Psycho - Three Complete Novels (44 page)

Forget the kitten,
she told herself.
That’s all over with now.

Vizzini stepped aside and waved her onto the stage.

Then he closed the door.

— 32 —

C
laiborne sat in the car, waiting.

Here on the hilltop, the fog was a solid mass. As he stared out across the semicircular driveway, he could scarcely distinguish the outlines of the sprawling structure beyond its borders.

He glanced at his watch.
Five after eight.
Where was Roy Ames?

Claiborne rolled the window down, listening for the sound of a car approaching, but nothing stirred in the silent street below. After a moment he found himself shivering and he reached out to roll the window back up again.

The thin glass pane provided a barrier against dampness and darkness, but it couldn’t shut out the thought of what the fog might hold. And the thought was colder than fog, darker than night. The thought of Norman prowling, Norman with a knife. He could sense his presence, feel him out there, waiting.

Don’t let your imagination run away with you.

Good advice, but what did it mean? What is imagination, and just how does one distinguish it from thought? And isn’t it just as valid an approach to reality as sensing or feeling?
You’re the authority, let’s have some answers.

But he had no answers. After all these years he couldn’t even define his terms, distinguish between allusion, illusion, and delusion.

Cogito, ergo sum.
I think, therefore I am—
what?
A rational being? But man isn’t rational; that much his experience had taught him. Man lives by instinct and intuition, and he was no exception. All that his training had done was to give him an esoteric vocabulary. He couldn’t heal himself because he didn’t know himself. Consciousness is all one possesses, and it’s a fleeting phenomenon; we lose it in sleep, alter it with narcotics, distort it through emotional reaction, surrender it completely when stronger forces within ourselves take over. Consciousness is like a pane of window glass—a flimsy protection erected against the fog beyond. But the fog is there always, there and waiting.

Forget theory, forget logic. Try to see what’s hidden in the fog.
Claiborne sighed, visualizing last night’s murky mist and the figures it concealed. The kitten cowering under the tree, the man with the knife. Norman, thwarted in his attempt to reach Jan, thrusting his weapon into the kitten instead. And why not?
All cats are gray in the dark—

Something thudded against the windowpane. He turned, peering through the glass as a hand drew back to reveal the face behind it.

“Hey, wake up!” said Roy Ames.

Claiborne opened the door and slid out. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said. And at the same time he told himself this proved his point. How easy it was to lose awareness; Ames had driven up and he hadn’t heard him coming. Anyone could have sneaked up on him in the fog, even Norman—

He erased the thought, eyeing his watch. “Eight-ten,” he murmured. “You’re late.”

“Sorry about that,” Ames said.

The night air was clammy; Claiborne turned away and started up the walk to the front door. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get inside—the least he can do is offer us a drink.”

Ames followed, coming up beside him as he pressed the buzzer and listened to the silvery sound of door chimes echoing from within.

For a moment they stood in the shadows of the darkened stoop. Again, Ames thumbed the buzzer. The chimes echoed obediently, but there was no other response.

“What is this?” Ames muttered. “You think he stood us up?”

“I doubt it.” Claiborne glanced toward the slatted blinds that covered a side window. “There’s a light inside.”

Ames balled his fist and thumped on the door. It moved under the impact, opening inward.

“Unlocked,” he said. “Come on.”

Beyond the door, a spacious two-story entryway faced a white-railed staircase that curved upward against the far wall. Entrances on both sides of the hall blazed with light from rooms beyond.

Roy Ames cupped his hands against his mouth. “Anybody home?”

No reply. But the silence wasn’t total; from the right-hand doorway came a murmur of music.

“Doesn’t hear us,” Claiborne said. “Probably watching television.”

The two men moved to the opening, descending the carpeted steps in the den beyond. But the den had no denizen; on the wall screen, figures flickered and sound surged forth as a symphony orchestra began the final movement of
The Pines of Rome.

“Somebody was here.” Claiborne nodded at the chairs grouped around the coffee table in the center of the room, and the clutter of glasses and ashtrays atop it.

