Nightmare Alley

by William Lindsay Gresham

  BEYOND the garden wall a row of poplars rustled in the night wind. The moon had not risen; in the gentle darkness the voice was a monotonous, musical ripple, as soothing as the splash of a fountain.

  “Your mind is quiet … a lamp in a sheltered corner where the flame does not flicker. Your body is relaxed. Your heart is at peace. Your mind is perfectly clear but at ease. Nothing troubles you. Your mind is a still, calm pool without a ripple …”

  The big man had a white scarf knotted around his neck and tucked into his tweed jacket. He let his hands lie easily on the arms of the deck chair; his legs in tawny flannel trousers were propped on the footrest.

  Beside him the spiritualist in black was all but invisible under the starlight.

  “Close your eyes. When you open them again, stare straight at the garden wall and tell me what you see.”

  “It’s faint—” Grindle’s voice was flaccid and dreamy. All the bite had gone out of it.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s growing clearer. It’s a city. A golden city. Towers. Domes. A beautiful city—and now it’s gone.”

  The Rev. Carlisle slipped back into his pocket a “Patent Ghost Thrower, complete with batteries and lenses, to hold 16 millimeter film, $7.98” from a spiritualists’ supply house in Chicago.

  “You have seen it—the City of Spiritual Light. My control spirit, Ramakrishna, has directed us to build it. It will be patterned after a similar city—which few outsiders have ever seen —in the mountains of Nepal. I myself was permitted to see it under Ramakrishna’s guidance. I was teleported physically to the spot. I was leaving the church one snowy night last winter when I felt Ramakrishna near me.”

  The tycoon’s head was nodding belief.

  “I was walking through the snow when suddenly the street vanished; it became a stony mountain path. I felt light as air but my feet seemed heavy. That was the altitude. Then, stretching below me in a little valley, I saw the City—just as you have described your vision of it a few moments ago. And I knew that it had been revealed to me for a purpose. Once this realization dawned on me the mountains, the rugged outline of bare peaks and glaciers, softened. They seemed to close in and I was back on the doorstep of the Church of the Heavenly Message. But there, stretching away up the sidewalk, were my own tracks of a few minutes before! A few yards farther on they stopped. I had dematerialized when I reached that spot.”

  Grindle said, “A wonderful experience. I’ve heard of such experiences. The holy men of Tibet claim to have them. But I never thought I’d ever meet a man who had reached such psychic heights.” His voice was humble and old and a little foolish. Then he started up from his chair.

  A vague light had drifted past on the garden wall. It had the shape of a young girl.

  The medium said, “You must relax. No tension. All receptivity —all love.”

  Grindle settled back.

  The sky clouded over; the darkness deepened. This time he did not stir but said hopefully, “I—I think I see something, out there by the sundial. Something moving—a spot of light.”

  It was true. By the shadows at the base of the sundial was a spot of greenish light. Expanding slowly, it moved toward them, a cloud of glowing vapor taking form.

  This time the industrialist sat up in spite of Stan’s reproving hand on his wrist.

  The apparition drifted closer until they could see that it was a girl, dressed in shining garments which floated about her like a mist. Her dark hair was bound by a tiara in which seven bright jewels shone by their own cold light. She seemed to move a few inches above the ground, drifting toward them down a breath of night wind.

  The believer’s voice had become a feeble, despairing whisper. “Dorrie—Could it be Dorrie?”

  “My dear …” The materialized form spoke in a voice which seemed part of the garden and the night. “It’s Dorrie. But only for a moment. I can’t stay … it’s hard … hard to come back, darling.”

  The Rev. Carlisle’s hand tightened on the older man’s arm; but the clergyman himself seemed to have passed into a deep trance.

  The ghostly figure was fading. It receded, lost outline, sank into a single dot of green glow and then vanished.

  “Dorrie—Dorrie—come back. Please come back. Please—” He was on his knees now by the sundial, where the light had disappeared. His broad stern in the tawny slacks was toward Stan, who could have planted a kick right in the middle of it.

  Grindle knelt for several seconds, then got to his feet heavily and dropped back into the deck chair, covering his face with his hands.

