Shivers (16 page)

Steven remembered there used to be a singer by that name, but of course this pitiful, bloated woman in front of him bore little resemblance to the beautiful entertainer of the Fifties. What had ever happened to
her?
he wondered.

“And what do you know about this George?”

“Nothing. He called me one night. And told me he had information about Brock. That’s my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend? Steven thought the term sounded ludicrous when employed by someone her age.

“I met him in a bar on Jamaica Avenue. I guess he lives near there. He didn’t say.”

“Was Brock—uh—missing?”

“Yes. For days.”

This is it,
Steven thought.
The connection.
Now
I’ll find Joey.

“Did he tell you where Brock was?”

She looked up at him, threw her hands over her face and started to sob. “He was crazy. He told me Brock had been—eaten away. It was a cruel joke. Horrible. And then he started screaming—and—ran off. He just disappeared, like he’d never been there at all.”

Steven sat down beside her and tried to comfort her. She threw her arms around him and continued to sob. “Oh, mister, mister, tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me I’m not.”

“You’d better start over again. I can’t help you until I know
exactly
what happened.”

She moved away from him slightly and got a handkerchief from her handbag. She blew her nose noisily, then dabbed at her eyes. “Just give me a moment. I’ll be all right.”

“I’ll get you some coffee.”

“Please. That would be nice.”

“Mister?” she asked as he started toward the kitchen.

“Yes,” he said, turning to face her.

“You—you won’t believe me.”

Steven smiled. “Try me.”

But her story
was
incredible. Not only that, it made no sense. Why would someone have gone to the trouble of smearing jam or jelly or fake blood all over the subway steps just to scare a pathetic and harmless woman like Lina? And that must have been the case. People just didn’t “dissolve.”

After tripping and falling down the subway stairs, Lina had landed at the bottom in a bloodied heap. There had been painful scrapes and contusions all over her body and her head had been bleeding, but she hadn’t suffered any broken bones. She picked herself up, brushed herself off, pressed a handkerchief to her forehead to soak up the blood. It wasn’t too bad. She then climbed the stairs, stopping only to stare again at the reddish outline that, according to a crazy man, had once been her lover.

At the top of the stairs she climbed over the chain and looked around for George. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.

At that point in time she had wondered if he ever
had
been there. She was still wondering even as Steven’s voice snapped her out of her reverie.

“I think someone must have been pulling your leg.”

“You think it was some kind of practical joke?”

He nodded sympathetically. “I think so.”

“Buy why? Brock wouldn’t have done anything that awful to me.”

Steven recalled Ralph’s words about “impossible truths,” but only said, “I’m sure he had nothing to do with it.”

“Yes. He’ll
kill
that George when he gets his hands on him, believe me. If
I
don’t get to him first.”

“I’d better keep my appointment with him tonight, or else we’ll be right back where we started from, with your Brock still gone and my brother missing too.” He explained about Joey, giving only the barest details, still not sure if he should trust her. “You’re sure he never mentioned my brother.”

“No,” Lina said, sipping her coffee. Steven handed her a photo of Joey. “Poor kid,” she said. “Such a handsome boy.”

She suddenly slapped her hand on her leg. “Wait a minute. I
do
remember. Something George said about a kid, some kid. Was it Joey? Jerry?” She shook her head and bit her lip, but the memory wouldn’t come. “Damn—I can’t remember.” She looked at Steven helplessly. “I could be wrong.”

But for Steven that was enough.

“Anyway, I don’t want to go with you tonight,” Lina added. “I can’t. I’d like to kill the creep with my bare hands, but I’m still too upset over the whole business.” Steven suspected there was still the smallest glimmer of doubt in her mind about the glob on the steps having been just a practical joke. “If I give you my number will you tell me if he mentions Brock again? I’ve got to find him. Got to find Brock.”

Steve assured her that he would. He told her about his hiring a private detective. Lina agreed to speak to Ralph should he decide to call her. She gave Steven her address and phone number.

