by Byars, Betsy
“He didn’t try to strangle you. He was just kidding. I could tell from the expression on his face that he was putting on an act for Mrs. Jay and me.”
“You call that kidding? Putting a rope around someone’s neck and choking them?”
“It wasn’t a rope and it wasn’t that tight, Meat. And it was only, like, two seconds and the cord disappeared. I never did see where it went, did you?”
“It felt tight.” He walked slower. “I’ve never told you this, but fear sort of causes my throat to close up. Even now I can’t swallow without making a sound like this—glunk.”
Herculeah said, “Oh?” as if she wasn’t aware of the affliction. She had actually heard that glunk many times.
“My throat tends to tighten up, too,” she said. “Everybody’s does, but Mathias King was just ... Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He’s a writer, Meat. Writers are weird.”
“He’s weird, all right; I agree with that. But not all writers are weird,” Meat said.
“I didn’t know you knew any writers.” She looked at him, as if studying his truthfulness.
“One or two.”
“You never told me you knew any writers.”
“You never asked.”
“I’m asking now. Name one.”
“You don’t believe I know writers?” Meat said, his mind racing for a literary name. To his great relief, he got one. “Elizabeth Ann Varner?”
“Who’s she?”
He smiled, remembering. “She was a very nice author who came to my first-grade class.”
“That was the year you were in Miss Stroupe’s room, and I was stuck with Deviled Egg. So what kind of books did Elizabeth Ann Varner write?”
“Funny ones.”
“Go on. I could use a laugh.”
“She had a series about two donkeys.”
“Donkeys?”
“Yes,” Meat said, warming to his story. “Their names were Hee and Haw, and Hee had a louder hee-haw than Haw, and that’s how they told them apart, but one day Haw’s hee-haw—”
He saw the way Herculeah was looking at him, and he said quickly, “Oh, never mind.”
“No, you’ve got me interested. Did Haw ever get as loud a hee-haw as Hee or—”
“I said never mind!”
He could tell from her voice that she was amused. First she had belittled his getting strangled—calling it kidding and an act—and now she was belittling Hee and Haw, two of his favorite characters in the world. One of the books about Hee and Haw was the first book he had read by himself, and he read it well, too. Even his mom had described his hee-haws as forceful.
They walked to the corner in silence, then Herculeah said, “Getting back to our original topic...”
“Please,” Meat said.
“Authors—some authors,” she corrected herself, “are a little weird. They have to be. They sit in front of their computers all day and write about life instead of going out and experiencing it.
“And,” she went on as they crossed the street, “mystery writers are perhaps a little weirder than the others.”
“Why? Because they sit in front of their computers writing about murder instead of going out and doing it?”
Herculeah stopped. She thought for a minute and then said, “You’ve got a point, Meat.”
“I do? What?”
“Well, when I saw Mr. King with the golden noose, as he called it, he really seemed like a different person. And when he threw it over your head, well, I thought, wow, this is a writer who really knows his characters—this is a writer who gets inside his characters’ minds.”
She took in a deep breath. He could tell she had something to add, and Herculeah’s additions were usually important.
“Go on.”
“Either he really does get inside his characters’ minds or—”
“Or what?”
“Or he’s a murderer.”
5
THE VICTIM
Mathias King stood at the window of Hidden Treasures. He watched Herculeah and Meat until they were out of sight.
“Interesting girl,” he commented, more to himself than to Mrs. Jay, but she answered.
“Oh, yes, Herculeah is an interesting girl. She’s been a customer for a long time. You and she have very different goals.”
“Oh?”
“She buys items that will help her discover murders, and you get items to help your characters commit them.”
He was only half listening and appeared lost in thought.
“She would make a fascinating victim,” he said.
Mrs. Jay took a step backward. “You’re thinking of putting Herculeah in one of your books?”
“It’s just a thought. At first,” he went on, “I was thinking of the young man. He had the feel of a victim, wouldn’t you agree? Certainly he’s placid, wouldn’t put up much of a struggle...”
“I don’t know him that well.”
Mathias King turned away from the window to face Mrs. Jay. “Did you see how he froze when I tightened the noose around his neck?”
“Yes, you scared him.”
“I could have tightened the noose and strangled him if I’d wanted to—if, of course,” he laughed, “I were a real murderer.”
“I guess so.”
“And then,” he went on, his voice rising with his enthusiasm, “did you notice Herculeah’s reaction when I did the snake bit with the Oriental box?”
“Her back was to me. I didn’t see.”
“She didn’t like it, but she looked straight at me with those gray eyes that ... Could you see her eyes, Mrs. Jay?”
“No.”
“When you first introduced us and I noticed her extraordinary gray eyes, I was struck with their warmth—the soft gray of a kitten, of an evening sky—”
“My, you’re becoming poetic, Mathias.”
“You’ve discovered another of my talents, Mrs. Jay, but you didn’t let me finish.” He struck a pose so that his tall, thin frame seemed to be spotlit. “The soft veiled curtain of an evening sky that falls on a weary world.”
