by Craig Rice
The inner door was closed. Its upper section was frosted and a light glowed in the inner office. A shadow of movement swept across the translucent surface. This increased Malone’s caution as he reached out and tried the knob. The door wasn’t locked. The knob turned noiselessly. The door opened.
And Malone saw Helene Justus standing over the prone body of Barnhall with a knife in her hand.
First-hand, it was like a quick segment out of a senseless nightmare in which the Maker of Nightmares had said, “Let’s see how much pure horror we can really pile on.” Malone’s motor centers failed. His engine froze. He stood there waiting for the scene to dissolve.
It didn’t.
Malone’s horrified mind began working again. He didn’t think he was too far off in assuming the man sprawled across the couch was Barnhall. He lay crosswise on it, his feet on the floor and his head hanging on the other side, his eyes looking emptily up into Helene Justus’s face. His open mouth gave him a look of gaping wonder as though he still didn’t believe it even after having been presented with the cold proof of death.
Helene stood like a blonde statue. In her right hand was a knife—an oversized letter opener, probably, but long enough and no doubt sharp enough to slice a ham or kill a man. Barnhall was in his shirtsleeves and he wore a bright red spot over his heart; a spot shaped curiously like a rose.
Helene Justus was holding the knife firmly, the blade pointed downward, as though she had just finished plunging it in and withdrawing it. There was a look of glazed disinterest in her eyes.
Malone moved forward. He stood beside Helene. Her eyes came around. Malone asked, “Did you kill him?”
“I guess so,” Helene said. Grotesquely, she spoke as though it were nothing much and what else was new?
“Let’s get out of here,” Malone said.
Helene did not object. He took the knife from her hand and wiped its handle even though Helen was wearing gloves. He dropped it to the floor and took Helene’s arm and led her out of the office, closing both doors after him. It flashed through his mind that maybe Barnhall wouldn’t be found until morning. Then he realized the scrubwoman might find the body very soon.
He led Helene toward the back stairs, praying they could escape unseen. The glazed look in her eyes chilled him.
The word. The word, damn it. The word.
He could remember confetti and yellow ribbon. Confetti was not difficult and yellow ribbon was a cinch because Helene was wearing one in her hair.
But what was the other word? The one that would bring her out of it? A piece of clothing. A bra? A slip? Dress? Mink coat? Lace panties?
Malone led Helene down the back stairs—down the long miles of them, and then had a little good luck. As they came out into the alley, he saw her car parked in the street near the alley’s mouth. Helene made no objection when he took her purse and opened it to get her keys. He got behind the wheel and put her beside him and drove out into Grant Park on the other side of Michigan Boulevard toward the Field Museum. Helene remained quiet, docile, negative.
What was that damned word?
It dawned. Without turning to look at her, Malone spoke casually. “Did you wear a petticoat, Helene?”
Nothing happened. At least nothing appeared to happen. But while Malone kept his eyes straight ahead, he sensed that something was happening.
He was sure of it when Helene said, “Malone—I need a drink—like I never needed anything in my life.”
He drove on south and they went into the dimly lit bar of one of the big lakefront hotels….
Chapter Fourteen
Helene did not remember.
It took Malone a little time to be sure of this. It was the shock. When the shock wore off, she would remember. But there didn’t seem to be any shock. With a brandy before her in the cocktail lounge, there was more misery than shock.
“Malone—what am I going to do?”
“First, you’re going to tell me everything you can remember.”
“But what I remember isn’t accurate—I’m sure—and it isn’t clear. It’s all mixed up.”
“Par for the course,” Malone said cheerfully. “Everything’s mixed up these days.”
“I—oh, God! Where can I start?”
“I know a lot of it, honey. So let me ask some questions. “You know that you’ve been spending a lot of time under hypnosis?”
“Yes—yes, I guess so. I’m scared, Malone. Frightened to death. And ashamed.”
“Ashamed? Why should you be? You haven’t done anything wrong.” With Barnhall lying dead over his couch, Malone swallowed hard as he said that. But he meant it. Wrong, as he had more than once proved in court, is a comparative term.
“Everything I’ve done has been wrong. I feel unfaithful to Jake, for one thing.”
“You mean that guy Fargo—?”
“No. Fargo was only an annoyance. I mean not telling Jake the whole thing—right at the beginning.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
“The reason I didn’t is so childish. I can see that now. He seemed more interested in the Casino than me. My first mistake was letting Vivian talk me into going to Barnhall. But I thought he could help—tell me how I was failing Jake.”
“You haven’t failed him a damned bit!”
“Then not telling him about the government men. I think I was really being malicious there—getting even with him.”
“Stop beating yourself over the head, Helene. Let’s try to get to the immediate situation. This was your first day at Walden, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What happened that led up to it?”
“It’s so terribly confusing. For a while, there were the blanks. Hours—chunks—lifted out of my life that I couldn’t account for. I guess I refused to believe that I was under someone else’s power because it proves weakness.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lying there on Barnhall’s couch—letting him do that to me.”
