Time After Time (29 page)

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Authors: Karl Alexander

BOOK: Time After Time
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He poured himself a glassful of gin, then returned to the living room and seated himself in the stuffed chair. He sipped the drink and sighed.
He removed the exotic Spanish knife, his latest purchase, from its sheath tied to his left leg. He admired the glint and curve of the blade. It was fifteen inches long and fashioned from Toledo steel. Granted, it would be no more or less effective than his surgical knives, but it looked worse. And that was important given the significance of the evening. After all, he would not be bargaining with an idiot, though if Wells already had strong feelings for the girl, he would be more likely to make a fool of himself. That would be absolutely marvelous.
Perhaps the matters of his freedom, his reign as the human prince of darkness would not be so difficult. If he won tonight, no longer would he have to worry about being doggedly pursued by a determined, nasty little harbinger of positivism. He could commit atrocities at will, and the time machine would be to him as fire was to the venerable God of War. Satan would rule. Leslie John Stephenson would become the eternal angel of the apocalypse—riding the fourth dimension—dispensing death and sorrow on a whim, a notion, an impulsive passing fancy.
He drained his glass and sighed with appreciation. He rose from the chair and silently crossed the room into the foyer. He turned off the light, then let his eyes adjust to the blackness. Gradually, forms and shapes once again took on definition and size.
He heard a noise from the street and grinned. No doubt that was Amy Robbins. He absently fingered the blade of his Spanish knife, his breath coming quicker now.
A small, muffled thud.
He whirled around. Had that noise come from the front door or elsewhere? Had his senses deceived him? No. There had been another noise. Someone was Inside the bloody flat. He turned in a crouch, his knife at the ready, his heart pounding, his body tense. A tremor of fear passed over him. He began to perspire. He strained to see the slightest movement; his ears listened for the slightest noise; his skin was aware of the vibrations in the air. Slowly—very slowly—he continued to turn.
Suddenly, he focused on the foyer closet. He hadn't looked inside that cupboard when he had first come in, had he?
He took a deep breath and raised his knife. He crept closer and closer to the closet, his breath coming in a low hiss. He reached for the door handle.
 
 
“I killed them all!”
After that, the pretense had dissolved, and H.G. had fallen forward on the table and had begun to cry with relief. If Amy was still in her apartment, the order that Mitchell had given might very well save her life. That was the most important thing in the universe right now. For what was he without her but a tragedian outside time?
Enough ethereal thoughts, he told himself; there was a postscript to the matter. He had confessed. Very soon he would find
himself in prison, unable to be with Amy. Furthermore, he would not be able to use The Utopia and escape this current world of contradictions and inequities. Yet, he smiled optimistically. Had he not scored a telling victory against Fate?
Mitchell had left the room then, only to return moments later with a steaming cup of coffee. He had seated himself, lit a cigarette and continued his interrogation. “You killed them all, huh?”
“How many times do I have to say it?”
“Then how come you don't know how much Jade Chang charged per trick?”
“Money means nothing to me, my good man.”
“What kind of car did Dolores Clark drive?”
“A … a black one.”
“What kind?”
“I'm not interested in motorcars, either.”
“What color were the seats?”
“Red,” H.G. guessed, then smiled cleverly. “After I got through with her.”
Mitchell scowled. “What did you have to drink at Marsha McGee's place?”
“I don't recall.”
“You don't recall.”
Exasperated, H.G. straightened up. “I've already confessed, Lieutenant! What the devil do you want?”
“The truth.”
Before he could resume questioning, the door opened. The inevitable Sergeant Ray slipped into the room as if pursued. His thick face was chalk white, full of fear and worry.
“There's a phone call for you, sir,” he announced in sorrowful tones.
“Take a message.”
“I think you should answer this one, sir.” His voice was almost a whisper. He gave H.G. a sheepish, sidelong glance, half sympathetic, half in awe.
H.G. stood. “Is she all right?” he asked, trembling. “Please tell me! Is she all right?”
Mitchell gestured to the recorder and he left the room. Then the lieutenant went out, closing the door quietly, refusing to look H.G. in the eye. No answer was forthcoming.
H.G. knew then that his beloved Amy was dead.
Lieutenant Mitchell leaned on dining-room-table chair for support and stared out the window at the lace trees, their delicate leaves intermittently lit by the flashing red and blue lights of the squad cars on the street below. He had been sick only once before during a homicide investigation. That had been seventeen years ago when he had witnessed what a cuckolded husband could do to his wife with a .357 Magnum at close range.
This one was worse. Now that he was beyond nausea and the fetid smell of coagulating blood, he wondered. What kind of human being was capable of this?
“Lieutenant,” whispered a uniformed officer. “Are you all right?”
“Don't ask stupid questions,” he replied quietly. He forced himself to go back into the living room where his old and reliable team was going through the motions. They, too, were horrified; their faces were frozen in expressions of shock. The entire room had been sprayed and splashed with blood—as if the murderer had used parts of the victim's body as paint brushes. There was not one item which had not been stained red; conversely, there was not one part of the deceased's form which had not been defiled and mutilated.
The photographers finished and looked to Mitchell for instructions. He waved them out. The technicians completed their taking
of blood samples, their swift yet methodical sweep of the apartment for evidence. And finally—thank God—the coroner's deputies, who normally were the first to be done, finished placing in plastic bags the parts of the corpse. It had been an exploration of the macabre for them, a devil's treasure hunt. They had had to refer to an anatomical chart to make sure that they had not left anything behind.
Mitchell remained in the apartment. He wanted to sear the violent tableau into his brain, for he had been dead wrong about the murder suspect in this case. He had to rectify that. He remembered the other victims—the Chinese whore, the salesgirl and Dolores Clark. Each one of those murders had been stylized, almost staged; a sense of joyous evil had pervaded them. But, here, there was a difference. The killer had been frenzied, angry and frustrated. There had been no control to the mutilation. Preliminary reports indicated that there had been no sexual contact prior to the murder. The killer, then, must have been surprised in some way, Mitchell concluded. Something must have gone wrong.
He started down the stairs. So what? Maybe a dog barked. Maybe a neighbor dropped by unexpectedly. That still didn't change the fact that he was no closer to a suspect now than he had been days ago. He realized morosely that his theory about Wells and the murders was completely logical, yet totally wrong. By the same token, he didn't buy any of that garbage about time-traveling. The only possible conclusion was the one held by Sergeant Ray. Wells was a psychic. There was no other way he could've had foreknowledge of at least two of the murders.
He came out onto the sidewalk and saw the crowd of news reporters surge against the cordon of police.
“Was there another murder in this building, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, there was.”
“Was it anything like the Dolores Clark killing?”
“It was similar.”
“Do you have any suspects yet?”
“No comment, gentlemen.”
“Was the victim a prostitute?”
“No, she was not a prostitute. If you want more information, you'll have to wait until next of kin are notified. Now, if you'll excuse me, gentlemen?”
“The neighbors say somebody named Amy Robbins lived up there! Is that who it was, Lieutenant?”
“I am not sure, gentlemen!” He turned and glared at them. His voice began to quaver. “There was no way for me or anyone else to identify the corpse! It was beyond recognition, you understand, gentlemen?”
 
