The Best of Robert Bloch

by Robert Bloch

  Dr. Prager, as a physician, generally disapproved of obesity, but when it came to yearly retainers he liked them plump. And this was one of the plumpest. Because of it he was ready for any announcement Mickey Dennis wanted to make.

  The agent was clutching his arm now. "Doc, you gotta put the freeze on her, fast! This time it's murder!"

  Despite himself, Dr. Prager blanched. He reached up and tugged reassuringly at his goatee. It was still there, the symbol of his authority. He had mastered the constriction in his vocal chords before he started to speak. "You mean she's killed someone?"

  "No!" Mickey Dennis shook his head in disgust. "That would be bad enough, but we could handle it. I was just using a figger of speech, like. She wants to murder herself, Doc. Murder her career, throw away a brand-new seven-year non-cancelable no-option contract with a percentage of the gross. She wants to quit the industry."

  "Leave pictures?"

  "Now you got it, Doc. She's gonna walk out on four hundred grand a year."

  There was real anguish in the agent's voice—the anguish of a man who is well aware that 10 per cent of four hundred thousand can buy a lot of convertibles.

  "You gotta see her," Dennis moaned. "You gotta talk her out of it, fast."

  Dr. Prager nodded. "Why does she want to quit?" he asked.

  Mickey Dennis raised his hands. "I don't know," he wailed. "She won't give any reasons. Last night she just up and told me. Said she was through. And when I asked her politely just what the hell's the big idea, she dummied up. Said I wouldn't understand." The little man made a sound like trousers ripping in a tragic spot. "Damned right I wouldn't understand! But I want to find out."

  Dr. Prager consulted his beard again with careful fingers. "I haven't seen her for over two months," he said. "How has she been behaving lately? I mean, otherwise?"

  "Like a doll," the agent declared. "Just a living doll. To look at her you wouldn't of thought there was anything in her head but sawdust. Wrapped up the last picture clean, brought it in three days ahead of schedule. No blowups, no goofs, no nothing. She hasn't been hitting the sauce or anything else. Stays home mostly and goes to bed early. Alone, yet." Mickey Dennis made the pants-ripping sound again. "I might of figgered it was too good to be true."

  "No financial worries?" Dr. Prager probed.

  Dennis swept his arm forward to indicate the library and the expanse beyond. "With this? All clear and paid for. Plus a hunk of real estate in Long Beach and two oil wells gushing like Lolly Parsons over a hot scoop. She's got more loot than Fort Knox and almost as much as Crosby."

  "Er—how old is Eve, might I ask?"

  "You might ask, and you might get some funny answers. But I happen to know. She's thirty-three. I can guess what you're thinking, Doc, and it don't figger. She's good for another seven years, maybe more. Hell, all you got to do is look at her."

  "That's just what I intend to do," Dr. Prager replied, "Where is she?"

  "Upstairs, in her room. Been there all day. Won't see me." Mickey Dennis hesitated. "She doesn't know you're here either. I said I was gonna call you and she got kind of upset."

  "Didn't want to see me, eh?"

  "She said if that long-eared nanny goat got within six miles of this joint she'd—" The agent paused and shifted uncomfortably. "Like I mentioned, she was upset."

  "I think I can handle the situation," Dr. Prager decided.

  "Want me to come along and maybe try and soften her up a little?"

  "That won't be necessary." Dr. Prager left the room, walking softly.

  Mickey Dennis went back to his chair and picked up the magazine once more. He didn't read, because he was waiting for the sound of the explosion.

  When it came he shuddered and almost gritted his teeth until he remembered how much it would cost to buy a new upper plate. Surprisingly enough, the sound of oaths and shrieks subsided after a time, and Dennis breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  The doc was a good head shrinker. He'd handle her. He was handling her. So there was nothing to do now but relax.

  2

  "Relax," Dr. Prager said. "You've discharged all your aggression. Now you can stretch out. That's better."

  The spectacle of Eve Eden stretched out in relaxation on a chaise longue was indeed better. In the words of many eminent lupine Hollywood authorities, it was the best.

