"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Ed! Don"t you start lecturing me now!"
"OK, Russ," his friend subsided, remembering the h.e.l.l Mandarin had gone through three years before. "Just wanted to remind you that you"d tried this blind alley once before."
"Ed, I drink only socially these days." He waited for the other to say something, finally added: "Except for an occasional binge, maybe."
"Just trying to make a friendly suggestion."
"Well, I can do without friendly suggestions."
"OK, Russ."
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Saunders expected the psychiatrist to drop off, but the other sat rigidly upright all the way. Too much adrenaline, Saunders decided.
He pulled into the long driveway of Mandarin"s Cherokee Hills estate. It was a rambling Tudor-style house of the 1920s, constructed when this had been the sn.o.b residential section of Knoxville. Although most of the new money had now moved into the suburbs, Cherokee Hills had resisted urban decay with stately aloofness.
"I"ll give you a ring in the morning," Saunders promised.
"It"s all right; I"ll call a cab," muttered Russ.
Saunders shrugged. "Good night, Russ."
He climbed out of the car. "Sure."
Saunders waited until he was in the front door before driving off.
The phone started to ring while Russ was dropping Alka-Seltzers into a highball gla.s.s. Holding the frothing gla.s.s carefully, he picked up the receiver.
"h.e.l.lo." He wondered if he could finish the conversation before the tablets finished their dancing disintegration.
"Dr Mandarin?"
"Speaking." He didn"t recognize the voice.
"This is Morris Sheldon from the Frostfire Press. Been trying to get in touch with you this evening."
"Yeah? Well, what can I do for you, Morris old buddy?"
"Well, I know you were close to poor Curtiss Stryker. I believe he mentioned to me that you were giving him some medical opinions relative to the research he was doing on this last book."
"I was," Russ acknowledged, taking time for a swallow of Alka-Seltzer.
"Do you know how far along he"d gotten before the accident?"
"Well now, you probably know better than I. All I"d seen were several of the early chapters."
"I"d wondered if you perhaps had seen the rough draft of the chapters you were involved in."
"The poltergeist house? No, didn"t know he"d had time to put that in rough draft yet."
"Yes, he had. At least he said so in our last conversation."
"Well, that"s news to me. I was out of town the last couple days." Mandarin downed the last of the seltzer. "Why do you ask?"
Sheldon paused. "Well, frankly I"d hoped Curtiss might have pa.s.sed a carbon of it on to you. He didn"t send me the typescript. And we"re rather afraid it was with his papers when the accident occurred. If so, I"m afraid his last chapter has been lost forever."
"Probably so," Russ agreed, his voice carefully civil. "But why are you concerned?"
"Well, as a friend of Curtiss"s you"ll be glad to know that Frostfire Press had decided not to let his last book go unfinished. We"ve approached his close friend and colleague, Brooke Hamilton..."
"Oh," said Mandarin, revelation dawning in his voice. "Hey, you mean his confidant and bosom pal, Brooke Hamilton, hopes to use Stryker"s notes and all for a posthumous collaboration?"
"That"s right," Sheldon agreed. "And naturally we want to locate as much of Stryker"s material as we can."
"Well, then you"re in luck, Morris old buddy. Stryker"s dear friend, that critically acclaimed writer and all around bon vivant, Brooke Hamilton, was so overcome with grief at his mentor"s death that he wasted no time in breaking into Stryker"s office and stealing every shred of Stryker"s unpublished writing. Just give him time to sort through the wastebasket, and dear old Brooke will keep you in posthumous collaborations for the next ten years."
"Now wait, Dr Mandarin! You mean you"re accusing Brooke Hamilton of..."
"Of following his natural talents. And may the pair of you be b.u.g.g.e.red in h.e.l.l by ghouls! Good night, Morris old buddy."
He slammed the receiver over Sheldon"s rejoinder, and swore for a while.
Returning to the sink, he carefully rinsed his gla.s.s, then added a few ice cubes. There was bourbon in the decanter.
Sipping his drink, he collapsed on the den couch and glared at the silent television screen. He didn"t feel like watching the idiot tube tonight. Nor did he care to go to bed, despite extended lack of sleep. His belly felt sour, his head ached. He was too d.a.m.n mad and disgusted to relax.
Ghouls. All of them. Gathering for the feast. More Haunted Houses of the South, by Curtiss Stryker and Brooke Hamilton. Probably they"d already approached Stryker"s agent, set up a contract. Stryker would spin in his grave. If he ever reached his grave.
Mandarin wondered if he ought to phone Stryker"s agent and protest-then remembered that he had no idea who his agent had been. No, make that was, not had been. As a literary property, Curtiss Stryker was suddenly more alive than before.
