by Robert Bloch
The scene of the crime.
For a moment he found himself visualizing that scene: the walls spattered with crimson, the water gushing forth to churn in a pink froth over the naked figure lying sprawled and slashed at the base of the stall. And the other figure standing over it—
But the bathroom was just a three-sided film set, and the figure standing there was Roy Ames.
Ames turned. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Claiborne said. “I called last night. Where were you?”
“Here.” The writer nodded. “That’s right. I always figured security was a farce, but I wanted to prove it. Anybody could climb over the walls. Maybe the fog helped me get away with it, but now I know how easily it can be done. Thank God, Jan canceled rehearsal today.”
“Canceled?”
“I talked to her this morning. She’s still too shook up after last night.”
There was no hint of accusation in Ames’s voice, but Claiborne found himself avoiding his gaze. He really does love her, he told himself. Damn it, why do I keep blundering into other people’s lives?
He glanced up defensively. “We had an argument,” he said. “But I don’t think I upset her that much—”
“You didn’t.” Ames told him about the kitten, and Claiborne listened, his eyes narrowing. Cutting the kitten’s throat. Suddenly he remembered Vizzini and the knives. But why—?
“Now do you see why she’s so uptight?” Ames said.
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“Let me work it out.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“No.” Claiborne shook his head. “Now it’s your turn to listen.”
“Keep talking.”
“I made some calls this noon. First I phoned the security office here, trying to get hold of the man in charge.”
“You’re talking about Talbot.”
“Right. He wasn’t in, but they gave me his home number and I called him there.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I asked about his meeting with Driscoll yesterday, after the fire, and the fingerprints he found on the gasoline can.”
“Did you learn anything new?”
“Several things.” Claiborne nodded, stony-faced. “Talbot didn’t examine that can. He never even came to the studio. He’s been in Vegas since Thursday, just got back this morning.”
“Then what about the set dresser?”
“Lloyd Parsons?” Claiborne spoke slowly. “There’s nobody by that name working here at the studio. As far as Talbot knows, there never has been.”
“So Driscoll did lie.” Ames frowned. “You think he’s covering for Vizzini?”
“Perhaps.” Something was forming now, the pieces were coming together.
“But it sounds crazy—”
“So does that business with the kitten,” Claiborne say. “Maybe it ties in. The blonde girl, a kitten with yellow fur. It could be Jan’s surrogate. That man in the fog—suppose he came after Jan, but Connie’s arrival scared him off. So he killed the kitten instead.”
“Why?”
“Think for a moment.” Claiborne’s voice deepened. “The synonym for kitten is pussy. That’s why it was killed, because that’s what the killer really wanted to do. He stabbed her pussy.”
“Jesus! You really believe Vizzini would do a thing like that?”
“I don’t know.” Claiborne shrugged. “But Norman would.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The first thing is to talk to Driscoll. Do you have his home phone number?”
“Yes, in my office.”
“Then we’ll call from there. This time he can’t wiggle out of it. Either he stops the picture or we go to the police.”
In the shadows beyond the set, a figure stirred.
— 30 —
Police.
Santo Vizzini felt the anger rise within him. It filled his throat, he could taste it on his tongue as he swallowed hard, knowing he must keep silent. Silence had saved him when he came onto the stage and heard the voices, and it would save him now.
He melted back into the darkness behind the side wall of the set as Ames and Claiborne stepped out, moving to the opening at the far end and out onto the studio street beyond.
Then he started after them, halting inside the open doorway to watch as they walked toward the Administration Building. When they disappeared inside, he was free to follow.
The street was empty, and as he entered the building he found the halls deserted. That was good, and now fortune favored him further. The door of Ames’s cubicle was open at the end of the hall, and the office next to it was unlocked.
Vizzini pushed the door open quietly, then positioned himself next to the wall.
Ames was already making the call; his muffled voice sounded at intervals. “No, not on the phone. Look, I’m not going to argue. If you don’t want to hear it, we’ll do our talking to the police.”
That word again. The anger was strong and bitter now.
“You’re damned right I’m serious! It’s up to you—we’re giving you one last chance.”
Anger had a scent, too; no perfume was powerful enough to disguise it.
“What time? You sure you can’t make it earlier? Okay, we’ll be there.”
Ames hung up, and in a moment Claiborne’s voice sounded through the wall.
“What did he say?”
“He’s taking a meeting in an hour—Ruben, Barney Weingarten, some of the people from the New York office. He’ll see us tonight at eight.”
“You’re sure he’ll keep the appointment?”
“He’d better. I think I scared him enough so there’ll be no tricks.”
“All right. I’ve got a date to have dinner with the fellow who runs the motel where I’m staying. If you’ll give me the address and directions, I’ll meet you there.”
Vizzini huddled behind the doorway as the two men came out of the office. They were still talking as they walked down the hall.
“That’s easy. He’s just up the hill on the other side of Ventura. You can take Vineland, then—”
Then they were gone, but the echoes lingered.
Meeting. Eight o’clock. No tricks.
