“I shouldn’t have to explain anything so obvious,” said the statue, “but it is simply not possible to kill a ghost. You can only—”
Glandier swung again, taking more careful aim. The statue’s head parted from its shoulders at a single blow. The instant it was severed, even before it hit the carpet, the black jockey’s head metamorphosed into a fully human but more horrible form—a man’s head, grizzle-bearded, blind in both eyes.
The severed head continued calmly to berate Glandier. “You can only delay retribution, you know. Meanwhile you will surely sink deeper into guilt, become more entangled in the snares of your tempter. For it is not I who represents your gravest danger; that springs, rather, from the creature you spawned, the thing that twice attacked me on the lawn—first as a heron, then as your neighbor’s son. He thought he’d got me; instead he killed a poor scapegoat of a frog, while I shifted my shape to this—or should I now say that?—in the course of his pursuit.”
One more blow of the ax (Glandier thought) would split the skull of the jabbering ghost like a log split for firewood. But when he swung the ax back over his shoulder to take aim, the head of the ax flew from the handle and smashed through the picture window.
“You can’t say,” said the severed head, “that I didn’t warn you.”
In the kitchen there was a crash even louder than the shattering of the window. Glandier dropped the ax handle and ran to the kitchen door. The Frigidaire had been overturned, its opened door broken from the hinges. A kind of cold soup compounded from various broken bottles oozed out across the linoleum. Just behind the capsized icebox the decapitated statue groped about the surface of the counter with its one good hand. It waved the stump of its other arm in Glandier’s general direction, as though warning him to stay back. Droplets of blood looped up, as from a lawn sprinkler, and spattered down over the counter, the cupboards, the floor. The knife drawer, Glandier thought, but before he could take a step toward it, the statue found the flour canister and hurled it at him. It struck the doorframe and exploded in a blizzard of powdery whiteness. Glandier felt his defiance crumble into fear; felt, at the same instant, his bowels loosening. He fled from the mayhem in the kitchen, through the living room, where the blue flames licked at the carpet all about the fallen lantern, and down the hallway to the bathroom. Even as he fumbled with the buckle of his belt, he could see the madness of it—that amid all these other horrors he should feel the keenest panic at the threat of shitting his pants. Yet the reality of his own physical existence was an anchor for his sanity. Even as his sphincter spasmed with fear, he felt a kind of gratitude for its being solid and real. He pushed down his pants and his fouled briefs to his knees and collapsed, squittering liquid shit, onto the toilet seat. The blessedness of relief forced tears from his eyes—but only for a moment. Then, still diarrhetic, he rose from the toilet screaming and tearing at the fingers of the severed hand that had grabbed hold of scrotum and balls.
“Will you confess now?” shouted the severed head from the living room. The hand squeezed his balls. It could not be pried loose. “Will you confess?”
“Yes. Only make it stop. Please make it stop.”
“Then go to the phone. Call the police.”
Dusted with flour, spattered with shit, Glandier crawled on his hands and knees into the bedroom. He picked up the phone and dialed 911. After four rings a voice said, “Emergency Service. Can we help you?” He asked to talk to the police.
“Where are you calling from?” the voice asked.
He realized he might still hang up. He had not yet confessed; the police would not be tracing the call. With his left hand he felt to see if the hand were still there. At his first touch, it gave another squeeze. He shrieked into the receiver. Without further questions, the operator put him through to the police.
“Willowville Police,” said a man’s voice. “What’s the problem?”
“I’ve called to confess… a crime.”
“Give me your name, please.”
“Robert Glandier.”
“Where are you calling from?”
“My home.”
“Your address?”
“Twelve-thirty-two Willowville Drive.”
“And when was this crime committed, Mr. Glandier?”
“A year ago. Longer.”
“And the nature of the crime?”
“I can’t say now.” The hand at his crotch squeezed and twisted in a single motion. “I—murdered—my wife.”
“Are you at home now?”
“Yes.”
