Nightmare Alley

by William Lindsay Gresham

  The panama was motionless.

  “This man recently became interested in Spiritual Truth. He began to attend the church of a medium who is a dear friend of mine in a city out west. He unburdened his heart to the medium. And when they finally established contact with the ‘buddy’ whose earth life was lost through his cowardice, what do you suppose were the first words the friend in spirit uttered to that guilt-ridden man? They were, ‘You are forgiven.’

  “Picture to yourselves, my friends, the unutterable joy which rose in that man’s tortured heart when the crushing weight of guilt was lifted from him and for the first time in all those years he was a free man—drinking in the sun and the soft wind and the bird song of dawn and eventide.”

  Grindle was leaning forward, one hand on the back of the chair in front of him. Mrs. Prescott whispered something in his ear; but he was deaf to it. He seemed caught and held by the voice of the man behind the lectern, a man in white linen with a black clerical vest, whose hair, in the shaft of summer sun, was as golden as his voice.

  “My dear friends, there is no need for God to forgive us. How can we sin against the wind which blows across the fields of ripening grain, how can we injure the soft scent of lilacs in the spring twilight, the deep blue of an autumn sky or the eternal glory of the stars on a winter’s night? No, no, my friends. We can sin only against mankind. And man, in his next mansion of the soul, says to us tenderly, lovingly, ‘You are forgiven, beloved. When you join us you will know. Until then, go with our love, rejoice in our forgiveness, take strength from us who live forever in the shadow of his hand.”’

  The tears had mounted to the clergyman’s eyes and now, in the light of the alcove, they glistened faintly on his cheeks as he stopped speaking, standing erect with the bearing of an emperor in his chariot.

  “Let us pray.”

  At the back of the room a man who had spent his life ruining competitors, bribing congressmen, breaking strikes, arming vigilantes, cheating stockholders, and endowing homes for unwed mothers, covered his eyes with his hand.

  “Reverend, they tell me you bring voices out of trumpets.”

  “I have heard voices from trumpets. I don’t bring them. They come. Mediumship is either a natural gift or it is acquired by devotion, by study, and by patience.”

  The cigars had cost Stan twenty dollars; but he pushed the box across the desk easily and took one himself, holding his lighter for the tycoon. The Venetian blinds were drawn, the windows open, and the fan whirring comfortably.

  Grindle inhaled the cigar twice, let the smoke trickle from his nostrils, approved it, and settled farther back in his chair.

  As if suddenly remembering an appointment, the spiritualist said, “Excuse me,” and jotted notes on a calendar pad. He let Grindle smoke on while he made a telephone call, then turned back to him, smiling, waiting.

  “I don’t care about trumpet phenomena in your house. I want to see it in my house.”

  The clergyman’s face was stern. “Mr. Grindle, spirit phenomena are not a performance. They are a religious experience. We cannot say where and when they will appear. They are no respecters of houses. Those who have passed over may reveal themselves in the humble cottage of the laborer and ignore completely the homes of wealth, of culture, and of education.”

  The big man nodded. “I follow you there, Carlisle. In one of your sermons you said something about Spiritualism being the only faith that offers proof of survival. I remember you said that the command ‘Show me’ is the watchword of American business. Well, you hit the nail right on the head that time. I’m just asking to be shown, that’s all. That’s fair enough.”

  The minister’s smile was unworldly and benign. “I am at your service if I can strengthen your resolve to find out more for yourself.”

  They smoked, Grindle eyeing the spiritualist, Carlisle seemingly deep in meditation.

  At the left of Grindle’s chair stood a teakwood coffee table, a relic of the Peabody furnishings. On it sat a small Chinese gong of brass. The silence grew heavy and the industrialist seemed to be trying to force the other man to break it first; but neither broke it. The little gong suddenly spoke—a clear, challenging note.

  Grindle snatched it from the table, turning it upside down and examining it. Then he picked up the table and knocked the top with his knuckles. When he looked up again he found the Rev. Carlisle smiling at him.

  “You may have the gong—and the table, Mr. Grindle. It never before has rung by an exudation of psychic power—what we call the odylic force—as it did just now. Someone must be trying to get through to you. But it is difficult—your innate skepticism is the barrier.”

