by Robert Bloch
“I know what you meant.” Karen moved past him and shut the door behind her.
Ed Haskane was at his desk. He looked up and started to open his mouth, but Karen beat him to the punch.
“I’m still all right,” she said, spreading the rough and the attached typewritten sheet on the desk top before him. “And I think the copy is, too.”
Whatever his hang-ups, Haskane had a lifelong love affair with language; it was his semantic interest that had made him a copy chief. The sight of the typed or printed word was enough to set his juices flowing, and she sensed the salivation as he turned his attention to what she was presenting.
“Uh huh—yes—I think this does it.” He looked up, rubbing his cheek. “Just one thing, your heading. The kids will get it, but what does A Wipe-Out mean to the straight audience?”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.” Karen frowned.
“Well, maybe you can tie it in somewhere after the lead paragraph.” Haskane stood up. “Excuse me a minute, will you? As we say in Mexico, I have to use the Juan.”
He disappeared into the private washroom and closed the door.
It was warm in the office, despite the air-conditioning, but Karen felt a sudden resurgence of the chill that had assailed her when she’d learned how Tony Rodell died. A Wipe-Out. Just a hype phrase, hyperbole to the teenagers. But Haskane was right. To an older, straighter generation there was another meaning. And it was that meaning which had unconsciously urged the phrase upon her when she wrote the copy this morning. Wipe out. Destroy. Annihilate. Kill.
A signal button blinked from the base of Haskane’s phone. She picked up the receiver automatically and habit modulated her voice. “Mr. Haskane’s office.”
“Karen.”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.
“Karen—do you know who this is?”
“Yes.”
“I asked for your extension, but they switched me here. Are you alone?”
“For the moment.”
“Then listen. What time is your afternoon coffee-break?”
“Four o’clock.”
“Good. I’ll be waiting for you. Upstairs, on the roof.”
“I—I don’t know if I can get away—”
“You must. I’ve got to talk to you. This may be the only chance.”
Karen heard the muffled flushing sound from behind the door beyond.
“Where are you?” Karen murmured.
“Four o’clock on the roof,” the voice whispered.
And then it was gone.
CHAPTER 18
When Karen left Haskane’s office, she found Doyle waiting outside in the hall where she’d left him.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
Karen was sick of the question; she’d heard it so often during the past two days; it was as meaningless as the show of solicitude behind it. Nobody really wanted to hear an answer, any more than they did when they asked, “How are you?” Doyle, of all people, certainly knew that everything was far from being right with her, and he didn’t really care. He was just on an assignment and merely wanted assurance there’d be no immediate problems with his charge.
She wanted to tell him that things could hardly be worse. But her present purposes didn’t allow for arousing his uneasiness or suspicion.
So Karen nodded, and they walked back around the corner to the cubicle.
“Use your phone?” Doyle asked.
“Help yourself.”
Doyle called in to report while Karen arranged the rough layout and copy on her desk beside the typewriter. She made a show of concentration, but didn’t miss a word of Doyle’s murmurings. Everything was under control, and yes, he’d expect Gordon at five o’clock.
Gordon would be Doyle’s relief man, Karen decided; he’d take over the next shift. But five o’clock—that meant Doyle would still be on duty here with her when she went to the roof.
If she went to the roof . . .
Doyle finished his call and hung up.
“Any news?” she asked.
He shook his head. “They located Rodell’s car. If there’s anything else, the department’s not releasing it yet.”
“No word about my husband?”
“Sorry. They didn’t say.”
Karen turned away. No news is good news. Or was it?
If she went to the roof . . .
Almost three o’clock now. She had just about an hour to decide.
“I’ve got to rewrite some copy,” she told Doyle.
“Go ahead.” Doyle opened the file, selected a magazine at random, grimaced at the emaciated model on the cover whose dazed expression lent a double meaning to the term “high fashion.”
Karen sat down before her typewriter and reached for paper.
The problem was how to handle A Wipe-Out. She solved it in a little under twenty minutes by injecting two equally meaningless tie-in phrases under the first paragraph of her copy-block. Then she retyped slowly, concentrating on the real problem.
The roof . . .
She couldn’t hold out forever, she knew that. Maybe the sensible thing would be to tell Doyle now, get it over with. Let the police handle everything; after all, it was their job. Nobody had hired her to take risks in the line of duty. Unless being married in itself entailed duty.
Not according to Women’s Lib. A woman’s first duty was to herself; marriage in its present form was as obsolete as the concept of original sin.
But not for Karen. Intellectually, she realized the necessity of emancipation; emotionally, she was unable to break free from her commitment. So that was no problem, really. Because there was no choice. She had to go because she had to find out the truth, once and for all. Even if it meant finding out the truth about herself, learning that she’d been wrong.
Of course, if she was wrong, the knowledge would come too late. But it wouldn’t matter then.
All that mattered now was getting to the roof.
