Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" (41 page)

"Well, yes. That's a good idea," said Heller. "I put the new carburetor on the Porsche and I haven't had a chance to give it a good spin."

"You do that," said the Countess Krak. "I have some exhibits I want to see, so if you don't mind, dear, I'll just run along."

She was up like a shot. She had her blue suede topcoat, purse, shopping bag and hat right by the door. She gathered them up in one scoop and was gone.

Heller glanced out of the window again. Then he got into a white silk trench coat, found some papers and a notebook and put them in his pocket. He glanced down at his feet. He was wearing ankle-high walking boots and not his spikes. It gave me a nice feeling: if the police were waiting for him up there, he had no cleats to battle with. He was getting satisfactorily careless.

The Countess Krak had plummeted down in an elevator. She came out of the building on 34th Street, walked swiftly up the block and sped into a new, multistory, spiral-roadway garage. The attendant waved at her; she got into an elevator and shot upwards.

She was fishing in her purse. She stepped out into the ranks of cars. She spotted the blue Porsche. She opened the door, entered, closed and relocked it from within, and then, as only a trained magician's assistant can do, curled herself up in the big luggage compartment behind the front seat and dropped the luggage canvas over her.

It made me nervous. I had forgotten to fill the strip well in her viewer and had no way to check back on what she had packed in that shopping bag. I had not counted on her presence at the next class. Maybe Bang-Bang, (bleep) him, had gotten her a demountable sniper rifle. These stupid men around her didn't seem to realize what they were dealing with-a killer! The Countess Krak would have made top Mafia hit men look like kids shooting marbles. I knew her for what she was-a dangerous fiend with a thirst for blood unequalled by even Dracula of Earth fame.

Heller came trotting along shortly. He must have noted that the springs seemed a bit lower, for he gave the car a cursory exterior and motor check, probably for bombs. Then he gave an "Oh well," and started the car up, possibly believing all the monkeying he was doing with it had changed its balance or weight.

He sent it spinning down the ramp and shot it out onto the street. It was Sunday and New York, doubtlessly recovering from a Saturday night hangover, had about as much traffic on the streets as a cemetery.

He was shifting up and down through the gears like a rally driver. The purring Porsche was shortly onto the West Side Elevated Highway and in no time at all was on the Henry Hudson Parkway. The river was blue and sparkling in the spring sun. The George Washington Bridge flicked by.

It worried me. He was driving by the tachometer, not the speedometer, and while he could have outdistanced a cop with that Porsche like the squad car was standing still, I yet was afraid he would get arrested for speeding and his appointment with destiny would be interrupted. But there just plain wasn't any traffic. Those leaving for the country were gone and they had not yet begun to create the traffic jams of return. For once I was glad the police were asleep where Heller was concerned. Nothing must interfere with the coming catastrophe.

He had the stereo going and a song came over:

I smiled so broadly, I almost tore my lip. It went double for Heller: the one riding just behind him and the one waiting in that park ahead with scissors across his fate line, all ready to snip.

I almost felt sorry for the poor (bleepard). There he was, driving along so gay in his hopped-up Porsche, enjoying the early spring day, little suspecting the bomb that had been planted by the woman hidden behind him-and neither of them aware at all of the fuse sizzling up ahead, lit by me.

It's bad enough to face one woman. But he was absolutely surrounded with the treacherous species.

He continued on the highway into Van Cortlandt Park and shortly took a branch to the right. He was now driving through a vast expanse of golf course. He found a turnoff and a parking lot. He stopped, got out and locked his car. He went swinging off past some golfers and onto a woods trail.

The Countess Krak waited. Then she rose up and looked around. All was clear. She got out and locked the car. Then, with the aid of a side mirror, she adjusted her black beret and put on a set of very dark glasses, for all the world as though they would disguise her, and set off after Heller, shopping bag on her arm.

