by Lutz, John
But he wanted Denton to be guilty. How he wanted it!
Oxman opened the door a few inches and let it swish back to its heavy metal frame. The door should have been locked. Even if someone were working today in one of the offices, they surely would have locked the door behind them. Especially after what had been going on here.
He shoved the door open again and stepped over the threshold.
It was cooler inside. And dim. The few windows in the converted warehouse had been painted over so illumination was controllable on the sound stages. There was a faint yellow glow near the end of a long hall, like light filtered through thin, ancient parchment. Oxman wasn’t sure if it was from a dim fixture or was light spilling out from a partly opened door.
He walked silently toward it.
He was halfway there when a noise off to his left made the back of his neck tingle. It might have been a woman’s scream, stifled within an instant of its birth. A muffled, gagging sound that fell abruptly to dead silence.
Oxman drew his revolver from its holster and moved toward the sound. He was in another dark hall, one without a ceiling, leading toward the sound stages. He could sense airy spaciousness above him, and it made him feel exposed. Vulnerable.
Vampires flew, didn’t they? Sometimes as bats, sometimes as wisps or ethereal webbing. And who could say what wasn’t known about vampires?
Don’t be a superstitious ass, he told himself. Don’t remember those black-and-white, light-and-shadow, terrifying movies you saw as a child. And the dreams afterward. So real.
But he hunkered lower as he crept down the darkened hall. Something in him more ancient than his childhood was urging caution, arousing fear in the far corner of his mind where nightmares waited to happen.
There was only silence now, but somehow it seemed to echo. Seemed ominous. Oxman wished he knew where to switch on some lights. Or would it be better to take whoever was in here by surprise?
If the sound he’d heard was of human origin.
If it hadn’t been his imagination.
If there really was someone other than Oxman in the studio.
But the door had been unlocked!
Better to leave the lights out, he decided, and maintain the element of surprise. And perhaps not have to face what might be waiting.
He reached a door, rotated the cool metal knob, and swung it open slowly, ducking low and holding the revolver extended before him with both hands, arms braced for the impact of the gun’s kick. His mind and body were tight, tensed for anything.
In the muted light he saw that the room was empty except for a rack of costumes along one wall, and some metal folding chairs arranged around a table. And a mirror at the other end of the room, reflecting darkness.
The muscles in his back bunched up as he heard a faint sighing sound, like breathing.
Something was behind him! Close!
He swallowed, felt himself weaken and begin to tremble, and was about to whirl when something clutched his arm.
He heard his own sharp intake of breath, a muted shriek. He was in one of those childhood horror movies!
“E.L., what the fuck you doin’ here?”
Tobin! For Christ’s sake it was Tobin! Beautiful Tobin!
“You look scared,” Tobin said, still in a whisper. “What’s got you spooked, Ox?”
“The front entrance was unlocked. I heard what sounded like a woman start to scream, then it was cut off.”
“Lana Spence, or whoever came here to meet her, left the door unlocked,” Tobin said.
“Lana?” Oxman tried to connect the woman’s stifled scream to Lana but couldn’t. Or was it because he didn’t want to think of her as the source of the brief, horrified cry?
He listened as Tobin quickly filled him in on Overbeck’s confession and suicide. Overbeck! It all dovetailed. It made sense. And the phone call to Lana made a terrible kind of sense, too.
“Egan must have phoned her,” Oxman said, when Tobin was finished.
“That’s the way I figured it; that’s why I’m here.”
“You call for backup?”
“It’s on the way,” Tobin said.
“Meantime, let’s figure out how to get some lights on. I was gonna try to surprise whoever was in here, but if Egan and Lana are here, we’d be better off with light.”
“You mean because vampires can’t stand light, E.L.?”
Oxman aimed a cold look at him.
“Nonbeliever honky,” Tobin said. His voice had a slight quaver in it. “I’ll go throw the main switch.” He drifted off into darkness.
Oxman moved forward slowly. The dim interior of the vast warehouse was quiet. He imagined seeing himself from above, a tiny, ineffectual figure advancing through endless space, hobbled by a part of himself he didn’t understand.
But not alone!
Suddenly he was on the floor, his shoulder aching where he’d been slammed down from behind.
A towering figure in a dark cloak flew over him, then fled down the hall and merged with the shadows. The cloak had cracked like a sail in a wind with the force of its passing.
“Egan!” Oxman screamed, struggling to his feet. “Halt, god-dammit!”
The figure became visible again for a fleeting instant as it crossed a dim patch of light.
