by Fritz Leiber
He inspected it minutely, then laid it down on the newspapers.
He took off his coat and looked it all over, particularly the sleeves. He frowned, soaped a washrag, and rubbed one of the cuffs. Likewise he inspected his trousers and shirt.
He took off his shoes and carefully rubbed them all over, including the soles, with the washrag.
He looked over his hands, and bare arms inch by inch. Then he critically studied his face in the mirror, twisting it this way and that.
Katherine swayed. Her wrist knocked the wall. He jerked around, tense, on guard. She went toward him, taking short unsteady steps. "Don," she gasped out, "what have you done?"
There came over his face a look of utter tiredness and apathy. He blinked his eyes flickeringly.
"I did what you wanted me to," he said dully, not looking at her. "I got rid of Wenzel. He'll never trouble you again."
Her gasps formed the words. "No. No."
He lifted his hand toward her. "Dave Wenzel is dead, Katherine," he said very distinctly. "I have finished off Dave Wenzel forever. Do you understand me, Katherine?"
As he spoke the words, the wild tiredness seemed to drain from his eyes, to be replaced (as if he had spoken words of exorcism) by a clear steadiness that she hadn't seen in them for weeks.
But Katherine was no longer just looking into his eyes. The clarity between them had seeped into her mind and she was thinking. Who was Dave Wenzel? I never heard the doorbell the first time. It never rang. Don Junior didn't see him go, Miss Korshak didn't see him come, Carleton Hare never saw him. I never saw his shadow, I never heard his voice. Don broke the window with the chair, and – the knife is unstained.
There never was a Dave Wenzel! My husband was hounded by an imaginary man – and now he had exorcized him by an imaginary murder.
"Dave Wenzel is dead," Don repeated. "He had to die – there was no other way. Do you want to call the police?"
She slowly shook her head.
"Good," he said. "That leaves just one more thing, Katherine. You must never ask me about him: who he was or how he died. We must never talk about him again."
Again she slowly nodded.
"And now," he said, "I'd like to go to bed. I'm really quite tired." He started toward the bedroom.
"Wait, Don," she said uncertainly. "The children–"
He turned in the bedroom door. "–are at Aunt Martha's," he finished for her, smiling sleepily. "Did you think I'd forgotten that, Kat?"
She shook her head and came toward him smiling, glad in the present, choking down the first of the thousand questions she would never be able to ask him.
A VISITOR FROM BACK EAST
DEAR JOE ... How is sunny Cal? You got the laugh on us here in snowy Chi. Your new canyon home as they called it looked very sharp in the Sports Gazette picture. Give my regards to the sucker gamblers and slots addicts who paid for it. It will sure impress your new girl friends and you will have fun with them there, won't you, Joe?
The Jag in the picture looked sharp too. But don't drive it too fast on those switchback canyon roads. You never were as hot a driver as you thought you were Joe and we are all getting older. Yours truly has given up stock car racing. Getting much too rough for this old girl.
And you looked sharp too Joe. Only thinner and a little older like I said. Take care of your nerves Joe. As you know better than anybody some people have weaker nerves and brains than others but even the strongest crack if they're not careful. Hey Joe you're getting a lot darker like all old guys like you. I'm just kidding Joe I know it's the sun bathing. And you're not ole Joe just mature.
That's enough chatter for this letter. I'm writing to tell you Eleanore died yesterday. The funeral will be from the mental hospital tomorrow. She would want it that way having been four years in the place. Also by her wish she'll be buried in that white leather coat you gave her. That was the only money you ever spent on her wasn't it Joe? She even had to pay for her abortion.
It was nephritis. My little sister passed away in great pain but she talked about you to the end in her cuckoo way. She said to me Marge don't let Joe past the door I haven't my face on. As if you'd come anywhere near her. She did look a slob poor Nore. Even if loonies try to dress nice it looks wrong on them and she never cared except for always wanting to wear your white leather coat even to meals and bed when they'd let her. You remember how much time she spent on her lovely blonde hair Joe? Well it got to look like a big rat's nest. And she'd got very fat these last months and the nephritis didn't help. Who'd expect it too?