I was puzzled. I was getting two sets of footsteps in the Countess Krak's audio. I couldn't make it out. I turned Heller's off for a moment. Yes, two sets of footsteps from the Countess Krak's speaker.

Very difficult to understand how this was happening.

She was going along the path at least two hundred yards behind Heller, completely out of his view.

He was walking along briskly.

The Countess Krak did not seem to be the least bit concerned about losing him.

Heller came to a high point in the trail. I recognized it. It was the same place he had stood months before when he had been stopped by the gang. This time he looked behind the trees to right and left. Nobody hiding there. But a bullet scar was visible.

He looked down into the vale. New grass was just beginning to spring up. The trees round about were in bud.

Several students were down there, sitting around on broken trunks and stones.

Miss Simmons was standing behind a large, flat stump. It made a sort of an altar facing the class. A sacrificial altar, I trusted.

Heller, unarmed and unsuspecting, walked down the path to the group. Miss Simmons had spotted him from some distance away. When he came up, he would have taken a place back of the other students, a bit off to himself.

Miss Simmons fixed him with a cold eye. She pointed to a white stone near the altar to her right. She said, firmly, "Wister, sit there."

It was like putting somebody in the dock reserved for the accused. Or, I hoped, the spot where they put the condemned to hear sentence.

Miss Simmons looked to be in the grip of considerable tension. She had on a black topcoat and black slouch hat. She was not wearing her glasses and her hazel eyes were narrow and unreadable as she scanned the approach trail.

Several more students drifted in. A boy said, "Jesus, this ain't easy to find, Miss Simmons. I almost got lost."

"Sit down right over there, Roger," said Miss Simmons in a firm, uncompromising teacher's voice. She was pointing toward the others.

A bit more time passed. Three more students straggled in. A bit of wind stirred the upper branches of the large trees.

Miss Simmons was counting students aloud.

The Countess Krak was just to the side of the path as it started down into the vale. She stepped behind a large tree, looking down at the people in the hollow.

The counting was also sounding in the Countess Krak's audio speaker. I wondered how this possibly could be. She was too far away for Miss Simmons' voice to reach her.

Then the Countess Krak reached up and touched something and the sound came in louder.

THE GLASSES!

She was wearing an Eyes and Ears of Voltar device, disguised as sunglasses, that amplified distant sound. No wonder she could follow Heller. She had had these focused on his footsteps.

She reached up her hand again to the side of the tinted spectacles and suddenly the image of Miss Simmons leaped into close-up. Those things were also tele-photo! And they looked like any other pair of sunglasses.

"The hussy," said the Countess Krak.

"Twenty-nine," said Miss Simmons, in a cold voice. "And thirty if you count Wister. There are some surprises in store for all of you. We can begin."

How ominous!

I expected Grafferty or at least police to be waiting around that wood. I hugged myself. If they were, they would catch the Countess Krak! Maybe even arrest Heller for the original eight murders!

Miss Simmons lifted up a sack and placed it on the tree-stump altar. She wrapped her hand around a broken stick and pointed it at Heller.

"You sit right there, Wister, and don't you move an inch. For you are in for the biggest surprise of all."

She rapped upon the tree stump with the stick. She fixed them with a baleful eye. She said, "Gather round here, students-closer, for I have just made a terrible discovery."

They shifted forward and sat in a tighter semicircle before her.

The Countess Krak muttered, "What on Earth is this slut up to now? She wasn't told to do that."

I laughed aloud in glee. The Countess had not allowed for my contribution to this day.

Miss Simmons spoke, "As all you students know, my life has been a sort of hell." She looked at Wister. Then back at the small crowd. "I have been burdened by a demon, a fiend so merciless as to defy all the annals of Hell." The students clucked in sympathy. She turned to Heller, "Sit right there, Wister."

Miss Simmons sighed and looked back at her class. "Now, students, a vile, foul trick has been played on me. You have all had basic psychology from kindergarten up, so you know about HYPNOTISM!"

