by Robert Bloch
“Mrs. Raymond speaking,” she said.
“One moment, please.”
And then the other voice came on, and she listened again and said yes, and yes again, and thank you very much. Her voice didn’t tremble.
But when she put the phone down, she almost missed the cradle because her hand was shaking so.
Walking down the hall to Haskane’s office was like walking under water, and when she reached down to turn the doorknob, her hand was still shaking.
But she got the door open, got into Haskane’s office, got through the meaningless mumble of conversation about the ad.
Haskane’s voice was faint and his moon-faced features were wavery and distorted like those of a puffy-faced fish swimming behind the glass of an aquarium. Karen gathered that he liked the copy and would have it retyped for presentation to the client late this afternoon. And would she like to stick around and sit in on the meeting, just in case there were any suggestions for changes?
Karen was drowning, she was going down for the third time, but she came up at the last moment, gasping for breath.
Haskane frowned up at her. “What’s the matter?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather skip the meeting. I want to leave early today.”
“Headache?”
“Yes.” Karen gulped air.
“Okay. I don’t think there’ll be any problems. You run along.”
“Thanks.” Karen flashed him a grateful look, then turned away.
Too bad she couldn’t tell the truth.
It was just that she didn’t want to see the look on his face if she said, “Sorry, but I’ve got to run out to Topanga Canyon. I’ve just had word that my husband may be released from the asylum.”
CHAPTER 3
According to the late Edgar Cayce, the area known as Southern California may soon sink beneath the sea.
Ordinarily, Karen dismissed the prophecy as she dismissed the dangers of smog and seismic disaster, but now she wasn’t so sure. Whipping along the Hollywood Freeway she wondered if perhaps the prediction hadn’t already come true, because she was moving underwater again. On her right, the high hills wavered; on her left, the Capitol tower shimmered; and the road ahead of her was a black-topped blur.
Only the speed of the car itself reassured her that she was still enveloped by the element of air, and her breathing quickened as she tried to clear her head. Common sense told her to pull over to the shoulder of the freeway, or at least seek the nearest off-ramp, but there wasn’t time. Not if Bruce might be released.
If Bruce might be released—
Karen sensed the approaching division in the road ahead and swerved into the right-hand lane which led her into the Ventura Freeway. The midafternoon traffic was just beginning to build up, and she fought to focus her attention on the road. Her vision sharpened, but there was still a blurring of the inner eye, a constant awareness of the inner depths. She felt as if her life was passing in review.
Life? What life was there to remember? There had been a little girl once, a little girl who went to Disneyland with Dad and Mom. But Dad and Mom were in their graves, and the little girl was suddenly a tall, leggy blonde on the UCLA campus, majoring in journalism. Karen tried to visualize the campus, and the waves rose quickly, obscuring it from the mind’s eye.
Then Bruce appeared, moving towards her slowly, and they walked hand in hand, moving together slowly under the bursting pressure of the water, little bubbles of laughter rising from their lips until those lips were joined briefly—so very briefly . . . Then she was alone again, working at the agency, and that’s when she’d tried to ride out the storm, don’t make waves, and—
For God’s sake, stop! Karen told herself. Quit playing with words. You’re not writing ad copy now, and you’re not drowning in anything except self-pity.
Karen blinked into accelerated awareness, and moved into the righthand lane leading north on the San Diego Freeway. No more word games now. She knew what she was doing, knew where she was going.
As she eyed the upcoming ramp, a plane snarled overhead, swooping down in a plunging path just above the freeway. Karen lost sight of it as she took the ramp and descended to make a left turn under the freeway on the street below.
Moving at half her former speed, she was suddenly conscious of the hot, acrid air of the San Fernando Valley; she’d come out of her imaginary underwater kingdom into an actual desert. Once, not too long ago, the Valley had been a sandy wasteland. Then a million hardy pioneers invaded it, planting their sickly shrubbery and their crackerbox houses. But all the supermarkets, the bowling alleys, the auto-repair shops, drive-in movies, drive-in hamburger stands, drive-in mortuaries, couldn’t disguise the fact that it was still a desert. And the sand still blew across the parking lots of the shopping centers where the sons of the hardy pioneers purchased striped trousers like the ones Karen immortalized in her copy.