Karen glanced at her watch. Quarter to four. Doyle was leafing through another fashion magazine, scowling at the latest inspiration of genius offered by Yves St. Laurent. Left to himself, he’d sit here until his relief arrived at five o’clock. But the question was how to leave him to himself. Suddenly she had the answer.
Karen pushed her chair back, stood up.
Doyle lowered the magazine. “Where are we going now?”
She reached for her purse. “I don’t know about you, but there’s a powder room down the hall.”
“Oh, sure.” He was smiling now. “I’ll escort you.”
“As far as the door.” Karen returned his smile. “This is a very proper agency.”
Ten minutes of four.
The coffee break hadn’t started, and the corridor was deserted. The employees’ washrooms were just around the corner, at right angles to the passage leading back to the entrance. Karen paused before the door marked Ladies, glancing at Tom Doyle as she gripped her purse.
“I’ll probably be a while,” she said. “I want to put on fresh makeup before we go for coffee.”
“Take your time.”
Karen entered the washroom. She didn’t put on makeup and she didn’t take her time. The moment she assured herself that the place was deserted, she walked straight through—and out on the other side. What Doyle didn’t realize was that there was another door which fronted on the hall outside the offices.
Emerging from it, she found herself in an outer corridor around the corner from the elevators. That was good, because the man on duty there couldn’t see her. All she had to do was continue walking in the opposite direction to the heavy metal door under the Exit sign.
She opened it and saw the stairs. Moving slowly to avoid the clatter of her heels on the iron treads, she started up. After two flights she could feel the perspiration on her forehead, but her mouth was dry. Her breathing quickened, though not from exertion.
Five minutes to four.
Five minutes to four, and she was on the roof.
>
Alone.
It wasn’t the first time Karen had made the climb; long ago, when she started at the agency, some of the girls had been in the habit of bringing their lunches and eating them here while acquiring a suntan. But she’d never come up by herself, and since an office memo had gone the rounds to forbid the practice, the roof had been off-limits. Not hard to understand why. Aside from the projection of the skylight at the stairtop, the roof was perfectly flat, and there was no wall, no railing to separate the level limits of the edge from the emptiness beyond. A high wind would constitute a definite danger.
But there was no wind today, only the burning heat. The roof’s surface was gritty underfoot. The afternoon sun was slanting towards Santa Monica in the west, and Karen turned her back to it, moving slowly to survey the shaded sectors of the city.
Strange, she realized. This is the only time I ever see them. Off to the north stretched La Crescenta, La Canada, Altadena—exotic names for sunbaked suburbs hidden in the hills. She’d never been to any of them. Somewhat closer, rising out of the smog of Glendale, was Forest Lawn.
Karen turned her back to the scene, gazing at Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles beyond, then south towards Watts. Again these were merely names to her; names associated with poverty and protest. Not nice places to live, though most of the city’s population was concentrated here. Those who could choose lived west of the downtown area; when they talked about Los Angeles they were really speaking of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, even Malibu. If they had to drive through to the east and south, they took a freeway, racing past the realities to some make-believe destination: Knott’s Berry Farm, the Japanese Gardens. But all the while a million people sweltered and suffered in the sun-bleached slums.
No wonder there was hatred and hostility here, the omnipresent threat of riot. They talked about the climate of violence and debated its components; some said it was the war and others blamed war toys; some accused the political far right, others the political far left. But here on the roof the real climate of violence was plainly apparent; it was a climate of humid heat and sour smells enveloping the ghetto areas.
Four o’clock.
Karen turned back towards the skylight.
The roof was still empty. Empty and still.
What had happened?
Why didn’t he come?
She squinted into the sun and perspiration rivuleted against the corners of her eyes. Hot. Too hot. The climate of violence—
She had to turn away. A cloud slid over the sun, and a tiny breeze sprang up. Gratefully she moved against it, towards the east edge of the roof.
Glancing down at the street, she saw the traffic crawling like windup toys fourteen flights below. As she stared over the edge she felt a surge of giddiness and took a single step backwards.
Suddenly the breeze grew stronger. She started to turn.
And the hand gripped her arm.
CHAPTER 19
The stranger was tall, his broad shoulders cramped in a jacket that was a size too small for him. His skin was very white. Pale as a ghost, because he was a ghost.
“Bruce!”
Karen stared at him, hoping that uttering the name would make the stranger disappear, leave only the man she remembered. But six months is a long time and he wasn’t the same.
“Did anyone see you come up here?” he murmured.
“No.”
“You’re positive?”
Karen nodded. “Lucky thing you reached me on Haskane’s line. My phone is bugged. And I’ve got a detective bodyguard.”
“Where is he?”
Quickly, Karen explained how she’d eluded Doyle. As she did so, Bruce’s fixed frown relaxed, and so did his grip on her arm. “Then we can talk.”
“Why didn’t you get in touch with me before? I’ve been going out of my mind—”
Karen broke off, realizing the import of the phrase. But Bruce merely shook his head, expression unchanged.
“I figured they’d be monitoring the calls at the apartment.”
“But where have you been? What happened?”
