Death Trance

by Graham Masterton

  It was Monday now. The doctor had cleaned and stitched Randolph’s wounds and dosed him with sedatives and antibiotics. This morning’s breakfast had been his first real meal, and even though his lips were still swollen and he ached all over, he had thoroughly enjoyed it. He had realized, very early this morning, just after the sun had slanted into his bedroom and awakened him, that he was no longer grieving for Marmie and the children, at least not in the same way as before. He had seen Natalie, the Dutch girl, and touched her, and he knew now that he would see Marmie in the same way, and touch her too. And although he had lost his children, he would be able to hold them again and assure them once and for always that he loved them.

  There was something else too. He was sure, after everything that had happened, that it was Waverley Grace-worthy and Orbus Greene who had sent Reece and his rat pack after him to Indonesia, maybe to kill him, maybe to do no more than frighten him, but certainly to make sure that the Cottonseed Association asserted its supremacy over Tennessee’s cotton-processing industry and that Waverley Graceworthy at last had his petty revenge on Randolph’s father.

  ‘How’s Michael?’ Randolph asked. ‘He’s not too upset?’

  ‘Oh, I think he’s settling in fine,’ replied the doctor. ‘You have to remember that this is the first time he has ever been to America. It seems to me that he’s walking around in complete amazement, trying to understand what it was that made his father into the kind of man he eventually became. How can a man from a country like America become a mystic? There is not much mysticism in Memphis.’

  ‘Well, maybe there is now,’ said Randolph, grimacing as he adjusted his pillow. ‘Have you two discussed the idea of your possibly seeing your late wife?’

  Dr Ambara coloured. ‘Yes, we have. We may attempt a death trance later in the week, but I don’t want you to think I’m keeping you in bed in order to preempt Michael’s attention. You do need the rest, and your stitches do need to heal.’

  ‘Come on, I understand,’ Randolph said. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t even have known about death trances.’

  ‘Well, maybe that would have been a blessing,’ Dr Ambara said philosophically.

  At that moment there was a brisk rapping at the door and Wanda came in, dressed in a pair of tight white pedal-pushers and a dark blue silky blouse. She looked remarkably pretty and attractive.

  ‘You’re looking almost human again,’ she told Randolph.

  ‘I feel like Frankenstein’s monster. All I need now is a bolt through my neck.’

  ‘Neil Sleaman is outside. He’d like to see you.’

  ‘All right,’ Randolph said. ‘Would you ask him to wait for ten minutes while I finish my breakfast. See if he wants a cup of coffee.’

  ‘You’ve had calls from Mr Graceworthy, Mr Trent and Mr Petersen. Also, your Cousin Ella called and she wants you to call her back as soon as you can. It’s something about the funeral, nothing important.’

  ‘I see we’re back in business,’ Randolph commented. ‘I beg your pardon?’ Wanda asked. ‘Wanda,’ Randolph said earnestly, ‘you went all the way to Indonesia with me and now we’ve come back. All this while you’ve been patient, understanding, loving, honest, open, and attractive beyond all description. Now that we’re back at work, I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten any of that, because I haven’t.’

  Wanda was silent for a moment, a little smile touching her lips, her eyes looking away in a mixture of modesty and self-satisfaction. ‘Thank you,’ she said at last and turned and left the room.

  ‘Good girl,’ said Dr Ambara, unexpectedly letting out a short laugh.

  ‘When are you seeing Michael?’ Randolph asked.

  ‘Later today. He wants to teach me some of the basic mantras.’

  ‘Well, just make sure that nobody follows you.’

  Til be careful,’ Dr Ambara promised. Michael was registered at Days Inn on Brooks Road under the fanciful name of Husain Qizilbush, the cover he had taken in case Reece or any other Cottonseed Association hirelings tried to find him. Randolph was no longer prepared to give Waverley Graceworthy or Orbus Greene the benefit of the doubt. They were killers as far as he was concerned.

  Dr Ambara left and Neil Sleaman came in carrying a cup of coffee.

  ‘Neil,’ Randolph said. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Fine, thank you, Mr Clare. Surprised to see you back so soon. And - my God - you sure took a pasting in that taxi accident, didn’t you?’

