Things Beyond Midnight (30 page)

“It sounds wonderful,” she says.

Carrick walks back to the Mustang, climbs inside, waves, drives off.

But not to Boston.

He takes the main highway north.

To Sutter Creek.

A wind is thrashing the trees along the highway as Bens car pulls up to the locked gates of Summervale Cemetery. It is night. Thunder cannons from the jetblack sky as Carrick gets out, carrying a flashlight, the collar of his suit coat turned up against a sudden spatter of rain.

He moves to the trunk of the GT, opens it, takes out a shovel. He tosses the shovel over the cemetery wall, then climbs up. Drops into the damp ground on the other side.

The Old South Yard.

By the time he reaches the Ansford gravesite the rain is pelting down. Forked lightning stitches the sky. Ben stops suddenly, dropping to one knee and snapping off the flash.

A dark figure busily shovels the last of the rain-soft earth away from Charles Ansford’s coffin, then leans over to pry aside the lid.

Ben moves forward, to the lip of the grave, looks down, snapping on the flash.

Arly Stubbs shades his eyes in the sudden glare of light. Fear is etched into the sagging lines of his face.

“Get up here, Stubbs!”

Arly climbs out, attempts a smile. “I was just checkin to see that everythin’ was all tidy like—what with the rain an’ all.”

Ben chuckles. “Reason you’re here couldn’t have anything to do with that fancy gold watch you saw him buried with, could it? The one he’s still wearing?”

Arly shakes his head, the rain running down his face like tears. “God’s truth, mister—I don’t know nothin about no gold watch.”

“You
lie,
Stubbs.”

“May the good Lord strike me dead if I—”

“I’ll just give Him a little help!”

And Carrick swings the heavy iron shovel in a hard arc. It smashes into Arly’s skull with a flat, thudding sound—driving the caretaker violently back into the open grave. He falls across the coffin, arms splayed, his head crushed like the body of a stepped-on insect.

Ben drops down into the damp trench, wrestles the corpse of Arly Stubbs aside, pries open the lid of the coffin. Shines the light inside.

Ben’s eyes widen. He gasps.

The coffin is full of rats.

They have eaten through one Conner of the oak, and are busily devouring the remains of Charles Ansford. Now their red-flecked eyes shine wickedly up at Carrick in the beam of light.

“Get away from him, damn you!” And Ben grabs the shovel to club at them. Squealing angrily, they retreat through the coffin hole.

Carrick puts the shovel aside, opens the dead man’s rat-savaged coat, feels for the watch. Not there! Is it on Stubbs?

Frantically, Ben searches the lifeless caretaker, probing roughly through the rain-sodden clothing. Finds nothing.

A faint yellow glint at the bottom of the coffin catches his eye. He aims the flash beam at the rat-gnawed corner—in time to see the edge of the round gold pocket watch disappear through the hole. A rat is dragging it into the tunnels!

With a strangled cry of rage and frustration, Carrick thrusts his right arm through the hole, fingers scrabbling for the watch. He snags the gold chain.

“
Got
it!” As he starts to withdraw his prize he feels sharp teeth close on his wrist. Carrick jerks his arm free in a spray of blood, dropping the watch the floor of the coffin.

A plump gray rat clings obscenely to his wrist, its needled teeth still buried in Carrick’s flesh!

Cursing wildly, Ben uses his free hand to smash at the fetid creature with the heavy metal flashlight, pinning it against the cold wood of the coffin and crushing its head. As the dead rat falls away from him, Carrick bends to scoop up the watch. The gold face gleams in the light of Ben’s flash as he claws open the hinged lid. Yes,
yes!
Victory!

He delicately removes the thin strip of microfilm, holds it in front of the beam. The coded numbers are there.

“Rich! By God, I’m rich!”

A sound above him. He looks up. Into the raw, percussive burst of a .45, fired point-blank at his chest.

Ben Carrick does not feel the grave dirt as it covers his body—covering, also, the bodies of Arly Stubbs and Charles Ansford.

Within the grave, a final darkness.

At the far edge of the coffin, several ugly, whiskered snouts probe the blackness. The rats are very fortunate.

They scurry forward in an excited, chittering tide.

To enjoy a triple feast.

Blue sky. Sunlight on a field of clouds, white and serene, stretching to a false horizon below the massive jetliner.

Laura Ansford sits by a port window, looking relaxed, sleek, and liberated. She picks up her purse, unsnaps it, takes out an envelope. Reaches inside, removing the thin strip of microfilm. Holds it up against the glare from the window. Smiles as she reviews the coded numbers.

Too bad about Ben. He had been amusing. She had enjoyed guiding his hand in murder. And she owed him so much. She’d been horribly depressed when she had learned that Charles had burned the codebook. But then dear Ben had worked out the microfilm solution. How clever he’d been! Shooting him was an unpleasant necessity, since he had planned on keeping the money for himself. But she could certainly understand that. She’d never liked sharing things. Particularly money. Poor Ben would have had to be eliminated in any case, at a later date. But now at least it was over.

