The clouds in Mr Rudge’s mind stormed forwards thick and fast.
They became a tempest.
Two days later Mr Rudge visited the library to do some research.
He was dressed in a bizarre collection of sweaters, jackets, and scarves topped by an overcoat that hung in shreds about his shoulders. He had not shaved, his eyes were vivid red, and there was a ghastly smell about him.
He tottered as he walked, and he tumbled over a chair in the Local History section.
An almost empty bottle of expensive malt whisky slid from his pocket and smashed on the floor as he tried to get up.
To the librarian’s question concerning any assistance she could provide, he gave no reply. He talked to himself, however. As he pulled rare and valuable volumes from the shelves and, after glancing at them, tossed them aside, he was heard to mutter the name Nathan-Dyson again and again. It was a name that the knowledgeable librarian recognised at once.
“We do have books on that subject,” she said, “but not on the open shelves. If you’d like to take a chair and wait, I can get them for you.” She had no intention of doing this. She was going to call the police.
“Get what out?” stormed Mr Rudge. “You won’t get me out! That’s what he wants to do, but he won’t. He wants his old place back, that’s what he’s after, the bastard. And he’s been dead all that time; all those years!”
A couple who knew Mr Rudge slightly, and were aghast at the state he was in, and who happened to be browsing in the library, stepped in to help. They took him by the arms and led him out to their car.
Surprisingly, he offered no resistance.
They drove him home.
They tried to get a social worker to look in on Mr Rudge. They described the conditions he was living in, the chaotic state of his flat, and how foul it smelt in there, but were told nobody would be available to visit him until after Christmas.
On the afternoon of Christmas Eve Mr Rudge, dressed in most of his clothing as he had been for his visit to the library (he kept all his windows open all the time now because of the smell, and it was well below freezing outside), drank the last drop of whisky he had in the house, lurched up out of his chair, and stumbled towards the cupboard under the stairs.
Because his fingers were very cold he had trouble with the catch on the door. When it did lift, and the door flew open, he flicked on the light switch with a jab of the side of his hand, and peered inside through watery eyes.
The big plastic bag was full now.
He had thought once that the cape might have been rotting away in there, and producing a gas. That would account for the swelling and the smell, but gasses cause things to swell like balloons. The bag was full of lumps and bumps and angles. Parts of it moved from time to time.
No, it wasn’t gas.
Mr Rudge looked very sad as he reached out to untie the top of the sack. He sighed as his stiff fingers refused to do their business again, and the job was made even harder because pressure inside the bag had forced the knot tighter.
But, at last, it unravelled, and the top of the bag gaped open.
“Right,” said Mr Rudge, leaning forward to see inside. “Let’s have a look at you.”
And he did get one brief glimpse of a familiar face as the contents of the sack unfolded and extended around him, silently and swiftly.
He seemed to go a very long way in a very short time. When he got to the end of his journey, there was nothing there.
Nothing at all.
When her father did not turn up as expected on Boxing Day, and did not phone her with an excuse, Mr Rudge’s daughter, who worried guiltily about him sometimes, called the Buxton police and asked them to check his flat.
The constable who was sent on the job noticed the open windows and went for a ladder.
He climbed through the window into the stinking rooms. After looking round, he reported his findings back to base.
“It’s a bad one,” he said, in a shocked voice. “There’s a corpse, I think, in a jumbo bin bag. Been dead a while from the stench. Get a team round. As soon as you can. It’s very nasty.”
When the police untied the knot at the top of the plastic sack they discovered Mr Rudge inside. He had been strangled by a yellow cord that was still around his neck. The police believed the cord had been taken from a cape that was discovered hanging on a peg in the hallway; an antique item.
The cape was taken away for use as evidence, but did not prove to be at all helpful in the hunt for the murderer.
The cape’s owner was not much disturbed by his loss. He had no further use for it because, as the unfortunate couple who moved into the flat to replace Mr Rudge some weeks later were to discover, this time he was home to stay.
CHET WILLIAMSON
The Moment the Face Falls
CHET WILLIAMSON’S first story was published in 1981, since when his fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Magazine and many other periodicals and anthologies.
His debut novel, Soulstorm, appeared in 1986, and was followed by Dreamthorp, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Ash Wednesday, Lowland Rider, McKain’s Dilemma and Reign.
