Clues to a Nightmare
Inspiration is a fickle blessing.
Like every other experienced author, Blake Corbett knew that the bubbling wellspring of ideas which runs so voluminously one day can dry into sun-baked pond resin by the next. Sometimes within a matter of hours. On many occasions, Blake had sat before his typewriter with the ideas literally foaming out of his strangely-oriented mind so swiftly that he could not move his fingers fast enough to get the idea on paper before it was lost, swept aside and into his subconscious by a dozen more of equally fascinating impact. (In fact, for a while he toyed with the idea of learning shorthand solely to speed up his handwriting and therefore capture those racing concepts; but he gave it up because his very concentration on the intricacies of the faculty was obliterating the ideas that it was supposed to preserve.)
Of course, as Greek tragedy had long ago decreed, the blessing had its dark, opposing side. The brimming creativity periods seemed to have come most frequently during his early days as a writer, when he had been struggling for literary survival and turning out two short stories per five day work week; the dark side began to show up with alarming frequency following his initial successes in the horror and fantasy fields. He would find himself before the infernal machine with its virginal white paper, his hands poised above the keys, and not a single active mental ability beyond the recollection of how to breathe.
Then the days would roll by like a paving truck over his spine while he wrestled with himself, trying to decide whether his incompetence was a matter of fatigue, overextension, or pure laziness. Finally, he would be away from the typewriter, a spectator at a sporting event or dining out, and that gong buried in the middle of his brain would strike resoundingly, rendering him unable to carry on the simplest conversation with a friend because his inner self was madly pounding the glowing edges of a nova-like idea into manuscript form.
Perhaps money had something to do with his bouts of genius and idiocy—sometimes, he believed so—but the Engimatic Case of Anna Marcus had come at an inopportune moment when he needed money (cash, kale, scratch, long green, gelt, mazuma, simoleons, however his id labelled it) badly. This need was due to, among other things, his regular alimony payments. There was already a concept of Anna and a beginning on paper, but he couldn’t get any swing into the undertaking, couldn’t generate that zeal that kept him pounding away from the eleven p.m. news to “The Today Show.”
This, then, was the crux of the matter: he was turning into a snob. Horror fiction and occasional SF works had carried him from a friendly, if weird little guy who read mythology even when he was attending college to a respected, often interviewed, and frequent Guest of Honor author who laughed wickedly when awed fans innocently asked where he got his “ideas”.
Today, however, an unusual sensation was creeping throughout his body. It whispered enticingly that he was capable of producing a novel that was devoid of semitransparent specters, evilly intelligent animals, or shimmering pools of collected malevolent energy. He was talented, and he could give his public a tale of real men and women and the joys and sorrows that they encountered in the business of day-to-day living.
Actually, he wanted to write Rich Man, Poor Man, but he doubted that the reading public (or the late Irwin Shaw) would have appreciated seeing that novel with a byline of “A.B. Corbett”.
On the Friday morning of August 19, Corbett switched off his telephone, locked his apartment door, and planted himself before the challenging keyboard of his typewriter, determined that, minus distractions, he would triumph over the smirking device and deliver Anna Marcus from evil or give her up to what a fan once had labelled his “bastard endings.” This entirely appropriate description applied to his occasional, joyful betrayal of some long-suffering protagonist in the final lines of a story or novel by allowing the detestable evil feature to emerge intact and victorious; of course, when this particular rebellion against tradition was used too often, it became just as much of a cliché as the “happy ending”.
By noon, he was waving the white flag. He needed someone to whine his troubles to, and who better than that fellow who regularly took ten per cent off the top of everything he managed to earn? Rodney L. Witty would soon receive a visit from his top client, it seemed.
Just like every other Los Angeles (or New York or Chicago or Boston) literary agent, Witty undertook his minimal amount of actual labor in the comfort of a richly furnished office located in one of the higher skyscrapers of the city, while the overworked, underpaid author whose sweat and genius fed the hungry masses who made up the reading public lived in near-poverty on Grub Street. Or so Corbett believed while struggling in the depths of another of his bouts of the most exquisite self-pity. He left Anna Marcus in the maw of the insatiable typewriter (hoping that she, too, would be devoured) and ventured into the baking afternoon sunshine on his way to the haven that awaited him downtown.
Witty’s office was on the twelfth floor of the Paxton Building, and the long elevator ride served to heighten his anticipation. By the time he strolled into the office of the agent’s executive secretary, he was so primed for the meeting that he was almost happy that this present piece of business was giving him so much trouble.
“Good afternoon, Blake,” Edna Danova greeted him without looking up. Edna hadn’t missed an official day’s work in a dozen years or so. “How goes everything?”
Corbett stopped by her large desk and leaned over the woman like some carnivorous predator readying itself for the pounce. “Let’s run off to Vegas and get married,” he suggested with a lascivious leer.
Edna glanced up from the sloppily-typed manuscript she was pre-reading for Witty and asked, “Why?” with apparent guilelessness.
“Well … it would get me out of paying alimony, anyway.”
“Nope, you’ve got it backwards again: Beth would have to remarry to shut off the cash drain, not you.” She turned a page in the hopeful novel before adding, “Besides, I’ve already got a husband, and that’d be bigamy.”
Corbett snapped up the cue. “Sure, but do you think that just any divorced man would take on a second wife when it wouldn’t even benefit him financially? It would be pretty big of me, too.”
“That was better when Groucho said it.”
“Groucho had talent,” he replied, fingering a page of the manuscript. “That any good?” Like many other writers, Blake was interested in the early efforts of new authors, and the interest was half-benevolent, half-jealous.
“Not very,” responded Edna. “It’s out of your line, anyway; it has to do with a modern married couple’s reaction to—”
“If you have the gall to say that it deals with real men and women and the joys and sorrows of day to day life, I believe I’ll go totally psycho and toss somebody through a window.”
“Rod’s in his office; go right in,” she said with jaded familiarity gleaned from long exposure to the moods of creative people.
Corbett thanked her with a grin and walked through the door to the right of her desk without bothering to knock. “Afternoon, Rod,” he said. “I need advice.”
With a sigh, Witty cut off a speech he had been recording for Edna to type up later. “Damn it, Blake, that has to be the one millionth time you’ve done this to me,” he stated.