  Beside him the Rev. Carlisle stirred and sat up. “Was there a full materialization? I ‘went under’ very rapidly. I could feel the force leaving me as the light grew. What happened?”

  “I—I saw an old friend.”

  Molly was so happy she could cry. It had been a long time since they’d had anything like a holiday together. Stan had been acting so screwy she was afraid he was living on Queer Street. And then, all of a sudden, these three days—just driving anywhere, stopping at chicken-dinner shacks and roadhouses. Dancing and, in the daytime, going for a swim wherever a lake looked good. It was heaven; she got sad thinking about going back to the flat and starting all over again, doing nothing, just waiting for Stan to come home or something.

  Stan was still awfully jumpy and sometimes you’d talk to him and he’d seem to be listening and then he’d say, “What was that, kid?” and you’d have to go through it all over again. But it was great to be getting around like this.

  Stan looked nice in a bathing suit. That was something to be thankful for. Some guys were sweet guys but too skinny or with a pot. Stan was just right. She guessed they were both just right by the way other fellows ran their eyes over her chassis when she stepped out on a diving board. What hippos some girls her own age turned out to be!

  The Great Stanton pulled himself out of the water and lay beside her on the float. They had the lake all to themselves except for some kids at the other end. He sat looking down at her and then leaned over and kissed her. Molly threw her arms around him. “Oh, honey, don’t ever let anything bust us up, honey! All I want is you, Stan.”

  He slid his arm under her head. “Baby, how’d you like to do this every day in the year? Huh? Well, if this deal goes over we’re set. And every day is Christmas.”

  Molly had a cold, sinking feeling inside her. He had said that so many times. Once it was “Get the house away from old Mrs. Peabody.” Always something. She didn’t really believe it any more.

  He felt her go limp. “Molly! Molly! look at me! Honest to God, this is the thing I’ve been building toward ever since I started in this racket. I’ve run myself almost into the nut college building the guy. My foot’s never slipped yet. And if you think that guy is easy to handle—”

  She pressed her face against his chest and began to cry. “Stan, why do we have to be this way? He seemed like a nice sort of old guy—from what I could tell in the dark up there. I felt like an awful heel, honest. I don’t mind taking some guy that thinks he’s wise and is trying to be a cheater himself—”

  He held her tighter. “Molly, we’re in this deeper than you have any idea. That guy has millions. He has a whole private army. You ought to see that joint in Jersey. It’s like a fort. If we step on the flypaper from now on they’ll turn that bunch of private cops loose on us like a pack of bloodhounds. They’ll find us no matter where we scram to. We’ve got to go into it all the way. I’ve put him in touch with his girl that died when he was a kid in college. He wants to make it up to her somehow. Money doesn’t mean anything to that guy. He’s willing to give anything—just to get square with his conscience. He’s overboard on the spook dodge. He’s letting his business run itself. He’s living on Dream Street.”

  Stan had straightened the girl until she sat on the edge of the float, her feet in the cool water. He took both her hands. “Baby, from now on it depends on you. Whether every day is Christmas and I can get my nerves back in shape and ac
t like a human being—or whether the wolves start howling for our blood.”

  Molly’s eyes were big now and Stan bored in.

  “Now, look. This is what we’ve got to do.”

  When she had heard it she sat for a moment with her hair falling over her face, looking down at her bare thighs and the bright yellow of the bathing suit. She ran her hands slowly from her crotch down to her knees. They felt cold and the water was cold around her feet; she raised them and drew them up, leaning her head on her knees, not looking at the man beside her.

  “That’s how it is, kid. I’ll make it up to you. Honest to God, baby. Don’t you see—this is the only thing that can put us back together again?”

  Suddenly she stood up, throwing her hair back. Her fingers trembled as she drew on her cap. Then, without looking at him, she dived from the float and set out for the dock. Stan was churning the water with his legs, trying to overtake her. She reached the dock and raced up the ladder with him close behind. When they got to the cabin he bolted the door.

  Molly whipped off her cap and shook out her hair. Then she slipped the bathing suit down and left it on the floor in a sodden pile, stepping out of it. Stan watched her, his heart thumping with anxiety. Now.