  On the big man’s face Stan could read the conflict—the fear of being deceived against the desire to see marvels and be forgiven by Doris Mae Cadle, 19, septicemia, May 28, 1900: But I tell you, Dorrie, if we get married now it will smash everything, everything.

  Grindle leaned forward, poking the air with the two fingers which gripped his cigar. “Reverend, out in my Jersey plant I’ve got an apothecary’s scale delicate enough to weigh a human hair —just one human hair! It’s in a glass case. You make that scale move and I’ll give your church ten thousand dollars!”

  The Rev. Carlisle shook his head. “I’m not interested in money, Mr. Grindle. You may be rich. Perhaps I am too—in a different way.” He stood up but Grindle stayed where he was. “If you wish to arrange a séance in your own home or anywhere else, I can try to help you. But I should warn you—the place does not matter. What matters is the spiritual environment.” He had been speaking slowly, as if weighing something in his mind, but the last sentence was snapped out as if he had come to a decision.

  “But God damn it—pardon me, Reverend—but I know all this! You’ll get full co-operation from me. I’ve got an open mind, Carlisle. An open mind. And the men I’ll pick for our committee will have open minds too—or they’ll hear from me later. When can you come?”

  “In three weeks I shall have a free evening.”

  “No good. In three weeks I’ll have to be up in Quebec. And I’ve got this bee in my bonnet. I want to find out once and for all, Carlisle. Show me one tiny speck of incontrovertible evidence and I’ll listen to anything else you have to say. Can’t you consider this an emergency and come out to the plant tonight?” Stan had moved toward the door and Grindle followed him. “Mr. Grindle, I believe you are a sincere seeker.”

  They descended the carpeted stairs and stood for a moment at the front door. “Then you’ll come, Reverend? Tonight?”

  Carlisle bowed.

  “That’s splendid. I’ll send the car for you at six. Will that be all right? Or how about coming out earlier and having dinner at the plant? We all eat in the same cafeteria, right with the men. Democratic. But the food’s good.”

  “I shall not want anything very heavy, thank you. I’ll have a bite before six.”

  “Right. The car will pick you up here at the church.” Grindle smiled for the first time. It was a chilly smile, tight around the eyes, but was probably his best attempt. Stan looked at the big man closely.

  Hair thin and sandy. Forehead domed and spattered with freckles. A large rectangle of a face with unobtrusive, petulant features set in the center of it. Habitual lines about the mouth as if etched there by gas pains, or by constantly smelling a faintly foul odor. Voice peevish and high-pitched, bluster on the surface, fear underneath. Afraid somebody will get a dime away from him or a dime’s worth of power. Waistline kept in by golf and a rowing machine. Maybe with shoulder braces to lean against when troubles try to make him stoop like one of his bookkeepers. Hands large, fingers covered with reddish fur. A big, irritable, unsatisfied, guilt-driven, purse-proud, publicity-inflamed dummy —stuffed with thousand dollar bills.

  The hand which the Rev. Carlisle raised as a parting gesture was like a benediction—in the best possible taste.

  When Stan got back to the apartment it was two o’clock in the afternoon. Molly was still asleep. He jerke
d the sheet off her and began tickling her in the ribs. She woke up cross and laughing. “Stan, stop it! Oh—oh, honey, it must be good news! What is it?”

  “It’s the live One, kid. He’s nibbling at last. Séance tonight out at his joint in Jersey. If it goes over we’re set! If not, we’re in the soup. Now go out and get me a kitten.”

  “A what? Stan, you feeling okay?”

  “Sure, sure, sure. Fall into some clothes and go out and find me a delicatessen store that has a kitten. Bring it back with you. Never mind if you have to swipe it.”

  When she had gone he eased the eraser from the end of a pencil, wedged the pencil in the jamb of a door and bored into the shaft with a hand drill. Then he pushed the eraser back and put the pencil in his pocket.

  The kitten was a little tiger tom about three months old.

  “Damn, it couldn’t be a white one!”

  “But, honey, I didn’t know what you wanted with it.”

