Blue World (4 page)

“We made it!” she shouted, though the voice from her mangled lips did not sound human anymore. “We made it!”

The van streaked on, throwing up plumes of dust behind its tires. The treads of the right-front tire were matted with scarlet.

The odometer rolled off the miles, and through the slit of her left eye Carla kept watching the gas gauge’s needle as it vibrated over the E. But she did not let up on the accelerator, taking the van around the sudden curves so fast it threatened to fly off the road into the woods. Joe killed the last of the yellowjackets, and then he sat numbly in the back, holding Trish close.

Finally, pavement returned to the road and they came out of the Georgia pines at a three-way intersection. A sign said Halliday… 9. Carla sobbed with relief and shot the van through the intersection at seventy miles an hour.

One mile passed. A second, a third, and a fourth. The Voyager started up a hill--and Carla felt the engine kick.

“Oh… God,” she whispered. Her hands, clamped to the steering wheel, were inflamed and horribly swollen. “No… no…”

The engine stuttered, and the van’s forward progress began to slow.

“No!”

she screamed, throwing herself against the wheel in an effort to keep the van going. But the speedometer’s needle was falling fast, and then the stuttering engine went silent.

The van had enough steam left to make the top of the hill, and it rolled to a halt about fifteen feet from the declining side. “Wait here!” Carla said. “Don’t move!” She got out, staggered on swollen legs to the rear of the van, and put her weight against it, trying to shove it over the hill. The van resisted her. “Please…

please,“

she whispered, and kept pushing.

Slowly, inch by inch, the Voyager started rolling forward.

She heard a distant droning noise, and she dared to look back.

About four or five miles away, the sky had turned dark. What resembled a massive yellow-and-black-streaked thundercloud was rolling over the woods, bending the pine trees before it.

Sobbing, Carla looked down the long hill that descended in front of the van. At its bottom was a wide S-curve, and off in the green forest were the roofs of houses and buildings.

The droning noise was approaching, and twilight was falling fast.

She heard the muscles of her shoulder crack as she strained against the van. A shadow fell upon her.

The van rolled closer to the decline; then it started rolling on its own, and Carla hobbled after it, grabbed the open door, and swung herself up into the seat just as it picked up real speed. She gripped the wheel, and she told her children to hang on.

What sounded like hail started pelting the roof.

The van hurtled down the hill as the sun went dark in the middle of yellowjacket summer.

Makeup

Stealing the thing was so easy.

Calvin Doss had visited the Hollywood Museum of Memories on Beverly Boulevard at three a.m., admitting himself through a side door with a hooked sliver of metal he took from the black leather pouch he kept under his jacket, close to the heart.

He’d roamed the long halls--past the chariots used in

Ben-Hur, past the tent set from

The Sheik, past the

Frankenstein lab mock-up--but he knew exactly where he was going. He’d come there the day before, with the paying tourists. And so in ten minutes after he’d slipped into the place he was standing in the Memorabilia Room, foil stars glittering from the wallpaper wherever the beam of his pencil flashlight touched. Before him were locked glass display cases: one of them was full of wigs on faceless mannequin heads; the next held bottles of perfume used as props in a dozen movies by Lana Turner, Loretta Young, Hedy Lamarr, in the next case there were shelves of paste jewelry, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds blazing like Rodeo Drive merchandise.

And then there was the display case Calvin sought, its shelves holding wooden boxes in a variety of sizes and colors. He moved the flashlight’s beam to a lower shelf, and there was the large black box he’d come to take. The lid was open, and within it Calvin could see the trays of tubes, little numbered jars, and what looked like crayons wrapped up in waxed paper. Beside the box there was a small white card with a couple of lines of type:

Makeup case once belonging to Jean Harlow. Purchased from the Harlow estate.

All right! Calvin thought. That’s the ticket. He zipped open his metal pouch, stepped around behind the display case to the lock, and worked for a few minutes to find the proper lock-picker from his ample supply.

Easy.

And now it was almost dawn, and Calvin Doss sat in his small kitchenette apartment off Sunset Boulevard, smoking a joint to relax with and staring at the black box that sat before him on a card table. There was nothing to it, really, Calvin thought. Just a bunch of jars and tubes and crayons, and most of those seemed to be so dry they were crumbling to pieces. Even the box itself wasn’t attractive. Junk, as far as Calvin was concerned. How Mr. Marco thought he could push the thing to some L. A. collector was beyond him; now, those fake jewels and wigs he could understand, but this… ? No way!

