Night Show

by Richard Laymon

  ‘You said you’d hire me.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘She didn’t,’ Jack said. He smiled at Dani. ‘Shall we ask him to leave?’

  She shook her head. ‘Look, Anthony, I offered to help you. I think you probably have potential, but there are hundreds of people out there more qualified than you, people who’ve studied, who’ve worked long hard hours to develop their talents, and I’d be a complete jerk to hire you over one of them. Besides which, I already have an assistant.’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘But the offer’s still open. If you want, you can spend the morning with us and we’ll show you a few things.’

  ‘Won’t even charge tuition,’ Jack added.

  ‘We’ll see how it goes today,’ Dani said. ‘If it works out all right, we’ll discuss doing it again.’

  Leaning back, Anthony folded his hands across the front of his black turtle-neck. ‘I guess that’s all right,’ he said.

  Dani poured the coffee. Jack carried two mugs to the table and sat down.

  ‘Cream or sugar?’ Dani asked.

  Anthony shook his head.

  Jack took a sip. ‘So, tell me, scared the shit out of anyone lately?’

  The boy grinned. ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Want to tell us about it?’

  Dani turned away to check on the bagels.

  ‘I can’t tell. I’m saving up all my tricks for my first feature.’

  ‘Good idea. Keep ’em close to the vest. We Hollywood types love to steal hot ideas.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Should we let him in on our hot project?’

  Dani shrugged.

  ‘Oh, why not. The working title is An American Were-oaf in Sardi’s.’

  ‘Or The Slobbering,’ Dani said.

  ‘See, there’s this guy . . .’

  Anthony refused a bagel, but drank two cups of coffee while they ate. When they finished, Dani asked Jack to show him the workshop. She went into the bathroom, glad to be away from Anthony. She undressed and reached for the shower handle. Then she changed her mind. As much as she wanted to postpone returning, she knew it would be unfair to leave Jack alone with him for so long. She cleaned herself with a damp washcloth, brushed her teeth, and brushed the tangles out of her hair. Then she got dressed and headed for the workshop.

  Jack and Anthony were at the far end, in front of a shelf lined with white plaster face molds.

  ‘These are negative molds,’ Jack said. ‘We use them to cast positive molds out of celastic. That’s a silicone rubber material. It’s fairly rigid, but flexible, and . . .’ He stopped and smiled at Dani.

  Anthony was smiling, too. He looked eager and happy. ‘This stuff’s great,’ he said.

  ‘Do you recognise any of the faces?’

  He turned back to them, and shook his head. ‘It’s hard to tell.’

  Dani stepped up beside him. ‘This one’s Adrienne Barbeau. Joe Spinell. Jamie Lee Curtis. This is Michael Fisher, who gets his head shot off in Midnight Screams, and the last one is me. I’ve got a small role in Screams, too. I also get my head blown off.’

  ‘You’re in the movie?’

  ‘For about ten minutes,’ she said, noticing his surprise. Was it an act? He must’ve known about her role, already, if he took Ingrid.

  ‘This is Bill Washington,’ Jack said, and lifted down both halves of the actor’s mold. ‘We have to make a prosthetic head of him for Monday.’

  ‘Why don’t we do a cast of Anthony’s first?’ Dani suggested. ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘We’ll give you the full treatment, and make a head for you at the same time we do Bill’s. That way, you can see the whole process.’

  They led Anthony to a straight-backed chair, and had him sit down.

  ‘Would you like to be screaming?’

  ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll do it with your mouth and eyes open.’

  Jack turned on a gooseneck lamp and tipped it to shine on Anthony’s face.

  ‘You’re not wearing contacts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want to get the eyedrops and lenses, Jack?’ While he went to the workbench, Dani explained the process. ‘We’ll be covering your head completely with alginade for the first impression. Any trouble with claustrophobia?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, it only takes about three minutes to dry. It’s a bit cold and uncomfortable, but it doesn’t last long. We’ll put in drops to anesthetise your eyes, and give you a couple of scleral contact lenses to protect them. Okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, but his smile faltered.

