Final Reckonings (17 page)
“Never mind. Do you think I care what they do to me, if only I can go? I’m not afraid. I know I can’t go as I am now. I know they must alter me.
“There are certain parts they want for reasons of their own. You’d be frightened if I told you. But I’m not afraid. You say I’m sick and insane, don’t deny it. Yet I’m healthy enough, sane enough to face them and their world. It’s you who are too morbid to endure it all.”
Avis Long was wailing now; a thin, high-pitched wail of a little girl in a tantrum.
“You and I are leaving this house tomorrow,” Mason said. “We’re going away. We’ll be married and live happily ever after—in good old storybook style. The trouble with you, young lady, is that you’ve never had to grow up. All this nonsense about goblins and other worlds—”
Avis screamed.
Mason ignored her.
“Right now I’m going to shut that window,” he declared.
Avis continued to scream. The shrill ululation echoed on a sustained note as Mason reached up and closed the round pane of glass over the black aperture. The wind resisted his efforts, but he shut the window and secured the latch.
Then her fingers were digging into his throat from the rear, and her scream was pouring down his ear.
“I’ll kill you!” she wailed. It was the wail of an enraged child.
But there was nothing of the child, or the invalid, in the strength behind her clawing fingers. He fought her off, panting.
Then, suddenly, Doctor Clegg was in the room. A hypodermic needle flashed and gleamed in an arc of plunging silver.
They carried her back to the bed, tucked her in. The blankets nestled about the weary face of a child in sleep.
The window was closed tightly now.
Everything was in order as the two men turned out the light and tiptoed from the room.
Neither of them said a word until they stood downstairs once again
Facing the fireplace, Mason sighed.
“Somehow I’ll get her out of here tomorrow,” he promised. “Perhaps it was too abrupt—my coming back tonight and waking her. I wasn’t very tactful.
“But something about her; something about that room, frightened me.”
Doctor Clegg lit his pipe. “I know,” he said. “That’s why I couldn’t pretend to you that I completely understand. There’s more to it than mere hallucination.”
“I’m going to sit up here tonight,” Mason continued. “Just in case something might happen.”
“She’ll sleep,” Doctor Clegg assured him. “No need to worry.”
“I’ll feel better if I stay. I’m beginning to get a theory about all this talk—other worlds, and changes in her body before a trip. It ties in with the window, somehow. And it sounds like a fantasy on suicide.”
“The death impulse? Perhaps. I should have thought of that possibility. Dreams foreshadowing death—on second thought, Mason, I may stay with you. We can make ourselves comfortable here before the fire, I suppose.”
Silence settled.
It must have been well after midnight before either of them moved from their place before the fire.
Then a sharp splinter of sound crashed from above. Before the tinkling echo died away, both men were on their feet and moving towards the stairway.
There was no further noise from above, and neither of them exchanged a single word. Only the thud of their running footsteps on the stairs broke the silence. And as they paused outside Avis Long’s room, the silence seemed to deepen in intensity. It was a silence palpable, complete, accomplished.
Doctor Clegg’s hand darted to the doorknob, wrenched it ineffectually.
“Locked!” he muttered. “She must have gotten up and locked it.”
Mason scowled.
“The window—do you think she could have—?”
Doctor Clegg refused to meet his glance. Instead he turned and put his massive shoulder to the door panel. A bulge of muscle ridged his neck.
Then the panel splintered and gave way. Mason reached around and opened the door from inside.
They entered the darkened room, Dr. Clegg in the lead, fumbling for the light switch. The harsh, electric glare flooded the scene.
It was a tribute to the power of suggestion that both men glanced, not at the patient in the bed, but at the round window high up on the wall.
Cold night air streamed through a jagged aperture, where the glass had been shattered, as though by the blow of a gigantic fist.
Fragments of glass littered the floor beneath, but there was no trace of any missile. And obviously, the glass had been broken from the outer side of the pane.
“The wind,” Mason murmured weakly, but he could not look at Dr. Clegg as he spoke. For there was no wind, only the cold, soft breeze that billowed ever so gently from the nighted sky above. Only the cold, soft breeze, rustling the curtains and prompting a sarabande of shadows on the wall; shadows that danced in silence over the great bed in the corner.