Recent projects include an Aliens graphic novel sequence, Music of the Spears, for Dark Horse Comics; Ravenloft: Mordenheim, a gothic horror novel from TSR, and another new novel, Second Chance, from CD Publications.
About “The Moment the Face Falls”, the author explains: “When Robert Bloch asked me to do a story for Monsters in Our Midst, I knew I didn’t want to do a serial killer or anything of that ilk – I guess I thought it would seem presumptuous to try and outpsycho the author of the same! So I decided to make my ‘monster’ one of the quieter types, who gets his jollies off the emotional misery of others.
“I suppose I used a Hollywood setting since Bob’s had so much experience there, and also because it seemed like the perfect place to damage egos, since the ones there are so much larger than in the rest of the world, and are so much more likely to be bruised . . .”
REBIRTH, PAUL KENYON thought. Re-frigging-birth. One call on the phone that hadn’t rung casually in days, warmly in weeks, importantly in years, and suddenly Kenyon’s apartment didn’t look at all like a four-hundred-dollar-a-month rat hole, but like the home of a man the industry still wanted.
“Yes,” he said as he looked at the framed clippings, yellow with age, that hung over his desk.
“Yes,” he said louder as his gaze fell on the poster for Trail Dust, Jimmy Stewart tight-lipped behind his six-shooter, Dan Duryea in the background, clutching a rifle with wicked intent, Jeanne Crain with one hand-tinted glove on Jimmy’s narrow shoulder, and those magic words in small print at the bottom, “Written by Dennis Collins and Paul Kenyon.”
And “Yes,” he said for the third time as he looked at the cover of the June 1954 Screen Stars, from which he and Clare DuPont, his first wife, waved gaily at fans and photographers, two nominees running the gauntlet to where those priceless, golden statuettes would be doled out.
Kenyon stood up and walked across the small room that held everything he owned. He looked at the pulp magazines, the digests, the paperbacks that began in the late fifties and ended just last year. The earliest had his name on the spines, but the later ones, the ones that all looked and read the same, had “Brent Stock” in letters much smaller than the word, Gunman, the appellation of a series hero with a name as simple as his motivations.
Paul Kenyon had been Brent Stock for books number 21 through 47, and number 48, Bloody Gun, was in the typewriter now. Four books a year at four grand each was a living, though not much of one. Enough for rent and food and booze, enough to see some movies to keep up with what was hot, thinking that one day his agent would place a script again, and writing, always writing.
But, he thought as he looked at the piles of pulp, no more of this shit. One call had changed all that.
The caller’s name was Richard Dunne, and he was an
independent producer funded by Paramount. He sounded sharp and savvy, and best of all he wanted Kenyon, actually wanted him.
“It’s an unpublished novel,” he had said on the phone. “Simon and Schuster’s gonna do it, contemporary western, The Big Chill married to Lonesome Dove, got that scope, got the characters. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever read.”
“But . . . why did you call me?”
“Because ever since I was a kid and saw that movie you wrote for Jimmy Stewart – the one Anthony Mann directed – hell, it just knocked me out. The script, well Christ, it’s incredible, but I didn’t realize until I was grown up the script made that movie. You were nominated for it, right?”
“Yes, I – ”
“Shoulda won. Shoulda won hands-down. What won that year anyway?”
“From Here to Eternity.”
“Shit. That screenplay was all over the place. Never focused, too many characters. That Oscar rode in on the others’ coattails. Goddam sweeps. Anyway, you’re the guy I want. It’s a done deal, Costner and Julia Roberts are a go, and Jim Cameron’s just about locked to direct. Now don’t tell me to call your agent, I’ll do that, we don’t have to talk money, money’s the least of the worries, but I want to meet you first, meet the guy who’s given me so damn much pleasure over the years. Okay?”
“Well . . . well, sure.”
“Great. Lunch at Nicky Blair’s. Today. One. Meet you right at the door.”
“Uh . . . sure. Okay. One. At the door.”
When he hung up, Kenyon thought it might be a dream, but he was awake. Then he thought maybe he was drunk and had imagined it all, but his hangover told him otherwise. Finally he thought it might be a joke one of his ex-wives was playing, but since he hadn’t had any contact with the three Norns for six years, he dismissed that as well.