Corbett dropped loosely onto a short sofa and propped his feet, crossed at the ankles, on an expensive table before it. “I didn’t think you bothered to keep count of things like that. Edna said I’d better rush in before you got busy with something.”
“I’ve got to fire that woman,” the agent muttered, putting away the recording machine in a drawer.
“Don’t try it; you might not get someone who could do ninety percent of your work on plantation employee wages as her replacement, and then where would you be?”
Witty was a short, thin, and nervous-appearing man whose dark complexion and youthful features once prompted a colleague to comment that he resembled a medical exchange student from Barcelona. He pointedly ignored Corbett’s remark and asked, “What’s this about advice? Your deadline’s not for three months, yet.”
Corbett massaged his neck. “I know, Rod, but that’s the problem.”
“Fourteen years ago, he could knock off a book a week,” Witty recalled for some invisible audience.
“Fourteen years ago, I was hungry, anonymous, and damned mad about it all. Now things don’t come so smoothly. In fact, this latest book is—”
“Don’t tell me.” Witty stood from behind his desk. “This latest book is at a total, immovable, and inescapable standstill.”
“How’d you guess?”
“Intuition. It comes with the ulcers.”
“Well, anyway, I was thinking about trying a new slant, more straight science fiction, with real characters and maybe a near-future setting.”
Witty shook his head slowly. “You’ve tried science fiction already, remember? Daniels called it ‘a high-tech Western’. Blake, you don’t have the knowledge … I don’t mean that, I mean the metallic gloss for the genre. A.B. Corbett belongs in the castle dungeons and prehistoric swamps.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Come on, now, be fair. When one thinks of you, he thinks of vampires, banshees, and genuine, visceral fear, not a lot of BEM’s running around blitzing everything in sight with ray guns.”
Corbett was wounded, if only slightly. “It’s quite obvious that you haven’t read an SF novel since 1947.”
“That’s not it; I simply know what kind of SF you would write. Either totally overloaded with unscientific hardware or drowning in pseudo-Faulknerian characterization, and, believe me, neither would work in today’s market.”
“When they asked me why I chose Rod Witty to take the helm of my career, I always answered because he had such a light, reassuring touch, one that would never shatter my fragile ego,” Blake said sarcastically. “I’m thirty-five years old! The ‘ghoulies and ghosties’ bit is stale, and if it’s not real to me, how can I make it even interesting to a reader?”
“Nevertheless, it sells.”
“And whatever sells is right, huh? Don’t you think that after sixty novels I should be doing better than just living from one book to the next?”
“You’re not doing so badly.”
“That’s right. I had to leave my yacht at the dock to be driven here in my chauffeured limousine, right?”
Witty tried to turn aside the thrust of the conversation with a chiding joke. “Envy, thy name is Corbett.”
“Envy? If I don’t finish this current book, I could be out on my can one month past the deadline!”
Witty realized that these fears were real, and he decided to allay then with some good news that he had been holding back until all negotiations were completed. “Okay, Blake, I’ll admit that you’re not in the best of positions right now, but will you allow that it’s not all my fault? That your trouble with Beth and her lawyers has done some damage over the last couple of years?”
“Okay. Some,” he grunted.
“Good. I’ll tell you what, if you’ll turn out just one more good fang and clawer for the contract we’ve already signed, I’ll see that you get one full year from this December to write your Great American Novel about whomever and whatever you wish. You can make the world forget Hemingway, if you would do that to the poor old guy.”
Blake’s face brightened measurably. He wasn’t used to winning concessions without a much more protracted fight than this. “Really? A year, without eating dog food?” Then his eyes hardened. “How can you promise something like that? You’ve never bought me so much as a birthday card with money out of your pocket, so I know that can’t be it.”
“Blake, I realize that your bitterness is spilling over into your words, so I won’t take any of it personally,” Witty said. Then he grinned rather sheepishly. “Uh, I was going to tell you this in a week or so, at lunch, after the negotiations were complete … well, we’ve got a tentative offer from a big film group for the screen rights to four of your books.”
“What? A film comp—how long have you known this?”
“Their people contacted me a little over a month ago.”
Corbett sprang to his feet. “And you didn’t tell me? You weasel! You skin-sloughing reptile! I’ve been watching my pennies for the last—”
“Whoa, boy!” Witty interrupted. “I said the offer was tentative, remember? No price has been settled upon, so why should I have gotten up your hopes on a deal that might still fall through?”
“Rod, if you let my first chance to get on the screen ‘fall through,’ Hal Wendkos will be using you to act as a model when he paints the cover for my next book.” Blake’s half-serious anger exhausted itself quickly as thoughts of cinematic immortality soothed his long-mistreated self-image. “Which four? Dark Rampage?”
“Right,” answered the agent. “Rampage, The Intruder Mind, The Last Monster, and either Dead Sun or Whistle in the Moonlight.”
“All for feature films?”
“Since horror seems to be the only type of feature that summer audiences are turning out for these days, at least two will be shot for theaters. The others could be developed for TV or cable, if HBO’s self-production schedule holds up.”
Corbett laughed loudly. Walking to the side of Witty’s expensive desk, he ignored the other man’s pained wince and slammed his right fist hard onto its top, apparently without feeling a twinge of pain. Then he laughed again. “You know, Rodney, this is it. I can tell already. This is the break that will make me legitimate in the writing community—”
“Sure,” interjected Witty in a bored tone, “your ship has come in and docked overloaded with gold, the pot of riches has been located, Dame Luck has ogled you. Just remember, you’ve got another book due in ninety days.”
“You’re not serious, are you? I have to finish Anna Marcus? You can’t send me back to knocking out an insipid melodrama after telling me that I’m about to be delivered into wealth beyond my wildest and most hedonistic dreams!”
“That about sums it up.”
“You, sir, have no poetry, as the man says.”
“And you, sir, had better get some professionalism into your poetical soul, or Burns, Morris, ampersand Barreto Publishing, Inc. will sue so quickly and effectively that every cent the movie joes come up with will be in and out of your pocket too quickly to collect lint.”