The breeze and the silence and the shadows enveloped them as they stared now at the bed.
Avis Long’s head was turned towards them on the pillow. They could see her face quite plainly, and Doctor Clegg realized on the basis of experience what Mason knew instinctively—Avis Long’s eyes were closed in death.
But that is not what made Mason gasp and shudder—nor did the sight of death alone cause Doctor Clegg to scream aloud.
There was nothing whatsoever to frighten the beholder of the placid countenance turned towards them in death. They did not scream at the sight of Avis Long’s face.
Lying on the pillow of the huge bed, Avis Long’s face bore a look of perfect peace.
But Avis Long’s body was . . . gone.
T
HE SCALES
aren't here any more. Look, Buster, I don't want any trouble. I run a nice quiet little place here, no rough stuff. I'm telling you —the scales aren't here. You must be the twentieth guy this week who come in looking for those scales. But they're gone. Damned good thing, too, if you ask me.
No, I'm not the bouncer. I'm the manager. So help me, I am. If you're looking for Big Pete Mosko, he's gone. Tarelli's gone, too, and the girl.
Didn't you read about it in the papers? I thought everybody knew it by now, but like I said, guys keep coming in. The heat was on here for a month before I bought the place and made the fix. Now I run it strictly on the percentages; I level with the customers. Not like Mosko, with his crooked wheels and the phony cubes. Look the house over. No wires, no gimmicks. You want to make a fast buck at the table, you get your chance. But the sucker stuff is out. And I wouldn't be caught dead with those scales in here, after what has happened.
No, I don't think you're nosy. I'll take that drink, sure. Might as well tell you about it. Like I say, it was in the papers—but only part of it. Screwiest thing you ever heard of. Matter of fact, a guy needs a drink or two if he wants to finish the story.
If you come in here in the old days, then you probably remember Big Pete Mosko all right. Six feet four, three hundred pounds, built like a brick backhouse, with that Polack haircut and the bashed-in nose. Don't like to give anyone the finger, but it looks like Pete Mosko had to be that big to hold all the meanness in him. Kind of a guy they'd have to bury with a corkscrew, too. But a very smart apple.
He come here about three years ago when this pitch was nothing but a combination tavern and bowling alley. A Mom and Pop setup, strictly for Saturday nights and a beer license. He made this deal with the county boys and tore out the bowling alley. Put in this layout downstairs here and hired a couple of sticks to run tables. Crap games only, at first. A fast operation.
But Mosko was a smart apple, like I say. The suckers come downstairs here and dropped their bundles one-two-three. Mosko, he stayed upstairs in the bar and made like your genial host. Used to sit there in a big chair with a ten-dollar smile plastered all over his ugly mush. Offering everybody drinks on the house when they come up from the cleaners. Let everybody kid him about how fat he was and how ugly he was and how dumb he was. Mosko dumb? Let me tell you, he knew what he was doing.
Way he worked it, he didn't even need to keep a bouncer on the job. Never any strong-arm stuff, even though business got good and some of the Country Club gang used to come out here and drop maybe a G or so at a time on Saturdays. Mosko saw to that. He-was the buffer. A guy got a rimming on Mosko's tables, but he never got sore at Mosko. Mosko stayed upstairs and kidded him along.
Show you how smart he was, Mosko played up his fatness. Played it up so he could be ribbed. Did it on purpose — wearing those big baggy suits to make him look even heavier — and putting that free lunch in front of himself when he sat in his chair at the end of the bar. Mosko wasn't really what you call a big eater, but he kept nibbling away at the food all evening, whenever somebody was around to look. Suffered something awful from indigestion, and he used to complain in private, but he put on a good show for the marks.
That's why he got a scale put in the tavern, to begin with. All a part of Mosko's smart act. He used to weigh himself in front of the suckers. Made little bets — fin or a sawbuck — on what he weighed. Lost them on purpose, too, just to make the marks feel good.
But that was an ordinary scale, understand. And Mosko was running an ordinary place, too — until Tarelli came.
