Collected Stories
Page 60
Mrs. Lockhart, who had reappeared from the back of the house, stood in the center of the room, staring at the upturned furniture and the shattered vase and bowls. “Shall we?” she asked Cairo.
“Indeed,” Cairo replied, and he saluted Crowley with the poker before tossing it into the fireplace. “If you’ll forgive us, we’ll take our leave.”
“I will curse you, Cairo,” Crowley muttered. “Carefully, elaborately, and inescapably. You will regret this. Briefly, in the time that remains to you.”
“Do what thou wilt,” Cairo said, and extended his arm to Mrs. Lockhart.
As they walked down the driveway Mrs. Lockhart said, “No sign of Veronica Fleming, but I did find an acquaintance of hers. She claims that her name is Blanche. I assisted her escape through a window, and she’s now waiting for us in the car.”
Mrs. Lockhart walked around to the front passenger seat while Cairo got in back next to a thin, pale woman with limp ash-blonde hair. She wore a low-cut evening dress of white satin. “Blanche, indeed,” Cairo smiled. “What’s your real name?”
After a long pause the woman lifted her pale eyes and said, “Mildred. Mildred Davis. Of Hillsboro, Missouri.”
“Drive,” Mrs. Lockhart said to the chauffeur. “Back toward Los Angeles.”
“You know Veronica Fleming?” Cairo asked the girl.
“I should think I know her. She stole my boyfriend.” In contrast to her fashionable appearance, her voice was uneducated and somewhat shrill.
Cairo raised one eyebrow and the girl continued. “The first time she come to the house, I couldn’t even believe it, her being in pictures and all. I used to watch her back in Hillsboro when she was just a little girl. She’s one of the reasons I come out here to Hollywood. Brother Perdurabo was going to make me a star just like her.” Cairo frowned at the name Perdurabo, one of Crowley’s many aliases. “Then,” the girl went on, “she went and moved in on my Bruno.”
“Bruno?” Cairo asked.
“Bruno Galt. He’s a geologist. Works for one of those big mining companies. He’s got piles of money. Brother Perdurabo was going to teach Bruno the Art, so he give me to Bruno for his, you know, those tantrum rituals?”
“Tantric,” Cairo said.
“That’s the ones. Then three days ago Veronica, she puts the moves on Bruno and he leaves the mansion with her. That was the last time I seen either one of them.”
“Do you know where Galt lives?”
“I should think I do. He’s got a place downtown.” She gave the driver an address on Grand Avenue.
“As quickly as you can,” Cairo told him. The driver nodded, made a right turn, and accelerated into the eastbound traffic on Huntington Drive. Cairo turned back to the girl. “What makes a geologist so interested in the occult?”
“It’s this guy he works with. Warren Shufelt. He’s a mining engineer.”
“Another of Crowley’s benefactors?”
“As far as I know, Mr. Shufelt don’t got nothing to do with Brother Perdurabo. He’s only interested in his tunnels.”
“Tunnels?”
“Yeah, the tunnels that—”
She broke off as a police siren suddenly split the night. Red lights flashed through the rear windscreen. The chauffeur slowed the car and steered toward the side of the road. Cairo leaned forward. “I’ll handle this.”
A policeman ran up to the car as Cairo wound down the rear window. “Your name Cairo?” the patrolman asked.
Cairo nodded.
“Follow us,” the man called, already running back to his own vehicle. “There’s trouble at Mr. Rosenberg’s.”
When they arrived at Rosenberg’s house three police cars already sat in the driveway, red lights flashing. Cairo sprang out of the limousine and one of the policemen led him toward the house, with Mildred and Mrs. Lockhart following closely behind.
“There was a break-in,” the policeman said. “Mr. Rosenberg asked us to put out an all-points for you. He said he needed to talk to you right away, and when Mr. Rosenberg needs something, well, we try to oblige him.”
“I’m sure,” Cairo said.
Rosenberg awaited them in his sun room, wearing a heavy terrycloth robe and drinking coffee. He was pacing back and forth in front of the sliding glass doors that led to his swimming pool. His hair was damp and he seemed feverish.
