Image of the Beast and Blown (35 page)

ceeded cautiously through the heavy rain and flooded
streets until they reached San Vicente and La Cienega.
When the light changed to green, the two cars suddenly
roared into life. Shooting wings of water, their tires howling
even on the wet pavement, they sped away. He acceler-
ated after them. They swung left on reaching Sixth and
skidded into the traffic island, bounced off, and continued
back up San Vicente on the other side of the boulevard,
then skidded right as they turned on Orange.

The green light was with them and with Childe, who
was about a block behind. His rear tires hit the curb of
the island and one wheel went over and there was a
crash. He supposed his right rear fender had struck the
traffic light, but it did not seem to impair the operation
of the car. He shot after the other two cars, though he
wondered why he was risking his limb and life. But the
fact that they were trying so desperately to get away,
that they had deliberately led him astray from that road
up to the house on top of the hill kept him going.

Nevertheless, when the car turned west onto Wilshire
Boulevard, he began to think strongly about giving up
the chase. They had gone through a red light without
stopping and by the time he reached the intersection, he
saw their taillights a block away. They were still casting
out great sheafs of water.

He continued after them, increasing his speed. He did
not know what he would do if he caught up with them.
Four against one? And at least one of them, and probably
all four, was a being with some very strange and deadly
powers. He remembered Hindar
f
's words.

At Wilshire and San Vicente, the two cars went
through a red light two seconds after it had changed.
Two cars coming south on San Vicente met them. The
lead car slammed broadside into Fred Pao's automobile,
and the car behind the lead car smashed into its rear.
The car following Pao rammed into his rear. A moment
later, Childe's car, turning around and around on the wet
pavement, slammed its rear into the car that had been
following Pao's. The whole mass, five cars jammed into
each other, swung around like a five-pointed star, around
and around.

28

"Very well, Forry," Heepish said. "If you want it that
badly …"

He bowed and made a flourish. Forry felt his cheeks
warming up. He said, "Do I
want
it? It's
mine!
I paid
for it with my money! You stole it, like a common thief!"

"No common thief would touch it," Heepish said.

Forry, deciding that absolutely nothing was to be
gained by standing there, plunged on ahead. The others
opened a way for him, and Heepish even ran up and
opened the door for him.

"See you, Forry," he said.

"Yeah. In jail, maybe!"

As soon as he was in his own house, Forry placed the
painting on the wall and then checked the doors to make
sure they were locked. The Dummocks had not come
home yet, so he decided to stay and sleep on the couch
that night. Then he remembered that he was supposed to
get the latest edition of
Vampirella
out. He had com-
pletely forgotten about it!

He made himself some coffee and went into a rear
room, where his "office" was. He worked away steadily
until 2:30, when he heard a slight noise somewhere in
the house. He rose and started out of the office when
the lights went out. That was all he needed to put him
hopelessly behind schedule!

He fumbled around in the desk drawer for matches,
which he did not think he would have, since he had
never smoked. Finding none, he groped through to the
kitchen. The pantry shelves were filled with books and
magazines. He did not eat at the house but took all his
meals out or ate at Wendy's. The icebox, except for some
cream for coffee and a few goodies, was filled with
microfilm.

As he felt around in the porch room for a flashlight,
the lights suddenly came back on. He continued until he
found the flashlight. If the power failed again, he would
work by its light.

On the way back to the office, he looked into the
front room. The Stoker painting was gone!

There was no time to stand around and think. He put
on his rainhat and raincoat and rubbers and walked as
fast as his heart would let him out to the car. He got
into the big green Cadillac and backed out into the lake
which Sherbourne Drive had become. He went as fast
as he dared and within two minutes was before Woolston—.
Heepish's. Fred Pao, the painting in his arms, was just
turning away from the car.

Forry blasted his horn at him and flicked his brights
on. The Chinese was startled and almost dropped the
painting. Forry cried out in anguish and then lowered the
window to shout at Pao.

"I'll call the police!"

Pao opened the rear door of the car and shoved the
painting into it. He ran around to the other side, got in,
and the motor roared. His Mercury took off with a
screaching of tires and sped towards Olympic. Forry
stared at him for several seconds and then, biting his
lip, took off with a similar screeching of tires. At the
same time, he honked furiously at the Chinese. The man
was taking his beloved Dracula where he could hide it
until the search was up. And then Woolston Heepish
would receive it!

But not if Forrest J Ackerman, the Gray Lensman of
Los Angeles, had anything to do with it! Just as Buck
Rogers trailed Killer Kane to his lair, so FJA would
track down the thie
f
!

Pao's car swung west on Olympic. Forry started to go
through the stop sign, too, but had to slam on his brakes
as a car going west on Olympic, sheets of water flying
from its sides, honked at him. His car skidded and slid
sidewise out onto the main boulevard. The oncoming car
swerved and skidded also, turned around once, and ended
up still going westward. Forry straightened out the
Cadillac and ran it as if it were a speedboat. Waves curl-
ing out on both sides, he passed the car he had almost hit
and then continued building up speed until he saw Pao's
taillights going right on Robertson. He went through a red
light, causing two drivers to apply their brakes and honk
their horns. He chased Pao up Robertson and down
Charleville Boulevard. Despite its multiplicity of stop

signs, neither stopped once. Then Pao turned up to Wil-
shire, went westward back to Robertson, up Robertson,
through all intersections with stop signs and signal lights,
red or green, and skidded right on Burton Way. He ran a
red light going to San Vicente and so did Forry. In the
distance, a police siren whooped, and Forry almost
slowed down. But he decided that he could justify his
speeding and, even if he couldn't, a fine would be worth
it if the cops caught Pao with the stolen goods. He
hoped the cops would show up in time. If they didn't,
they might find one dead Chinese.