I was with her all the time at the end. She always would mind me when I was around. Too bad I was away on the racing circuit when you got at her but that's the way things happen.
Once she reached her hand out of bed and said Give this diamond to Joe to remember me by. It was just a hunk of coal and I told her so. I don't know how she got it. She said It's a diamond that didn't get squeezed enough. Makes sense when you think of it. Funny. I took it out with me when I went back to the motel at Cargo that night and I threw it in a ditch because I know you're not sentimental Joe.
Just before she went she said When I get to heaven I'm going to hit the first beauty parlor and stay there till Joe comes. For his sake I'll have them fix me up just like I was.
I don't know about heaven but I don't think the makeup man at Cargo will be able to do much for her before they plant her.
I stayed with her all last night after she went. They tried to put me out but you know me Joe stubborn. Just before morning she belched and tried to sit up like she had remembered some unfinished business or maybe just wanted to go to the bathroom. The guard said they all do it rigor mortis. It would make some people wonder but we aren't superstitious are we Joe?
Yours truly,
MARGE DOVGARD
P.S. There's one thing about your new canyon home Joe it looks lonely. I'm not thinking of you Joe you never did want people around unless you had a use for them business or pleasure but I'm thinking of the new girls especially the flippy ones.
I know your tastes Joe you've always had a weakness for the ones with weak minds because they're easier to get into bed and then boot out the door. Don't scare them Joe go easy on them and at least help them with their abortions. Remember Nore and try to be halfway decent Joe you've got the money now. Well I'll quit preaching.
JOE GRIMALDI grinned as he crumpled the three closely written pages into a ball and pitched it across the black slate flagstones into the crackling fire. It tipped the top of the chain-net curtain but still went in, like what he'd learned at the tennis club to call a let service.
He was glad now that he hadn't scaled the envelope into the flames unopened, as he'd been tempted to do when he saw the return address. Marge had been writing him for three years to give him the latest disgusting dope on Eleanore, trying to rub his nose in it because she'd got the crazy idea he was responsible, but this time Marge had really had something to report.
It sure set him up to know that Nore had finally popped off. No man with any feelings likes to think of a girl he's actually made love to drooling around some asylum, a big fat slob. Why, there had been times when some hot little sexpot's squeal had reminded him of Nore and taken away half the pleasure for him. Now that wouldn't happen any more. And of course it was better this way for Nore too.
A funny gal, Marge – a little toughie when she was under the roll-bar of a stock car and with an eye for the boys too then, but a sanctimonious resentful old battleaxe where her little sister had been concerned. Not that Marge had been any bigger than Nore or more than a couple of years older, but she'd always been the boss – when she'd been around.
Sharp too. That crack about his tastes hadn't been so far off, though not for the reasons she gave. He always had gone for the babes with sketchily furnished top stories -it somehow made them cuter; you itched to rough them up and make those baby eyes widen.
But Marge had a hell of a nerve saying he hadn't helped on Nore's abortion. Why,
he'd given Nore the phone number and the password! And gin on the rocks had had more to do with Nore going batty than any part of her love life.
Nore had been a sweet kid, though, before she'd gone off her rocker. And to think that she'd stayed nuts about him to the very end. It sure bucked a man up to hear something like that. Joe Grimaldi smiled and for a moment his eyes grew dreamy.
Nore was no more good to anyone now, though. He checked the postmark on the envelope – yep, she'd been under the ground a whole day already. He rolled the torn envelope into a smaller ball and pitched it after the letter. It cleared the net and fell in the backhand corner of the blaze – a service ace.
That evening Joe got a long-distance call. From Springfield Missouri the operator said, but the connection was bad and he heard nothing but a sort of wailing, like a wind in the wires. Before he could get the operator to fix it the party making the call hung up. Joe often got long distance calls, not all of them completed. He thought nothing of it.
