Bunyan, an Englishman.
Forry, looking at them clearly for the first time, thought
there was something sinister about them. He could not,
however, define it. Maybe it was something about the
eyes. Or maybe it was because he was so outraged about
the painting he thought that anybody who had anything
to do with Heepish was sinister.
Mrs. Pocyotl bent over to give him the coffee and
exposed large light-chocolate colored breasts with big red
nipples. She wore no brassiere under the thin formal
gown with the deep cleavage.
Under other circumstances, he would have been de-
lighted.
Then Diana Rumbow, the blonde, dropped a book
she was holding and bent over to pick it up. Despite
his upset condition, he responded with a slight popping
of the eyes and a stirring around his groin. Her breasts
were just as unbrassiered as Panchita's. They were pale
white, and the nipples were as large as his thumb tips
and so red they must have been rouged. When she stood
up, he could see how darkly they stood out under the
filmy gown she wore.
He was also beginning to see that the bendings over
were not accidents. They were trying to take his mind
off his painting.
Pocyotl sat down by him and placed her thigh against
his. Diana Rumbow sat down on the other side and
leaned her superb breast against the side of his arm. If
he looked to either side, he saw swelling mounds and
deep cleavages.
"My painting!" he croaked.
Heepish ignored the words. He drew up a chair and
sat down facing Forry and said, "Well! This is a great
honor you have done me, Mr. Ackerman. Or may I call
you Forry?"
"My painting, my Stoker!" Forry croaked again.
"Now that you've finally decided to let bygones be
bygones, and, I presume, decided that your hostility to-
wards me was unwarranted, we must talk and talk! We
must talk the night out. After all, what with the rain
and all, what else is there to do but to talk? We have so
much in common, so much, as so many people, kind and
unkind, have pointed out. I think that we will learn to
know each other quite well. Who knows, we might even
decide someday that the Count Dracula Society and the
Lord Ruthven League can band together, become the
Greater Vampire Coven, or something like that, even if
witches and not vampires have covens? Heh?"
"My painting," Forry said.
Heepish continued to talk to him, while the others
chattered among themselves. Occasionally, one of the
women leaned over against him. He became aware of
their perfume, exotic odors that he did not remember
ever having smelled before. They stimulated him even
in his anger. And those breasts! And Pocyotl's flashing
dark eyes and Rumbow's brilliant blue eyes!
He shook his head. What kind of witchcraft were they
practicing on him? He had entered with the determina-
tion of finding the painting, taking it down from the wall
or wherever it was, and marching out the front door
with it. Now that he considered that, he would have to
find something to protect it from the rain until he could
get it into his car, which was across the street. His coat
would do it. Never mind that he would get soaked. The
painting was the important thing.
But he could not get off the sofa. And Heepish would
not pay the slightest attention to his remarks about the
painting. Neither would the guests.
He felt as if he were in a parallel universe which was
in contact with that in Heepish's house but somewhat out
of phase with it. He could communicate to a certain de-
gree and then his words faded out. And, now that he
looked around, this place seemed a trifle fuzzy.
Suddenly, he wondered if his coffee had been drugged.
It seemed so ridiculous that he tried to dismiss the
thought. But if Heepish could steal his painting and hang
it up where so many people would see it, knowing that
word would quickly get to the man from whom he had
stolen it, and if he could blandly, even friendlily, sit
with the man from whom he had taken his property and
act as if nothing were wrong, then such a man would have
no compunction about drugging him.
But why would he want to drug him?
Thoughts of cellars with dirt floors and a six foot long,
six foot deep trench in the dirt moved like a funeral
train across his mind. A furnace in the basement burned
flesh and bones. An acid pit ate away his body. He was
roasted in an oven and this crew had him for dinner.
He was immured, standing up, while Heepish and his
guests toasted him with Amontillado. He was put in
a cage in the basement and rats, scores of them, big
hungry rats, were released into the cage. Afterwards, his
clean-picked skeleton was wired together and stood up
in this room as a macabre item. His friends and acquain-
tances, members of the Count Dracula Society and the
Lord Ruthven League, would visit here because Heepish
would become king after the great Forry Ackerman dis-
appeared so mysteriously. They would see the skeleton
and wonder whose it was—since so many people play
Hamlet to the unknown Yoricks—and might even pat his
bony head. They might even speak of Forry Ackerman
in the presence of the skeleton.
