Now You See It

by Richard Matheson

  Now You See It

  Richard Matheson

  Copyright

  Now You See It

  Copyright © 1995 by Richard Matheson

  Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2011 by RosettaBooks, LLC

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher or the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Electronic edition published 2011 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.

  ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795315732

  To my dear friend Robert Bloch,

  who created magic in all our lives

  Magician’s Choice: A technique in which two or more choices are supposedly offered for free selection by the spectator but a predetermined one actually is imposed upon him.

  Contents

  magicians choice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  now you see it

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  magician’s choice

  chapter 1

  Daresay you’ve never, in your life, read a story written by a vegetable. Well, here’s your chance. Not that it’s a story. It happened; I was there.

  Your narrator and humble servant, Mr. Vegetable.

  My name is Emil Delacorte. When all this occurred, I was seventy-three.

  You’ve probably never heard of me, even though I was a headlining magician in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s; called The Great Delacorte—a title I passed along to my son. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.

  I was doing very well until I had a “cerebrovascular accident” in 1966. That’s a “stroke” to you, though I’m more inclined toward “apoplexy”; sounds more colorful. The experience itself, of course, was not so colorful. Though it was, God knows, plenty dramatic.

  To me, anyway.

  I was on the verge of being sealed into a boiler tank (one of my better escapes) when a blood vessel in my brain popped, depriving said brain of oxygen supply. Hemiplegia (paralysis) took place, commencing the process which converted me into the aforementioned vegetable.

  Quite a vision to my audience, I gather. From charming, urbane Delacorte (The Great) I was suddenly reduced to a dizzy, vertigo-locked, nauseous reeler. No doubt startling to the assembled folks. Disgusting too, as a violent headache and vomiting set in.

  Not exactly the highlight of my showbiz career.

  Soon afterward, permanent paralysis began, the loss of speech, and my one-way ticket to Vegetable City. Sudden death from stroke being rare, I was not permitted the grace of taking my final bow and exiting the stage of life.

  Instead, the best fate could offer me was a doctor’s instruction to reduce physical and emotional tension while I waited for as much recovery as possible.

  Fourteen years later, when these events transpired, I was still waiting.

  By dint of my son’s loving kindness, I was not dispatched to some asylum but permitted to reside in his home, a motionless figure customarily located in the study—or, as I prefer to call it, The Magic Room.

  There I sat ensconced in my wheelchair, a staring obelisk, an effigy of what I’d been, a statue entitled Impotence (in more ways than one) or, better still, Up On the Shelf for Good. A voiceless, torpid lump, ostensibly brainless.

  There, you see, is the rub. For the real torment was that in that dumb shell I existed in, an active and observant brain was struggling for the means to express itself. That is the horror of a stroke, believe me.

  Perhaps if this had happened ten or twenty years later, there might have been some medical-surgical procedure by which I could have ended my night- (and day-) mare.

  Then again, perhaps not. Even my son, devoted as he was to me, might have found it inescapable to A&F (Accept and Forget). Who could have blamed the man? I had become more a piece of furniture than a family member. Not hard to take a piece of furniture for granted.

  I go on at length about my plant-kingdom persona so you will understand how all these strange events could have taken place in my presence without a single person involved giving it a second thought that I was there. But then, do we concern ourselves with the observational capacities of a turnip?

  Anyway, Maximilian (my son) had enough problems of his own, as you will discover.

  A few more explanatory comments before I launch into my account of that fateful day.

  Because of Maximilian’s loyalty to me, I had a nurse (one Nelly Washington) who stayed with me constantly (in the beginning, anyway), providing those attentions I could not request but obviously required—eating and elimination to the fore.

  Nelly was no Venus but she had an inner beauty of compassion, a good deal of patience, and (luckily for her as well as for me) an abundant sense of humor. Most of all, God bless her giant heart, she never allowed me to remain defeated or helpless. She was a rock of reassurance on which I wobbled constantly until some semblance of hope oozed back into my brain—along with a few restorative drams of blood.

  I’m glad she happened to be absent on the day it all took place, although in retrospect, I realize that it probably was no accident.

  After all, she would have been an obviously sentient witness to the mania which occurred.

  One thing about residing in a useless body in the sole company of one’s brain: it gives one time to appraise said brain, appreciate its true capacities, and, eventually, train it to perform. In this way I was able to educate my brain to remember everything I saw around me, thus enabling me to write down this event in full detail.

  This is fortunate because the events I will describe took place fourteen years ago. I will explain, in due course, why I had to wait so long to disclose them.

  But first, let me sketch in the environment for the play, or—most appropriately—the setting for the magic show. For magic is the dark thread which binds together the tapestry of this crazed and homicidal episode, this lethal interval of time.

  This period of total lunacy.