But the next night, as he was having himself a lonely highball in front of the fire, he got another. It was unusual for Joe to spend two consecutive evenings alone, but the babe he'd been all set to push over – a lovely little dimwit with lots of money and a taste for Benzedrine – had called him at the last minute to tell him that her father and mother had unexpectedly descended on her from San Francisco and she simply had to spend one evening with them to pamper their parental anxieties, and would Joe wait until tomorrow night please?
Joe had said yes grudgingly and then after mature consideration had decided he didn't want to bother ringing Agnes and having her send a girl to fill in.
This long distance call was from Amarillo, Texas, and it was exactly like the other one – just a lot of wailing and sobbing on the wire, followed by the party hanging up. And maybe – only maybe – in the middle of the sobbing a girl crying, "Joe! Joe!" in a voice like Nore's – not that every other fading sexpot Nore's age didn't have the same voice from imitating the same movie queen.
Hell, he wouldn't even have thought of Nore except for the letter that had come from Chicago that morning – right next to the classy heartwarming invite to become a senior lifetime member of the tennis club. There hadn't been anything in the Chicago envelope but a torn-out column of death notices with one circled with black grease pencil. The fine print had read:
DOVGARD, Eleanore, beloved sister of Marge. Cargo Mortuary, Cargo, Ill. Private
That bitch Marge was still trying to rub it in.
He got out a road map. Yep, Springfield and Amarillo were both on Route 66 and at about the right distances for stops one and two in a four-day drive from Chicago to L.A. Let's see, stop three would be Flagstaff, Arizona, most likely. But what the hell, it was only in corny horror films that crazy women walked out of mortuaries or clawed their way out of graves with the dirt cascading off their prize white leather coats and got into the nearest unlocked empty car and headed west.
Joe Grimaldi displayed both his fair-mindedness and his complete lack of superstitious fear by laughing at himself. The laughter was quite loud, bouncing back and forth hollowly between the black fireplace and the view window that opened on a dark downward slope studded with pale gray rocks that loomed like ghosts when the moon was shining.
He started to crumple up the roadmap and pitch it in the fire, but decided that would be attaching too much importance to the coincidence.
The next evening he was alone and seething a bit. His lovely little dimwit had called him up to say that her folks were still on her neck, acting like they'd got the wind up about something. But she'd ditch them tomorrow for sure and be very nice to Joe if he'd just forgive her for standing him up again and if he'd have some bennies for her. Joe had grumbled at that and made her crawl and promise a bit more before finally agreeing. Once more he stubbornly decided against a call girl, telling himself it sometimes did a man good to wait a night or two.
The phone rang as he seethed. It was Flagstaff, Arizona. This time there wasn't any wailing on the wires, just the dial tone. Apparently the other party had hung up immediately.
It was more than Joe could take. He talked to the operators and put in a long distance call to the pay station from which the broken-off call had originated. He got tavern sounds and the voice of a hard-boiled babe.
"Look, mister, I don't know about no phone calls. It's not my job to watch this booth. Mister, there's been fifty guys in and out of here just in the last ten minutes. I'm being paid to wait on them, I got no time to watch them.
"Mister, there hasn't been a woman in here all night – except for one fat old bag in a dirty white leather coat. You wouldn't be interested in her – nobody would. She looked terrible. I asked her if she was sick and she said yes, and ordered gin on the rocks–"
Joe poured himself four fingers of aquavit and then threw it in the fireplace and laughed loudly at himself and his moment of panic as the flames blazed up wildly.
As the next evening closed down, Joe Grimaldi was alone again at his new canyon home. A man less able to laugh at himself would probably have been somewhere else.
The evening had not started pleasantly. The dimwit had called to say that her parents had her locked in a hotel room and they were going to have her committed for her drug habit and would Joe break in and rescue her and remember to bring some bennies along for the love of God.
