Interior Darkness: Selected Stories

by Peter Straub

  Frank Bigelow, though, is another matter. One night, over a lamplit table littered with charts and maps, he had observed a certain shine in the whites of Bud’s eyes, and immediately he had known of his underling’s traitorous misgivings.

  One more detail, essential to the coils of the plot: Frank Bigelow also thinks endlessly and without………upon Carole Chandler. These thoughts, alas, have darkened since he wound up impotent. Deep in his heart what he’d like to do is sic Tom Jardine on Carole; brutal, stupid Jardine is hung like a stallion (off-camera, the guy is always inventing excuses for showing off his tool), and while Tom makes Carole Chandler beg for more like the bitch she is, Frank would like to be watching through a kind of peephole arrangement. Trouble is, after that he would have to murder Tom Jardine, and Tom is one of his main guys, he’s like one of the family, so that’s out.

  Every film noir has one impossible plot convenience, in this instance: despite his frustrated passion for wicked Carole Chandler, Frank Bigelow has no idea that Bud Forrester is employed at her husband’s Shell station, because he sees her only at the Black Swan, the gambling club of which he is part-owner with Nicky Drake, a smooth, smooth operator. In Lapland, one always finds gambling clubs; also, drunken or corrupt night watchmen; a negligee; a ditch; a running man; a number of raincoats and hats; a man named “Johnny”; a man named “Doc,” sometimes varied to “Dad”; an alcoholic; a penthouse; a beach shack; a tavern full of dumbbells; an armored car; a racetrack; a…………; a shadowy staircase. These elements commonly participate in and enhance the effect of headlights reflected on wet urban streets.

  THE WOMEN OF LAPLAND

  When young, remarkably beautiful. When aged, negligible. This disparity passes without notice because few of the women of Lapland outlive their youth. They often hiss when they speak, or exhibit some other charming speech defect. Their reflections can be seen in rearview mirrors, the windows of apartments at night, the surfaces of slick wooden bars, the surfaces of lakes and pools, in the eyes of dead men. Carole Chandler likes the look of Bud Forrester, she “fancies” the “cut of his jib,” but he strikes her as strangely inert, withdrawn, passive. Of course Carole takes these qualities both at face value and as a personal challenge. Nicky Drake wouldn’t fuck this dame for, oh, a hundred million bucks, and his partner’s obsession with her makes him………..When Carole slinks into the Black Swan, handsome Nicky looks away and frowns in disgust.

  Having the life expectancy of mayflies, these women dress like dragonflies, for like cigarette-smoking and cocktail-drinking the wearing of dragonfly attire is a means of slowing time. The most gifted women in Lapland live in virtual dog years, or on a 7:1 ratio. Time is astonishingly relative for everyone in Lapland. That it is especially so for the women allows them a tremendous advantage. They can outthink any man who wanders into their crosshairs because they have a great deal more time to do their thinking in.

  In Lapland, no woman ever speaks to another woman, there’d be no point in wasting valuable time like that. What would they talk about, their feelings? They already understand everything they have to know about their feelings. In Lapland, no woman ever speaks to a child, for they are all barren, although some may now and again pretend to be pregnant. It follows that there are no children in Lapland. However, in a location error that went largely unnoticed, Frank Bigelow once drove past an elementary school. In Lapland, women speak only to men, and these interchanges are deeply codified. The soundtrack (see below) becomes especially intrusive at such moments. It is understood that the woman is motivated by a private scheme, of which the man is entirely ignorant, though he may be suspicious, and it’s always better, more dramatic, if he is.

  Lapland women all have at least two names, the old one that got used up, and the new one, which gets a little more tarnished every day. Carole Chandler used to be Dorothy Lyons, back when she lived in Center City and engineered the moral ruin and financial collapse of Nicky Drake’s best friend, Rip Murdock, the owner of the Orchid Club, a gambling establishment with a private membership.

  Rip, a dandy at the time, used to………….., and Carol/Dorothy, then a cocktail waitress at his club,……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­………his beach shack……………­……………­……………­………….……..a moue……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­…………a stranger with a gun……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­………….bloody rags……………­……………­

  ……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­….off the cliff……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­arched an eyebrow.

  Once in her life, every woman in Lapland gazes through lowered eyelids at a man like Nicky, or Frank, or Rip, or even Doc/Dad (but never at a man like Bud), and says, “You and me, we’re the same—a no-good piece of trash.” In every case, this declaration is meant as, and is taken to be, a compliment.

  SOCIAL CRITICISM

  In Lapland, the spectator observes a world characterized by deliberate dislocations, complex and indirect narratives, flawed protagonists, ambiguous motives and resolutions, a fascination with death……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­..“the blood in her hair, the blood on the floor, the blood in her hair”……………­……………­……..and an atmosphere of nightmare.

  When Rusty Fontaine blew into town, he took a room at the Mandarin hotel and started spreading his money around. He was so successful at exploiting middle-class greed and venality that in six months every square in Lapland owed him a fortune. To get out of debt, a consortium of the squares lured a banker, Chalmers Vermilyea, into an abandoned warehouse and, assisted by Rusty’s luscious and treacherous female sidekick, Marie Gardner, persuaded him to embezzle……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­…sprinkled gasoline over the corpse……………­……………­……………­……off the cliff.

