Nightmare Alley (35 page)

Ghostly music began again. From the curtains before the alcove a light flashed, then a sinuous coil of glowing vapor poured from between them, lying in a pool of mist close to the floor. It swelled and seemed to foam from the cabinet in a cascade. Its brilliance grew, until on looking down Grindle could see his own figure illumined by the cold flaming brilliance of the light. It rose now and pulsated, glowing bright and then dimming slightly. The air was filled with a mighty rhythm, like the heart of a titan, roaring and rushing.

The pool of luminous matter began to take form. It swayed as a cocoon might sway from a moth’s emerging. It became a cocoon, holding something dark in its center. Then it split and drew back toward the cabinet, revealing the form of a girl, lying on a bed of light, but illumined only by the stuff around her. She was naked, her head resting on one bent arm.

Grindle sank to his knees. “Dorrie—Dorrie—”

She opened her eyes, sat up and then rose, modestly drawing a film of glowing mist over her body. The old man groped forward awkwardly on his knees, reaching up to her. As he drew near, the luminous cloud fell back and vanished. The girl stood, white and tall, in the flicker of the votive candle across the room; and as she gazed down at him her hair fell over her face.

“Dorrie—my pet—my honey love—my bride …”

He picked her up in his arms, overjoyed at the complete materialization, at the lifelike smoothness of her body—she was so heartbreakingly earthly.

Inside the cabinet the Rev. Carlisle was busy packing yards of luminous-painted China silk back into the hem of the curtains. Once he put his eye to the opening and his lips drew back over his teeth. Why did people look so filthy and ridiculous to anyone watching? Christ!

The second time in his life he had seen it. Filth.

The bride and bridegroom were motionless now.

It was up to Molly to break away and get back to the cabinet. Stan turned the switch and the rhythmic, pounding heartbeat filled the room, growing louder. He tossed one end of the luminous silk through the curtains.

The quiet forms on the divan stirred, and Stan could see the big man burrowing his face between Molly’s breasts. “No— Dorrie—my own, my precious—I can’t let you go! Take me with you, Dorrie—I don’t want earth life without you …”

She struggled out of his arms; but the bridegroom seized her around the waist, rubbing his forehead against her belly.

Stan grabbed the aluminum trumpet. “Ezra—my beloved disciple—have courage. She must return to us. The force is growing weaker. In the City—”

“No! Dorrie—I must—I—once more …”

This time another voice answered him. It was not a spiritual voice. It was the voice of a panicky showgirl who has more than she can handle. “Hey, quit it, for God’s sake! Stan! Stan!
Stan!
”

Oh, bleeding wounds of Christ, the dumb, stupid bitch!

The Rev. Carlisle tore the curtains apart. Molly was twisting and kicking; the old man was like one possessed. In his pent-up soul the dam had broken, and the sedative Stan had loaded into his tea had worn off.

Grindle clutched the squirming girl until she was jerked from his hands.

“Stan! For God’s sake
get me out of here! Get me out!
”

Grindle stood paralyzed. For in the dim, red, flickering light he saw the face of his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Stanton Carlisle; it was snarling. Then a fist came up and landed on the chin of the spirit bride. She dropped to the floor, knees gaping obscenely.

Now the hideous face was shouting at Grindle himself. “You goddamned hypocrite! Forgiveness? All you wanted was a piece of ass!” Knuckles smashed his cheekbone and Grindle bounced back on the divan.

His brain had stopped working. He lay looking stupidly at the red, jumping light. A door opened somewhere and somebody ran out. He stared at the leaping red flame, not thinking, not living, just watching. He heard something stir near him but couldn’t turn his head. He heards sounds of crying and somebody say “Oh, good God,” and then the faltering slap of bare feet and a girl’s voice sobbing and a fumbling for a door and a door opening and staying open against a hallway where there was a dim yellow light but it all made no sense to Ezra Grindle and he preferred to watch the little flame in its ruby-red glass cup flickering and dancing up and down. He lay there a long time.

Below him the front door slammed once. But it didn’t seem to matter what happened. He groaned and turned his head.

One arm—his left one—numb. And all one side of his face frozen. He sat up and stared about him. This dark room—there had been a girl’s body. Dorrie’s. She was a bride. It was his wedding. The Rev. Carlisle—

Slowly he remembered things in little snatches. But was it the Rev. Carlisle who hit Dorrie? Or was it an evil spirit impersonating him?

Grindle stood up, having trouble balancing. Then he shuffled over to the door. One leg was numb. He was in the hallway of a house. There was a room upstairs.

He held onto the banister and took a step but he fell against the wall and sank to his knees. He crawled, step by step, dragging his left leg, which felt wooden and dead. He had to get upstairs for some reason—his clothes were upstairs—but everybody had gone—dematerialized.

He found the cell with the green walls and hauled himself to his feet, his breath whistling. What had happened? His clothes were still in the closet. Have to put them on. There was a wedding. There was a bride. Dorrie. They had been together, just as Stan had foretold. Stanton—Where was he? Why had Stanton left him this way?

Grindle was annoyed with Stanton. He struggled to get his trousers on and his shirt. Have to sit down and rest. Dorrie was there in spirit. Who else could it be but Dorrie, his Dorrie, come back again? Had she lived after all? And come back to him? A dream—?

But they had gone.

Glasses. Wallet. Keys. Cigar case.

