The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1

by Joseph S. Pulver

  She sits on a bench in the garden. Unbuttons the buttons of her blouse. Reaches under her skirt and slides her panties off. Her fingers, angels to her demon, stray . . .

  ~*~

  Fredric Galt stormed into Archer’s office, shouting about deceit and treachery. His right hand a fist. His chauffeur/bodyguard harder at his right shoulder. Fredric’s eyes the hardest thing in the room.

  He walks to Archer’s desk and picks up an ivory letter opener.

  The doctor had seen the same murderous rage in Carl Lee’s eyes. Knew the energized hand before him was, at this moment, no less deadly. Knew his next move in this game of chess with Death might be his last.

  Cool bedside voice. “This is all a simple mistake of judgment. If you’ll allow me, I can explain.”

  “Mistake? The fuck it is! When I’m done with you, you conniving fuck, you won’t be able to clean shit-stalls in the poorest Third World country. I’ll purchase this facility and have it torn down—With you buried under it! You’re using my wife for some twisted experiment. This is the woman I love, she’s not some aberration . . . You have to be out of your mind to fuck with me.” Fredric thought about calling a former C.I.A. operative he knew and having Archer terminated, inch by slow inch. He looked at his bodyguard. One word, doctor, and James will turn you into a welcome mat at the gates of Hell.

  “No one has ever fucked with me and continued breathing.” Voice fast and hard from bared teeth. Cold. Deadly.

  “Mr. Galt, please. You don’t understand what’s going on here.”

  “I understand fully well—”

  “Please let me explain.”

  Galt’s expression said talk fast.

  “This former patient of mine is critical to understanding—curing, your poor wife’s condition. With his help, I can return Susan to you. If you will just give me a few days.”

  Fredric listened. Archer diagramed and outlined his procedure.

  “Tuesday. 10 a. m. If I see no improvement in Susan’s condition your career is over. And if you stick one more goddamn needle in her arm, someone will show you what it means to truly be a pin cushion.” Fredric said, turning to James.

  “I hope I have made myself clear.” He had. To both men.

  James opened the door for Fredric. Before James left the room he turned, looked at Archer, looked down at his hand, made a terrible fist. It looked like it was forged to pulverize granite. With a smile, he returned his gaze to the doctor’s whitening face. All phrases, all opportunities closed. No escape, target locked.

  Behind the closed door of his office Archer sat. His shoulders slumped. He looked like an old mattress someone had taken a tire iron to.

  Scotch, three fingers times 2 to sweep out the sharp chill of the predator.

  Archer began Susan’s hypnosis two hours after her husband left. She’ll be ready, appear to be better, but still require long-term care. He’ll understand she will need to stay here . . . All I need is this one performance from her . . .

  Fearing Galt’s temper and James’ hard promise of aggression should Susan miss her cues, Archer went to his office closet and opened a fire safe. From it he took a Glock and a shoulder holster. He’d been threatened by madmen before.

  ~*~

  He couldn’t pull up in a cheap Chevy or some dented pick up, so he’d stolen a black 550i Sedan, thinking it would fit the illusion. Carl Lee drove passed the house of a kindly old woman he skinned almost two years ago while escaping the asylum, smiled. Carl Lee spent two days in the public library, online, researching Archer and his work and his new theory. He’d found his way in.

  The 550i was a jackrabbit on its way to eat the coyote. Its race with the wind ate the miles of I-40 West.

  He slowed his breathing. Just a few more miles.

  To shake off the highway dust, he drove through an automated car wash for an “ultimate” wash and wax.

  Appearances. Don’t offer them reasons to think you’re not what you look like. Stay firm and quiet. Solid. Scare them politely and this will work.

  ~*~

  “I represent, Mr. Fredric Galt.’

  “Appointment? No. Mr. Galt instructed me to come here and check on Mrs. Galt’s condition. If you’ll call Dr. Archer, I believe you’ll discover I do not need an appointment.” Carl Lee took a cell phone he robbed out of his jacket pocket. “Perhaps you’d like me to call Mr. Galt and tell him I’ll be unable to check on his wife as I have no appointment.” Voice courteous and firm and not to be contradicted.

  If I have to, I’ll gut this stupid-ass bitch. And anyone else I have to, to get to Cassilda.