  Eve Eden's legs were long and white and her hair was long and blond; both were now displayed to perfection, together with a whole series of coming attractions screened through her semitransparent lounging pajamas. The face that launched a thousand close-ups was that of a petulant child, well-versed in the more statutory phases of juvenile delinquency.

  Dr. Prager could cling to his professional objectivity only by clinging to his goatee. As it was, he dislodged several loose hairs and an equal number of loose impulses before he spoke again.

  "Now," he said, "tell me all about it."

  "Why should I?" Eve Eden's eyes and voice were equally candid. "I didn't ask you to come here. I'm not in any jam."

  "Mr. Dennis said you're thinking of leaving pictures."

  "Mr. Dennis is a cockeyed liar. I'm not thinking of leaving. I've left, period. Didn't he call the lawyers? Hasn't he phoned the studio? I told him to."

  "I wouldn't know," Dr. Prager soothed.

  "Then he's the one who's in a jam," Eve Eden announced happily. "Sure, I know why he called you. You're supposed to talk me out of it, right? Well, it's no dice, Doc. I made up my mind."

  "Why?"

  "None of your business."

  Dr. Prager leaned forward. "But it is my business, Wilma."

  "Wilma?"

  Dr. Prager nodded, his voice softening. "Wilma Kozmowski. Little Wilma Kozmowski. Have you forgotten that I know all about her? The little girl whose mother deserted her. Who ran away from home when she was twelve and lived around. I know about the waitress jobs in Pittsburgh, and the burlesque show, and the B-girl years in Calumet City. And I know about Frank, and Eddie, and Nino, and Sid, and—all the others." Dr. Prager smiled. "You told me all this yourself, Wilma. And you told me all about what happened after you became Eve Eden. When you met me you weren't Eve Eden yet, not entirely. Wilma kept interfering, didn't she? It was Wilma who drank, took the drugs, got mixed up with the men, tried to kill herself. I helped you fight Wilma didn't I, Eve? I helped you become Eve Eden, the movie star. That's why it's my business now to see that you stay that way. Beautiful, admired, successful, happy—"

  "You're wrong, Doc. I found that out. If you want me to be happy, forget about Eve Eden. Forget about Wilma too. From now on I'm going to be somebody else. So please, just go away."

  "Somebody else?" Dr. Prager leaped at the phrase. An instant later he leaped literally.

  "What's that?" he gasped.

  He stared down at the floor, the hairs in his goatee bristling as he caught sight of the small white furry object that scuttled across the carpet.

  Eve Eden reached down and scooped up the creature, smiling.

  "J ust a white rabbit," she explained. "Cute, isn't he? I bought him the other day."

  "But—but—"

  Dr. Prager goggled. It was indeed a white rabbit which Eve Eden cradled in her arms, but not just a white rabbit. For this rabbit happened to be wearing a vest and a checkered waistcoat, and Dr. Prager could almost swear that the silver chain across the vest terminated in a concealed pocket watch.

  "I bought it after the dream," Eve Eden told him.

  "Dream?"

  "Oh, what's the use?" She sighed. "I might as well let you hear it. All you head shrinkers are queer for dreams anyway."

  "You had a dream about rabbits?" Dr. Prager began.

  "Please, Doc, let's do it my way," she answered. "This time you relax and I'll do the talking. It all started when I fell down this rabbit hole . . ."

  3

  In her dream, Eve Eden said, she was a little girl with long golden curls. She was sitting on a riverbank when she saw this white rabbit running clo
se by. It was wearing the waistcoat and a high collar, and then it took a watch out of its pocket, muttering, "Oh dear, I shall be too late." She ran across the field after it, and when it popped down a large rabbit hole under a hedge, she followed.

  "Oh no!" Dr. Prager muttered. "Not Alice!"

  "Alice who?" Eve Eden inquired.

  "Alice in Wonderland."

  "You mean that movie Disney made, the cartoon thing?"

  Dr. Prager nodded. "You saw it?"

  "No. I never waste time on cartoons."

