by Cave, Hugh
"Lawson is about to lose his job here. He sure will if I have anything to say about it. And Clay is a bad one."
"What could they gain by killing people, Mr. Helpin?"
"They can ruin the condo; that's what they can do. Maybe you've heard how some of our people want to sell but can't find a realtor to handle their apartments."
"Yes, I've heard." Jurzak's face took on a frown. "You say Clay is bad? In what way? I've been told no one knows much about him."
"I know about him. I looked him up."
"Do you always investigate people who buy in here, Mr. Helpin?"
"We don't have to. Most people move in, they tell you about themselves. I didn't hide the fact came from Hollywood and worked in the film industry."
Jurzak's eyebrows went up a little. "Oh? You were an actor?"
The answer came not from Helpin but from his wife, who had stopped working on her needlepoint and was attentively listening. "My husband was a special effects man," she said calmly. "I was the actress."
"You, Mrs. Helpin?" Jurzak was obviously surprised.
"Not one you've ever heard of, I'm sure. Perhaps I might have been, had I kept at it, but I didn't; when I married Carl, he insisted I drop it." Jurzak had the distinct impression she was not happy, now, that she had let her husband persuade her. "Carl worked mostly on science fiction and horror pictures," she said with a shrug, returning to her needlework.
Jurzak looked at Helpin again. "Horror pictures?"
"Yeah. What's happening here would make a good one, don't you think? Maybe I'll try a script and send it to one of my old buddies. That is, if Platt isn't already doing a book about it."
"Tell me about Haydn Clay. You were about to when—"
"I was interrupted. Yeah." Helpin shot his wife a look that promised he would return to her later. "What I was going to tell you is that when I saw Lawson and Clay out there on the lake in a rowboat night after night, I got mighty curious. Oh, sure, they were supposed to have seen a 'gator a while back, and we were supposed to think they were trying to find out where it was holed up. But I didn't buy that. What they were up to had something to do with the killings, I figured."
"So?"
"So I made a point of finding out about Clay's background."
"How did you do that?"
Helpin grinned. "It was easy. He's from L.A. . . . we knew that. All I had to do was call up a buddy of mine there and put him to work. And you know what he came up with? Are you ready for this? Haydn Clay was in real estate out there, and his reputation was none too good. He was even into blockbusting for a while and got himself blacklisted. You know what blockbusting is?"
Jurzak nodded.
"Enough said, then. So now you tell me what Ed Lawson and Haydn Clay are up to when they take a rowboat out on the lake here at five in the morning or after dark. Are you prepared to say they're not up to something shady connected with these killings, so they can give this condo a bad name and Clay can buy it for pennies?"
"I'll look into it," Jurzak said.
Helpin's grin was a twisted thing of triumph. "You do that, buddy. You be sure you do it."
8
Footprints in the Night
At eleven o'clock that night Will Platt finished a three-hour sting at his typewriter and went to the telephone. He dialed Lynne Kimball's number.
"Hello."
"Hello, love. What are you doing?"
"Waiting for you," she said without hesitation. "How's the work going?"
"Finished for now. I'm dripping, though. Need a shower. Then I'll be down."
"I was just about to take a shower myself," she said. "In fact, I'm standing here with nothing on. Why don't you—" Her last three words bumped into his interruption of "Why don't I," and they both laughed. "Two minds with a single sexy thought," she said.
"Correction. A single loving thought. After three hours at the word-machine, sex is the last thing on my mind."
"Hurry down anyway," she urged.
He would be staying in 504 all night, he knew, so before leaving he went through his apartment to be sure the right windows were open to catch the cooling night breeze. And, of course, the sliding glass door to the porch; unless that were left open, most of the lake wind would be walled out. Locking the hallway door behind him, he descended the stairs to the floor below and found Lynne's door ajar.
"Close it, will you?" she called from the larger bathroom, the one with the shower stall. "I'm in here."
He closed it and pushed the button to lock it, then walked to the bathroom intending to kiss her. He had not seen her since sharing a light supper with her at six that evening.
She was adjusting the water, with the upper half of her body inside the curtain. She turned as he entered the bathroom, her shoulders damp from the shower's spray. "I missed you," she said, reaching up to kiss him.
He felt the heat of her body against him and her wet hands pressing against his back under the loose shirt he was wearing. "Just wait, Lynne," he said as he began to shed his clothes, tossing them out of the bathroom onto the hall carpet. When he stepped under the cool water, she followed him. Though they had never done this before, it seemed they both knew instinctively what to do.
He soaped her body and she soaped his, turning the motions into a prolonged caress. It aroused them both. When he went into her she was warm and wet and waiting, and both were oblivious to the water cascading over them. It ended with a quiet meeting of mouths, a stepping back to gaze at each other with new understanding, and her saying at last, in a whisper, "Why didn't we find each other years ago, Will?"
"It wasn't time."
"You really believe that, don't you?" -
He nodded, then drew her close again and held her soapy, slippery body against his own and fitted his lips to hers. This time the kiss went on and on, and they began swaying from side to side together as though hearing a seductive music in the sound of the water.
