by Robert Bloch
“But you’re really, a writer?” Sandy eyed me curiously. “What’s your name?”
“Considine. Joe Considine.”
“You got a pad around here?”
This time I nearly piled up the car against a street sign. Not because of the implications of her question, but due to something I suddenly remembered. Something weighing about 250 pounds of solid, unyielding granite—my landlord.
“I did,” I told her. “That is, I do and I don’t. I mean, I haven’t been getting up the rent for a couple of months and the landlord is leaning on me. I figured on drawing a salary advance today, only my job was shot down. So when I show up tonight without a payment, it’s outsville.”
“What about your compensation?”
“Two-week waiting period before I collect the first check.”
“I knew it!” Sandy bounced up and down on the seat, squealing happily. “Now you can move in with me!”
I gave her a double-take, and she nodded quickly. “The minute I saw you standing in line, I figured you’d be a good choice.”
This time I watched the road before replying. “You mean you came down to the Unemployment Office to shop for a room-mate?”
“Not a room, man. A great big groovy spread. And you can pay your share of the rent when your compensation checks come through—just like the others.”
“Others?”
Sandy nodded. “Don’t worry, you won’t be crowded. You’ll see.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “Like I’m not pressuring you. Just think about it.”
I thought about it as I drove. Drove along Sunset Strip, passing all the familiar landmarks. Here were the shops and the signs—Mr. Gladys, the hair stylist—Mother Naked’s Southern Fried Chicken—Toilet A-Go-Go—the interior decorator place where they restored antique furniture like new—and the other interior decorator place where they aged new furniture to make it look antique. We sped by the Now Generation Clinic, specializing in youthful diseases like hippytitis, and passed the Topless Restaurant where I had once been thrown out for not wearing a necktie.
Dusk was falling, and the hippies were rising; the under-achievers, members of the uptrodden masses, hiding from the world behind dark glasses and beards.
This was the scene—boots and bare feet, buttons and bushy hair and beads, the mod and the odd intermingled. I’d never been with it; among these Flower Children I was just an elderly weed. But now, under the circumstances, perhaps I’d better blossom forth.
I glanced at Sandy. There were worse fates than sharing a pad with her. At least it might be a temporary solution, until my agent came up with another job.
“Okay, it’s a deal,” I told her. “I’ll sneak my things out of the apartment and move in tomorrow.”
“Crazy,” she said. “Turn right at the next corner—that’s Basic Drive.”
I turned right at the next corner and started the climb up a dark and deserted hillside street.
And that’s where the crunch came.
The crunch, and the squeal as I applied my brakes—just a moment too late to avoid impact. Apparently the street hadn’t been entirely deserted after all, because there was a crumpled figure lying on the pavement before my car.
Sandy and I opened our doors simultaneously, and a moment later we stood staring down at the yellow-suited, gray-booted little form sprawled in the street.
“Hippy outfit,” Sandy murmured. “But he’s just a kid—”
I nodded, then stooped and turned him over gently. His eyes were closed and I couldn’t distinguish his features here in the deepening darkness. But his chest rose and fell regularly, and that’s what mattered the most to me at the moment.
“He’s alive.”
I gestured to Sandy. “Hold the door open while I get him in.”
Lifting him carefully, I placed him in the front seat of the car, right in the middle, so that when Sandy climbed in on her side he was propped up between us.
“Hang onto him now,” I told her.
Sandy nodded obediently. Then she gasped. “What’s the matter?”
“His face—he’s turning green!”
“Shock.”
I glanced over. My diagnosis was correct, but I had the wrong patient. It was Sandy who was in shock. She sat there, gaping and pointing, trying to speak.
“His hands are green, too—”
I shook my head grimly. “Hold tight. We may break a few speed records, but I’ve got to get him to a hospital.”
It was then that I felt the stirring beside me. It was then that I turned to see the yellow eyes pop open and the wide mouth part in a grin. The head twisted toward me and I heard the words.
“Not hospital.”
A hand rose up in a restraining gesture. A hand that was perhaps a paw—with a thumb and only three fingers.
“Not hospital,” the voice repeated firmly. And the next words fell like a knell of doom. “Take me to your leader.”
III
Now the Strip is filled with undersized specimens who wear far-out outfits. Some of them even cover their hands and faces with psychedelic designs in paint. Down there I’d probably never have given this one a second glance, but here in the lonely darkness of the hillside it was different. Everything about him was different—his costume, his complexion, his size and his eyes. The face was froglike and that three-fingered paw was neither batrachian nor human.
“Crazy!” Sandy whispered.
And it was.
Sandy seemed relieved now that the creature had spoken, but I didn’t share her reaction.
“Don’t you understand?” I muttered. “He’s an alien.”
“So what? I’ve got nothing against foreigners.”
“But he’s not an ordinary foreigner—he’s extraterrestrial.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” she told me. “The important thing is he’s not hurt.” She turned to the creature, “Isn’t that right, man?”
“Not man. Drool.”
“Drool? Is that your name?”
“Yes. In your speech. Mine is different. Like you say, something else.”
“You’re something else!” Sandy shook her head. “Are you really an alien, like Joe says?”