  She said, “Stan, take a good look. Make believe you never saw me undressed before. I mean it. Now then, tell me, if I—if I—do it—will I look any different? To you?”

  He kissed her so hard that her lip began to bleed.

  Lilith opened the door for him and they went into her office. She sat behind the desk, where the contents of a tray of star sapphires lay spread out on a square of black velvet. She tumbled them back into the tray and swung out the false drawer fronts on the right-hand side of the desk, revealing the steel door of a safe. She put the gems away and spun the dial twice, then closed the panel and took a cigarette from the box on her desk.

  Stan held his lighter. “She’s hooked.”

  “The virtuous Molly?”

  “Sure. It took some selling but she’ll play ball. Now let’s lay out the moves from here on in. I planted the City of Spiritual Light with him just before the first full-form job in the garden up at his place. Next séance, we’ll start warming him up to the idea of kicking in some dough.”

  Stan had brought with him a portfolio. He drew the tapes and opened it, laying an architect’s drawing before the woman who claimed to be a psychiatrist.

  A bird’s-eye view of a dream city, clustered about a central tower which rose from the desert amid a circling park of palms.

  “Very pretty, Reverend.”

  “There’s more.” He lifted out the drawing. Beneath it was a Geodetic Survey map of an Arizona county. Drawn in red ink and carefully lettered was the location of the City.

  Lilith nodded. “And this is the spot where you are going to take off into thin air? That’s very well thought out, darling.” She frowned, looking at the map. “Where are you going to hide the second car?”

  “I’m going to leave it somewhere in this jerk town, marked over here.”

  “No good, darling. It must be hidden out of town—somewhere in the desert. Let’s go through it again. You go out by train; you buy a car in Texas and drive into this town of Peñas, where you put it in a garage. Then you hire a car in Peñas. You drive your new car outside the town and park it. You walk back, pick up the hired car, go to your own car, tow it to the snot near the site of the City and hide it well and drive back to Peñas in the hired car. You come back here by train. Correct?”

  “Right. Then when we get ready to blow I drive out there, telling him to follow me in a day or two. I drive my car out to the site of the City and just off the highway. I get out, walk a hundred yards straight into the sand, then backtrack to the car, and from there follow the rock to the highway; hike on up the highway and pull out the new car. And drive like hell back east. And I’ve disappeared in the middle of the desert. He’ll come along, following this map, and find the car. He’ll follow the footprints—and blam! Gone! And me carrying all that dough. Ain’t it a shame?”

  She laughed softly at him over her cigarette. “It’s complicated, Stan. But you’ll probably be able to get away with it. I believe you could make a living selling spiritualism to other mediums.”

  “Say!” He leaned forward, his eyes narrow, thinking quickly; then he relaxed and shook his head. “No go. It’s peanuts—they never have any real dough. Industry is the only place where dough is any more.”

  She looked back at the idealized drawing of the City of Spiritual Light. “There’s one thing, Stan, that I wish you’d tell me.”

  “Sure, baby.”

  “How did you move that precision balance out at his factory?”

  The Rev. Carlisle laughed. It was something he very seldom did; but now he laughed in a high key and was still bubbling when he spoke. “I’ll tell you, doctor, as soon as we’ve got the chump cleaned. It’s a promise.”

  “Very well. It was probably something ridiculous.”

  Stan changed the subject. “I’ll get busy this week and rent a shack jammed right up next to his estate.”

  Dr. Lilith was filing a thumbnail. “Don’t be so dramatic, darling. Yonkers is good enough. I agree that it should be in Westchester. The City of Light location will spread any hue and cry out in the southwest. But I don’t think there will be any hue and cry. However, he may take the matter up with this Mr. Anderson. Don’t forget that he has some very shrewd men working for him. Mr. Anderson would try to outthink you. He knows he is dealing with an ingenious man. He would start his hunt for you on his own hook, and it would begin at the country place and fan out from there. No. Yonkers is neither here nor there.” She dropped the nail file back into the drawer. “How are you going to brush off the faithful Penelope?”