“Please stay there till someone from the department arrives. In the meantime I have some further questions—”
Glandier replaced the phone in its cradle. As he did so the fingers of the severed hand loosed their grip and fell to the soiled carpet. The hand scurried, spiderlike, toward the bathroom door, where the statue stood, holding not the lantern but the poet’s severed head.
“There,” said the poet, with a mocking smile, as it knelt to allow the severed hand to clamber up its shirt sleeve. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
CHAPTER 53
Though he rarely indulged in the beverage himself, or in any other form of alcohol than wine, Dr. Samuel Helbron would describe himself, in moments of candor, as a “whiskey psychiatrist”—a psychiatrist, that is, who, like a whiskey priest, no longer believes in the faith whose external forms he continues, with cynical resignation, to observe. With the advent of effective psychotropic drugs, Dr. Helbron could think of no legitimate purpose to be served by encouraging suburban matrons and garrulous businessmen to indulge in the rigmaroles of secular confessions. People must be made to tow the line, and that was that. He regretted now not having majored in public administration. He would have liked to run a hospital, or a prison, or a police station—institutions that performed essential social services. But here he was with two rooms of teak furniture on the eighteenth floor of the Foshay Tower and an appointment calendar replete with the names of psychological cripples who used his bland and nonjudgmental presence as placebo, crutch, or scapegoat, according to their ever-shifting moods. He despised them for being rubes and himself for being a con man, but he was more than content to contend with such feelings for an income edging close to $100,000 a year.
Practiced as he was in maintaining an inexpressive demeanor, Dr. Helbron nevertheless found it difficult not to seem alarmed when a former patient—Robert Glandier, an executive with Techno-Controls—appeared at his office fifteen minutes before the first scheduled appointment in a state of manic animation bordering on hysteria and looking like he’d been dredged in flour. In such circumstances one did not insist on ordinary protocols, such as the need for a prior appointment. Helbron invited Glandier into his inner office and asked him what his problem was.
The man was not immediately forthcoming, but after some display of gruff impatience by the doctor, it developed that Glandier (after, in all likelihood, a bout of drinking) had phoned the Willowville police and confessed to his wife’s murder. Dr. Helbron had formed the glimmering of such a suspicion when he had treated him the previous year and had then rather admired the man’s self-possession. Too often clients insist on using their therapists’ offices as psychological changing rooms where Dr. Jekyll can slip on the persona of Mr. Hyde. Glandier had never been like that. Even now he maintained that his confession had been “a mistake.” He had been troubled, he said, by unusual nightmares. He feared he might be having a nervous breakdown and wanted Dr. Helbron to recommend an accredited convalescent home to which he might go to recuperate. But not a mental hospital: all he needed was a week or so of rest. He wanted, further, for Dr. Helbron to phone the Willowville police and explain that his own earlier phone call, confessing to his wife’s murder, was not to be taken seriously. The doctor might tell the police it had been a drunken prank. As to the content of the nightmares that had troubled him or why he was covered with flour, these matters Glandier refused to discuss.
All in all, a singu
lar performance, and one that Dr. Helbron would have willingly seen enlarged upon over a longer term of therapy. But the man was evidently out of control and very likely dangerous. There really was no way to deal with him but to turn him over to the civil authorities. First, however, he had to be persuaded to leave the office peaceably. As he adamantly refused to return to his home in Willowville, Dr. Helbron suggested that he check into the Raddison Hotel, get cleaned up, and wait for Dr. Helbron’s all-clear signal.
Once Glandier had agreed to follow this advice and had departed (astonishing Mrs. Alden in the outer office), Dr. Helbron phoned Captain Maitland of the Minneapolis Police Department, his college friend and sometimes dinner companion, and informed him of what Glandier had told him and where he was to be found. Captain Maitland thanked him for his cooperation and arranged, in a spirit of good fellowship, to have dinner on Thursday of the following week.