  To the extent that Lapland is a style and not a genre, the vertiginous camera angles, broken shadows, neon-lit interiors, hairpin staircases, extreme high-angle long shots, graphics specific to entrapment, represent a radically disenchanted vision of postwar American life and values.

  PSYCHOPATHS

  Because paranoia is always justified in Lapland, psychopathology becomes an adaptive measure. Johnny O’Clock runs a gambling casino, the Velvet Deuce. He knew Bud Forrester in the war, when they fought across France, killing hundreds of Krauts in one bombed-out village after another. Forrester was his sergeant, and he always respected the man. When one day O’Clock stops for gas at a Shell station on the edge of town, he recognizes his old friend in the station attendant and, acting on impulse, offers him a job in the casino. Forrester accepts, thinking that he might escape his obsession with Carole Chandler. Unknown to Forrester, Johnny O’Clock was unable to stop killing after returning to civilian life and now, under the cover of his job at the Velvet Deuce, hires himself out as a contract killer. He intends to recruit his old sergeant into……………­……………­……………­velvet gloves, his trademark……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……Frank Bigelow……………­……………­……………­……steam rising through the grates……
………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­………..to the beach shack……………­……………­.with the alcoholic security guard in a stupor……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­…….aflame, the Dodge……………­……………­……………­…….two corpses in the backseat and six thousand dollars in cash.

  World War II, it must be remembered, serves as the unspoken background for these films and defines their emotional context. Eight percent of adult males in Lapland served as snipers in the war, and a good twelve percent have metal plates in their heads. These men drink too much and mutter to themselves. Because it gives them red-rimmed headaches, they detest big-band jazz, which they refer to as “that monkey music.” They are prone to blackouts and spells of amnesia. They often marry blind women and/or nymphomaniacs. Unlike them, the former snipers display no visible emotion of any kind. The men with plates in their heads are completely devoted to the ex-snipers, who reward their loyalty with……………­……………­……………­…with onions……………­……………­

  Brace Bannister threw an old woman down the stairs. For pleasure, Johnny O’Clock shot Nelle Marchetti, a prostitute, in the head, and got clean away with it. Norman Clyde existed entirely in flashbacks. Old Man Tierney poisoned a girl visiting from California and kept her severed hand in his pocket. Carole Chandler’s husband, Smokey Chandler, molests small boys on “business trips” to Center City. Nicky Drake has assigned a number to everyone in the world. Carter Carpenter, the vice-mayor of Lapland, sleeps on a mattress stuffed with human hair.

  PRIVATE EYES

  Most noncriminal adult males in Lapland, apart from the doomed squares, are either policemen or private eyes. It is the job of the policemen to accept bribes and arrest the innocent. It is the job of the private investigators to discover bodies, to be interrogated, to drink from the bottle, to wear trench coats, to smoke all the time, to rebuff sexual invitations from females with charming lisps and hair that hangs, fetchingly, over one eye. The private eyes distrust authority, even their own. Nick Cochran is a rich private eye, and Eddie Willis, Mike Lane, and Tony Burke struggle to make the rent on their ugly little offices, where they sleep on……….Frank Bigelow hired Eddie Willis to find Bud Forrester, but Johnny O’Clock followed Eddie into an alley behind the Black Swan and shot him dead. In Nick Cochran’s penthouse, Nicky Drake persuaded Rusty Fontaine to……………­……………­……………­……….., but Marie Gardner, who was hiding on the…………, overheard and……………­……………­………….with Chalmers Vermilyea. Esther Vermilyea (no relation) made an anonymous call to Nick Cochran and……………­……………­……………­……

  ……………­……………­……………­………two corpses in the backseat and a man with a plate in his head……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­……………­screaming and sobbing in the dark and rainy street.

  Six thousand dollars blew away in the wind, and Tom Jardine…………………..for the first time since the landing at Anzio. Frank Bigelow could protect him no longer.

  The armored car left the racetrack. The wrinkled old criminal mastermind known as Dad, whose……………­……………­…had never left him, led Carole Chandler up the shadowy staircase and……………­……………­……………­……………­…………with a new negligee from the Smart Shoppe.

  THE ROLE OF ALAN LADD

  Alan Ladd attracts the light.

  THE OTHER ROLE OF ALAN LADD

  He hovers at the edge of the screen, reminding you that you are, after all, in Lapland, and in some sense always will be. When he smiles, his hair gleams. The smile of Alan Ladd is both tough and wounded, an effect akin to that of headlights reflected on a dark, rain-wet street in downtown Lapland, his turf, his home territory. A sick, shameful nostalgia leaks from every frame, and it is abetted, magnified, amplified by the swooning strings on the sound track. The sound track clings to you like grease. You carry it with you out of the theater, and it swells between the parked cars baking in the sunlight, indistinguishable from the sounds in your head.

