But he could not get off the sofa. And Heepish would not pay the slightest attention to his remarks about the painting. Neither would the guests.
He felt as if he were in a parallel universe which was in contact with that in Heepish's house but somewhat out of phase with it. He could communicate to a certain degree and then his words faded out. And, now that he looked around, this place seemed a trifle fuzzy.
Suddenly, he wondered if his coffee had been drugged.
It seemed so ridiculous that he tried to dismiss the thought. But if Heepish could steal his painting and hang it up where so many people would see it, knowing that word would quickly get to the man from whom he had stolen it, and if he could blandly, even friendlily, sit with the man from whom he had taken his property and act as if nothing were wrong, then such a man would have no compunction about drugging him.
But why would he want to drug him?
Thoughts of cellars with dirt floors and a six foot long, six foot deep trench in the dirt moved like a funeral train across his mind. A furnace in the basement burned flesh and bones. An acid pit ate away his body. He was roasted in an oven and this crew had him for dinner. He was immured, standing up, while Heepish and his guests toasted him with Amontillado. He was put in a cage in the basement and rats, scores of them, big hungry rats, were released into the cage. Afterwards, his clean-picked skeleton was wired together and stood up in this room as a macabre item. His friends and acquaintances, members of the Count Dracula Society and the Lord Ruthven League, would visit here because Heepish would become king after the great Forry Ackerman disappeared so mysteriously. They would see the skeleton and wonder whose it was--since so many people play Hamlet to the unknown Yoricks--and might even pat his bony head. They might even speak of Forry Ackerman in the presence of the skeleton.
Forry shook himself as a dog shakes himself emerging from water. He was getting a little psycho about this. All he had to do was assert his rights. If Heepish objected, he would call the police. But he did not think that even Heepish would have the guts to stand in his way.
He stood up so suddenly he became even dizzier. He said, "I'm taking my painting, Heepish! Don't get in my way!"
He turned around and stood up on the cushion and lifted the painting off its hook. There was a silence behind him, and when he turned, he saw that all were standing up, facing him. They formed a semicircle through which he would have to go through to get to the door.
They looked grave, and their eyes seemed to have become larger and almost luminous. It was his imagination that put a werewolfish gleam in them. Of course.
Mrs. Pocyotl curled her lips back, and he saw that her canines were very long. How had he missed that feature when he first saw her? She had smiled, and it seemed to him that her teeth were very white and very even.
He stepped down off the sofa and said, "I want my coat, Heepish."
Heepish grinned. His teeth seemed to have become longer, too. His gray eyes were as cold and hard as a winter sky in New York City.
"You may have your coat, Forry, since you don't want to be friendly."
Forry understood the emphasis. Coat but not painting.
He said, "I'll call the police."
"You wouldn't want to do that," Diana Rumbow said.
"Why not?" Forry said.
He wished his heart could beat faster. It should be, but it wasn't, even under this strain. Instead, his muscles were jerking, and his eyes were blinking twice as fast as usual, as if they were trying to substitute for the lack of heartbeats.
"Because," the blonde said, "I would accuse you of rape."
"What?"
The painting almost slipped from his hands.
Diana Rumbow slipped out of her gown, revealing that she was wearing only a garter belt and nylon stockings. Her pubic hairs were long and very thick and a bright yellow. Her breasts, though large, did not sag.
Mrs. Pocyotl said, "Maybe you'd like two for the price of one, Forry."
She slipped out of her gown, revealing that she wore only stockings and a belt. Her pubic hairs were black as a crow's feathers, and her breasts were conical.
Forry stepped back until the backs of his knees were in contact with the sofa. He said, "What is this?"
"Well, if the police should be called, they would find this house deserted except for you and the two women. One woman would be unconscious, and the other would be screaming. Both women would have sperm in their cunts, you can bet on that. And bruises. And you would be naked and dazed, as if you had, shall we say, gone mad with lust?"
Forry looked at them. All were grinning now, and they looked very evil. They also looked as if they meant to do whatever Heepish ordered.
He was in a nightmare. What kind of evil beings were these? All this for a painting?
He said, loudly, "Get out of the way! I'm coming through! This painting is mine! And you're not going to intimidate me! I don't care what you do, you're not getting to keep this! I might have given it to you, Heepish, if you'd become a good friend and wanted it badly enough! But not now! So out of the way!"
Holding the painting as if it were a shield or a battering ram, he walked towards Heepish and the naked Rumbow.
* * *
CHAPTER 27
Herald Childe drove slowly through the rain and, the high waters. His windshield wipers were not able to cope at this moment, so dense was the downpour. His headlights strove to pierce the sheets with little effect. Other cars, driven by more foolhardy Angelenos, passed him with great splashings.
It took him more than two hours to get to his house in Topanga Canyon. He drove up the steep side street at ten miles an hour while water, several inches deep, poured down past him. As he turned to go into his driveway, he noticed the car beneath the oak tree by the road. Another car that had been abandoned here, he supposed. There had been seven automobiles left here within the past several weeks. All were of the same model and year. All had been by the oak tree when he awoke in the morning. Some had been left for a week before the cops finally came and towed them away. Some had been there a few days and then had disappeared during the early morning hours.