  “Molly?” Stan was pacing the room, his hands in his pockets. “I’ll give her a couple of grand and tell her to meet me some place in Florida. All she needs is a few bucks and a race track to keep her happy. She’ll be in a daze as long as the dough holds out. If she wins a little she’ll forget the day of the month and everything else. When she’s broke she can go back to the carny and work the Ten-in-One. Or get a job as a hat check somewhere. She won’t starve.”

  Lilith stood up and came over to him, stretching tailored gray arms up around his neck and giving him her mouth.

  They swayed for a moment and Stan rubbed his cheek against the smooth hair. Then she pushed him away. “Run along, Reverend. I’ve a patient due in five minutes.”

  When Grindle got to the church he found the Rev. Carlisle in his study upstairs. On the desk, spread out under the lamp, were letters with currency clipped to them. Stan picked up one which held a ten-dollar bill and read aloud: ‘ “I know the wonderful future which the City holds for us all in the line of a pooling of our spiritual forces. What a joy it will be when our friends and loved ones in spirit life can be with us as often as we wish. God bless you, Stanton Carlisle.’ Well, the rest of it is of no consequence.” He smiled at the ten-spot. “It’s very touching, Ezra, some of the letters. Many of them are from uneducated people—yet their faith is so pure and unselfish. The City will be a dream come true. They should thank Ramakrishna, though, for everything I do is done with the hand of that great spiritual leader on my shoulder.”

  Grindle sat staring at the ember of his cigar. “I’ll do my share, Stanton. I’m pretty well fixed. I’ll do what I can. This idea of pooling all the spiritual power in one spot makes sense to me. Same as any business merger. But my part isn’t easy: I’ve built such a wall around myself that I can’t get out any more. They’re all devoted, loyal people. None better. But they won’t understand. I’ll have to think of some way …”

  While the turntable revolved Stan leaned over the machine with a clothesbrush, keeping the blank record clear of acetate threads cut by the recording needle. Suddenly he raised the needle arm, tore the record from the turntable and slung it into a corner. “God damn it, kid, you’ve got to sound wistful. The dame and
the old guy can be together forever, frigging like rabbits, only he’s got to help the church build this City. Now take it again. And get in there and sell it.”

  Molly was almost crying. She turned back the pages of her script and leaned closer to the mike, watching Stan put on a new record blank.

  I can’t act. Oh, golly, I’ve got to try!

  She started to cry, forcing the words out between catches of her breath, struggling through it and winking so she could still read the script. Toward the end she was crying so hard she couldn’t see it at all and ad-libbed the rest. She was waiting any minute for Stan to blow up and bawl her out, but he let it ride.

  When she was through he raised the recording arm. “That’s the stuff, kid—plenty of emotion. Let’s listen to it.”

  The playback sounded awful, Molly thought. All full of weepy noises and gasps. But Stan was grinning. He nodded to her and when he had heard it all he said, “That’s the stuff, kid. That’ll shake him loose. You wait and see. You think that sounds corny? Forget it. The chump’s overboard. I could roll up my pants legs, throw a sheet over me, and he’d take me for his long lost love. But we’re going to need one circus to nail him to the cross.”

  Moonlight struck through fern leaves in the conservatory; the rest of the church was in darkness. The minutes slid by—twenty of them by Stan’s luminous-dial watch. He shifted his feet and found the floor board by the organ.

  A tinkle came from the trumpet lying on the lectern, across the Bible. Grindle leaned forward, clenching his fists.

  The trumpet stirred, then floated in air, moonlight winking from its aluminum surface. The chump moaned, cupping one hand behind his ear so as not to miss a single syllable. But the voice came thin and clear, a little metallic.

  “Spunk darling … this is Dorrie. I know you haven’t forgotten us, Spunk. I hope to materialize enough for you to touch me soon. It’s wonderful … that you are with us in building the City. We can be together there, darling. Really together. We will be. Believe that. I’m so glad that you are working with us at last. And don’t worry about Andy and the rest. Many of them will come to accept the truth of survival in time. Don’t try to convince them now. And don’t alarm them: you have some securities—some bonds—that they don’t know about. That is the way out, dear. And let no one know how much you give, for all must feel that the City is their very own. Give your part to Stanton, bless him. And don’t forget, darling … next time I come to you … I shall come as a bride.”