Pao continued down San Vicente, ran another red
light at Sixth, with Forry two car-lengths behind him.
Despite their recklessness, neither was going over forty.
The water was too solid; at higher speeds it struck the
bottom of the car like a club.

At Wilshire and San Vicente the light was green for
them, but two cars raced through the red, and Pao hit
the lead car broadside. Forry applied his brakes and
slowed down the car somewhat, but it crashed into the
rear of the Chinese's car. His head hit something, and
he blacked out.

29

Childe was half-dazed. After the screaming of metal, the
crashing and ripping and rending of metal, and the shat-
ter and tinkle of glass, there was a moment of silence—
except for the rain and a siren in the distance. Some
of the cars still had operating headlights, and these cast
a pale rain-streaked halo over the wreckage. Then a huge
black fox leaped onto the top of his hood, paused to grin
through the windshield at him, leaped down onto the
street, and trotted off into the darkness behind Stats
Restaurant.

The police car, its siren dying, pulled up by the cars,
and two officers got out. At the same time; a big dog—
no, a wolf—passed by him, also on the way to the rear of
the restaurant.

An officer, looking into the cars, swore and called
to his partner. "Hey, Jeff, look at this! Two piles of
clothes in this one and another pile in this car and no-
body around that could have worn them! What the hell
is this?"

The policeman had a genuine mess in more ways
than one. No one seemed to be dead or even seriously
hurt. Childe's car was bashed in in the front and side but
was still operable. The car of a Mr. Ackerman had a
smashed radiator and would have to be towed away.
Pao's car was destroyed. The others were leaking badly
from the radiators and could not be driven far.

One policeman set out flares. The other still could not
get over the abandoned clothing. He kept muttering, "I've
seen some freak things, but this tops them all."

Another patrol car arrived after ten minutes. The
officers determined that no one needed to be hospitalized.
They took down the necessary information, gave out some
tickets, and then dismissed the participants. The case
was far from over, but there had been so many accidents
because of the rain and so many other duties to perform
that the police had to streamline normal procedures.
One did say that Mr. Pao and Mr. Batlang would be
sought for leaving the scene of an accident. And if the

clothes meant anything, they might be arrested for public
nudity, indecent exposure and, probably, would be sub-
jected to a psychiatric examination.

One of the passengers in the car said that they must
have been dazed. He knew them well, they were re-
sponsible citizens, and they would never leave the scene
of an accident unless they had been rendered half-
conscious in a state of shock.

"Maybe so," the policeman said. "But you have to ad-
mit it's rather peculiar that all three should take off their
clothes—slide out of them the way it looks to me—and
run away. We were right behind you, and we didn't even
see them leave."

"It was raining very heavily," the passenger said.

"Not that heavily."

"What a night," the other policeman said.

Childe tried to talk to the others in the accident, but
only Forrest J (no period) Ackerman would reply. He
seemed very concerned about a painting in the rear seat
of Pao's car. He had removed it shortly after the police
had arrived and put it in the back seat of his Cadillac.
If the police observed this, they did not say anything.
Now he wanted to get it back to his house.

"I'll take you as soon as they let us go," Childe said.
"Your house isn't far from here; it won't be any bother."

He did not know what Ackerman's part in this was.
He seemed to be an innocent victim, but then there was
the transfer of the painting from Pao's car. How had
Pao gotten hold of it? Also, there seemed to be two
Paos. Were they twins?

Forry Ackerman told him something of what had hap-
pened on the way to his house. Childe became excited,
because he had met Woolston Heepish when he was in-
vestigating the disappearance of his partner, Colben.

Childe decided that he would appear to go along with
Ackerman's story. The man seemed to be sincere and
genuinely upset and puzzled by what had happened.
But it was possible that he was one of the Ogs, as
Hindarf called them. It was also possible that he was one
of the Tocs.

When he drove up before Ackerman's house, he
looked at it through the dark and the rain, and he said,

"If I didn't know better, I would think Heepish lived
here."

"That man deliberately fixed his house to look like
mine,'' Forry said. "That's why he's called 'the poor
man's Forry Ackerman,' though I don't think he's so
poor."

They went inside and, while Ackerman hung the
painting, Childe looked around. The layout of the
house was the same, but the paintings and the other
items were different. And this place was brighter and
more inclined to science-fiction subjects than Heep-
ish's.

When Forry stepped down off the sofa with a sat-
isfied smile, Childe said, "There's something wrong about
this accident, other than the disappearance of Pao. I
mean, I was chasing Pao in one car and the three
men with him in the other. Yet you say you were chasing
Pao, too."

"That's right," Forry said. "It is puzzling. The whole
evening has been puzzling and extremely upsetting. I
have to get the latest issue of my comic book out to my
publisher in New York, and I'm far behind. I'll have to
work twice as fast to catch up."

Childe interpreted this as meaning that he should
leave at once. The man must really be dedicated to
his work. How many could go back to their desk and
work on a piece of fiction about vampires when they
might have been associating with genuine vampires, not
to mention genuine werefoxes and werewolves?

"When you get your work done, and you're ready to
talk," Childe said, "we'll get together. I have many
questions, and I also have some information you might
find interesting, though I don't know that you'll believe
it."

"I'm too tired to believe in anything but a good
night's sleep, which I'm not going to get," Forry said.
"I hate to be inhospitable, but …"

Childe hesitated. Should he take up more of this man's
time by warning him? He decided that it would be bet-
ter not to. If he knew what danger he was really in,
he would not be able to concentrate on his work. And
knowing the danger would not help him in the least un-
less he believed in it and fled from this area. That