Things Beyond Midnight (31 page)

I thrust the revolver at a wide-eyed, trembling woman. “Take this weapon, lady. And if he makes a funny move, shoot to kill!”

She aimed the gun at the stunned policeman, who was only now getting his breath. He attempted to rise.

“OOPS!” I yelled, “he’s going for a knife. Let him have it! Quick!”

The trembling woman shut her eyes and pulled the trigger. The cop pitched forward on his face.

“May heaven forgive you!” I moaned, backing away. “You’ve killed an officer of the law, a defender of the public morals. May heaven be merciful!”

The woman flapped off. She had turned into a heavy-billed pelican. The policeman had become a fat-bellied seal with flippers, but he was still dead.

Hurrying, and somewhat depressed, I entered Dr. Mellowthin’s office and told the girl at the desk it was an emergency.

“You may go right in,” she told me. “The doctor will see you at oncer In another moment I was pumping Mellowthin’s hand.

“Sit down, boy,” he told me. “So—we’ve got our little complications again today, have we?”

“Sure have,” I said, pocketing one of his cigars. I noted that it was stale.

“Care to essay the couch?”

I slid onto the dark rich leather and closed my eyes.

“Now tell us all about it.”

“First, a butterfly sang
La Bohème
, or hummed it rather. Then a tom-cat ran out of an alley with a baby in its paws. Then some mice in an apartment house yelled at me. Then one of my oldest and dearest friends turned into a camel.”

“One hump or two?” asked Mellowthin.

“Two,” I said. “Large and scruffy and all worn at the tops.”

“Anything else?”

“Then a big pseudo-Irish cop stopped me. His dialogue was fantastic. Called me Mugger. Said I was fit for a cage. Started to put cuffs on me. I kneed him in the kishkas and gave his gun to a nice trembly lady who shot him. Then she turned into a pelican and flapped off and he turned into a seal with flippers. Then I came here.”

I opened my eyes and stared at Dr. Mellowthin. “What’s the matter?” he asked, somewhat uneasily. “Well,” I said, “to begin with, you have large brown, sad-looking liquidy eyes.”

“And...”

“And I bet your nose is cold!” I grinned.

“Anything else?”

“Not really.”

“What about my
overall
appearance?”

“Well, of course, you’re covered with long black shaggy hair, even down to the tips of your big floppy ears.” A moment of strained silence. “Can you do tricks?” I asked.

“A few,” Mellowthin replied, shifting in his chair.

“Roll over!” I commanded.

He did.

“Play dead!”

His liquidy eyes rolled up white and his long pink tongue lolled loosely from his jaws.

“Good doggie,” I said. “Nice doggie.”

“Woof,” barked Dr. Mellowthin softly, wagging his tail.

Putting on my homburg, I tossed him a bone I’d saved from the garden and left his office.

There was no getting around it.

This was simply one of those days.

00:17
DARK WINNER

NOTE: The following is an edited transcript of a taped conversation between Mrs. Franklin Evans, resident of Woodland Hills, California, and Lt. Harry W. Lyle of the Kansas City Police Department.

Transcript is dated 12 July. K.C. Missouri.

LYLE
:... and if you want us to help you we’ll have to know everything. When did you arrive here, Mrs. Evans?

MRS.EVANS
: We just got in this morning. A stopover on our trip from New York back to California. We were at the airport when Frank suddenly got this idea about his past.

LYLE
: What idea?

MRS. E
: About visiting his old neighborhood... the school he went to... the house where he grew up... He hadn’t been back here in twenty-five years.

LYLE
: So you and your husband planned this... nostalgic tour?

MRS. E
: Not
planned.
It was very abrupt... Frank seemed... suddenly...
possessed
by the idea.

LYLE
: So what happened?

MRS. E
: We took a cab out to Flora Avenue... to 31st... and we visited his old grade school. St. Vincent’s Academy. The neighborhood is... well, I guess you know it’s a slum area now... and the school is closed down, locked. But Frank found an open window... climbed inside...

LYLE
: While you waited?

MRS. E
: Yes—in the cab. When Frank came out he was all... upset... Said that he... Well, this sounds...

LYLE
: Go on, please.

MRS. E
: He said he felt... very
close
to his childhood while he was in there. He was ashen-faced... his hands were trembling.

LYLE
: What did you do then?

MRS. E
: We had the cab take us up 31st to the Isis Theatre. The movie house at 31st and Troost where Frank used to attend those Saturday horror shows they had for kids. Each week a new one...
Frankenstein... Dracula
... you know the kind I mean.

LYLE
: I know.