  Privy to every eddy of the facility’s whisper-stream, the receptionist had heard about Dr. Archer’s encounter with Galt. She knew Archer had erred, many asserting to the point of professional suicide, and was terrified of Galt. She dialed Dr. Archer and spoke quickly.

  Less than 5 minutes. Archer appeared. Walked right over. Extended his hand to Carl Lee. Carl Lee smiled, took Archer’s hand and flatly stated the reason for his visit.

  Jackpot. Those damned interviews worked better than I’d hoped.

  “I’ll be happy to take you to her, Mr. Walker. If you’ll please come this way.” Stay calm. You can leave him with her and come back with attendants. He’s here. He’s come for his Cassilda. I can’t believe this . . .

  No verbal exchange in the hallways of calming, fresh-as-the-morning paint. Each troubled by and suspicious of the other. Each weighing options of vision in the chess match . . . Each in his heart, knowing the other was truly mad.

  The door to the stage. Commitment beyond.

  Leaden, drug-frail. Pale. Strapped to her chair. Her wheelchair was parked between two large clay containers, between two friendship trees. She was looking out the wall of glass. The afternoon’s heat played on the hills. Distortions in the shamanic sands, in the parched air. Cactus, the scrub trees bent and brown. The dust swirls.

  Carl Lee boiled. Cassilda subjected to this. His hand hungry for his knife and Archer’s blood.

  “Susan, you have a visitor.” Dr. Archer said. “Do you remember him? Perhaps he visited you . . . In Carcosa?”

  Eyes wide with disbelief, Carl Lee spun into the slap of his failure. Archer stood there gun leveled.

  Ugly, perverted. Firm as a solid door to a locked room. “Did you think I’m fool enough not to recognize my star patient, Carl Lee? How many times in our sessions did I tell you a person can change his or her mask, for it is merely an expression posed above the neckline, a script or color if you like, we change to suit the needs of the day, but our eyes never lie? You can change the flag, but you cannot change what it stands for.’

  “I can’t tell you how delighted I am. I’ve looked forward to this day for some time now . . . I want you to know I’m very excited by the things we may uncover in our coming hours together.” Cold hard smile under cold ugly eyes.

  “Your room is ready. It’s been ready since the day you left me.’

  “Have you no greeting for an old friend?’

  “I’m sure a few days in The Room will reawaken your memories.” Archer’s downturned mouth became a smile. Infected by Carl Lee’s distress it darkened. He almost laughed.

  Somehow ambushed. His part of the room nervous, weak, vulnerable. Dismay. Question marks buzzing, climbing. Carl Lee’s mouth tasted of ashes and dead moths. This close and his tormentor—captor, was gloating, about to cast him into Hell again. The doctor was over confident, the gun, harder than any security blanket or line of tanks, the distance between them.

  Cut down. Facing the triumphant eyes of the rat.

  Red—hot, pulling, bites, scrapes. His fingers are streets of shadows, ideas twisting, stretching for magic. Revved up, Carl Lee lunges.

  A shot. Burning. Blood. The demoralizing flame of pain.

  Carl Lee still came forward, full-on hate/rage/panic discharged. Took the doctor down with a knee to the balls. Clawing. Punches, the dance of blood, hammer blind. Ripped his horn-rimmed glasses from
his face. Plunged the broken ear piece into his throat. Blood . . . Hands, fingers bent, on each other’s throats. By furies possessed, brothers, in blood and hate . . . Knotted. Grinding. Paper skin tearing . . . Wrestling with dreams each might never see.

  Hand fumbling with the catch on the brief case. The Knife.

  Cutting . . .

  Desperation. Archer’s hand stretching for the Glock two feet beyond his clawing fingers. Helpless.

  Hacking downwards with the side of his hand, Carl Lee chopped the doctor’s windpipe.

  “I told you to watch, motherfucker. You watching? You wanted the Truth. This is it.”

  The poet, writing in the anatomy, cutting, deeper, red and wet, uncovering the plain white truth . . . Curves and layers. No breath. Heat receding . . . Pick’s up the gun. Puts a round in Archer’s left eye.

  “When you get to Hell, study it well.”

  Returned from the red-fire cloud of rage and pain, Carl Lee looked at his arm. The shot only a flesh wound. Finding the worse over, to her he rushes.

