Image of the Beast, Page 2

  "Who's going to pay me?" Childe said. "Colben's divorced. This case is tied up with Budler's, but Budler's wife discharged me yesterday. She says she doesn't give a shit any more."

  "He may be dead, just like Colben," Bruin said. "I wouldn't be surprised if we got another package through the mails."

  "Me neither," Childe said.

  "See you," Bruin said. He put a heavy paw on Childe's shoulder for a second. "Doing it for nothing, eh? He was your partner, right? But you was going to split up, right? Yet you're going to find out who killed him, right?"

  "I'll try," Childe said.

  "I like that," Bruin said. "There ain't much sense of loyalty kicking around nowadays." He lumbered off; the others trailed out after him. Childe was alone. He looked into the mirror over the washbowl. The pale face resembled Lord Byron's enough to have given him trouble with women--and a number of jealous or desirous men--ever since he was fourteen. Now, it was a little lumpy, and a scar ran down his left cheek. Memento of Korea, when a drunken soldier had objected to being arrested by Childe and had slashed his face with the broken end of a beer bottle. The eyes were dark gray and just now much bloodshot. The neck below the slightly lumpy Byronic head was thick and the shoulders were wide. The face of a poet, he thought as he had thought many times, and the body of a cop, a private investigator. Why did you ever get into this sordid soul-leaching depressing corrupting racket? Why didn't you become a quiet professor of English or psychology in a quiet college town?

  Only he and a psychotherapist would ever know, and he evidently did not want to know, since he had never gone to a psychotherapist. He was sure that he enjoyed the sordidness and tears and grief and hatred and the blood, somewhere in him. Something fed on contemptible food. Something enjoyed it, but that something sure as hell wasn't Herald Childe. Not at this moment, anyway.

  He left the washroom and went down the hall to an elevator and dropped while he turned his thoughts so inwardly that he did not know whether or not he was alone in the cage. On the way to the exit, he shook his head a little as if to wake himself up. It was dangerous to be so infolded.

  Matthew Colben, his partner, had been on his way to being his ex-partner. Colben was a big-mouthed braggart, a Don Juan who let his desire to make a pass interfere with his business. He had not allowed his prick to get in the way of business when he and Childe had become partners six years ago. But Colben was fifty now and perhaps trying to keep the thoughts of a slowing-down body and thickening flesh and a longer time to recover from hangovers away from him. Childe didn't accept this reason; Colben could do whatever he wanted after business hours, but he was cheating his partner when he cheated himself with the booze and the women. After the Budler case, they would be through. So Childe had promised himself.

  Now Colben was dead and Budler could be in the hands of the same people who had taken Colben--although there was no evidence to indicate so. But Budler and Colben had disappeared the same night, and Colben had been tailing Budler.

  The film had been mailed from a Torrance post office three days ago. Colben and Budler had been missing for fourteen days.

  Childe stopped at the tobacco stand and bought a morning Times. At any other time, the Colben case would have been headline material. Not today. It was, however, a feature on the front page. Childe, hating to go outside, leaned against the wall and read the story. It had been considerably bowdlerized by the reporters who had seen the film. They had not been present at either of the showings he had witnessed, but Bruin had told him they were at a special running. Bruin had laughed like a bear with a sore throat, and described how at least half of them had thrown up or been close to throwing up.

  "Some of them been in battles and seen men with their guts blowed inside out!" Bruin had said. "You was in the Korean action and you was an officer, right? Yet you got sick! How come?"

  "Didn't you feel your cock drawing up in your belly?" Childe had said.

  "Naw."

  "Maybe you don't have one," Childe had said. Bruin thought that was funny, too.

  The whole story was in two columns, and it covered most of what Childe knew except for the details of the film. Colben's car had been found in a parking lot behind a trust and security building on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Colben had been trailing Benjamin Budler, a wealthy Beverly Hills lawyer. Budler had been stepping out on his wife, not to mention his regular mistress. The wife had hired Childe & Colben, Private Investigators, to get enough evidence for her to file for divorce.