Sad to say, Dr. Helbron and Captain Maitland were never to enjoy that engagement. Within minutes of Glandier’s departure, Dr. Helbron received a phone call from the wife of another Techno-Controls executive, Michael Sheehy. Mrs. Sheehy was alarmed by the behavior of her eleven-year-old son Jack, who had attacked a neighbor’s shrubberies with an ax while in pursuit (the boy claimed) of a frog. Since the incident with the shrubberies, the boy had kept to his room, refusing to speak with either of his parents. Mrs. Sheehy believed that drugs must be responsible for such behavior, and she wanted Jack to see Dr. Helbron while her suspicion was still verifiable. Dr. Helbron arranged to see Jack on his lunch hour.
At 12:05 the Sheehy boy arrived (not, however, accompanied by his mother, who, the boy said, was taking advantage of the trip downtown to do some shopping). Since Mrs. Alden had gone to lunch, Dr. Helbron led the boy into his inner office and offered to take his jacket, which he was carrying rolled up in a tight bundle. The boy said he would prefer to keep it by him. He sat with it in his lap.
Dr. Helbron then affected to fuss with his pipe. With younger patients it was a good rule-of-thumb to seem not to be scrutinizing them too intently in these first awkward moments. Today this deliberate inattention gave Jack Sheehy an opportunity to unroll his bundled jacket and, unperceived, take out the pistol (his father’s) with which he had just murdered his mother.
Dr. Helbron finished lighting his pipe, spun his chair around smartly one quarter-swivel to the left, smiled in a manner calculated to inspire confidence, and asked, “Well now, Jack, what seems to be the problem?” They were his last words.
CHAPTER 54
It came almost as a relief to be arrested and put in jail. He was safer here, certainly, than he would have been anywhere else he could think of. No doubt the police had thought it strange that he didn’t ask about bail and that he’d shown so little impatience when he’d been unable to get hold of his lawyer. For the time being he was better off without a lawyer, since there were so many questions for which he had no answers. Such as: Why had he phoned the police that morning? How had his house got wrecked? And the real poser: Who (if not he) had murdered Dr. Samuel Helbron? Glandier had his own idea of who it had to have been, but try and convey that idea to an arresting officer: “You see, my neighbor’s got this kid who’s possessed by a devil, who is also my son by my deceased wife, and this devil insists on knocking off anyone who may pose a threat to me, just to be nice.”
So here he was, safe behind bars, charged with a murder he hadn’t committed, mortally tired and unable to sleep. The cot sagged under his weight like a hammock. The sheet and blanket were too narrow to cover him. There was no way of shielding his eyes from the glare of the fluorescent fixture in the corridor outside his cell.
Sleep, he told himself. Now, while you can, sleep!
The policeman who’d fingerprinted him last night appeared at the door of the cell and told him he had a visitor.
—Who is it? he asked. —What time is it?
—Never mind, said the policeman. —Just move your ass.
He unlocked the cell and led Glandier along a shadowless corridor and into a small featureless room.
—Wait there, said the policeman, indicating one of the wooden chairs on either side of the Formica-topped table. The policeman left the room, closing the door behind him.
A moment later Jack Sheehy entered at another door. He took the chair on the other side of the table.
—We meet again, said Jack.
—I’m under arrest, said Glandier.
—I can see that.
—For a murder I believe you committed.
The boy grinned. —Which one?
—Dr. Helbron.
He shrugged. —So what do you want me to do? Go down to the desk and say, “Officer, I cannot tell a lie. I am the murderer. Robert Glandier is innocent.” That would sure be dumb. Anyhow, who says you’re innocent? You killed your wife; that’s how this whole mess got started.
—This is a dream again, isn’t it? They wouldn’t have let you visit me.
—By now, Father dear, I would have thought you’d have started paying attention to what happens in your dreams.
Glandier pressed his eyes tight-closed, then opened them.
—Am I still here? the boy asked sarcastically. —Tell you what, I’ll make a bargain. I’ll get you out of jail, no charges, your virtuous reputation restored. On one condition.
Glandier waited for him to name the condition.
—On the condition that the next time we encounter each other, I can take you off with me to hell. Is it a deal?
