Nightmare Alley

by William Lindsay Gresham

  The voice at the other end of the wire was frantic. Grindle listened for a time and then said, “Never mind, Andy. I’ve just been—away.”

  “One question, Chief. Are you with that spirit preacher?”

  The Chief’s voice grew clearer. “Andy—I forbid you ever to mention that man’s name to me again! That’s an order. You and everyone else in the organization. Is that clear? And I forbid anyone to ask me where I’ve been. I know what I’m doing. This is final.”

  “Okay, Chief. The curtain is down.”

  He made two more calls. One was for a cab and the other was to Dr. Lilith Ritter. There was one chamber in his brain that wasn’t functioning yet. He didn’t dare open it until he was safely in Dr. Ritter’s office.

  Molly had not stopped for clothes. She pulled on her shoes, threw a coat around her, grabbed her purse, and ran from that awful house. She ran all the way home.

  In the flat Buster miaowed to her, but she gave him a quick pat. “Not now, sugar. Mamma has to scram. Oh, my God!”

  She heaved a suitcase onto the bed and threw into it everything small and valuable she could see. Still crying in little bubbling starts, she drew on the first panties and bra that came out of a drawer; she got into the first dress she touched in the closet, shut the keyster, and put Buster in a big paper bag.

  “Oh, my God, I’ve got to hurry.” Play dumb and give them an Irish name. “I’ve got to hurry, somewhere. Stan—oh, damn you, damn you, damn you, I don’t feel dirty! He was just as clean as you, you damn cheap hustler. Oh—Daddy—”

  The hotel people were nice about Buster. She expected cops any minute but nothing happened. And the address she found in the Billboard was the right one. A reply to her telegram got back early the next morning:

  SENDING DOUGH NEED GIRL SWORD CABINET ACT COME HOME SWEETHEART

  ZEENA

  CARD XV

  Justice

  holds in one hand a balance, in the other a sword.

  LILITH opened the door; she said nothing until they were in the office and she had seated herself behind the desk, asking softly, “Did she?”

  Stan had discarded clerical bib and collar. He was sweating, his mouth cottony. “She went all the way. Then she blew up. I —I knocked out the pair of them and left them there.”

  Lilith’s eyes half closed. “Was that necessary?”

  “Necessary? Wounds of God! Don’t you think I tried to weasel out of it? The old bastard was like a stallion kicking down a stall to get into a mare. I dropped both of them and beat it.”

  Lilith was drawing on her gloves. She took a cigarette from her purse. “Stan, it may be some time before I can meet you.” She swung open the panel and dialed the safe combination. “He may come to me—I’ll try to persuade him not to hunt for you.” She laid the convincer wad and the two brown envelopes on the desk. “I don’t want to keep this any longer, Stan.”

  When he had stuffed the money into his pockets Lilith smiled. “Don’t get panicky. He won’t be able to start any action against you for several hours. How hard did you hit him?”

  “I just pushed him. I don’t think he was all the way out.”

  “How badly is the girl hurt?”

  “For God’s sake, she isn’t hurt! I just dropped her; she’ll come out of it quick. If she stays groggy it will give the chump something to worry about: what to do with her. If she gets clear she’ll head straight back to the flat and wait for me. She’ll have a good long wait. I’ve got the keyster parked uptown in a check room. The phoney credentials and everything. If Molly had any brains she could put the con on that mark for hush money: claim he attacked her in the dark séance room. Christ, why didn’t I think of that angle sooner? But it’s sour now. I’m on my way.”

  He lifted Lilith’s face and kissed her, but the lips were cool and placid. Stan was staring down into her eyes. “It’s going to be a long time, baby, before we get together.”

  She stood up and moved closer to him. “Don’t write to me, Stan. And don’t get drunk. Take sedative pills if you have to, but don’t get drunk. Promise me.”

  “Sure. Where you going to write to me?”

  “Charles Beveridge, General Delivery, Yonkers.”

  “Kiss me.”

  This time her mouth was warm.