  ‘Superficial cuts mainly,’ Randolph said casually. ‘Do you mind taking this breakfast tray off the bed for me?’

  Neil carried the tray over to the other side of the room and then pulled up a chair and sat close to Randolph, parking his cup of coffee on the bedside table.

  ‘We had a slow start out at Raleigh,’ he said. ‘There was trouble with the valves, like I told you. And then some of the staff downed tools until there was a security inspection. You know, they were afraid of more explosions. But everything’s running pretty good now. The only problem is, we can’t possibly catch up on lost production. Not for nine or ten weeks at best. We don’t have the oil and we don’t have the processing capacity.’

  Randolph sat up a little straighter to distance himself from Neil Sleaman’s Binaca-flavoured breath. The problem is solved, I told you,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ Neil said with a slight grimace of irritation, ‘I’d sure like to know how you did it.

  We were working all week to come up with some kind of an answer and … well, there was no answer. We’ve fallen way behind on our production schedule, and that’s it.’

  Without changing his expression, Randolph said, ‘The Cottonseed Association is going to help us.’

  Neil stared at him. He exhaled a sharp, disbelieving snort and then sat back in his chair, planted his fists on his hips and snorted again. ‘The Cottonseed Association?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Randolph replied, trying not to sound smug.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, Mr Clare,’ Neil said, ‘but the Cottonseed Association won’t help us out, never in a million years. Orbus Greene still has not replied to that deal you tried to make, and the way I hear it, he isn’t going to either. Times are too tough, Mr Clare, and the Cottonseed Association isn’t going to help you survive as an independent.

  They won’t do it. They’d rather see you -‘

  ‘Dead?’ Randolph interrupted.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say bankrupt.’

  ‘Nevertheless, the truth is that they would rather see me dead.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘I’m very serious,’ Randolph replied. ‘And what’s more, I have evidence. And that’s why the Cottonseed Association is going to help us out, because if it doesn’t, I’m going to take that evidence to the chief of police and have Waverley Graceworthy and Orbus Greene indicted for homicide and conspiracy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Clare,’ Neil replied, shaking his head. ‘I really don’t think this is going to work. I mean, there is no conceivable way in which any member of the Cottonseed Association could have been connected to your family’s homicides. Chief Moyne said that himself, and I have to say myself that you seem to be getting … well, I wouldn’t say paranoid but -‘

  ‘Oh, paranoid, am I?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to be impertinent. But you can’t blame everything that’s happened on the Cottonseed Association. It just isn’t realistic.’

  Randolph asked suddenly, ‘Have you heard of a man called Reece?’

  Neil coloured but vigorously shook his head.

  ‘Let me tell you something about this man called Reece,’ Randolph said. ‘He’s a mute, a Vietnam veteran and a hired enforcer for the Margarine Mafia. Reece and three other gorillas followed me all the way out to Manila, to Djakarta and to Bali, and when I got to Bali, they threatened my life and nearly succeeded in killing me. It was only through luck and through the efforts of friends that I managed to escape alive.’

>   Neil said nothing but tried to meet Randolph’s unrelenting gaze without flinching.

  Randolph said, ‘I can produce a witness who can connect Reece with Waverley Graceworthy - Jimmy the Rib - and I can produce plenty of other evidence that connects Reece with the murder of my family and also with the murder of an innocent man in Djakarta.’

  Neil said, ‘I hate to make this point, sir, but if you can do that … why don’t you do it right away? I mean, I’m not trying to moralize or anything, but surely it would be indefensible to use this evidence simply to get all the cottonseed oil we need rather than to bring Mr Grace-worthy and Mr Greene to justice?’

  Randolph frowned at him. ‘My intention, Neil, is to do both. First to squeeze them, then to see that they get what they deserve.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You don’t seem very happy about it,’ Randolph commented.

  ‘Well, sir, there is one snag for sure.’

  ‘Yes? And what’s that?’

  Neil said, ‘My briefcase is in the other room. You’ll have to excuse me while I get it.’

