybe not. Consider what their fanaticism is based on. That they’ve seen God. He lives amongst them, inside their church.” He paused, waiting for comment. When I offered none, David continued, “Think—who could believe such a fiction? Only the most ignorant, the poorest types. And that’s precisely who belong to this country church. You’ve seen them around town. You know what the congregation is like. That freak this morning is a perfect example.”

  I didn’t want to think about him. There’d been too much weirdness to that skinny, ill-dressed man’s manner as he exhorted everyone in the town square to join “The Church of an Angry God.” There’d been an unnatural gleam in his eye, a too-frenzied spinning of his arms. He kept shouting, “Praise God! He has come! Come to step on those who have stepped on us! Vengeance is His!”

  “Well then, if they’re not going to get violent, what do you think will happen?” I d
emanded.

  “Imagine all these zealots coming to worship tomorrow.” My brother sounded excited now. “These are people who save welfare checks to buy Cadillacs. That car is a sacred symbol of the ‘good life’ to them. It’s a religions token! And then, with their perpetually pre-scientific minds, they enter the church and stare at their cross! Instead of imagining Jesus . . . this thing will be up there. A skeleton! Signifying how dead their religion really is.

  “Can’t you hear them now?” David went on. “ ‘Oh Lordy, Lordy—someone’s come in here and done the Devil’s work!’ Don’t you see? If we pull this off, the congregation will think that God would never have allowed such a transgression!”

  “So He was never there at all.” I nodded, understanding.

  “Exactly,” David replied. “Don’t you think this little joke is worth it to end such fanaticism?”

  No; I didn’t. David’s escapades had always been contrary to my nature. His intellect was somehow too sharp, his condemnation of others’ blindnesses too unforgiving. I didn’t have the courage of his convictions.

  Yet here again I was acquiescing to his plans, a faithful though doubting sidekick. Why? Because David was the only person in our atavistic town I could conceivably admire. Because we were both sharp, and all I saw around us were blunt, dull surfaces. Because where my brother went, I had to follow.

  It was as simple as that.

  By now our pedaling had taken us to an impoverished backwater area nearly fifteen miles from town. Scattered here and there were ramshackle, decaying homes occupied primarily by unemployed or, at best, seasonably employed, poor families.

  By the light of day the homes were embarrassments; eyesores. Front porches sagged, roofs had holes, broken windows had newspaper covering them. In the yard around each of these shacks lay assorted garbage and the wrecks of old Cadillacs. Anybody driving through this part of the country during sunset usually spotted the massive families economically clutched by sitting together on rusted chairs or splintering steps. The adults would be smoking, the children chatting.