  This happened in the home where my son had lived for thirty-seven of his fifty-two years. My wife Lenore gave birth to him in 1928, dying ten years later giving birth to our second (stillborn) son.

  As indicated, Maximilian had been (since my “accident” made it impossible for me to perform) The Great Delacorte. He had been my assistant since he was seventeen, and knew my act as well as I did, performing on his own as well as continuing to help me, reaching full theatrical bloom when he was thirty-seven and assumed my stage name.

  Living in this house were two other people, not counting the houseman and cleaning woman, who were also not present on that day. Coincidence? My aged, wrinkled ass it was.

  The first of these two people was Max’s wife Cassandra, forty-one, a woman of uncommon beauty, intelligence, and nastiness. She had been married to Max for nine years, his assistant in the act for eight.

  Cassandra had two goals in li
fe. One was to get my ancient bones out of the house and into a distant vegetable farm.

  The other was … well, that must wait, or we have no tale.

  The third resident of Delacorte Hall (exclusive of Nelly and the two servants, of course) was Cassandra’s brother Brian, thirty-five, an employee of my son’s.

  The house was (still is) in Massachusetts, standing in the center of a twenty-two-acre plot of woodland, set back approximately a quarter of a mile from the road. (Forgive the exactitude of detail, it’s a habit I’m unable to overcome.)

  Described briefly (I’ll try, anyway), Delacorte Hall was (is) French Provincial in design, a truly splendid two-story structure which I’d had built in 1943, a choice earning year for me.

  The house had (has) seven bedrooms and baths, a modest theater, a swimming pool below, a large kitchen, formal dining room, a large living room, and the rooms in which the hours of insanity took place—my study and, later, Max’s.

  The Magic Room.

  Why do I call it that? Because it was a masterpiece of prearrangements, a cornucopia of gimmicks and arcana. I had begun the process in 1945 for my own pleasure. Later, Max had added to it; so much so that, at the time of these events, even I was unaware of what he’d done to the room, my earlier years of invalidism having been spent in my bedroom. It was only in the late sixties that Max saw to it that Nelly brought my wheelchair on a daily basis to TMR, knowing the pleasure I had always taken in it when I was a real person instead of a two-eyed potato.

  The study then; The Magic Room.

  Thirty feet in length, twenty in width, many-windowed with one particularly large picture window affording a spectacular view of the countryside behind the house, a small lake in the distance, a gazebo on its shore.

  The study had always been luxuriously appointed. Built-in shelves lined two walls, many filled with leather-bound scrapbooks: my reviews and news clippings, and Max’s. The remainder of the shelves were filled with books almost exclusively devoted to magic history and/or methodology.

  On a third wall hung framed lobby posters of my and Max’s more notable appearances.

  A fieldstone fireplace (quite massive) stood against the fourth wall, on its mantelpiece a collection of relics, souvenirs, and objets d’art which Lenore and I—and, later, Max—had collected through the years. Also standing on it was a silver candelabra with three black candles, next to it a silver matchbox.

  Fret not, dear reader, these details are of consequence, all of them a valid part of the account.

  Where was I?

  Yes, the fireplace. Above the mantelpiece hung several items.

  Two were large oil paintings, one of my lovely Lenore (I blessed my son for leaving it there), the other of an equally lovely (perhaps stunningly beautiful would be more accurate a description) young woman: Adelaide, Max’s first wife, who died in 1963.

  Also mounted above said mantelpiece was a set of English dueling pistols, circa 1879; a pike from the nineteenth-century Spanish Army; and an African spear and blowgun—all to play their roles in the murderous exploits soon to commence.

  Near the fireplace was my (then Max’s) desk, eighteenth-century French, its glossy surface seven feet by four feet, on it an arrangement of relics, souvenirs, and objets d’art from my (our) collection. A telephone and a silver-plated decanter (with glass) completed the articles on the desk. Behind it was a high-backed revolving chair, upholstered in black leather.

  Other items to be mentioned: a handsome brass-and-teakwood bar, glasses and silver ice bucket on its top; two red leather easy chairs with end tables; an extremely large (two feet in diameter) antique world globe.

  Finally, a quintet of items vital to the narrative.

  One: a standing lobby display poster—a life-size photograph of Max in top hat and tails, a placard reading:

  THE GREAT DELACORTE

  “In Touch With the Mysterious.”

  Two: an ornately decorated Egyptian burial case, standing upright, its lid open.

  Three: a suit of armor (sixteenth-century German), its faceplate shut.

  Four: a lever-operated guillotine (a miniature version of the one used during the French Revolution), its blade raised to the top as though positioned to decapitate some doomed marquis.

  Five: set upright on its lever-operated base, a mahogany casket with a window to reveal the head and shoulders of the deceased.