When he let her go, he said, "All my life, Lynne darling. All my life I've been waiting for someone like you. Do you know I'd even given up thinking about it? Or believing there might be such a woman?"
"We've got something special," she said. "I don't think many people find it."
"Very few."
They stepped out of the shower and dried themselves, pausing every now and then to dry parts of each other. Then they turned out the lights and went to bed. Through the open windows they heard the murmur of the lake lapping the sandy beach, and now and then the breeze rustled the fronds of the palm trees on the lawn.
Will lay on his back and she moved closer to him, resting her cheek on his chest. Her free hand slid down to cover his sex, not teasingly but as though wanting to sleep there. He looped his arm around her and let his fingers lie on her breast.
He began chuckling.
"What's funny?"
"I just thought of a little ditty I heard once in England. Don't know who wrote it or where it came from, but for us it was made to order."
"Tell me," she murmured sleepily.
"Here's to us and here's to Blighty
I in pajamas, you in a nighty
But since we're both a trifle flighty
Why the pajamas, wherefore the nighty?
Twas never intended by God Almighty."
Her laughter tickled his shoulder. "Very nice. I'll bet you wrote it, though."
"I didn't. Honest."
"Well, you should have. Go to sleep now, darling. Night."
"Night, my love. For now."
Will awoke first. Lynne was still in his arms, asleep with her cheek on his chest. Amused, he raised his head enough to look down at her hand, still resting in the same place on his body. The movement waked her and she opened her eyes.
"Hi," she said. "What time is it?"
He raised himself a little more to see the illuminated clock on the chest of drawers beyond the end of the bed. "Three-twenty."
"If it's that late, I need a bathroom."
"You have a built-in alar
m?"
"Something like that. You should know by now."
As a matter of fact he needed a bathroom himself, so while she went to the one off the bedroom they were using, he walked through the living room to the other. When he returned through the living room, he saw her standing on the carpeted veranda, looking out at the lake. Still naked, of course.
For some reason he suddenly remembered he had not seen his wife naked more than half a dozen times in all the years of his marriage.
Joining Lynne, he stood at her side and put an arm around her waist. "What are you looking at?"
"Nothing. It's just so pretty in the moonlight."
The moon was in its first quarter and she was right: the lake in that faint light, barely touched by a breath of breeze, appealed to whatever instinct it was in him that made him enjoy writing tales of mystery and imagination. In the marshy sector just beyond the artificial white sand beach, hundreds of white water lilies seemed to glow in the half light.
In the marsh a frog began grunting. Arms around each other now, they stood by the veranda screen, listening and trying to locate the grunter. A cloud swam under the moon fragment, and the lake became dark for a few minutes. When the light washed over it again, Will said, "Look out there beyond the marsh. The far edge. Do you see something?"
"Like smoke rising."
"Yes, dark smoke. That's what Bee Broderick called it, remember?"
They watched a dark gray shape rise from the water among spikes of pond grass that in daylight were topped with showy blue blossoms. Free of the surface, it floated like a small dark cloud toward the beach. Lynne reached for Will's hand, and her fingers trembled as she clung to it. "Should we stay out here, Will? After what happened to Tom Broderick?"
"Wait."
"But—"
"If it comes this way, we'll go inside and shut the door. Even leave the apartment, if you like." He pressed his face against the screen. "You don't have binoculars, do you?"
She shook her head.
In silence they watched the thing drift toward them, saw it float out onto the sand, which in the faint moonlight was weirdly pale, as though sprayed with off-white paint.
"My God, look," Will breathed.
The amorphous blur was now assuming shape. On the sand now it gathered itself into something nearly human and female, the smoke still swirling and writhing but more real every instant. Then it walked up over the beach and onto the lawn, where it stopped and looked up.
"Can it see us, do you suppose?" Lynne whispered. Will shook his head. "Not without a light on up here."
"But if it can—"
"All right, let's move. God knows what it is or what it can see. Or what it wants." Stepping back from the screen, he drew her with him into the living room and closed and locked the sliding glass door, being careful to make no sound that might reach the senses of the thing below. Then he walked her the length of the living room to the hall door and, without opening the door, said, "Let's wait here a minute."
They stood side by side, naked, watching the veranda. A cloud was passing in front of the quarter moon again, a larger one this time, and the veranda was dark. So was the apartment. Moments passed in silence except for the sound of their breathing, his slow and deep, hers a little faster. He was holding her hand and it felt sticky in his own. Not hot but sticky. He released it.
Just then he thought he saw something, and reached behind him to grasp the doorknob in case they had to flee. What he thought he saw was dark, like the veranda and the night sky beyond the screen, but visible in the way certain moving things—bats, for instance?—could be visible in not quite total darkness. This was no bat, though, unless it was one as large as a human being and able to rise through the night without moving its wings. He doubted his senses as it seemed to float up past the veranda. Most of all he doubted the legitimacy of his feeling that the thing was ugly, evil, and bent on committing some hellish act. Yet the feeling was so strong within him, it chilled his body and made him tremble.