Sheldon would know who the agent was. Maybe he should phone and ask. Russ discarded the idea. Who was he to protest, anyway? Just another obnoxious "friend of the deceased."
His thoughts turned to Stryker"s unfinished book, to the missing last chapter. Curtiss had promised to give him the carbon. Probably Hamilton had made off with that along with his other tomb spoils.
Maybe not.
Stryker kept a file of all his more recent ma.n.u.scripts. A big filing cabinet in his study at home. Sometimes he worked there at night-when he was pushed by a deadline, or really caught up in something.
Russ hauled himself to his feet. A picture was taking shape. Stryker, due at a friend"s home for dinner, knowing he wouldn"t be back until late. But too interested in his new chapter to leave the material in his office. Instead he brings his notes home and works on the ma.n.u.script until time to leave. Had anyone thought to check his study?
Someone would soon-if they hadn"t already. Climbing the stairs to his bedroom, Russ fumbled through his dresser. There it was-in a box crammed mostly with cufflinks, tie-tacs and spare keys. The key to his house that Stryker had given him once when the author left for several months knocking about Mexico.
A look of angry resolve on his black-stubbled jaw, Mandarin s.n.a.t.c.hed up the key and stalked to the garage. The battery was low in the old GTO that he"d kept because it had been Alicia"s favorite car, but the engine caught at the last moment. With an echo of throaty exhaust, he backed out of the garage.
His plans were only half formulated, as he carefully steered the rumbling Pontiac through the downtown streets. He meant to check Stryker"s study immediately, however. If the chapter ma.n.u.scripts were there, he"d take it to read, and Brooke Hamilton could go to h.e.l.l. And if he didn"t find the ma.n.u.script- maybe that would be because somebody had already broken into the house. A horrid grin twisted Mandarin"s face. He"d like for that to be the case. Like to show the evidence to Saunders, place charges against Brooke Hamilton for stealing from a dead man.
It was past 11, and traffic was thinning out-for which Russ was grateful. With far more caution than was his custom, he overcame his impatience and made the short drive out Lyons View Pike without mishap.
He turned into the empty drive and cut his lights. Stryker"s house, an old brick farmhouse laid out in a T, hunched dark beneath huge white pines. The windows were black against the brick from the front; the remainder of the house was shadowed by the looming pines from what little moonlight the clouds hadn"t kept.
Mandarin remembered a flashlight in the glove compartment and dug it out. The beam was yellow and weak, but enough to see by. Suspiciously he played the light across the front of the house. Seeing nothing untoward, he started around back.
The front of the house was two storeys and contained living quarters. Like the stem of a T, the rear section came out perpendicularly from the rest-a single-storey wing that housed kitchen and storage. A side porch came off from one side of the kitchen wing, where Stryker and Russ had spent many a summer evening, slouched in wooden rockers and with something cold to drink.
Having seen nothing out of the ordinary, Russ crossed the unscreened porch to the kitchen door, jabbed his key at the lock. As he fumbled for the k.n.o.b, the door nudged open.
Mandarin brought up his flashlight. The old-fashioned latch had been forced.
He breathed a silent curse. Stealthily he pushed open the door, stepped inside.
Thunder spat flame from across the room. Russ pitched backward onto the porch, and the flame burst across his skull.
*VIII*
She was the most beautiful, and at the same time the most frightening, woman Mandarin had ever seen. She danced in a whirl of blue, how could his heart forget? Blue were the skies, and blue were her eyes, just like the blue skirt she wore...
And she whispered to him as she waltzed, and the things she whispered to him were beautiful, and Mandarin wanted to hear more, even though her whispers terrified him.
And the more she danced and whispered and sang, the worse his vertigo became, and he was dizzy and falling, and he was clutching at her blue skirt to keep from falling, and she kept dancing away from him, and he cried out to her to come back...
He didn"t understand...
But he had to understand...
"Come back!" he screamed. His voice was a tortured rasp.
The blue light became a lance of blue flame, searing his brain. And her hands of coldest ice pierced through him and seized upon his soul, and the blue lady was drawing him away, pulling him through the darkness...
Dimly, through the haze of throbbing pain, Mandarin became aware of the man bending over him.
Gritting his teeth, he forced his eyes to focus. It was hard. A bright beam of light bored into his face.
"Christ! He"s coming around, Sid!"
The light swept away.
Mandarin struggled to rise-groaned and fell back. Bright flashes of pain rippled from the numbing ache of his skull.
"Just stay put, buddy. Jesus! We thought you were..."