“Just in case your brother’s and Brock’s disappearances are connected. I guess they must be, huh?” She finished her coffee and put the cup down. “But if you don’t know either Brock or George, and they don’t know your brother, why does George want to see you? He won’t try the same thing with you that he tried with me, will he?”

“I doubt it. But the only way I’ll find out is to see him. None of this makes any sense. But we’ll have to see it through. Ralph Andrews will know what to do.”

“I’d hire him to look for Brock, but I can’t afford it.” She shrugged. “From what you say the police are no good. And,” she lowered her voice, “just between you and me Brock may be in some kinda trouble, and the police are the last thing he’d need. Well,” she stretched her arms and groaned, “it’s a long ride home, so I’d better be going. I want to be there in case Brock comes back.” She picked herself up and limped toward the door.

“You should see about that leg,” Steven said. “It could be broken.”

“I’ve had a broken leg. It would hurt a hell of a lot more than it does. But I’ll see to it if I have to.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said. “And thanks for coming by.”

“Thanks for listening,” she said. She shook her hand, holding on to it longer than was necessary, as if hoping to absorb some of his warmth, his strength. “I hope you find your brother,” she said. “I really do. Poor kid.”

“Thanks.”

Steven watched her walk out the door and hobble down the sidewalk toward the subway. She was barely holding it together, a withered, emotional ruin.

She was the very personification of despair.

Ernest Hendon was intrigued. And when he was intrigued, he took action. He took off from the police lab during lunch and went to the Berkley Arms Hotel on the Upper West Side near Broadway. He’d made a few calls the day before and collected some interesting data. It was Room 919 that intrigued him. Room 919 that might have the answer.

He showed his police permit to the manager, who escorted him to the ninth floor and the apartment in question. The short, heavy-set, elderly man fitted the passkey into the lock and swung open the door. No one was inside.

Ernest paused out in the corridor. “And where does this Mrs. MacGruder live?”

“Right next door,” the manager said. “917.”

“And she’s the one who reported that Mr. Peterson was missing?”

The manager seemed anxious to help. “That’s right. She didn’t so much report it as ask me if I had seen him. She said his door was unlocked, and that there was this strange goo on the wall; somebody smeared it there so that it was shaped just like a man.”

“Will you show me where?”

“Sure. Follow me.” As they walked in he continued talking. “I thought it might be best to call the police and find out if Peterson had been hospitalized or something like that. We elderly are the easiest victims, y’know, and Mrs. MacGruder was terribly worried. Then I showed the police the glop on the wall, and one of them took a sample.”

“And where was the smear?”

“Right here.” The manager pointed to the far wall, which now was clean. “They said it was all right for me to have the maid wash it off, once they got their sample.”

Stupid, Ernest thought. They should have left everything as it was. The other departments were full of incompetents.

“How big was it?”

“As big as a man, and shaped like one. The arms were spread out like this,” he held his up in the air, “and the legs were far part. What a weird thing to do, huh?”

“Would you say that the pattern on the wall was the same size as Mr. Peterson had been?”

The manager took a while to answer. “Well, now that you mention it, I suppose so. It’s hard to say. I didn’t really think about it. Say, that was just some sticky shit on the wall. It couldn’t have been a
body.”
He laughed, nervously. “Could it?”

“Just checking,” Ernest smiled. “What do
you
think the stuff on the wall was?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. I just told Mamie to clean it up. She wouldn’t touch it until I told her it was just somebody’s idea of a practical joke. Makes you wonder—what kind of mind would do that?”

Right now Ernest was more concerned with
how
than who. “Yes. It does make you wonder.”

“Say, what do you think happened to Mr. Peterson? Any more information about that?”

They’d find out nothing, he thought, until he told them. But how could he tell
this
simple-minded old fellow the truth? How could he tell him that Mr. Peterson
had
been found. According to the reports he and Judson had made, poor Mamie had wiped old Mr. Peterson off his own wall like so much dirt and dust.