He did not know why somebody was abandoning cars in front of his house or, if not outright abandoning them, was parking them for such a long time. His neighbors for two blocks on either side of the house and both sides of the street knew nothing about the cars.
The cops said that the cars they'd towed away were stolen.
So here was the seventh. Possibly the seventh. He must not jump to conclusions. It could belong to somebody visiting his neighbors. He would find out soon enough. Meanwhile, he needed to get to bed. To sleep. He had had more than enough of that other bedtime activity.
The house was his property. He owed nothing on it except the yearly taxes. It was a five room bungalow, Spanish style, with a big backyard and a number of trees. His aunt had willed it to him, and when she had died last year, he had moved in. He had not seen his aunt since 1942, when he had been a child, nor had he exchanged more than three letters with her in the past ten years. But she had left all her property to him. There was enough money so that he had the house left after paying off the inheritance tax.
Childe had been a private detective, but, after his experiences with Baron Igescu and the disappearance of his wife, he had quit. He wasn't a very good detective, he decided, and besides, he was sick of the business. He would go back to college, major in history, in which he had always been interested, get a master's and, possibly, a Ph.D. He would teach in a junior college at first and, later, in a university.
It would have been more convenient for him to take an apartment in Westwood where he would be close to the UCLA campus. But his money was limited, and he liked the house and the comparative quiet, so he drove every day to school. To save gas and also to find a parking place easier on the crowded campus, he rode a motorcycle during the week.
Just now the school was closed because of vacation.
It was a lonely life. He was
busy studying because he was carrying a full load, and he had to keep up the house and the yard, but he still needed someone to talk to and to take to bed. There were women who came up to his house from time to time: teachers his own age or a little older, some older students, and, occasionally, a younger chick who dug his looks. He resembled a rough-hewn Lord Byron. With a clubfoot mind, he always added mentally when someone commented on this. It was no secret to him that he was neurotic. But then who wasn't? If that was any consolation.
He turned on the lights and checked the windows to make sure again that none were leaking. It was a compulsive action he went through before leaving and after coming back--at least three times each time. Then he looked out the back window. The yard was narrow but deep, and this was good. Behind it towered a cliff of dirt, which had, so far, not become a mud flow. Water poured off it and drowned his backyard, and the water was up over the bottom steps of the back porch stairs. He understood, from what his neighbors said, that the cliff had been closer to the house at one time. About ten years ago it had slid down and covered the backyard almost to the house. The aunt had spent much money having the dirt hauled away and a concrete and steel wire embankment built at the foot of the cliff. Then, two years ago, in the extraordinarily heavy rains, the cliff had collapsed again. It had, however, only buried the embankment and come about six feet into the yard. The aunt had done nothing about it, and, a year later, had died.
The entire Los Angeles, Ventura, and Orange County area was being inundated. The governor was thinking about having Southern California declared a disaster area. Houses had floated away, mud slides had buried other houses, a car had disappeared in a hole in Ventura Boulevard, a woman, waiting for a bus in downtown Los Angeles had been buried in a mud slide, houses were slipping in the Pacific Palisades and in the canyons everywhere.
There was only one consolation about the deluge. No smog.
Childe went into the kitchen and opened the pantry and took out a bottle of Jack Daniels. He seldom drank, preferring marijuana, but when he was downcast and upset, marijuana only made him more gloomy. He needed something to dull his mind and nerves, and Tennessee mash on the rocks would do it.
He sipped the stuff, shaking and making a face as he did so. After a while, he could swallow it without repugnance. A little later, he could sip on it with pleasure. He began to feel numb and even a trifle happy. The memory of Vivienne was still with him, but it did not shake him so much now.
The three men had entered and one had delicately placed the tip of his sword against Vivienne's neck. She had said something about his breaking the truce.
What truce? He had never found out. But the man with the sword cane had accused her and her people--he called them Ogs--of first breaking the truce. The Ogs had captured Childe and abused him. This was definitely against the rules. He was not even to be aware of their existence or of that of the Tocs.
Moreover, they had endangered Childe's life. He might have been killed because of their irresponsible behavior. In fact, the Tocs were not sure that the Ogs had not had it in mind to kill Childe.
"You know as well as you know anything that we agreed on The Face of Barrukh and the Testicle of Drammukh that we would let The Child develop until he was ready!" the swordsman said.
"The Child?" thought Herald. "Or did he mean The Childe?"
Later, he thought, "Possibly the two are the same."
Vivienne, still crouching on the bed, had said, "It was an accident that he came to our house--to Igescu's, I mean. He insisted on breaking in and spying on us, and the temptation to partake of his power was too much for us. In that, we were guilty. Then things got out of hand. We did not handle him correctly, I'll admit. We forgot that he would have to be watched very closely; he looks so human it's easy to do, you know. And he acts so stupidly at times, he made us a little contemptuous of him."