  "But you know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

  "Well—" Eve Eden hesitated. Then from the depths of her professional background an answer came. "Wasn't there another movie, 'way back around the beginning of the thirties? Sure, Paramount made it, with Oakie and Gallagher and Horton and Ruggles and Ned Sparks and Fields and Gary Cooper. And let's see now, who played the dame—Charlotte Henry?"

  Dr. Prager smiled. Now he was getting somewhere. "So that's the one you saw, eh?"

  Eve Eden shook her head. "Never saw that one either. Couldn't afford movies when I was a brat, remember?"

  "Then how do you know the cast and—"

  "Easy. Gal who used to work with Alison Skipworth told me. She was in it too. And Edna May Oliver. I got a good memory, Doc. You know that."

  "Yes." Dr. Prager breathed softly. "And so you must remember reading the original book, isn't that it?"

  "Was it a book?"

  "Now look here, don't tell me you've never read Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. It's a classic."

  "I'm no reader, Doc. You know that too."

  "But surely as a child you must have come across it Or had somebody tell you the story."

  The blond curls tossed. "Nope. I'd remember if I had. I remember everything I read. That's why I'm always up on my lines. Best sight reader in the business. I not only haven't read Alice in Wonderland, I didn't even know there was such a story, except in a screenplay."

  Dr. Prager gave an irritable tug at his goatee. "All right. You do have a remarkable memory, I know. So let's think back now. Let's think back very carefully to your earliest childhood. Somebody must have taken you on their lap, told you stories."

  The star's eyes brightened. "Why, sure!" she exclaimed. "That's right! Aunt Emma was always telling me stories."

  "Excellent." Dr. Prager smiled. "And can you recall now the first story she ever told you? The very first?"

  Eve Eden closed her eyes, concentrating with effort. When her voice came it was from far away. "Yes," she whispered, "I remember now. I was only four. Aunt Emma took me on her lap and she told me my first story. It was the one about the drunk who goes in this bar, and he can't find the John, see, so the bartender tells him to go upstairs and—"

  "No," said Dr. Prager. "No, no! Didn't she ever tell you any fairy tales?"

  "Aunt Emma?" Eve Eden laughed. "I'll say she didn't. But stories—she had a million of 'em! Did you ever hear the one about the young married couple who wanted to—"

  "Never mind." The psychiatrist leaned back. "You are quite positive you have never read or heard or seen Alice in Wonderland?"

  "I told you so in the first place, didn't I? Now, do you want to hear my dream or not?"

  "I want to very much," Dr. Prager answered, and he did. He took out his notebook and uncapped his fountain pen. In his own mind he was quite certain that she had heard or read Alice, and he was interested in the reasons for the mental block which prevented her from recalling the fact. He was also interested in the possible symbolism behind her account. This promised to be quite an enjoyable session. "You went down the rabbit hole," he prompted.

  "Into a tunnel," Eve continued. "I was failing, falling very slowly."

  Dr. Prager wrote down tunnel—womb fixation? And he wrote down falling dream.

  "I fell into a well," Eve said. "Lined with cupboards and bookshelves. There were maps and pictures on pegs."

  Forbidden sex knowledge, Dr. Prager wrote.

  "I reached out while I was still falling and took a jar from a shelf. The jar was labeled 'Orange Marmalade.' "

  Marmalade—Mama? Dr. Prager wrote.

  Eve said something about "Do cats eat bats?" and "Do bats eat cats?" but Dr. Prager missed it. He was too busy writing. It was amazing, now that he thought of it, just how much Freudian symbolism was packed into Alice in Wonderland. Amazing, too, how well her subconscious recalled it.

  Eve was telling now how she had landed in the long hall with the doors all around and how the rabbit disappeared, muttering, "Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting." She told about approaching the three-legged solid-glass table with the tiny golden key on it, and Dr. Prager quickly scribbled phallic symbol. Then she described looking through a fifteen-inch door into a garden beyond and wishing she could get through it by shutting up like a telescope. So Dr. Prager wrote phallic envy.

  "Then," Eve continued, "I saw this bottle on the table, labeled 'Drink Me.' And so I drank, and do you know something? I did shut up like a telescope. I got smaller and smaller, and if I hadn't stopped drinking I'd have disappeared! So of course I couldn't reach the key, but then I saw this glass box under the table labeled 'Eat Me,' and I ate and got bigger right away."