No, it was for real. Somebody remembered. The good work he did nearly forty years before was finally paying off, and what a long, strange trip it had been.
Western movies had started dying when they got big on TV. He had tried to make the transition, but the weekly pressures had been too much for him. And now that he had finally learned to write to deadline, TV westerns were deader than Duke Wayne. His whole career had been a study in frustration. Until now.
Jesus, Costner and Julia Roberts and James Cameron, things were cooking, dammit, cooking. He could pay off his bills, even get back on top again. He thought about calling his agent, but he knew that even if he got through it would be the old Sorry, babe, money’s on the other line, I’ll call you right back, and he never did.
Well, maybe he wouldn’t cut Lou in on this one. Maybe he’d find another agent to handle this deal and just let Lou fuck himself. Maybe he’d do that. But now he had to dress. Had to look good. Had to look like a successful writer that only a wonderful film opportunity could lure out of the ivory towers of fiction. He chose a dark blue suit with broad shoulders, an offwhite shirt, and a bold patterned tie. Looking at himself in the chipped mirror on the closet door, he thought the illusion was satisfactory. He didn’t look like a drunk, and toothpaste and mouthwash assured that he didn’t smell like one.
He knew who Dunne was right away. He wore a standard producer’s uniform – small, round tortoiseshell glasses, a gray Italian-cut jacket, brown campaign shirt, pants so loose they resembled garment bags, and a belt whose array of studs and mesh even Gene Autry in his heyday would have found ostentatious.
Kenyon figured he must have been as easily recognizable, for a smile creased Dunne’s clean-shaven face, and he came up to Kenyon, said, “Paul, right?” and pumped the older man’s hand. The man was younger than Kenyon had thought he would be, probably in his early thirties. His hair was blond and cut short, and he ran his hand through it once, then gestured to the door. “Let’s go.”
Inside, Dunne gave his name, and they were shown to a table near the back. “I like privacy, you know?” Dunne said by way of explanation. “I’m past that ‘gotta be seen’ crap. Besides, I want to talk to you without anybody interrupting us.”
They sat, and Dunne set the box he was carrying on the floor. Kenyon guessed that it contained the manuscript of the novel. Dunne ordered a Saratoga water, then said to Kenyon, “Have something stronger if you want,” but Kenyon just smiled tightly and asked for coffee.
When they were alone, Dunne leaned forward. “Damn, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Paul. You’re really one hell of a screenwriter. What you been doing with yourself?”
Kenyon shrugged. He had known the question would come up. “Semi-retirement. I’ve done a few recent films, but nothing big. Not many westerns anymore.”
“Shame to waste your talent in retirement.”
“Semi,” Kenyon repeated, smiling. “I do the occasional novel.”
“Really? I haven’t seen anything by you.”
“Oh, pseudonymously. I keep Paul Kenyon for film work.”
Dunne grinned, then winked. “Say no more. So. I’m really excited about working with you, my friend. Now, I’m a hands-on guy, so I hope that won’t bother you. I’m good with story, like to see a nice tight arc, and this novel moves around a little too much.”
“From Here to Eternity,” Kenyon said.
Dunne laughed. “Yeah! Yeah, that’s how it goes all right, from here to eternity. I wanta bring it back here, to earth, concentrate on the main characters, zero in, you know?” He reached down and picked up the box, then passed it to Kenyon. “This is it. Guy’s first book, long mother, thousand pages in manuscript. High six-figure advance, you read about it?” Kenyon shook his head. “Guaranteed bestseller. My best D-girl nailed it. She suggested Bob Towne, but when I read it I said fuck him, I know who this is right for if I can find him. So I got your name out of that Films of Jimmy Stewart book, and you’re still in the Guild, so here we are.”
With his thumb Kenyon started to slit the tape that held on the box cover, but Dunne held up a hand. “Ah, read it later. You’re gonna skim a thousand pages before lunch?”
The waiter brought the drinks, and Dunne raised his glass of Saratoga. “Here’s to a profitable relationship, huh?”
“Here’s to it,” Kenyon said, feeling foolish, but lifting his coffee cup anyway, clinking it against the glass.