Karen drove west against the sun, turned north at the stoplight and proceeded past the expanse of the airport on her right, where the swooping plane now lumbered to a landing. She turned in at the third gate and pulled up near a cluster of small one-engine aircraft grouped around a tin-roofed hangar, inert metal bees before their hollow hive.
Adjoining the hangar was a clapboard rectangular outbuilding, its side displaying paint-flaked lettering—Raymond’s Charter Service. Above the open doorway was a smaller sign labeled Office. Standing in the doorway, squinting into the sun as she watched Karen approach, was Rita Raymond.
Seeing her, Karen told herself for the hundredth time, she looks like Bruce. And for the hundredth time she caught herself hesitating momentarily as she drew near. Because she knew that, despite the striking resemblance in features, Rita wasn’t like Bruce at all.
The tall, dark-haired woman with the deeply tanned face and somber brown eyes was dressed in boots, levis, and a faded short-sleeved shirt, but the ensemble couldn’t disguise the fullness of her hips and the ripe roll of her breasts; the eyes and nose and mouth might be Bruce’s, but the body was very much her own. As far as Karen knew, Rita’s body was indeed extremely personal property, for she’d never seen Bruce’s older sister with an escort. If indeed she had a sex life, it was as well hidden as her sexual attributes were well displayed. Yet she was capable of deep affection—she loved planes, loved the mechanical tinkering she lavished upon them, loved flying, loved her brother—
But not me, Karen told herself. And hesitated again, sensing Rita’s level stare.
It took conscious effort to keep moving forward, to force a smile and a greeting.
“So you’ve heard the news,” Rita said.
“Yes.” Karen faltered. “They called you too?”
“Doctor Griswold phoned me last night.”
“Last night?”
Karen couldn’t suppress the surprise in her voice. But Rita’s expression was unchanged. She stepped to one side and gestured.
“Come on in.”
Karen entered the office, and Rita waved her to a seat next to the big electric floor fan. As Karen sat down, she became acutely conscious of its powerful drone and the blast of air which rattled the flight charts against the side wall. “I suppose you’re planning to go up there,” she said.
“Of course. I’m on my way.”
“Now—tonight?”
“I left work as soon as I got the message.” Karen shifted uncomfortably beneath Rita’s level stare, and the breeze from the fan ruffled her hair. “Did you think I’d put it off a moment longer than I had to?”
“No.” Rita shook her head. “I told Griswold you wouldn’t wait.”
“But I have waited—it’s been over six months. Don’t you think I’m entitled to see my own husband?”
“It’s not a question of being entitled,” Rita said. “This is a medical matter.”
“Doctor Griswold told me I could come. He wants Bruce to see me. Didn’t he explain that to you? Bruce’s reaction will help determine whether or not he’s ready to be released.”<
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“I know.” Rita lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “I was just thinking about the last time you saw him.”
“But Bruce was ill then—we both know that. And now he’s well again. You told me so yourself—”
Rita exhaled, and the fan blew the smoke into a gray halo dissolving to frame her face. “I told you he seemed quite rational when I visited him. And each week he’s showed more improvement.” The halo dispersed and Karen could see the level stare again. “You’ve got to remember one thing, though. I’m his sister. He never had any reason to be hostile to me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Karen felt a tightening in her jaw and temples. “Are you trying to say that I’m responsible for what happened?”
The only reply was the deep drone of the fan. And Karen thought, she’s hiding her hatred behind hints. Seeking out my guilt.
Karen’s temples throbbed and her jaw was so stiff she had difficulty getting the words out. But they came.
