The Naked Face (8 page)

He felt his eyes beginning to close. The pills and the hot bath had done their work well. Wearily he pulled himself out of the tub, carefully patted his bruised body dry with a fluffy towel, and put on a pair of pajamas. He got into bed and set the electric alarm clock for six. The Catskills, he thought. It was an appropriate name. And he fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

At six A.M., when the alarm went off, Judd was instantly awake. As though there had been no time lapse at all, his first thought was,
I don’t believe in a series of coincidences and I don’t believe that one of my patients is a mass murderer. Ergo, I am either a paranoiac, or am becoming one.
What he needed was to consult another psychoanalyst without delay. He would phone Dr. Robbie. He knew that it would mean the end of his professional career, but there was no help for it. If he were suffering from paranoia, they would have to commit him. Did Moody suspect that he was dealing with a mental case? Was that why he suggested a vacation? Not because he believed anyone was after Judd’s life, but because he could see the signs of a nervous breakdown? Perhaps the wisest course would be to follow Moody’s advice and go to the Catskills for a few days. Alone, with all the pressures removed, he could calmly try to evaluate himself, try to reason out when his mind had started to trick him, when he had begun to lose touch with reality. Then, when he returned, he would make an appointment with Dr. Robbie and put himself under his care.

It was a painful decision to make, but having made it,
Judd felt better. He dressed, packed a small suitcase with enough clothes for five days, and carried it out to the elevator.

Eddie was not on duty yet, and the elevator was on self-service. Judd rode down to the basement garage. He looked around for Wilt, the attendant, but he was nowhere around. The garage was deserted.

Judd spotted his car parked in a corner against the cement wall. He walked over to it, put his suitcase in the back seat, opened the front door, and eased in behind the wheel. As he reached for the ignition key, a man loomed up at his side from nowhere. Judd’s heart skipped a beat.

“You’re right on schedule.” It was Moody.

“I didn’t know you were going to see me off,” Judd said.

Moody beamed at him, his cherubic face breaking into a huge smile. “I had nothin’ better to do and I couldn’t sleep.”

Judd was suddenly grateful for the tactful way Moody had handled the situation. No reference to the fact that Judd was a mental case, just an ingenuous suggestion that he drive up to the country and take a rest. Well, the least Judd could do was to keep up the pretense that everything was normal.

“I decided you were right. I’m going to drive up and see if I can find a scorecard to the ballgame.”

“Oh, you don’t have to go anywhere for that,” Moody said. “That’s all taken care of.”

Judd looked at him blankly. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s simple. I always say when you want to get to the bottom of anything, you gotta start diggin’”

“Mr. Moody…”

Moody leaned against the door of the car. “You know what I found intriguin’ about your little problem, Doc? Seemed like every five minutes somebody was tryin’ to kill you—maybe. Now that ‘maybe’ fascinated me. There was nothin’ for us to bite into ‘til we found out whether you were
crackin’ up, or whether someone was really tryin’ to turn you into a corpse.”

Judd looked at him. “But the Catskills…” he said weakly.

“Oh, you wasn’t never goin’ to the Catskills, Doc.” He opened the door of the car. “Step out here.”

Bewildered, Judd stepped out of the car.

“You see, that was just advertising. I always say if you wanta catch a shark, you’ve gotta bloody up the water first.”

Judd was watching his face.

“I’m afraid you never would have got to the Catskills,” Moody said gently. He walked around to the hood of the car, fumbled with the catch, and raised the hood. Judd walked over to his side. Taped to the distributor head were three sticks of dynamite. Two thin wires were dangling loose from the ignition.

“Booby-trapped,” Moody said.

Judd looked at him, baffled. “But how did you…”

Moody grinned. “I told you, I’m a bad sleeper. I got here around midnight. I paid the night man to go out and have some fun, an’ I just kinda waited in the shadows. The night-man’ll cost another twenty dollars,” he added. “I didn’t want you to look cheap.”

Judd felt a sudden wave of affection toward the little fat man. “Did you see who did it?”

“Nope. It was done before I got here. At six o’clock this mornin’ I figured no one was gonna show up any more, so I took a look.” He pointed to the dangling wires. “Your friends are real cute. They rigged a second booby trap so if you lifted the hood all the way, this wire would detonate the dynamite. The same thing would happen if you turned on your ignition. There’s enough stuff here to wipe out half the garage.”