The box was chipped and scarred, showing the bare wood beneath the black lacquer at three of the corners. But the lock was unusual: it was a silver claw, a human hand with long sharp fingernails. It was tarnished with age but seemed to work okay. Mr. Marco would appreciate that, Calvin thought. The makeups themselves looked all dried out, but when Calvin unscrewed some of the numbered jars he caught faint whiffs of strange odors: from one a cold, clammy smell, like graveyard dirt; from another the smell of candle wax and metal; from a third an odor like a swamp teeming with reptilian life. None of the makeups carried brand names or any evidence where they’d been bought or manufactured. Some of the crayons crumbled into pieces when he picked them out of their tray, and he flushed the bits down the toilet so Mr. Marco wouldn’t find out he’d been tinkering with them.

Gradually the joint overpowered him. He closed the case’s lid, snapped down the silver claw, and went to sleep on his sofa bed thinking of Deenie.

He awakened with a start. The harsh afternoon sun was streaming through the dusty blinds. He fumbled for his wristwatch. Oh, God! he thought. Two-forty! He’d been told to call Mr. Marco at nine if the job went okay; panic flared within him as he went out to the pay phone at the end of the hall.

Mr. Marco’s secretary answered at the antique shop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. “Who may I say is calling, please?”

“Tell him Cal. Cal Smith.”

“Just a moment, please.”

Another phone was picked up. “Marco here.”

“It’s me, Mr. Marco. Cal Doss. I’ve got the makeup case, and the whole job went like a dream…”

“A dream?” the voice asked softly. There was a quiet murmur of laughter, like water running over dangerous rocks. “Is that what you’d call it, Calvin? If that’s the case, your sleep must be terribly uneasy. Have you seen this morning’s

Times?“

“No, sir.” Calvin’s heart was beating faster. Something had gone wrong; something had been screwed up royally. The noise of his heartbeat seemed to fill the telephone receiver.

“I’m surprised the police haven’t visited you already, Calvin. It seems you touched off a concealed alarm when you broke into the display case. Ah. Here’s the story, page seven, section two.” There was the noise of paper unfolding. “A silent alarm, of course. The police think they arrived at the scene just as you were leaving; one of the officers even thinks he saw your car. A gray Volkswagen with a dented left-rear fender? Does that ring a bell, Calvin?”

“My… Volkswagen’s light green,” Cal said, his throat tightening. “I… got the banged fender in the Club Zoom’s parking lot…”

“Indeed? I suggest you begin packing, my boy. Mexico might be nice at this time of year. If you’ll excuse me now, I have other business to attend to. Have a nice trip…”

“Wait! Mr. Marco! Please!”

“Yes?” The voice was as cold and hard as a glacier now.

“So I screwed up the job. So what? Anybody can have a bad night, Mr. Marco. I’ve got the makeup case! I can bring it over to you, you can give me the three G’s, and then I can pick up my girl and head down to Mexico for…

What is it?“

Mr. Marco had started chuckling again, that cold mirthless laughter that always sent a chill skittering up Calvin’s spine. Calvin could envision him in his black leather chair, the armrests carved into faces of growling lions. His broad, moonlike face would be almost expressionless: the eyes dull and deadly, as black as the business end of a double-barreled shotgun, the mouth slightly crooked to one side, parted lips as red as slices of raw liver. “I’m afraid you don’t understand, Calvin,” he finally said. “I owe you nothing. It seems that you stole the wrong makeup case…”

“What?”

Calvin said hoarsely.

“It’s all in the

Times, dear boy. Oh, don’t blame yourself. I don’t. It was a mistake made by some hopeless idiot at the museum. Jean Harlow’s makeup case was switched with one from the Chamber of Horrors. Her case is ebony with diamonds stitched into a red silk lining, supposedly to signify her love affairs. The one you took belonged to a horror-film actor named Orion Kronsteen, who was quite famous in the late thirties and forties for his monster makeups. He was murdered… oh, ten or eleven years ago, in a Hungarian castle he had rebuilt in the Hollywood hills. Poor devil: I recall his headless body was found dangling from a chandelier. So. Mistakes will happen, won’t they? Now, if you’ll forgive me…“

“Please!” Cal said, desperation almost choking him. “Maybe… maybe you can sell this horror guy’s makeup case?”