  At the door he slid his arm around her, cupping her breast with his hand, and kissed her again. Suddenly he drew up, his face sharp with alarm. “Wait a minute, baby. He’s going to start thinking back on who tipped me to that abortion. And he’s going to think straight to you! Come on, sweetheart, we’ve both got to scram.”

  Lilith laughed: two sharp notes like the bark of a fox. “He doesn’t know that I know that. I worked it out from things he wouldn’t say.” Her eyes were still laughing. “Don’t tell me how to look out for myself, lover. Tell me—” A black-gloved hand pressed his arm. “Tell me how you made that precision balance move!”

  He grinned and said over his shoulder, “Yonkers,” as he walked swiftly out of the door.

  Mustn’t use the car. Cab drivers remember people. Subway to Grand Central. Walk, do not run, to the nearest exit. One hundred and fifty grand. Christ, I could hire a flock of private cops myself.

  In a dressing room under the station he opened the traveling bag and pulled out a shirt and a light suit. There was a fifth of Hennessy; he uncapped the bottle for a short one.

  A hundred and fifty grand. Standing in his underwear he fastened on a money vest with twelve pockets. Then he took up the roll of currency—one handful—his profits from the church racket. Take a fifty and a few twenties and stash the rest away.

  Snapping off the rubber band from the fat roll he peeled off the fifty. The next bill was a single. And the one after it. But he hadn’t cluttered up the convincer boodle with singles! Had he added any money to the pile that night in Lilith’s office? Singles!

  He spread out the wad, passing the bills from one hand to the other. Then he turned so that the light above the wash bowl would fall on them and riffled through them again. Except for the outside fifty the whole works was nothing but ones!

  Stan’s eyebrows began to itch and he dug at them with his knuckles. His hands smelled of money and faint perfume from bills carried by women.

  The Great Stanton took another pull of brandy and sat down carefully on the white dressing stool. What the hell had gone sour now? Counting over showed three hundred and eighty-three dollars in the boodle. There had been eleven thousand— and the “take”? Good Christ!

  He let the dollars fall to the floor and snatched at one of the brown envelopes, cutting his thumb as he tore it open.

  There was a shuffle of feet outside and the attendant’s white duck trousers appeared beneath the door. “You all right in there, sir?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure.”

  This pile ought to be all five-century notes—

  “You ain’t feeling faint, is you, mister?”

  Oh, good God, leave me alone. “No. I’m okay, I tell you.”

  “Well, that’s fine, sir. I just thought I heard noise like some gentleman having a fit. Gentleman have a fit in here last week and I had to crawl under the door and hold him down. Had to get the porter, mop up all the blood where he cut his self.”

  “For God’s sake, man, let me get dressed!” Stan grabbed a dollar from the scattered bills at his feet and held it under the door.

  “Oh—oh! Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

  Stan tore off the brown paper. Singles!

  The other envelope was tough; he ripped into it with his teeth. Again—the thick packet contained nothing but one-dollar bills!

  The pastor of the Church of the Heavenly Message crushed a handful of them in his fist, his eyes traveling along the black lines between the tiles of the floor. He let out an explosive sound like a cough; lifting his fist he beat the crumpled paper against his forehead twice. Then he fired the money into a corner and turned on both faucets of the washbowl. In the roaring water he let himself go; he sank his face in
the basin and screamed, the sound bubbling up past his ears through the rush of water. He screamed until his diaphragm was sore and he had to stop and sit down on the floor, stuffing a towel in his mouth and tearing it with his teeth.

  At last he hoisted himself up and reached for the brandy, swallowing until he had to stop and gasp for breath. In the mirror’s merciless light he saw himself: hair streaming, eyes bloodshot, mouth twisted. Bleeding wounds of Christ!

  The gypsy switch.

  He stood, swaying, his hair falling damply over his eyes.

  Dr. Lilith Ritter said, “Sit down, Mr. Carlisle.”

  Her voice was cold, kind, and sad—and as professional as the click of a typewriter.

  His head began to shake as if he were saying no to a long series of questions. It went on shaking.

