Image of the Beast and Blown (33 page)

"I never gave him anything!"

"No, but he took. So long, Forry."

26

Fifteen minutes later, Forry was outside the Heepish
residence. This was two blocks over from Forry's own
house, almost even with it. In the dark and the driving
rain, it looked like an exact duplicate of the Ackerman-
sion. It was a California pseudo-Spanish bungalow with
a green-painted stucco exterior. The driveway was on
the left as you approached the house, and when you
stepped past the extension of the house, a wall, you saw
the big tree that grew in the patio. It leaned at a forty-
five degree angle across the house, and its branches lay
like a great hand over part of the tiled roof. At the end
of the driveway was the garage, and in front of the ga-
rage was a huge wooden cutout of a movie monster.

You turned to the right and onto a small porch to face
a wooden door plastered with various signs: NO SMOK-
ING PERMITTED. WIPE YOUR FEET AND YOUR
MIND BEFORE ENTERING. THE EYES OF HEEP-
ISH ARE ON YOU (hinting at the closed-circuit TV
with which Heepish scanned his visitors before admit-
ing them). ESPERANTO AND VOLAPÜK SPOKEN
HERE. (This bugged Forry, who was a long-time and
ardent Esperantist. Heepish not only imitated Ackerman
with the Esperanto, but, in his efforts to go him one
better, had learned Esperanto's closest rival, Volapük.)

Forry stood for some time before the door, his finger
held out to press on the doorbell. The skies were still
emptying their bins; the splash of water was all around.
Water roared out of the gutter drains and covered the
patio. The light above the door gave a ghastly green
illumination. All that the scene needed was thunder and
lightning, the door swinging open slowly and creakingly,
and a tall pale-faced, red-lipped man with sharp features
and black hair plastered close to his head, and a deep
voice with a Hungarian accent saying, "Good evening!"

There was no light from the interior of the house.
Every window was curtained off or boarded up or barred
by bookcases. Forry had not seen the interior of the

house, but it had been described to him. His own house
was so furnished.

Finally, he dropped his hand from the doorbell. He
would scout around a little. After all, he would look like
an ass if he barged in demanding to have his painting
back, only to find that his informant had lied. It would
not be the first time that he had been maliciously mis-
informed so he would get into an embarrassing situation.

He walked around the side of the house and then to
the back. There should be a room here which had once
been an anteroom or pantry for the kitchen. In his own
house, it was now piled with books and magazines; in
fact, he kept his collection of
Doc Savage
magazines just
off the kitchen door.

The curtains over the windows were shut tight. He
placed his ear against the window in the door but could
hear nothing. After a while, he returned to the front.
That there were two cars in the driveway and a number
parked in the street might indicate that Heepish had
guests. Perhaps he should return to his house and phone
Heepish.

Then he decided that he would confront Heepish di-
rectly. He would not give him a chance to deny he had
the painting or to hide it.

Having made up his mind, he still could not bring him-
self to ring the doorbell. He went to the front of the
house and stood in the bushes for a while while the rain
pelted him and water dripped off the branches. The con-
frontation was going to be dreadful. Highly embarrass-
ing. For both of them. Well, maybe not for Heepish.
That man had more nerve than a barrel of brass mon-
keys.

A car passing by threw its water-soaked beams on him
for a minute. He blinked against the diffused illumination
and then walked from under the shelter of the bush. Why
wait any longer? Heepish was not going to come out and
invite him in.

He pressed the button, which was the nose of a gar-
goyle face painted on the door. A loud clanging as of
bells came from within followed by several bars of organ
music:
Gloomy Sunday.

There was a peephole in the large door, but Heepish
no longer used this, according to Forry's informants. The

pressing of the doorbell now activated a TV camera
located behind a one-way window on the left of the
porch.

A voice from the Frankenstein mask nailed on the
door said, "As I live and don't breathe! Forrest J (no
period) Ackerman! Thrice welcome!"

A moment later, the door swung open with a loud
squeaking as of rusty hinges. This, of course, was a re-
cording synchronized to the door.

Woolston Heepish himself greeted Forry. He was
six feet tall, portly, soft-looking, somewhat paunched, and
had a prominent dewlap. His walrus moustache was
bronzish, and his hair was dark red, straight, and slick.
He wore square rimless spectacles behind which gray
eyes blinked. He hunched forward as if he had spent
most of his life reading books or working at a desk. Or
standing under a rainy bush, Forry thought.

