Kolchak The Night Strangler (15 page)

“Oh, no. This is my exclusive!” And I went back to the trap door.

There was a wrought-iron ladder leading down from the trap, which must have originally been a fire-escape access to the roof, which was a glass skylight, most of the original glass blown out by the fire.

The gold-tile and red-brick walls had been scorched, and a few windows remained in the doors, but the place seemed to be in unbelievably good condition. There were old wicker wheelchairs scattered about, and leaves and trash and old newspapers everywhere.

Starting from what had been the top floor, I tried the doors and most were locked. The ones I found open were to rooms that appeared gutted. Apparently, most of the central building was built of reinforced brick, concrete and steel. Only the outer wings, with their wooden floors, had collapsed from the fire.

Off to the rear of the ladder was a door marked LABORATORY. It was ajar, and there was light in there. I moved in very slowly.

The entire room was lined with racks of test tubes, retorts, flasks, Bunsen burners; a weird combination of ancient and modern equipment. There were kilns, refrigerators, a small centrifuge—the works. And the burners were going.
Someone
was using the lab. But he wasn’t around. That might mean he’d been prevented from getting back, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Somehow, the fire hadn’t touched the lab. Only a few signs of scorching near the entrance. And then I saw why. The lab had walls of concrete and brick at least two feet thick. And a sliding fire door just inside the ordinary one. It was like a bunker. Unless I missed my guess, Dr. Malcolm, or whatever his name was, had had a hand in designing Westside Mercy Hospital and had prepared himself for the contingency of fire, as well as for an explosion in the lab which, according to what I’d read, was an ever-present danger in the heating process used for alchemical purifications.

I backed out of the lab and made my way to the landing of the nearest stairwell. Scorched wooden banisters were still securely in place on wrought-iron posts. Rusted but intact. The flooring of the stairs was pinkish marble supported by wrought-iron cross braces. They had remained intact, almost untouched by the flames. There was one set at what I guessed to be the east side of the building and an almost identical set across the court. Half way in between, on either side of the court, were two ancient elevators rising in open-air shafts through the center of the building.

Slowly I descended the stairs, pausing at each landing to make a quick survey of the doors. Some of the rooms had office furniture, great blocky wooden desks scorched in spots; some had examining tables. Most were gutted. The fire had taken a capricious tour of the building, touching some places and ignoring others.

Fog had somehow seeped into the building and lay like a smoky white carpet along what had been the foyer and admitting area. The front of the building had collapsed in spots and I could just see out of one hold in the wall.

Outside, yet another fantastic sight. Far more impressive than anything I’d seen on the Underground Tour. Bill Speidel’s eyes would have bulged to see it: an entire Victorian street, gaslit, with cobblestones—the works. Of course it only ran a block or so, and then the inevitable dead end against the foundations of Seattle’s post-conflagration streets.

At one end of the “ground-floor” court were two ornate, very tall double doors. I could swear I heard music coming from the room beyond.

I pushed through them, the fog swirling at my feet, and by God I was right. Something by Lehar. Some waltz I couldn’t quite remember. It sounded very old and scratchy, like a badly worn record.

The room beyond was magnificent in its scope and ruination. This Malcolm must have done quite well for himself, either through his gold speculations or through transmutations in his lab. For this was certainly not part of the hospital proper. It was akin to a baronial hall, about 75 or 80 feet long, with a high, vaulted ceiling and hand-painted beams, from what I could tell in the dim, flickering light of the gas lamps.

About 40 or 50 feet wide, its oriental carpet ruined by seepage from the nearby Elliott Bay, covered in spots by a mulch of leaves and dead branches poking in through what once must have been magnificent bay windows, it looked like a luxurious mausoleum. Down here, close to sea level, the rot was pronounced, as was a smell like the mixture of sewage and sea water.

I made my way slowly through the room, snapping off photos every few feet. The velvet plush furniture was sagging and rotting with mildew on its frames of gilded wood (no doubt, mahogany) and the wood-paneled walls were cracked in many places.

The farther I went, the colder it seemed to get. And the music got louder. Only now one passage seemed to repeat, eerily, over and over; no longer a waltz but a dirge.

I passed a harpsichord, its gilded paint peeling. Someone had viciously pounded a couple of nails through the lid over the keys. They were rusted. No one had played this since who knew when. And no one ever would again.

I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. Louise would call the cops in fifteen minutes. That might give me 20 or 25 to get all the material I needed.

There was light showing through a crack in the gloom ahead, which as I approached, turned out to be yet another set of double doors. The music was louder. And there was something else along with the smell of decay… a smell of… food?

I wished to hell I still had my gun. Well, in for a dime, in for a dollar.

I listened for any sounds other than the music, but heard none. So I pushed on through.

What greeted me beyond the doors was a sight so ghastly it was almost amusing. One tends to laugh when on the brink of insanity. Charles Addams would have appreciated the scene. But the music should have been Saint-Saens.

There were three of them, seated around an ornate, cobweb-encrusted diner table, taking their mid-dinner ease. I snapped off a couple of quick shots. They didn’t rise to greet me or acknowledge my presence. For which I am eternally grateful. They didn’t move at all. They hadn’t moved in nearly 85 years.

The setting was right out of Dickens’
Great Expectations
—Miss Havisham’s dining room. These were the mummified remains of what appeared to be two women and a man. I could only guess by their clothing, because as far as their sex was concerned, they could have been almost anything.

My mouth was dry as I circled the table, snapping pictures of everything in sight. I heard a scrabbling sound and froze in my tracks.