“All right. I’m responsible for putting Bruce in the sanatorium. You’ve gone to see him every week, but they told me not to come, and I obeyed. For six months I’ve stayed away. Now I have permission to go, and I won’t put it off. Because if he is ready to leave, then that’s part of my responsibility too—making sure he doesn’t stay there a moment longer than necessary.”
Rita stubbed out her cigarette. “One thing more.” She glanced up, eyes narrowing. “Suppose he isn’t ready? Suppose seeing you sets him off again? Are you willing to accept that responsibility too?”
Now it was Karen’s turn for silence, but the echo of the question lingered.
“Why did Griswold call you first instead of me?” Karen said finally.
“Because I’ve been seeing Bruce all along, and he wanted my opinion before going ahead.”
“And you gave it to him, didn’t you?” Karen’s voice was almost a whisper. “You told him you didn’t think Bruce was ready to see me.”
“I told him the truth,” Rita said. “I told him that in my opinion he’d be taking a big risk in bringing you face to face with Bruce this way, without any advance warning. He said he’d think it over.”
“Then when he called me today it meant he’d made up his mind.” Karen rose. “If he’s willing to take the chance, so am I.”
“It’s not you and Griswold who’ll be taking the chance,” Rita said. “It’s Bruce. Can’t you see that?”
Karen started to move towards the doorway and Rita stood up quickly, intercepting her, strong fingers digging into Karen’s arm. “I’m warning you—stay away from my brother—”
Karen jerked her arm free. “He’s my husband,” she said. “And I want him back.”
“No—don’t go—”
Rita’s harsh voice blurred in the drone of the fan as Karen pushed past her and hurried out. Rita made no move to follow, but when Karen slid behind the wheel of the car, she thought she heard Rita call out to her. The sound of the motor made it impossible to hear Rita’s voice, just as the gathering twilight made it impossible to see the expression on Rita’s shadowed face.
Karen wheeled the car around against the dying sunset and drove quickly through the exit gateway, turning right at the street beyond. She headed south, into the dusk.
And now the night came quickly.
CHAPTER 4
The moon was rising over the hills when Karen turned off the highway onto the little side road leading into the forest.
In the distance she caught one last glimpse of the lights of the place where she’d stopped for gas and a sandwich. Then the distant glimmer disappeared. Fog swirled over the winding roadway ahead, and Karen cut her high lights, reducing her speed to a cautious crawl as the car ascended around sudden curves.
There was no traffic here, no sign of habitation in the woods below the hilltops. The moon rose higher, and somewhere far off a coyote paid it a mournful tribute.
The fog was quite thick by the time Karen reached the fork, but she recognized the small, inconspicuous white board sign, lettered Private Road, and turned her wheels to the graveled surface snaking through tall trees.
Somewhere amidst the trees she lost the moon, and now there was nothing but the dim headlights against gray gravel. A pair of tiny yellow eyes glared up momentarily from the roadside ahead, then quickly disappeared into the woods beyond, leaving Karen alone.
Suddenly she came to the high wire fence at the end of the road. It was quite an imposing fence, curving off as the eye could follow on either side of an equally high gate, but Karen sensed its purpose and was not surprised. What did surprise her was finding the gate wide open, and for a moment Karen wondered, until she remembered that her coming was expected.
She drove through the gateway and onto blacktop that wound through the wooded grounds. Then the trees thinned out and she found the moon again, peering down at the shadowy silhouette of the house ahead.
It was something more than a house, Karen acknowledged; whoever built it had realized the dream of a mansion set in solitary splendor. Two-story brick, with an imposing façade, and wings on either side. A millionaire’s home, in the days when a million dollars was still a lot of money.
Now it was a home of a different sort—a rest home, as the polite euphemism has it—and its occupants, while not millionaires, were still far from impoverished. As Karen knew only too well, it took money to become a patient in Dr. Griswold’s private sanatorium. No wonder residence was limited to a half-dozen or so at a time.
