Image of the Beast and Blown (10 page)

self, but, since he was using Heepish's phone, he did owe
him some explanation.

"The forces of good must use corruption to fight corrup-
tion," he said. "I occasionally have to find a number, and
I send a ten to my informant, or used to; now it's a twenty,
what with inflation. In this case, I suspect I've wasted my
money."

Heepish harrumphed. Childe got out quickly; he felt as
if he could no longer stand this shadowy, musky place
with its monsters frozen in various attitudes of attack and
their horrified paralyzed victims. Nor could he endure the
custodian of the museum any longer.

Yet, when he stood at the door to say good-bye and to
thank his host, he felt ashamed. Certainly, the man's
hobby—passion, rather—was harmless enough and even
entertaining—even emotionally purgative—for millions of
children and adults who had never quite ceased being
children. Though dedicated to archetypal horror and its
Hollywood sophisticated developments, the house had
defeated itself, hence, had a therapeutic value. Where
there is a surfeit of horrors, horror becomes ho-hum.

And this man had helped him to the best of his ability.

He thanked Heepish and shook his hand, and perhaps
Heepish felt the change in his guest, because he smiled
broadly and radiated warmth and asked Childe to come
back—any time.

The door swung shut with the Inner-Sanctum creakings,
but it did not propel Childe and Jeremiah into the acid-
droplet mist. A breeze ruffled them, and sunshine was
bright, and the sky was blue.

Childe had not known until then how depressed and
miserable he had been. Now, he blinked eyes that did not
burn or weep and sucked in the precious clean air. He
chortled and did a little jig arm in arm with Jeremiah. The
walk back to his apartment was the most delightful walk
in his life. Its delight exceeded even that of his first walk
with Sybil when he was courting her. The yards and side-
walks held a surprising number of people, all enjoying the
air and sun. Apparently, fewer than he—and the radio
and TV experts—had thought had fled the area.

There were, however, few cars on the streets. Wilshire
Boulevard held only one auto between La Cienega and

Robertson, and when they crossed Burton Way on Willa-
man, they could see no cars.

However, there were great green-gray clouds piled
against the mountains. Pasadena and Glendale and other
inland cities were still in the fist of the smog.

By the time he had said good-bye to Jeremiah, who
turned off toward Mt. Sinai Hospital, the wind had slid to
a halt, and the air was as still as a dead jellyfish again.
There was a peculiar glow on the western horizon; a hush
descended as if a finger had been placed against the lips of
the world.

He still felt happy as he went into the apartment build-
ing. The phone lines were busy, but he stuck it out, and,
within three hundred seconds by his wristwatch, the phone
rang. The voice that answered was female, low, and lovely.

Magda Holyani was Mr. Igescu's secretary, she stressed
the "Mister."

No, Mr. Igescu could not talk to him. Mr. Igescu never
talked to anybody without an appointment. No, he would
not grant an interview to Mr. Herold Wellston, no matter
how far Mr. Wellston had traveled for it nor how impor-
tant the magazine Mr. Wellston represented. Mr. Igescu
never gave interviews, and if Mr. Wellston was thinking
of that silly vampire and ghost story in the
Times,
he had
better forget it—as far as talking to Mr. Igescu about it.
Or about anything.

And how had Mr. Wellston gotten this unlisted number?

Childe did not answer the last. He asked that his re-
quest be forwarded to her employer. She said that he
would be informed of it as soon as possible. Childe gave
her his number—he said he was staying with a friend—
and told her that if Igescu should change his mind, he
should call him at that number. He thanked her and hung
up. Throughout the conversation, neither had said a word
about the smog.

Childe decided to do some thinking, and, while he was
doing that, he had better attend to some immediate mat-
ters—such as his survival. He drove to the supermarket
and found that it had just been reopened. Apparently, the
manager was staying on the premises, and several of the
checkout women and the liquor store clerk lived nearby.
Cars were beginning to fill the parking lot, and people on
foot were numerous. Childe was glad that he had thought

of this, because the shelves were beginning to look bare.
He stocked up on canned goods and powdered milk and
purchased a five-gallon bottle of distilled water.

On the way back, he heard six sirens and saw two am-
bulances. Hospitals were not about to complain of lack of
business.

By the time he had put away the groceries, he had made
up his mind. He would drive out and scout around the
Igescu estate. He had no rational cause to do so. There
was not the thinnest of threads to connect Igescu with Col-
ben. Nevertheless, he meant to investigate. He had no-
where else to go and nothing to do. He could spend the
rest of the day with this doubtless unrewarding lead, and
tomorrow, if the city began to return to normal, he would
start on a definite and profitable case, if one showed up.
And one should. There were bound to be many missing
persons, gone somewhere with the smog.

8

The drive out was pleasant. He saw only ten cars moving
on the streets; two were police. The black-and-whites, red
lights flashing but sirens quiet, raced past him.

Childe went west on Santa Monica Boulevard, turned
right at Rexford Drive, and began the safari through the
ever wealthier and more exclusive houses and mansions
(northward was the hierarchical goal). He went up
Coldwater Canyon and into the hills, which are labeled on
the map as the Santa Monica Mountains. He swung left
onto Mariconado Lane, drove for a mile and a half on the
narrow, winding, macadam road, almost solidly walled
with great oaks, firs, and high thick bushes and hedges,
turned right on Daimon Drive, drove for a mile past sev-
eral high-walled estates, and came finally to Igescu's (if
Heepish had given him correct directions).

At the end of the high brick mortared-with-white wall,
three hundred yards past the gateway, the road ended.
There were no walls to keep anybody from walking past
the end of the drive. Whoever owned the land next to the
Baron's felt no need for enforcing privacy. Childe drove to
the end of the pavement, and after some maneuvering,
turned the car around. He left it with its rear against a
bush and facing down the road. After locking the doors, he
put an extra key in the earth under a bush (always pre-
pare for emergencies) and then walked to the gateway.

