Image of the Beast and Blown (3 page)

ment will have to get on it later. I'm grateful that you've
taken this time."

"Oh, it's not that bad!" the Commisioner said. "Sergeant
Bruin will be handling the case. That is, when he has time.
You have to realize …"

"I realize," Childe said. "I know Bruin. I'll keep in touch
with him. But not so often he'll be bugged."

"Fine, fine!"

The Commisioner stuck out a skinny and cold but sweat-
ing hand, said, "See you!" and turned and walked off down
the hall.

Childe went into the nearest men's room, where several
plainclothesmen and two uniformed men were washing
the taste of vomit out. Sergeant Bruin was also there, but
he had not been sick. He came from the stall zipping up
his fly. Bruin was rightly named. He looked like a grizzly,
but he was far less easily upset.

As he washed his hands, he said, "I gotta hurry, Childe.
The Commissioner wants a quick conference about your
partner, and then we all gotta get back on this smog thing."

"You have my phone number, and I got yours," Childe
said. He drank another cup of water and crumpled the pa-
per and threw it into the wastepaper basket. "Well, at least
I'll be able to move around. I got a permit to use my car."

"That's more'n several million citizens got right now,"
Bruin said cheerfully. "Be sure you burn the gas in a good
cause."

"So far, I haven't got much reason to burn anything,"
Childe said. "But I'm going to try."

Bruin looked down at him. His big black eyes were as
impenetrable as a bear's; they did not look human. He
said, "You going to put in time for free on this job?"

"Who's going to pay me?" Childe said. "Colben's di-
vorced. This case is tied up with Budler's, but Budler's
wife discharged me yesterday. She says she doesn't give
a shit any more."

"He may be dead, just like Colben," Bruin said. "I
wouldn't be surprised if we got another package through
the mails."

"Me neither," Childe said.

"See you," Bruin said. He put a heavy paw on Childe's
shoulder for a second. "Doing it for nothing, eh? He was

your partner, right? But you was going to split up, right?
Yet you're going to find out who killed him, right?"

"I'll try," Childe said.

"I like that," Bruin said. "There ain't much sense of
loyalty kicking around nowadays." He lumbered off; the
others trailed out after him. Childe was alone. He looked
into the mirror over the washbowl. The pale face resem-
bled Lord Byron's enough to have given him trouble with
women—and a number of jealous or desirous men—ever
since he was fourteen. Now, it was a little lumpy, and a
scar ran down his left cheek. Memento of Korea, when a
drunken soldier had objected to being arrested by Childe
and had slashed his face with the broken end of a beer
bottle. The eyes were dark gray and just now much blood-
shot. The neck below the slightly lumpy Byronic head was
thick and the shoulders were wide. The face of a poet, he
thought as he had thought many times, and the body of a
cop, a private investigator. Why did you ever get into this
sordid soul-leaching depressing corrupting racket? Why
didn't you become a quiet professor of English or psychol-
ogy in a quiet college town?

Only he and a psychotherapist would ever know, and he
evidently did not want to know, since he had never gone
to a psychotherapist. He was sure that he enjoyed the sor-
didness and tears and grief and hatred and the blood,
somewhere in him. Something fed on contemptible food.
Something enjoyed it, but that something sure as hell
wasn't Herald Childe. Not at this moment, anyway.

He left the washroom and went down the hall to an
elevator and dropped while he turned his thoughts so in-
wardly that he did not know whether or not he was alone
in the cage. On the way to the exit, he shook his head a
little as if to wake himself up. It was dangerous to be so
infolded.

Matthew Colben, his partner, had been on his way to be-
ing his ex-partner. Colben was a big-mouthed braggart, a
Don Juan who let his desire to make a pass interfere with
his business. He had not allowed his prick to get in the way
of business when he and Childe had become partners six
years ago. But Colben was fifty now and perhaps trying to
keep the thoughts of a slowing-down body and thickening
flesh and a longer time to recover from hangovers away
from him. Childe didn't accept this reason; Colben could

do whatever he wanted after business hours, but he was
cheating his partner when he cheated himself with the
booze and the women. After the Budler case, they would
be through. So Childe had promised himself.

Now Colben was dead and Budler could be in the hands
of the same people who had taken Colben—although there
was no evidence to indicate so. But Budler and Colben
had disappeared the same night, and Colben had been
tailing Budler.

The film had been mailed from a Torrance post office
three days ago. Colben and Budler had been missing for
fourteen days.