  Randolph waited impatiently, and when Neil returned, he was carrying a newspaper clipping from the Press-Scimitar. He handed it to Randolph without a word.

  The headline read, ‘Black Gangster’s Legs Amputated In Bizarre Beale Street Slaying.’ Randolph read the text quickly, then looked up at Neil questioningly.

  They found him just after you left for Indonesia,’ Neil said.

  ‘Well, they sure did,’ Randolph said bitterly. He read aloud the last two paragraphs of the news report. ‘Chief of Police Dennis Moyne said that the killing was “more than likely” the work of black fanatic groups exacting revenge for previous acts of violence that the deceased had perpetrated against them. He discounted reports that several white men had been seen leaving the victim’s apartment after the slaying, alleging that these reports were nothing more than “ill-informed and ill-intentioned gossip.”’

  Neil said, ‘I’m sorry. It was just unfortunate.’

  ‘For Jimmy, yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Randolph handed back the clipping. ‘Why should you be sorry? You never knew him, and there are probably plenty of people on Beale Street who are quite happy that he’s dead. He wasn’t what you might call a bundle of fun.’

  ‘I’m sorry because it kind of cuts the ground from under your case against the Cottonseed Association, doesn’t it?’

  Randolph frowned. ‘Oh, no. Jimmy the Rib’s evidence was only minor, only circumstantial. The real evidence comes from eyewitnesses.’

  ‘Eyewitnesses? Eyewitnesses to what?’ Neil wanted to know. His face was pale and he kept folding and unfolding the news clipping, first this way and then the other, with thin, agitated fingers.

  Randolph said, ‘Ask Waverley if he’d like to meet me Wednesday morning, say ten o’clock at the Clare Cottonseed Building.’

  ‘Well, I’ll try,’ Neil said doubtfully.

  ‘Tell him to bring his attorney,’ Randolph added. ‘We might be drawing up a contract.’

  Neil took out a small leather-covered notebook and jotted down Randolph’s instructions with a gold ballpoint pen. Then, without lifting his eyes from the page he said, ‘I really would find it a help if you could tell me a bit more about what you have in mind. I mean, I really don’t think that an unsubstantiated threat against the Cottonseed Association is likely to make them change their minds.’ He paused and then added, ‘I know for sure that Waverley Grace worthy does not take kindly to threats, especially from the Clare family.’

  Randolph was tempted to say something caustic in return but he held his tongue and said, ‘Just fix up the meeting, would you? And tell Wanda about it. She’ll want to make all the arrangements.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘All right, you can go now.’

  There was one more thing, sir.’

  Randolph looked up.

  Neil, flustered, said, ‘Apparently you came back from Indonesia with a gentleman called Michael Hunter.’

  That’s correct. How did you know?’

  ‘Well, I make it my business when you’re away to check every company expenditure over fifteen hundred dollars, and an extra air ticket from Bali to Memphis was charged to our travel account in the name of Michael Hunter. I assumed that he was a guest of yours, sir, so obviously I didn’t query it.’

  ‘You were right,’ Randolph told him. ‘He is a guest of mine. I personally authorized the payment of that ticket.’

  ‘Is Mr Hunter, er … is he staying here now?’

  Randolph raised an interrogative eyebrow.

  ‘What I mean is,’ Neil stammered, ‘is he here now, in the house? Staying with you? I ask only in case he would like somebody to show him around Memphis.’

  ‘No, he’s not here now,’ Randolph said. And for the first time, he was convinced not just by Neil Sleaman’s behaviour since the fire out at Raleigh, but by the man’s sheer naked anxiety, that he was betraying him.

  None of the evidence Randolph had was conclusive; none of it would stand up in court. But from the moment Stanley Vergo had suggested that the fire out at Raleigh was not accidental until Neil Sleaman had shown him this news report about Jimmy the Rib, two and two had been making four, and four and four had been making eight.

  Why should Jimmy the Rib have been murdered - after all his years of precarious survival in the toughest districts of downtown Memphis - just after he had spoken to Randolph about Reece and the Cottonseed Association? Several white men had been seen leaving the building, just like three or four white men had been seen leaving the building when I.M. Wartawa had been murdered.