Russ"s vision was clearing. Blotchy green afterimages swam across his eyes. But he saw the patrolman"s uniform, and the rising wave of panic subsided.
"Neighbor says she knows who he is, Hardin." The other voice drifted from farther away. "He"s a friend of the guy who owned this place. Drops by every week or so."
Russ dully recognized the floor of Stryker"s side porch spread out around him. It was damp and sticky. He could hear a woman"s voice speaking from the kitchen, though he couldn"t follow her words.
"I think the bullet must"ve just grazed the top his forehead," the first man called out. "There"s blood all over the back of his head, but it looks like he just busted his scalp open falling back against the post here. You"re one lucky hard-headed b.a.s.t.a.r.d, buddy."
His partner was examining Russ"s billfold. "Name"s Dr Russell Mandarin. He"s that shrink friend of Lieutenant Saunders, I think. Hope that"s the ambulance I hear coming. He"s been out a d.a.m.n long time."
"I"m all right," protested Mandarin without conviction. He tried again to rise, made it to his knees. The porch seemed to whirl and pitch. He shut his eyes hard and waited.
An arm steadied his shoulder. "Maybe you better stay down, buddy. You got blood leaking all across the back of your head." Doggedly Mandarin got his feet under him, lurched onto a porch rocker. The chair almost tipped, then steadied. With careful fingers he touched his forehead, found pain there. His hair was clotted with blood. Squinting across the narrow porch, Russ saw the support post opposite the back door. He remembered a gunshot, and falling backward. He must have bashed his head against the oak pillar.
"Dr Mandarin? Are you all right?"
Russ recognized Mrs Lieberman, Stryker"s closest neighbor. Russ had often kidded Stryker that the widow had designs on him, and Stryker would always reply that only a cad tells.
"I heard that loud old car of yours turn into Mr Stryker"s driveway," she was saying. "And then I heard a shot. I thought it must be a gang of burglars, and so I called the police."
"And it"s good you did, ma"am. They might have finished the job on your friend here otherwise."
The one called Hardin looked down the driveway. "Here"s the ambulance-and our back-up, now that we don"t need it."
"I think I heard them miss the turn-off twice," his partner replied.
"What"s happening?" Mandarin asked, recovering enough to become aware of his situation.
"You been shot, Doc, but you"re going to be all right now."
"Shot?"
"Reckon you busted in on whoever it was that"d broke into the house. Can"t see that anything"s taken, but the place is sure a mess."
*IX*
Saunders was waiting for him when Mandarin got out of x-ray. Russ had insisted on viewing the films himself, after making enough of a scene that the radiologist seemed a little disappointed to find no evidence of fracture or subdural. Russ let them wheel him back down to the ER, where a nervous resident began to patch him up.
"I am G.o.dd.a.m.n glad to see you here," was Saunders" first comment.
"Same to you, sideways," Russ said. "Did you know those two clowns of yours had radioed me in as DOA? d.a.m.n lucky I didn"t bleed out waiting."
"d.a.m.n lucky you got a thick skull and a hippie haircut. Somebody bounced a bullet off your head, and if they"d aimed an inch or so lower, it"d"ve gone between your eyes instead of parting your hair. I hear you busted loose a porch rail banging it with your head afterward."
"Nothing much hurt but my good looks," Russ allowed. "They want to keep me overnight for observation, but I"m heading home from here. I can d.a.m.n well observe myself-no point in being a doctor if you can"t change your own oil. And don"t tell me the one about "... has a fool for a physician.""
Saunders was serious now. Too serious.
"Russ, I"m going to tell you that the only reason you"re not headed from here to the station is because you were lying there DOA on Stryker"s porch at the same time Brooke Hamilton was being murdered."
Mandarin decided he was still suffering the effects of his concussion. "What"s that about Hamilton?"
Saunders was looking for a cigarette, then remembered he couldn"t smoke here. "Just came from his place. A boyfriend let himself in around midnight, found Hamilton tied to a chair, throat had just been cut. And he"d been cut up pretty good elsewhere before he got his second smile. After that business this afternoon, I was afraid it was you I"d be bringing in. I was at your house when word came in that you were dead at the time of the murder. Reckon we"ll hold his boyfriend now instead."
"Jesus!" Russ muttered. It was all coming too fast for him. "These queers do some weird s.h.i.t when they have their love spats," Saunders informed him. "Likely high on pot and LSD."
"I didn"t know Hamilton was gay"
"No? Well, he looked queer. I can spot them. Anyway, if you hadn"t been busy getting shot in the head at Curtiss"s house at the time Hamilton was last seen alive, you"d be in worse trouble now."