“Even more poetic.”
“You’re too kind.”
“Yes, I guess I am.”
“But when I did the trick with the Oriental box, her eyes changed. They became the hard, clear silver of bayonet steel.”
“I’m sorry I missed that.”
“Remember what she said to me?”
“Not word for word.”
“I think you’re having fun at my expense, Mrs. Jay, but that’s all right. She said, as cool as ice, ‘But you’ve already used a snake. You wouldn’t want to repeat yourself,’ which of course I had.”
He shook his head as if abandoning the spotlight. “She would not be an easy victim. I sometimes think my victims are too easy.”
“No, she wouldn’t be an easy victim. Plus the fact that her mother is a private investigator and her father is a police lieutenant.”
He smiled his commanding smile, showing his pointed teeth. “Yes,” he said, “that would make it challenging.”
6
THE THINK COCOON
“Beware! Beware!”
“I hear your parrot in the background,” Meat said. “He must be upset about something.”
“He’s always upset about something. He’s been yelling, ‘Beware’ ever since I got home. And guess what else he’s started doing?”
“I can’t.”
“He’s learned to make the exact sound of a telephone ringing. That’s why I called you. I heard the phone ringing, and when I picked it up, I heard the dial tone. So I knew it was Tarot. Anyway, I already had the phone in my hand so I called you.”
“Well, I’m glad you did.” A might-as-well call, he imagined, was better than no call.
“Me, too, because I was sitting here with my granny glasses on, trying to think, when all of a sudden it worked. I did think of something.”
“What?”
“I was thinking about Mathias King and his b
ooks. And I realized we need to get copies of those books and read them more carefully and see if they were real murders.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“One was A Slash of Life, and what was the other one?”
“A Sip of Death? That was about the apple and snake goblet.”
“Yes! So tomorrow afternoon we’ll go to your uncle Neiman’s used-book store.”
“Death’s Door?” Meat asked, stalling for time.
“He hasn’t changed the name?”
“No.”
“I thought maybe with all the trouble he might have.”
“It was named by his customers. They voted. The choices were Little Shop of Horrors, Murder for Sale, or Death’s Door. Anyway, I can’t go tomorrow. I have to go to the d-dentist.”
Herculeah knew that Meat always stuttered when he was lying, but then having to go to the dentist could make one stutter as well.
“I didn’t know the dentist was open on Saturday afternoon.”
“Just for t-toothaches.”
“Oh, I hate to have those.” She sighed. “I always have more fun when you’re along.”
“Yeah, it must have been a lot of fun this afternoon to watch me get strangled.” Maybe, he thought, it would have been better if he had been strangled. Then he wouldn’t have to do what he had to do tomorrow.
“Actually, Meat, it happened so fast I hardly saw it.” She paused. “It makes you realize ... I mean, Meat, the man was once a magician. He could kill someone before they knew what was happening.”
“Yeah, you’re lying there dead going, Well, now I know what happened. Some consolation.”
“You’re not in a very good mood tonight.”
Meat thought that was putting it mildly. He remembered that it was only this afternoon, when they were entering Hidden Treasures, that he had wished—just once—he could surprise Herculeah. Well, he was getting his wish, and like in those old fairy tales, you got your wish and lost everything.
“I’d better let you go. I’ll try to get the books tomorrow. Which one do you want to read—A Slash of Life or A Sip of Death?”
“You choose.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Tarot had been ignored for too long. He’d had a brief moment of satisfaction when he rang like the telephone and Herculeah answered it, but that didn’t last long.
“Ring!”
“Did you hear that, Meat? That was Tarot doing his telephone imitation.”
“I heard it.”
“Hel-lo!”
“Did you hear that? Now he’s answering himself.”
Tarot gave up on the telephone and called, “Beware! Beware!”
“You know what worries me about that parrot and all his bewares?” Meat said.
“What?”
“Sometimes Tarot knows what he’s talking about.”
7
AT DEATH’S DOOR
Herculeah stood in front of Death’s Door. She hesitated, because going through her mind was that awful night when she had almost been the Bull’s victim there.
She remembered the Bull had leaned down and peered through the books at her. His terrible hooded eyes had looked directly at her. His eyes were red and seemed to be lit from within like something at Halloween.
“You,” he had said.
He had exhaled, and Herculeah had smelled the fetid breath of death.
Well, the Bull was long gone. She shook herself, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
“Back here,” Uncle Neiman called.
She moved to the back of the store where Uncle Neiman waited behind his desk. He looked up at her through his thick glasses.
“It’s me, Herculeah Jones,” she said.
“Oh, Herculeah, Herculeah. You saved my life that terrible night. You can have anything in the store—take as many books as you like.”
“Actually, I do want some books—but just two of them. I hope you have them.”
“If it’s about murder or suspense or mayhem or mystery, I’ve got them.”
“It is. I met a man named Mathias King—”
“Ah, the King of Murder,” Uncle Neiman said. “You want A Slash of Life and A Sip of Death.”