Oxman sprinted after it, hoping he wouldn’t trip over something in the dark. He couldn’t seem to build speed; he was running in a nightmare, trapped in an unfamiliar landscape.
A woman’s scream chilled him and made him skid to a stop in the hall. So high-pitched and echoing was the terrified shriek, there was no way to judge from which direction it had come.
His heart fluttering in his heaving chest, Oxman held the revolver steady and edged forward again, toward where he’d last caught sight of the fleeing dark figure. His shoulder was throbbing, making it difficult to keep the heavy gun above waist level.
There it was again! A hurtling black form with flowing white hair— here and then gone! Almost as if it were unreal, without substance.
“Oh, Jesus!” Oxman heard himself moan.
But he got off a round, feeling the gun buck in his hand. The crack of the shot reverberated through the vast studio and sang in the steel girders. He was sure he hadn’t hit the thing. It had all happened too fast for accuracy.
He cursed himself, realizing he’d fired more from panic than judgment. He had to rein in his emotions, not act on dangerous impulse.
Running footsteps sounded behind him. He whirled.
Saw nothing.
Nothing!
And a terror he hadn’t thought possible speared into him, doubled him over. He heard a low whimper and knew it was his own. His limbs were jointless and his bowels were water. He was helpless.
The lights flicked on.
The place was full of blue uniforms.
Hunched against the wall, Oxman felt naked in his primitive fear.
He straightened up immediately. Reality flooded in with illumination and human company.
“Search the goddamn premises!” he barked. “And be careful!”
The young cop nearest him stiffened, drew his Police Special from its black-leather holster, and jogged down one of the halls. Several uniforms behind him spread out in similar fashion. Everyone had on his cop face, cheeks rigid, expression blank, eyes disguising the fear scrambling behind them. Professionals in a job that sometimes scared holy shit out of them.
Tobin was beside Oxman.
“You okay, Ox?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Oxman’s legs felt weak and the acid taste of terror still lay thick on his tongue.
He made himself walk.
He and Tobin moved down the hall, then tried a couple of doors that led nowhere.
The third door opened onto one of the new occult sets. There was a brass and mahogany coffin resting on fake-marble twin pedestals. The furniture was dark and Victorian. Phony cobwebs were draped gracefully in wispy arcs in the corners. It all conveyed a sense of timeless authenticity
and menace. Oxman knew Zach Denton must have designed the set. It was creepy enough, all right; give the bastard that.
“Let’s go, Ox,” Tobin said, and started back out the door.
Oxman was about to follow when he heard a steady plup! plup! plup! Water dripping on something soft.
He tapped Tobin’s shoulder, then turned and looked around.
It took him several seconds to notice that the red carpet beneath the casket was soaked. An even darker red stain was rapidly spreading over it.
It wasn’t water he’d heard dripping—it was blood!
He rushed to the coffin and set himself to heave the heavy lid open. The fetid stench of blood rocked his stomach.
Even the coffin wasn’t real mahogany and brass, only make-believe, like everything else on the set.
Almost everything else.
The unexpectedly weightless lid flew open and banged against the far side of the coffin. Struck twice more, lightly.
Oxman stared inside and was electrified with horror. He began to gasp. Couldn’t breathe! Couldn’t move!
“Ox, what the fuck is it?”
He heard Tobin walk up behind him, shoes squishing on the soggy carpet. Heard Tobin’s breath hissing.
“Aw, Christ, Ox!”
Oxman’s gaze was glued to the two figures in the satin-lined coffin.
Marv Egan was sprawled to the side but still mostly on top of Lana Spence. The black cape he wore was wound tightly around both of them. Like a dark shroud. His visible eye was unblinking and glazed.
Oxman had hit Egan when he’d fired at him. There was a nasty exit wound above Egan’s left shoulder blade.
It was hard to tell if that was where most of the blood was coming from, or if it was flowing from where Egan had his teeth sunk into the white column of Lana’s neck.
Egan had played his final role to the hilt, gotten inside the part and believed. Really believed!
And had made Lana believe.
Lana’s eyes were open wide. Her mouth was gaping.
Moving without sound.
No, she was trying to say something!
Oxman leaned close so his ear was near her lips. He could feel her breath brush the side of his face like powdery soft wings.
“Real,” she was whispering over and over. “Real! Real! Real! …”
A Biography of John Lutz
John Lutz (b. 1939) is one of the foremost voices in contemporary hard-boiled fiction.
