Image of the Beast and Blown (11 page)

was not to phone until after three the following after-
noon.

Childe could not go to sleep for a long time because
of wondering what could have made the Baron change
his mind. Could he have seen Childe outside the walls
and decided to invite him within for some sinister rea-
son?

He awoke suddenly, sitting up, his heart racing. The
phone was ringing on the stand beside him. He knocked
it over and had to climb down out of bed to get it off the
floor. Sergeant Bruin's voice answered him.

The crooked hands of the clock on the stand touched
the Gothic style 12 and 8.

"Childe? Childe. OK! I'd feel bad about getting you
up, but I been up since six myself. Listen, Budler's car
was found this morning! In the same lot Colben's car was
found in, how you like that? The lab boys, what're
available, are going over it now."

"What time in the morning?" Childe said.

"About six, why, what difference does that make? You
got something?"

"No. Listen, if you got time," and Childe outlined what
he had done. "I just wanted you to know that I was going
there tonight in case I didn't …"

He stopped. He suddenly felt foolish, and Bruin's
chuckle deepened the feeling.

"In case you don't report back? Haw! Haw!"

Bruin's laughter was loud. Finally, he said, "OK, Childe.
I'll watch out you check in. But this deal about this
vampire—a baron, no shit? A real live Transylvanian
vampire-type Rumanian baron, what runs a line of super-
markets, right? Haw! Haw! Childe, you sure the smog
ain't been eating away your brain cells?"

"Have your fun," Childe said dignifiedly. "Have you
got any leads, by the way?"

"How the hell could we? You know we've had no
time!"

"What about the wolves, then?" Childe said. "Isn't
there some sort of law about having wild animals, dan-
gerous animals, on the premises? These sounded as if
they were running loose."

"How do you know they were wolves? Did you actually
see them?"

Childe admitted that he hadn't. Bruin said that even
if there were laws against keeping wolves in that area,
it would be the business of the Beverly Hills Police or
perhaps the county police. He wasn't sure, because that
area was doubtful; it was on the very edge of Beverly
Hills, if he remembered right. He'd have to look it up.

Childe did not insist on finding out. He knew that
Bruin was too busy to be interested and even if he wasn't
busy he probably thought Childe was on a false trail.
Childe admitted to himself that this was most likely. But
he had nothing else to do.

The rest of the day he spent cleaning up his apart-
ment, doing his washing in the building's basement ma-
chines, planning what he would do that evening, specu-
lating, and collecting some material, which he put into his
trunk.

He also watched the TV news. The air was as motion-
less and as gray as lead. Despite this, most of the citizens
seemed to think that conditions were returning to normal.
Businesses were open again, and cars were filling the
streets. The authorities, however, had warned those who
had left the area not to return if they had some place
to stay. The "unnatural" weather might continue in-
definitely. There was no explanation for it which could
be proved or even convincingly presented. But if normal
atmospheric conditions did return, it would be best for
those whose health was endangered by smog to stay
away, or to plan on returning only long enough to settle
their affairs before getting out.

Childe went to the supermarket, which was operating
at almost sixty percent normalcy, to stock up. The
sky was graying swiftly, and the peculiar ghastly light had
now spread over the sky from the horizon. It subdued
the human beings under its dome; they spoke less fre-
quently and more quietly and even the blaring of horns
was reduced.

The birds had not returned.

Childe called Igescu twice. The first time, a recording
said that all calls would be answered only after six. Childe
wondered why the recorded call of the evening before
had said he could phone in after three. Childe called
again a few minutes after six. Magda Holyani's low voice
answered.

Yes, Mr. Igescu would see him at eight that evening.
Sharp. And the interview would be over at nine. Mr.
Wellston would have to sign a paper which would re-
quire that any material to be published could be blue-
lined by Mr. Igescu. He could not bring a camera. The
chauffeur, Eric Glam, would meet Mr. Wellston at the
gate and would drive him up. Mr. Wellston's car would
have to be parked outside the wall.

Childe had hung up and taken three steps from the
phone when it rang. Bruin was calling. "Childe, the
report from the lab has been in for some time but I
didn't have a chance to see it until a coupla minutes
ago."

He paused. Childe said, "Well?"

"It was clean, just like Colben's car. Except for one
thing."

Bruin paused again. Childe felt a chill run over his
back and then up his neck and over his scalp. When he
heard Bruin, he had the feeling of
déjà vu,
of having
heard the words before under exactly identical circum-
stances. But it was not so much
déjà vu
as expectation.

"There were hairs on the front seat.
Wolf
hairs."

"You've changed your mind about the possible worth-
whileness of investigating Igescu?"

Bruin grunted and said, "We can't. Not just now. But,
yeah, I think you ought to. The wolf hairs were put on
the seat on purpose, obviously, since everything else was
so clean. Why? Who knows? I was looking for another
film, this time about Budler, but we didn't get any in.
So far."

"It could be just a coincidence," Childe said. "But in
case I don't report in to you by ten tonight, if it's
OK for me to call your house then you better call on the
baron."

"Hell, I probably won't be off duty by ten and no
telling where I'll be. I could have your call relayed, but
the lieutenant wouldn't like that, we're pretty tied up with
official calls and this wouldn't rate as that. No, call
Sergeant Mustanoja, he'll be on duty, and he'll take a
message for me. I'll contact him when I get time."

"Then let's make it eleven," Childe said. "Maybe I'll
get hung up out there."

"Not by the balls, I hope," Bruin said, and, laughing,
clicked the phone.

Childe felt his testicles withdraw a little. He did not
care much for Bruin's humor. Not while the film about
Colben was still bright in his mind.