  “Cassilda. I have come for you. ”

  She looked at him. Thought it was Fredric . . . Struggling to find her voice, any voice, in her dry-cotton throat. “I . . . Fredric? Seclusion with the green birds . . . The lantern . . . in the Fourth Tower . . . Can’t shake . . . sedatives.” Voice autumnal, haunted by the unspeakable.

  “Couldn’t call home . . . Get away . . . Have you seen my shoes, Uoht?”

  He looks at her bare feet and smiles. “It’s OK, Sweet Princess. It’s just the monster’s drugs. They wear off you’ll be fine. I promise. You need never worry about him again. He’s in Hell.’

  “When you’re out of here you can have all the shoes you want.”

  Gun in his right hand, knife in his left. Standing there quietly shaking, wondering what to do next . . . Cuts the restraints on her wrists.

  She looks down, flexes her wrists, fingers. Sees lonely white angels.

  “Free?”

  “Yes, Cassilda, you’re free.”

  Two days early, Fredric and James walked into the sunroom. Carl Lee knew Galt from his photos in on the internet. A rapid not-so-quiet bark, the discharge flexes through jacket and muscle. He struck down James with a single round. Fredric’s bodyguard’s eyes roll to a place beyond human sight.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you. I know who you are.” Carl Lee said to Fredric. He needed time to figure out what to do. What would Cassilda think if he shot Galt in front of her?

  Yer dead asshole. It’s just a—

  He’s . . . And it hit him how much he looked like Galt. We could be brothers.

  Two Fredrics? Blinking eyes. One, a mirror? Of lies. She’s reaching through the cloud-haze. She looks at both. She’d lain with one, the other one . . . The bloody one wore no mask. He was here to bring her home.

  Standing. Two steps. Cocks her head. Almost free of the drug-daze . . .

  A soft pale hand on the wrist with the gun.

  “Wait, Thale.” She takes off Fredric’s ring. Throws it at his feet.

  “You locked me away with the green birds . . . Locked me out of the Fourth Tower. Took my shoes. You took my shoes, Uoht . . . I tried to love you.”

  “I love you. I’ve always loved you. Mother—”

  “‘Foul-spoken coward! that thunder’st with thy tongue’—Mother is DEAD. She didn’t want you to marry me. She wanted you for herself . . . That’s why she never remarried after she killed your father. She wanted you in her bed.”

  “Susan! Stop. Wake up—Think. Look at me. It’s, Fredric.”

  “I know you, Uhot. You filled all the hours with those women. Fucking fresh skin, cunning doorways hidden behind masks, dragging me to another desolate tomorrow in tears . . . You insulted me, scarred me with every one you fucked. Your mother stood behind the curtains in her black grave-cloth and watched you fuck them like a ravenous tiger. Wanted you fucking her, not them. I saw her touching herself as you fucked them. I heard her moan.”

  She’s touching herself. “Fucking—Your lust was quicksilver—Fucking. Fucking. She loved to watch your body strike your dainty does.”

  Her pale fingers tenderly stroke Carl Lee’s cheek. She takes the knife from his hand.

  “That raven-bitch had flint in her heart for me . . . ‘But I digress too much’. My hand is no longer forlorn, fashioned tear for tear it is famished marble. ‘Witness my knife’s sharp point.’”

  Sweat bonds her linen robe to her heaving breasts. Fredric lies at her feet, bleeding out. Her toes pressed to his unmoving lips, she pushes, turns his head aside. “That way lays fair Carcosa, where you shall never abide.’

  Cassilda stands before Carl Lee. Her white linen gown, a wedding gown. His agony stops.

  Face to face. Joining.

  “Hello.” Shy. Respectful. In awe. Autumn-hued romantic images dance drunkenly with curves of slow moving dream-flesh in his mind. The music of the stars is a gentle road.

  “Hi.” Muted. Just awakened from bereavement.

  He drank the midnight hours vibrating in her eyes.

  “Sweet Princess.”

  “‘Nature puts me to a heavy task so I may live again.’’

  “‘O, take this warm kiss on thy cold pale lips.’”

  She kissed Carl Lee. Slow. Her lips were sweet as lemonade, soft as velvet midnight. All his ghosts fell away.

  “Sing me back home, Thale.”

  He was floating. Gleaming. His happiness sat on his shoulders and sang. He began to hum a gentle ballad cloaked in April awakenings . . .