“God, you’re cold-blooded,” Corbett said, but he knew that the results would prove his agent to be a sharp, competent negotiator. “You’re not going to spoil this moment, though; in fact, if I had the cash I’d take you and Edna out to lunch. Since I don’t, I believe I’ll get drunk, instead.”
“Drunk? You?” Witty laughed. “You’re thirty-five, you say, and in all that time you’ve been drunk how many times? Twice? And one of those was when you got into your granddad’s elderberry wine.”
“Okay, so I’ll settle for a buzz. I’ve got to celebrate somehow, don’t I?” Without awaiting a reply, he charged out of the office and stopped next to a confused Edna Danova, demanding, “How big’s your husband?”
“How—who?” she asked.
“Never mind. Today, I’m Clint Eastwood.” The elated writer gave no warning as he leaned over the startled secretary and delivered a swift kiss that was aimed at her mouth but encountered mostly nose. “Farewell, you poor, struggling mortals! Allen Blake Corbett sails forth to conquer the profane world and emerge the new H. Rider Haggard!”
“What is going on here?” asked Edna.
Corbett left the explanations to his agent and practically quarterhorsed his way to the elevator.
He had always wanted to try that illicit kiss routine.
It was just as well that he didn’t try to get drunk, because he knew from experience (limited) that his faculties departed him in an undeniable rush following a couple of drinks; and right then he sincerely wanted to remain conscious so that he could plan the unlimited variations on a golden theme: Blake Corbett, millionaire.
There was, naturally, a great ego boost from the fact that he would gain even wider recognition in the public eye, but like many of his fellow Americans, much of his personal yardstick of success was marked by material wealth. That had managed to elude him in large chunks for his spent adult life.
The Movie People … ah, they hurled about millions with the casual disdain of a camel kicking up plumes of sand. Budgets these days ran seven and eight figures for the cheap features, so surely some of that gravy would spill down to the author of the original work upon which the screenplay was based … screenplay, writing. By gosh, this just might be his big chance to slide into screenwriting, in the footsteps of men such as Matheson, Bloch, and Beaumont!
“Eric, you’re looking at a sensation-to-be,” he said confidently to Eric Thessaloniki, the big, amiable owner of the luncheonette in which he was celebrating. “This time next year, ya, I’ll be guest-hosting on The Tonight Show.”
“A confident man is more dangerous than an unsheathed sword,” replied Thessaloniki.
“I do believe that you make those proverbs up.”
The man shrugged. “Why not? You make up nightmares about ghosts that devour little girls and get rich; maybe someday my maxims will return to me another cup of coffee.”
Corbett pushed his plate away and inspected the final drops of the beverage in his cup. “That’s worth two cups, one for your philosophical self, my friend.”
While Thessaloniki poured, Blake controlled his still-soaring spirits enough to consider a less agreeable point which the owner’s last comment had brought back to him: the novel that was still waiting like an unpaid debt back in his typewriter. Come on, he urged his creative unconscious, start flooding me with ideas. But this other portion ignored his summons with blatant disregard of his newly-bestowed omniscience. He’d been knocking chips off of that block of granite, trying to make it look like an elephant, for nearly a month and a half now, and the advance money was long spent. But he had ninety days more before the completion date, and certainly that was more than enough time for a sensation-to-be to outwrestle a mere novel.
“Yep,” he said aloud, “the Kid can do it.”
“What other god-like ability have you discovered in your arsenal?” asked Eric.
“Oh, nothing new, just a heightening of my normally superhuman abilities of composition.”
“This I should have known.”
“Eric,” Blake continued, “you should have seen me in Rod’s office today. On the way out, I did a Cary Grant on poor Edna. Zeroed a kiss right on her nose as if it had belonged to Claudette Colbert—or was it Paulette Goddard? No matter, either way the girl had no warning—”
“Blake, Blake,” laughed the big man, “it must have been a most satisfying moment, I’m sure, but do you mind if I absorb the details while also listening to the news? It’s my one addiction, and I swear by the gods that aren’t anymore that I can divide my attention without doing an injustice to either of you.”
“By all means,” answered Corbett with a magnanimity that was surprising even to himself. “The Gods Who Aren’t; Eric, you may have quite by accident given me an idea that will do away with Anna Marcus in a much more satisfactory manner than simple formula mayhem could offer.”
“I’m not even going to pretend that I understand what that means,” stated Thessaloniki as he switched on a small television set behind the counter. The screen flickered, fuzzed, and cleared to present the serious face of a young woman who gave a news wrap-up each day at that time.
“Beats Rather,” Corbett said from the midst of his effulgence.
“Good afternoon,” the attractive young woman began. “I’m Andrea Shepperton and these are the top headlines: the President states that the six per cent rise in inflation since last January is not excessive—”
“It’s pretty excessive when you don’t have a job and don’t want to get one,” Blake observed.
“Hmm,” Thessaloniki agreed solemnly.
“… a team of four men and two women have begun their attempt to save the world’s whales by crawling across the whole of the island of Honshu, Japan—”
“And in encore, they’ll rescue the condors by hang-gliding across the U.S. from the top of Mount Saint Helens.”
Eric chuckled.
“… and, in nearby Lynnview, the Mangler appears to have struck a second time.”
Corbett had an appropriate remark forming on his lips before he froze as the content of that statement fully dawned on him. Eric started to stay something, but the writer waved the other man silent and muttered a brief apology for his abruptness when a thirty second commercial came on-screen.
“Something lit up a little bulb over your head?” Thessaloniki asked.
“Yeah, the, uh, the part about the ‘Mangler’ in Lynnview. This new murder … I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“You must not have seen the morning papers, then; it’s high-pitched headline material in all of dailies.”
“I haven’t allowed myself the luxury of the media today.”
Andrea Shepperton reappeared and Blake shut up. She went through the items of national interest first, with Corbett suffering silently, and finally came to the murder report, which she read off with a sense of excitement that suggested she was just as interested in the story as Corbett.
“In what appears to be a gruesome sequel to the killing of a Lynnview couple last month, police in this small town were called to the isolated country home of Lawrence Mitchell to find all four members of the Mitchell family slain in a most brutal fashion. The names of the dead, released earlier this morning, are Lawrence Mitchell, seventy-two, his son Clarence, forty-one, whose mutilated body was discovered some distance from the house, daughter-in-law Shelly Mitchell, forty, and granddaughter April Mitchell, eighteen.