Vizzini’s jaw muscles tightened. There’s been too many tricks already. Jan, canceling rehearsal. Now the business with Driscoll. This time they’d do it, cancel the picture, cheat him out of everything. He couldn’t stop them, too late for that, he was powerless, impotent.
Impotent.
But not with Jan.
Not if he could come up with a trick of his own.
— 31 —
“It’s getting foggy again.” Connie turned away from the window. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“Stop worrying.” Jan picked up her leatherette-bound copy of the script from the table. “I told you what Vizzini said. Paul Morgan’s rehearsing with me. And they’ve tightened security.”
“I don’t understand you.” Connie shook her head. “All afternoon you keep saying you’re through, no more taking chances, it isn’t worth it. But the minute he calls, you start peeing all over yourself, can’t wait to rush down there. Couldn’t you at least have told him to hold it until tomorrow morning?”
“We’ll be rehearsing then too.” Jan reached for her purse and started toward the door. “Don’t you see? This means the picture’s going ahead on schedule.”
Connie opened the door for her, then peered out into the gathering fog. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the car.”
“But it’s right here—” Jan broke off, smiling. “Thanks, hon, I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mind me.” Connie watched Jan slide behind the wheel and switch on the ignition, and raised her voice over its roar. “Just promise you’ll be careful.”
“You too.”
Connie nodded. “Don’t worry, I’m staying put with the doors locked until you get back. And if anything happens—”
“Nothing’s going to happen.” Jan released the brake and backed the car down the driveway. She waved as Connie went inside and closed the door. Then she shifted into low and started down the hill.
The fog was thickening, but Jan drove cautiously and there was no traffic to impede her progress. Most of the hillside residents seemed to be staying home tonight; families entertaining company, kids staying up to watch television. Passing an open garage, she glanced into the lighted interior and saw a potbellied man in a T-shirt, slicing up chunks of firewood with a power saw; a can of beer rested on the bench beside him, and a Rorschach-spotted Dalmatian sat watching as he worked. From behind a window next door came the blare of stereo; somewhat to her surprise, she recognized the final bars of a Strauss tone-poem, Tod und Verklärung.
I don’t understand you, Connie had said.
What was there to understand? Of course she’d been frightened—who wouldn’t be, with some nut running around killing kittens? But that was last night and nothing had happened since, no sign of anything wrong. Things like that went on all the time nowadays, no shortage of sickies around, and yes, you did need to be careful. Only you had to draw the line between caution and overreaction; you couldn’t live your life behind locked doors.
That was what Connie and Roy and Adam Claiborne didn’t seem to understand. She wasn’t going to end up behind one of those locked doors in Saturday-night suburbia. A young matron doing the nervous-hostess routine for the new neighbors from across the street; a harassed housewife warning the kids that the set had to go off promptly at nine-thirty—don’t forget you’re going to Sunday school tomorrow morning; a middle-aged woman darning socks while her old man puttered around the garage with his power tools; a gray-haired widow sitting alone and listening to the stereo. Tod und Verklärung. That was no way to spend your life, waiting for death and transfiguration.
There were other roles to play, and she meant to play them. It was just a question of getting her act together, and that’s what she was doing now. Be a foxy lady.
Vizzini might be a horny bastard, but he wasn’t a fool; now that the film was going ahead, he’d changed his tune. He had too much riding on this picture himself, and he wouldn’t louse up his chances just to make a pass at her. Calling a rehearsal with Morgan proved he meant business.
And he hadn’t lied about security. When Jan drove up to the studio entrance, she saw not one but two men on the gate. The younger guard checked her sticker carefully before lifting the crossbar and waving her forward. As she parked and walked down the street toward Stage Seven, she passed Chuck Grossinger making his rounds, and noted that he carried a revolver in his shoulder holster.
It gave her a comforting feeling; there wasn’t going to be any trouble now. Not tonight, or ever. Let the good times roll—she was up to her lines, ready for what was to come.
Through the fog, she saw that the big sliding doors of the sound stage were closed. In the smaller side doorway ahead, Santo Vizzini stood smiling at her. As she approached, he glanced at his watch.
“Right on time,” he said. “It is a good omen, don’t you agree?”
Jan nodded. She intended to be agreeable, but she’d be careful too. Careful and in control. No sense acting like a scared kitten—
Forget the kitten, she told herself. That’s all over with now.
Vizzini stepped aside and waved her onto the stage.
Then he closed the door.
— 32 —
Claiborne sat in the car, waiting.
Here on the hilltop, the fog was a solid mass. As he stared out across the semicircular driveway, he could scarcely distinguish the outlines of the sprawling structure beyond its borders.
He glanced at his watch. Five after eight. Where was Roy Ames?
Claiborne rolled the window down, listening for the sound of a car approaching, but nothing stirred in the silent street below. After a moment he found himself shivering and he reached out to roll the window back up again.
The thin glass pane provided a barrier against dampness and darkness, but it couldn’t shut out the thought of what the fog might hold. And the thought was colder than fog, darker than night. The thought of Norman prowling, Norman with a knife. He could sense his presence, feel him out there, waiting.