  Colben, using the tape recorder in his car, had described Budler's moves. Budler had picked up a lovely brunette (described in detail but unidentified) on the corner of Olympic and Veteran. The traffic light had been green, but Budler had held up a long line of cars, horns blaring, while he opened the door and let the woman in. She was well-dressed. Colben had surmised that her car was parked somewhere close; she did not look as if she would live in this neighborhood.

  Budler's Rolls-Royce had turned right on Veteran and gone to Santa Monica, where it had turned left and traveled down Santa Monica until it stopped a block from a quiet and expensive restaurant. Here Budler had let the woman off and driven to a parking place on a side street. He had walked to the restaurant where they had dined and wined (presumably) for three hours. Though they went in separately, they came out together. Budler was red-faced, talking loudly and laughing much. The woman laughed much also but she walked steadily. His balance was a little uncertain; he stumbled when he started across the street and almost fell.

  They had taken the Rolls-Royce (with Budler driving too swiftly and weaving in and out of traffic) up Santa Monica and turned left at Bedford Drive to go north.

  The tape was wiped clean from this point on.

  Colben had stated that he had gotten some long-range pictures of the woman when Budler had picked her up. The camera was in the car but the film had been removed.

  The car had been thoroughly cleaned; there was not a single fingerprint. Some dirt particles, presumably from the shoes of whoever had driven the car to the parking lot, were on the mat, but an analysis had shown only that the dirt could have come from anywhere in the area. There were some fibers; these had been rubbed off the rag used to wipe the seats.

  Budler's Rolls-Royce was also missing.

  The police had not discovered that Budler had dropped out of his normal pattern of life until two days after Colben was reported missing. His wife had known that he was gone, but she had not bothered to report this. Why should she? He often did not come home for two to four days.

  As soon as she was informed that her husband might have been kidnapped or murdered, that his disappearance was connected with that of Colben's (or seemed likely to be connected), she had told Childe that he was no longer employed by her.

  "I hope they find the son of a bitch dead! And soon!." she had screamed over the phone. "I don't want his money tied up forever! I need it now! It's just like him to never be found and tie me up with litigation and red tape and all that shit! Just like him! I hate him!" and so on.

  "I'll send you my bill," Childe had replied. "It was nice working for you," and he had hung up.

  His bill would be delivered, but how soon he would be paid was doubtful. Even if a check was sent by Mrs. Budler by return mail, it might not be cashable for some time. The newspapers reported that the authorities were discussing closing down all banks until the crisis was over. Many people were protesting against this, but it would not make much difference for the protesters if the banks did stay open. What good did that do if most of the customers could not get to their bank unless they were within walking distance or wanted to stand in line for hours to take the infrequent bus?

  He looked up from the paper. Two uniformed, gas masked men were bringing in a tall dark man between them. He held up handcuffed hands as if to demonstrate his martyrdom to the world. One cop carried a third gas mask, and by this Childe knew that the arrested man had probably been using a mask while holding up a store or robbing a loa
n company or doing something which required concealing his face.

  Childe wondered why the cops were bringing him in through this entrance. Perhaps they had caught him just down the street and were taking the short cut.

  The situation was advantageous for criminals in one respect. Men wearing gas masks or water-soaked cloths over their faces were not uncommon. On the other hand, anyone abroad was likely to be stopped and questioned. One thing balances out another.

  The cops and the arrestee were coughing. The man behind the tobacco counter was coughing. Childe felt a tickling in his throat. He could not smell the smog, but the thought of smelling it evoked the ghost of a cough.

  He checked his I.D. cards and permit. He did not want to be caught without them, as he had been yesterday. He had lost about an hour because, even after the cops had called in and validated his reasons for being out, he had been required to go home and pick up his papers, and he had been stopped again before he could get home.