  For just a moment, Dani forgot all the trouble he’d caused. He was a teenaged boy, nervous and vulnerable, trying to be brave. She squeezed his shoulder gently. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.’

  He gazed up at her.

  He no longer looked worried.

  He looked adoring.

  Dani let her hand drop. She wanted to take a step backwards, but Anthony’s eyes held her like an embrace.

  What have I done? she thought. My God, what have I done?

  ‘Here we go,’ Jack said.

  His presence surprised her. ‘Right,’ she said, and felt as if she’d been snapped out of a trance. ‘All set, Anthony?’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘You put the eyedrops in, Jack. I’ll get the alginade.’

  The rest of the morning, she felt the difference in Anthony. The brief, sympathetic touch had changed him. He acted intensely interested in every detail of the work, but he studied Dani’s face more often than he watched the procedures. He looked at her as if infatuated. The bitter sharpness was gone from his voice. He stood close to her, sometimes brushing her arm as if by accident.

  While they were applying makeup to the finished heads, Anthony asked to use her bathroom. Dani told him where to find it, and he left.

  ‘Want me to go out and keep an eye on him?’ Jack asked.

  ‘You can’t very well do that.’

  ‘He may do some snooping.’

  ‘He had plenty of chance to do that the other day.’

  ‘The other day, he wasn’t so hung up on you.’

  ‘Hung up?’

  ‘Yeah. The kid’s obviously fallen for you. I don’t particularly blame him; you’re easy to fall for.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But I don’t much like the idea.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘What’ll we do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dani said. ‘It’s a complication I hadn’t counted on. I sure don’t want to encourage him, but I don’t want to dump on him, either.’

  ‘Let’s give him his head and send him home.’

  ‘That won’t be the end of it. As far as he’s concerned, today’s just the start. I think we’d be better off if we play along with him, ask him to come back but not till next Saturday.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll be happy about that.’

  ‘We’ll just explain that we’re too busy during the week, and if he bugs us before Saturday, it’s all off.’

  ‘You’re willing to have him as a permanent fixture on Saturdays?’

  ‘Look, we can’t just tell him to shove off. We’ll be right back where we started.’

  ‘When we started, he just wanted to get into special effects. Now, I think he wants you. It’s only gonna get worse if we string him along.’

  ‘Next, he’ll want you.’ Dani grinned, but Jack didn’t.

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong. He wants to be me.’

  Dani felt a cold tremor in her stomach. ‘Did you have to say that?’

  ‘I didn’t have to. You already knew it.’

  The door from the kitchen opened, and Anthony came in.

  Dani forced herself to smile at him. ‘Well, I think we’re about ready to wrap it up for today.’

  ‘It’s not even noon,’ he said.

  ‘We have some errands to run this afternoon.’
/>   ‘I’ll go with you.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ Jack said.

  Anthony stiffened and glared at him. He turned to Dani, his eyebrows lifting. ‘You’ll let me come, won’t you?’

  ‘I think we should call it quits for today.’

  ‘I won’t be in the way.’

  ‘Jack and I want to be alone.’

  ‘Oh. What about tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘We don’t work on the Sabbath,’ Jack said with a slight smirk.

  ‘We have plans,’ Dani said.

  ‘Okay,’ he muttered.

  Jack picked up the duplicate of Anthony’s head, and handed it to him.

  ‘Come on by next Saturday,’ Dani said, ‘and we’ll go over some more techniques.’

  His lips peeled back as if he were in pain. ‘Next Saturday?’

  ‘Same time, same station,’ Jack said.

  ‘That’s years!’

  ‘It’s a week,’ Jack said.

  Dani opened the door, and they followed her into the kitchen. ‘It’ll be here sooner than you think.’

  ‘I was thinking, you know, you’d take me to the studio and stuff.’

  ‘I’d like to,’ Dani lied, ‘but it’s against the rules.’

  ‘You need a union card,’ Jack added.

  Anthony shook his head.