“Well, they’re gone now.” Ames glanced past the fog-blurred glass doors and toward a small doorway on the far side of the room. “Maybe he’s in the john—”

But when they crossed over to enter the hall beyond, the bathroom at the left was open and unoccupied. So was the big bedroom opposite it.

Ames peered inside, inspecting the gaudy décor. “How about those mirrors? Place looks like a funhouse.”

Claiborne nodded. Maybe it was a funhouse, but the music rising from the den was inappropriate for such a setting. The ghosts of Roman legions advanced along the Appian Way, their tread a distant thunder in the night.

He was ready to turn back, but Ames started down the hall in the other direction, attracted by a lance of light issuing from the room at the far end. He halted as Claiborne moved up beside him, and together they stared into the kitchen beyond.

Like the other rooms, it was oversized and overly ornate. The caprice of some decorator had dictated the use of an oaken motif from flooring to overhead beams. Wall stove, cupboards, cabinets, enclosed sink, and built-in refrigerator and freezer were encased in dark oak paneling, which absorbed the dim illumination from overhead. In sharp contrast, the array of knives and cutlery hanging from the long rack at the center of the room radiated a dazzling intensity of light.

Blinking at the glittering blades, Claiborne was reminded of the weaponry in the studio prop department. But these knives weren’t props, and neither was the massive solid oak block beneath them.

It was an old-fashioned butcher’s block, big enough to support a quarter of beef, and the cleaver imbedded upright at the far edge seemed more than adequate to do the job. But the job had already been done.

The round blob of bloody meat resting on the butcher’s block was the head of Marty Driscoll.

— 33 —

S
anto Vizzini walked Jan to the camper at the far end of the stage, just outside the bath-and-shower-stall set. He mounted the step and opened the door, disclosing the lighted interior.

“Your dressing room,” he said.

Jan peered inside, her face brightening at the sight of the full-size theatrical mirror, the vanity, the couch and armchair, the carpet on the floor.

“Neat.”

Vizzini nodded. It had been wise to provide her with these niceties, let her know she was getting the full treatment.

Jan’s smile faded. “Where’s Morgan?”

“Paul should be here any moment now. Why don’t you step inside and make yourself comfortable? I’ll go see if he’s arrived.”

Jan moved past him into the camper, carrying her purse and leatherette-bound script. As she entered, she saw the three red roses rising from a bud vase atop the vanity.

“Flowers!”

“You like them?” Vizzini shrugged. “A star should always have fresh flowers in her dressing room.”

He moved off, not waiting for a reply, knowing she’d closed the door, and started across the shadowed stage.

Everything was working out. There would be no picture now, but it no longer mattered. What mattered was to make the dream come true. Wasn’t that what a director did? Turn fantasy into reality with a wave of his magic wand? Up to now it had only happened on the screen, because the wand held no magic for him. Not until she came—the sorceress. Silly, stupid sorceress with the face of a dead girl and the body of a live woman. Not Mary Crane, not Mama, not anyone he’d ever known, except in dreams when the power entered his wand and he entered the sorceress. And always the awakening, before it happened.

But it was going to happen now. He thought of how Jan stood there in the doorway of the dressing room, the light outlining the cradle-curve of her hips beneath the sheer skirt. The skirt would go up, the wand would go up, it was going up now,
Mama mia—

He opened the side door, staring into the fog, making sure the guard was gone, just as he’d arranged.
We will be rehearsing—I would appreciate it if we are not disturbed.
Nobody suspected, nobody would suspect, not even Mama.

Santo is always a good boy,
she said. She was saying it now, he could hear her, he could see her face there in the swirling fog, so he shut the door. Shut her out, shut them all out, they mustn’t see him now, mustn’t see his wand. The wand of power.

Power. Power from the pills, they did it—made you hear things, see things that weren’t there. But the power was real.

He’d started again this afternoon—the amytal—and now he couldn’t remember how many he’d taken. He could remember very little except the plan. Calling Jan.

Then everything speeded up, like the camera under-cranking, and he was here. Now normal speed again, twenty-four frames per second. So she didn’t notice anything wrong, he’d played the scene perfectly. Actor, director, producer, completely in control.

But there were too many pills in the camera. That was why he’d seen Mama’s face, heard her voice in the fog. Trick photography, special effects.

