William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

He kissed her so hard that her lip began to bleed.

Lilith opened the door for him and they went into her office. She sat behind the desk, where the contents of a tray of star sapphires lay spread out on a square of black velvet. She tumbled them back into the tray and swung out the false drawer fronts on the right-hand side of the desk, revealing the steel door of a safe. She put the gems away and spun the dial twice, then closed the panel and took a cigarette from the box on her desk.

Stan held his lighter. “She’s hooked.”

“The virtuous Molly?”

“Sure. It took some selling but she’ll play ball. Now let’s lay out the moves from here on in. I planted the City of Spiritual Light with him just before the first full-form job in the garden up at his place. Next séance, we’ll start warming him up to the idea of kicking in some dough.”

Stan had brought with him a portfolio. He drew the tapes and opened it, laying an architect’s drawing before the woman who claimed to be a psychiatrist.

A bird’s-eye view of a dream city, clustered about a central tower which rose from the desert amid a circling park of palms.

“Very pretty, Reverend.”

“There’s more.” He lifted out the drawing. Beneath it was a Geodetic Survey map of an Arizona county. Drawn in red ink and carefully lettered was the location of the City.

Lilith nodded. “And this is the spot where you are going to take off into thin air? That’s very well thought out, darling.” She frowned, looking at the map. “Where are you going to hide the second car?”

“I’m going to leave it somewhere in this jerk town, marked over here.”

“No good, darling. It must be hidden out of town-somewhere in the desert. Let’s go through it again. You go out by train; you buy a car in Texas and drive into this town of Peñas, where you put it in a garage. Then you hire a car in Peñas. You drive your new car outside the town and park it. You walk back, pick up the hired car, go to your own car, tow it to the snot near the site of the City and hide it well and drive back to Peñas in the hired car. You come back here by train. Correct?”

“Right. Then when we get ready to blow I drive out there, telling him to follow me in a day or two. I drive my car out to the site of the City and just off the highway. I get out, walk a hundred yards straight into the sand, then backtrack to the car, and from there follow the rock to the highway; hike on up the highway and pull out the new car. And drive like hell back east. And I’ve disappeared in the middle of the desert. He’ll come along, following this map, and find the car. He’ll follow the footprints-and blam! Gone! And me carrying all that dough. Ain’t it a shame?”

She laughed softly at him over her cigarette. “It’s complicated, Stan. But you’ll probably be able to get away with it. I believe you could make a living selling spiritualism to other mediums.”

“Say!” He leaned forward, his eyes narrow, thinking quickly; then he relaxed and shook his head. “No go. It’s peanuts-they never have any real dough. Industry is the only place where dough is any more.”

She looked back at the idealized drawing of the City of Spiritual Light. “There’s one thing, Stan, that I wish you’d tell me.”

“Sure, baby.”

“How did you move that precision balance out at his factory?”

The Rev. Carlisle laughed. It was something he very seldom did; but now he laughed in a high key and was still bubbling when he spoke. “I’ll tell you, doctor, as soon as we’ve got the chump cleaned. It’s a promise.”

“Very well. It was probably something ridiculous.”

Stan changed the subject. “I’ll get busy this week and rent a shack jammed right up next to his estate.”

Dr. Lilith was filing a thumbnail. “Don’t be so dramatic, darling. Yonkers is good enough. I agree that it should be in Westchester. The City of Light location will spread any hue and cry out in the southwest. But I don’t think there will be any hue and cry. However, he may take the matter up with this Mr. Anderson. Don’t forget that he has some very shrewd men working for him. Mr. Anderson would try to outthink you. He knows he is dealing with an ingenious man. He would start his hunt for you on his own hook, and it would begin at the country place and fan out from there. No. Yonkers is neither here nor there.” She dropped the nail file back into the drawer. “How are you going to brush off the faithful Penelope?”

“Molly?” Stan was pacing the room, his hands in his pockets. “I’ll give her a couple of grand and tell her to meet me some place in Florida. All she needs is a few bucks and a race track to keep her happy. She’ll be in a daze as long as the dough holds out. If she wins a little she’ll forget the day of the month and everything else. When she’s broke she can go back to the carny and work the Ten-in-One. Or get a job as a hat check somewhere. She won’t starve.”

Lilith stood up and came over to him, stretching tailored gray arms up around his neck and giving him her mouth.

They swayed for a moment and Stan rubbed his cheek against the smooth hair. Then she pushed him away. “Run along, Reverend. I’ve a patient due in five minutes.”

When Grindle got to the church he found the Rev. Carlisle in his study upstairs. On the desk, spread out under the lamp, were letters with currency clipped to them. Stan picked up one which held a ten-dollar bill and read aloud: ‘ “I know the wonderful future which the City holds for us all in the line of a pooling of our spiritual forces. What a joy it will be when our friends and loved ones in spirit life can be with us as often as we wish. God bless you, Stanton Carlisle.’ Well, the rest of it is of no consequence.” He smiled at the ten-spot. “It’s very touching, Ezra, some of the letters. Many of them are from uneducated people-yet their faith is so pure and unselfish. The City will be a dream come true. They should thank Ramakrishna, though, for everything I do is done with the hand of that great spiritual leader on my shoulder.”

Grindle sat staring at the ember of his cigar. “I’ll do my share, Stanton. I’m pretty well fixed. I’ll do what I can. This idea of pooling all the spiritual power in one spot makes sense to me. Same as any business merger. But my part isn’t easy: I’ve built such a wall around myself that I can’t get out any more. They’re all devoted, loyal people. None better. But they won’t understand. I’ll have to think of some way…”

While the turntable revolved Stan leaned over the machine with a clothesbrush, keeping the blank record clear of acetate threads cut by the recording needle. Suddenly he raised the needle arm, tore the record from the turntable and slung it into a corner. “God damn it, kid, you’ve got to sound wistful . The dame and the old guy can be together forever, frigging like rabbits, only he’s got to help the church build this City. Now take it again. And get in there and sell it.”

Molly was almost crying. She turned back the pages of her script and leaned closer to the mike, watching Stan put on a new record blank.

I can’t act . Oh, golly, I’ve got to try!

She started to cry, forcing the words out between catches of her breath, struggling through it and winking so she could still read the script. Toward the end she was crying so hard she couldn’t see it at all and ad-libbed the rest. She was waiting any minute for Stan to blow up and bawl her out, but he let it ride.

When she was through he raised the recording arm. “That’s the stuff, kid-plenty of emotion. Let’s listen to it.”

The playback sounded awful, Molly thought. All full of weepy noises and gasps. But Stan was grinning. He nodded to her and when he had heard it all he said, “That’s the stuff, kid. That’ll shake him loose. You wait and see. You think that sounds corny? Forget it. The chump’s overboard. I could roll up my pants legs, throw a sheet over me, and he’d take me for his long lost love. But we’re going to need one circus to nail him to the cross.”