  Dani led the way to the front door and opened it. ‘I think it went really well today; you did a great job.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jack said. ‘Now you know how to make a decent head.’ He tapped the nose of the head Anthony clutched under his arm. ‘That’s sure a far cry from the one you left on the diving board. Scarier, too.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘If you have any spare time,’ Dani said, ‘drop by a library and pick up some books on cosmology, anatomy, that kind of thing. They’ll help. And we’ll see you next Saturday at nine.’

  ‘Okay. Well, thanks.’ He stared at Dani’s face as if to memorise it.

  She smiled nervously. ‘Bye, Anthony.’

  He nodded, and turned away. He walked slowly toward the driveway, his head low.

  Dani shut the door. ‘Whew.’

  ‘Alone at last.’

  ‘I’m sweatin’ like a huncher. Let’s go for a swim.’

  ‘What about those errands?’

  ‘What errands?’ she asked, and pulled off her sweatshirt.

  16

  ‘NO, HE’S not here just now,’ said the woman’s voice.

  Linda eased the screen door open and peered into the house. A picture window filled the living room with sunlight. The woman wasn’t there. Maybe in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t expect him back for quite a while, Helen. He’s off playing softball.’

  Linda slipped inside. She inched the door shut.

  ‘Certainly. I’ll have him call you the minute he gets in. He’s already told us all he knows, though. He hasn’t seen Joel since Wednesday.’

  Linda walked quietly to the staircase.

  ‘He’s as concerned as the rest of us . . . I know, I’d be a basket case, too. If I were you, I’d call the police.’

  With a hand on the banister to steady herself, she climbed the stairs.

  ‘No, I’m not suggesting anything of the sort, Helen. You’re the one who’s so sure he didn’t just run away . . . I know he’s not that kind of boy. That’s why I think you should call the police. I wouldn’t have waited this long, if it was Arnold.’

  The woman’s voice faded as Linda reached the top of the stairs. A door stood open to her left, another to her right. The corridor ran back alongside the stairwell with book shelves on the wall opposite the balustrade, and two doors near the end.

  She glanced through the doorway on her right. A waist-high platform filled most of the room. An HO setup, complete with green hills, tunnels and bridges, a lake made of tinted glass, a little village with a train station. An assortment of miniature trains stood motionless on the tracks.

  Across the hallway was a large bathroom.

  Linda moved on. She heard footsteps below. With a glance over the railing, she assured herself that no one was on the stairs. She hurried toward the end of the corridor, and peeked into the room on her right.

  A single bed. A cluttered desk and dresser. Plastic ship models on shelves. A poster of Reggie Jackson when he was still a Yankee.

  It had to be Arnold’s room.

  Stepping inside, she quietly pressed the door shut. She went directly to the desk. On top were half a dozen school textbooks, a blue binder, scattered pens and pencils, a ruler, a gooseneck lamp, a pocket calculator, a few loose paper clips, but no envelopes or stationery.

  She lifted a straight-backed chair away from the desk and set it down gently. Then she slid open the top drawer. Near the front was a gum eraser, a compass, a sheath knife, a rubber mouse, a Kennedy half-dollar. To the rear, the drawer was heaped with papers, envelopes, and a few picture postcards.

  With trembling fingers, she picked a glassy card off the pile. She stared at the grim, greenish face of the Frankenstein monster.

  She flipped it over. The back was scrawled with pencil.

  Howdy!

  Spent today at Universal Studios. Saw the old Bates house from Psycho. Castle Dracula was pretty neat, tho it didn’t scare me any. You ought to get out hear.

  So long.

  C.M.

  C.M.?

  Linda would’ve bet the card came from Tony. Who the hell was C.M.?

  Besides, it had no return address.

  She dropped it, and picked up an envelope. In the corner was a return address written in shaky letters:

  C.M.

  8136 La Mar St #210

  Hollywood, CA 90038

  Spreading open the envelope, she pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Strips hung off one side, like fringe where it had been torn from a spiral notebook. She opened it and read:

  Howdy,

  How’re things in Dullsville? Just got me a place to live and a job all in the same day. Its part time at a Jack-in-the-Box. Where I work, not where I live. Ha ha!