MRS. E
: It’s a porno place now... but Frank bought a ticket anyway... went inside alone. Said he wanted to go into the balcony, find his old seat... see if things had changed...

LYLE
: And?

MRS. E
: He came out looking very shaken... saying it had happened again.

LYLE
:
What
had happened again?

MRS. E
: The feeling about being close to his past... to his childhood... As if he could—

LYLE
: Could what, Mrs. Evans?

MRS. E
:... step over the line dividing past and present... step back into his childhood. That’s the feeling he said he had.

LYLE
: Where did you go from the Isis?

MRS. E
: Frank paid off the cab... said he wanted to walk to his old block... the one he grew up on... 33rd and Forest. So we walked down Troost to 33rd... past strip joints and hamburger stands... I was nervous... we didn’t... belong here... Anyway, we got to 33rd and walked down the hill from Troost to Forest... and on the way Frank told me how much he’d hated being small, being a child... that he could hardly wait to grow up... that to him childhood was a nightmare...

LYLE
: Then why all the nostalgia?

MRS. E
: It wasn’t that... it was... like an
exorcism
... Frank said he’d been haunted by his childhood all the years we’d lived in California... This was an attempt to get rid of it... by facing it... seeing that it was really gone... that it no longer had any reality...

LYLE
: What happened on Forest?

MRS. E
: We walked down the street to his old address... which was just past the middle of the block... 3337 it was... a small, sagging wooden house... in terrible condition... but then,
all
the houses were... their screens full of holes... windows broken, trash in the yards... Frank stood in front of his house staring at it for a long time... and then he began repeating something... over and over.

LYLE
: And what was that?

MRS. E
: He said it... like a litany... over and over... “I hate you!... I hate you!”

LYLE
: You mean, he was saying that to
you
?

MRS. E
: Oh, no. Not to
me
... I asked him what he meant... and... he said he hated the child he once was, the child who had lived in that house.

LYLE
: I see. Go on, Mrs. Evans.

MRS. E
: Then he said he was going inside... that he
had
to go inside the house... but that he was afraid.

LYLE
: Of what?

MRS. E
: He didn’t say of what. He just told me to wait out there on the walk. Then he went up on to the small wooden porch... knocked on the door. No one answered. Then Frank tried the knob... The door was unlocked...

LYLE
: House was deserted?

MRS. E
: That’s right. I guess no one had lived there for a long while... All the windows were boarded up... and the driveway was filled with weeds... I started to move towards the porch, but Frank waved me back. Then he kicked the door all the way open with his foot, took a half-step inside, turned... and looked around at me... There was... a terrible fear in his eyes. I got a cold, chilled feeling all through my body—and I started towards him again... but he suddenly turned his back and went inside... the door closed.

LYLE
: What then?

MRS. E
: Then I waited. For fifteen... twenty minutes... a half hour... Frank didn’t come out. So I went up to the porch and opened the door... called to him...

LYLE
: Any answer?

MRS. E
: No. The house was like... a hollow cave... there were echoes... but no answer... I went inside... walked all through the place... into every room... but he wasn’t there... Frank was gone.

LYLE
: Out the back, maybe.

MRS. E
: No. The back door was nailed shut. Rusted. It hadn’t been opened for years.

LYLE
: A window then.

MRS. E
: They were all boarded over. With thick dust on the sills.

LYLE
: Did you check the basement?

MRS. E
: Yes, I checked the basement door leading down. It was locked, and the dust hadn’t been disturbed around it.

LYLE
: Then... just where the hell did he go?

MRS. E
: I don’t
know
; Lieutenant!... That’s why I called you... why I came here... You’ve got to find Frank!

NOTE: Lt. Lyle did not find Franklin Evans. The case was turned over to Missing Persons—and, a week later, Mrs. Evans returned to her home in California. The first night back she had a dream, a nightmare. It disturbed her severely. She could not eat, could not sleep properly; her nerves were shattered. Mrs. Evans then sought psychiatric help. What follows is an excerpt from a taped session with Dr. Lawrence Redding, a licensed psychiatrist with offices in Beverly Hills, California.

Transcript is dated 3 August. Beverly Hills.

REDDING
: And where were you...? In the dream, I mean.

MRS. E
: My bedroom. In bed, at home. It was as if I’d just been awakened... I looked around me—and everything was normal... the room exactly as it always is... Except for
him
... the boy standing next to me.

REDDING
: Did you recognize this boy?

MRS. E
: No.

REDDING
: Describe him to me.

MRS. E
: He was... nine or ten... a
horrible
child... with a cold hate in his face, in his eyes... He had on a black sweater with holes in each elbow. And knickers... the kind that boys used to wear... and he had on black tennis shoes...