  And who was the only person with whom Randolph had discussed his meeting with Jimmy the Rib? Chief Dennis Moyne of the Memphis police, the very man who had dismissed allegations that white men had been seen leaving the building and had laid the blame on black extremists.

  And who was the only person with whom Randolph had discussed his meeting with I.M. Wartawa? Neil Sleaman, who was now trying to find out where Michael Hunter was staying.

  Neil had defended Waverley and Orbus and the Cottonseed Association just once too often, which was evidence enough for Randolph of where his loyalties lay. Neil had been in charge of Clare Cottonseed’s production department when the factory at Raleigh caught fire, and Neil had been in charge of making sure the plant got back in business. In spite of Neil’s logical-sounding explanations, there had been nothing but technical delay, all of it just a little too technical to make sense.

  There was only one question that stuck in Randolph’s mind like a jagged piece of glass, a question he could not seem to crack. Why was Waverley Graceworthy so determined to destroy him, to destroy not only his corporation, but his family? Surely business alone had not driven him to murder. Hanging people and shooting them and cutting their legs off simply for the sake of a cottonseed-processing contract?

  Well, damn it, that seemed more fantastic than leyaks, and death trances and the Witch Widow, Rangda.

  Yet Reece had probably murdered Marmie and the children on Waverley Graceworthy’s instructions, and Reece had probably murdered Jimmy the Rib on Waverley Graceworthy’s instructions, as well as I.M. War-tawa and God only knew how many other innocent people. And there was no doubt in Randolph’s mind that Neil Sleaman was part of this conspiracy to exterminate everyone and everything that had anything to do with Clare Cottonseed. He had no proof. As far as he was concerned, he needed no proof. He had only to look at Neil sitting beside his bed, pale and confused and guilty, the epitome of Judas, to know that it was true.

  Nonetheless he spoke quietly, with no evidence of anger, and he gave Neil Sleaman one more opportunity to prove that he was loyal.

  ‘Mr Hunter is staying at the Shelby Motel on Summer. I didn’t want him here for reasons of security.’

  ‘Ah, the Shelby,’ Neil nodded. ‘Would he like a tour, do you think? I mean, this is a pretty interesting time of year what with the Beale St
reet Music Festival, the Cotton Carnival and the International Barbecue Contest.’

  ‘Well, no, Neil, I don’t think he’s the kind of person who would go for a tour,’

  Randolph replied. ‘He’s what you might call a spiritual type.’

  ‘Maybe he’d like to see the Mid-South Bible College.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Thank you for your consideration anyway.’

  Neil was very agitated now. ‘Would he like to see Beale Street? Or maybe Mud Island? It seems a pity he should visit Memphis and never see Mud Island.’

  Randolph smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Okay,’ Neil said. ‘I was only trying to be hospitable.’

  ‘Surely,’ Randolph acknowledged.

  As soon as Neil left, Randolph picked up the telephone and asked Charles to put him through to 386-3311. Charles knew better than to ask what the number was or why Randolph was calling it. The phone rang two or three times and then a voice said,

  ‘Shelby Motel. How can I help you?’

  Randolph said, ‘I want to make a reservation. A double room in the name of Michael Hunter. Yes, tonight.’

  Later that morning Randolph climbed painfully out of bed and Charles helped him to the patio, where he read for a while, drank two or three small cups of black Mocha coffee and watched the wind ruffling the azaleas. He supposed that he should have felt deeply grieved by Neil Sleaman’s betrayal, in much the way he should have felt deeply vengeful against Richard Reece. But he felt that Neil and Reece were only stick men, treacherous and dangerous certainly, but motivated only by money, not by malice.

  It was the Cottonseed Association that was at the heart of the darkness: Waverley Graceworthy and Orbus Greene. Against them Randolph felt a righteous hunger for revenge that would have to be satisfied before he could ever find peace.

  They had killed his wife and children; they had tried to kill him too. In return, they would have to be punished. And since they had succeeded in butchering almost everybody who might have been a witness against them, there was only one place Randolph could go for evidence: into another death trance to talk to Marmie.