Childe stopped at the tobacco stand and bought a morn-
ing
Times.
At any other time, the Colben case would have
been headline material. Not today. It was, however, a
feature on the front page. Childe, hating to go outside,
leaned against the wall and read the story. It had been
considerably bowdlerized by the reporters who had seen
the film. They had not been present at either of the show-
ings he had witnessed, but Bruin had told him they were at
a special running. Bruin had laughed like a bear with a
sore throat, and described how at least half of them had
thrown up or been close to throwing up.

"Some of them been in battles and seen men with their
guts blowed inside out!" Bruin had said. "You was in the
Korean action and you was an officer, right? Yet you got
sick! How come?"

"Didn't you feel your cock drawing up in your belly?"
Childe had said.

"Naw."

"Maybe you don't have one," Childe had said. Bruin
thought that was funny, too.

The whole story was in two columns, and it covered
most of what Childe knew except for the details of the
film. Colben's car had been found in a parking lot behind
a trust and security building on Wilshire Boulevard in Bev-
erly Hills. Colben had been trailing Benjamin Budler, a
wealthy Beverly Hills lawyer. Budler had been stepping
out on his wife, not to mention his regular mistress. The
wife had hired
Childe & Colben, Private Investigators,
to
get enough evidence for her to file for divorce.

Colben, using the tape recorder in his car, had described
Budler's moves. Budler had picked up a lovely brunette

(described in detail but unidentified) on the corner of
Olympic and Veteran. The traffic light had been green,
but Budler had held up a long line of cars, horns blaring,
while he opened the door and let the woman in. She was
well-dressed. Colben had surmised that her car was parked
somewhere close; she did not look as if she would live in
this neighborhood.

Budler's Rolls-Royce had turned right on Veteran and
gone to Santa Monica, where it had turned left and trav-
eled down Santa Monica until it stopped a block from a
quiet and expensive restaurant. Here Budler had let the
woman off and driven to a parking place on a side street.
He had walked to the restaurant where they had dined and
wined (presumably) for three hours. Though they went
in separately, they came out together. Budler was red-
faced, talking loudly and laughing much. The woman
laughed much also but she walked steadily. His balance
was a little uncertain; he stumbled when he started across
the street and almost fell.

They had taken the Rolls-Royce (with Budler driving
too swiftly and weaving in and out of traffic) up Santa
Monica and turned left at Bedford Drive to go north.

The tape was wiped clean from this point on.

Colben had stated that he had gotten some long-range
pictures of the woman when Budler had picked her up.
The camera was in the car but the film had been removed.

The car had been thoroughly cleaned; there was not a
single fingerprint. Some dirt particles, presumably from the
shoes of whoever had driven the car to the parking lot,
were on the mat, but an analysis had shown only that the
dirt could have come from anywhere in the area. There
were some fibers; these had been rubbed off the rag used
to wipe the seats.

Budler's Rolls-Royce was also missing.

The police had not discovered that Budler had dropped
out of his normal pattern of life until two days after Colben
was reported missing. His wife had known that he was
gone, but she had not bothered to report this. Why should
she? He often did not come home for two to four days.

As soon as she was informed that her husband might
have been kidnapped or murdered, that his disappearance
was connected with that of Colben's (or seemed likely to

be connected), she had told Childe that he was no longer
employed by her.

"I hope they find the son of a bitch dead! And soon!"
she had screamed over the phone. "I don't want his money
tied up forever! I need it now! It's just like him to never
be found and tie me up with litigation and red tape and
all that shit! Just like him! I hate him!" and so on.

"I'll send you my bill," Childe had replied. "It was nice
working for you," and he had hung up.

His bill would be delivered, but how soon he would be
paid was doubtful. Even if a check was sent by Mrs. Bud-
ler by return mail, it might not be cashable for some time.
The newspapers reported that the authorities were discuss-
ing closing down all banks until the crisis was over. Many
people were protesting against this, but it would not make
much difference for the protesters if the banks did stay
open. What good did that do if most of the customers
could not get to their bank unless they were within walking
distance or wanted to stand in line for hours to take the
infrequent bus?

He looked up from the paper. Two uniformed, gas-
masked men were bringing in a tall dark man between
them. He held up handcuffed hands as if to demonstrate
his martyrdom to the world. One cop carried a third gas
mask, and by this Childe knew that the arrested man had
probably been using a mask while holding up a store or
robbing a loan company or doing something which required
concealing his face.