  He tucked the paper under his arm, walked to the door, looked through the glass, shuddered, wished he had lightweight scuba diver's equipment, opened the door and plunged in.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 3

  It was like walking at the bottom of a sea of very thin bile.

  There were no clouds between the sun and the sea. The sun shone brightly as if it were trying to burn a path through the sea. The August sun burned fiercely and the more it burned, the more it cut with its yellow machetes, the thicker and more poisonous grew the gray-green foliage.

  (Childe knew he was mixing metaphors. So what? The Cosmos was a mixed metaphor in the mind of God. The left mind of God did not know what the right mind of God was doing. Or did not care. God was a schizophrenic? Herald Childe, creature of God, image of God, certainly was schizophrenic. Levorotatory image?)

  Eyes burned like heretics at the stake. Sinuses were scourged; fire ran along the delicate bones; spermaticky fluid collected to fill the chambers of the sinuses and dripped, waiting for the explosion of air voluntarily or involuntarily set off to discharge the stuff with the mildest of orgasms.

  Not a twitch of wind. The air had been unmoving for a day and a night and half a day, as if the atmosphere had died and was rotting.

  The gray-green stuff hung in sheets. Or seemed to. The book of judgment was being read and the pages, the gray-green sheets, were being turned as the eye read and more and more pages were being piled toward the front of the book. How far to read before the end?

  Childe could see no further than one hundred and ten feet, if that. He had walked this path from the door to the parking lot so many times that he could not get lost. But there were those who did not know where they were. A woman, screaming, ran by him, and was lost in the greenishness. He stopped. His heart was pounding. Faintly, he could hear a car horn. A siren wailed somewhere. He turned slowly, trying to see or hear the woman or her pursuer, if any, but there was none. She ran; no one pursued.

  He began to trot. He sweated. His eyes smarted and flowed tears, and little flames seemed to be creeping down his throat toward his lungs. He wanted to get to the car, which held his gas mask. He forced himself to walk. There was panic hanging in the air, the same panic that came to a man when he felt hands squeezing his neck and thumbs pressing in on his windpipe.

  A car emerged from the cloud. It was not his. He passed by it and, ten parking spaces on, found his 1970 Oldsmobile. He put the mask on, started the motor, winoing a little at the thought of the poisons shooting out of the exhaust, turned his lights on and drove out of the lot. The street held more moving bright lights than he had expected. He turned on the radio and found out why. Those who had some place to go outside the area of smog were going whether or not the authorities gave permission, and so the authorities were giving permission. Many who had no place to go, but were going anyway, were also driving out. The flood had started. The streets weren't jammed as yet, but they soon would be.

  Childe cursed. He had planned on easy drives to his various destinations that day because, although he could not drive swiftly, he could drive unimpeded by traffic.

  The voice of the governor issued from the speaker. The governor pleaded for restraint and calm. Everybody should continue to stay home--if they were able to do so. However, those who had to get out for health reasons (which would include the entire population now, Childe thought) should drive carefully and should realize that there just were not enough accommodations for them outside the Los Angeles-Orange County area in this state. Nevada and Arizona had been notified of the invasion, and Utah and New Mexico were readying themselves. Troops were being moved into the area but only to act as traffic policemen and to assist the hospitals. There was no martial law; there was no need for it. There was an upswing in crimes of passion, theft, and robbery, but there had been no riots.

  No wonder, thought Childe. There was something irritating about smog; it did eat the skin off the nerves, but people did not like to get out in it, and people did not collect in large numbers. To every man, others looked like ghosts coming toward him out of the gray-greenness or like strange fish appearing suddenly from the shadows. Strange fish could be sharks.