  Inside the casket were what appeared to be the head and shoulders of my son—Maximilian Delacorte, handsome (got my looks), vandyke-bearded (an ostentation I eschewed), eyes shut, expression imperious, the very image of a Spanish grandee lying in state.

  How’s that for memory?

  Anyway, dear reader, mark these things.

  All were integral to the madness.

  How shall I typify what happened? Passion play? Somewhat. Weird tale? Indubitably. Horror story? Pretty close. Grotesque melodrama? Certainly. Black comedy? Your point of view will determine that. Perhaps it was a combination of them all.

  Suffice to say that the events which took place in the home of my son on the afternoon of July 17, 1980, were, to say the least, singular.

  So to the story. A chronicle of greed and cruelty, horror and rapacity, sadism and murder.

  Love, American style.

  chapter 2

  By shifting my eyes to the utmost, I could read the small clock on Max’s desk. Eleven fifty-seven A.M. A gray and windy morning, outside sounds—wind, rustling foliage, distant thunder rumblings—harbingers of an approaching summer storm. Nature herself conspiring to set the scene for that turbulent afternoon? Who knows?

  I was seated in my usual place, a location chosen by my son from which I could, by (as noted) shifting my eyeballs, get a panoramic view of The Magic Room. I had breakfasted, been changed, and now was in position to observe the many doings about to occur.

  Which began, as I recall, at noon. And if it wasn’t exactly noon, to hell with it, I’m going to say that it was exactly noon.

  At noon, the cabal began.

  I heard a voice shout, “Cassandra?”

  That of Brian (Crane), calling from the entry hall. My eyeballs shifted; pretty much the extent of my physical dexterity, I might add.

  There was silence for a few moments. Then Brian called again, more loudly, “Cassandra!”

  Somewhere upstairs, a door was opened (my hearing, too, was unimpeded) and Cassandra answered with her usual imperious tone, “What?”

  “Come down to Max’s den!” he shouted. “I’ve got something to show you!”

  “Brian, I am really busy!” Cassandra shouted back.

  Brother persisted. “You can spare a minute! Come on!”

  “Brian!” a protesting cry now.

  He would not back off. “I guarantee you’ll love it!” he shouted.

  Reluctant submission from Cassandra. “Oh, all right.”

  I heard the clicking of a woman’s shoe heels on the wooden floorboards of the entry hall—

  —and Cassandra entered The Magic Room, tall, blonde, alluring. Long-sleeved pink blouse, light brown skirt, brown, high-heeled shoes.

  I would have frowned if my facial muscles had been up to it.

  How did Cassandra get here first when she was upstairs and Brian down?

  I tried to see more clearly as she crossed to the bar and, stooping, opened the door of the ice maker. I heard her start to ladle ice cubes into the silver bucket.

  I would have frowned again—in spades—if I’d been able to.

  For, down the staircase and across the floorboards of the entry hall, I heard the clicking of a woman’s shoe heels—

  —and Cassandra entered TMR, tall, blonde, alluring. Long-sleeved pink blouse, light brown skirt, you know the rest.

  “What the hell?” I would have said if my voice had been attainable. I certainly thought it. What the hell is going on? Was I hallucinating now, a new (and lower) stage of strokedom?

  The moment the second Cassandra had entered the room, the first
Cassandra had stopped putting ice cubes into the silver bucket.

  I watched the second Cassandra as she looked around, her gaze passing me, as usual, with non-reception. Does one take notice of a plant?

  Then the first Cassandra rose from behind the bar and thrumped down the bucket on the counter.

  The two Cassandras eyed each other, doppelgängers to the detail. I closed my eyes; that I could manage. When I open them, I thought, I’ll see only one of them.

  I did. I didn’t. There they were, the Cassandra twins. Did I begin to get the message at that point?

  If I did, it wasn’t because I was helped by either of them.

  The first Cassandra smiled.

  The second Cassandra smiled—then shook her head with a chuckle.

  As did the first.

  The sounds they uttered were identical as the second Cassandra indicated amusement, then the first.

  There was no way, let me assure you, that I could tell them apart. It could have been double vision. My mind’s eye knew otherwise but my skull’s eyes didn’t.

  Now the second Cassandra approached the bar and stopped, peering closely at the first. The first peered likewise.

  The second made a sound of appreciative recognition. The first made the identical sound.

  The second gave the first a chiding look. Received it back, identically. The game was getting on my nerves; patience was not one of my virtues at that time, though obviously no one knew it.

  Irritatingly, these two were clones in manner as well as appearance.

  The second gnawed at the edge of her right index finger, smiling, making noises of amusement. So, too, did the first.

  Then the second spoke.

  “All right,” she said.

  “All right,” echoed the first.

  Their voices were identical.

  Damn it, will one of you crack? I thought.

  The two Cassandras eyed each other saucily, smiling the same smile, affecting the same expression; an uncanny sight, I’m forced to admit.