  “I’ve done everything I can,” said the sad voice through cigarette smoke. “When you first came to me you were in bad shape. I had hoped that by getting at the roots of your anxiety I could avert a serious upset. Well—” The hand gestured briefly with its star sapphire. “I failed.”

  He began rubbing his fingers along the top of the desk, listening to the small whimpering noise of sweat against mahogany.

  “Listen to me, Mr. Carlisle.” The doctor leaned forward earnestly. “Try to understand that these delusions are part of your condition. When you first came to me you were tortured by guilt connected with your father—and your mother. All of these things you think you have done—or that have been done to you lately—are merely the guilt of your childhood projected. Do I make myself clear?”

  The room was rocking, the lamps were double rings of light, sliding back and forth through each other while the walls billowed. His head shook: no.

  “The symbolism is quite obvious, Mr. Carlisle. You were filled with the unconscious desire to kill your father. You picked up somewhere—I don’t know where—the name of Grindle, an industrialist, a man of power, and identified him with your father. You have a very peculiar reaction to older men with a stubble of white beard. It makes you think of fungus on the face of a corpse—the corpse you wanted your father to be.”

  The doctor’s voice was very soft now; soothing, kind, unanswerable.

  “When you were a child you saw your mother having intercourse. Therefore tonight in hallucination you thought you saw Grindle, the father-image, in intercourse with your mistress— who has come to represent your mother. And that’s not all, Mr. Carlisle. Since I have been your counselor you have made a transference to me—you see me also as your mother. That explains your sexual delusions with regard to me.”

  He slid his hands over his face, mashing the palms into his eyes, gripping strands of hair between his fingers and wrenching until pain freed his frozen lungs and let him draw a breath. His thoughts ran over and over, playing the same words until they became meaningless: grindle grindle grindle grindle mother mother mother stop stop stop. The voice didn’t stop.

  “There is one thing more you must face, Mr. Carlisle: the thing that is destroying you. Ask yourself why you wanted to kill your father. Why was there so much guilt connected with that wish? Why did you see me—me, the mother-image—in hallucinations both as your mistress and as a thief who had cheated you?”

  She was standing up now and leaning across the desk, her face quite near him. She spoke gently.

  “You wanted intercourse with your mother, didn’t you?”

  His hand went up to cover his eyes again, his mouth opened to make a wordless noise that could have been anything, a yes, a no, or both. He said, “Uh—uh—uh—uh.” Then it seemed that all the pain in him was concentrated in the back of his right hand in a sudden, furious stab like a snake bite. He dropped it and stared at the doctor, momentarily in focus again. She was smiling.

  “One other thing, Mr. Carlisle.” She blew cigarette smoke. “The man you claimed to have killed in Mississippi—I thought at first that was merely another delusion involving the father-image. On investigation, however, I discovered there really was such a death—Peter Krumbein, Burleigh, Mississippi. I know you’ll be glad to know that, at least, really did happen. It was quite easy to trace. Not so many years ago, was it, Mr. Carlisle?”

  She turned away suddenly and picked up the telephone, the smooth voice brisker now. “Mr. Carlisle, I’ve done all I can for you, but you must have hospital care. These hallucinations—We can’t have you wandering about and getting into trouble. Just put yourself in my hands; you can trust me absolutely.

  “Bellevue Hospital? Psychiatric Division, please.”

  The buzzer hummed; a latch clicked in the foyer. Then the door into the waiting room opened and closed. Someone coming.

  He backed away, looking at her, his mouth hanging open, his eyes bulging. Door. Have to get out. People. Danger.

  “Psychiatric Division? This is Dr. Lilith Ritter. Please send an ambulance …”

  The door, rushing behind him, shut off her voice.

  Get out. Street. Hide. He clung to the knob, holding the door shut so she couldn’t follow him.

  Dream. Nightmare. Delusion. Nothing … nothing real. Tongue … naked … talk … money … dream … nightmare.

  Dimly, through wood, he heard the telephone click into its cradle. Snap of a latch … waiting room. Then her voice. “Will you come in, please?”

  Silence.

  He sucked without thinking at the back of his right hand, where there was a red, smarting mark like a cigarette burn.