Eric Thorne was having lunch with his friend Hammond Gratis, a middle-aged parapsychologist who had been with the Institute for seven years and had just returned from a week-long vacation in Bermuda. Gratis, a very intense man, was given to sudden bursts of temperament and frequent self-proclamations of genius. But despite his eccentricities, he was well-liked by both staff and volunteers. Eric was particularly fond of him.

Eric talked about his nightmare while they ate, largely at Hammond’s insistence. The big man loved to discuss other people’s problems, convinced he could solve them all with one bright flash of his incomparable brain. As he was very fond of Eric, he was especially eager to be of service.

Hammond was an unattractive man—despite his tan—but his strong, hyper personality and six-foot-two frame seemed to make up for what he lacked in looks. His nose was huge, almost overwhelming the rest of his face, with its craggy brow, jutting lower lip, and normally grayish complexion. He had very thick, stiff-looking hair that grew very fast and had to be cut every other week. He had been married and divorced
three
times.

“So Eric,” he said as he stuffed a soft buttered role between his lips, “the nightmare was
not
repeated last evening?”

“No. I slept soundly. And we really should refer to it as my
trance,
since I was awake at the time.”

“But it was a nightmarish experience.”

“Absolutely.”

“I rest my case. Pass me the salt.” Hammond never lost an argument.

The restaurant in which they sat was a small coffeeshop on Lafayette Street which had an unappealing decor but reasonably good food and low prices. Eric would have preferred a nicer, more expensive place, but Hammond was always penny-pinching. Considering his alimony payments, it was understandable. He usually ate some kind of pasta with lots of bread, while Eric preferred sandwiches. Liverwurst today.

“Anyway,” Eric said. “I guess I’m back to normal.”

“Don’t ‘guess’ anything,” Hammond said with a quick shake of his large head. “What you described to me sounds like a very deliberate and deadly attack on your life, as surely as if someone had pulled a gun on you. So far all the bullet has done is
graze
you. But . . .
next
time?”

“How cheerful,” Eric said. “Then you’re convinced that the same thing will happen again.”

“Only it will be worse. The enemy has been testing your strength. He knows how far he has to go. Next time he will be prepared to go that far.”

“How will he do it?”

“He will start out the same way as before. But this time, the despair will deepen, will, in fact, be too much to bear. Result: you lying in the bathroom with your wrists slit—by your own hand.”

“Hammond, could you
please
be a little more optimistic?”

“I can’t be. Because I value your life.”

“So do I.”

“And I can’t pretend that you’re not in serious danger. If I did that, you wouldn’t take the proper precautions.”

“What, may I ask, are they?”

Hammond leaned closer. “There is evil in the world, Eric. Great evil. There are forces men cannot understand.”

Eric laughed. “Hammond! You’re not going to start that ‘good versus evil’ crap with me again. We’ve gone over this a hundred times before. Your theories about eternal evil forces are based on your beliefs in a supreme being— a force for good—on one hand, and the devil, Satan, whatever you want to call him—the force for evil—on the other. I don’t accept any of that. Don’t you realize that not so long ago we both would have been burned at the stake as witches because of our special powers and interests? The very field we work in was—and still is— misunderstood because of myths and religious superstitions. No, there’s evil in the world, .ill right. But it’s man’s doing. Not the devil’s.”

When Hammond disagreed with someone, he simply “tuned” them out. “Eric, did you ever think you could have tapped into the mind of the
Anti-Christ?”

“Hammond, haven’t you even been
listening
to me. I—”

“I still say my theories aren’t really in opposition to yours,” Hammond insisted. “All right— so you’re basically an atheist and I have faith. But there’s more to it than that.”

“Go on.”

Hammond finished his soup and continued. “Well, isn’t it possible that there might be—for lack of a better word—evil forces that have nothing whatsoever to do with God, the devil, or anything of a religious nature?”

“I believe that power such as mine could be dangerous in the wrong hands. If a bad individual had such power, or more power, it could be disastrous. I suppose you could say he or she would be an ‘evil force.’ “

Hammond smacked his lips. “And what about forces outside the mortal sphere. Spirits and bodies floating about in the astral plane. In alternate dimensions. The netherworld. Are
they
not possible?”