He took three paces, and the phone rang again.
Magda Holyani said that she was sorry, but it was
necessary that the interview be put off until nine.

Childe said that it would make little difference to him.
Holyani said that that was nice and please make it nine
sharp.

Childe called Bruin back to report the change in
plans. Bruin was gone, so he left a note with Sergeant
Mustanoja.

At 8:30 he drove out. From Beverly Boulevard, the
hills appeared like ghosts too timorous or too weak as yet
to clothe themselves with dense ectoplasm.

By the time he had pulled up before the gateway to
the Igescu estate, night had settled. A big car inside the
gate was pouring out light from its beams up the private
road away from the gate.

A large form leaned against the gate. It turned, and
the extraordinarily broad-shouldered and lean-waisted
figure of a giant was silhouetted against the lights. It
wore a chauffeur's cap.

"I'm Mr. Wellston. I have an appointment at nine."

"Yes, sir. May I see your I.D., sir?"

The voice sounded as if it were being pounded out on
a big drum.

Childe produced several cards, a driver's license, and a
letter, all counterfeit. The chauffeur looked them over
with the aid of a pencil-thin flashlight, handed them
back through the opening in the gate, and walked off to
one side. He disappeared behind the wall. The gate
noiselessly swung inward. Childe walked in, and the gate
swung back. Glam strode up, opened the rear door for
him, and then shut it after Childe was in the back seat.
He got into the driver's seat, and Childe could see that
his ears were huge and at right angles to his head,
seemingly as big as bat's wings. This was an exaggera-
tion, of course, but they were enormous.

The drive was made in silence; the big Rolls-Royce
swung back and forth effortlessly and without any notice-

able motor noise. Its beams sprayed trees, firs, maples,
oaks, and many thick bushes trimmed into various shapes.
The light seemed to bring the vegetation into existence.
After going perhaps a half a mile as the crow flies, but two
miles back and forth, the car stopped before another wall.
This was of red brick, about nine feet high, and also had
iron spikes with barbed wire between the spikes. Glam
pressed something on the dashboard, and the gate's grille
ironwork swung inward.

Childe looked through the windows but could see only
more road and woods. Then, as the car came around the
first bend, he saw the beams reflected against four gleam-
ing eyes. The beams turned away, the eyes disappeared,
but not before he had seen two wolfish shapes slinking off
into the brush.

The car started up a steep hill and as it got near the
top, its beams struck a Victorian cupola. The drive curved
in front of the house and, as the beams swept across the
building, Childe saw that it was, as the newspaper article
had described it, rambling. The central part was obviously
older and of adobe. The wings were of wood, painted
gray, except for the red-trimmed windows, and they ex-
tended part way down the side of the hill, so that the
house seemed to be like a huge octopus squatting on a
rock.

This flashed across his mind, like a frame irrelevantly
inserted in a reel, and then it became just a monstrous
and incongruous building.

The original building had a broad porch, and the
added-on buildings had also been equipped with porches.
Most of the porch was in shadows, but the central portion
was faintly illuminated with light leaking through thin
blinds. A shadow passed across a blind.

The car stopped. Glam lunged out and opened the
door for Childe. Childe stood for a minute, listening. The
wolves had not howled once. He wondered what was to
keep them from attacking the people in the house. Glam
did not seem worried about them.

"This way, sir," Glam said and led him up the porch
and to the front door. He pressed a button, and a light over
the door came on. The door was of massive highly
polished hardwood—mahogany?—carved to represent a
scene from (it seemed likely) Hieronymous Bosch. But

a closer look convinced him that the artist had been
Spanish. There was something indefinably Iberian about
the beings (demons, monsters, humans) undergoing vari-
ous tortures or fornicating in some rather peculiar fash-
ions with some rather peculiar organs.

Glam had left his chauffeur's cap on the front seat of
the Rolls. He was dressed in a black flannel suit, and
his trousers were stuffed into his boot-tops. He unlocked
the door with a large key he produced from a pocket,
swung the door open (it was well-oiled, no Inner-
Sanctum squeaks), and bowed Childe on through. The
room inside was a large (it could even be called great)
hall. Two halls, rather, because one ran along the front
of the house and halfway down it was a broad entrance
to another hall which seemed to run the depth of the
house. The carpets were thick and wine-colored with a
very faint pattern in green. A few pieces of heavy, solid
Spanish-looking furniture sat against the walls.

Glam asked Childe to wait while he announced him.
Childe watched the giant stoop to go through the doorway
to the center hall. Then he jerked his head to the right
because he had caught a glimpse of somebody down at
the far end just going around the corner. He was startled,
because he had seen no one at that end when he came in.
Now he saw the back of a tall woman, the floor-length
full black skirt, white flesh of the back revealed in the V
of the cut, high-piled black hair, a tall black comb.

He felt cold and, for a second, disoriented.

He had no more time to think about the woman then,
because his host came to greet him. Igescu was a tall
slim man with thick, wavy, brown-blond hair, large,
bright green eyes, pointed features, a large curving nose
and a dimple in his right cheek. The moustache was
gone. He seemed to be about sixty-five years old, a
vigorous athletic sixty-five. He wore a dark-blue business
suit. His tie was black with a faint bluish symbol in its
center. Childe could not make it out; the outlines seemed
to be fluid, to change shape as Igescu changed position.

His voice was deep and pleasant, and he spoke with
only a tinge of foreign pronunciation. He shook hands
with Childe. His hands were large and strong-looking and
his grip was powerful. His hand was cold but not ab-
normally so. He was a very amiable and easygoing