“Despite an extensive search throughout the surrounding area, which continues at this hour, the authorities have not released news concerning the murders other than the names and ages of the victims. There are reports that the person who summoned police to the scene was a witness to the crimes and, though injured, is now in custody and may provide vital information. While official reaction to this most recent attack is naturally cautious, many reliable sources report that the similarities between these murders and the deaths of the Stanley Gretler family in the same neighborhood last month are so strong that the case is being handled as if the same murderer is responsible. More details will follow as they become available throughout the day.”
“Ugh,” muttered Thessaloniki. “The world must really be three-quarters of the way down the drain when a sick person like this man can be turned out by the human race. The tabloids say that he even eats the flesh of his victims, like a real wild animal.” The big man actually shivered, and it was a strange, incongruous sight, though Blake hardly noticed it.
Blake’s mind was blazing with an idea that outshone any he had developed for Anna Marcus or the embryonic item that Eric’s toss-off of The Gods Who Aren’t had inspired. It was a story that would contain all of the raging insanity that his readers demanded, but it would finally be a work dealing with real, living human beings. And dead ones, too, unfortunately.
“Eric, what do I owe you for this most magnificent of meals?” he asked quickly. Before the other could reply, he added, “Never mind, this should cover it! I’ve got to use the telephone.”
Thessaloniki examined the ten dollar bill that Corbett had tossed onto the counter. “Blake, just a minute! You’ve got over three dollars in change coming!”
“Keep it!” Corbett answered over his shoulder while heading out of the door toward the pay phone in the vestibule.
Eric Thessaloniki shook his head slowly as he placed the money in the cash register. Things were weird, all right, when a maniac was running around mutilating people right and left while the police dithered like Keystoners, and A. Blake Corbett gave out three dollar tips.
Blake’s first call was to the 30th Precinct and Captain Richard Marsh: it was, all in all, a waste of a dime. Marsh took the call with a cordial professionalism, but as soon as he discovered who was on the other end of the line, he correctly guessed the reason behind the contact and closed up like a jewelry store over the weekend.
“Sorry, man, I can’t give you a word about the Mitchell business, since it’s an active case and all,” the officer stated with an evident joy. “And the bodies have already been scraped up, so if you need any more ‘inspiration,’ I suggest you visit a morgue of your choice.”
“Rich, you know I’m not after information just to get any morbid kicks,” Blake countered, consciously trying to remold his image. “I believe I may actually have an idea about this madman, and if I can follow up my hunch and discover anything useful, I swear that you’ll be the first person I call.”
“You’re suffering from terminal TV Syndrome, Corbett; you think that just because the cops on the tube can’t find their tails with both hands while total novice reporters, P.I.’s, and garbage collectors collar the bad guys inside of fifty-nine minutes, it’s that way in real life. It ain’t, pal. And we’ve been getting all of the unsolicited theories about the ‘true nature’ of this freak that we care to hear, thanks.”
Corbett was nervously drumming his fingers on the wall next to the phone and trying to come up with a way to slice through the double barrier of “active case” stonewalling and Marsh’s anger at being offered help by a rank amateur. “Rich, listen, I promise that I won’t get in your or any other official’s way in this investigation. All I want from you is a little info that the newspapers will be spewing out tomorrow morning, anyway. You have a witness this time, don’t you?”
“So the claim goes,” Marsh answered. There was an undercurrent of doubt in his voice that Corbett was able to pick up on. The policeman obviously felt that this “witness” and his story were of less than convincing quality.
“Can’t you tell me what he says happened?”
“Nope.”
“Come on! It might shoot down my ideas and get me out of your hair all at once!”
“Sorry, A.B.”
“A name, then, just give me a name!”
“Ed McBain. His ‘87th Precinct’ novels are damned good and realistic. I suggest you read a few. So long, Corbett.”
Blake held the dead telephone in his right fist for a few infuriated seconds before he cleared the line, dropped in another coin, and began to dial a second number. He had hoped to have a little information to impart to this contact, but …
(Dumb cop didn’t even know that there was no “Ed McBain.”)
He reached the Los Angeles Chronicle on his first try and got his call routed through the proper extension, but the man he had hoped to speak to was out at that moment. He was told this by a young apprentice newspaperman who sounded as if he were eating an ice cream cone.
“I wonder if it would be against professional ethics to tell me where Mr. Morgan is at this time?” he asked without much hope of success.
“Professional what?” asked the kid in genuine confusion.
“Do you know where Douglas Morgan is?” Blake sighed.
“Sure, that’s why I’m answering his phone. He’s gone over to Goodman Memorial Hospital to try to get an interview with that gal who was attacked by the Animal Man last night.”
Hot dog, the angel who looks after children, drunks, fools, and writers survives yet, Corbett told himself as he hung up.
Blake Corbett was not much of an actor—working his solitary profession with only his humming typewriter as an audience, he had few opportunities to practice any talent other than his chosen vocation—but he figured that locating the injured police witness (who was undoubtedly guarded and quite possibly a suspect in the murders) would be difficult for Joe Ordinary Citizen, and he was correct. Since creative writing isn’t that far removed from glorified lying, he decided to try to put up a confident, officious front with the nurses at the reception center and find out where this witness was being kept.
“My name’s Corbett, and I’m connected with the Lynnview affair. What room number would that be, please?” He spoke quickly and forcefully, imitating the cop Hagen, who had been so impressed with himself last month in front of the Gretler house.
The nurse smiled, and Blake knew that he had failed miserably in his attempt at impersonation.
“I’ll have to see your credentials, sir,” she said.
He tried to laugh and sort of coughed instead. “Well, I’m not with the police or anything …”
“Press?”
“In a way. I am a writer.”
“If you’ll go through the lobby and into the next room where five of the elevators are located, you’ll be able to take one up to the fourth floor, and you’ll find a refreshment area to your immediate right. A number of reporters are already waiting there for a press release from the police some time this afternoon.”
“Okay, thanks,” Blake said quickly. He followed her directions before anyone else could see the glowing redness of his embarrassment.