Judd felt suddenly sick to his stomach. Moody looked at
him sympathetically. “Cheer up,” he said. “Look at the progress we’ve made. We know two things. First of all, we know you’re not nuts. And secondly”—the smile left his face—”we know that somebody is God Almighty anxious to murder you, Dr. Stevens.”

THEY WERE SITTING in the living room of Judd’s apartment, talking, Moody’s enormous body spilling over the large couch. Moody had carefully put the pieces of the already defused bomb in the trunk of his own car.

“Shouldn’t you have left it there so the police could have examined it?” Judd asked.

“I always say that the most confusin’ thing in the world is too much information.”

“But it would have proved to Lieutenant McGreavy that I’ve been telling the truth.”

“Would it?”

Judd saw his point. As far as McGreavy was concerned, Judd could have placed it there himself. Still, it seemed odd to him that a private detective would withhold evidence from the police. He had a feeling that Moody was like an enormous iceberg. Most of the man was concealed under the surface, under that facade of gentle, small-town bumbler. But now, as he listened to Moody talking, he was filled with elation. He was not insane and the world had not suddenly become filled with wild coincidences. There was an assassin on
the loose. A flesh-and-blood assassin. And for some reason he had chosen Judd as his target.
My God,
thought Judd,
how easily our egos can be destroyed.
A few minutes ago he had been ready to believe that he was paranoiac. He owed Moody an incalculable debt.

“…You’re the doctor,” Moody was saying. “I’m just an old gumshoe. I always say when you want honey, go to a beehive.”

Judd was beginning to understand Moody’s jargon. “You want my opinion about the kind of man, or men, we’re looking for.”

“That’s it,” beamed Moody. “Are we dealin’ with some homicidal maniac who broke out of a loony bin”—

Mental institution,
Judd thought automatically.

—“or have we got somethin’ deeper goin’ here?”

“Something deeper,” said Judd instantly.

“What makes you think so, Doc?”

“First of all,
two
men broke into my office last night. I might swallow the theory of one lunatic, but two lunatics working together is too much.”

Moody nodded approvingly. “Gotcha. Go on.”

“Secondly, a deranged mind may have an obsession, but it works in a definite pattern. I don’t know why John Hanson and Carol Roberts were killed, but unless I’m wrong, I’m scheduled to be the third and last victim.”

“What makes you think you’re the last?” asked Moody curiously.

“Because,” replied Judd, “if there were going to be other murders, then the first time they failed to kill me, they would have gone on to get whoever else was on their list. But instead of that, they’ve been concentrating on trying to kill me.”

“You know,” said Moody approvingly, “you have the natural born makin’s of a detective.”

Judd was frowning. “There are several things that make no sense.”

“Such as?”

“First, the motive,” said Judd. “I don’t know anyone who—”

“We’ll come back to that. What else?”

“If someone really was that anxious to kill me, when the car knocked me down, all the driver had to do was to back up and run over me. I was unconscious.”

“Ah! That’s where Mr. Benson comes in.”

Judd looked at him blankly.

“Mr. Benson is the witness to your accident,” explained Moody benevolently. “I got his name from the police report and went to see him after you left my office. That’ll be three-fifty for taxicabs. OK?”

Judd nodded, speechless.

“Mr. Benson—he’s a furrier, by the way. Beautiful stuff. If you ever want to buy anything for your sweetheart, I can get you a discount. Anyway, Tuesday, the night of the accident, he was comin’ out of an office building where his sister-in-law works. He dropped some pills off because his brother Matthew, who’s a Bible salesman, had the flu an’ she was goin’ to take the pills home to him.”

Judd controlled his impatience. If Norman Z. Moody had felt like sitting there and reciting the entire Bill of Rights, he was going to listen.

“So Mr. Benson dropped off these pills an’ was comin’ out of the building when he saw this limousine headin’ toward you. Of course, he didn’t know it was you at the time.”

Judd nodded.

“The car was kinda crabbin’ sideways, an’ from Benson’s angle, it looked like it was in a skid. When he saw it hit you, he started runnin’ over to see if he could help. The limousine backed up to make another run at you. He saw Mr. Benson an’ got out of there like a bat outta hell.”