  “Never mind, kid. You did okay.” He shut himself and the kitten up in the bathroom for half an hour. Then he came out and said to Molly, “Here. Now you can take him back.”

  “Take him back? But I promised the man I’d give him a good home. Aw, Stan, I thought we could keep him.” She was winking back tears.

  “Okay, okay, kid. Keep him. Do anything you want with him. If this deal goes over I’ll buy you a pedigreed panther.”

  He hurried back to the church, and Molly set a saucer of milk on the floor and watched the kitten lap it up. She decided to call him Buster.

  “Here’s where the Grindle property starts, sir,” said the chauffeur. They had rolled through Manhattan, under the river with the tunnel walls gleaming, past the smoke of North Jersey and across a desolation of salt marshes. Ahead of them, over a flat waste of cinders and struggling marsh grass, the smokestack and long, glass-roofed buildings of the Grindle Electric Motor Corporation rose glittering in the last sunlight.

  The car slowed down at a gate in a barbed fence around the top of which ran wire held by insulators.

  The private cop on duty at the gate nodded to the chauffeur and said, “Go right in, Mr. Carlisle. Report at Gatehouse Number Five.”

  They drove down a gravel road and came to another wire fence and Gatehouse Number Five. “Have to go in and register, sir,” said the chauffeur.

  Inside the concrete shack a man in a gray military shirt, a Sam Browne belt and a dark blue cap, was sitting at a desk. He was reading a tabloid; when he looked up Stan read his life history from the face: Thrown off some small city police force for excessive brutality; or caught in a shakedown and sent up—the face bore the marks of the squad room and the prison, one on top of the other.

  “Carlisle? Waiting for you. Sign this card.” It projected from a machine like a cash register. Stan signed. Then the cop said, “Pull the card out.” Stan grasped its waxed surface and pulled. “Watch out—don’t tear it. Better use both hands.”

  The Rev. Carlisle used both hands. But what was it all about? He handed the card to Thickneck, then realized that he had left them a record of his fingerprints on its waxed surface.

  “Now step inside here and I’ll go through the regulations.”

  It was a small dressing room.

  “Take off your coat and hand it to me.”

  “May I ask what this is for?”

  “Orders of Mr. Anderson, Head of Plant Security.”

  “Does Mr. Grindle know about this?”

  “Search me, Reverend; you can ask him. Now give me your coat. Anderson is tightening up on regulations lately.”

  “But what are you searching for?”

  Stumpy fingers felt in pockets and along seams. “Sabotage, Reverend. Nothing personal. The next guy might be a senator, but we’d have to frisk him.” The examination included the Rev. Carlisle’s shoes, his hatband and the contents of his wallet. As the cop was returning the vest a pencil fell out; he picked it up and handed it to the clergyman who stuck it in his pocket. On his way out Stan gave the cop a cigar. It was immediately locked up in the green metal desk, and the Great Stanton wondered if it was later tagged, “Bribe offered by the Rev. Stanton Carlisle. Exhibit A.”

  At the door of the plant a thin, quick-moving man of thirty-odd with black patent-leather hair stepped out and introduced himself. “My name’s Anderson, Mr. Carlisle. Head of Plant Security.” The left lapel of his blue serge suit bulged ever so slightly. “The committee is waiting for you.”

  Elevators. Corridors. Plaster walls pale green. A white spot painted on the floor in all the corners. “They’ll never spit in a corner painted white.” The hum of machines and the clank of yard engines outside. Then one glass-paneled door opening on a passage walled with oak. Carpets on the floor. The reception room belonged in an advertising agency; it was a sudden burst of smooth, tawny leather and chrome.

  “This way, Mr. Carlisle.”

  Anderson went ahead, holding open doors. The directors’ room was a long one with a glass roof but no windows. The table down its center must have been built there; certainly it could never be taken out now.

  Grindle was shaking his hand and presenting him to the others: Dr. Downes, plant physician; Mr. Elrood of the legal staff; Dr. Gilchrist, the industrial psychologist, also on the plant staff; Professor Dennison, who taught philosophy at Grindle College; Mr. Prescott (“You know Mrs. Prescott, I believe, through the church.”) and Mr. Roy, both directors of the company. With Anderson and Grindle they made eight—Daniel Douglas Home’s traditional number for a séance. Grindle knew more than he let on. But didn’t his kind always?