"Come in!" he said in a soft voice. He extended a
hand which Forry shook, although he wished he could
ignore it, let it hang out in the air. But, after all, he did
not know for sure that Heepish was guilty.

Then he stiffened, and he dropped Heepish's hand.

Over Heepish's shoulder he saw the painting. It was
hung at approximately the same place it had hung in
his house. There was Dracula sinking those long canines
into the neck of a blonde girl!

He became so angry that the room swirled for a mo-
ment.

Heepish took his arm and walked him towards the
sofa, saying, "You look ill, Forry. Surely I don't have
that
effect on you?"

There were five others in the room, and they gathered
about the sofa where he sat. They looked handsome and
beautiful and were dressed in expensive up-to-the-latest-
minute clothes.

"My painting!" Forry gasped. "The Stoker!"

Heepish looked up at it and put the tips of his fingers
together to make a church steeple. He smiled under the
walrus moustache.

"You like it! I'm so glad! A fabulous collector's item!"

Forry choked and tried to stand up. One of the guests,
a woman who looked as if she were Mexican, pushed him
back down.

"You look pale. What are you doing out on a night
like this? You're soaked! Stay there. I'll get you a
cup of coffee."

"I don't want coffee," Forry said. He tried to stand up
but felt too dizzy. "I just want my painting back."

The woman returned with a cup of hot coffee, a pack-
age of sugar, and a pitcher of cream on a tray. She
offered it to him, saying, "I am Mrs. Panchita Pocyotl."

"Of course, how graceless of me!" Heepish said. "I
apologize for not introducing you, my dear Forry. My
only excuse is that I was worried about your health."

The other woman was a tall slender blonde with large
breasts, a Diana Rumbow. The three men were Fred
Pao, a Chinese, Rex Bilgren, a mulatto, and George
Bunyan, an Englishman.

Forry, looking at them clearly for the first time, thought
there was something sinister about them. He could not,
however, define it. Maybe it was something about the
eyes. Or maybe it was because he was so outraged about
the painting he thought that anybody who had anything
to do with Heepish was sinister.

Mrs. Pocyotl bent over to give him the coffee and
exposed large light-chocolate colored breasts with big red
nipples. She wore no brassiere under the thin formal
gown with the deep cleavage.

Under other circumstances, he would have been de-
lighted.

Then Diana Rumbow, the blonde, dropped a book
she was holding and bent over to pick it up. Despite
his upset condition, he responded with a slight popping
of the eyes and a stirring around his groin. Her breasts
were just as unbrassiered as Panchita's. They were pale
white, and the nipples were as large as his thumb tips
and so red they must have been rouged. When she stood
up, he could see how darkly they stood out under the
filmy gown she wore.

He was also beginning to see that the bendings over
were not accidents. They were trying to take his mind
off his painting.

Pocyotl sat down by him and placed her thigh against
his. Diana Rumbow sat down on the other side and
leaned her superb breast against the side of his arm. If

he looked to either side, he saw swelling mounds and
deep cleavages.

"My painting!" he croaked.

Heepish ignored the words. He drew up a chair and
sat down facing Forry and said, "Well! This is a great
honor you have done me, Mr. Ackerman. Or may I call
you Forry?"

"My painting, my Stoker!" Forry croaked again.

"Now that you've finally decided to let bygones be
bygones, and, I presume, decided that your hostility to-
wards me was unwarranted, we must talk and talk! We
must talk the night out. After all, what with the rain
and all, what else is there to do but to talk? We have so
much in common, so much, as so many people, kind and
unkind, have pointed out. I think that we will learn to
know each other quite well. Who knows, we might even
decide someday that the Count Dracula Society and the
Lord Ruthven League can band together, become the
Greater Vampire Coven, or something like that, even if
witches and not vampires have covens? Heh?"

"My painting," Forry said.

Heepish continued to talk to him, while the others
chattered among themselves. Occasionally, one of the
women leaned over against him. He became aware of
their perfume, exotic odors that he did not remember
ever having smelled before. They stimulated him even
in his anger. And those breasts! And Pocyotl's flashing
dark eyes and Rumbow's brilliant blue eyes!