“You know Mathias King?”
“Everybody knows Mathias King. He’s had signings in this very shop.”
“People came and bought his books and he autographed them?”
“Oh, yes, he has a good local following. At the last signing there must have been fifty people in here. They brought in a busload of folks from Magnolia Downs.”
“Magnolia Downs?”
“The retirement center out on Peachford Road. He gave a brief talk and did tricks while he was talking—he’s very amusing. I couldn’t catch all the tricks because of my eyesight, but the audience did. There were a lot of ohs and ahs.”
“He was a magician before he became a writer, right?”
“Among other things.”
Uncle Neiman got up from his desk and began to move through the stacks. He moved with such precision that Herculeah realized bad eyesight didn’t matter here. He knew his books.
“Ah,” he said as he ran his fingers over the spines of the books and pulled out a title. “I only have one,” he said in a disappointed way. “These books are very popular.”
He looked at the cover for a moment and then presented the book to her. “With my compliments,” he said.
“But let me pay for it. For once, I’ve got money.”
“The book is a gift.”
“Thank you.”
She glanced at the cover. There was a picture of a woman with a knife protruding from her back and a lot of blood on what appeared to be a nightgown. Her red lips, parted in a grimace, and the blood on her nightgown dominated the picture.
On the back cover was a picture of Mathias King in his black cape and hat. The blurb about the book began, “Her lips tried to form the name of her killer but...”
Uncle Neiman interrupted her reading. “Come, Herculeah, sit with me for a moment. I just remembered something that might interest you about Mathias King.”
“Everything about Mathias King interests me.”
They moved back to his desk. Uncle Neiman took his usual place in the swivel chair, and Herculeah perched on the edge of the desk. She leaned toward him. She didn’t want to miss a word.
“There was a woman here that day—she was from Magnolia Downs. Mathias took questions after his speech and they were very ordinary questions—‘Where do you get your ideas?’ ‘What’s your next book going to be about?’ And then this woman stood up, and even with my poor eyesight I sensed that her question was going to be different.”
“And was it?”
“Oh, yes. She said she had a friend who died the same way that the woman in A Slash of Life did, and she wondered if he had known the woman.”
“Did she give the friend’s name?”
“I don’t believe she did, but I got the feeling that Mathias King didn’t need the name.”
“Did Mathias King seem upset about the question?”
“I don’t think he was happy about it. But he shrugged it off and said he might have read something about it in the paper. Sometimes he did get ideas from real murders.”
“Or,” Herculeah said, “from murders he committed.”
Uncle Neiman looked at her. His pale eyes, large behind the thick glasses, seemed to sharpen.
“I never thought of that before, but I suppose it’s possible,” he said.
8
RETURN TO THE DARK AGES
Meat stood at the front window of his house even though there was nothing to see. His shoulders were slumped. His hands were jammed into his pockets.
Herculeah had long ago departed for Death’s Door. She had come out of her house in her usual rush. She had turned in the direction of town, a sweater tied around her waist, her hair flying out behind her like a cape. Superwoman.
He had hoped she might glance across the street, see
him, and give him a wave of sympathy for his upcoming dental visit. But, no, as if she already knew he didn’t deserve any sympathy, she hurried on down the sidewalk and turned the corner.
He knew his mother had come into the room from the kitchen, because he smelled mayonnaise. “You want a sandwich?”
Of course he wanted a sandwich, he had never not wanted a sandwich in his whole life, but he shook his head. “I’m not feeling well,” he said. “I may be coming down with something.”
“Don’t bother trying that I’m-coming-down-with-something trick.” His mother’s tone made it a warning. She crossed the room and put her hand on his forehead.
“I know I don’t have any fever,” he snapped.
He wished, as he had many times, that there was some simple way to get a few degrees of fever when you were desperate to get out of something. He knew from past experience that there wasn’t.
“Get your jacket.”
He went to the hall closet and came back dragging an athletic sweatshirt that had seen better days.
“I said a jacket, not a rag.” Another warning.
Meat went back to the closet. When he returned to the room, he said, “I still can’t believe you’re doing this terrible thing to me.”
“Terrible thing? What terrible thing? Taking a beautiful young girl for pizza and a movie is a terrible thing?”
“It’s a terrible thing to make arrangements behind your children’s back. It’s like a return to the Dark Ages.”
“In some respects the Dark Ages weren’t so bad.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, I owe my friend Dottie big-time. When your father deserted us—and there’s no other word to describe what he did—it was my friend Dottie who kept me from falling apart. You think it’s easy to be deserted by a husband?”
“No, but—”
“Dottie listened to my fears—and I had plenty of those. She dried my tears—I had plenty of those, too. She cooked meals for us. She slept over when I needed her. She was better than a psychiatrist. When I see psychiatrists on TV, I think to myself, You’re pretty good, but you’re no Dottie.”
She paused to get her breath. She was getting kind of red in the face—a color that was not becoming on her—so Meat said, “All right, all right, I get the message.”