"Of The Child?" the swordsman said. "I think you are the stupid ones. He is not an adult yet, you know, so you can't expect him to act like one. Anyway, I doubt the adulthood of any of you Ogs."
Vivienne, looking then at Childe, said, "We've been talking in English!"
She burst into a spew of a language which he had heard before even if it was unintelligible to him. It was the same language that his captors had used when he was a prisoner in Igescu's.
Though he did not understand what followed, he was able to determine the name of the swordsman. It was Hindarf.
Hindarf seemed inclined to run Vivienne through, but she talked him out of it. Finally, Hindarf pricked him with a needle, and presently he was able to function almost normally. He got dressed and allowed himself to be escorted out of the house. He was still too shaky to drive, so Hindarf drove while the two men followed in their car. Hindarf refused to answer Childe's questions. His only comment was that Childe should stay away from the Ogs. Apparently, he had believed Vivienne's story that Childe was the intruder in this case.
A few blocks before they came to the turnoff to Topanga Canyon, Hindarf stopped the car. "I think you can drive from here on."
He got out and held the door open for a moment while rain fell into the car and wet the driver's seat and the steering wheel.
He stuck his face into the car and said, "Please don't go near that bunch again. They're deadly. You should know that. If it weren't..."
He was silent for several seconds and then said, "Never mind. We'll be seeing you."
He slammed the door shut. Childe scooted over into the driver's seat and watched Hindarf and the others drive away. Their car swung around and went down Topanga Canyon.
As he sat in the front room and tried to watch TV while he swigged Jack Daniels, he thought of that evening. Almost nothing made sense. But he did believe that Igescu and Krautschner and Bending Grass and Pao and the others had not been vampires, werewolves, werebears, or what have you. They were very strange, bordering on the unnatural, or what humans thought of as unnatural. The theory advanced by Igescu, and presumably invented by the early 19th century Belgian, "explained" the existence of these creatures. But Childe was beginning to think that Igescu had led him astray. He did not know why he would lie to him, but there seemed to be many things he did not know about this business.
If he had any sense, he would follow Hindarf's advice.
That was the trouble. He had never shown too much common sense.
Fools rush in, and so forth.
After four shots of mash whiskey on an empty stomach, one also unaccustomed to liquor, he went to bed. He slept uneasily and had a number of dreams and nightmares.
The persistent ringing of the telephone woke him. He came up out of a sleep that seemed drugged, and was, if alcohol was a drug. He knocked the phone off while groping for it. When he picked it up, an unfamiliar male voice said, "Is this McGivern's?"
"What number did you want?" Childe said.
The phone clicked. He looked at the luminous hands of his wristwatch. Three o'clock in the morning.
He tried to go back to sleep but couldn't. At ten after three, he got up and went into the bathroom for a drink of water. He did not turn on the light. Going out of the bathroom, he decided to check on the condition of the street before he went back to bed. It was still raining heavily, and the street had been ankle-deep in water when he had driven up before the house.
He pulled the curtain back and looked out. The car that had been parked under the oak tree was pulling away. The lights from the car behind it showed that a man was driving it. The car swung around and started slowly down the street towards Topanga Canyon. The lights of the other car shone on the pale face of Fred Pao, the Chinese he had seen at Igescu's. His lights threw the profiles of the three men in the other car into silhouette. One of them looked like Bending Grass, the Crow Indian, or Crow werebear, but that could not be. Bending Grass had died under the wheels of his car when Childe had escaped from the burning Igescu mansion.
He turned and ran into the bedroom and slipped into a pair of pants and shoes without socks. He ran i
nto the front room, put on a rainhat and raincoat and picked up his wallet and car keys from the dining room table. He got into the car and took off backwards, splashing water as if he were surf-riding as he backed onto the street. He drove faster than he should have and twice skidded and once the motor sputtered and he thought he had killed it.
He caught up with them about a quarter of a mile up Topanga. The lead car was slowing down even more and looked as if it would swing into a private road that went up the steep hill. He had never been up it, but he knew that it led to a huge three-storied house that had been built when the road was a dirt trail. It stood on top of a hill and overlooked much of the area, including his own house.
Abruptly, the lead car stopped. The car behind it also stopped. He had to go on by them; they would become suspicious if he also stopped. At the top of the hill he slowed down, found a driveway, turned in, and backed out. He came down the hill again in time to see the two cars heading back down Topanga Canyon.
He wondered what had made them change their minds? Had they become suspicious of him? Perhaps they had seen his lights as he turned onto Topanga.
Childe followed them into Los Angeles. The cars proceeded cautiously through the heavy rain and flooded streets until they reached San Vicente and La Cienega. When the light changed to green, the two cars suddenly roared into life. Shooting wings of water, their tires howling even on the wet pavement, they sped away. He accelerated after them. They swung left on reaching Sixth and skidded into the traffic island, bounced off, and continued back up San Vicente on the other side of the boulevard, then skidded right as they turned on Orange.
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