  At the far end of the table—it seemed a city block away—stood a rectangular glass case a foot high; inside it was an apothecary’s precision balance, a cross arm with two circular pans suspended from it by chains.

  Grindle was saying, “Would you care to freshen up a little? I have an apartment right off this room where I stay when I’m working late.”

  It was furnished much like Lilith’s waiting room. Stan shut the bathroom door and washed sweat from his palms. “If I get away with it this time,” he whispered to the mirror, “it’s the Great Stanton and no mistake. Talk about your Princeton audiences …”

  One last look around the drawing room revealed a flowing cloud of blue fur, out of which shone eyes of bright yellow as the cat streamed down from a chair and floated along the floor toward him. Stan’s forehead smoothed out. “Come to papa, baby. Now it’s in the bag.”

  When he joined the committtee he was carrying the cat in his arms and Grindle smiled his tight, unpracticed smile. “I see you’ve made friends with Beauty. But won’t she disturb you?”

  “On the contrary. I’d like to have her stay. And now, perhaps you gentlemen will tell me what this interesting apparatus is and how it works.” He dropped the cat gently to the carpet, where she tapped his leg once with her paw, demanding to be taken up again, then crawled under the table to sulk.

  The head of Plant Security stood with his hand resting on top of the glass. “This is a precision balance, Mr. Carlisle. An apothecary’s scale. The indicator in the center of the bar registers the slightest pressure on either of the two pans. I had one of our boys rig up a set of electrical contacts under the pans so that if either one is depressed—by so much as the weight of a hair— this electric bulb in the corner of the case flashes on. The thing is self-contained; flashlight batteries in the case supply current. The balance has been set level and in this room there are no vibrations to disturb it. I watched it for an hour this afternoon and the light never flashed. To turn on that light some force must depress one of the pans of the balance. Is that clear?”

  The Rev. Carlisle smiled spiritually. “May I inspect it?”

  Anderson glanced at Grindle, who nodded. The private police chief opened the doors of the case and hovered close. “Don’t touch anything, Reverend.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand much about electricity. But you’re sure that this lighting device hasn’t interfered with the fr
ee movement of the scale? What are these copper strips?” He pointed to them with the end of a pencil from which the eraser was missing, indicating two narrow metal strips leading from under the pans of the balance to insulated connections behind it.

  “They’re contact points. Two on each side. If either pan moves it touches these points, closes the circuit and the light goes on.” Anderson swiftly shut the glass doors and latched them.

  The Rev. Carlisle was not listening. His face had grown blank. Moving as if in a dream, he returned to the far end of the room and slipped down into the chair at the end of the table, thirty feet from the mechanism in its glass house.

  Without speaking, Grindle motioned the others to their places —Anderson on Stan’s left, Grindle taking a chair on his right, the rest on either side. The precision balance had half the long table to itself.

  The Rev. Carlisle closed his eyes, folded his arms, and placed his head upon them as if trying to catch a nap. His breathing deepened, jerky and rasping. Once he stirred and muttered something incoherent.

  “He’s gone into a trance?”

  The boss must have shut the speaker up with a look.

  Silence grew. Then Grindle scratched a match to light a cigar and several others took courage and smoked. The room was in semi-darkness and the tension of the waiting men piled up.

  The medium had been searched at the gate. Their eyes had been on him very second since he arrived. He had never touched the instrument—Anderson had been watching him for the slightest move. They had all been warned to look out for threads, or for attempts to tilt the massive table. Mr. Roy had quietly slipped from his chair and was sitting on the floor, watching the medium’s feet beneath the table even though they were thirty feet from the balance. The scale was enclosed in glass; Anderson had latched the doors. And this medium claimed to be able to move solids without touching them! They waited.

  On his right Stan could feel the great man, his attention frozen on the rectangular glass frame. They waited. Time was with the spiritualist. This was a better break than he had ever dreamed of. First the cat showing up, then this magnificent nerve-racking stall for the committee. Would it work after all?