Cairo sat in a wicker chair. As soon as Mildred and Mrs. Lockhart had settled themselves on the divan he said, “Tell us what happened.”
“I was fast asleep,” Rosenberg explained. “I awoke when I felt the covers pulled away from me, and I sat up in bed. I caught just a glimpse of one of those creatures standing over me, and then it doused me in some kind of liquid.”
“Can you describe the liquid?” Mrs. Lockhart asked, leaning forward.
“It was greenish and slightly oily to the touch. Thicker than water, somehow. And it had a faint, fetid smell, like a marsh.”
Cairo and Mrs. Lockhart exchanged a significant look.
“I sprang out of bed,” Rosenberg continued, “and caught only a glimpse of my attacker. He was small, heavily swathed—in short, almost identical to the intruder at the theater this evening. The way he moved, I tell you, sir, I’m not entirely sure he...” Rosenberg shook his head, then dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. “Is it unnaturally hot in here?”
“Quite the contrary,” Cairo said. “Tell me what it is you were unsure of.”
Rosenberg’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I am not entirely sure he was...human.”
Cairo nodded. “I see. What happened next?”
“The creature disappeared into the night. I called the police immediately, of course, and then I took a hot bath and scrubbed my skin nearly raw. It had begun to itch most fearsomely. In fact,” he confided, mopping his brow again, “it still does.”
Suddenly Rosenberg stood stock still. “My God—” he said.
Cairo got to his feet. “Rosenberg? Is something wrong?”
Rosenberg’s only reply was a high-pitched moan that seemed to escape involuntarily from his lips.
Cairo looked at Mrs. Lockhart. “What’s wrong with him? Do you see anything?”
Mrs. Lockhart shook her head but Mildred suddenly gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “L-look!”
Cairo turned back. Faint wisps of smoke had begun to rise from Rosenberg’s robe.
“What’s going on?” Mildred cried.
“Open those glass doors, Mrs. Lockhart, if you please,” Cairo said with icy calm.
“Helllllllp...meeeeeeee...” Rosenberg howled, as the first tiny flames began to flicker at the back of his head, like an infernal halo. The very air around him had begun to warp from the intense heat that poured off his body.
Cairo reached one hand toward Rosenberg, then snatched it back. There now seemed to be a fire deep inside Rosenberg’s chest, like the glow inside a piece of charcoal whose surface has turned to ash. In fact, Rosenberg’s skin had begun to flutter away in small, gray sheets.
Mrs. Lockhart wrestled open one of the massive glass doors and stood aside as Cairo snatched a Navajo rug from the tile floor and, using it as a shield, attempted to wrap it around Rosenberg’s body. At that instant Rosenberg burst into flames as hot as those in a crematorium. The blanket was consumed instantly and Cairo fell back with his hands before his face.
When he got to his feet, nothing remained of Emil Rosenberg but a pile of ashes and one charred gray foot.
A policeman burst through the door with a revolver in his hand. “What’s going on here?” He glanced nervously around the room. “Where’s Mr. Rosenberg? And what’s that smell?”
Cairo faced him, his eyes intent. He held up his right hand, middle finger bent and held by the thumb, the remaining fingers extended. “Listen to my voice,” Cairo intoned. “There is nothing wrong here. You will give us the keys to your patrol car. You will walk us to the car and explain to the others that I am a high-ranking member of the Los Angeles police department.”
Mildred looked at Mrs. Lockhart in amazement. “How did he do that?”
“A very great deal of self-confidence,” Mrs. Lockhart replied. “Don’t dawdle.”
The officer escorted them to his car and waved to them from the driveway as Mrs. Lockhart expertly backed the long, black automobile, lights still flashing, into the street. Cairo turned to Mildred, who sat wide-eyed in the back. “First we need directions to Galt’s apartment,” he said. “Then I want you to finish telling me about the tunnels.”
The night was dark and cool and the stars burned fiercely overhead as Mrs. Lockhart drove toward the city. Mildred’s face, in the starlight, showed a mixture of fear and excitement, innocence and cupidity. “Mr. Shufelt, see, he had this idea about a lost city under Los Angeles. He thought there was gold down there, big tablets of it—I guess like Moses had, only gold. He said he had maps that he made with what he called his Radio X-Ray. It just looked like a fancy dowsing rod to me, but what do I know? He drilled a big hole on Fort Moore Hill this spring trying to find it.”
