Hard Case Crime: Shooting Star & Spiderweb (21 page)

“Now,” said Rickert, “what can I do for you, sweetheart?”

“That’s exactly what I want to know,” I told him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I came in here over two months ago, because your ads say you’re a good agent and that’s what I needed. You didn’t sign me up or anything like that. But you did manage to get over three hundred bucks out of me, for retainer fee and for photographs and audition records. What I want to know now is, when do I see a little action?”

He gave me the same grin he used for his advertising photos.

“Take it easy, Eddie. Relax.”

“I’ve been taking it easy, but I can’t relax. I want to know why you haven’t sold me or my show idea.”

Rickert stopped smiling. He leaned forward and waved the chewed end of his cigar at me. It dripped.

“Listen, son,” he said. “This isn’t Iowa. That package idea of yours—the Television Psychologist—may have sounded pretty good to you when you dreamed it up back there. And I was willing to give it a whirl. I sent out your audition discs to all the network reps. I’ve pitched you. But it’s just no dice.”

My headache was worse. Rickert’s face wavered in and out of focus as I answered him. “All right, drop the show idea. But remember, I’m still an announcer. I had a chance to get on in Des Moines, and I’m willing to start at the bottom here. There must be plenty of openings around town.”

“In manholes, yes.” Rickert lit a fresh cigar. It dripped nicely, too. “Look, sweetheart, here’s some free advice. Maybe you’re not ready for the big time yet. Why don’t you go back home, take that job? You won’t starve. So you’re out a couple of hundred on this deal—so what? Maybe you’ll click later on. Lots of these executives, they listen to the little stations. Who knows, maybe somebody will spot you and—”

“So I’m not ready for the big time yet, eh?” I stood up and tried to keep my balance in the rolling room. “All right, Mr. Rickert. Thanks for the analysis. But it’s a pity you didn’t tell me all this before I spent three hundred bucks with you—and two months of my life.”

“Hold on, now, sweetheart—”

I was holding on, hard. Even though my head was splitting, even though I wanted to kill somebody, I held on. I knew there was no use getting mad. He’d given me the answer. I was washed up.

“No hard feelings, Eddie,” said Rickert. “Go on home and think it over. Maybe something will still break. I’ll let you know.”

“Only if it’s your neck,” I told him. “This I’d love to hear about.” Then I stopped. “I—I really don’t mean that. Sorry, I’m not feeling too good.”

I went out and managed to wobble through the hall, back to the outer office. It was like walking under water, and the glass bricks wavered before my eyes.

The little man with the monocle was still sitting there. I swam past him. He looked up and started to open his mouth. Fat little fish, gulping air in the wavering water.

“Pardon me,” he said. Voice from far away. Sound under water.

I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I opened the door and emerged upon the sunlit shore of the street.

He padded after me. “Please—” he murmured.

I shook him off. “Go away.” I knew that’s what my voice said, but I couldn’t control it. “Go away. Can’t you see I’m busy? I have to kill somebody.”

Rushing around the corner, rushing into the crowd, I wondered who it was I meant to kill.

All I knew was that it was going to happen soon.

The sunshine swept all around me, and so did the people. These people walking along the Strip were no better or no worse than those in any crowd, but right now I couldn’t stand their faces: those horrid, impersonal wooden masks which everyone wears in public.

I see those masks on people everywhere: walking down the street, waiting on the corner for cars or busses, standing in elevators, eating in restaurants. All of them trying to pretend they’re alone, all of them behaving like toys wound up to walk, ride, stand or eat.

I saw them now, the hideously animated dolls, and as I hurried along I turned my head away. I breathed deeply but I couldn’t stop trembling. What was wrong with me, anyhow?

I knew what was wrong. I had nowhere to go.

Stopping in a doorway, I lit the last cigarette, and when I threw the package away I was tossing Rickert and the photos and the recordings into the gutter. Everything was gone.

And where did I go from here? The cigarette teeter-tottered in my mouth as I searched my pockets. I found crumpled bills and some change. Four dollars and thirty-five cents. I’d better have something to eat, first.

Eat? I never eat on an empty stomach...

