William Bankier - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 92, No. 3. Whole No. 547, September 1988

Jean couldn’t stand being followed. In desperation, she finally called the police. Maybe he would listen to them and be convinced she really didn’t want to see him again.

Steve was parked down the block from her front door when the squad car arrived. He was still there when the two officers left after hearing her story. Jean watched from her window as the policemen invited Steve out of his car to question him.

They stood talking for a long time. At first the officers’ bearing was stiff and erect, but after a while their posture relaxed and they looked like three old friends chatting. Then the two cops walked back to her building.

She pushed the buzzer to let them in.

“He doesn’t seem like a bad guy,” one of the men said.

“He just wants you to give him a chance,” the other added.

“That’s right — he won’t hurt you. The poor guy’s in love.”

“He hasn’t broken any laws, and I don’t think he will. After all, the man’s a lawyer. He’s even donated some of his time to the Police Benevolent Association.”

It was clear that Steve’s genius for making good first impressions had worked again and they viewed her as the irrational one. The only question in their minds was what a nice guy like Steve saw in her. When they left, Jean felt completely discouraged. The only course open to her was to try to talk to him again, though she doubted it would do any good. He had already refused to listen to reason and what he was doing defied logic.

The next time she saw him behind her on the street, she turned around and walked toward him. If she was going to confront him, she wanted to do it with other people around.

Steve looked at her in surprise, then crossed to the other side of the street. He had told the police he was in love, but that didn’t seem like the act of a man who wanted to patch things up. Whatever this had been in the beginning, it had evolved into something quite different.

Jean reminded herself that he had broken no laws and hadn’t tried to hurt her. It was small comfort, but all she had. That evening when she returned to her apartment, even that little consolation disappeared.

Her tiny apartment was a shambles. Someone had vandalized it so thoroughly that everything she owned had been destroyed. Someone had sprayed acid on everything — walls, floors, furniture. Her TV and VCR both had had acid poured into them and were beyond repair. Holes had been eaten through all her clothing. Nothing had survived.

She had no doubt who that someone was. She called the police again, but all she received was sympathy. She had no proof.

She had to help herself, she knew that now. His actions had become increasingly more outrageous. If she didn’t do something to stop him, there was no telling what he might do the next time. He was out of control and she doubted whether even he knew where this was going.

She moved to an inexpensive hotel, but she didn’t get much sleep. She went over everything she knew about the man, which wasn’t much. He had come to Bradleyville from Pittsburg. He had no close friends or relatives in Bradleyville. That was it.

She didn’t know why he had left Pittsburg, but it didn’t matter. She could guess. He had probably decided to leave after doing something so scandalous that he had shattered the false image he projected. His image and reputation were important to him, otherwise he wouldn’t work so hard at maintaining them. The significant thing was that he had left Pittsburg and would leave Bradleyville, too, once he was found out.

But could she afford to wait? Did she want to risk whatever new outrage might occur to him?

She thought of buying a pistol for protection, but rejected the idea. That would be really crazy. But maybe, just maybe, some slightly less dangerous insanity was needed.

Steve Collins hurried toward his car. He was sure this was going to be a good day. He had learned where Jean had moved to after he had trashed her apartment. He wanted to see the expression on her face when she saw him waiting outside.

As he neared his car, he saw a sheet of white paper under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. Then he noticed similar sheets were on most of the other cars on the street. It must be an advertisement of some kind, he thought as he removed it. Then he saw that the top half of the page was filled with a picture of himself. He read:

The man you are looking at is Steven Collins. He is a known sex offender who has come here from Pittsburg. His doctors think he has been cured, but he has not. I’m sure of this, but I can’t prove it. I can’t allow him to victimize my friends and neighbors, either. Remember his name and his face. Question your children. He may have already approached them. BE ON GUARD!

Steve Collins forgot all about Jean Brophy. He had another problem on his mind. How long would it take him to pack up his things and leave Bradleyville?

© 1988 by Carleton Carpenter.

“Maybe we could have Ricky Rhinestone play Lillian Russell,” Moses Lightcastle told the studio chief.

Bingham’s face purpled up in fine fashion. “The way things is going today, that ain’t so far out as you think. Jeezus, I wish Alice Faye was thirty years younger. She could do the remake. Where the hell are the Alice Fayes? They don’t make Alice Fayes no more. They make Ricky Rhinestones and all the rest of them dopers. Hash, horse, ludes, coke — this whole town’s nothing but a giant pharmacy. It used to be an orange grove...!”

“To begin with,” Gustave Bingham began, “Cleo don’t sing.”

He stabbed the glowing end of a well chewed cigar in the general direction of the youngish man seated across the desk from him, emphasizing the point.

The young man recoiled. Mentally. He was in no way threatened by the bayonet thrust of the stogy. There was an acre or two of highly polished mahogany between the men. He recrossed his long legs, managing somehow to leave the sharp crease in his grey flannels undisturbed. The permanent half smile beneath his steel-rimmed glasses wavered not a jot. The thick lenses successfully hid the contempt in the pale eyes behind them.

Moses Lightcastle loathed his boss. It was a terrific, wildly pulsating loathing, a thing to nourish and cherish — the dominant force in his life, not only sustaining him on a day-to-day basis, but prodding him on to impossible highs as well as unplumbed hidden reserves of delicious deviousness. A hatred running so deep it was really the ultimate love affair. The Lightcastle Loathing. And with it, he thrived.

“Not a note?” he asked coolly.

Bingham plugged the cigar back into its juicy thick-lipped socket and gave his imitation of a chuckle — a noise constructed unequally of rale, wheeze, and choke. “In a moment of weakness, I thought she did. Retake that. In a moment of strenth, I shoulda said. Great strenth.” (No “g.”) “We were hammering away and she come out with these little musiclike sounds, you know? I thought she was sing-prone, but on recession I think I just hit a lost chord or something she didn’t know she lost. Or should I say mislaid?”

Inside the impeccable blue blazer, Moses squirmed. Oh, Edwin, are you listening? Are you taking this down? Edwin Newman was one of his personal gods.

“We gotta get another broad for the part.” Bingham cradled the Havana in the Steuben ashtray and assumed what Lightcastle termed “that quasi-executive look.”

“Perhaps if we hired a pianist and she auditioned—” Moses began.

“I did. She did. Last week. Right here.” He waved at the Baldwin concert grand in the south forty of the immense office. “She bombed. Made Tony Randall sound like 01’ Blue Eyes. Cleo don’t do-re-mi. No pitch, the key-clubber said. And unexpected timing. You had to be here to believe.”