“You’re crazy, honey. Weakness has nothing to do with it. During the war, very strong men were brainwashed and hypnotized. They have new techniques since then, and Barnhall is damned good.”
“A lot of it is coming clearer now. Not really clear. But I can remember enough to question my past actions.”
“That’s what we want,” Malone said heartily. “About today. I can tell you this much. You were slated to carry some information out of the plant and what happened today was a kind of dress rehearsal. Do you remember any of it?”
“Some, I think. I went to Walden and Fargo showed me my office. I did some typing—three letters. I met Pop Warner, the messenger, Miss Penrose, Professor Wadsworth, and his assistant, a man named Felix Bassett.”
“That’s all pretty clear.”
“I thought I’d failed with Miss Penrose, but then Pop Warner brought me another tape. It said—it said—I don’t know.”
“The tape put you under control again.”
“I suppose so, but there was something else. I remember enough of the trances to know I always had an urge to go to Barnhall’s office. I’m sure I always went straight there. But it was different this time. A different order. I wanted to go somewhere else. There was something about a wedding and I wanted to prepare for it—but not quite that, either.”
“Try to remember.”
“Something about an old hotel.”
“The Craymore? It’s pretty old.”
“No—not an old hotel—an old theater. That was it. An old theater and a new hotel.” Helene passed a weary hand across her eyes. “Oh, I can’t remember.”
“I found you in Barnhall’s office.” Malone had come close to saying: “I found you with a knife in your hand just after you’d killed Barnhall,” but he didn’t dare. He watched keenly for her reaction to the milder statement. There was none.
“Yes, I remember that vaguely. But there was something else—another place. I’m sure I was there—that it wasn’t just a dream—a huge, empty, ech
oing place where Caruso sang.”
“You heard him singing?”
“No. It was written on a mirror, I think. Anyhow, I was terribly frightened. I don’t know where the place was or why I was there.”
“But you think it had something to do with a directive you received at Walden.”
“I’m sure it did.”
While Helene closed her eyes and lay back, exhausted, in her chair, Malone regarded her with mixed emotions. The poor kid didn’t have the least idea there was a murder rap against her. And he made the firm resolution that she would never find out if he could help it.
But he had no great hope of this. His natural springs of optimism and energy were sagging. A man could go so far and put out so much. He’d run all over hell all day trying to stay a jump ahead of disaster, only to find it waiting for him at his last stop.
Helene Justus, a murderess.
Malone let his mind rest for a moment, but immediately it began planning Helene’s defense. The selection of the jury would be the trick. Twelve exactly right people. Let’s see, he would want as many women as possible. No—maybe a balanced jury would be best. If he could sneak in a few who thought psychiatry was for the birds and all psychiatrists were potential rapists …
Helene opened her eyes suddenly. “Vivian Conover is going to be married.”
“Is that so?”
The eyes clouded. “Or at least I think so. But …”
It had been a long day across the desert without an oasis and Malone had to go to the john. Arising slowly, he said, “That must be tied up some way with the key words that were used to put you under hypnotic suggestion—confetti and yellow ribbon. I’ll be back right away, honey.”
Malone went to the john, and while he was there he also washed his face and hands in order to get full value out of the half-dollar he gave the attendant.
When he got back to the table, Helene was gone. He supposed she’d ducked into the powder room and sat down to wait. But after a while, he realized she wasn’t coming back.
Even as he muttered to himself, “Malone, you congenital idiot!” he knew that checking the powder room would be a waste of time. He threw some money on the table and ran out to the parking lot. Helen’s car was gone. He’d opened his big mouth with confetti and yellow ribbon, and sent her off God knew where….
It was the same huge, drafty, echoing place, but night had fallen so it was now dark also—terribly forbidding. Helene went in through the boarded entrance as before, but when she got inside, she walked with a surer, firmer step—like a sleepwalker—in spite of the darkness.
A voice called out, “Where have you been?”
But a stronger voice inside Helene asked, Why am I here? and she remained mute.
“This way—this way,” the outer voice instructed.
Helene walked on. She found the bridge over the orchestra pit and mounted the stage. But there she stopped, able to go no farther. The struggle in her own mind was increasing. The part of her that questioned her actions was growing stronger. And the clarity this brought made room for fear.
“I—I can’t see.”
“You don’t have to see. It isn’t necessary. You are not afraid. Walk as you did before.”
Helene could not tell, in that great resounding place, where the voice came from. Dimly, she realized that whoever called to her did not know where she was either.
Why am I here? Why did I come?
“I can’t. I don’t know the way.”
“You know the way.”
Helene remained where she was. She could not go forward and she could not retreat. While she’d crossed the narrow bridge over the orchestra pit without trouble, going back over it was impossible. She knew the pit was there but the automatic control under which she moved was a one-way thing, especially in the darkness.
“Stay where you are,” the voice called.
Helene waited. Somewhere there were faint footsteps and she heard a muttered curse. The curse was like a shaft of reality thrust into a cloudy dream, and into her mind which was trapped in the dream. Now there was more room for fear.