The voice of the air hostess breaks into Laura’s thoughts. She is leaning toward her from the aisle. “Pardon, but I’m checking passenger destinations. Will you be leaving the aircraft in Paris?”

“No,” Laura tells her, “I’m flying straight through.” A bright smile. “To Zürich.”

00:16
ONE OF THOSE DAYS

I knew it was going to be one of those days when I heard a blue-and-yellow butterfly humming
Si, mi chiamano Mi mi
, my favorite aria from
La Bohème.
I was weeding the garden when the papery insect fluttered by, humming beautifully.

I got up, put aside my garden tools, and went into the house to dress. Better see my psychoanalyst at once.

Neglecting my cane and spats, I snapped an old homburg on my head and aimed for Dr. Mellowthin’s office in downtown Los Angeles. Several disturbing things happened to me on the way...

First of all, a large stippled tomcat darted out of an alley immediately after I’d stepped from the bus. The cat was walking on its hind legs and carried a bundle of frothy pink blanketing in its front paws. It looked desperate.

“Gangway!” shouted the cat. “Baby! Live baby here! Clear back. BACK for the baby!”

Then it was gone, having dipped cat-quick across the street, losing itself in heavy traffic. Drawing in a deep lungful of air, smog-laden but steadying, I resumed my brisk pace toward Dr. Mellowthin’s office.

As I passed a familiar apartment house a third-story window opened and Wally Jenks popped his head over the sill and called down to me. “Hi,” yelled Wally. “C’mon up for a little drinkie. Chop, chop.”

I shaded my eyes to get a clearer look at him, and yelled back: “On my way to Mellowthin’s.”

“Appointment?” he queried.

“Spur of the moment,” I replied.

“Then time’s no problem. Up you come, old dads, or I shan’t forgive you.”

I sighed and entered the building. Jenks was 3G, and I decided to use the stairs. Elevators trap you. As I reached the second-floor landing I obeyed an irresistible urge to bend down and place my ear close to the base of the wall near the floor.

“You mice still
in
there?” I shouted.

To which a thousand tiny musical Disney-voices shot back: “Damned
right
we are!”

I shrugged, adjusted my homburg, and continued the upward climb.

Jenks met me at the door with a dry martini.

“Thanks,” I said, sipping. As usual, it was superb. Old Wally sure knew his martinis.

“Well,” he said,“How goes.’”

“Badsville,” I answered. “Care to hear?”

“By all means. Unburden.”

We sat down, facing one another across the tastefully furnished room. I sipped the martini and told Wally about things. “This morning, ‘bout forty minutes ago, I heard a butterfly humming Puccini. Then I saw a cat carrying what I can only suppose was a live baby.”

“Human?”

“Don’t know. Could have been a cat-baby.”

“Cat say anything?”

“He shouted ‘Gangway!’”

“Proceed.”

“Then, on the way up here, I had a brief conversational exchange with at least a thousand mice.”

“In the walls?”

“Where else?”

“Finish your drinkie,” said Jenks, finishing his. I did so.

“Nother?” he asked.

“Nope. Got to be trotting. I’m in for a mental purge.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much,” he assured me. “Humming insects, talking felines and oddball answering mice are admittedly unsettling. But... there are stranger things in this world.”

I looked at him. And knew he was correct—for old Wally Jenks had turned into a loose-pelted brown camel with twin humps, all stained and worn looking at the tops. I swallowed.

“See you,” I said.

Wally grinned, or rather the camel did, and it was awful. Long, cracked yellow teeth like old carnival dishes inside his black gums. I gave a nervous little half-wave and moved for the door. One final glance over my shoulder at old Jenks verified the fact that he was still grinning at me with those big wet desert-red eyes of his.

Back on the street I quickened my stride, anxious now to reach Mellowthin and render a full account of the day’s events. Only a halfblock to go.

Then a policeman stopped me. He was all sweaty inside his tight uniform, and his face was dark with hatred.

“Thought you was the wise one, eh Mugger?” he rasped, his voice venom-filled. “Thought you could give John Law the finger!”

“But officer, I don’t—”

“Come right along, Mugger. We got special cages for the likes a you.”

He was about to snap a pair of silver cuffs over my wrists when I put a quick knee to his vitals and rabbit-punched him on the way down. Then I grabbed his service revolver.

“Here!” I shouted to several passers-by. “This man is a fraud. Killed a cop to get this rig. He’s a swine of the worst sort. Record as long as your arm. Blackmail, rape, arson, auto-theft, kidnapping, grand larceny, wife-beating, and petty pilfering. You name it, he has
done
it.”