Image of the Beast and Blown (15 page)

went through more exasperating waits while the passenger
lists were checked. At the end of two hours, he knew
that she had not taken a plane out. She might have in-
tended to, but the airlines had been overburdened ever
since the smog had become serious. The waiting lists
were staggeringly long, and the facilities at the ports, the
restaurants and toilets, had long queues. Parking facil-
ities no longer existed for newcomers. Too many people
had simply left their cars and taken off with no inten-
tion of returning immediately. The authorities had im-
posed an emergency time limitation, but the process
of towing away cars to make room for others was
tedious, involved, and slow. The traffic jam-up around
International Airport demanded more police officers
than were available.

He ate some cereal and milk and then, though it
hurt him to think of all the money wasted, he flushed
the marijuana down the toilet. If she continued to be miss-
ing and he had to notify the police, her apartment would
be searched. On the other hand, if she were to return
soon and find her supply gone, she would be in a rage.
But surely she would understand why he had had to get
rid of the stuff.

Dawn had arrived by then. The sun was a twisted pale-
yellow thing in a white sky. Visibility was limited to a
hundred feet. The eye-burning and the nostril-scorching
and the lung-searing were back.

He decided to call Bruin and to tell him about Sybil.
Bruin would, of course, think that he was being unduly
concerned and would think, even if he didn't say so,
that she had simply left for an extended shacking-up with
some man. Or, possibly, Bruin being the cynic he was,
she was shacking up with some woman.

Bruin called him as he stood before the phone.

"We got a package in the late mail yesterday after-
noon but it wasn't opened until a little while ago. You
better get down here, Childe. Can you make it in half
an hour?"

"What's it about? Budler?" And then, "Never mind.
But how did you know I was here?"

"I tried your place and you didn't answer, so I thought
I'd try your ex-wife's. I knew you was still friendly with
her."

"Yeah," Childe said, realizing that it was too early to
report her missing. "I'll be down in time. See you.
Unh-unh! Maybe I can't! I have to get my car first and
that may take some time."

He told Bruin what had happened but censored the
summerhouse activities. Bruin was silent for a long time
and then said, "You realize, Childe, that we're all doing
a juggling act now, keeping three balls or more in the
air at the same time? I'd investigate Igescu even if you
don't have anything provable, because they sure sound
like a fishy lot, but I doubt we could get into that place
without a court order and we don't have any evidence
to get an order. You know that. So it's up to you. Those
wolf hairs in Budler's car and now this film—well, I
ain't going to tell you about it, you got to see it to believe
it—but if you can't get down here on time … lis-
ten, I could have a squad car pick you up. I would if
this was ordinary times, but there's none available. Tell
you what, if I'm out, you can get the film run off again,
I'll leave word it's OK. Anyway, it might be shown
again for the Commissioner. He's up to his ass in work,
but he's taking a special interest in this case, and no won-
der."

Childe drank some orange juice, shaved (Sybil kept a
man's razor and shaving cream for him and—he sus-
pected—for other men) and then walked to the Beverly
Hills Police Department. He got his key from the desk
sergeant and asked if it were possible to get a ride with
a squad car out to his car. He was told it was not. He
tried to get a taxi, could not, and decided to hitchhike
out. After fifteen minutes, he gave up. There were not
many autos on Santa Monica Boulevard and Rexford,
and the few that did go by ignored him. He did not blame
them. Picking up hitchhikers at any time was potenti-
ally dangerous, but in this eery white-lighted smog any-
body would have looked sinister. Moreover, the radio,
TV, and newspapers were advising caution because of
the number of crimes in the streets.

His eyes teary and the interior of his nostrils and throat
feeling as if he were sniffing in fumes from boiling metal,
he stood upon the corner. He could see the house across
the street and make out the city hall and the public li-
brary across the street from it as dim bulks, motionless

icebergs in a fog. Far down, or seemingly far down, Rex-
ford Avenue, a pair of headlights appeared and then
swung out of sight.