Everything was just as the woman had said, and within five minutes he found himself wandering through a crowd of smoking and itchy journalists from both the print and television media. He recognized many of them from the similar gathering before the Gretler home, though he didn’t know them by name. Eventually, he spotted his quarry seated on a leatherette couch and looking as dour as ever.
“Hello, Mr. Morgan,” he said upon arriving at the man’s side. “It seems unusual to find you at another conference concerning a mass murder.”
Startled, Morgan glanced up. Then he actually smiled in recognition. “A.B. Corbett, isn’t it? It’s good to see you again.” They shook hands. “I have to repeat, Mr. Corbett—”
“Blake.”
“Right, and I’m Doug. Again, I’m sorry about the way I treated you before.” Before Blake could respond, he went on, “I’m not here for the grisly details connected with the deaths, though there sure as hell are enough of them in this case, just like the Gretlers. I’m interested in the killer himself.”
“Same here,” Corbett said, almost defensively. “Do you think all of these murders were committed by the same man?”
“I think so, and, lord knows, I hope so. If there’s more than one raving lunatic in such a small community as Lynnview, this entire state could be reduced to a slaughterhouse by the end of the year.”
“‘Lunatic’,” Blake repeated. “A good choice of words, I think. Do you know anything about this witness the police are supposed to have here somewhere?”
“Only what everybody else here knows: she’s a young girl, nineteen or twenty, we’re not certain, her name is Margret Patricia Talley, and she lives in Lynnview, though she’s been in college for most of last year up in San Francisco.”
Corbett took a seat next to Morgan, withdrew a pad and pen, and began taking down the information. His next book just might be his first non-fiction effort. “Was she in Lynnview last month?” he asked.
Morgan cut his eyes toward the other writer, grasping his train of thought. “She’s taken the summer-quarter off, apparently, so I imagine that she was in town when the Gretlers were killed. Why?”
Corbett took a deep breath. He was about to commit himself, and the idea could result in an entirely different type of commitment, if his sanity were seriously questioned. “She could be the murderer.”
Morgan nodded, not in agreement with the suggestion, but in the confirmation of his pick up on Corbett’s theory. “She’s not very large, Blake, about half the size of that Clarence Mitchell who was ripped apart last night. It would take one big monkey to do that without weapons.”
Corbett smiled grimly. “Doug, you know what sort of fiction I specialize in, don’t you? You’ve read some of it? Good. Well, I’ve got an idea about what happened last night, and it’s going to sound idiotic, so just chalk it up to overexposure to my own material rather than any form of congenital insanity. Last July 20th was a night of the full moon. So was last night.”
Morgan held up one hand and shook his head. “Hold on, Blake. That’s already occurred to me, too, and even though Talley called the police about the murders and was found in the same room with most of the bodies, she couldn’t be the one who did the killing. The hair samples that were found in the Gretler woman’s hand last month and in that ditch in the woods seem to match those picked up from last night’s massacre. Analysis of those from last month makes it ninety percent certain that they came from a man. They can tell things like that these days, you know.”
“I know, I watched the Olympics, too.” Corbett’s hopes faded a bit, though not due to any rejection of his theory; the Talley girl’s innocence didn’t disprove his conclusion, but he had hoped that the murderer was in custody now, before another opportunity for carnage presented itself. Before next month. “Then, the police don’t actually suspect her?”
“I doubt if they’re that thickskulled. But she’s the only lead they have other than the hair samples, and they’ve got to look industrious before the terrified public.”
“In whose number I’m proud to include myself.”
Morgan nodded. “What about that theory of yours? What is it?”
“I claim the right to reserve presentation,” he replied.
“In this bunch,” Morgan indicated the massed reporters, all hungering for a story, “that’s an eminently intelligent decision. One word of what I think you’re considering as possible, and you’d be six inch headlines in the evening editions. Unless you are a publicity hound, of course; then you’d enjoy the notoriety.”
“Not me. I’m modest to a fault,” stated Blake. “The San Andreas Fault.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a police spokesman and the sudden flurry of activity that accompanied him. The two men were swept out of the waiting area like flotsam in the tide. The spokesman was quickly lanced by the bright lights of a number of minicams, and microphones were aimed at him like porcupine quills; but when he spoke the gathered men and women were all disappointed.
All of the information that the man supplied them with had been previously sniffed out: Meg Talley’s name, age (nineteen), residence, and the fact that she had encountered a man who might well have something to do with the Lynnview deaths before discovering the bodies of the Mitchell family and telephoning the police. She was in the Los Angeles hospital for her own protection and treatment and because the Lynnview Police Department had officially requested the help of the L.A.P.D. in solving the series of brutal murders.
No amount of pleading, badgering, or invoking of familiar Constitutional freedoms could pry any further revelations from this polite but firm official after he had relayed the fact that the department would have a prepared press release later that evening. Morgan knew that this “prepared statement” would be, if anything, less informative than the present conference, and he was clearly discouraged by the entire event. Corbett maintained a portion of his enthusiasm until he was informed by the spokesman that, no, he could not personally question the young woman who had witnessed the events of the previous night. This allowed him to join in the general depression.
A few of the television teams filmed spot reports from the hospital hallway to add a sense of atmosphere to their segments, but most of the reporters had left the building a few minutes following the conference. Corbett had started to leave with the rest, but Morgan touched his shoulder and wordlessly directed him to an alcove that was occupied by an asthmatic soft drink machine and lay in the opposite direction from the migration of the rest of the assembly.
“Would you like to help me figure out what happened in that farmhouse last night?” the newspaperman asked in a voice that, though not a whisper, was low enough to be easily recognized as confidential.
A joke? From the intensely somber Douglas Morgan? Blake could hardly believe this, and he replied, “That’s the main reason why I’m here today, Doug, to find out.”
Morgan paused a minute, as if considering something. He never took his eyes off the connecting hallway from which the police spokesman had emerged and then returned. “You—we’ve got the same idea about this thing, I believe. The manner in which the murders were committed, the times of the months … well, maybe you are a little more convinced than I am of it, but that’s understandable, due to our respective backgrounds and all. I’m going to take you into a sort of partnership, if you’re willing, Blake.”