The creature nodded. “I tell it like it is, man.”
Sandy stared at him. “Where did you learn how to speak such perfect English?”
“In the ship.”
I got into the act. “You came in a ship? From where?”
“Up.” The green hand gestured.
“Another planet?”
Drool nodded. “But the ship was yours. Krool found it. What you call spacecraft. Hardware. One of yours—empty.”
I shook my head, but not in doubt. It was all too possible in these days of Top Security. We might have sent out an advanced-design spacecraft on a secret test flight. If something went wrong and its crew was lost, the ship would go on, drifting through space until it fell into the paws of creatures like these. Creatures like—
“Krool,” Sandy murmured. “Who is he?”
“Boss. Big Daddy. Father of us all. Like me, only twenty times more. He looks like—”
Drool went on to describe his father’s appearance, and I didn’t like what I heard at all. According to him, his sire was a cross between a sabre-toothed tiger and a giant multi-colored leopard. And he had no paternal affection for his son, because Drool was the runt of the litter.
“My brothers and sisters are normal, all four million of them. But I don’t grow. Maybe not the right chromosomes, maybe no blue genes. Krool is very up-tight about it. So when he found the ship, he took me off with him. A long journey, but the charts told him how to go, and the handling was simple. You are still quite primitive, right?”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Your father brought you here in a ship. But if the crew was missing, how did you learn our language?”
“The crew left much literature to read and study. What you call comic books.”
That explained his speech pattern. I wond
ered what else this alien had learned of our contemporary culture. But there were more important concerns right now.
“Where is this ship?”
“Krool took it back.”
“After he landed you here?”
“Not landed. Dropped. Bad trip, man.”
It was beginning to sound like one to me. “He dropped you out of the ship into space?”
“Only a few feet. Nobody saw us because of the air. Like it’s a gas, man?”
“Smog,” I told him. And visualized the hovering spacecraft, the gigantic creature at the controls, dropping this little creature down to land before the car in the street with no one the wiser. It could happen that way. Anything could happen twenty feet above our heads and we’d never know it because of the prevailing pollution. It transmogrified everything it touched.
“How cruddy!” Sandy exclaimed. “Cutting out on you like that—leaving you all alone in a strange place, not caring if you live or die—”
“He cares,” Drool assured her. “I am not left to die. It is just that I am so weak and small. I can’t come on like my brothers and sisters when they are sent to the big, important worlds. So Krool brings me to this earth because it will not be a problem for me.” He nodded. “Krool says even a child can do it here.”
“Do what?”
“My thing.”
“Which is?”
“The same as my brothers and sisters do when they go to the better-class planets. They conquer.”
I turned to him. “Let’s have that line again. You’re really here to conquer earth. That’s your plan?”
“That’s my bag. So take me to your leader.”
“Sure.” I nodded. “And then what?”
Drool smiled happily. “Then I merely blast him with my superdisintegratosonic—oops!”
He sat there, suddenly silent as his green face slowly paled to chartreuse.
Sandy eyed him anxiously. “What’s the matter?”
“Krool gave me one. I know I had it when he lifted me out. I must have dropped it—”
“Your weapon?”
Drool nodded, frowning. “It’s probably still floating around somewhere in the smog—almost weightless, you know—” He broke off and peered at me anxiously. “But if I lost it, how do I—?”
“You don’t,” I told him. “And that’s final.” I tromped on the gas-pedal. “Let’s go.”
“Where are you taking him?” Sandy’s voice was apprehensive.
It was a good question, but at the moment I didn’t have any good answers. Police? The Orphan’s Home? Lost and Found Department?
The answer came with clarion clarity. For as I started the motor, the car was suddenly filled with soaring sound.
“Ooh!” Sandy squealed. “The Galloping Cruds!”
And indeed it was. With ear-splitting precision, that popular hard-rock group belted out their latest hit. As the guitars twanged and the drums echoed the beat, the voices proclaimed a moving message.
“I’d like to turn you on, baby,
But I can’t find the switch—”
Sandy cupped her hands and shouted, “Groovy! But turn it down a little.”
“Sorry,” I yelled. “I don’t have a radio in the car.”
Sandy stared at me.
I stared at her.
Then we both just stared at Drool.
His wide mouth was wide open. And from it poured the sound of electric guitars, the thud of drums, the cacophonic blending of five male voices.
“Impossible!” I breathed and clapped my hand across Drool’s mouth.
The sound blurred instantly.
I removed my hand quickly and Drool looked up. “What’s with you, man?” he inquired.
Sandy was still staring at him. “Was that really you singing?”
“Yeah. Don’t you dig it?”
Sandy nodded. “But how on earth—?”
“Not on earth.” Drool grinned. “In the ship. There was an instrument—stereo tape machine. I listened while I read the comic books.”
“Wait a minute.” I stopped the car again and faced him. “Are you trying to tell us you can imitate anything you hear recorded?”
Drool shrugged. “Why not?”
“You mean you can do all those voices at once, plus the guitars and drums?”
“The sounds are very simple.”
“Your vocal cords must be tied in Boy Scout knots.”
