Hard Case Crime: Shooting Star & Spiderweb (20 page)
Read Hard Case Crime: Shooting Star & Spiderweb Online
Authors: Robert Bloch
Eddie Haines came to Hollywood to work in television, not to become a phony self-help guru, collecting secrets from his wealthy clients in order to blackmail them.
But that’s what Eddie became, under the tutelage of Professor Otto Hermann, Ph.D., a vicious little man with dollar signs where his soul should have been.
It was a lucrative set-up—until the day the professor pushed Eddie too far...
“Perhaps the finest psychological horror writer.”
—Stephen King
Robert Bloch was the legendary author of PSYCHO and a true Hollywood insider, writing scripts for numerous movies and TV shows including ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, Boris Karloff’s THRILLER, and the original STAR TREK. You haven’t see Hollywood’s dark side till you’ve seen it through Bloch’s eyes...
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GRAVE DESCEND
by John Lange
THE PEDDLER
by Richard S. Prather
LUCKY AT CARDS
by Lawrence Block
ROBBIE’S WIFE
by Russell Hill
THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN
by Gil Brewer
THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN
by David Goodis
BLACKMAILER
by George Axelrod
SONGS OF INNOCENCE
by Richard Aleas
FRIGHT
by Cornell Woolrich
KILL NOW, PAY LATER
by Robert Terrall
SLIDE
by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
DEAD STREET
by Mickey Spillane
DEADLY BELOVED
by Max Allan Collins
A DIET OF TREACLE
by Lawrence Block
MONEY SHOT
by Christa Faust
ZERO COOL
by John Lange
by
Robert Bloch
A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK
(HCC-042)
First Hard Case Crime edition: April 2008
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street
London
SE1 0UP
in collaboration with Winterfall LLC
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Spiderweb
copyright © 1954 by Ace Books, Inc.
Shooting Star
copyright © 1958 by Ace Books, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Spiderweb
cover painting copyright © 2008 by Larry Schwinger
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-355-7
E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-393-9
Cover design by Cooley Design Lab
Design direction by Max Phillips
Typeset by Swordsmith Productions
The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.
Printed in the United States of America
Visit us on the web at
www.HardCaseCrime.com
For
GUSTAV MARX
who gave so much of his time to this book
One
The door was of blonde wood, highly waxed. Across its surface, in angular script, was lettered:
LARRY RICKERT
AND
ASSOCIATES
I snapped the brim of my hat, turned the doorknob, and walked into the office. A set of chimes made background music.
The walls of the small reception room were of glass brick. Torcheres gave off a soft, discreet light. There was an end table bearing the usual copies of
Variety
and
Billboard.
Two chairs and a sofa, overstuffed by a firm of reliable over-stuffers, completed the ensemble. It made me sick to look at the joint.
I headed for the ticket-window opening in the wall ahead, where a receptionist’s ponytail bobbed behind a panel of glass.
When I rapped, the ponytail switched around until I got a look at a long, thin face with about three dollars’ worth of fancy makeup on it.
The panel opened and the makeup cracked into a smile. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Haines.”
Well, that was something. At least she recognized me, even if she didn’t exactly swoon in my arms at the sight of my smiling face.
“Is Mr. Rickert in?” I asked.
“Have you an appointment?”
“No. Not exactly. But I only want to see him for a minute or two.”
She nodded, closed the panel, and manipulated the intercom system, or the TV set, or whatever they used to convey trivial messages around here. After a brief pause for station identification she opened the panel again.
“Mr. Rickert will see you in a moment. Won’t you be seated, please?”
I tipped my hat, smiled roguishly and hit bottom on the overstuffed sofa. The sliding panel closed again. I waited to see if she would put up a
Sold Out
sign, but nothing happened.
There were exactly three cigarettes left in my package. I lit one and watched my hand tremble. Inhaling, I leaned back and forced myself to breathe deeply and slowly. Gradually I calmed down. It was going to be all right as long as I kept a grip on myself. Sure, I was perfectly relaxed now.
I only jumped about two feet when the outer door opened and Peter Lorre came in.
It wasn’t Peter Lorre, of course. Rickert didn’t handle any movie talent. But the little guy in the black hat bore a fleeting resemblance to the star. He walked over to the reception window and mumbled something about an appointment. I avoided watching or listening too closely, and presently he took his place on the chair set at right angles to my sofa. Something began to burn inside my forehead. He was staring at me.