"Lynne," he whispered, "did you see something out there?"
"I think so."
"What in God's name was it?"
"A woman, I think. But not a real one. A shadow of one." She groped for his hand. "Will, yours is the only apartment above this!"
"Wait," he said in a voice only she could hear. "Let's see if it comes back down."
They waited, staring through the glass door at the porch with its outer wall of screening. The moon-sliver reappeared in the sky. The veranda, the screen, the lake became more visible. Ten minutes went by. An ache settled in the calf of his left leg. He leaned over and rubbed it, but still kept his gaze fixed on the veranda.
Suddenly he felt the nearness of something evil again and knew the thing was returning. As it drifted back down into view, he froze in the act of massaging his leg, and Lynne stiffened at his side.
But this time there was no way that it could be considered human—and womanly—in appearance. Swirling, twisting, constantly changing form like a column of dark smoke above an invisible fire, it spiraled swiftly past the porch and was gone.
Will straightened and stepped forward.
"No," Lynne whispered. "No, Will, don't!"
"I just want to see where it goes." Crossing the room, he slid open the veranda door, stepped across to the screen, and peered down. Despite her fear, Lynne came to his side.
The thing had descended rapidly; it was over the water, half way out to the area of reeds and lily pads. And now it was only a shapeless blob.
Could it change shape at will? Assume any form that served its purpose?
Side by side, bodies touching, they watched it hover for a moment over a spot near the center of the marsh and then spiral down out of sight. Like the genie into the bottle, Will thought, staring in fear and amazement at the point of disappearance.
There was a sudden violent swirling of the dark water then, as though on becoming submerged the thing had changed shape again, this time convulsively. The movement was not repeated, and in a moment the lake was as calm as before, shining softly in the moon glow. Will turned away.
"Lynne, I'm going upstairs."
"What for?"
"I left my veranda door wide open."
Will headed for the bathroom hall where his clothes still lay on the carpet. But by the time he was into them, Lynne was dressed too.
"I'm going with you."
"Now wait. All I want is to find out—"
"You're not leaving me alone here, Will Platt. That thing may decide to come back!"
"All right." He steered her to the hall door, glancing at his watch as he did so. They still had not switched on any lights, but the watch had a luminous dial. "Five to four," he said, frowning. "We've been at this for thirty-five minutes."
They climbed the stairs in silence to the floor above. Unlocking the door of his apartment, Will entered first. Sensing no alien presence, he thumbed a light switch.
Then he stood motionless, gazing at the living room carpet.
The carpet here was a good one, pale gold and smooth as a golf-course green. Vicky had picked it out, and she had expensive tastes. On it now were lines of dark wet spots resembling human footprints, blurred at the edges. They ran in all directions from the veranda, where they seemed to have originated.
Their maker had obviously searched both bedrooms, both bathrooms, the kitchen, the study, crossing and recrossing the living room a number of times.
"Will," Lynne whispered behind him, "what—"
"Get out of here!"
"But—"
He turned and made her step back into the hall, where she might have a chance to run from danger. "Wait out here!" he ordered sharply, and shut the door on her. Then, facing the wet footprints again, he walked slowly the length of the living room and out onto the veranda.
The intruder had come through the screen at a point near the middle of the porch, the footprints beginning between a pair of red clay pots filled with sweet basil that even now sce
nted the air with its minty fragrance. But he was aware of another, less agreeable odor, too. A swamp smell. A reek of decaying vegetation.
Squatting on his heels, he pressed his right palm onto one of the soggy spots on the veranda carpet, then lifted the hand and sniffed it.
Was it a swamp smell? All he could be sure of was that it was nothing he had ever encountered before or was anxious to again. It filled him with the same fear, the same sense of the presence of evil, that had seized him when Lynne and he watched the thing on its way up here.
In spite of his fear he made himself explore the apartment, confirming his first belief that the intruder had thoroughly searched it. It was empty now, however, except for those sodden marks of the thing's feet.
Opening the hall door, he drew Lynne in from the corridor and showed her what he had found. "What do you think of the smell?"
She made a face. "It's awful. Will, I think you should call the police."
"No."
"Why not?"
"My God, lady, how can I? Don't you see? I'd have to tell them where I was when this happened, and I'm supposed to be desperately searching for my wife."
After gazing at his troubled face in silence for a few seconds, Lynne reached for his hand. "Let's go back down to my place and talk about it," she said quietly. "Because we have to do something, darling. This horrible thing that killed Connie Abbott and Tom Broderick is after you now. And believe me, I don't want to lose you."
BOOK TWO
The Sorceress
9
"I'll Turn You into Dirt!"
He had not told Lynne Kimball the whole truth about Jamaica. Perhaps he never would. Certainly he had not told the people of Lakeside Manor. They took it for granted he had gone to the island to do a book. However, with a long novel just completed and in the hands of his agent, he was under no pressure to work his head off. What he wanted to do was work on a solution to the ever more acute Vicky problem. Then came the phone call from Sam Norman.