  ALAN LADD CONSIDERED AS EXTENSION OF THE SOUND TRACK

  His name is……………………, says Alan Ladd, whose name is Ed Adams, or Johnny Morrison. That man’s name is……………..He is known as Slim Dundee and Johnny O’Clock, also…………….and……………….His names surround him like a cloud of flies. At the center of his names, he……………….and……………….A speaking shadow rises from between the parked cars, and you wish for it to follow you home.

  …………………….., Alan says in musical italics, coming along steadily behind. Sirens flare. A man with a gun flees into a dark, sunlit alley. The hot white stripes of headlights reflected on rainy asphalt shine and shine and shine on the street. Beneath a car further down the block an oily shadow moves, and the name of that shadow is…………………

  Forget him, Alan says. Forget IT. Underneath his warm deep grainy voice, that of a tender and exhausted god, a hundred stringed instruments swoop and twirl, following its music. Do it for my sake. If not for……sake, for mine. I know……can hear me, kid. Kiddo. Little guy.

  I always liked….., did you know that?

  And at night, when…….lie in the bottom bunk with your face to the onyx window, only……..awake in all the house, a streak of blond hair shines in the corner of the window frame, the music stirs like the sound of death and heartbreak, and when his wounded face slips into view, he says, A lot of this is gonna disappear forever. If you remember anything, remember that it’s………fault……….mber that. Little guy. If you can’t remember that, remember me.

  Mr. Aickman’s Air Rifle

  1

  On the twenty-first, or “Concierge,” floor of New York’s Governor General Hospital, located just south of midtown on Seventh Avenue, a glow of recessed lighting and a rank of framed, eye-level graphics (Twombly, Shapiro, Marden, Warhol) escort visitors from a brace of express elevators to the reassuring spectacle of a graceful cherrywood desk occupied by a red-jacketed gatekeeper named Mr. Singh. Like a hand cupped beneath a waiting elbow, this gentleman’s enquiring yet deferential appraisal and his stupendous display of fresh flowers nudge the visitor over hushed beige carpeting and into the wood-paneled realm of Floor 21 itself.

  First to appear is the nursing station, where in a flattering chiaroscuro efficient women occupy themselves with charts, telephones, and the ever-changing patterns traversing their computer monitors; directly ahead lies the first of the great, half-open doors of the residents’ rooms or suites, each with its brass numeral and discreet nameplate. The great hallway extends some sixty yards, passing seven named and numbered doors on its way to a bright window with an uptown view. To the left, the hallway passes the front of the nurses’ station and the four doors directly opposite, then divides. The shorter portion continues on to a large, south-facing window with a good prospect of the Hudson River, the longer defines the southern boundary of the station. Hung with an Elizabeth Murray lithograph and a Robert Mapplethorpe calla lily, an ochre wall then rises up to guide the hallway over another carpeted fifty feet to a long, narrow room. The small brass sign beside its wide, pebble-glass doors reads SALON.

  The Salon is not a salon but a lounge, a rather makeshift lounge at that. At one end sits a good-sized television set; at the other, a green fabric sofa with two matching chairs. Midpoint in the room, which was intended for the comfort of stricken relatives and other visitors but has always been patronized chiefly by Floor 21’s more ambulatory patients, stands a white-draped table equipped with coffee dispensers, stacks of cups and saucers, and cut-glass containers for sugar and artificial sweeteners. In the hours from four to six in the afternoon,
platters laden with pastries and chocolates from the neighborhood’s gourmet specialty shops appear, as if delivered by unseen hands, upon the table.

  On an afternoon early in April, when during the hours in question the long window behind the table of goodies registered swift, unpredictable alternations of light and dark, the male patients who constituted four-fifths of the residents of Floor 21, all of them recent victims of atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter, which is to say sufferers from that dire annoyance in the life of a busy American male, nonfatal heart failure, the youngest a man of fifty-eight and the most senior twenty-two years older, found themselves once again partaking of the cream cakes and petit fours and reminding themselves that they had not, after all, undergone heart attacks. Their recent adventures had aroused in them an indulgent fatalism. After all, should the worst happen, which of course it would not, they were already at the epicenter of a swarm of cardiologists!

  To varying degrees, these were men of accomplishment and achievement in their common profession, that of letters.

  In descending order of age, the four men enjoying the amenities of the Salon were Max Baccarat, the much respected former president of Gladstone Books, the acquisition of which by a German conglomerate had lately precipitated his retirement; Anthony Flax, a self-described “critic” who had spent the past twenty years as a full-time book reviewer for a variety of periodicals and journals, a leisurely occupation he could afford due to his having been the husband, now for three years the widower, of a sugar-substitute heiress; William Messinger, a writer whose lengthy backlist of horror/mystery/suspense novels had been kept continuously in print for twenty-five years by the biannual appearance of yet another new astonishment; and Charles Chipp Traynor, child of a wealthy New England family, Harvard graduate, self-declared veteran of the Vietnam conflict, and author of four nonfiction books, also (alas) a notorious plagiarist.