“A possibility. Some of his better films--Dracula Rises, Revenge of the Wolf, London

Screams--are still dredged up for late-night television. But it would take time to find a collector, Calvin, and that makeup case is very hot indeed.

You’re hot, Calvin, and I suspect you will be cooling off shortly up at the

Chino prison.“

“I… I need that three thousand dollars, Mr. Marco! I’ve got plans!”

“Do you? As I say, I owe you nothing. But take a word of warning, Calvin: go far away, and keep your lips sealed about my… uh… activities. I’m sure you’re familiar with Mr. Crawley’s methods?”

“Yeah,” Calvin said. “Yes, sir.” His heart and head were pounding in unison. Mr. Crawley was Marco’s “enforcer,” a six-foot-five skeleton of a man whose eyes blazed with bloodlust whenever he saw Calvin. “But… what am I going to do?”

“I’m afraid you’re a little man, dear boy, and what little men do is not my concern. I’ll tell you instead what you aren’t going to do. You aren’t going to call this office again. You aren’t going to come here again. You aren’t ever going to mention my name as long as you live… which, if it were up to Mr. Crawley, who is standing just outside my door at this moment, would be less than the time it takes for you to hang up the phone. Which is precisely what I am about to do.” There was a last chuckle of cold laughter and the phone went dead.

Calvin stared at the receiver for a moment, hoping it might reawaken. It buzzed at him like a Bronx cheer. Slowly he put it back on its cradle, then walked like a zombie toward his room. He heard sirens, and panic exploded within him, but they were far in the distance and receding. What am I going to do? he thought, his brain ticking like a broken record.

What am

I

going to do? He closed and bolted his door and then turned toward the makeup case there on the table.

Its lid was open, and Calvin thought that was odd, because he remembered--or thought he remembered-- closing it last night. The silver claw was licked with dusty light. Of all the stupid screwups! he thought, anger welling up inside. Stupid, stupid, stupid! He crossed the room in two strides and lifted the case over his head to smash it to pieces on the floor. Suddenly something seemed to bite his fingers and he howled in pain, dropping the case back onto the table; it overturned, spilling jars and crayons.

There was a red welt across Calvin’s fingers where the lid had snapped down like a lobster’s claw. It bit me! he thought, backing away from the thing.

The silver claw gleamed, one finger crooked as if in invitation.

“I’ve got to get rid of you!” Calvin said, startled by the sound of his own voice. “If the cops find you here, I’m up the creek!” He stuffed all the spilled makeups back into it, closed the lid, and tentatively poked at it for a minute before picking it up. Then he carried it along the corridor to the back stairway and down to the narrow alley that ran behind the building. He pushed the black makeup case deep inside a garbage can, underneath an old hat, a few empty bottles of Boone’s Farm and a Dunkin Donuts box. Then he returned to the pay phone and, trembling, dialed Deenie’s apartment number; there was no answer, so he called the Club Zoom. Mike, the bartender, picked up the phone. “How’s it goin‘, Cal?” In the background the Eagles were on the jukebox, singing about life in the fast lane. “Nope, Cal. Deenie’s not comin’ in today until six. Sorry. You want to leave a message or something?”

“No,” Calvin said. “Thanks anyway.” He hung up and returned to his room. Where the hell was Deenie? he wondered. It seemed she was never where she was supposed to be; she never called, never let him know where she was. Hadn’t he bought her a nice gold-plated necklace with a couple of diamond specks on it to show her he wasn’t mad for stringing along that old guy from Bel-Air? It had cost him plenty, too, and had put him in his current financial mess. He slammed his fist down on the card table and tried to sort things out: somehow he had to get some money. He could hock his radio and maybe collect an old pool-hall debt from Corky McClinton, but that would hardly be enough to carry him and Deenie for very long in Mexico. He had to have that three thousand dollars from Mr. Marco! But what about Crawley? That killer would shave his eyebrows with a .45!

What to do, what to do?

First, Calvin reasoned, a drink to calm my nerves. He opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of Jim Beam and a glass. His fingers were shaking so much he couldn’t pour, so he shoved the glass aside and swigged out of the bottle. It burned like hellfire going down. Damn that makeup case! he thought, and took another drink. Damn Mr. Marco: another drink. Damn Crawley. Damn Deenie. Damn the idiot who switched those lousy makeup cases. Damn me for even taking on this screwy job…