She knew Joe could get away with it she had said, because her parents were so scared of him they were thinking of going to the police about him. Joe had told her to go to hell and suggested that the quickest route out was out of the window.
Then he'd rung Agnes and after she'd told him that the first three girls he mentioned weren't available tonight for home calls, he'd bawled the hell out of her too, and told her to get at least one of the trio to him if she valued the reputation of her service. Then he'd slammed down the phone before she could say anything.
At that point he almost decided to drive into town. He stepped out into the car port and stood by his pale yellow Jag, weighing his desire against his stubbornness. The brief California twilight was almost over, and the rock-studded hills around him stood out spectrally in a faint yellow light.
With the faintest sigh of rubber on asphalt or perhaps with no sound at all, a big car came gliding down the dark gray two-lane road that circled downward in a seaward direction from the nearby crests past Joe's narrow terrace. It was one of those black, seven-passenger cars that Joe had been recently told were smart second-hand buys if you could stand their looks, because they'd never been driven at more than twenty miles an hour, ferrying relatives of the deceased from some mortuary to some cemetery and back again.
The funeral car seemed to be coasting, out of gear, motor off, but swiftly gathering speed as it approached the jutting shoulder of rock and the low fence of stout white posts and white-painted steel cable that marked the first of a half dozen hairpin turns.
Joe could see no one behind the wheel – no one in the car at all – as it disappeared behind the shoulder. He waited for the thud-scrape of it hitting the cables and maybe for a series of diminishing crashes as it went over the cliff. But there was no sound at all. He dug a finger in his ear and shook his head.
As if by some instantaneous chemical reaction the faint yellow drained out of the air. Joe got in his Jag and sat there for ten seconds, his finger over the starter button, and then he got out again and went back in the house. He expressed his reaction with harsh peals of laughter, but they changed to a choking fit. This time he didn't throw the aquavit in the fire.
He went to bed rather early that night and blacked out almost at once, remembering before that, however, to pull the curtain across the one tiny window and double-lock the door that opened on the side patio.
A series of dark wind-filled nightmares were finally succeeded by an extremely satisfying dream in which Joe sat wagging a pointer behind a teacher's desk in front of a classroom of big girls, including the dimwit and Agnes' trio, who were wearing little
girl dresses. He had set six of them the task of writing on the blackboard a hundred times, "I Will Do Everything Joe Grimaldi Tells Me." He studied their six cute behinds as they laboriously copied and re-copied the letters.
Joe woke up. The dream lingered while in the dark bedroom, then faded. The squeak and scrape of chalk changed to the dragging of fingernails across the screen of the little window.
In the mood in which the dream had left him Joe was sure it must be one of Agnes' trio or maybe even the dimwit. He grabbed the flashlight, stepped quietly across the room, jerked aside the curtain and shot the light through the 18-inch opening into the face of Eleanore Dovgard.
She looked as beautiful as he ever remembered her, just a trace thinner and with the faintest of dark smudges under her wide gray eyes. Her lovely hair, beautifully dressed, was like a turban of spun silk, ghostly in its fineness. The upturned leather collar brushing her chin glistened whitely.
She showed no surprise at the light but pleaded softly, "Joe, oh Joe, let me in. I've made myself beautiful for you, Joe, but I don't know how long I can hold it. Quick, Joe."
Joe Grimaldi was above all else a practical man, even in his reactions to the supernatural – which up to this point in his life had been a meaningless term. The girl outside the window was a beautiful dish and he was still very close to his dream. Analyzing was for dopes who didn't know how to grab opportunity.
"Just a second, Nore, I'll have the door open," he said as he moved to it.
He was slow on the double lock and as it yielded she pushed her way through. He ran the flashlight up her body – and writhed backward from her.
The stinking thing that had pushed through the door was so grossly fat the soiled leather coat covered only the back of its shapeless dress. The face was puffy and yellow white and streaked with dirt. The hair was a rat's nest.
"I couldn't hold it, Joe," the thing croaked, pawing at him frantically. "Love me, Joe, so I can come back."