Judd swallowed. “So if Mr. Benson hadn’t happened along…”

“Yeah,” said Moody mildly. “You might say you an’ me wouldn’t have met. These boys aren’t playin’ games. They’re out to get you, Doc.”

“What about the attack in my office? Why didn’t they break the door down?”

Moody was silent for a moment, thinking. “That’s a puzzler. They coulda broken in an’ killed you an’ whoever was with you an’ got away without anybody seein’ them. But when they thought you weren’t alone, they left. It don’t fit in with the rest.” He sat there worrying his lower lip. “Unless…” he said.

“Unless what?”

A speculative look came over Moody’s face. “I wonder…” he breathed.

“What?”

“It’ll keep for the time bein’. I got me a little idea, but it don’t make sense until we find a motive.”

Judd shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know of anyone who has a motive for killing me.”

Moody thought about this a moment. “Doc, could you have any secret that you shared with this patient of yours, Hanson, an’ Carol Roberts? Somethin’ maybe only the three of you knew about?”

Judd shook his head. “The only secrets I have are professional secrets about my patients. And there’s not one single thing in any of their case histories that would justify murder. None of my patients is a secret agent, or a foreign spy, or an escaped convict. They’re just ordinary people—housewives, professional men, bank clerks—who have problems they can’t cope with.”

Moody looked at him guilelessly. “An’ you’re sure that you’re not harboring a homicidal maniac in your little group?”

Judd’s voice was firm. “Positive. Yesterday I might not have been sure. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to think that I was suffering from paranoia and that you were humoring me.”

Moody smiled at him. “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said. “After you phoned me for an appointment, I did some checking up on you. I called a couple of pretty good doctor friends of mine. You got quite a reputation.”

So the “Mr. Stevenson” had been part of Moody’s country bumpkin facade.

“If we go to the police now,” Judd said, “with what we know, we can at least get them to start looking for whoever’s behind all this.”

Moody looked at him in mild surprise. “You think so? We don’t really have much to go on yet, do we, Doc?”

It was true.

“I wouldn’t be discouraged,” Moody said. “I think we’re makin’ real progress. We’ve narrowed it down nicely.”

A note of frustration crept into Judd’s voice. “Sure. It could be anyone in the Continental United States.”

Moody sat there a moment, contemplating the ceiling. Finally he shook his head. “Families,” he sighed.

“Families?”

“Doc—I believe you when you say you know your patients inside out. If you tell me they couldn’t do anything like this, I have to go along with you. It’s your beehive an’ you’re th’ keeper of the honey.” He leaned forward on the couch. “But tell me somethin’. When you take on a patient, do you interview his family?”

“No. Sometimes the family isn’t even aware that the patient is undergoing psychoanalysis.”

Moody leaned back, satisfied. “There you are,” he said.

Judd looked at him. “You think that some member of a patient’s family is trying to kill me?”

“Could be.”

“They’d have no more motive than the patient. Less, probably.”

Moody painfully pushed himself to his feet. “You never know, do you, Doc? Tell you what I’d like you to do. Get me a list of all the patients you’ve seen in the last four or five weeks. Can you do that?”

Judd hesitated. “No,” he said, finally.

“That confidential patient-doctor business? I think maybe it’s time to bend that a little. Your life’s at stake.”

“I think you’re on the wrong track. What’s been happening has nothing to do with my patients or their families. If there had been any insanity in their families, it would have come out in the psychoanalysis.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Moody. I have to protect my patients.”

“You said there was nothing in the files that was important.”

“Nothing that’s important to us.” He thought of some of the material in the files. John Hanson picking up sailors in gay bars on Third Avenue. Teri Washburn making love to the boys in the band. Fourteen-year-old Evelyn Warshak, the resident prostitute in the ninth grade… “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I can’t show you the files.”

Moody shrugged. “OK,” he said. “OK. Then you’re gonna have to do part of my job for me.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Take out the tapes on everybody you’ve had on your couch for the last month. Listen real careful to each one. Only this time don’t listen like a doctor—listen like a detective—look for anything the least bit offbeat.”

“I do that anyway. That’s my job.”