The man obviously has reached some extremely disturbing conclusions that he wants to be real and fanciful at once, Corbett thought, and he needs to share them with someone who won’t laugh in his face or try to throw a net over his head. “Couldn’t hurt,” he said carefully.
Morgan seemed relieved. “Good. The first thing we do is wait here to see if anyone other than the police comes out of the girl’s room in the next couple of minutes, a doctor or a nurse or someone else who might have been inside during the questioning.”
“From the hall? How will we know if whoever shows up came from her room and not another one?”
“Talley’s is the only occupied room down that way; I’ve checked it out. It’s a special ward for prisoners and people under police protection. Next, do you have any money on you?”
The mention of money sent an all too familiar empty sensation through Blake’s stomach, as if without money he was also without the rights of an adult citizen. “Just seven or eight dollars with me,” since his ten dollar hamburger and coffee lunch, “but my agent is negotiating a deal that should be very big for me. When I get the advance settlement out of that—”
“I’ve got sixty … four,” the reporter broke in as he examined the contents of his wallet. “That may be enough. I’ve bought more for only twenty or so, but these are inflationary times.”
“More what?” asked Corbett.
“Information. Loose lips may sink ships, but covered palms are what loosens the lips in the first place. The prime canon of investigative journalism is grease the tracks and become a famous crusader for justice.”
“Sort of buying yourself a Pulitzer Prize.”
“Right. I hope you aren’t disenchanted.”
The pair waited as inconspicuously as they were able, though the entire floor seemed deserted except for the posted guards at the target room, and it wasn’t long before they were rewarded. A white-coated doctor who looked as if he had stepped out of a most upsetting meeting with his patient appeared around the corner of the hall. But he proved to be beyond approach when he was followed by three cops (one a plain clothes officer) and a man and a woman identified by Morgan as Meg Talley’s parents. Both men watched this source of information disappear into a descending elevator with their frustration rising into a geyser range. They didn’t have time to explode before a scruffy-looking orderly suddenly appeared out of the same corridor, alone and pushing a wheeled table.
“The fish enters on cue and the chase is afoot,” whispered Doug as he moved from the alcove after the short-haired, bearded orderly.
“I hope the fish is no shark,” Blake added as he followed.
The orderly moved swiftly to an elevator with the table, and he almost managed to get the sliding doors together before Morgan slipped his hand between them and triggered the automatic opening response. The orderly expressed no apology for not holding the car for the two men as they hustled inside along with him, and, at least in Corbett’s mind, his eyes were filled with a kind of happy madness, as if he were the possessor of some wild knowledge that they had been denied.
“Nearly missed it,” said Morgan while the three dropped toward the ground floor.
“Another would have been along in a minute,” the orderly grunted. “They have a habit of doing that.”
“Did you have to single out Baby Face Nelson?” Blake asked in a nervous whisper while staring at the ceiling.
Doug could tell from the glowing dot on the wall panel that he had just three more floors to get to this prospective stoolie (if no one else boarded the elevator), so he quickly went to work. “You work here in the hospital, don’t you?” he asked as an icebreaker.
The orderly glanced down at his white uniform and then replied through a heavy layer of sarcasm, “No, I’m an ice cream salesman.” He was a short man, no more than 5’5”, perhaps a hundred and thirty pounds, and though his black hair was cut almost unstylishly short for his obvious youth, he sported an unkempt beard and mustache that begged for trimming and the least bit of vanity. His attitude was not what was generally found in hospital orderlies.
Morgan, who seldom bothered to take sarcasm from anyone, ignored the man’s churlishness for the purpose of expediency. “Were you just in the Talley girl’s room?”
The wild eyes snapped sharply upon the two men. “No,” he said immediately.
“That’s a lie,” stated Doug, looking at the wheeled tray, which contained the remains of a meal for several people. “There’s only one occupied room in the hall you came out of, and it’s hers.”
“So what makes it any of your business, mister?” the orderly demanded.
“The First Amendment.” Doug reached into his pocket and withdrew a press card, flashing it before the other man’s face in perfect simulation of the great cinematic cops. “I want to ask you some questions about the girl and what happened to her last night, and my partner and I are willing to pay for the information.”
A seven dollar partner, Corbett thought archly.
As soon as the orderly realized that he wasn’t being interrogated by the police or the hospital staff, his stony attitude cracked from one side of his face to the other and laughter burst from him like water through a collapsing dam. He lost all appearance of professionalism and leaned against the rear of the car while laughing in a high-register. The two writers stared at him and each other in confusion.
“You guys … you guys are reporters, and you want to buy me to find out what the kid told the cops, right?” the orderly was finally able to ask just before the elevator passed the second floor.
Morgan had never been known to possess a developed sense of humor, and he was clearly suspicious as he replied, “That’s right.”
Corbett grinned self-consciously and mumbled, “I didn’t know that investigative reporting was such a jovial undertaking.”
The orderly slowly composed himself and wiped the tears from his eyes before the elevator doors opened. “Listen, I know you don’t see what in the hell I’m giggling about, but if you’ll stick with me for a couple of more minutes, I swear I’ll clear up all of this for you.”
“You couldn’t lose me if you were Houdini,” said Morgan without a trace of a smile.
At the first floor, the doors slid back to reveal the largely empty lobby. With a “follow me” motion, the short orderly swiftly pushed the table across the open floor and to a narrow door marked “Employees Only,” where he knocked sharply twice. The door whipped open to show the three a small linen closet and another short, slender, dark-haired and bearded man standing between the rows of shelves. He wore only his underwear.
“Who’re they?” this second man asked.
“Don’t worry; they’re okay,” replied the orderly as he stepped inside. He looked to Morgan and Corbett. “Wait right here. I’ll only take a minute.”
“Why not?” said Blake after the door had closed again. “It’s not as if we had anything to do or knew what was going on or anything.”
Doug nodded slowly. “Oh yeah,” he answered in a self-satisfied tone. “We know exactly what’s going on now. We’ve got ourselves a ringer here, probably a bright cub from some small press sheet who beat us to our jobs because he read stories of Hecht and MacArthur when he was on the way up.”
The light dawned for Blake. “I see. You mean he isn’t a real orderly.”