“I assume he was unsuccessful,” Cairo said. “Otherwise it would have been in every newspaper in the civilized world.”
“Bruno says he did find it.”
“Then perhaps we should be talking to this Shufelt instead of Galt.”
“I don’t think even Brother Perdurabo could talk to Mr. Shufelt now.”
“Are you saying he’s dead?”
“The city gave up drilling, see, on account of being scared the hole was going to cave in, even though Mr. Shufelt said they were almost through. So Bruno and Mr. Shufelt went out there one night and Bruno lowered him into the hole with his Radio X-Ray machine and a pickax. Bruno stayed up top to watch for cops and all, and after three or four hours Mr. Shufelt said he found something. Then Bruno heard Mr. Shufelt say something like, ‘Oh my God, they’re alive!’ Then there was this awful noise that Bruno said was like bones going through a grinder and the bottom part of the tunnel fell in. By the time Bruno could get down there, there was a hundred tons of rock where Mr. Shufelt had been.”
“Did Bruno go to the police?”
The girl nodded. “He says they didn’t believe him. They thought it was just a trick so they’d let Bruno and Mr. Shufelt start drilling again.”
“Do you have any idea what Mr. Shufelt might have meant when he said, ‘They’re alive?’”
“Bruno thought he knew. He thought—”
“Yes?”
She looked out the window, then back into Cairo’s eyes. “He thought it was the lizard men.”
“See,” Mildred explained, the words rushing out now in a torrent, “the tunnels are all supposed to connect together in the shape of this giant lizard. The head is up by Chinatown and the tail is down by the Central Library. There’s some kind of Indian legend about it. It was supposed to be built by lizard people five thousand years ago.”
“The lizard people are real,” Cairo said. “We saw one of them at the theater this evening, and it was one of them that attacked Rosenberg at his house. But what was Veronica’s part in all of this?”
“She was real interested in those gold tablets. See, Bruno, he was sure there was another way into the tunnels. He was telling me about it at the mansion, about how he had all of Mr. Shufelt’s maps and everything, and about how he thought Brother Perdurabo could help him find the entrance. That’s when Veronica made her move. I bet she convinced Bruno she’d be better at that tantric stuff than me.”
“The maps are at Galt’s apartment?”
“He used to show them to me. I tell you, I don’t understand half the things he’d say to me, and those maps ain’t like any maps I ever saw.” She leaned forward and said to Mrs. Lockhart, “Turn right on Grand Avenue, and go slow. We’re almost there.”
Mrs. Lockhart parked the police cruiser on the nearly deserted street and killed the lights. Downtown Los Angeles was a gray place, nothing like the outlying cities with their palm trees and ocean views. Cairo hunched his shoulders slightly as Mildred led them into a Spanish-style apartment building that had seen more prosperous days. No one answered the buzzer labeled “B. Galt,” so they climbed the stairs to the third floor, where Cairo opened the door as easily as if it hadn’t been locked.
The apartment consisted of a living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen: red tile floors, arched doorways, white plaster walls, and ceiling fans. The Spartan furnishings included no paintings, plants, or knickknacks. Two glasses sat in the kitchen sink, one of them showing lipstick traces, and a handbag lay on the rug beside the couch. Mrs. Lockhart made a quick inspection of its contents. “It’s Veronica’s,” she said.
A drafting table stood against the far wall of the bedroom. Cairo shuffled through the neat stacks of paper and said, “Come look at this.”
A map of downtown Los Angeles was taped to the surface of the table, onto which three vellum overlays had been added. Several hundred short lines crisscrossed the top layer. The second layer showed several longer, more complex lines, one of them winding through El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park downtown.
The third overlay contained the outlines of a lizard, resembling the Gila monster of Arizona. Its head stretched north of Chinatown and its straight, stubby tail terminated at the Los Angeles Central Library, only a few blocks from where they stood.