The thoughts kept spinning around, bruising my brain. Why had I ever come out here, anyway? I was just a hick, like all the other Iowa farmers who dream of the trip for years, save up for years, finally travel 2000 miles to get here, and then have nothing to do but send a souvenir to the folks back home—a miniature wooden privy with the name of the city stamped on it.

Yes, I was a hick, but I couldn’t go back home. They’d laugh at me. My brother Charlie would laugh at me. I was laughing at myself.

Eddie Haines, the Boy Wonder. The star of the Senior Play. Just a high-school kid who never grew up. I used to think I was pretty good. They all thought so, then. “You ought to be in the movies. Or on the radio. Or television.”

Why not? It sounded great—in high school. And after high school I got this job at the local radio station. Things were looking up. Then came the idea for this Television Psychologist program and I thought I was all set. So I came to Hollywood and went to Rickert and here I was.

Here I was, right now, standing in the bar with half a snootfull. Funny, I wasn’t standing on the street any more. I was in this dark, quiet bar, and I kept telling these things to the bartender, and he said, “Sure, buddy,” and poured me another.

He didn’t care. He was my pal. He knew there was nothing else to do. Nothing else to do when you’re down to four dollars and thirty-five cents and can’t go back.

Then there wasn’t any more money and it was time to go home. Home? That one-room deal on the third floor with the disconnected phone and the mail slit that never had a letter sticking in it? And how much longer would I even have that to go back to?

Well, maybe I wouldn’t need it much longer. The important thing now was to get there, fast. Walk a little. Lurch a little. Up the stairs. Easy to find the key—it was the only thing left in my pocket.

Very close inside and dark. Close and dark, like a tomb. Shut the door, click the light against the night. There.

When the light came on, my headache started up again. Something about monocles crept into my brain, something about them staring at me. Did Charlie wear a monocle, or Rickert, or the bartender? I couldn’t remember. No, it was somebody else. I wanted to figure it out, but there just wasn’t any time left.

I had promised to do something and I must do it in a hurry. I must do it right now, to get rid of the headache. I walked quickly into the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror hit me in the face. I steadied myself and waited for the mirror to go away. It didn’t, but I knew how to make it go away. I pulled back the door of the medicine cabinet and that did it.

The objects on the shelves were unpleasant. I didn’t want to see them, but I was looking for something and couldn’t help but notice. Aspirin, toothpaste, cold tablets, pills, iodine, scissors—I hated all of it. The melancholy of anatomy...

Everything I saw reminded me of the way you have to fight just to keep alive. Fight with yourself, with your body. There’s always something. Like this headache. Or a cold, sinus trouble. Tooth decay. Bad eyes. Bruises, blisters, cuts, burns, aches, pains. An endless round of cleaning, brushing, scrubbing, combing. Cutting of hair and fingernails and toe-nails. Eating, eliminating, resting, sleeping. Fighting all the time and you can’t win.

I reached out and swept everything into the washbowl. Everything except what I wanted. The toothpowder spilled and the iodine splashed, but I didn’t care. I had what I wanted, now, in my hand.

That Charlie, that big brother of mine, was a tough egg. Always ready to hand out some patronizing advice. But one thing he told me I never had forgotten.

“There’s two things a man should always get straight—his whiskey and his razor.”

Well, I’d taken the whiskey. And now I had my razor. I held it for a moment and watched my hand tremble, as I thought of Charlie, and how we’d parted, back in Iowa.

I held a razor in my hand then, too. It was at the height of our final quarrel, and I’d been packing, and the razor had been resting on top of the table. Just resting, until I’d grabbed it up, groping for it through a red haze, and I went for Charlie, screaming, “So I’m no good, am I? I’ll kill you for saying that, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you—”

Would I have killed him?

Suppose he hadn’t caught my wrist in time. Suppose I’d let the razor slash down. Would I have gone through with it and murdered Charlie? I still didn’t know. I know that he
did
grab my wrist, knock the razor to the floor, and hold me until I quieted down and the haze cleared away.

But I also knew that whenever I got angry, really angry, the haze came back—and with it, the urge to kill. Perhaps I was a murderer, at heart. Perhaps I could go out again, right now, razor in hand, and run amok in the streets among all the wooden-faced people. I could carve new expressions on their faces with this razor of mine.