“A reporter, undoubtedly, who bought off an employee pal of his, got inside the room, heard everything we were going to pay for, and who will come out of that closet thumbing his nose and advising us to go chase ourselves.”
They didn’t have to wait long to find out, as the bearded man emerged from the little room only moments later dressed in civilian clothing and waving to them to follow him. When they passed the front desk, he winked and blew a kiss to the nurse in charge, who reacted with a bewildered stare. He stopped his fast and purposeful walk only when they reached the enclosed parking area. After asking Morgan which auto was his, the man climbed on the rear left fender of the red sedan and began his explanation.
He was not an orderly or connected with the hospital in any fashion, and he had paid an acquaintance for the use of the uniform, which had gotten him into Talley’s room. “The security isn’t too tight,” he told the two, “because the cops really don’t think that the girl had anything to do with the deaths—just like they don’t believe any of the rest of her story—and there aren’t any bloodthirsty avenging relatives out to slit her throat. Mostly, they’re just trying to protect her from you press hounds.”
“Then you are a reporter, too?” Blake asked.
“Fat chance. My name’s Nicholas Grundel. I’m an extremely underpaid employee of Hallet’s Food Haven, and I’m a genius who can’t make a decent living because I have the personality of a bad-tempered badger and no false sense of modesty.” He stated all of this with the utmost casualness, as if it were a speech he had to make daily. “So, who’re you?”
“Douglas Morgan of the Chronicle,” replied Morgan.
“Yeah, I’ve read your column on occasion,” Grundel responded.
“And I’m A.B. Corbett. I’m not a reporter, but I do write novels, and this particular murderer interests me.”
“Better than anything you’ve ever come up with, huh?” Grundel said. He acted as if he were familiar with Blake’s work.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” Blake answered carefully.
Morgan went for his wallet again. “Let’s talk business so that you can get your tennis shoes off of my paint job. Grundel, how much will it take to transform you into a reliable source so that I can get the girl’s story into tomorrow’s column?”
Grundel eyed the money with no outward evidence of interest. “I want in on the investigation.”
“What?”
“It’s no big deal, Morgan: I simply want to be a part of things when we track down the killer.”
“‘We’?” repeated Corbett.
“Sure. The cops are going to think that Margret Patricia Talley is a fruitcake with legs, and they’ll continue to focus on your everyday style of maniac even after he kills again next month and probably until October’s victims get it. They’re cretins with tin badges.” Grundel lay back on the trunk of the car, a twenty-three year old stockboy who was convinced that he was far more brilliant than all of Los Angeles’ detectives combined. “With me and my vast reservoir of occult knowledge aiding you, you’ll be able to track down this thing before it rips anybody else and throw a Godzilla-sized kink into scientific theory for decades to come. What’ve you got to lose? You already took in H.P. Lovecraft the Second here.”
Corbett started to answer that offhanded remark, but Morgan beat him to the punch. “Mr. Corbett has agreed to help me, wiseacre, because he wants to stop a madman, but you would appear to be interested solely due to the possible glory involved. I don’t like hotshots.”
Grundel shrugged. “Then the fact that Mr. Corbett writes books rather than newspaper articles and thus can’t beat Mr. Morgan into print with the continuing story has nothing to do with the cooperative you’ve formed?”
Surprisingly, Morgan said nothing.
Grundel went on, “I’ve never published anything in my life, gentlemen, so I won’t steal your thunder with anything other than quotes that will be attributed to ‘an anonymous source’ until after all of this is long wrapped up. There’ll be plenty of glory for all of us, don’t worry about that; and if I do write a superior, objective account of the affair, it will follow the printing of both of yours. Yeah, I intend to make money out of this, but I figure to do it on the lecture circuit and as technical advisor to all of the movies that will be made on the subject.”
Corbett, for all of his indignation, had to laugh at this infinitely confident young man, and his response to the situation helped to loosen up Morgan. “Well, how about it?” Blake asked the reporter. “Is there room in our ‘cooperative’ for an underpaid genius?”
Gripped by mixed emotions, Doug sighed. On one hand, he was used to tracking his monsters alone and being laughed at by most other men, so help would be a welcome change. On the other, he was worried about the possibility that these two novices might well interfere with this vital investigation more than they would help. He finally answered, “All right, Grundel, if you can deal with your own massive intellect well enough to offer some cooperation, you’re in.”
The young man hopped lightly off of the car. “One more thing: if I’m going to be a full partner in day to day work on this case, I’m certainly going to lose my job at the store, so I’ll need a place to stay and pick up my meals.”
“What? You expect us to support you?” demanded Morgan.
“I don’t have a gravy expense account or huge bonuses from publishers,” he pointed out.
Blake thought of the movie deal that was about to come through for him and the thousands it would bring. And the book that would come out of this promised to become the biggest earner of his entire career. “Listen, Doug, I can help out in a few days, and, who knows, maybe that will be all the time we need to crack this thing.”
“That’s right,” muttered the reporter. “It could be solved tomorrow, and the killer could turn out to be your average, quiet young bookworm with a moon fixation, which would leave us all with egg on our faces and the pavement under our butts.”
Grundel shook his head. “The thing I heard that kid in the hospital describe is as far removed from average as is conceivable.”
“Well …” Morgan paused. “Oh, hell, okay. But I’ll put you up in my guestroom, no hotel suites. You’re not married, are you?”
Grundel looked slightly stunned. “Are you serious? With my personality?”
“I never should have asked,” Morgan said.
“Who’s going to drive me to his office or wherever we can talk about this horror story over coffee and doughnuts? I don’t have a wife or a car.”
Douglas Morgan and his “Eye On the Unusual” were actually sources of mild embarrassment to the old, comfortable, and slightly right wing Los Angeles Chronicle. Begun as a space filler years earlier by a long-departed managing editor, the column had quickly soared in popularity to the point that it became financially unwise to terminate the piece in spite of the conservative position taken by the management. Thus, Douglas Morgan had worked himself into the situation of commanding a decent salary, a regular forum, and a small office, which, even though the upper halves of three of its walls were glass, was segregated from the simple desks of most of the other reporters. This separation offered him some privacy from those who looked on his subject specialty as popcorn for the minds of the masses.