Next scene. Santo Vizzini turns, walks back through the darkened sound stage. Walks. Glides. Floats.

Camera out of control again. First too fast. Now too slow. Slow motion.
Everything. In. Slow. Motion.

Change lenses. New focus. Distortion. Walls bend, catwalk swinging down,
look out!
Crazy camera. Crazy pills.
Mama mia, not me, I’m not crazy.

No, he wasn’t crazy, because he had the power. The secret power stirring in his loins.
The wand of power, the secret weapon, stabbing into the warm, yielding flesh—

Ready now, Santo Vizzini moved up to the dressing-room door.

— 34 —

R
oy Ames watched as Claiborne knelt beside the corpse on the floor behind the butcher’s block.

It had all happened so quickly—first the glimpse of the severed head and the bulging eyes, then the sight of the decapitated body. Claiborne was a doctor, he’d seen death before, and he conducted his examination with professional detachment. This, Roy could understand, but not his own reaction. Instead of fear and revulsion, there was only a numbness. Even his voice was unnaturally calm.

“There’s not much blood,” he said.

Claiborne looked up, nodding. “No signs of bodily incision.” Rising, he bent over the block. As he reached down, Roy turned away, but listened intently.

“Massive occipital and parietal lesions,” Claiborne said. “He must have been struck from behind with the flat of the cleaver. Dead before he hit the floor. Then the head could be detached with a minimum of arterial or venous exudation—”

Roy understood what he was saying. Once the heart stops pumping, blood won’t spurt from a wound. He’d researched when he wrote the script, because it was a story point. That was why nobody suspected Norman; without bloodstains on his clothing, he didn’t even suspect himself. Blood on his hands, of course, but that could come just from touching the body. And it was easily washed away.

On impulse he found himself moving to the sink, staring down at the white porcelain basin. Only it wasn’t white, it was pinkish, and the wet rills fringing the drain were dark and red.
Blood will tell—

“What’s wrong?”

Claiborne was standing beside him. Roy pointed at the drain. Claiborne nodded; he understood.
Norman was alive, he’d killed Driscoll here, and now—

Now Roy found his voice. “The reason I was late, I tried reaching Jan at the apartment before I came here. Connie told me she’d just left to rehearse with Vizzini.”

“At the studio?” Claiborne’s fingers dug into Roy’s arm. “How long ago?”

“Half an hour. She’d be there by now. Do you think Norman would—”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Claiborne’s hand fell away and he turned, striding across the room. “Call the police, get them over here. And call the studio—ask security to contact Jan and Vizzini. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Wait—”

But by the time Roy got back down the hall, the front door had slammed and he could hear the motor throbbing from the driveway outside the house, over the symphonic sound of the orchestral broadcast.

Switching off the television, he glanced around and located the telephone on a desk in the corner beside the doorway. He hastened toward it. Then, just as his hand moved out, the phone rang.

Roy lifted the receiver.

“Hello.” A man’s voice, muffled by the hum of a poor connection. “Mr. Driscoll?”

“No.” Roy spoke quickly. “Get off the line. Emergency—I’ve got to call the police—”

“This is the police.”

“What?”

“Milt Engstrom, county sheriff here in Fairvale. Who’m I talking to?”

Roy identified himself. Then, “Please, I told you it’s an emergency. Mr. Driscoll has been killed—”

“Homicide? How’d it happen?”

“I can’t talk now—”

“Then maybe you better listen.” Sheriff Engstrom didn’t wait for a reply. “I’ve been trying to get hold of Claiborne all evening. Dr. Steiner gave me Driscoll’s number, figuring maybe I could reach him here. But you can give him the message. Tell him we’ve got Bo Keeler.”

“Who?”

“Bo Keeler. He’s the hitchhiker the nun picked up in her van last Sunday. According to his story, she attacked him with a tire iron. There was a struggle, he got it away from the nun and killed her in self-defense. Then he set fire to the van and made a run for it. Hid out in a friend’s house until he couldn’t stand it—came in last night and made a voluntary confession. Idea of killing a nun kept eating on him. Only it wasn’t a nun.”