Nelson Algren - The New Black Mask Quarterly (№ 1)

She sat down cross-legged on a velvet pillow next to the couch, placing the lamp on the floor. I could smell the faint odor of kerosene. Then she switched on a tape recorder and arranged the open notebook in her lap.

“Would you prefer some white noise?” she asked.

I said “Huh?” again.

“A machine I can turn on. It blocks out the street noises. Some people are bothered by street noises.”

“No, you can skip that. I’m fine.”

“Well, then, are you ready?” she asked.

“I gotta warn you,” I said. “I’m a tough subject to hypnotize.”

“I don’t hypnotize people. I try to induce an aura of inner peace, a kind of light trance state. Just close your eyes and allow my voice to guide you.”

And she began to speak in a lilting flow, telling me how to relax the muscles in each section of my body. Then: “Imagine that you are in a small boat, on your back, under a serene blue sky, drifting endlessly down a wide stream. The sun is on the water, and the day is very peaceful. Your muscles are totally relaxed and your mind is open to the cosmic power of the water, carrying you back... back... back... through time itself, into another state of life, into...”

“It’s no good,” I said, sitting up abruptly. “I have to be straight with you. I’m not here to take a boat trip into yesterday. I came here to get some info. In order to prevent a murder.”

She gave me a penetrating look: “Are you with the police?”

“No, I’m a private investigator. I think you have vital information I need. On one of your subjects.”

She switched off the recorder, stood up calmly. “Maybe we’d better go back downstairs.”

“Yeah, maybe we’d better.”

Like I said, sometimes you get lucky and this turned out to be one of my lucky nights. Yes, she did know a John D. Carroll. He’d told her he worked in a specialty shop, some kind of nostalgia place where they sell old pulp magazines and movie posters. She didn’t know where the shop was located or where Carroll lived. He’d never given her an address or a phone number; he always called her for appointments. He’d come in several months ago for a past-life regression and they’d had maybe half a dozen sessions since then.

“But in all of them, he refused to be regressed beyond his last lifetime,” she told me. “Most people who come to me want to reach back into as many of their past lives as possible. But John was fixated on this one prior life. He kept wanting me to explore more aspects of it. So I did.”

“And what was he?” I asked. “In this other life.”

“An author,” she said. “He wrote thriller stories for the popular magazines of the period. Apparently he was quite successful at it, at least in the early years of his career into the 1940s.”

“Did he write under another name — or did he use John D. Carroll?”

“That’s all on the tapes. I don’t recall the name he wrote under.”

“I’d like to borrow those tapes. They could provide the information I need to run him down.”

She stared at me; her eyes were cool. “I’m sorry, Mr. Challis, but these sessions are confidential. I never allow subject tapes to leave my possession.”

“I can make it worthwhile,” I said. “My client will pay whatever you ask.”

“It’s not a question of money, it’s the principle. In a way, I am in the position of a priest in the confessional. I do not violate a subject’s confidence.”

“Look,” I said firmly. “This guy is obviously insane. He’s already made one attempt on the life of my client and he’s sure to make another. You let me have those tapes and you’ll be saving a man’s life.”

She thought about that for a long silent moment. Then she walked over to a tall bookcase on the back wall and ran her finger along a line of boxed tapes. Took out three, handed them to me.

“These are reel-to-reel,” she said. “My player is broken at the moment or you could listen to them here. Have you a reel-to-reel machine?”

I nodded. “Got one in my office.”

“Normally, I’d never do this,” she said. “But in a case of potential homicide...” Her voice trailed off.

“Believe me, you’re doing the right thing,” I assured her. “Can you tell me what Carroll looks like? You never said.”

“Medium height and build. Thinning brown hair. Has a scar on his left cheek from a childhood accident.”

“Age?”

“Well, he was born into his present body in 1959 — which puts him in his mid-twenties.”

“Does he have another appointment set with you?”

“No. I haven’t heard from him for quite some time now.”

I stepped to the door, opened it. A drift of cold night air reminded me we were near the ocean. “You may have saved a man’s life. I thank you for all your help.”

“You’re quite welcome, Mr. Challis.” There was a twinkle in her eyes. “But there are two important things you seem to have forgotten.”

“Name them.”

“Your shoes,” she said.

I got back in my Honda and headed along Harbor toward the freeway. It was quiet, with no other cars on this section of the boulevard. A light rain began to patter against the window. I flipped on the wipers and reduced speed. No use taking chances. A thin drizzle like this can make the road damned slick.

Then I saw headlights coming up fast behind me. Really fast. Had to be a road nut, driving at this rate in the rain. But my gut told me who it was.

John D. Carroll.

Maybe he’d spotted me coming out of Spillane’s place in Malibu. At any rate, he’d followed me to Kathleen’s and was closing in fast. To kill me.

Or was I getting paranoid? Could just be a coked-up high school kid out to impress his date with some hot-shot driving. But the blast that took out the Honda’s rear window told me it was Carroll.

Damn! My gun was in the office in Studio City. A million miles away.

Whatever he was driving, I figured I sure couldn’t outrun him in a three-year-old Honda Civic with lousy rear shocks.

So what could I do? It would have to be something he wouldn’t expect. I braked hard, sliding the Honda around into a full U-turn on the slick pavement, and headed right for him.

His lights filled my vision, two flaring circles of white fire, blinding me. I shaded my eyes from the glare with one hand, thinking, boyo, this is one hell of a gamble. I was counting on him to chicken out and swerve, maybe turn over in the wet, giving me the advantage.

But he didn’t chicken out.

I was right on top of him.

We hit.

Not head-on. I wouldn’t be telling about it if we’d hit head-on. We sideswiped each other in a grinding crush of metal, each of us caroming off to opposite sides of the boulevard.

I was okay. Not hurt, just shaken a little. I got the door open, climbed out fast, keeping low. My goal was the dark area between two apartment buildings fronting the boulevard. I had to get some cover and I had to get it quick.

As I ran, in a kind of half-crouch, I felt moisture on my forehead and upper lip. Not rain... sweat. My muscles twitched, anticipating a pumpgun charge between the shoulder blades, blowing my flesh apart. But that was in my mind. The guy didn’t fire at me.

He had more important things to do.

From the darkness between buildings, I turned to see him getting the three tapes from the seat of my Honda... a medium-built guy in a long coat with what looked like a Winchester pump cradled under his left arm. I eased back into the shadows as he looked toward me. I could feel his eyes burning at me.

Then he got back in his car, a light tan Chevy, and motored away into the night.

But not before I was able to read his license number.