It was to this office that he took Blake Corbett and Nicholas (“Call me Nick”) Grundel with disguised eagerness. He was preparing himself to listen to a story which he realized that he half-believed even before it was recounted to him. There weren’t such things, and there never had been, but maybe this time …
“Not much of a place, is it?” commented Nick with what had already become acerbity typical of him.
“I think it’s great,” answered Blake as he stared out of the upper windows at the busy organism that was a newspaper in production. He had harbored an envy of those people out there—Morgan included—and their work since the days in which he had been devouring the adventures of Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen.
“I was talking about this office,” Grundel corrected him.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Doug. “It really can’t compete with the stockroom of Hallet’s Food Heaven.”
“Point,” Grundel admitted, inclining his head in defeat.
“Forget this tennis match and get on with the information you claim to have picked up during the police questioning. I’ve got a column to write in time for tomorrow’s edition.”
With Morgan at the room’s single desk taking notes on his computer terminal and Corbett doing the same on his pad, Grundel related all that he had heard while standing silently in Meg Talley’s room in the hospital as she was questioned by the police. He had a practiced narrative flow, despite the fact that it had never been his goal to become a writer of any sort, and his words gripped both of his listeners as if he had them by their neckties.
Nick told of how Meg had begun to suspect the true “supernormal” nature of the murderer following the killings in July, how she had contrived to be in the same area during the next night of the full moon and had met two of the victims only an hour or less before they died, how she had first seen the dark beast that was responsible and had survived an attack by it, and finally how she had come across the remains of the Mitchell family and waited inside the bloody home until the police arrived.
A long silence filled the office following the end of Meg Talley’s story, and not even the whisper of a pen disturbed it. Both Corbett and Morgan had expected such a tale, yet they never actually believed that it would be presented to them as the truth. They had seen all of the incredible films and read the accounts of Peter Stump and his Satanic brothers, but shifting the concept from filmed fantasy to the realm of reality was a move that required far more courage than either of them had anticipated.
“Male pride aside,” Blake finally began, breaking the stillness, “that young lady showed one hell of a lot more guts than I could ever muster.”
Morgan nodded in agreement, but Grundel replied, “Maybe so, but this morning she didn’t describe her late night activity as courage; she called it stupidity.”
Corbett grinned. “Well, yeah, there is that way of looking at it.”
“The police didn’t believe her at all?” asked Doug.
“About as much as I believed the valedictory speech I had to make to get out of high school,” the young man answered, putting away his fifth doughnut of the afternoon.
“What about the evidence: the bodies, her wrecked car?”
“The bodies are just that. Our loyal guardians refuse to accept the ‘unnatural’ explanation, even though it’s more likely than their ‘natural’ one of the extremely powerful and brutal ‘natural’ maniac. As for the car, they figure—without coming out and saying so—that the girl saw the killer escaping the scene with one of the Mitchells’ bodies and flipped it trying to stop. That also comes in handy in explaining the slashes and bruises that she picked up.”
“Okay, Nick, here’s the important point,” Corbett said. “I can tell after only a short acquaintance that you’re as cynical a man as I’ve ever met and would rather argue with a Sumo wrestler than take his word for even the simplest of facts—”
“That’s a fair assessment,” Grundel observed.
“Well, then, in your skeptical opinion, did the girl herself believe the story that she told?”
Grundel scratched absently at the forest beneath his chin. “Mr. Writerman, portrayer of the human soul on parchment, while I stood by and tried not to bring notice upon myself, I also searched with all diligence for any clue, any slip in her tale that would reveal to me that she was lying for whatever reason. It does me much good viscerally to become enraged with people who have wasted my time and limited finances.
“That girl in the hospital saw what she told us she saw, whether with her physical eyes or some deranged mental ones. Even if the fuzz gun down Harry the Happy Hacker and display his body before her, she’ll stick to her story until she dies.”
“There are some experiences that can’t be rationalized by any amount of so-called common sense,” mumbled Doug. He was recalling an interview he’d once held with a superior court judge who had lost his position and reputation because he wouldn’t retract his report of being picked up by a UFO and flown to Alpha Centauri. “A pretty strong argument in favor of the supernatural explanation, I’d say, especially considering the standards it passed.”
Grundel took the comment neutrally. “But one not strong enough to convince the hardheaded people with the power, which means that it’s up to us ordinary citizen types to seek out and catch the murderer before the seventeenth of September, when the moon is full again.”
“I’ll have to get used to this,” Corbett said, wonderingly. “It’s like having one of my own characters come alive on me. I’ve always known that, should I ever be lucky enough to sight a real flying saucer or a specimen of Bigfoot or Nessie or anything along those lines, I would be the worst witness for the believers due to my work; it would be like trying to convince a jury that a habitual drunk really did see a pink elephant. I’ve been involved in the fictional side of this for so long that no one will believe me.”
“That’s why we have to get incontrovertible proof,” said Nick. “A living body that can be locked up on the night of the seventeenth and filmed as it undergoes its metamorphosis. And we can’t be squeamish about it, either. I’d shoot an animal that looked like my sister if it would prove Bigfoot existed.”
“You’d shoot your sister,” observed Morgan.
“I don’t have a sister.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”
Blake’s thoughts weren’t affected by the exchange. “But what if we’re wrong? So many people have been wrong about things like this before.”
“A lot of people have been branded as wrong by accepted science and public opinion,” Nick said. “We’ve got to shove it down their throats and make them believe, the way Galileo and Darwin did.”
“But, damn, I’ve described it in thousands of my stories, but I still can’t honestly say that I believe that a human being can become … transformed into … a creature like that.”
“Hold on,” Grundel ordered. “First thing we have to do is admit it to ourselves and say the stupid word. Until now, we’ve been prancing around the issue referring to the monster as ‘it,’ ‘that creature,’ and ‘the maniac’ and similar garbage. If we don’t have the guts to name him, how will we ever be able to catch him?
“We know that the phases of the moon have real, measurable effects in plants and animals, like mental defectives, maybe female cycles; and we’re about to prove that, for whatever reason, it also controls the periodic seizures of this guy. And this guy, gentlemen, no matter how much our domesticated minds rebel at the very thought, is a true werewolf.”