Don’t let your imagination run away with you.
Good advice, but what did it mean? What is imagination, and just how does one distinguish it from thought? And isn’t it just as valid an approach to reality as sensing or feeling? You’re the authority, let’s have some answers.
But he had no answers. After all these years he couldn’t even define his terms, distinguish between allusion, illusion, and delusion.
Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am—what? A rational being? But man isn’t rational; that much his experience had taught him. Man lives by instinct and intuition, and he was no exception. All that his training had done was to give him an esoteric vocabulary. He couldn’t heal himself because he didn’t know himself. Consciousness is all one possesses, and it’s a fleeting phenomenon; we lose it in sleep, alter it with narcotics, distort it through emotional reaction, surrender it completely when stronger forces within ourselves take over. Consciousness is like a pane of window glass—a flimsy protection erected against the fog beyond. But the fog is there always, there and waiting.
Forget theory, forget logic. Try to see what’s hidden in the fog. Claiborne sighed, visualizing last night’s murky mist and the figures it concealed. The kitten cowering under the tree, the man with the knife. Norman, thwarted in his attempt to reach Jan, thrusting his weapon into the kitten instead. And why not? All cats are gray in the dark—
Something thudded against the windowpane. He turned, peering through the glass as a hand drew back to reveal the face behind it.
“Hey, wake up!” said Roy Ames.
Claiborne opened the door and slid out. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said. And at the same time he told himself this proved his point. How easy it was to lose awareness; Ames had driven up and he hadn’t heard him coming. Anyone could have sneaked up on him in the fog, even Norman—
He erased the thought, eyeing his watch. “Eight-ten,” he murmured. “You’re late.”
“Sorry about that,” Ames said.
The night air was clammy; Claiborne turned away and started up the walk to the front door. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s get inside—the least he can do is offer us a drink.”
Ames followed, coming up beside him as he pressed the buzzer and listened to the silvery sound of door chimes echoing from within.
For a moment they stood in the shadows of the darkened stoop. Again, Ames thumbed the buzzer. The chimes echoed obediently, but there was no other response.
“What is this?” Ames muttered. “You think he stood us up?”
“I doubt it.” Claiborne glanced toward the slatted blinds that covered a side window. “There’s a light inside.”
Ames balled his fist and thumped on the door. It moved under the impact, opening inward.
“Unlocked,” he said. “Come on.”
Beyond the door, a spacious two-story entryway faced a white-railed staircase that curved upward against the far wall. Entrances on both sides of the hall blazed with light from rooms beyond.
Roy Ames cupped his hands against his mouth. “Anybody home?”
No reply. But the silence wasn’t total; from the right-hand doorway came a murmur of music.
“Doesn’t hear us,” Claiborne said. “Probably watching television.”
The two men moved to the opening, descending the carpeted steps in the den beyond. But the den had no denizen; on the wall screen, figures flickered and sound surged forth as a symphony orchestra began the final movement of The Pines of Rome.
“Somebody was here.” Claiborne nodded at the chairs grouped around the coffee table in the center of the room, and the clutter of glasses and ashtrays atop it.
“Well, they’re gone now.” Ames glanced past the fog-blurred gl
ass doors and toward a small doorway on the far side of the room. “Maybe he’s in the john—”
But when they crossed over to enter the hall beyond, the bathroom at the left was open and unoccupied. So was the big bedroom opposite it.
Ames peered inside, inspecting the gaudy décor. “How about those mirrors? Place looks like a funhouse.”
Claiborne nodded. Maybe it was a funhouse, but the music rising from the den was inappropriate for such a setting. The ghosts of Roman legions advanced along the Appian Way, their tread a distant thunder in the night.
He was ready to turn back, but Ames started down the hall in the other direction, attracted by a lance of light issuing from the room at the far end. He halted as Claiborne moved up beside him, and together they stared into the kitchen beyond.
Like the other rooms, it was oversized and overly ornate. The caprice of some decorator had dictated the use of an oaken motif from flooring to overhead beams. Wall stove, cupboards, cabinets, enclosed sink, and built-in refrigerator and freezer were encased in dark oak paneling, which absorbed the dim illumination from overhead. In sharp contrast, the array of knives and cutlery hanging from the long rack at the center of the room radiated a dazzling intensity of light.
Blinking at the glittering blades, Claiborne was reminded of the weaponry in the studio prop department. But these knives weren’t props, and neither was the massive solid oak block beneath them.
It was an old-fashioned butcher’s block, big enough to support a quarter of beef, and the cleaver imbedded upright at the far edge seemed more than adequate to do the job. But the job had already been done.
The round blob of bloody meat resting on the butcher’s block was the head of Marty Driscoll.
— 33 —
Santo Vizzini walked Jan to the camper at the far end of the stage, just outside the bath-and-shower-stall set. He mounted the step and opened the door, disclosing the lighted interior.
“Your dressing room,” he said.
Jan peered inside, her face brightening at the sight of the full-size theatrical mirror, the vanity, the couch and armchair, the carpet on the floor.
