Kolchak The Night Strangler (17 page)
He doubled over and half-turned from me as I staggered to my feet. He was keening now, almost sobbing like a child. Shrinking visibly in his clothes like Margaret Hamilton had done as the Wicked Witch of the West in
The Wizard of OZ
.
Suddenly he uncoiled and came at me for one last try. The hands were claws now, almost bare muscle and bone. The face was a skull, white hair fringing a dome of a forehead, gouges of discolored flesh hanging where the acid had struck, his nose a mess of flaking flesh and cartilage. Only the eyes were bright… and terrifying.
The stink of euphoric made me gag. His coat was still smoking.
Again the hands at my throat. Again the feeling that it was all over.
Then shouts from the direction of the doorway. I started to black out, kneeing him in the crotch to no effect and clawing in panic at his hands, the flesh sloughing off under my nails.
Then suddenly he straightened, and looked toward the door.
Schubert came charging through, his service revolver raised. Two more officers came right behind.
He whirled away from them as if to hide his ruined face. But he didn’t hide it from me! He looked at me with what passed for a fixed and hideous grin, although it might have been the death rictus of his facial muscles. His voice was like a tinny rasp, hollow and unreal.
“When the world starts to chew itself up alive, and spits out its own guts… be it on
your
conscience, Mr. Kolchak!”
He staggered away. Schubert was yelling for me to stop him. I made a grab for his coat but it came off in my hand. The acid.
He bolted for what had been an outside window, now boarded up, and smashed through it.
We could hear his wail all the way down. And a distance, echoing clatter of falling wood… and glass… and bones.
We ran to the window and jostled each other for a look. I was ahead of the pack but all I could see down below was the smoky white blanket of fog already settling where Malcolm had fallen. I knew what they’d find down there. A scattering of dust. That’s all.
While Schubert barked out orders, I made my way out of the lab, but my eye caught something glinting on the wall. It was a motto, done as a sampler, framed and sealed in glass. It was by the door and I’d missed it when I’d come in.
That no man lives forever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Chapter Nineteen
Wednesday, April 19, 1972
2:30 pm
Vincenzo had pulled out all the stops for his headline.
Two-inch-high Bodoni Bold caps proudly announced:
KILLER FOUND
IDENTITY UNKNOWN
Below was a manufactured piece of tripe I’d have been ashamed to sign my name to. Which was all right, because my name wasn’t on it. There was, in fact, no by-line at all.
Oh, there was other news. The Defense Secretary warned of the possibility of the U.S. blockading an enemy harbor. Crossbinder flailed away at the twin evils of Communism and peace mongering. Mayor Wes Uhlman was calling for a tax reform so Seattle could get its share of the federal revenue-sharing program.
The news of the day. High: 51; Low: 37. Clouds. Showers. Senator Holman Tells All. University Instructor to face Inquiry on Prostitution Research.
As expected, my desk was occupied by a new face. A note on the assignment board informed me to pick up my “closing check” from Mr. Crossbinder himself. (A rare treat.
This
time I was to be fired in person.)
Janie, I learned, had suddenly resigned after a temper tantrum that “shook the very walls.”
Everything was quite normal.
Only a few hours before, I had sat over an old Smith-Corona portable in Louise’s kitchen rapping out my last story for the
Daily Chronicle
, never to be printed. Despite my grateful thanks and the intimate details of my nocturnal adventure, Louise was strangely distant. She hadn’t even kissed my goodbye as I left for work.
I was bone-weary. Stiff. Sore. Beaten. I figured I might as well say goodbye to Vincenzo and pick up my time. I could always take a bus out of town. To where? Did it matter?
Vincenzo wasn’t in his office. Well, I didn’t think he’d stick around to wave goodbye.
That left Crossbinder.
I was ushered into the old man’s leather-padded, wood-paneled sanctum sanctorum and found Vincenzo slumped in a chair, glowering. He turned his baleful gaze on me. I glowered back at him.