 
H.G. was huddled in the corner of the small room staring at tomorrow's newspaper still on the table. The headline was true; the prophecy had been fulfilled. He had his coat wrapped tightly around him and shivered though the temperature hadn't changed. He had lost. Amy was gone. He was alone. Eighty-six years from home, and no particular desire to return. It did not matter that he had not beaten destiny. It did not matter why their carefully laid plans had gone awry. It did not matter why the police had so stupidly intervened and then failed to act quickly enough. Amy was dead. He would never hear her speak again or feel her touch or sense her warmth or see her eyes. He could envision her face and her eyes as he had gazed at them just that morning, dreaming of sharing Elysium with her. Her beautiful eyes would haunt him forever; she had been his responsibility; her death would lie heavy on his soul. And that mattered. And so did the fact that Stephenson was still running loose in the city of San Francisco. H.G. vowed that he would stay in 1979 until he found the doctor and extracted revenge.
Yes, vengeance, by God. The devil with justice.
That philosophy of remedying social ills was neither consistent nor quick nor brutal enough. He would never stand idly by and watch Stephenson get sentenced to life in prison or even the gallows. He wanted to kill the villain with his own hands.
Suddenly, H.G. doubled over and sobbed. Why hadn't he insisted that they leave when they first knew? He had unlocked the passageways of the fourth dimension. Perhaps there always had been a hidden irony to his discoveries and subsequent invention: that the past and the future had been preordained and could not be altered no matter what. Hence, a person who traveled forward in time and returned to his present would be swollen with the knowledge of the future (whether good or bad), yet no one would believe him. Helplessly, he would watch the human condition plod toward absurdity.
Moreover, that was why he could not go back along the fourth dimension and resurrect Amy Robbins. To relive three days with her over and over—or to leapfrog over her death would be more than tantamount to running away and avoiding reality; it would be begging the existential question. True, she would be alive, and they would have each other, but how long would their love last if she knew that he was ultimately responsible for her terrible death? If she knew that she could never choose to return to her home hour and live out her natural life? And how could he love her when all the cosmos knew that he had failed to save her life?
Foreknowledge, then, was trifling at best, poisonous at worst. Long ago, the die had been cast, the Fates had been sealed. And what did that say for a paradise on earth? How did that speak to a Utopia? All of those light-headed, naïve notions were worthless. They might as well be a fine layer of dust on the futurological scrap heap of human civilization, for they meant nothing.
The devil with optimism, then. It is going to end up as it was first conceived. With all of the universe laughing at the butt of the cosmos—the human animal—who has just enough sense to realize
with horror what is happening to him and not enough intelligence to do anything about it.
God help us all.
He wiped his face dry with his handkerchief, cleared his throat and looked up through red-rimmed eyes.
Lieutenant Mitchell had come into the room and was just standing there, staring at him. “You're free to go.”
H.G. slowly nodded.
“I want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm truly very sorry.”
H.G. rose from the chair and collected his things—all except for the pistol, which had been confiscated. He dropped the newspaper from the future into a wastebasket, then walked out the door.
“Can I offer you a lift somewhere?” Mitchell called after him.
“You don't have a conveyance that could take me far enough away from this place, Lieutenant.”
 