  Been seeing lots of movies. Theirs hundreds of theaters hear and some of them just show oldies all the time. Caught Chainsaw again last night. Its great hear.

  Haven’t run into Dick Smith or Rick Baker or any of those guys as of yet, but I hope to before to long. I’m going to be big, pal, just you wait and see. You can say you knew me way back when, or even better, you ought to come out hear and I’ll get you in the movies.

  So long from Hollywood.

  Your pal,

  The Chill Master

  It had to be Tony.

  C.M. Chill Master. What an asshole.

  Linda folded the letter, slipped it back inside the envelope, and stuffed the envelope into the rear pocket of her shorts.

  She heard voices. She heard footsteps. Arnold came into the room wearing sneakers, and sat on the bed to take them off. He dropped his soiled white socks. Standing, he lowered his jeans and shorts. He hopped out of them. He left them on the floor and walked to his closet. Then he went away.

  Linda squirmed out from under the bed, pushing aside his shoes and socks. He’d left the door open. Keeping her eyes on it, she hurried to the closet. She slipped a plaid sports coat off its hanger and put it on backwards so it covered her T-shirt and shorts like a smock. Then she squeezed in behind the sliding doors.

  She waited. Her heart pounded so hard it made her feel sick. Her tongue felt huge and rough in the dryness of her mouth. Sweat trickled down her face. She switched Arnold’s knife to her other hand and wiped her slippery palm on the jacket.

  Finally, he came back. The bedroom door latched shut.

  Linda peered out at him.

  His hair was wet and tangled. He took off a pale blue bathrobe and tossed it on his bed. He looked very muscular. His skin was tanned dark, his buttocks as white as loaves of unbaked bread. Squatting, he picked up his jeans. He dug into a
pocket, came out with a comb, and dropped the jeans.

  Linda eased her head out farther and watched him cross to the dresser. He stopped in front of it. Both hands went up, one combing while the other patted his hair in place. This would be a good time to go for him – except for the mirror. She drew her head in.

  The comb made a quiet clatter. A few seconds passed. His quiet voice said, ‘One . . . two . . . three . . .’

  She looked again. Arnold was on the floor, hands clasped behind his head, sitting up. His back curled. He touched his elbows to his knees. ‘Four,’ he said, and lowered his back to the carpet. His penis, the size of a thumb, was pointed at the ceiling. His rising back blocked Linda’s view. ‘Five.’ Down again.

  She took a careful sidestep. Another. Now she was clear of the sliding door. She knelt.

  ‘Eight,’ Arnold said, and started down. His back pressed the carpet. He took a breath and gritted his teeth as if to hold it in. His stomach muscles flexed. His penis wobbled. He sat up, hands pulling at his head. Linda scuttled forward. Arnold’s elbows brushed his slightly upraised knees. ‘Nine.’ He dropped back. His damp hair rubbed Linda’s thighs, and she smiled down at him. His eyes opened wide. His mouth sprang open.

  Linda thrust her open left hand against his mouth and leaned in, putting her weight on it, trapping his folded hands under his head and muffling his outcry as she swung her right arm down. The five-inch blade punched into him just above the navel. His knees flew up. His hands escaped and reached for Linda’s wrist but she jerked the knife out and raised it high. He tried to catch the blade. It stabbed his right palm, ripped open his forearm and plunged into his belly. The impact splashed blood high. It sprayed Linda’s face. Arnold clutched her wrist. His hand was slippery and trembling, but his grip was strong enough to stop her from pulling out the knife. So she twisted it hard. He screamed into her left hand and his fingers fluttered open. She tugged the knife out.

  His body was twisting and bucking, his arms flopping aimlessly, unable to stop her. She pounded the knife in. She found herself counting each time the hilt stopped her thrust. Eight, nine, ten, eleven. At twenty, she plunged the knife into his throat. She left it there, and rubbed off her fingerprints with the jacket.