by Robert Bloch
He opened the side door, staring into the fog, making sure the guard was gone, just as he’d arranged. We will be rehearsing—I would appreciate it if we are not disturbed. Nobody suspected, nobody would suspect, not even Mama.
Santo is always a good boy, she said. She was saying it now, he could hear her, he could see her face there in the swirling fog, so he shut the door. Shut her out, shut them all out, they mustn’t see him now, mustn’t see his wand. The wand of power.
Power. Power from the pills, they did it—made you hear things, see things that weren’t there. But the power was real.
He’d started again this afternoon—the amytal—and now he couldn’t remember how many he’d taken. He could remember very little except the plan. Calling Jan.
Then everything speeded up, like the camera under-cranking, and he was here. Now normal speed again, twenty-four frames per second. So she didn’t notice anything wrong, he’d played the scene perfectly. Actor, director, producer, completely in control.
But there were too many pills in the camera. That was why he’d seen Mama’s face, heard her voice in the fog. Trick photography, special effects.
Next scene. Santo Vizzini turns, walks back through the darkened sound stage. Walks. Glides. Floats.
Camera out of control again. First too fast. Now too slow. Slow motion. Everything. In. Slow. Motion.
Change lenses. New focus. Distortion. Walls bend, catwalk swinging down, look out! Crazy camera. Crazy pills. Mama mia, not me, I’m not crazy.
No, he wasn’t crazy, because he had the power. The secret power stirring in his loins. The wand of power, the secret weapon, stabbing into the warm, yielding flesh—
Ready now, Santo Vizzini moved up to the dressing-room door.
— 34 —
Roy Ames watched as Claiborne knelt beside the corpse on the floor behind the butcher’s block.
It had all happened so quickly—first the glimpse of the severed head and the bulging eyes, then the sight of the decapitated body. Claiborne was a doctor, he’d seen death before, and he conducted his examination with professional detachment. This, Roy could understand, but not his own reaction. Instead of fear and revulsion, there was only a numbness. Even his voice was unnaturally calm.
“There’s not much blood,” he said.
Claiborne looked up, nodding. “No signs of bodily incision.” Rising, he bent over the block. As he reached down, Roy turned away, but listened intently.
“Massive occipital and parietal lesions,” Claiborne said. “He must have been struck from behind with the flat of the cleaver. Dead before he hit the floor. Then the head could be detached with a minimum of arterial or venous exudation—”
Roy understood what he was saying. Once the heart stops pumping, blood won’t spurt from a wound. He’d researched when he wrote the script, because it was a story point. That was why nobody suspected Norman; without bloodstains on his clothing, he didn’t even suspect himself. Blood on his hands, of course, but that could come just from touching the body. And it was easily washed away.
On impulse he found himself moving to the sink, staring down at the white porcelain basin. Only it wasn’t white, it was pinkish, and the wet rills fringing the drain were dark and red. Blood will tell—
“What’s wrong?”
Claiborne was standing beside him. Roy pointed at the drain. Claiborne nodded; he understood. Norman was alive, he’d killed Driscoll here, and now—
Now Roy found his voice. “The reason I was late, I tried reaching Jan at the apartment before I came here. Connie told me she’d just left to rehearse with Vizzini.”
“At the studio?” Claiborne’s fingers dug into Roy’s arm. “How long ago?”
“Half an hour. She’d be there by now. Do you think Norman would—”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Claiborne’s hand fell away and he turned, striding across the room. “Call the police, get them over here. And call the studio—ask security to contact Jan and Vizzini. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Wait—”
But by the time Roy got back down the hall, the front door had slammed and he could hear the motor throbbing from the driveway outside the house, over the symphonic sound of the orchestral broadcast.
Switching off the television, he glanced around and located the telephone on a desk in the corner beside the doorway. He hastened toward it. Then, just as his hand moved out, the phone rang.
Roy lifted the receiver.
“Hello.” A man’s voice, muffled by the hum of a poor connection. “Mr. Driscoll?”
“No.” Roy spoke quickly. “Get off the line. Emergency—I’ve got to call the police—”
“This is the police.”
“What?”
“Milt Engstrom, county sheriff here in Fairvale. Who’m I talking to?”
Roy identified himself. Then, “Please, I told you it’s an emergency. Mr. Driscoll has been killed—”
“Homicide? How’d it happen?”
“I can’t talk now—”
“Then maybe you better listen.” Sheriff Engstrom didn’t wait for a reply. “I’ve been trying to get hold of Claiborne all evening. Dr. Steiner gave me Driscoll’s number, figuring maybe I could reach him here. But you can give him the message. Tell him we’ve got Bo Keeler.”
“Who?”
“Bo Keeler. He’s the hitchhiker the nun picked up in her van last Sunday. According to his story, she attacked him with a tire iron. There was a struggle, he got it away from the nun and killed her in self-defense. Then he set fire to the van and made a run for it. Hid out in a friend’s house until he couldn’t stand it—came in last night and made a voluntary confession. Idea of killing a nun kept eating on him. Only it wasn’t a nun.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did we, until this afternoon. Coroner identified the body from dental records. You tell Claiborne he was wrong. It wasn’t the hitchhiker and it wasn’t the nun. It was Norman Bates.”
