William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

Moonlight struck through fern leaves in the conservatory; the rest of the church was in darkness. The minutes slid by-twenty of them by Stan’s luminous-dial watch. He shifted his feet and found the floor board by the organ.

A tinkle came from the trumpet lying on the lectern, across the Bible. Grindle leaned forward, clenching his fists.

The trumpet stirred, then floated in air, moonlight winking from its aluminum surface. The chump moaned, cupping one hand behind his ear so as not to miss a single syllable. But the voice came thin and clear, a little metallic.

“Spunk darling… this is Dorrie. I know you haven’t forgotten us, Spunk. I hope to materialize enough for you to touch me soon. It’s wonderful… that you are with us in building the City. We can be together there, darling. Really together. We will be. Believe that. I’m so glad that you are working with us at last. And don’t worry about Andy and the rest. Many of them will come to accept the truth of survival in time. Don’t try to convince them now. And don’t alarm them: you have some securities-some bonds-that they don’t know about. That is the way out, dear. And let no one know how much you give, for all must feel that the City is their very own. Give your part to Stanton, bless him. And don’t forget, darling… next time I come to you… I shall come as a bride.”

It was late when Stan pressed the buzzer outside the apartment. Lilith opened the door, frowning. “I don’t like your coming here so much, Stan. Somebody might see you.”

He said nothing but hurried in and threw his brief case on her desk, tugging at the straps. Lilith closed the Venetian blinds a little tighter.

From the case he dug a helter-skelter of papers, the faked letters with currency still attached, which Lilith gathered up, pulling off the cash. She emptied them into the fireplace and put a match to them.

Stan was feverishly smoothing out bills and arranging them in stacks. “The convincer boodle did the trick, babe. I took every cent I had in the sock-eleven grand.” He patted the piles of bills. “Jesus, what blood I’ve sweat to get it in this goddamned racket! But here’s the payoff.”

In two legal-sized brown envelopes were thick oblong packets. He drew them out and broke confining strips of paper. “There it is, baby. How many people ever see that much cash in all their lives? One hundred and fifty thousand! Look at it! Look at it! And the McCoy. I never saw one five-yard note before. God almighty, we’re lousy with ’em!”

The doctor was amused. “We’d better put them away, darling. That’s a lot of money for one person to carry in his pocket. You might spend it foolishly.”

While Stan gathered the crumpled bills of the convincer into a wad and slipped a rubber band around them Lilith assembled the “take” and placed it carefully back in the brown envelopes, sealing them. She swung open the dummy drawers of the desk and when she dialed the combination Stan automatically tried to get a peek but her shoulder was in the way. Lilith put the money away and spun the dial.

When she stood up the Rev. Carlisle was staring into the polished mahogany of the desktop, his face flushed. “Wounds of God! A hundred and fifty grand!”

She handed him a double brandy and poured one for herself. He took the glass from her hand and set it on the bookcase. Then he slid his arms around her roughly. “Baby, baby- God, this high class layout had me dizzy but I get it good and clear now. Baby, you’re nothing but a gonif and I love you. We’re a couple of hustlers, a pair of big-time thieves. How does it feel?”

He was grinning down at her, squeezing her ribs until they hurt. She took his wrists and loosened them a little, closing her eyes and raising her face to him. “You’re wonderful, darling, the way you read my mind.”

Dr. Lilith Ritter did not go to bed right away. After Carlisle had gone she sat smoking and drawing careful parallel lines on a scratch pad. Once she turned back to the file cabinet behind her and took out a folder identified only by a number. It contained a chart on graph paper, an idea with which she often played, an emotional barometric chart, marked with dates, showing a jagged rise and fall. It was an emotional diagram of Stanton Carlisle. She did not trust it entirely; but the curve had reached a high point, and on four other occasions such peaks had been followed by sudden drops into depression, instability, and black despair. Finally she put the folder away, undressed, and drew a tub of hot water into which she threw pine bath salts.

She lay in the water reading the financial section of the evening paper. Grindle Motors was off two points; it would go still lower before it started to rise again. Lilith’s smile, as she tossed the paper to the floor and snuggled deeper in the comforting, scented warmth, was the smile of a well-fed kitten.

With a twist of triumphant glee her mind drew pictures of her two sisters as she had seen them last: Mina, spare and virginal, still proud of a Phi Beta key after all these years of beating Latin into the heads of brats. And Gretel-still looking like a wax angel off a Tannenbaum , with half a lung left to breathe with and a positive Wassermann.

Old Fritz Ritter had kept a State Street saloon called “The Dutchman’s.” His daughter Lille smiled. “I must be part Swedish,” she said softly to a bar of pink soap, molded in the form of a lotus. “The middle way.”

For two days Ezra Grindle had dropped from sight. His legal staff, his chauffeur-bodyguard, and his private chief of police, Melvin Anderson, had conferred again and again as to where the boss might be, without getting anywhere. Anderson knew little about the Old Man’s activities lately and was afraid to stick a tail on him for fear he would find out about it. The Chief was cagy as hell. The lawyers learned that Grindle had not touched his checking accounts. Nothing, at least, had cleared. But he had been into one of his safe-deposit boxes. It was difficult to find out what securities the Chief had liquidated or how much. And where was he? He had left word: “I shall be away on business.”

The lawyers went over the will. If he had made a new one they would have drawn it. All his faithful employees were remembered, and the rest was distributed to his pet colleges, medical foundations, and homes for unwed mothers. They would just have to wait.

In a tiny bedroom, lit only by a skylight, on the top floor of the Church of the Heavenly Message, the great man sat with his glasses off and his dentures in a glass of water beside him. He was wearing the yellow robe of a Tibetan lama. On the pale green wall of his cell was painted in Sanskrit the word Aum , symbol of man’s eternal quest for spiritual At-One-ness with the All Soul of the Universe.

At intervals Grindle meditated on spiritual things but often he simply daydreamed in the cool quiet. The dreams took him back to the campus, and her lips when he kissed her for the first time. She wanted to see his college and he was showing her the buildings which stood there in the night, illumined, important. Afterward they strolled in Morningside Park, and he kissed her again. That was the first time she let him touch her breast…

He went over every detail. It was amazing what meditation could do. He remembered things he had forgotten for years. Only Dorrie’s face eluded him; he could not bring it back. He could recall the pattern of her skirt, that day at Coney Island, but not her face.

With the pleasure of pressing a sore tooth, he brought back the evening, walking on the Drive, when she told him what she had been afraid of; and now it was true. It seemed that no time had passed at all. His frantic inquiries for a doctor. He had exams the very time she was supposed to go; she went by herself. Afterwards, up in the room, she seemed all right, only shaky and depressed. What a hellish week that was! He had to put her out of his mind until exams were through. Then the next night-they told him she was in the hospital and he ran all the way over there and they wouldn’t let him in. And when he did get in Dorrie wouldn’t speak to him. It went around and around in his head-like a Tibetan prayer wheel. But it was slowing down. Soon it would stop and they would be Joined in Spirit.