“Do it again. An’ keep your eyes open. I don’t want to lose you ‘til we solve this case.” He picked up his overcoat and struggled into it, making it look like an elephant ballet. Fat
men were supposed to be graceful, thought Judd, but that did not include Mr. Moody. “Do you know the most peculiar thing about this whole megillah?” queried Moody thoughtfully.

“What?”

“You put your finger on it before, when you said there were
two
men. Maybe one man might have a burning itch to knock you off—but why
two?”

“I don’t know.”

Moody studied him a moment, speculatively. “By God!” he finally said.

“What is it?”

“I just might have a brainstorm. If I’m right, there could be
more
than two men out to kill you.”

Judd stared at him incredulously. “You mean there’s a whole group of maniacs after me? That doesn’t make sense.”

There was a look of growing excitement on Moody’s face. “Doctor, I’ve got an idea who the umpire in this ballgame might be.” He looked at Judd, his eyes bright. “I don’t know how yet, or why—but it could be I know
who.”

“Who?”

Moody shook his head. “You’d have me sent to a cracker factory if I told you. I always say if you’re gonna shoot off your mouth, make sure it’s loaded first. Let me do a little target practice. If I’m on the right track, I’ll tell you.”

“I hope you are,” Judd said earnestly.

Moody looked at him a moment. “No, Doc. If you value your life worth a damn—pray I’m wrong.”

And Moody was gone.

He took a taxi to the office.

It was Friday noon, and with only three more shopping days until Christmas, the streets were crowded with late shoppers, bundled up against the raw wind sweeping in
from the Hudson River. The store windows were festive and bright, filled with lighted Christmas trees and carved figures of the Nativity. Peace on Earth. Christmas. And Elizabeth, and their unborn baby. One day soon—if he survived—he would have to make his own peace, free himself from the dead past and let go. He knew that with Anne he could have…He firmly stopped himself. What was the point in fantasizing about a married woman about to go away with her husband, whom she loved?

The taxi pulled up in front of his office building and Judd got out, nervously looking around. But what could he look for? He had no idea what the murder weapon would be, or who would wield it.

When he reached his office, he locked the outer door, went to the paneling that concealed the tapes, and opened it. The tapes were filed chronologically, under the name of each patient. He selected the most recent ones and carried them over to the tape recorder. With all his appointments canceled for the day, he would be able to concentrate on trying to find some clue that might involve the friends or families of his patients. He felt that Moody’s suggestion was farfetched, but he had too much respect for him to ignore it.

As he put on the first tape, he remembered the last time he had used the machine. Was it only last night? The memory filled him again with the sharp sense of nightmare. Someone had planned to murder him here in this room, where they had murdered Carol.

He suddenly realized that he had given no thought to his patients at the free hospital clinic where he worked one morning a week. It was probably because the murders had revolved around this office rather than the hospital. Still…He walked over to a section of the cabinets labeled “CLINIC,” looked through some of the tapes, and finally selected half a dozen. He put the first one on the tape recorder.

Rose Graham.

“…an accident, Doctor. Nancy cries a lot. She’s always been a whiny baby, so when I hit her, it’s for her own good, y’know?”

“Did you ever try to find out why Nancy cries a lot?” Judd’s voice asked.

“‘Cause she’s spoiled. Her daddy spoiled her rotten and then run off and left us. Nancy always thought she was daddy’s girl, but how much could Harry really have loved her if he run off like that?”

“You and Harry were never married, were you?”

“Well…Common law, I guess you’d call it. We was goin’ to get married.”

“How long did you live together?”

“Four years.”

“How long was it after Harry left you that you broke Nancy’s arm?”

“‘Bout a week, I guess. I didn’t mean to break it. It’s just that she wouldn’t stop whining, so I finally picked up this curtain rod an’ started beating on her.”

“Do you think Harry loved Nancy more than he loved you?”

“No. Harry was crazy about me.”

“Then why do you think he left you?”

“Because he was a man. An’ y’know what men are? Animals! All of you! You should all be slaughtered like pigs!” Sobbing.

Judd switched off the tape and thought about Rose Graham. She was a psychotic misanthrope, and she had nearly beaten her six-year-old child to death on two separate occasions. But the pattern of the murders did not fit Rose Graham’s psychosis.

He put on the next tape from the clinic.

Alexander Fallon.