Presently a black-and-white squad car passed him.
When it was almost out of sight up Rexford, it stopped
and then backed up until it was by him. The officer on
the right, without getting out of the car, asked him what.
he was doing there. Childe told him. Fortunately, the
officer had heard about him. He invited Childe to get in
and ride with them. They had no definite goal at that
moment; they were cruising around the area (the wealthy
residential district, of course) but there was nothing to
stop them from going that far out. Childe had to under-
stand that if they got a call, they might have to dump
him out on the spot, and he would be stranded again.
Childe said that he would take a chance.

It took fifteen minutes to get to his car. Only an emer-
gency would have forced them to speed through this thick
milky stuff. He thanked them and then started the car
without any trouble, backed up, and swung toward town.
Forty minutes later, he was parked in the LAPD visitors'
lot.

12

Budler was in the same room in which Colben had been
killed. The first scenes had shown Budler being condi-
tioned, going through fear and impotence at first and
then confidence and active, eager participation. In the
beginning, he had been strapped to the same table but
later the table was gone and a bed took its place.

Budler was a little man with narrow shoulders and
skinny hips and legs, but he had a tremendous penis. He
was pale-skinned and had light blue eyes and straw-
colored hair. His pubic hairs were a light-brown. His
penis, however, was dark, as if blood always filled it.
He had an unusual capacity for sustaining erections after
orgasms and an unusual supply of seminal fluid.

(Both victims had been men with hyper sex drives,
or, at least, men whose lives seemed to be dominated by
sex. Both were promiscuous, both had made a number
of girls pregnant, been arrested or suspected of statutory
rape, and were known as loudmouths about their con-
quests. Both were what his wife described as "creeps."
There was something nasty about them. Childe thought
that the victims had possibly been selected with poetic
justice in mind.)

The woman with the garish makeup, and the creature?
—machine?—organ?—concealed behind her G-string,
was an actor; she specialized in sucking cock and she
took out her teeth several times but she did not use the
iron teeth. Every time he saw her remove the false
teeth, Childe tensed and felt sick but he was spared the
mutilation.

There were other actors, also. One was an enormously
fat woman with beautiful white skin. Her face never ap-
peared. There was another woman, whose figure was su-
perb, whose face was always hidden, usually by a mask.
Both of these used their mouths and cunts, and once
Budler buggered the fat woman.

There were also two men, their faces masked. Childe
studied their bodies carefully, but he could not say that
either was Igescu or Glam or the youth who had been

playing billiards. One of the men had a build similar to
Igescu's and another was a very big and muscular man.
But he could not identify them as anyone he had seen
at Igescu's.

Budler must have had a latent homosexual tendency
which was developed, possibly under the influence of
drugs, during the conditioning. One of the men blew him
several times, and twice Budler buggered the big man.
The third man appeared in one scene only, and this time
it was in what Childe thought would be the grand finale.
He braced himself for something terrible to happen to
Budler, but aside from being exhausted, Budler seemed to
suffer no ill effects. Budler and the three men and three
women formed many configurations with, usually, Bud-
ler as the focus of the group.

The Commissioner, sitting by Childe, said at this point,
"This is quite an organization. Besides the six there,
there must be two, at least, handling the cameras."

The last scene (Childe knew it was the last because
the Commissioner told him just as it flashed on) showed
Budler screwing one of the well-built women dog-fashion.
The cameras came in at every angle except that which
would show the woman's face. There were a number of
shots which must have been taken through a long flexible
optical fiber device, because there were closeups of a
seemingly gargantuan penis driving in under a cavernous
anus into an elephantine slit. The lubricating fluid flowed
like spillage over a too-full dam.

And then the camera seemed to inch forward along the
penis, now quiescent, and into the slit. Light blazed up,
and the viewers seemed to be surrounded by thousands
of tons of flesh. They were looking down at the penis, a
whale that had crashed into an underseas cave. Then
they were looking up at the ceiling of wet pale red flesh.