“Thanks, Tony. For nothing.”
He looked stricken. He was munching Maalox like a cud. He turned away.
“Well, gentlemen. I wanted you to be together for this moment. I have been relishing the thought of what will transpire here for several days.”
Crossbinder was winding up for a lecture. I wasn’t in the mood.
“Just give me my check and shove the speech.”
“Of course, Mr. Kolchak. You will note,” he announced grandly as he handed me my check, “that deductions have been made for the destruction of one typewriter, one pane of glass, and the repair of one wooden partition. That leaves you with $27.32. I say farewell to you with great pleasure in the sure and certain hope that I will never see your face again.
“Be gone.”
Vincenzo sighed. “I tried, Carl. I really tried.”
“Yeah. Sure, Tony. Thanks a bunch.”
The old man was smiling; his tiny eyes crinkled up as I stuffed my check in my pocket and turned to leave. Vincenzo heaved himself out of his chair and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes.
“Carl… I’ll give you a lift home, “he said very quietly. “I want to talk to you.”
I didn’t care. Everything was shot. My job. My career. My last chance at love. All of it.
Finito
. Endit.
Chapter Twenty
It didn’t take long to settle my bill and clean out my apartment. As the lights of Seattle faded behind me, I fought the wheel of the battered white T-Bird and cursed the front-end alignment.
I thought to myself as I passed the glow of the Boeing facility that somehow it seemed symbolic. With the death of the SST project, employment was down almost 50 percent there. Seattle had taken a massive blow to its cocky “We dare anything” attitude. Airlines were tightening up their belts and cutting back on orders. General unemployment for the area was approaching a whopping 15 percent. I was just one more statistic.
I couldn’t help muttering aloud as I drove along. “Another tale
of defeat snatched from the jaws of triumph. Another case of virtue unrewarded. Honestly is the worst policy. Injustice…”
“
Will
you shut up?” Vincenzo was slouching in the seat next to me, nursing a carton of milk. “Put that goddamn tape recorder away and let me sleep. You’re never going to get
this
story published either.”
“Don’t tell
me
what I’m gonna get published. Nobody’s going to kill
this
story.”
“It has
been
killed, Kolchak.
Bury it!”
“Oh, no! Not this time! This is one story I don’t let go of. If they think they can shut me up…”
“Can
anybody
shut you up?”
“Yes!
I
can.”
Louise was awake. She popped up from the rear seat, shaking her tousled hair. I glanced in the rear-view mirror. Angry as she was, no one had ever looked better. There
was
balm in Gilead. And some justice, after all.
“I’ve heard all I want to hear from you. You think
you
have problems. Here I was, one semester away from a degree, and what happens?
You
show up outside my houseboat one day. Mouth?
All
mouth! Compared to you, I’m tongue-tied.
“I let you into my life and what did I get? Dressed down by a captain of police. Charged with obstructing justice. Aiding and abetting in the commission of a felony… or two. God! I’m an accessory to more crimes than Jack the Ripper. Unemployable! ‘Undesirable element’!”
“Yack-ata-yack-ata-yack!”
“Quiet! I’m not through…”
“Peace!” wailed Vincenzo. “Both of you shut up and give me peace!
Your
problems… you are forgetting
I
was fired, too?”
Well, after all, it was
his
car.
Epilogue
Kolchak remains unheard from. But I have faith that, barring an untimely (and ill-deserved) demise, he will eventually show up or contact me in some way.
The difficulties in getting this book published have at times seemed insurmountable. Pressures have been brought to bear. Each new phone call has been the harbinger of yet another snag; another obstacle.
I still suffer jet-lag from several flights to New York.
But thanks to the courage and integrity of my editor, Robert Gleason, this report will see the light of day, and it is my sincere wish that all those who read it not discount it without giving serious thought to the implications contained herein.
There
are
people who cannot be bought, coerced, and bullied.
Bob Gleason is one of them. So is Carl Kolchak.
Jeff Rice
Las Vegas, Nevada
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