Sandy raised her hand. “Wait a minute.” Drool glanced at her and she continued. “Can you do the Zappers?”
Drool opened his mouth, and the answer came. The Zappers—two male minstrels, two female minstrels, and one interlocuter-type—began to wail their Golden Record classic, Doobie-Do or Doobie-Don’t You? With full orchestral background.
Then Drool did a pop ballad by Eddie Breech and the Clouts. After that, a small filet of soul music, followed by a children’s recording of East Indian raga, featuring the soft tones of a baby sitar.
“Wild!” Sandy shook her head. “I don’t believe it!”
“Hearing is believing,” I told her. “What you’ve been listening to is the sound of fifty million dollars—pouring right into our laps.”
I put my hand on Drool’s shoulder. “Still want to conquer earth?” I asked.
He nodded eagerly, then frowned. “But how—?”
“Leave everything to us,” I assured him. “I think it can be arranged.”
IV
As Jack the Ripper used to say, how’s that for openers?
Between the time Drool finished his concert and the time we parked in Sandy’s driveway I had it all figured.
Sandy started to follow my reasoning and ended up way ahead of me. “It’s a big deal. We’re going to have to use the others.”
“What others?”
Sandy gestured up at the imposing mansion which loomed against the hilltop horizon. “I told you I didn’t live here alone,” she said. “Come along—you’ll see.”
We left the car and moved up the walk. I put my hand on Drool’s shoulder.
“Remember your instructions. Speak only when you’re spoken to and let us do the talking. Play it cool.”
He nodded, and we entered.
Then it was my turn to remember instructions. But I found it very difficult to keep my cool in the overheated atmosphere of Sandy’s pad.
Somehow I hadn’t expected her to live in a twenty-room mansion, complete with marble floors, a fireplace in every bedroom, and an indoor swimming pool.
“Don’t you recognize where you are?” she murmured. “It’s the old Riga Mortice place.”
Something clicked, and I nodded. I remembered Riga Mortice very well indeed. She had been a popular entertainer during my childhood, until illness forced her retirement. No longer a bouncy, bubbling ingenue, she became a victim of alcohol, narcotics and diet-pills. But her fans never deserted her, and when she emerged to make a comeback on a singing tour, her popularity boomed again. Her first appearance, weak and wan and forty pounds lighter, had sparked something in the souls of a hundred million middle-aged female fans, who identified with her because of their own hypochondria. Since they themselves were on a daily diet of sleeping pills, pep pills, water pills, reducing pills, tranquilizers and laxatives, Riga Mortice became their heroine. They flocked to her concerts, not to hear her voice but merely to see if she’d manage to last out the performance. Whenever she cancelled an engagement or took an overdose of liquor, popular enthusiasm increased; some of the adoring lady fans even kept scrapbooks filled with clippings on her suicide attempts. Her appearance on crutches brought applause; her tour in a wheelchair was a smash hit, and when she finally began to sing to her public from a microphone built into an iron lung, she was Number One Box Office.
“Riga Mortice,” I murmured. “Of course! Whatever happened to her?”
“Something terrible,” Sandy sighed. “She got healthy.”
I shook my head. “Sad, isn’t it? Here was a gal who had everything—neurasthe
nia, self-destructive tendencies, a manic-depressive psychosis—what a shame to lose all that talent!”
“She lost this house, too,” Sandy explained. “That’s when we moved in.”
“We?”
“I and the others.” Sandy was leading Drool and me along an imposing corridor panelled in solid mahogany from floor to thirty-foot ceiling.
“But how can you afford it?”
“Because we’re all on unemployment compensation. There’s six of us here—that is, until we lost one of our tenants yesterday. He got a job and moved into a one-room furnished apartment. Now he can’t afford to stay here.”
“But isn’t he making more money—?”
“Look. His job only pays him a hundred and fifty a week. We each get seventy-five in compensation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Our seventy-five is net, tax free. But after this poor guy pays commission to his agent, and deductions are taken from his check for income tax, surtax, social security, state disability insurance and all the rest, he winds up with less bread than we have.”
I was beginning to get the picture. Six times seventy-five is four hundred and fifty dollars a week—more than enough to pay the rent on even such a palatial pad as this one. And that’s why Sandy had scouted the Unemployment Office; she needed to replace the sixth tenant with a new resident, such as me.
Sandy smiled at me. “How about that?” she inquired; gesturing at the sweep and thrust of the three-story staircase which rose at the end of the hall. “Where else could you find such a glad pad for seventy-five per, including food, liquor and gas for your wheels?”
I glanced around. “Something’s missing, though. I don’t see any chairs and tables.”
“Oh, that!” She made a gesture of dismissal. “We don’t have any yet. But we’re planning to buy some period furniture—on monthly payments, of course. Meanwhile, we just make do.” She steered Drool and me toward an ornate double door. “But come on and meet the others.”
The others were gathered for the cocktail hour at the drained indoor swimming pool. Seated inside it, with their bottoms touching bottom, they gave us glasses and greetings.
Seldom have I seen such a collection of disparate types, but as Sandy made the introductions I began to sense that they were desperate types as well. All of them had one thing in common—they were born losers.