Right away, my jumpy feeling came back. It was silly, of course. Let him stare. What did he know about me? What could he know?
I was putting up a good front. Sitting down with my legs tucked back this way, it was hard to tell that the shine was on the seat of my pants and not on my shoes. He couldn’t guess that the reason I came to Rickert’s office instead of calling him was that my phone had been disconnected. For all he knew, I had a full, fresh package of cigarettes in my pocket, and plenty of money to buy more.
So why should I worry if he stared at me? But I did worry. I doused my cigarette and looked up. His eyes were stones set in flesh.
I could feel my shirt getting sticky under the sports jacket. And I got the funniest notion that he felt it, too. He could feel everything I was feeling, think everything I was thinking. Those stones set in flesh were magnets.
Maybe I was flipping my wig? Maybe that’s what was wrong with me? All these weeks in the apartment, waiting for Rickert to call, watching the money run out. Then no phone, and nothing to do but run around and try to break the doors down myself—carrying my own photos and recordings.
Rickert had warned me that I’d get no place, fast, on my own. And that’s exactly where I’d arrived. No place. You feel funny there, in no place. You feel as though you aren’t really alive, or have no right to be alive. So you take a couple of drinks and wait for tomorrow. You might be somewhere else, tomorrow. But you’re not. You wake up in the crummy apartment and you’re still no place. Mr. Nobody from nowhere.
But that’s your business, isn’t it? People haven’t got the right to stare at you and find it out. Damn it, there was nothing to be ashamed about. I knew what I was doing here. I had it all figured out, just how I was going to put it over. And then this little character had to come along and upset me!
I raised my eyes and looked at him. He wasn’t so much. Black suit, unusual for the West Coast, but nothing special about its cut. White shirt, quiet foulard tie. Flashy ring on little finger of left hand. Probably fake stone.
He saw what I was doing, of course. But his expression did not change. He stared. I stuck my chin out, folded my hands across my chest and stared back. It hurt a little. He refused to blink, and those two stones met my gaze. You can’t break stones with your fist. Constant dripping—
Sweat rolled down my forehead and I blinked first. But I wouldn’t turn my head. I stared at the bridge of his thick nose. Maybe if I thought of something else, it would help.
I thought about the trip out, thought about meeting Rickert for the first time, and the fast line of con he handed me, the buildup about what he would do for me. I thought about really getting a break, making the grade on a big show, wowing ’em. That would make my dumb brother wipe the sneer off his face for good. I’d wipe the sneer off all their faces, including this little puffy face in front of me.
But he kept staring. He knew. He knew I was a fake, he knew I was licked, that I’d never make it.
The hell he did! All imagination. Keep staring. He’ll break first.
I looked into his eyes. For the first time, the stones seemed to turn. His pupils were dilating. The lids crept back. The stones glittered. Diamonds. Diamond drills. Drills that bored.
Fakes. Like the diamond on his little finger. I wasn’t afraid. I stared.
All at once, his hand moved. Pudgy worms crawled into the handkerchief pocket of his coat. They emerged and carried something up to his left eye. It glittered. A monocle.
He fixed it into position without altering his line of vision. It hung there in the eye-socket and the eye behind it became huge. The distorted pupil glared at me. I thought that he looked like Erich von Stroheim. I thought that if I had to endure that wave of power beating into my brain, I’d get up and run. I thought—but I stared back.
And his mind told me something. Told me that I was really through, that it was no use, that I was washed up. I’d better get up and leave now. Yes, that’s what he told me, and he was right. I’d get up and—
“Mr. Rickert will see you now.”
I heard it somewhere in the distance. Then I was on my feet, stumbling through the inner office, walking down the hall to the big layout in back.
My head was splitting. Larry Rickert smiled at me across the desk.
“Sit down,” he said. “Good to see you, Eddie. Be with you in just a sec.”
He waved goodbye at me with his left hand and picked up a phone with his right. He began to talk, and a steady stream of conversation and cigar smoke drifted around the big red folds of his neck.
I lit my next-to-the-last cigarette. The headache was worse now. I tried to remember my canned speech, but I couldn’t. All I wanted to do was run away. When he finally hung up and turned to me again, I couldn’t even remember to smile.