Glandier equivocated. —Am I really in jail? Is that much not a dream?
—Oh, you’re in the clink all right. And unless you want to stay there a whole long time you better dip that fountain pen of yours into your own red blood and sign on the dotted line. Before they turn the lights on, and you wake up, and it’s too fucking late.
Glandier stared at the Formica tabletop just in time to see a cockroach scuttle over the edge out of sight.
—Tell you what, to sweeten the deal I’ll throw in a premium. You want to get rid of your wife’s ghost permanently? And that other one, the poet who dresses up like a hitching post? I’ll tell you what to do so that neither of them ever troubles you again. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
—Yes, certainly. But…
—But what? But you don’t want to go to hell? You should have thought of that when the twig was bent. Around age three and a half, in your case. So what’s it going to be? You better decide before you wake up.
—It’s a deal, said Glandier.
What choice was there, really?
—Shake on it, said the boy, holding his hand out over the table.
Glandier shook his hand gingerly. The sensation was at once dry and squishy, as though the boy had been able to conceal a handful of cockroaches the moment before his hand was shaken.
At that moment Glandier felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. “No.” Glandier groaned. “Not yet—he hasn’t told me about my wife.”
“Hey, mister, wake up. You’re going home. Seems as how we’ve made a mistake. Here’s your belt back, and your shoelaces.”
“What! What’s happened?”
“We’ll tell you all about it in the D.A.’s office. Your lawyer’s there now. You didn’t want to discuss anything without him being there, remember? Well, that works both ways. But believe me, it’s a lulu.”
CHAPTER 55
As the two Sheehy girls, Judy and Maryann, walked home from the school bus stop on Pillsbury Road, Berryman, in the form, once more, of a black jockey carrying a lantern, ran ahead of them, or followed at their side, trying ineffectually to warn them against going into their own house. But for all the practical dread he was able to communicate he might as well have been one of his own books gathering dust on the highest shelf of the darkest stack of the most provincial library in the state of Minnesota. They were oblivious.
Berryman placed his hand on the back of Maryann’s neck. “Come on, you’ve got to feel something—a shiver, a prem
onition. If you go in that house now you’re as good as dead. Listen to me, will you?”
But Maryann experienced not so much as a goose bump. She continued to insist, over Judy’s objections, that Jessica Breen was not a nerd, despite a few undeniable personality defects. However, Maryann maintained, if Jessica Breen wasn’t perfect, neither was anyone else—a line of defense that Judy chose to interpret as a veiled criticism of herself.
“Listen,” Berryman pleaded, tagging behind them, “will you please listen! Your brother’s in there waiting to murder you. He’s already shot your mother. He drowned your father when he came home from work after he’d knocked him unconscious with a croquet mallet. The boy has run amok. He’s Charlie Manson writ small. Run away from home. Go to a pajama party. Do anything but go inside that house.”
All unheeding, alas, the two sisters walked homeward through the sprawling communal back yard where earlier that day their brother had pursued the poet, John Berryman, in the frog stage of his metamorphic existence. Whether cued subliminally by the poet’s warnings or simply reminded by the gouges the ax had cut into the sod, Judy observed, “Wasn’t that a weird thing this morning?”
“Wasn’t it,” Maryann agreed.
“Did you ever find out what Jack thought he was up to?”
“According to Mom, he said he was chasing a frog. But with an ax? Apparently he wrecked the Gallaghers’ shrubs in their front yard. I haven’t actually seen what he did. I mean, it would have been pretty obvious if I’d walked around the front of their house to inspect the damage. Why would he do something like that? I mean, all right, we both know he’s disturbed. All kids are a little weird at that age.”
“You were going to commit suicide when you were twelve,” Judy observed with malicious complacence.
“I never!” Maryann protested.
“You read the note aloud to me.”
“That was a literary composition. I never seriously intended to commit suicide. And anyhow that was two years ago. It doesn’t have anything to do with Jack being crazy.”
THE BUSINESSMAN A Tale of Terror Page 21