 
H.G. walked away from police headquarters and was swallowed up in a light fog. His posture had imperceptibly changed. No longer did he stand perfectly straight with the look of an Anglican choir boy. He was slightly crouched, instinctively ready to turn, his slitted eyes matching his profound shift in mood and conviction.
A small gust of wind picked up some debris (Styrofoam cups and plastic sandwich wrappers) from beneath parked cars and blew the stuff away. H.G. nodded as if nature had affirmed his new stance. The litter would no doubt be blown down to a slum. The meek shall not inherit the earth, he mused. Only its garbage.
He hailed a cab at Mission and Sixth, although he did not know where he was going. He shrugged helplessly. Who was he to think that he could outsmart Leslie John Stephenson? Let alone find him. What did it matter, anyway? Amy was gone, and he had no stomach left for the late twentieth century and its potpourri of imperfections.
He told the cab driver to take him to the science museum in Golden Gate Park. Yes, the devil with it all. He would admit defeat, climb aboard his time machine and return home to a more genteel time. Upon arrival, he would remove THE UTOPIA from above his cabin door. He would obliterate the words (and hopefully the concept they stood for) by melting down the brass plate and tossing the slag into the Thames. Then he would pick up the pieces of his life and get on with the banalities of existence.
Suddenly H.G. felt a twinge of emotion. He decided that he wanted to return to Russian Hill for a remembrance of what seemed like a distant past. True, all that would be there was a building, but it had been her building. Yes, she was dead now, but the very least he could do was say good-bye. The least he could do was pay his respects.
He told the driver to turn right on Van Ness and let him off at the corner of Green Street. Once there, he paid the cabby, then trudged up the street toward Russian Hill. He moved like an automaton, his shoes scuffing the sidewalk. His mind was sealed from speculation concerning free will, predestination and knowledge of the future. His face had taken on an embittered cast, his muscles hard against the cold night air.
 
 
Leslie John Stephenson stood in the shadow of a massive hedgerow between two large houses just up the hill from the cul-de-sac. His spot was safely secluded, yet he had a view of Green Street below. He also had Amy Robbins and she was alive. One of his hands held her by the hair while the other held the Spanish knife against her throat. She had become passive and silent.
He did not speak to her for there was no need. Rather, he was lost in his own thoughts. The evening had not gone as he had anticipated. He had found Amy Robbins in the cupboard in the foyer and
she had given in without resistance once she had seen his knife. But then the other girl had come into the flat without knocking, announcing brightly that she was sorry that she was a little bit late. The girl had seen the knife at Amy's throat and had become petrified with fear. It was that split second of inertia that had saved him. He had clubbed Amy Robbins unconscious, grabbed the other girl and slashed her throat without ceremony. Then he had gone into a frenzy.
He frowned and cursed himself. There had been so much blood this time. If only he had not lost control. If only he had not given in to his fury. He could simply have slain the girl and let it go at that. Then he still could have stayed in the flat and proceeded as he had originally planned. But after he had finished with the girl's corpse, Amy Robbins had regained consciousness and had begun screaming. He had silenced her, but the damage had been done. Someone had undoubtedly heard the shrieks; hence, he had been forced to flee with her.
Once safely away from the building, he had threatened Amy Robbins with death and learned that she had indeed been expecting Wells. Therefore, Stephenson had returned to Russian Hill after the police had departed and taken up his vigil. He just hoped that the bargaining with Wells would not be difficult. Whatever happened, he must control himself. Any more self-indulgent, indiscreet behavior and he might find himself in serious trouble. He inadvertently tightened his grip on her hair. She moaned with pain. He grinned, full of hatred for females of the species.
And then he saw the little scientist shuffling along Green Street. The man stopped across the street from the girl's building and stared up at the darkened windows of her flat. Then he put his face in his hands and slumped against a boxed lace tree on the sidewalk.
Stephenson prodded the girl with his knife. They went down the hill alongside a Victorian mansion on the cul-de-sac. He stopped.
He thought for a moment, then took his hand out of the girl's hair, removed his watch from its pocket and snapped open the lid.
The light French lullaby began playing, its flights of melody softened by the mist, but audible nonetheless.
Stephenson saw Wells raise his head, listen, then approach with a quick and curious, yet cautious stride.
 
 
At first, H.G. thought that the music was coming from inside someone's house, then wondered if it was a radio in a motorcar. He peered into the open window of a squat vehicle with a canvas top that resembled a beetle.
“H.G.!”
He whirled around.
“H.G., I'm over here!”
Amy was alive! With a hoarse cry, he rushed toward the side of a house, anticipating the feel of her winsome frame against him.

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