“That’s the map,” Mildred said. “Crazy, ain’t it?”
“The lizard I understand—more or less,” Mrs. Lockhart said. “The other two diagrams baffle me.”
Cairo shook his head. “Mildred, did Bruno ever say anything that might make sense of all this?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he understood it so much himself. That’s why he was going to Brother Perdurabo.”
“We’ll search all the rooms,” Cairo said. “There must be something else here to—”
At that moment the front door of the apartment flew open with a crash. A dark figure stood in the hallway, silhouetted by the hall light.
“Bruno?” Mildred said.
The figure groaned and toppled face-first onto the floor.
Cairo rolled the man onto his back. He had an athletic build, short blond hair, and wire-rimmed glasses. One lens had shattered and his khaki work clothes were bloodied and torn. “Is this Bruno?” Cairo asked Mildred.
Mildred nodded, wide-eyed. “Is he...?”
“Alive at the moment,” Cairo said. “But not at all well.”
“Lizard men...” Bruno whispered.
“Easy,” Cairo warned. “We have to get you to a hospital.”
“No time,” Bruno whispered. “I’m...a walking dead man...have to warn...lizard men...on the move...kill us all...take back their city...” His eyes suddenly opened wide. “Lizard queen! Must stop...the lizard queen!”
“Where are they?” Cairo asked intently. “These lizard men, how do we find them?”
“To...the tunnels...from...the tunnels...”
Cairo looked to Mrs. Lockhart. “He’s making no sense. If you’d be so kind as to get his feet, perhaps we—” He broke off as waves of heat began to pour off of Bruno’s body.
“Lizard!” Bruno screamed. “Queeeeeeeeeeeen!”
“Oh no,” Cairo sighed. “Not again.”
Flames leaped out of Bruno’s clothing and the glass of his spectacles melted and ran like tears. The skull inside Bruno’s head seemed to glow as if made of molten lava.
“Your hands,” Mrs. Lockhart said sharply. “Where you touched him.”
Cairo looked down. Smoke was already rising from his skin.
“I’ll get ice,” Mrs. Lockhart said, moving swiftly to the icebox in the kitchen. Cairo ignored her. He backed away from Bruno’s furiously burning body and lowered himself into a cross-legged posture on the floor. He closed his eyes. Flames flickered
between his fingers and then, just as suddenly, died out. A moment later Cairo opened his eyes and inspected the hands he held out in front of him, unharmed.
“There’s no ice,” Mrs. Lockhart said, returning. “Are you all right?”
“Perfectly,” Cairo assured her.
“How...how...” Mildred stammered.
“It was no worse than the hot coals I used to walk upon in India. Any fakir could have done the same.”
“You...you were faking it?” She burst into sudden tears. “I don’t understand any of this! This is all so horrible! Poor Bruno, and poor Mr. Rosenberg! And that monster, Crowley, who wanted to have relations with anything that moved! I wish I never came to California! I wish none of this had ever happened!”
“Listen to my voice,” Cairo said. He held up his hand, palm first, with the middle finger bent again. “I will not command you to forget, because if you forget you will only make the same mistakes again. And I cannot undo the things that happened tonight. I can, however, make you able to remember them without much pain, or fear, or curiosity, so that you can go back to Missouri and be Mildred Davis once again. Do you understand?”
Mildred nodded and Cairo lowered his hand. “Do you have any money?” he asked her. She shook her head. Cairo reached into the limp blonde hair behind her ear and produced a small, tightly folded piece of paper. He carefully unfolded it to reveal a twenty-dollar bill. “That should get you home,” he said.
Mildred wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “How can I ever thank you?”
“Help me search for another map,” Cairo said, “before we take you to the train station.”
Dawn was a pale gray promise in the eastern sky when they pulled up in front of Union Station on Alameda Street. Even at this hour the sidewalks teemed with well-dressed travelers, while children sold newspapers and fresh fruit. The smell of oranges blended with the scent of orange blossoms in the air.
They had searched Bruno’s apartment top to bottom and found no other maps than the ones on the drafting table. Cairo had appropriated those, along with a massive battery-powered miner’s lamp they’d found in Bruno’s closet.