Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007
- Автор: Baldwin Barry, Campbell Melodie
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN:0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007». Краткое содержание книги:
A silence descended.
“Is that it, then?”
“That’s it.”
“You’re a wonder, Delyle.”
“I most certainly am. And you, my friend, are a very slow drinker. I believe I’ll have another whiskey while we sit around and wait for yours to evaporate.”
From the offices of the Netley Leader, Robideau drove to the Onager house at 9401 Fairvale. He didn’t need the scrawled address on the ragged piece of notepaper Butts had thrust at him; everybody knew where the old Onager place was. It stood well back on a large lot in an aging, once elegant neighborhood. The town’s first real mansion, it had been joined over the years by the houses of other successful citizens.
It was a hulking place gone to ruin at the top of a commanding bluff. Storm clouds scudded behind it. The lot backed onto a deep ravine. The once stately black iron fence leaned dangerously in spots. As for the house, its paint was scaling away in strips, the roof had lost many of its shingles, and those that remained were curling at the corners and dark with moss. The gate was secured with a twisted coat hanger, which Robideau had to struggle with before proceeding up the walk to the porch.
He followed a line of derelict cars. Each one apparently replaced with a cheaper model as the owner fell upon progressively harder times. Nearest the house was the oldest of these, a robin’s-egg blue 1960 Lincoln, the largest car shy of a limousine that Robideau had ever seen. It had two flat tires.
The front porch looked as if a tornado had roared by. It sagged under the weight of stuff. A rusting bed frame. Headboards with the wood laminate lifting from the damp. Coils of wire, pails of nuts and bolts, boxes of swollen paperbacks bursting open and spilling their contents into the yard. A grungy toaster, a small stuffed rabbit, some chintz pillows, a heap of old office chairs, a pile of food wrappers, a book with no discernable printing on it, a bar of yellowing lye soap still in its dish. And everywhere, bundles of newspapers.
A narrow passage wended its way treacherously through the junk to the entrance. Robideau eased himself gingerly along it until he could knock on the leaded-glass door. Surreptitiously, a curtain lifted and a sallow face peered out, a prank of the light presenting a double-image of it. Robideau gazed back, not sure if he should smile, nod his head, or introduce himself through the glass. The curtain fell back into place.
He knocked again. He knocked several times. On his last attempt he used the ball of his fist to save his bruised knuckles.
No response.
Robideau cleared his throat irritably. He saw why Butts had pushed this job off on him. He backed away through the junk to the sidewalk, then threw one more glance up at the house.
To all appearances, no one lived there.
But he knew differently. Oh yes, he did.
As Robideau got back into his car, it began to rain again in large splashing drops.
Let there be light!
He dropped the douser to allow the carbon-arc light to blaze forth, brought up the sound, and hit the roll-back switch for the drapery. The music swelled, the opening credits blossomed, and the block print shifted eerily across the rattling, gathering folds of the retracting curtain.
The reels revolved in their opposite directions, the old Simplex projector purring steadily like a contented mechanical cat. The lamp house gave off a subtle scorching odor. The lacing lamp glowed on the tips of his fingers as he loaded the second machine with the next reel of film.
The film was no longer in prime condition. It was brittle with age, scratched in places, and had a rash of sparkles at some of the changeover spots. But the movie, well, that was top-notch fare. Nothing better made before or since. And putting aside that small unpleasantness of the night before, he anticipated another enjoyable evening at the movies.
Robideau parked downtown but remained in the car. His gaze traveled along the street, seeking enlightenment among the rain-streaked storefronts, finally settling on the Palace Roxy, its ponderous marquee looking shabby and slumped. He studied the rooftops, where Bulwer’s despised TV antennas had been displaced by a crop of satellite dishes. Progress. But was it really? He sorely missed those days when, after a double feature, he and his friends would saunter home, their minds reeling, filled with delicious thoughts of mad scientists and bug-eyed monsters.
Butts had mentioned throwing spitballs. It was the sort of thing Pete Melynchuk and his pals might have done.
They had been a different bunch. They still were...
Robideau got out of the car.
He found the old-timers just where he expected to, at a back table in the Netley, with an unobstructed view of the nine-foot television screen. Pete Melynchuk, gruff and grizzled; Wilmer Gates, thin and dogged looking; Chuck Lang, brawny elbows on the table; and old silent Wolverton, all arms and legs, with that perpetual and mysterious grin on his horsey face.
These men were a giant step closer to Bulwer Onager than he was.
“Well, well,” said Pete, the usual spokesman for the group, “it’s the cops. I told you not to bury your landlady in that front flower bed, didn’t I, Wove!”
Wolverton’s grin widened, his mirthful eyes all but disappearing under his knobby brow.
Chuck Lang snagged a chair from the next table with his foot and dragged it up for Robideau. Wilmer pushed a beer at him.
“I’m not a cop,” Robideau said, sitting down. “Not anymore.”
“You got that cop look on your face,” Pete insisted. “The look that tells me you’re here to ask questions and take down names.”
“You’re right about the questions,” Robideau said. “I’m helping out Chief Butts. There’s a problem with Bulwer Onager.”
“The Bullet!” Pete exclaimed. “Ha! What did he do, murder his landlady?”
“I’m trying to keep his movie house from being knocked down by the town council.”
Chuck showed his habitual scowl. “The old Palace? They should knock it down. And with him in it too.”
“Now, now,” Pete grinned, “that ain’t neighborly.”
“Have you looked at the place lately? Really looked at it? Have you seen his house up there on the hill? Unbelievable!”
“It’s ‘cause he don’t throw nothing away,” Wilmer Gates observed.
“I knew a guy once,” Pete Melynchuk said, “couldn’t throw away a darn thing. He’d toss an old gum wrapper in the trash, then come back a minute later and take it out again. It’s a sickness—”
“OCD,” Wilmer said with authority. “Your Compression Repulsive Disorder.”
“That would be CRD,” Pete replied dryly.
“Whatever. It’s when you can’t stop doing something even if you want to.”
“Like you. You can’t stop lecturing.”
“I’m not lecturing, I’m discussing. I’m saying Bullet is one of your basic compression repulsives. That’s why he can’t throw nothing out.”
“So it’s not his fault.”
“No.”
“Then how’d he get that way?”
“How do I know? Maybe when he was born the doctor slapped him in the head instead of on the butt.”
“Did he do that to you?”
“Do what?”
But Pete was turning back to their visitor, weighing him coolly with his gaze. “So if it ain’t Bullet’s fault, and it’s nobody else’s, then maybe he oughta be left alone. Maybe the chief here should go home and forget about it. It’s got nothing to do with the police.”