Roy felt the phone slipping through his fingers. Everything was slipping away now. If Norman is dead, then Vizzini must have killed Driscoll.
And he was with Jan—now.
— 35 —
Jan closed the script as Vizzini opened the door.
“Ready,” he said.
She rose. “Is Paul here?”
“He’s on the way. We can get started without him.” The director moved up from the single step and into the camper. “I’ll play Norman.”
Jan held the script out, but Vizzini shook his head. “Not necessary. He has no lines in the shower scene. Neither do you.”
“We’re doing the shower scene first?”
“Of course. It is the key to everything, don’t you agree? We will block out the action together.”
“What about cues?”
“I will tell you what I want. It is all very clear.” He smiled. “But first you must strip.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“Please. It is important to visualize your movements the way they will appear on camera.” Vizzini was still smiling as he closed the door behind him.
Jan shook her head. “Forget it. I’m not taking my clothes off.”
“No false modesty.” The smile was frozen. “I have seen naked women before. And this is not the first time you have undressed at a man’s request.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Everything.” The frozen smile was mirthless, and as Vizzini moved into the light, she saw the tiny pinpoint pupils of his eyes. Little cat-eyes, like the kitten’s.
He started toward her and she could smell the reek of his perfume, mingled with another odor, sickly sweet. He’s on something. I should have known.
“You are a woman,” he said. “I am a man. It is only natural—”
For a moment she wanted to laugh. A voice inside echoed a mocking question— Who writes your dialogue?
But he was reaching out, pressing her against the vanity, arms encircling her
as slit-eyes stared, mouth opening to slash away the smile, breath-stench flooding forth. Jan turned her head to avoid his lips, then realized that wasn’t his intention. The hands against her back were clawing at the folds of the blouse.
She felt the cloth shred, felt his fingers fumbling the clasp of her bra, tugging it open so that the bra fell.
Jan screamed and jabbed at his eyes with her nails; averting his head, he caught her wrist, twisting it as he pulled her toward him.
Suddenly he released his grip and her arm dropped, numb. She tried to move back then, but his right hand slapped her face and his left rose to grasp the front of her blouse and tear it away, feeling her bared breasts. Dazed, Jan watched his fingers splaying toward her nipples.
As he cupped and squeezed her breasts, his head dipped down and forward and she reached behind herself, her fingers sliding across the vanity top until they encountered the crystal stem of the bud vase. She gripped it tightly, raised it high, and smashed the vase against the side of Vizzini’s head.
Roses fell in a red shower, and a red bloom blossomed below his temple. He cried out, lurching back.
Jan ran past him to the door, and tugged at the knob. The door swung open and she hurtled out—then down. She’d forgotten the single step, but it was too late to think of that now; all thought was submerged in the torrent of pain racing from her right foot up to her thigh.
Was her ankle broken or merely sprained? It didn’t matter, she had to get up. Sobbing, Jan started to raise herself from the floor, then fell forward as Vizzini’s knee smashed against the small of her back.
This time the pain was so excruciating that she almost fainted. Forcing her eyes open, she fought against the encroaching darkness, but she couldn’t fight the encroachment of his hands. Strong hands, yanking her skirt away, ripping her panties down and off. And then, as she gasped and panted. Vizzini’s fingers tightened in her hair, jerking her head back. She felt herself turning, sprawled face upward on the cold dampness of the concrete floor.
Jan stared up, fighting for breath as he bent over her. Blood streamed down his left cheek, but he was smiling again; his teeth were yellow and there were yellow highlights in the flecks of saliva at the corners of his twisted mouth.
“Get up!” he said.
“I can’t—my ankle—”
Still smiling, he slapped her again, then reached down and grasped her shoulders, pulling her erect. The pain pouring from her ankle made her moan, and the sound seemed to excite him as much as her nakedness.
“Putana!” His hand dug into the gooseflesh of her upper arm. “Walk—”
Jan tired to break free, but he captured her wrists, then shoved her forward. Wincing, she stumbled out of the dark and into the lighted area beyond. The light of the set—the bath and the shower. He was pulling her toward the curtained stall. Little drops of red fell from his bleeding face to mark their progress across the tile flooring.
“Inside,” he said. “I want you inside.”
“No,” she whimpered. And realized she was doing just that—whimpering, like an animal. And now she knew what he wanted, what he’d intended all along. He was going to jump her there in the shower stall, take her like an animal, helpless and beaten—
Not helpless—
She sucked air into her lungs, strength into her arms, then twisted free. As her hands loosened, she raised them swiftly, clubbing her fists together and smashing at his bloody temple.
Vizzini made a sound deep in his throat, then staggered back, clawing at the shower curtain behind him to keep from falling. Panting, he recovered his balance; for a moment he stood motionless as their eyes met.
Then, without warning, his hands darted forth.
Jan turned, but it was too late. Before she could move further, his nails bit into her shoulders.
And fell away.
She looked back, then halted. Vizzini still stood with his back to the shower, his face contorted in a grimace.