A shudder went through the Countess Krak that made her glasses wobble.

Miss Simmons was going on. "In unscrupulous and vicious hands it is a despicable and awful weapon against an innocent and unsuspecting pawn.

"Students," she continued, "I have been told, under hypnosis, the most disgusting lies you ever could imagine!

"Undiscovered, they could have ruined the remainder of my poor life.

"But, just yesterday, a hidden and unknown friend opened my eyes suddenly to the TRUTH!"

"My Gods," whispered the Countess Krak.

Miss Simmons went on in ringing tones. "Now listen to this, Wister. Listen to this, students. Listen carefully. I received this letter. It told me I had been hypnotized! Instantly there occurred to me the only possible reason-to undermine my sex life, to leave me open to an awful fate."

The Countess Krak whispered, "That orgy was your own craven appetite, you false tart!"

Miss Simmons brought the stick down on the stump with a thud. "I went to the police. They told me I could only act if I had the evidence." She leaned forward confidentially, "I obtained it with another's help. And I am sitting on it, ready to take an awful vengeance. It is in a secret place, ready to be mailed if there is any effort to do away with me."

She stepped back proudly. "Oh, I have friends! You should understand that, Wister. You should know that, students. And they will support me in this amongst the highest university faculties."

Miss Simmons leaned forward impressively again. "You may or may not know that my father holds the chair of psychology at Brooklyn University. Ever since I was a child he has warned me of designing males." She looked at Heller sitting separately upon his rock. Then she looked back at the class. "My father taught me every night at bedtime that men were no good and only wanted vile gratification of their base desires."

Miss Simmons looked at Heller. Then back at the twenty-nine other young men and women of her class. They were gazing at her intently, utterly absorbed.

Miss Simmons plunged on. "So when I got that invaluable letter, I realized at once that when it said I had been subjected to hypnotism, it was TRUE!"

She rapped again with her club. "When I had been told by the police I needed evidence, I went directly home. I told my mother and she looked very sad. We went to see my father. He was downcast, for it is an awful thing!"

Miss Simmons stood up straight. "My mother, God bless her, forced him to tell me!"

She leaned forward and spoke in a hissing voice. "My father, that vile fiend, had hypnotized me as a child. Not just once but repeatedly!"

Her face contorted in disgust. "He confessed that he had told me again and again under trance that I was FRIGID! He told me that if I had a man or experienced an orgasm I would go BLIND!"

She banged the stick upon the stump. "He is a craven traitor to psychology! It is supposed to (bleep) everybody, not make them frigid! And I am the living proof that he was mistaken. Look at my eyes! No glasses! Standing here, I can see every pimple on your dear faces!"

Miss Simmons stood back triumphantly. And then she stood in a humbled pose. "But who do I have to thank for this?" She turned to Wister and went over to him and knelt before him. "Oh, Wister, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am eternally grateful to you for letting me be raped. The orgasms were GLORIOUS! Time after time and right here on this very hallowed spot. I never dreamed such joy and ecstasy could exist. And TIME after TIME!"

She tenderly took Heller's hand. The Countess Krak flinched.

"Oh, dear Wister," said Miss Simmons. "I know I am not good enough for you. But my gratitude knows no bounds. You have been such an excellent student that I now declare you fully passed for the whole course. I will mark you A+ in Nature Appreciation for you appreciated nature even far better than I."

Simmons, kneeling, pressed his hand to her lips. She gazed upward into his eyes. "So, dear Wister, you are excused from all further classes, and even though it breaks my heart, you must leave this very minute. My gratitude walks with you forever for letting me be raped. So good-bye, my dearest, beautiful man. Good-bye."

Heller stood up, looking a little dazed. Then he waved a hand to the rest of the class and walked on up the hill.

Miss Simmons was a bit overcome. She knelt there for a little. Tears were dripping from her eyes. Then she rose and went back to the stump. She stood there, mastering her grief before she talked again.