First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine in 1966, Lutz has written dozens of novels and over 250 short stories in the last four decades. His earliest success came with the Alo Nudger series, set in his hometown of St. Louis. A meek private detective, Nudger swills antacid instead of whiskey, and his greatest nemesis is his run-down Volkswagen. In his offices, permeated by the smell of the downstairs donut shop, he spends his time clipping coupons and studying baseball trivia. Though not a tough guy, he gets results. Lutz continued the series through eleven novels and over a dozen short stories, one of which—“What You Don't Know Can Hurt You”—won an Edgar Award for best story in 1982.
Lutz’s next big success came in 1986, when he published Tropical Heat, the first Fred Carver mystery. The ensuing series took Lutz into darker territory, as he invented an Orlando cop forced to retire by a bullet that permanently disabled his left knee. Hobbled by injury and cynicism, he begins a career as a private detective, following low-lifes and beautiful women all over sunny, deadly Florida. In ten years Lutz wrote ten Carver novels, among them Scorcher (1987), Bloodfire (1991), and Lightning (1996), and as a whole they form a gut-wrenching depiction of the underbelly of the Sunshine State. Meanwhile, he also wrote Dancing with the Dead (1992), in which a serial killer targets ballroom dancers.
In 1992 his novel SWF Seeks Same was adapted for the screen as Single White Female, starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. His novel The Ex was made into an HBO film for which Lutz co-wrote the screenplay. In 2001 his book The Night Caller inaugurated a new series of novels about ex-NYPD cops who hunt serial killers on the streets of New York City, and with Darker Than Night (2004) he introduced Frank Quinn, whose own series has yielded five books, the most recent being Mister X (2010).
Lutz is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and his many awards include Shamus Awards for Kiss and Ride the Lightning, and lifetime achievement awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Private Eye Writers of America. He lives in St. Louis.
A two-year old Lutz, photographed in 1941. The photograph was taken by Lutz’s father, Jack Lutz, who was a local photographer out of downtown St. Louis.
A young Lutz with his little brother, Jim, and sisters, Jacqui and Janie.
Lutz at ten years old, with his mother, Jane, grandmother, Kate ,and brother, Jim. Lutz grew up in a sturdy brick city house that sat at an incline, halfway down a hill; according to the Lutz, this made for optimal sledding during Missouri’s cold winters.
Lutz in his very first suit, purchased for his grade school graduation.
Lutz’s graduation photo from Southwest High School.
Lutz sitting on the front porch of the first house he and his wife, Barbara, ever owned. According to Lutz, the square footage rendered the house smaller than his last apartment; nevertheless it was an important milestone and tremendous relief—there was no one upstairs to abuse their stereos or bang on the floor (or to complain when they did the same).
On January 6, 1966, Lutz officially became a “professional writer” with his first story sale to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. After the publication of his first story, Lutz quickly became a regular contributor to the magazine. Lutz has said that he enjoys writing, “as much as when I began. It’s a process that lives and grows.”
Lutz in St. Louis with his daughter Wendy.
Lutz in his home office in the late sixties or early seventies. When asked about his discipline and writing practice, Lutz has said that “being a writer is like being a cop; you're always on, even off duty.” In the late sixties and early seventies, he published four books and many celebrated short stories.
Lutz in the mid-eighties, crafting the first twists and turns in the Fred Carver series. Lutz published a Fred Carver novel nearly every year from 1986 to 1996, steadily building a cult following for the series.
In his younger days, he wrote all of his fiction on an IBM Selectric typewriter nestled next to his most prized possession: a 1904 roll top desk.
A photo of one of Lutz’s Edgar Awards, this one won in 1986 for his short story “Ride the Lightning.” This year was also the publication of Tropical Heat, the first novel in the Fred Carver series.
Lutz with his wife, Barbara, at a family celebration in 1990.
A photo of Lutz’s Lifetime Achievement Award, received from the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) in 1995 for his inimitable stories and masterful contribution to the genre.
A photograph of Lutz celebrating his honorary degree with his wife, Barbara. In 2007, he was awarded a Doctor of Arts and Letters degree by the University of Missouri - St. Louis. In reflecting on the degree, Lutz said, in his characteristic wry humor, that it “establishes my bona fides as an absent-minded professor. It’s OK now to lose the car.”
Lutz enjoying a bright, warm day in Sarasota, Florida, where he and Barbara take respite from the cold, harsh winters of St. Louis.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1988 by John Lutz
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5183-5
This edition published in 2018 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
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