  Safe? People coming! Got to get—

  Another voice beyond the panels, high-pitched. Man. “Doctor —a ghastly mess …”

  “Lie straight on the couch, please. Let me take your glasses, Mr. Grindle.”

  CARD XVI

  The Devil

  Beneath his bat-wings the lovers stand in chains.

  THERE was a plate of glass shaped like a star in the floor where the dancers swayed and shuffled. When the band went into a sweet one the house lights dimmed out and the star glowed, shining up the girls’ skirts, leaving their faces in darkness, but X-raying their clothes from the hips down. They screamed and giggled as their partners pushed them across the star and back into obscurity.

  In one corner of the room the mentalist rose from his chair, steadying himself by a hand on its back. “Thank you, sir, and your charming girl friend, for your interest and for the drink. You understand, folks, I’ve got other people waiting …”

  The drunk slid a silver dollar along the table and the mind reader took it in his finger tips. It vanished in a quick movement. He bowed and turned away.

  The girl snickered, the noise bubbling in her glass as she drank. “Daddy, isn’t he spooky?” She kept on chuckling. “Now, then, sweetheart, you heard what he said! He said, ‘A man who has a good head for business will give you the thing nearest to your heart, something which once lived in a wire cage.’ You heard him, daddy. What d’you s’pose he meant?”

  The man said thickly, “Anything you say, kid, goes. You know that. Anything. Gee, honey, you got the prettiest lil pair of—” He remembered the slip of paper that the mind reader had told him to tuck under the strap of his wrist watch and he pulled it out, unfolding it and trying to focus on it. The girl struck a match.

  In her affected scrawl, using small circles for dots, was written, “Will Daddy buy me that red-fox jacket?” He stared at the slip and then grinned. “Sure, kid. Anything for you, kid. You know that. Le’s get outa here—go up t’your place. C’mon, honey, ’fore I’m too lit—too lit t’enjoy”—he broke wind but never noticed it —“anything.”

  At the bar Stan knocked off another quick one on the house. Even through the curtain of alky the maggot in his mind kept burrowing. How long will this joint last? They get crummier and crummier. That shiny-haired bastard—private. Private. Private information. Private investigations. Private reports, private shellackings. Private executions?

  The thought turned and twisted in his mind, burning the alcohol out of it. Jesus, why did I ever have to tangle
with that old crumb? How was I to know that Molly— Oh, God, here we go again.

  A waiter stepped close and said, “Table eighteen, bud. The gal’s named Ethel. Had three husbands and the clap. The guy with her is a drummer. Plumbers’ supplies.”

  Stanton finished his drink and dropped a quarter in the waiter’s vest pocket as he brushed past him.

  On his way to the table Stan saw the boss, his navy-blue shirt sleeves rolled up and canary yellow tie pulled down, talking to two men in rumpled suits. They had not removed their hats. Both necks were thick.

  A cold ripple slipped down his back. Wind seemed to whistle inside his undershirt. Cold. Oh, Jesus, here they come. Grindle. Grindle. Grindle. The old man’s power covered the country like a pair of bat-wings, flapping cold and black.

  Stan walked slowly to the back of the room, ducked behind a partition and squeezed his way through the kitchen and out into the alley at the rear of the Pelican Club, breaking into a run when he was clear of the building. He didn’t dare go back for his hat. Christ, I ought to hang it on a nail right by the back door. But they’ll block that the next time.

  Always different faces, different guys. They must hire private dicks in every state, all of them different. Anderson sits inside that barbed-wire fort and spins it out like a spider, millions of bucks to smash one guy. Mexico. I’ve got to jump the border if I’m ever going to shake them. Three thousand miles of this damn country and no hole to duck into. How do those goons do it so quick? Mind readers—they must chase after every guy doing a mental act and take a sample of his hair, see if it’s blond.

  Across the dark rooftops a train whistled, long and mournfully. Stan ducked down another alley and leaned against the wall, listening to the roaring jolt of his own heart, fighting to get his breath. Lilith, Lilith. Across two thousand miles stretched the invisible golden wire still, and one end was buried in his brain.