After they both sipped, Dunne shook his head. “I can’t believe I got you here. That movie of yours just stayed with me, you know? When I was a kid, I used to play that I was Jimmy Stewart, and the bad guy had me and that old prospector pinned down from the cliff? And one of my friends would climb a tree and be Robert Ryan, and I’d sneak up on the other side, and . . .”
Dunne rattled on, but Kenyon didn’t hear it. All he heard was a rushing sound, as if all the blood in his body had suddenly surged into his ears. He didn’t feel the smooth ceramic of the cup in his fingers. All he felt was a terrible mixture of cold and heat that clamped a fist around his chest and squeezed.
The world had fallen out from under him. Old prospector? Robert Ryan? They weren’t in Trail Dust.
But Kenyon knew what film they were in.
“Greatness,” Dunne was saying. “Absolute joy. They don’t tell stories like that anymore.” He shook his head, still looking at Kenyon, smiling at him, and took another drink of water.
“The . . .” Kenyon began, but his throat was too dry, and he cleared it, then sipped his coffee, wishing it was bourbon. “I think you . . . uh . . .” He stopped and started again, slowly. “The movie. The movie of mine. What, uh, what was the movie?”
Dunne pressed his eyebrows together and grinned, as though Kenyon was putting him on. “Whatta you talking about? Your movie, Paul – Jimmy Stewart, Anthony Mann, Oscar nomination, hell, you know what movie.”
The words didn’t want to come, but Kenyon forced them out. “The Naked Spur.”
Dunne shrugged and laughed. “Well, yeah, sure, The Naked Spur.”
Kenyon looked down at the surface of the coffee. The dark liquid caught the light and reflected red, like blood. When he spoke again, the wo
rds were very quiet and controlled. “I . . . didn’t write The Naked Spur. I did Trail Dust. With Mann and Stewart. They were both with Mann and Stewart.”
He looked up at Dunne, whose smile was still there, but mixed with puzzlement. “Trail Dust?” Dunne said, and Kenyon nodded. “Trail Dust. Ah. Ah.” It sounded as if Dunne was cooing to a baby. “Who, uh, else was in that?”
“Dan Duryea. Jeanne Crain.” Nobodies now. Long forgottens. Has-beens, like me, Kenyon thought.
Dunne frowned. Then a tongue came out and licked his lower lip, and he shook his head again. It was probably, Kenyon thought, as mortified as Dunne ever allowed himself to look.
“Jesus,” Dunne breathed, his eyes never leaving Kenyon’s face. “Jesus, I feel like such an asshole.”
“It’s okay,” Kenyon said, trying to smile, thinking that maybe, just maybe this didn’t have to be a wash. “Did you ever see Trail Dust?”
“Don’t think so. Seen most of Mann’s stuff, but not that one. On video?” Kenyon nodded. “I’ll have to check it out.”
“If you liked The Naked Spur, you’d like Trail Dust.”
“Yeah. Probably would.”
The waiter came to the table and asked if they were ready to order. Dunne smiled and said, “Might as well eat, since we’re here,” then deferred to Kenyon, who, having no appetite, asked for a salad. Dunne ordered lemon chicken.
When the waiter left, Dunne chuckled and waved a hand in the air. “Well, this has to be one of the most awkward moments I’ve ever had. My apologies, Paul.”
“Oh, that’s . . . all right. It’s easy to confuse two films so much alike.”
“Uh-huh. Oh, could I have the . . . uh . . .” Kenyon handed over the manuscript box, and Dunne smiled. “Thanks. Wouldn’t want to forget it.”
Neither spoke until the food came, but halfway through his chicken, Dunne asked, very casually, “By the way, do you know if the screenwriter for that Naked Spur thing is still around?”
Kenyon didn’t.
After the meal was over, Dunne paid and offered to drive Kenyon home. Kenyon accepted with a nod, and they climbed into a dark blue Testarossa. When they got near Kenyon’s apartment, Kenyon asked Dunne to pull over and let him off at the corner. Dunne apologized again, and added, “Listen, I’m gonna get this Trail Dust and if anything comes up I think you’d be right for, I’ll definitely be in touch. Hey, it’s just a matter of time. But good meeting you, Paul. Take care.”
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