Childe wondered why the cops were bringing him in
through this entrance. Perhaps they had caught him just
down the street and were taking the short cut.

The situation was advantageous for criminals in one re-
spect. Men wearing gas masks or water-soaked cloths over
their faces were not uncommon. On the other hand, any-
one abroad was likely to be stopped and questioned. One
thing balances out another.

The cops and the arrestee were coughing. The man be-
hind the tobacco counter was coughing. Childe felt a tick-
ling in his throat. He could not smell the smog, but the
thought of smelling it evoked the ghost of a cough.

He checked his I.D. cards and permit. He did not want
to be caught without them, as he had been yesterday. He
had lost about an hour because, even after the cops had

called in and validated his reasons for being out, he had
been required to go home and pick up his papers, and he
had been stopped again before he could get home.

He tucked the paper under his arm, walked to the door,
looked through the glass, shuddered, wished he had
lightweight scuba diver's equipment, opened the door and
plunged in.

3

It was like walking at the bottom of a sea of very thin
bile.

There were no clouds between the sun and the sea.
The sun shone brightly as if it were trying to burn a path
through the sea. The August sun burned fiercely and the
more it burned, the more it cut with its yellow machetes,
the thicker and more poisonous grew the gray-green
foliage.

(Childe knew he was mixing metaphors. So what? The
Cosmos was a mixed metaphor in the mind of God. The
left mind of God did not know what the right mind of
God was doing. Or did not care. God was a schizo-
phrenic? Herald Childe, creature of God, image of God,
certainly was schizophrenic. Levorotatory image?)

Eyes burned like heretics at the stake. Sinuses were
scourged; fire ran along the delicate bones; spermaticky
fluid collected to till the chambers of the sinuses and
dripped, waiting for the explosion of air voluntarily or
involuntarily set off to discharge the stuff with the mildest
of orgasms.

Not a twitch of wind. The air had been unmoving for a
day and a night and half a day, as if the atmosphere had
died and was rotting.

The gray-green stuff hung in sheets. Or seemed to. The
book of judgment was being read and the pages, the
gray-green sheets, were being turned as the eye read and
more and more pages were being piled toward the front
of the book. How far to read before the end?

Childe could see no further than one hundred and ten
feet, if that. He had walked this path from the door to the
parking lot so many times that he could not get lost. But
there were those who did not know where they were. A
woman, screaming, ran by him, and was lost in the
greenishness. He stopped. His heart was pounding. Faintly,
he could hear a car horn. A siren wailed somewhere. He
turned slowly, trying to see or hear the woman or her
pursuer, if any, but there was none. She ran; no one
pursued.

He began to trot. He sweated. His eyes smarted and
flowed tears, and little flames seemed to be creeping
down his throat toward his lungs. He wanted to get to
the car, which held his gas mask. He forced himself to
walk. There was panic hanging in the air, the same
panic that came to a man when he felt hands squeezing
his neck and thumbs pressing in on his windpipe.

A car emerged from the cloud. It was not his. He
passed by it and, ten parking spaces on, found his 1970
Oldsmobile. He put the mask on, started the motor, winc-
ing a little at the thought of the poisons shooting out of
the exhaust, turned his lights on and drove out of the lot.
The street held more moving bright lights than he had
expected. He turned on the radio and found out why.
Those who had some place to go outside the area of smog
were going whether or not the authorities gave permis-
sion, and so the authorities were giving permission. Many
who had no place to go, but were going anyway, were also
driving out. The flood had started. The streets weren't
jammed as yet, but they soon would be.

Childe cursed. He had planned on easy drives to his
various destinations that day because, although he could
not drive swiftly, he could drive unimpeded by traffic.

The voice of the governor issued from the speaker.
The governor pleaded for restraint and calm. Everybody
should continue to stay home—if they were able to do
so. However, those who had to get out for health reasons
(which would include the entire population now, Childe
thought) should drive carefully and should realize that
there just were not enough accommodations for them out-
side the Los Angeles-Orange County area in this state.
Nevada and Arizona had been notified of the invasion,
and Utah and New Mexico were readying themselves.
Troops were being moved into the area but only to act
as traffic policemen and to assist the hospitals. There
was no martial law; there was no need for it. There was
an upswing in crimes of passion, theft, and robbery, but
there had been no riots.

No wonder, thought Childe. There was something
irritating about smog; it did eat the skin off the nerves,
but people did not like to get out in it, and people did not
collect in large numbers. To every man, others looked
like ghosts coming toward him out of the gray-greenness