  She paused. "I know it sounds silly, Doc, but it was real interesting."

  "Yes indeed," Dr. Prager said. "Go on. Tell everything you remember."

  "Then the rabbit came back, mumbling something about a Duchess. And it dropped a pair of white gloves and a fan."

  Fetishism, the psychiatrist noted.

  "After that it got real crazy." Eve giggled. Then she told about the crying and forming a pool on the floor composed of her own tears. And how she held the fan and shrank again, then swam in the pool.

  Grief fantasy, Dr. Prager decided.

  She went on to describe her meeting with the mouse and with the other animals, the caucus race, and the recital of the curious poem about the cur, Fury, which ended, "I'll prosecute you, I'll be judge, I'll be jury—I'll try the whole cause and condemn you to death."

  Superego, wrote Dr. Prager and asked, "What are you afraid of, Eve?"

  "Nothing," she answered. "And I wasn't afraid in the dream either. I liked it. But I haven't told you anything yet."

  "Go on."

  She went on, describing her trip to the rabbit's house to fetch his gloves and fan and finding the bottle labeled "Drink Me" in the bedroom. Then followed the episode of growth, and being stuck inside the house (Claustrophobia, the notebook dutifully recorded), and her escape from the animals who pelted her with pebbles as she ran into the forest.

  It was Alice all right, word for word, image for image. Father image for the caterpillar, who might (Dr. Prager reasoned wisely) stand for himself as the psychiatrist, with his stern approach and enigmatic answers. The Father William poem which followed seemed to validate this conclusion.

  Then came the episode of eating the side of the mushroom, growing and shrinking. Did this disguise her drug addiction? Perhaps. And there was a moment when she had a long serpentine neck and a pigeon mistook her for a serpent. A viper was a serpent. And weren't drug addicts called "vipers"? Of course. Dr. Prager was beginning to understand now. It was all symbolic. She was telling about her own life. Running away and finding the key to success—alternating between being very "small" and insignificant and trying every method of becoming "big" and important. Until she entered the garden—her Garden of Eden here—and became a star and consulted him and took drugs. It all made sense now.

  He could understand as she told of the visit to the house of the Duchess (mother image) with her cruel, "Chop off her head." He anticipated the baby who turned into a pig and wrote down rejection fantasy quickly.

  Then he listened to the interview with the Cheshire cat, inwardly marveling at Eve Eden's perfect memory for dialogue.

  " 'But I don't want to go among mad people,' I said. And the crazy cat came back with, 'Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
And I said, 'How do you know I'm mad?' and the cat said, 'You must be—or you wouldn't have come here.' Well, I felt plenty crazy when the cat started to vanish. Believe it or not, Doc, there was nothing left but a big grin."

  "I believe it," Dr. Prager assured her.

  He was hot on the trail of another scent now. The talk of madness had set him off. And sure enough, now came the tea party. With the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, of course—the Mad Hatter. Sitting in front of their house (asylum, no doubt) with the sleeping dormouse between them. Dormouse—dormant sanity. She was afraid of going insane, Dr. Prager decided. So much so did he believe it that when she quoted the line, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" he found himself writing down, Why is a raving like a Rorschach test? and had to cross it out.

  Then came the sadistic treatment of the poor dormouse and another drug fantasy with mushrooms for the symbol, leading her again into a beautiful garden. Dr. Prager heard it all: the story of the playing-card people (club soldiers and diamond courtiers and heart children were perfectly fascinating symbols too!).

  And when Eve said, "Why, they're only a pack of cards after all—I needn't be afraid of them," Dr. Prager triumphantly wrote paranoid fantasies: people are unreal.

  "Now I must tell you about the croquet game," Eve went on, and so she told him about the croquet game and Dr. Prager filled two whole pages with notes.

  He was particularly delighted with Alice-Eve's account of the conversation with the ugly Duchess, who said among other things, "Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves," and, "Be what you seem to be—or more simply, never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been who have appeared to them to be otherwise."