Suddenly, the light went out and they were back
again, looking at Budler and the woman from the side.
The two were on the bed, she face-down and her arms to
one side and her buttocks raised by a pillow under her
stomach. He was straddling her, one knee between the
legs, and rocking back and forth.

Suddenly, so suddenly that Childe gasped and thought
his heart would stop, the woman became a female
wolf. Budler was still astride her and pumping slowly

away when the transformation took place. (A trick of
photography, of course. A trick involving drugs, surely,
because Budler acted as if the woman had metamor-
phosed.) He stopped, raised his hands, and then sat up,
his penis withdrawing and beginning to droop. He looked
shocked.

Snarling, the wolf turned and slashed.

It happened so quickly that Childe did not understand
immediately that the powerful jaws had taken the penis
off close to the root.

Blood spurted out of the stump and over the wolf and
the bed.

Screaming, Budler fell backward. The wolf bolted the
organ down and then began biting at the man's testicles.
Budler quit screaming. His skin turned blue-gray, and the
camera left the wounds where the genitals had been and
traveled up to show his dying face.

There was the tinny piano music again, Dvorak's
Humoresque.
The Dracula burst through the curtains
with the same dramatic gesture of the cape thrown aside
to reveal his face. The camera traveled down then and
verified what Childe thought he had seen when the man
entered but had not been certain about. The Dracula's
penis, a very long and thin organ, was sticking out of the
fly. The Dracula cackled and bounded forward and
leaped upon the bed and grabbed the wolf by the hairs
of its flanks and sank his penis into it from behind.

The wolf yowled, its mouth open, a piece of testicle
falling out. Then, as the Dracula rammed it, driving her
forward and inching along on his knees, the wolf began
tearing at the flesh between the legs of Budler.

Fadeout. TO BE CONTINUED: in blazing white let-
ters across the screen. End of film.

Childe became sick again. Afterward, he talked with
the Commissioner, who was also pale and shaking. But
he was not shaky in his refusal to take any action about
Igescu. He explained (which Childe knew) that the
evidence was too slight, in fact, it was nonexistent. The
"vampire" angle, the wolves on the estate, the (sup-
posed) drugging of him by Igescu's secretary, the wolf
hairs found in Budler's car, the wolf in the film, all these
certainly would make investigation of Igescu legitimate.
But Igescu was a very rich and powerful man with no

known criminal records or any suspicions by the authori-
ties of criminal connections, if the police were to do any-
thing, and he did not see how they could, the Beverly
Hills Police would have to handle the investigation.

The essence of his remarks was what Childe had ex-
pected. He would have to get more conclusive evidence,
and he would have to do it without any help from the
police.

Childe drove back through a darkening air. The weird
white light was slowly turning green-gray. He stopped at
a service station to fill his tank and also to replace the
broken headlamp. The attendant, after stamping the form
for his credit card, said, "You may be my last customer.
I'm taking off just as soon as I get the paperwork out of
the way. Getting out of town, friend. This place has had
it!"

"I may follow you," Childe said. "But I got some un-
finished business to attend to first."

"Yeah? This town's gonna be a ghost town; it's already
on the way."

Childe drove into Beverly Hills to shop. He had a
difficult time finding a parking space. If it was going to
be a ghost town, it did not seem that it would be so
soon. Perhaps most of the people were getting supplies for
the second exodus or were stocking up before the stores
were again closed. Whatever the reason, it was two and a
half hours before he got all he wanted, and it took a
half-hour to drive the mile and a half to his apartment.
The streets were again jammed with cars. Which, of
course, only speeded up the poisoning of air.

Childe had intended to drive out to Igescu's at once,
but he knew that he might as well wait until the traffic
thinned out. He spent an hour reviewing what he meant
to do and then tried to call Sybil, but the lines were
busy again. He walked to her apartment. He was goggled
and snouted with a gas mask he had purchased at a
store which had just gotten a shipment in. So many
others were similarly masked, the street looked like a
scene on Mars.

Sybil was not home. Her car was still in the garage.
The note he had left in her apartment was in the exact
position in which he had placed it. He tried to get a
long-distance call to her mother put through but had