The wall was ten feet high and topped by iron spikes
between which were from four to six strands of barbed
wire. The gateway was a single heavy iron grill-work
which swung out when electrically actuated. He could see
no keyholes. A tongue of metal must insert into a slot in a
metal fitting in the side of the gateway. The grill-work was
painted dull black and separated into eight squares by
thick iron bars. Each square held a sheet of iron formed
into the profile of a griffin with the wings of a bat. This
was a grade-B movie touch, but, of course, only coinci-
dence. The bat wings probably had some heraldic sig-
nificance.

A metal box six feet up on the right post could be a

voice transceiver. Beyond the gate was a narrow tar-
topped road which curved and disappeared into the thick
woods. The only sign of life was a listless black squirrel.
(The radio had reported that all wild land birds had fled
the area.)

Childe walked into the woods at the end of the road.
He ignored the TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIGOR-
OUSLY PROSECUTED sign—he liked the VIGOR-
OUSLY—to walk along the wall. The going was not easy.
The bushes and thorns seemed determined to hold him
back. He shoved against them and wriggled a few times
and then the wall curved to the right and went up a steep
hill. Panting, he scrambled up on all fours to the top. He
wondered if he were that much out of shape or if the
smog had cut down his ability to take in enough oxygen.

The wall still barred his way. After resting, he climbed
a big oak. Near the top, he looked around, but he could
see only more trees beyond the wall. No branches offered
passage over the walls.

He climbed down slowly and carefully. When he was a
child, he had at times thought that he might prefer to be
Tarzan instead of Sherlock Holmes. He had grown up to
be neither, but he was much closer to Holmes than to Tar-
zan. He wouldn't even make a good Jane. Sweat ran down
his face and soaked his undershirt below the armpits.
His pants were torn in two places, a small scratch on the
back of his left hand was bleeding, his hands were sore on
the palms and dirty all over, and his shoes were badly
scuffed. The sun, in sympathetic altitude with his spirits,
was low. It was just about to touch the ridge of the western
hills he could see through a break. He would have to go
back now and conduct a tour of the wall some other time
—if ever. To ram and bumble through the woods in the
dark would be more than exasperating.

He hastened back to the car, tearing a button off his
shirt this time, and got to it just at dusk. The silence was
like that in a deep cave. No birds twittered or chirped.
Even the buzz and hum of insects were absent. Perhaps
the smog had killed them off. Or, at least, thinned their
ranks or discouraged them. There were no sounds of
airplanes or cars, sounds which it had been difficult to es-
cape anywhere in Los Angeles County night or day.
The atmosphere seemed heavy with a spirit of—what?—

of waiting. Whether it was waiting for him or someone
else, and what it was waiting for, was dubious. And, after
he considered the feeling, he found it ridiculous.

He got into the car behind the wheel, remembered that
he had left a key in the dirt under a bush, started to get
out to retrieve it, then thought better of it, and closed the
door again. He drummed his fingers, wished he had not
quit smoking, and chewed some gum. He almost turned
the radio on but decided that, in this stillness, its sound
would go too far.

The suncast fell away from the sky at last. The darkness
around him became thicker, as if it were the sediment of
night. The glow thrown by the million lights of the city
and reflected back onto the earth was missing tonight.
There were no clouds to act as mirrors, and the surround-
ing hills and trees barred the horizon-shine. Stars began
to thrust through the black. After a while, the almost full
moon, edged in black, like a card announcing a death, rose
above the trees.

Childe waited. He got out after a while and went to the
gate and looked through, but he could not even see a faint
nimbus which might have revealed that, somewhere in that
dense blackness, was a large house with many lights and
at least two people. He returned to the car, sat for perhaps
fifteen minutes longer, and then reached for the ignition
key. His hand stopped an inch from the key.

He heard a sound which turned his scalp cold.

He had hunted enough in Montana and the Yukon to
recognize the sound. It was the howling of wolves. It rose
from somewhere in the trees behind the walls of Igescu's
estate.

9

He was tired when he returned to his apartment. It was
only ten p.m. but he had been through much. Besides, the
poisoned air had burned away his vitality. The respite of
the breeze had not helped much. The air was still dead,
and it seemed to him that it was getting gray again. That
must be one of the tricks his imagination was playing him,
because there were not enough cars on the streets to ac-
count for another build-up of smog.

He called the LAPD and asked for Sergeant Bruin. He
did not expect Bruin to be there, but he was lucky. Bruin
bad much to say about his troubles with traffic that day.
Not to mention that his wife had suddenly decided to get
out of town. For Christ's sake! The smog was gone! For a
while, anyway. No telling what would happen if this crazy
weather continued. He had to get to bed now, because
tomorrow looked even worse. Not the traffic. Most of the
refugees should be past the state line by now. But they'd be
back. That wasn't what was worrying him. The crazy
weather and the smog, the sudden departure of the smog,
rather, had resulted in a soaring upward of murders
and suicides. He'd talk to Childe tomorrow, if he had
time.

"You sound as if you're out on your feet, Bruin," Childe
said. "Don't you want to hear about what I've been doing
on the Colben case?"

"You found out anything definite?" Bruin said.

"I'm on to something. I got a hunch ..."

"A hunch! A hunch! For God's sake, Childe, I'm tired!
See you!"

The phone clicked.

Childe cursed, but after a while he had to admit that
Bruin's reaction was justified. He decided to go to bed.
He checked his automatic-answer device. There was one
call. At 9:45, just before he had gotten home. Magda
Holyani had phoned to inform him that Mr. Igescu had
changed his mind and would grant him an interview. He
should call back if he got in before ten. If he didn't, he