Seems like Mosko wasn't happy just to trim suckers on the dice tables. If his appetite for food wasn't so good, he made up for it in his appetite for a fast buck. Anyhow, when he had the bowling alley ripped out downstairs, the carpenters built him a couple of little rooms, way in back. Rooms to live in.
Of course Mosko himself lived upstairs, over the tavern. These rooms weren't for him. They were for any of Mosko s private pals.
He had a lot of private pals. Old buddies from Division Street in Chi. Fraternity brothers from Joliet. Any lamster was a pal of Mosko's when the heat was on—if he had the moola to pay for hiding out in one of those private rooms downstairs. Mosko picked up a nice hunk of pocket money hiding hot items — and I guess he had visitors from all over the country staying a week or a month in his place. Never asked about it; you didn't ask Mosko about such things if you wanted to keep being a good insurance risk.
Anyhow, it was on account of those rooms that Tarelli come here. He was out of Havana — illegal entry, of course — but he wasn't a Cuban. Eyetie, maybe, from the looks of him. Little dark customer with gray hair and big brown eyes, always grinning and mumbling to himself. Funny to see a squirt like him standing next to a big tub of lard like Mosko.
I saw him the day he arrived. I was working for Big Pete Mosko, then, bouncing and keeping the customers quiet. Mosko never talked about his little private deals handling hot characters in the back room, and I clammed up whenever I was with him — it was strictly business between us. But even though I kept my mouth shut, I kept my eyes open, and I saw plenty.
Like I say, I saw Tarelli arrive. He got off the five-spot bus right in front of the tavern, just at twilight. I was out front switching on the neon when he ambled up, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Pardon. Can you inform me if this is the establishment of Signor Mosko?"
I gave him a checkup, a fastie. Funny little guy, about the size of a watch charm, wearing a set of checkered threads. He carried a big black suitcase, holding it stiff-armed in a way that made it easy to tell he had a full load. He wasn't wearing a hat, and his gray hair was plastered down on his head with some kind of perfume or tonic on it which smelled like DDT and was probably just as deadly.
"Inside, Buster," I told him.
"Pardon?"
"Mosko s inside. Wait, I'll take you." I steered him toward the door.
"Thank you." He gave me the big grin — full thirty-two-tooth salute — and lugged the keister inside after me, mumbling to himself.
What he could possibly want with Mosko I didn't know, but I wasn't being paid to figure it out. I just led him up to Big Pete behind the bar and pointed. Then I went outside again.
Of course, I couldn't help hearing some stuff through the screen door. Mosko had a voice that could kill horseflies at five hundred feet. He talked and Tarelli mumbled. Something like this:
"Finally made it, huh? Rico fly you in?"
"Mumble-mumble-mumble."
"All set. Where's the cash?"
"Mumble-mumble."
"Okay. Stay as long as you want. Rico tells me you can do a few jobs for me, too."
"Mumble-mumble-mumble."
"Brought your own equipment, eh? That's fine. We'll see how good you are, then. Come on, I'll show you where you'll bunk. But remember, Tarelli — you stay out of sight when customers are here. Don't want you to show your profile to any strangers. Just stick downstairs and do what you're told and we'll get along fine."
That told me all I needed to know, except what Tarelli was going to do for Big Pete Mosko while he hid out from the fuzz in the basement back rooms. But I found out the rest soon enough.
Couple of days later, I'm downstairs stashing liquor in the storage room and I come back through the crap table layout. First thing I see is a couple of roulette wheels, some big new tables, and little Tarelli.
Tarelli is sitting on an orange crate, right in the middle of the wheels and furniture, and he's having himself a ball. Got a mess of tools laying around, and a heap more in his big black suitcase. He's wiring the undersides of the tables and using instruments on the wheels, squatting on this crate and grinning like a gnome in Santy Claus's workshop. I hear him mumbling to himself, and I figure it's only sociable I should stop by and maybe case the job a little.
He pays me no attention at all, just keeps right on with his wiring, soldering connections and putting some small batteries under the wheels. Even though he grins and mumbles, I can tell when I watch his hands that Tarelli knows what he is doing. The little foreign character is a first-class mechanic.
I watch him slip some weights under the rims of the three roulette wheels and it's easy to see that he's bored holes through them for an electric magnet below the Zero and Double-Zero, and then—
wham!