He limped back into the hall. Stairs again, a mile of them going steeply down. Hold on. Have to hold on tight. Andy! Where was Andy and why had he let him get caught this way in a house with so many stairs and what had hurt his leg? With a sudden surge of anger Grindle wondered if he had been kidnapped. Shot? Slugged over the head? There were desperate men who might—
the mob rule grows ever more menacing, even as we sit here tonight, gentlemen, enjoying our cigars and our
…That was from a speech.

And the door to that black room open.

Grindle felt as if twenty years had fallen over him like a blanket. Twenty more years. He stood looking into the dark. There was a cabinet over there, and a single splash of green light still lay on the floor.

“Stanton! Dorrie! Stanton, where are you!”

Halfway across the room he stumbled and crawled the rest of the way to the pool of light. But it wasn’t moist and musky, like Dorrie. It felt like fabric.

“Stanton!”

Grindle struck a match and found a wall switch. The light revealed that the patch of luminous vapor was a piece of white silk sticking out from the bottom hem of the black curtains in the alcove.

But Stanton had struck Dorrie!

He drew aside the curtains. There was the couch, all right. Maybe Stanton had fallen behind it when the evil presence— this was Thursday? I’ve missed the board meeting. They would hold it without me; too important. I should have been there, to act as a sea anchor on Graingerford. But Russell would be there. Dependable man. But could Russell convince them by himself of the soundness of the colored-labor policy? The competition was doing it—it was a natural. Graingerford be damned.

On the floor by the couch lay a control box with several switches on its bakelite panel. Grindle turned one.

Above him began the faint, ghostly music of a
sitar
. Another turn of the switch and it stopped.

He sat on the medium’s couch for a moment, holding the box on his knees, the wire trailing from it underneath the black velvet cover toward the wall. A second switch produced the cosmic heartbeat and the rushing wind. Another—“
Hari Aum!
”

At the sound of Ramakrishna’s voice he snapped it off. The click of the switch seemed to turn on his own reason. In one jagged, searing flash he saw everything. The long build-up, the psychic aura, the barrage of suggestion, the manufactured miracles.

Dorrie— But how, in heaven’s name, did that sanctimonious devil find out about Dorrie? I’ve never spoken her name all these years—not even to Dr. Ritter. Even the doctor doesn’t know about Dorrie or how she died.

The villain must be genuinely psychic. Or some debased telepathic power. A fearful thought—such a black heart and such uncanny powers. Maybe Dr. Ritter can explain it.

Downstairs. Got to get downstairs. Telephone. In that devil’s office—

He made it.

“Andy? I’m perfectly all right—just can’t talk very plain. Something’s the matter with one side of my face. Probably neuralgia. Andy, for the Lord’s sake, stop fussing. I tell you I’m all right. It doesn’t matter where I am. Now keep quiet and listen. Get Dr. Samuels. Get him out of bed and have him up home when I get there. I’ll be there in two hours. I want a checkup. Yes, this evening. What time is it? Get Russell up there too. I’ve got to find out what happened at the meeting this morning.”

The voice at the other end of the wire was frantic. Grindle listened for a time and then said, “Never mind, Andy. I’ve just been—away.”

“One question, Chief. Are you with that spirit preacher?”

The Chief’s voice grew clearer. “Andy—I forbid you ever to mention that man’s name to me again! That’s an order. You and everyone else in the organization. Is that clear? And I forbid anyone to ask me where I’ve been. I know what I’m doing. This is final.”

“Okay, Chief. The curtain is down.”

He made two more calls. One was for a cab and the other was to Dr. Lilith Ritter. There was one chamber in his brain that wasn’t functioning yet. He didn’t dare open it until he was safely in Dr. Ritter’s office.

Molly had not stopped for clothes. She pulled on her shoes, threw a coat around her, grabbed her purse, and ran from that awful house. She ran all the way home.

In the flat Buster miaowed to her, but she gave him a quick pat. “Not now, sugar. Mamma has to scram. Oh, my God!”

She heaved a suitcase onto the bed and threw into it everything small and valuable she could see. Still crying in little bubbling starts, she drew on the first panties and bra that came out of a drawer; she got into the first dress she touched in the closet, shut the keyster, and put Buster in a big paper bag.

“Oh, my God, I’ve got to hurry.” Play dumb and give them an Irish name. “I’ve got to hurry, somewhere. Stan—oh, damn you, damn you, damn you, I
don’t
feel dirty! He was just as clean as you, you damn cheap hustler. Oh—Daddy—”

The hotel people were nice about Buster. She expected cops any minute but nothing happened. And the address she found in the
Billboard
was the right one. A reply to her telegram got back early the next morning:

L
ILITH
opened the door; she said nothing until they were in the office and she had seated herself behind the desk, asking softly, “Did she?”

Stan had discarded clerical bib and collar. He was sweating, his mouth cottony. “She went all the way. Then she blew up. I —I knocked out the pair of them and left them there.”

Lilith’s eyes half closed. “Was that necessary?”

“Necessary? Wounds of God! Don’t you think I tried to weasel out of it? The old bastard was like a stallion kicking down a stall to get into a mare. I dropped both of them and beat it.”

Lilith was drawing on her gloves. She took a cigarette from her purse. “Stan, it may be some time before I can meet you.” She swung open the panel and dialed the safe combination. “He may come to me—I’ll try to persuade him not to hunt for you.” She laid the convincer wad and the two brown envelopes on the desk. “I don’t want to keep this any longer, Stan.”

When he had stuffed the money into his pockets Lilith smiled. “Don’t get panicky. He won’t be able to start any action against you for several hours. How hard did you hit him?”