  “If madness has a color,” she said as she slid his knife in his belly.

  She stepped back. Looked into his blasted eyes. Her mask no longer hid the lie . . .

  “Do you think it’s yellow?”

  Mild as sanctuary dust, her soft white hands no longer the subject of fire. No tears to wipe away. The spices of decay gone.

  Mouth silent. Eyes straight—etched, staring at the still beast. All he saw was the spreading blackness.

  ~*~

  The yard was now, finally, full. The gates to Carcosa’s phantom gardenvale open . . . Lonely birds smile on the shepherdess. The moons shine whitely and fall, gently, upon the lake . . . Through the gates, free of the labyrinth. She opens her parasol and walks in the garden. Bare feet gently pushing aside the black, curling leaves of the Winter Tree . . .

  A line of questions comes. One by one they hand her their note—One line, one short question. She smiles and points . . .

  Blue windows unfold. There is a pale figure with a great black mouth on the hill. It opens all the Mirrors of Truth and whispers, “Alone.”

  The next question appears. She changes her tongue and points . . .

  (again, for Susan McAdam)

  The Last Few Nights In A Life Of Frost

  (Original “unpublished” version)

  Dim . . . and slightly damp. A cramped basement, fleabag-of-a-room in something less than a flophouse. It’s the best cast-offs blacklisted by fate can find when they’re on the run . . . Even from the swords of punishment within . . .

  ST puts down his cigarette. Opens the letter he’s been staring at for over an hour. In it a key. A note says GO HERE.

  There is a map.

  No return address.

  Looks at the postmark. It’s very old. Dead letter old. A decade before he was born old.

  Who? And how in the hell . . .

  Doesn’t pack much; his gun, a few changes of clothes. And the picture.

  Envelope left behind, dropped in the middle of the floor for the maid. Forgets to tear something up, or slam the door.

  Takes a bus downtown. And another to a trucking hub out near the airport.

  In a truck stop diner he steals a car. 20 miles later in a Prime Inn motel parking lot he abandons it and steals another.

  Drives two hours west and abandons that one as well.

  Takes a taxi to the airport in this other town. In the long term parking lot he steals the third.r />
  Four and a half hours later as the sky darkens he leaves the car in a supermarket parking lot.

  Walks to the Prime Inn motel. Checks in.

  #17.

  Gun drawn, safety off, he enters the room.

  From Illinois to Arkansas to Georgia to Nebraska to Arizona there are 532 Prime Inn budget motels. Exactly 25 rooms in every one. 1330 in all. Seen one you’ve seen all. Budget, meaning cheap, mattress. Budget, meaning cheap, TV, sometimes they work OK. Budget, meaning cheap, everything else. About half are sorta clean about half the time, if you’re lucky. But everyone is cheap. $22.50 a night, or an hour, if that’s all that’s required. Most of the whores that use the rooms are in and out in less than 60 minutes. Dope deals take a little more time because there’s more money to count.

  The room is empty.

  Sets his small, cheap suitcase on the floor and looks around.

  Nothing.

  Checks the bathroom.

  Nothing.

  Lifts the receiver from the cradle. Has dial tone. Sets in back down.

  Begins waiting.

  Edgy, he wonders what or who he’s waiting for.

  3 cigarettes and 5 pulls off the pint of whiskey later he turns on the TV. The strawberry blonde smiles and says, “You made it. That’s good. We weren’t sure you would come.”

  ST picks up his gun.

  “No need for that. There won’t be anyone tapping on your door. While you wait, you might like to read what we’ve left for you. It’s in the drawer.” She’s stopped smiling. “I’ll talk to you again soon.”

  The TV shuts itself off.

  He knows the strawberry blonde. Did a job for her a million years ago. Funny, she doesn’t seem to have aged. Not too much.

  ST remembers the job. Dirty.

  And bloody.

  And she didn’t pay him. Didn’t fuck him either, though she had promised. Whispered it so sweetly. Her fingers on the back of his hand, hot enough to melt steel. Her hips pressing against his, hot enough to forge steel.

  Opens the drawer slowly.

  An old and worn leather diary. His initials embossed on the cover.

  But he never kept or owned a diary. No need to. He remembered everything.

  Takes it out of the drawer. Looks at the back. Nothing.