“No time for that now.” Bruce’s frown returned. “If they realize you cut out on them and start looking for you—”
“What if they do?” Karen tried to keep her voice steady. “You can’t go on running forever.”
“I have to.” Bruce’s eyes never left her face. “They already know I was in the sanatorium. They’re bound to check my service record and the hospital reports. Between that and what we both know about me—” He broke off and for a moment his glance wavered. Then he stared at her again, and his words came with a rush. “Have you said anything? Have you told them about us?”
Karen shook her head.
“Good.” Bruce’s shoulders sagged in relief. “That’s what I had to find out. Because if they knew, that would be the clincher, wouldn’t it?”
“Is this the reason you wanted to see me?”
“You don’t understand, do you?” Bruce turned away, but his murmur was all too audible. “You don’t know what it means. To sit there, day after day. Night after night. After a while, the two seem to blend. Not blend, really, because it’s as if the night swallowed the day. So you’re always in darkness, perpetual darkness—a night-world. That’s what you live in, a night-world, where all the sounds and shadows turn strange. And you think about those who’ve done this to you, and they’re your enemies. Then you think about those who aren’t directly responsible, but who don’t care. The people you call out to who never hear your voice—after a while you realize they’re your enemies, too. Everyone’s a part of the conspiracy, a conspiracy of silence and indifference. They’re all trying to get you. So you wonder how you can get them first. Punish them for punishing you. And you start to dream about it, and the dream becomes a plan and the plan becomes a reality.”
“Bruce, for God’s sake—”
“We don’t talk about God in the asylum. We talk about something called the Id and the Ego and the Superego. Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, all equally invisible.” His smile was bitter. “The gospel according to Griswold. According to him there are no accidents. The mind that makes one man a murderer makes another man a victim.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“Of course not.” Bruce sighed. “I’m only trying to tell you what it’s like, tell you how he thinks. I know, because that’s how I felt myself, at first. But Griswold helped me change. The thing is, he couldn’t help him.”
“Who?”
“The man they’re looking for. The murderer.”
“What’s his name?”
Bruce shook his head. “If you knew his name, he’d come after you. Do you want to be a victim, too?”
“I want to help you.”
“Then give me some money—let me get away before he finds me. That’s all I want.”
“Is it?”
“No.” And then he was holding her, his arms tight, his body close so that she could feel the trembling. “You’re what I want, what I’ve always wanted, I know that now. But it’s too late, after what happened I don’t blame you—”
“I love you. I always have.”
The trembling ceased. Now there was only a tautness. “You didn’t even visit me out there.”
“Griswold asked me not to. He must have told you that.”
“Yes. And I didn’t believe him.”
“I was coming to see you the other night. Griswold said you were probably ready to come home.”
“If I’d only known.” Bruce released her, stepped back.
“You didn’t?”
“Do you think I’d have gone along with Cromer if I had?”
“Cromer—?
“All right.” Bruce took a deep breath. “The man they want is Edmund Cromer. He never really talked about himself, but from what little I heard, he’s the only son of a wealthy family back in New York or New Jersey, I’m not sure which. They committed him about a year ago. In view of what’s happened,
I suspect they sent him all the way out here because he might have been involved in something pretty horrible back East.”
“Did you know about his plan to escape?”
“Nobody did, except Rodell. And I don’t think Rodell realized he meant to kill anyone when he made the break. But of course Cromer must have had it all worked out. And after it started, there was no stopping.”
“How did it happen?”
“I’m not sure. I was upstairs in my room after dinner, and so were the others, all but Cromer. He’d gone down to talk to Dr. Griswold. He must have killed him first, in the electrotherapy room, then the night nurse outside. There was no noise. The first time any of us realized something had happened was when we smelled smoke from the burning papers in the fireplace.”
“Wasn’t there an attendant on duty with you upstairs?”
“That’s right—Thomas. He was playing checkers with Tony Rodell in his room. I guess that had all been arranged, just to keep him busy, because Cromer had no trouble finding him when he came in with the knife in his hand—”
Bruce broke off, frowning. “No point going into that,” he said. “Thomas was dead by the time the rest of us came running out of our rooms. The old lady, Mrs. Freeling, took one look at Thomas and keeled over. Cromer said she was dead.”
“You didn’t examine her?”
“No.” Bruce shook his head quickly. “And I didn’t try to stop Cromer either, if that’s what you’re wondering about. None of us did. Because Cromer had come upstairs carrying Dr. Griswold’s gun and he kept us covered. We had no way of knowing it wasn’t loaded—all we did know was that Cromer had committed cold-blooded murder and was perfectly capable of continuing.
“He gave us our choice. Go with him now in Griswold’s car or he’d leave us behind. And he didn’t say anything about leaving us behind alive.
“If we’d had time to think, maybe a couple of us could have gotten together and tried to jump him. But you’ve got to realize what it was like—the panic, the confusion. Edna Drexel was hysterical, Lorch was in a state of shock. Between Rodell and Cromer with his gun, I had no chance of doing anything alone. I guess all any of us could grasp was that we’d better get out of there.