I held it in my hand, and my hand didn’t tremble now. I was thinking about a whole new way of life. A way of death, rather.

Suppose I took this razor and made it an instrument of Destiny. I could carve faces, I could carve a career with it for myself. All I had to do was stand in an alley and
show
it to most people and they’d give me anything I wanted. They’d give me everything I couldn’t seem to get any other way. Just the sight of it was threat enough. I could get money from the men, and from the women I’d take—

No. I was crazy to think of it. It would end in murder, and I’d become a killer, just as I feared. There was a killer inside of me, I knew that now. There’s a killer inside everyone if you probe deeply enough; my killer was strong and he sent out a red haze when he wanted to escape.

He wanted to escape now. And the only way to prevent that was to turn the razor on him. This whacky town was full of murderers—torso slayers, rippers, maniacs on the loose. It must be something in the air; perhaps the smog was a red haze in disguise.

Well, my killer mustn’t join the rest. I, and I alone, could prevent it, had to prevent it. Because if I went on, sooner or later somebody else would die. I was certain of it.

So I held the razor in my hand and I was ready. It was time to cut loose. Time for the unkindest cut of all. Time to kill the killer—

My headache almost blinded me. It sent sharp pains out against my eyes, but not sharp enough. Not nearly as sharp as the straight edge of my razor, pressing against my throat.

Then the haze was back and I said to myself, “This is the way it feels when you murder, this is what it’s like to be a murderer—and lucky for you that you’re murderer and victim too.”

My hand moved in the haze, and the razor’s edge was sharp. As it came down, I was thinking that the edge of a razor is the sharpest thing in the world.

Then it was the only thing in the world...

Then there was something else in the world, after all. Noise. Knocking. Persistent knocking. And rattling. I could hear it somewhere, a million miles away. Knocking on my door, rattling the knob.

I wouldn’t answer. Maybe the noises would stop if I wouldn’t answer. Then my hand might be steadier and I could go ahead. But not with that thudding— It didn’t stop. I heard a muffled voice outside. What right did anyone have to interfere? I still didn’t have to open the door. This was my business.

“Go away!” I yelled.

The doorknob rattled again. Somebody was knocking on my door, pounding on my head.

I moved into the living room. The voice was now plainly audible.

“Open up—I want to see you.”

“No!”

Silence. I stood there, waiting for the sound of receding footsteps. Another moment now and I’d be alone again. Another moment and I could walk back into the bathroom and— I heard rustling. Something was sliding under the door. Something green slithered into view. I had to move closer, had to look down at it, had to see what it was. I stared. It was a hundred-dollar bill.

I bent down and picked it up in my left hand, the free hand. There was magic in the feel of it; I stopped trembling the moment my skin came into contact with the crispness. I could see it quite clearly and the pain behind my eyes receded. Who said money can’t work miracles? Miracles from outside the door. Opportunity knocks but once...

I turned the bolt, opened the door. He came in. The little guy, Peter Lorre. Only it wasn’t Peter Lorre. This man was bald. He had taken his hat off and the light from the bathroom shone on an absolutely hairless skull. If a fly lit on his head, it would slip and break an ankle.

I didn’t really think that; there was no room in my mind for a gag then. All I could do was stand there and look at him while I tried to slip the razor into my pocket.

He turned on the living room light, walked over to the sofa, sat down, and pulled out the monocle. This time it didn’t hurt my eyes. Nothing hurt my eyes. I could feel the hundred dollar bill in my hand.

The little guy looked up at me and smiled. “You are Eddie Haines,” he said. “Delighted to meet you. I am Professor Hermann.”

My left hand held the money, and my right hand stayed in my pocket with the razor. So I merely nodded at his introduction. Then all at once I felt that I must sit down. I took the chair. He watched me, still smiling.

“You will pardon my intrusion. I tried to call, but it seems your telephone has been disconnected. And it was important that I see you.”

“How did you get here?”

He waved his hand, the one with the diamond ring on the little finger. I wasn’t so sure it was a fake diamond any more.