Rounding the driveway, Karen pulled up before the front entrance. The house’s silhouette was no longer entirely shadowy; she could glimpse lines of light behind drawn drapes covering the windows—lines which cast a reflection of wire mesh.
Karen opened the car door so that its top-light flooded the interior. For a moment she surveyed herself in the rearview mirror. Hair in place. Makeup fresh—she’d attended to that in the washroom of the cafe. But she did look a bit tired, a bit tense. Ever since leaving she’d made a conscious effort to put the conversation with Rita out of her mind, but phrases still echoed. Suppose he isn’t ready? Suppose seeing you sets him off again? A big risk. I’m warning you—
Well, it still wasn’t too late. She could close the door, turn the car around, head for home. Home? That empty apartment—she’d rattled around in it alone for the past six months, and that was long enough.
Forcing a smile, she got out of the car, walked up to the front door and rang the bell. No one answered.
She pressed the button once more, heard the muffled chime soften into silence. Only a little after nine o’clock—even though she realized the staff was small, surely they couldn’t all be in bed for the night.
Karen reached down to rattle the doorknob and discovered it turning in her hand. The door swung open.
Stepping into the high, dimly lighted hall, she caught a quick glimpse of terrazzo floor, paneled walls and closed doors of dark wood set on either side, a high open staircase ahead. At the foot of the stairs, a floor lamp beside a reception desk. And seated behind it, a woman in a white uniform—the night nurse.
For a moment Karen hesitated, awaiting a greeting. But the nurse said nothing, merely stared at her. As Karen moved towards the desk, she saw that it was more than a stare; the woman was positively glaring at her. Karen found herself forcing the smile as she came up before the desk. The light from the lamp was brighter here, reflecting in the bulging eyes.
The bulging eyes—and the brown cord looped tightly around the woman’s neck—
Karen gasped; involuntarily, her hand swept out to touch the nurse’s shoulder. And the stiffly seated figure fell face forward across the desk.
No point in screaming. No point in reaching for the telephone on the desk, not when the cord had been ripped free and used as a strangler’s noose.
No point in hesitating, either. The time to get out of here was now, with the door still open. Karen turned, and it was then that she saw the smoke.
It curled out and up fr
om underneath the other door, the closed door at the far side of the reception desk. Karen remembered that door from her one previous visit; behind it was Dr. Griswold’s private office.
She moved toward it now, wrenched at the knob, flung the door open wide. For an instant her eyes flickered shut, and then she steeled herself to gaze at what lay beyond the threshold.
With a surge of relief she realized the room was unoccupied—and it was not aflame.
The smoke came from the fireplace in the far wall: the smoke, and the charred, pungent reek of burning paper heaped upon the glowing embers beneath.
There were scraps of paper wadded and discarded all across the carpet, and a score of empty manila folders; more of the same littered the desk top, and a few odd sheets dangled from the open drawers of the metal file-cabinets in the corner of the room.
Now Karen was conscious of another scent—had something been spilled across the contents of the fireplace to start the blaze? Something that wasn’t kerosene or gasoline, something with an acrid stench she couldn’t recognize?
Karen advanced, staring down at the blackened bits of paper that remained. There was nothing to indicate the source of the other odor, the source of the buzzing which sounded faintly but persistently in her ears.
The buzzing—
Karen turned and saw the small door opposite the fireplace, saw the flood of light from beneath it. The buzzing came from behind that door.
Almost before she was consciously aware of her movements Karen was at the door, opening it.
A chair was set in the center of the small, white-walled room; a very special chair with padded arms and headrest, a chair with wiring apparatus extending from it like the threads of a spider web.
Karen recognized it for what it was, a unit set up for electro-shock therapy. The buzzing sound emanated from the cabinet behind it, the cabinet from which the wires sprang. Each wire terminated in electrodes, clamped to the bare skin of the temples and neck and wrists of the figure strapped into the chair. Karen recognized the figure, too.
“Doctor Griswold!”