  He passed a car with three goggled, shouted monstrosities in it. Their heads swiveled, the cyclopean eyes stared blindly, the noses seemed to sniff. He sped away from them until their headlights were muffled and then slowed down. Once, a car suddenly appeared behind him, and a red light flashed. He looked through the rear view mirror before he stopped; there were fake prowl cars stopping motorists and robbing, beating, or even killing them on the streets during daylight, within twenty feet of passers-by. He decided to pull over, eased the car gently toward the dimly visible curb, and stopped. He kept the motor running and peered at the car and the cop getting out of it on the right side. If he did not like the looks of them he could still get out of the right side of his car and take off into the dimness. But he recognized the cop, although he did not know his name, and stayed behind the wheel. He flipped open his coat and slowly reached within it so that the cop would not get the impression he was reaching for a gun. He had a license for a gun but it was at home.

  The cops had stopped too many to make him get out of the car and assume the stance of the friskee. Besides, there were many legitimate drivers, and within a short time, there would be so many cars on the streets that they might as well give up, except for obvious cases.

  Childe established his identity quickly enough. They knew of him by hearsay and had also read the papers. One, Chominshi, wanted to discuss the case, but the other was coughing, and Childe started to cough, so they let him go. He continued up Third toward West Los Angeles. His apartment and his office were a few blocks away from Beverly Hills. He planned to go straight home and do some thinking.

  If he could think. He was in a mild state of shock. His reflexes seemed to be slow as if he had been drugged or was recovering from being knocked out. He felt a slight sense of detachment, as if he had been disengaged somewhat from reality, no doubt to soften the effects of the film. The smog did not help him keep an anchor on things; it induced a feeling of slippage of self.

  He was not burning with lust for revenge on those who had killed Colben. He had not liked Colben, and he knew that Colben had done some things which were criminal but he had escaped without (as far as Childe knew) even the punishment of conscience. He had knocked up a teenager and kicked her out, and the girl had taken sleeping pills and died. There were others, although none had ended in death for the girls. But some would have been better off dead. And there was the wife of a client who had been found beaten and would always be an idiot. Childe had had no basis for suspicion of Colben, but he had felt that Colben might have done the beating for the client, especially after he had discovered that Colben was going to bed with the woman. He could prove nothing; he could not even make an accusation which would not sound stupid, because he lacked any evidence. That Colben was neglecting the business, however, was reason enough to get rid of him. Childe did no
t have enough money to buy Colben out; he had meant to make it so unpleasant for Colben that he would be glad to dissolve the partnership.

  Nevertheless, no man deserved to die as Colben had. Or did he? The horror was more in the viewers minds than in Colben's. He had been hurt very much, but only briefly, and had died quickly.

  That did not matter. Childe intended to find out all he could, although he suspected that he would find out very little. And soon enough the need to pay bills would take him off the case; he would only be able to work on it during his leisure moments. Which meant that, in effect, he would be able to accomplish almost nothing.

  But he had nothing else to do, and he certainly did not intend to sit still in his apartment and breathe in poison gas. He had to do something to keep going. He could not even read comfortably because of the burning and the tears. He was like a shark that has to keep moving to allow water to flow through the gills. Once he stopped, he would suffocate.

  But a shark can breathe and also stand still if the water is moving. Sybil could be his flowingness. Sybil was a name that sounded like running brooks and sunshine in quiet green glades and wisdom like milk from full flowing breasts. Certainly not green milk. White creamy milk of tenderness and good sense.

  Childe smiled. The Great Romanticist. He not only looked like Lord Byron, he thought like him. Reincarnation come. George Gordon, Lord Byron, reborn as a private eye and without a club foot. One thing about a club mind, it didn't show. Not at first. But the limp became evident to others who had to walk with him day, after day.

  The Private Eyes of the novels. They were simple straightforward men with their minds made up--all black and white--vengeance is mine, saith Lord Hammer--true heroes with whom the majority of readers had no trouble identifying.

  This was strange, because the antiheroes of the existential novels were supposed to be representative of the modern mind, and they certainly were uncertain. The antihero got far more publicity, far more critical trumpeting, than the simple, stable, undoubting private eye, the hero of the masses.