William Gresham - Nightmare Alley

Grindle was annoyed with Stanton. He struggled to get his trousers on and his shirt. Have to sit down and rest. Dorrie was there in spirit. Who else could it be but Dorrie, his Dorrie, come back again? Had she lived after all? And come back to him? A dream-?

But they had gone.

Glasses. Wallet. Keys. Cigar case.

He limped back into the hall. Stairs again, a mile of them going steeply down. Hold on. Have to hold on tight. Andy! Where was Andy and why had he let him get caught this way in a house with so many stairs and what had hurt his leg? With a sudden surge of anger Grindle wondered if he had been kidnapped. Shot? Slugged over the head? There were desperate men who might- the mob rule grows ever more menacing, even as we sit here tonight, gentlemen, enjoying our cigars and our …That was from a speech.

And the door to that black room open.

Grindle felt as if twenty years had fallen over him like a blanket. Twenty more years. He stood looking into the dark. There was a cabinet over there, and a single splash of green light still lay on the floor.

“Stanton! Dorrie! Stanton, where are you!”

Halfway across the room he stumbled and crawled the rest of the way to the pool of light. But it wasn’t moist and musky, like Dorrie. It felt like fabric.

“Stanton!”

Grindle struck a match and found a wall switch. The light revealed that the patch of luminous vapor was a piece of white silk sticking out from the bottom hem of the black curtains in the alcove.

But Stanton had struck Dorrie!

He drew aside the curtains. There was the couch, all right. Maybe Stanton had fallen behind it when the evil presence- this was Thursday? I’ve missed the board meeting. They would hold it without me; too important. I should have been there, to act as a sea anchor on Graingerford. But Russell would be there. Dependable man. But could Russell convince them by himself of the soundness of the colored-labor policy? The competition was doing it-it was a natural. Graingerford be damned.

On the floor by the couch lay a control box with several switches on its bakelite panel. Grindle turned one.

Above him began the faint, ghostly music of a sitar . Another turn of the switch and it stopped.

He sat on the medium’s couch for a moment, holding the box on his knees, the wire trailing from it underneath the black velvet cover toward the wall. A second switch produced the cosmic heartbeat and the rushing wind. Another-“ Hari Aum! ”

At the sound of Ramakrishna’s voice he snapped it off. The click of the switch seemed to turn on his own reason. In one jagged, searing flash he saw everything. The long build-up, the psychic aura, the barrage of suggestion, the manufactured miracles.

Dorrie- But how, in heaven’s name, did that sanctimonious devil find out about Dorrie? I’ve never spoken her name all these years-not even to Dr. Ritter. Even the doctor doesn’t know about Dorrie or how she died.

The villain must be genuinely psychic. Or some debased telepathic power. A fearful thought-such a black heart and such uncanny powers. Maybe Dr. Ritter can explain it.

Downstairs. Got to get downstairs. Telephone. In that devil’s office-

He made it.

“Andy? I’m perfectly all right-just can’t talk very plain. Something’s the matter with one side of my face. Probably neuralgia. Andy, for the Lord’s sake, stop fussing. I tell you I’m all right. It doesn’t matter where I am. Now keep quiet and listen. Get Dr. Samuels. Get him out of bed and have him up home when I get there. I’ll be there in two hours. I want a checkup. Yes, this evening. What time is it? Get Russell up there too. I’ve got to find out what happened at the meeting this morning.”

The voice at the other end of the wire was frantic. Grindle listened for a time and then said, “Never mind, Andy. I’ve just been-away.”

“One question, Chief. Are you with that spirit preacher?”

The Chief’s voice grew clearer. “Andy-I forbid you ever to mention that man’s name to me again! That’s an order. You and everyone else in the organization. Is that clear? And I forbid anyone to ask me where I’ve been. I know what I’m doing. This is final.”

“Okay, Chief. The curtain is down.”

He made two more calls. One was for a cab and the other was to Dr. Lilith Ritter. There was one chamber in his brain that wasn’t functioning yet. He didn’t dare open it until he was safely in Dr. Ritter’s office.

Molly had not stopped for clothes. She pulled on her shoes, threw a coat around her, grabbed her purse, and ran from that awful house. She ran all the way home.

In the flat Buster miaowed to her, but she gave him a quick pat. “Not now, sugar. Mamma has to scram. Oh, my God!”

She heaved a suitcase onto the bed and threw into it everything small and valuable she could see. Still crying in little bubbling starts, she drew on the first panties and bra that came out of a drawer; she got into the first dress she touched in the closet, shut the keyster, and put Buster in a big paper bag.

“Oh, my God, I’ve got to hurry.” Play dumb and give them an Irish name. “I’ve got to hurry, somewhere. Stan-oh, damn you, damn you, damn you, I don’t feel dirty! He was just as clean as you, you damn cheap hustler. Oh-Daddy-”

The hotel people were nice about Buster. She expected cops any minute but nothing happened. And the address she found in the Billboard was the right one. A reply to her telegram got back early the next morning:

SENDING DOUGH NEED GIRL SWORD CABINET ACT COME HOME SWEETHEART

ZEENA

holds in one hand a balance, in the other a sword .

LILITH opened the door; she said nothing until they were in the office and she had seated herself behind the desk, asking softly, “Did she?”

Stan had discarded clerical bib and collar. He was sweating, his mouth cottony. “She went all the way. Then she blew up. I -I knocked out the pair of them and left them there.”

Lilith’s eyes half closed. “Was that necessary?”

“Necessary? Wounds of God! Don’t you think I tried to weasel out of it? The old bastard was like a stallion kicking down a stall to get into a mare. I dropped both of them and beat it.”

Lilith was drawing on her gloves. She took a cigarette from her purse. “Stan, it may be some time before I can meet you.” She swung open the panel and dialed the safe combination. “He may come to me-I’ll try to persuade him not to hunt for you.” She laid the convincer wad and the two brown envelopes on the desk. “I don’t want to keep this any longer, Stan.”

When he had stuffed the money into his pockets Lilith smiled. “Don’t get panicky. He won’t be able to start any action against you for several hours. How hard did you hit him?”

“I just pushed him. I don’t think he was all the way out.”

“How badly is the girl hurt?”

“For God’s sake, she isn’t hurt! I just dropped her; she’ll come out of it quick. If she stays groggy it will give the chump something to worry about: what to do with her. If she gets clear she’ll head straight back to the flat and wait for me. She’ll have a good long wait. I’ve got the keyster parked uptown in a check room. The phoney credentials and everything. If Molly had any brains she could put the con on that mark for hush money: claim he attacked her in the dark séance room. Christ, why didn’t I think of that angle sooner? But it’s sour now. I’m on my way.”

He lifted Lilith’s face and kissed her, but the lips were cool and placid. Stan was staring down into her eyes. “It’s going to be a long time, baby, before we get together.”