Rats! Christ! But what could rats want… and then I saw it.

A fourth place setting. Fresh food. Still warm. Meat of some kind. Potatoes. Peas. A glass of wine.

I began backing up and tripped over something hard. Slamming up against a sideboard I looked down. A mummified dog.

Finally it dawned on me that nothing could have remained as it was in such dampness by itself. I reached out and touched one of the… things… at the table. Hard. Cold. The skin had the feel of stiff, old leather. Tanned! Someone had preserved these people and set them up at this travesty of a family meal.

I looked up and saw a painting hanging on the wall opposite me. Upon closer inspection it was Dr. Malcolm, still in uniform as a Union major, with his wife and stepchildren, in front of the portico of some large, immaculate home of the period.

I moved back for one more picture. Got it!

Then I turned at another sound. A dry, scratching from the table. I peered closely at what I think was the wife… or the daughter… there was no telling. Out of one eye socket, a small spider came scuttling.

My stomach turned. I’d had it. I decided to take my leave of this charming gathering. One more shot… this time of the fourth place setting with the fresh food.

“Stop that!”

I dropped the camera right in the mashed potatoes.

“Don’t turn around. Don’t move at all.” Voice level. Quiet. Authoritative. Something pressed against my spine. And my guts dribbled down my trouser leg.

I sneaked a glance at my watch. Time was crawling. The police couldn’t get here for another 20 minutes. Fifteen at best. Stall. Stall!

“May I turn around?”

“Slowly. And take your camera out of my dinner, please.”

An epicure, no less. I did so very gingerly, wiping the lens and viewfinder with a rotted silk napkin. Then I turned.

I don’t know what I expected to find, but what it was was a conservatively dressed man just short of six feet in height; slim, erect, and a bit younger than me, with a cold, handsome face.

A weak try at humor: “D-Doctor Malcolm, I presume?”

No reaction. The pale eyes regarded me with all the intense curiosity of a scientist examining a germ under a microscope.

“I don’t understand. How can you be… I mean, you should…”

“Who are you, sir?”

“Ah… K-Kolchak.
Daily Chronicle
.”

“How did you get in here?”

“Through the t-trap door in the basement of your clinic.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. He’d made not threatening move. What he’d struck in my back had been nothing more than his finger. Again the absurd urge to giggle.

He seemed puzzled.

“Clinic? I… have… no… clinic.
What
clinic?”

“You
are
Dr. Richard Malcolm… also known as Dr. Malcolm Richards,
aren’t
you? The… Richards Free Clinic… u-up
stairs
?” Even to me, my words sounded like grade-C dialogue. Stall.

“I’ve… seen your face before.”

“I’m flattered. You almost killed me in an alley about a week ago.”

“Dare say. What… what are you doing here?”

Was he merely mad or was he also a bit senile as well? He seemed so vague. So preoccupied. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Stall.

“I just came down to do a story on you… and your… uh… new Mercy Hospital… for… my… readers.”

“Your readers?”

“The
Chronicle
. You know… about your work here… at your
new
hospital. It’s… magnificent.”

“Hah!” The laugh was so short it was almost a bark. High-pitched. A hysterical note. All the signs had been clearly set before me. This guy was a certified, grade-A nut case.

He looked over at his wife… or daughter.

“Did you hear that, dear? For his readers. In the privacy of our home. In the midst of our dinner. The gall. The cheek of this ...” He turned back to me and he didn’t look vague or confused any longer.

“An interview will be quite impossible.”

“Perhaps… another time? When it’s convenient, of course.”

“No. Impossible.”

“Well, then, I’ll just be running.”

“Nowhere. No one is ever going to hear from you again, sir.
No
one.”

“Uh… well… I…”

“You profane my world, sir! I cannot… I
will
not permit you to exist… here!”

“In that case,
Doctor
, why not tell me of your work? You know… condemned man’s last request.”

He walked over and put a paternal arm around my shoulders. But the grip of his hand was like steel. He was a lot stronger than he looked. Not big or beefy. But strong.

“Just a dumb reporter… does his job…”

He looked closely at me, eye to eye.

“You grovel nicely, Mr.…”

“Kolchak, sir.”

“Story. You want your story, do you, Mr. Kolchak? Your precious, pitiful story? Your bloody pound of journalistic flesh?”

I smiled but it stuck halfway into a sickly grin. I was clammy. I was trembling. I could feel my wet trouser leg sticking to my flesh and was grateful I’d eaten nothing solid.

Maybe Louise had called in the troops early. I could fight him, but from what I’d seen, I knew I didn’t stand a chance. And this was his world. He knew every nook and cranny. If I did manage to get out… I’d get lost in the Underground. And it was five stories just to the top floor. Another thirty feet up the fire escape. No chance.
No
chance. Only stall for time.

“Why not?”

“Why not what?”
“Why not your story, of course. That
is
what you came here for.”

“Oh, yes. Yes! Sir.”

“It is only fitting that some other person in this world knows the facts, all the facts… before he dies.”

The arm around my shoulder tugged gently but insistently.

“Excuse me, dear. This won’t take long,” he said to whoever, or whatever, was seated at the table.

He conducted a sort of Cook’s tour of his grotesque living quarters, pointing out
objects d’art
and interspersing his comments with discourses on everything from man’s greed and the futility of reaching for the stars to pointed quotations from Rabelais’
Pantagruel
. I kept nodding with what I thought was the proper amount of appreciation.