“Mama mia—”
His voice trailed off into a gurgle and he toppled forward to the floor, revealing the redness spurting and spreading from between his shoulder blades.
Then, as the shower curtain ripped back, Jan saw the occupant of the stall lunging forward, knife in hand.
The blade swooped out at her throat.
She had only time to scream before the shot echoed and the knife stabbed down to strike the floor, still clutched in the hand of Adam Claiborne.
— 36 —
Dr. Steiner wasn’t afraid.
There was nothing to fear, because Claiborne was harmless now. They’d dug the bullet out and the wrist was healing nicely, but he would never hold a knife in his right hand again.
For that matter, he might never leave this room. It had been a hassle—even without a trial, there were all those extradition hearings and court orders—but in the end, permission came through and Steiner brought him home.
Home. Steiner sighed, glancing around the room. Home was a cubicle with a few sticks of plastic furniture, a bed bolted to the floor, a lightbulb behind a mesh screen. Home was a barred window.
But at least the surroundings were familiar, if Claiborne was aware of them. At times he seemed capable of awareness, and even though he never spoke, he appeared to recognize Steiner and welcome his presence.
Claiborne was smiling now, looking up from the bed as Steiner entered, but then he was always smiling. The smile was a barrier he’d erected to shut out the world and shut the secrets in.
Dr. Steiner nodded at him. “Hello, Adam,” he said.
No answer—only the smile and the silence.
Steiner pulled a chair over beside the bed and seated himself, knowing even before he started that nothing would bring the barrier down. Still he had to try, he owed him that much.
“I think it’s time we talked about what happened,” he said.
Claiborne’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes seemed clear; perhaps he’d understand.
Then Steiner spoke, choosing his words carefully, remembering that the relationship had altered—no longer doctor-to-doctor, but doctor-to-patient. Even so, he did his best to tell the truth.
And the truth, as he saw it, was that after all these years together, Claiborne had come to identify himself unconsciously with Norman Bates. Both of them were motherless and alone, both confined, each in his own way, by institutional restraint.
Claiborne smiled.
“But there’s more to it than identification,” Steiner said. “After a time you began to feel that your fate, your future, was bound up in your patient—restoring his reason, writing a book about the case. Sanity would set him free, and the success of the book would give you the opportunity to get out of here on your own. And when Norman escaped, it meant you had failed, failed him and yourself. He was gone, leaving you a prisoner in his place.
“It must have started then, with the conviction that the only way you could escape now was to identify with Norman, share the triumph of his freedom. Yes, I know you went after him, but I think you were secretly hoping he’d get away for good. Then, when you found the body in the van and realized who it must be, hope vanished. You blacked out.
“Norman couldn’t let his mother die, so he became her. You couldn’t let Norman die, so you became him. And in the same way, during amnesic episodes when the alternate personality took over.”
Claiborne stared at him with the smile of the Mona Lisa, the silence of the sphinx.
“That’s what happened when you saw the body in the van. As Norman, you went on to Fairvale and killed the Loomises.” Steiner paused. “When the coroner’s verdict finally came in, they searched your car and found the stolen money from the cash register hidden under the floorboards. Do you remember putting it there?”
Claiborne was silent, his smile fixed.
“After hiding the money in your car down the street, you snapped out of fugue and returned to the store. Am I correct?”
No reply, only the set smile.
> “The clipping you found prompted your trip to Hollywood. As Claiborne, you had rational reasons for trying to stop the film through argument and persuasion. But as Norman, you were ready to kill to stop it.
“Most of the time in Hollywood you maintained control—but Norman was there too. Reacting to Jan’s resemblance to Mary Crane, seeing the sets that recreated the scene of the crime.
“I talked to the people out there—Roy Ames, Jan, and the girl who shared her apartment. Some of the things they told me helped in reconstructing what happened. The rest is guesswork. For example, that face you saw in the supermarket mirror. It could have been Vizzini, it could have been hallucination. You were losing control rapidly after that, and when you quarreled with Jan, it was Norman who came back to kill the kitten. Of course, that was only a prelude.”
Claiborne’s smile never wavered.
“Time was running out for Norman, and so was all semblance of rational behavior. He had to destroy the film project, even if it meant destroying everyone connected with it.
“You broke your dinner engagement with Tom Post because Norman took over. Norman went to Driscoll’s house and murdered him. When Ames arrived, he found you there and waiting, but after you heard about Jan and Vizzini, it was Norman who rushed to the studio—not to warn them but to climb the wall, take a knife from the prop department, and hide, ready to attack. If Ames and the police hadn’t arrived when they did—”
Steiner broke off, glancing at Claiborne, but there was no reaction, only the silence and the smile.
Sighing, he rose and moved to the door. “We’ll talk again,” he said.
Even as he spoke, he realized the futility of his promise. He’d failed Claiborne, failed to reach the violence within him, the violence guarded by silence and hidden behind a smile.
There were too many of those smiles surrounding him now—not just here in the asylum, but outside in the streets. Smiles that concealed but couldn’t cure the secret sickness. Violence was a virus, a disease becoming epidemic everywhere in the world, and maybe there was no cure. All he could do was keep trying.