He shook his head. What kind of witchcraft were they
practicing on him? He had entered with the determina-
tion of finding the painting, taking it down from the wall
or wherever it was, and marching out the front door
with it. Now that he considered that, he would have to
find something to protect it from the rain until he could
get it into his car, which was across the street. His coat
would do it. Never mind that he would get soaked. The
painting was the important thing.

But he could not get off the sofa. And Heepish would
not pay the slightest attention to his remarks about the
painting. Neither would the guests.

He felt as if he were in a parallel universe which was
in contact with that in Heepish's house but somewhat out
of phase with it. He could communicate to a certain de-

gree and then his words faded out. And, now that he
looked around, this place seemed a trifle fuzzy.

Suddenly, he wondered if his coffee had been drugged.

It seemed so ridiculous that he tried to dismiss the
thought. But if Heepish could steal his painting and hang
it up where so many people would see it, knowing that
word would quickly get to the man from whom he had
stolen it, and if he could blandly, even friendlily, sit
with the man from whom he had taken his property and
act as if nothing were wrong, then such a man would have
no compunction about drugging him.

But why would he want to drug him?

Thoughts of cellars with dirt floors and a six foot long,
six foot deep trench in the dirt moved like a funeral
train across his mind. A furnace in the basement burned
flesh and bones. An acid pit ate away his body. He was
roasted in an oven and this crew had him for dinner.
He was immured, standing up, while Heepish and his
guests toasted him with Amontillado. He was put in
a cage in the basement and rats, scores of them, big
hungry rats, were released into the cage. Afterwards, his
clean-picked skeleton was wired together and stood up
in this room as a macabre item. His friends and acquain-
tances, members of the Count Dracula Society and the
Lord Ruthven League, would visit here because Heepish
would become king after the great Forry Ackerman dis-
appeared so mysteriously. They would see the skeleton
and wonder whose it was—since so many people play
Hamlet to the unknown Yoricks—and might even pat his
bony head. They might even speak of Forry Ackerman
in the presence of the skeleton.

Forry shook himself as a dog shakes himself emerging
from water. He was getting a little psycho about this. All
he had to do was assert his rights. If Heepish objected,
he would call the police. But he did not think that even
Heepish would have the guts to stand in his way.

He stood up so suddenly he became even dizzier.
He said, "I'm taking my painting, Heepish! Don't get in
my way!"

He turned around and stood up on the cushion and
lifted the painting off its hook. There was a silence
behind him, and when he turned, he saw that all were
standing up, facing him. They formed a semicircle

through which he would have to go to get to the door.

They looked grave, and their eyes seemed to have
become larger and almost luminous. It was his imagina-
tion that put a werewolfish gleam in them. Of course.

Mrs. Pocyotl curled her lips back, and he saw that her
canines were very long. How had he missed that feature
when he first saw her? She had smiled, and it seemed
to him that her teeth were very white and very even.

He stepped down off the sofa and said, "I want my
coat, Heepish."

Heepish grinned. His teeth seemed to have become
longer, too. His gray eyes were as cold and hard as a
winter sky in New York City.

"You may have your
coat,
Forry, since you don't
want to be friendly."

Forry understood the emphasis. Coat but not painting.

He said, "I'll call the police."

"You wouldn't want to do that," Diana Rumbow said.

"Why not?" Forry said.

He wished his heart could beat faster. It should be,
but it wasn't, even under this strain. Instead, his muscles
were jerking, and his eyes were blinking twice as fast as
usual, as if they were trying to substitute for the lack of
heartbeats.

"Because," the blonde said, "I would accuse you of
rape."

"What?"

The painting almost slipped from his hands.

Diana Rumbow slipped out of her gown, revealing that
she was wearing only a garter belt and nylon stockings.
Her pubic hairs were long and very thick and a bright
yellow. Her breasts, though large, did not sag.

Mrs. Pocyotl said, "Maybe you'd like two for the price
of one, Forry."

She slipped out of her gown, revealing that she wore
only stockings and a belt. Her pubic hairs were black
as a crow's feathers, and her breasts were conical.

Forry stepped back until the backs of his knees were
in contact with the sofa. He said, "What is this?"

"Well,
if
the police should be called, they would find
this house deserted except for you and the two women.
One woman would be unconscious, and the other would
be screaming. Both women would have sperm in their