Edward Lee - Ghouls

A gravel-scratch road wound up the rise. Crookedly, a single row of telephone poles led to the mansion, each looming like a crucifix as he passed. He saw birds perched high and still on the power lines, like sentinels on a rampart. When he’d finally gained the hill, he felt let down. The house looked awkward to him, and rather small now that he was so close. It seemed built as two separate layers. The upper story rose bare in the stealing, gray light, yet the lower level spanned fat and dark under the overhang of shadow cast by the eaved wraparound porch. Kurt parked by the four-car garage, next to Willard’s glinting black Chrysler and the black Porsche. He felt a doubtless, straining urge to hesitate as he got out of the Ford, an invitation, he considered, to turn around and go home. In the yard a congregation of squirrels disbanded into opposite directions. A herring gull floated overhead, its wings completely still. Mounting the steps, the porch shadow overwhelmed him, and he felt an odd tingle at the back of his neck, as though a beetle crawled there.

He held off knocking. He heard voices from somewhere, but his attention was drawn first to the door knocker—an arcane, pallid face of stained metal. The face seemed to be masked, for only the eyes were visible, and they looked back at him in sheer, abyssal blankness. What an ugly piece of shit to hang on a door, he thought.

He looked left and noticed an intercom by the doorframe, and a tubular keyplate for a burglar alarm. The manufacturer of the alarm was one of the better companies. Further along the wall was an open window. The voices persisted, begged him to listen in:

“—an’t believe you could be that stupid, Charles. Do you have any idea what kind—” It was a woman’s voice, clearly infuriated. “— idiot. How could you be such an idiot ?”

Now a man’s voice. Willard’s. “What else could I expect from you? Something goes wrong and you pass the buck, that’s just what I need. I’m standing in the middle of a crisis, and all you do is sit upstairs with those ridiculous dumbbells and exercise your breasts. Excellent. Superb. We have to do something about this, and the longer we wait, the worse it will get.”

Kurt leaned sideways, and froze to pick up more bits of conversation. At the same instant, though, a stiff wind gusted up the hill through the porch, reducing most of the next few sentences to gibberish.

“Owlong ‘ve oo in itting…iss?”

“Outtaeek, I pose.”

“Oopid ick! An oo dit ‘av…ucking ense oooell ee oudit ill ow?”

Kurt strained against the wall, trying to decipher the words. If only Dad could see me now, he thought.

“—ifference does it ake?” Willard muttered. “I ought I ould andle it i-self without larming you.”

The voices seemed to slide closer to the window. The wind died.

“You sure you didn’t lose your brains the last time you blew your goddamn nose? All this time I thought you knew what you were doing… Jesus, Charles, what are we going to do?”

Willard’s voice drifted in and out. Kurt ground his teeth at the words he missed.

“—nation, maybe. Laying it out would be easy.”

“Yes, but will it work?”

“It should. I hate to take the loss, though.”

The woman’s voice grew inflamed. “Fuck the loss, Charles. My God, I can’t believe you. We can take the loss…” Then, softer: “What are we going to use?”

“Something reputable. I was thinking of tee tee exx.”

Now the woman’s voice smoothed out. “Good idea. And I still know some people in Bethesda.”

“Yes, you’ve told me all about them, remember? The cucumber-and-Crisco contests, oral-sex poker, and the one young fellow whose nickname was ‘Hang Ten.’ A fine bunch.”

The woman was laughing. “I meant I still have contacts. People in the trade.”

“You’ll have to be careful. You can’t just walk in there and ask for it.”

Wearily now: “I know, Charles. I’m not stupid.”

Tee tee exx? Kurt thought. What was going on? He jotted the letters TTX on a piece of paper and stuck it in his jacket. Next, the woman’s voice was going on: “—about the meantime? There’s got to be something we can tell the—”

“And you call me an idiot.”

“We have to at least tell Glen. Something, anyway.”

“He’s a bright boy, and always very careful. We’ll tell him nothing.”

A quick rustling of trees obscured most of the next line. Kurt was able to decipher only one word.

“—killed.”

There was a brief impasse. Then Willard said, “This inordinate concern for Glen surprises me. I wonder about that.”

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just not overly pleased by the way he looks at you on occasion. Like a big, sad-eyed mongrel.”

Kurt shook his head. This seemed as good a time as any to make himself known, now that the conversation had wilted. He rapped vigorously on the door with the knocker handle. The sound was puny and weak.

Only silence now from the window. Several seconds unwound, then the door opened.

Willard stood darkened by the foyer; he looked at Kurt with a lowered brow, as if searching for something minute, and then he brightened as recognition was made. “Ah, Officer Morris,” Willard said through too broad a smile. “I didn’t recognize you without your uniform.”

Kurt didn’t care to explain the reason he was not in uniform. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I’d just like to ask you a few things, if you’ve got the time.”

“Certainly, come on in,” Willard offered, and stepped back. Kurt entered a cramped, poorly lit foyer. Before him stretched a hallway he could not see the end of. This guy must be allergic to daylight, he thought, reacting to the hall’s drastic darkness. And fresh air, too. The air reeked heavily of fetid scents.

Willard wore casual, neat gray slacks, suede loafers, and a western-cut shirt with pens stuffed in the top pocket. Hair the color of lead spilled out the open V of the shirt.

“Can I get you a drink?” Willard closed the door. He seemed to be in a hurry to shut out the light. “A beer or something? I have Kirin, Old Peculier, and Iron City.”

Before he could answer, Kurt was caught off guard by one of many paintings on the wall. It was a large, age-tinted portrait of an old man whose head was bald as a light bulb, and who wore a tuxedo like something out of the gangbuster era. The old man’s face sagged around a tight, disapproving scowl. Uriah Heep on a bad day, Kurt reflected. You have a good one, too, you old plucked buzzard.

Willard was smiling, as if secretly bemused. Was he? The strangeness of the house made Kurt feel detached, while the ghastly portrait had sidetracked him further. Suddenly he wanted very much to leave.

“Kind of lost my train of thought,” he said, not soon enough. “That painting caught my eye.”

Willard’s smile peaked to sarcastic crispness. “Yes, that’s my late great father, Richard Harcourt Willard. I’m sorry to say that what he lacked in looks was not compensated for in kindness. He was as friendly as a mad dog…” Cracks formed around Willard’s eyes; the thought of his father seemed aggravating. Had Kurt struck a nerve by mentioning the portrait? Willard continued. “He inherited a fortune and increased it tenfold by the time he died. His rivals and associates alike referred to him as ‘The Castrator.’” Willard then tossed his head back and laughed.

What am I doing here? Kurt thought. For a moment he forgot why he’d come. In the portrait he now detected a ruined likeness, and Dorian Gray came to mind.