The footsteps were above her, somewhere up among the narrow stairways that led to the dressing rooms. Helene turned left and pawed blindly toward the wings, or where the wings should be. She would reach them unless she veered off in the darkness and fell.
But she had not gone in a straight line. A sense of immediate danger touched her. She was on the edge of a precipice. She tried to draw her extended foot backward, and swayed.
At that instant, the blackness was pierced by light, but a light that was very dim, and she heard a wordless sound of satisfaction. The man there with her in this eerie place had found a light switch.
But the bulbs that he switched on were far away and dim and covered with dust. They broke the darkness but left great banks of shadow. The switch was not the one the man wanted, and he cursed again as Helene looked down into the black cavern of the orchestra pit.
The shock cleared her mind. She jerked back and turned and fled. Evidently she had been seen because the voice called out, “Wait—wait!” But in a different tone, now. The demand was preemptory, savage, as though the man realized she had passed out of his control.
“Damn you! Stand still!”
There was a clatter of footsteps, running now, toward the stage from above. But Helene did not wait. She ran into the wings and found a flight of stairs and plunged down them. A new maze of dim hallways confronted her—a confusing maze ahead and running footsteps behind.
Helene fled blindly.
The voice of her pursuer came harsh and menacing now. “Stay where you are, damn you!”
Terror was clearing Helene’s mind. She sobbed as the dimly lit passages around her took on the aspect of a corner of Purgatory through which she would run forever. Every shadowed doorway ahead posed a dreadful threat, while behind her the footsteps came closer as the man closed in.
Finally there was no place to go. She had been lucky in always finding an open door at each crucial moment—a door through which she could move into a new section of the maze.
But now her luck ran out. She tried several doors in the dusty corridor along which she had sought escape. They were all locked. Ahead, at the far end, there was only a deep, dark shadow.
The running man came closer. Helene turned to wait for him, backing slowly away, step by slow step. Until her back touched something in the dark shadow. It was not a wall. It yielded slightly.
Then a hand shot out and cupped around her mouth. An arm encircled her and jerked her backward. The terror crystallized and keened up to the breaking point as she fought weakly. Until she heard the voice whispering in her ear:
“Quiet, honey—easy. It’s Malone. John J. Malone. You remember me.”
Helene’s pursuer had become momentarily confused, pausing to search a dead-end passage. But now he was back on the trail.
Malone eased the pressure of his hand. “It’s okay, honey. Just stand quiet.”
Helene gripped his hand. “Malone! Who is he? Why am I here? What does he want?”
“Unless I’m way off-base,” Malone whispered, “he’s a guy named Marcus. And he wants the stuff you brought out of Walden.”
There was a moment of dead silence, as though the man were taking a final check on his bearings—the moment before the final rush.
“But I didn’t bring anything out!”
“Maybe—maybe not, but I think you did.”
“He’s got a gun, Malone. I’m sure he has. I saw his shadow as he came down the stairs. Something in his hand. A gun. I—”
Her warning was cut off as a form loomed at the far end of the corridor.
“Okay, sucker!” Malone yelled. “Freeze it right there!”
A gun roared. A slug smashed into the wall beside the crouching pair.
But the sound was answered by a deafening roar in Helene’s ears as Malone fired back.
A quick squall of rage punctuated the blast, and there w
as a sound of retreating footsteps.
“Come on! Von Flanagan didn’t make it. He’ll get away.”
Malone dragged Helene after him as he set out in pursuit. “Damn it to hell!” Malone raged. “If he gets clear of the building, we’ll never get the bastard!”
Helene followed blindly as Malone rushed forward, still complaining. “This place was laid out by a drunk architect with the blind staggers. Let’s go up these stairs.”
A few moments later, Helene said, “We’re back on the stage.”
“Sure—but where the hell is he?”
A gun flashed from somewhere high in the proscenium. The slug missed and Malone grunted. “He must have sprouted wings to get up there so quick.” He threw a random return shot that wasn’t answered.
“Sit tight,” Malone told Helene. “Don’t move. Do you know where you are?”
“I do now. This is the old Pantheon Opera House on South Michigan.”
“Uh-huh. It’s been condemned. They’re going to tear it down and build a new hotel.”
“Old theater,” Helene murmured. “New hotel. That was in my mind. But now I remember. I don’t understand, though—”
“Relax. Don’t worry. You’re okay again—even without petticoat.”
“Petticoat?”
“Shhhh. They’re coming.”
There were new sounds; normal, reassuring sounds of movement in several places. A quick stream of gunfire from above, and then von Flanagan’s echoing voice.
“Get some light into this dump. Don’t any of you monkeys know where the switch is?” There was a reply and von Flanagan growled, “Well, shake your ass. A guy could get killed in here.” Then von Flanagan bellowed, “Malone! Where the hell are you?”
“Shut up, you idiot. You’ll make targets out of everybody.”
Von Flanagan had already done so. The gun roared again from high overhead. There was a mad scramble for cover out in the orchestra section of the theater, and von Flanagan yelled, “Who’s that crazy son of a bitch up there with the gun, Malone?”