Forry shook himself as a dog shakes himself emerging
from water. He was getting a little psycho about this. All
he had to do was assert his rights. If Heepish objected,
he would call the police. But he did not think that even
Heepish would have the guts to stand in his way.
He stood up so suddenly he became even dizzier.
He said, "I'm taking my painting, Heepish! Don't get in
my way!"
He turned around and stood up on the cushion and
lifted the painting off its hook. There was a silence
behind him, and when he turned, he saw that all were
standing up, facing him. They formed a semicircle
through which he would have to go to get to the door.
They looked grave, and their eyes seemed to have
become larger and almost luminous. It was his imagina-
tion that put a werewolfish gleam in them. Of course.
Mrs. Pocyotl curled her lips back, and he saw that her
canines were very long. How had he missed that feature
when he first saw her? She had smiled, and it seemed
to him that her teeth were very white and very even.
He stepped down off the sofa and said, "I want my
coat, Heepish."
Heepish grinned. His teeth seemed to have become
longer, too. His gray eyes were as cold and hard as a
winter sky in New York City.
"You may have your coat, Forry, since you don't
want to be friendly."
Forry understood the emphasis. Coat but not painting.
He said, "I'll call the police."
"You wouldn't want to do that," Diana Rumbow said.
>
"Why not?" Forry said.
He wished his heart could beat faster. It should be,
but it wasn't, even under this strain. Instead, his muscles
were jerking, and his eyes were blinking twice as fast as
usual, as if they were trying to substitute for the lack of
heartbeats.
"Because," the blonde said, "I would accuse you of
rape."
"What?"
The painting almost slipped from his hands.
Diana Rumbow slipped out of her gown, revealing that
she was wearing only a garter belt and nylon stockings.
Her pubic hairs were long and very thick and a bright
yellow. Her breasts, though large, did not sag.
Mrs. Pocyotl said, "Maybe you'd like two for the price
of one, Forry."
She slipped out of her gown, revealing that she wore
only stockings and a belt. Her pubic hairs were black
as a crow's feathers, and her breasts were conical.
Forry stepped back until the backs of his knees were
in contact with the sofa. He said, "What is this?"
"Well, if the police should be called, they would find
this house deserted except for you and the two women.
One woman would be unconscious, and the other would
be screaming. Both women would have sperm in their
cunts, you can bet on that. And bruises. And you would
be naked and dazed, as if you had, shall we say, gone
mad with lust?"
Forry looked at them. All were grinning now, and they
looked very evil. They also looked as if they meant to
do whatever Heepish ordered.
He was in a nightmare. What kind of evil beings
were these? All this for a painting?
He said, loudly, "Get out of the way! I'm coming
through! This painting is mine! And you're not going to
intimidate me! I don't care what you do, you're not
getting to keep this! I might have given it to you, Heepish,
if you'd become a good friend and wanted it badly
enough! But not now! So out of the way!"
Holding the painting as if it were a shield or a batter-
ing ram, he walked towards Heepish and the naked
Rumbow.
27
Herald Childe drove slowly through the rain and the
high waters. His windshield wipers were not able to cope
at this moment, so dense was the downpour. His head-
lights strove to pierce the sheets with little effect. Other
cars, driven by more foolhardy Angelenos, passed him
with great splashings.
It took him more than two hours to get to his house
in Topanga Canyon. He drove up the steep sidestreet
at ten miles an hour while water, several inches deep,
poured down past him. As he turned to go into his
driveway, he noticed the car beneath the oak tree by the
road. Another car that had been abandoned here, he
supposed. There had been seven automobiles left here
within the past several weeks. All were of the same model
and year. All had been by the oak tree when he awoke
in the morning. Some had been left for a week before the
cops finally came and towed them away. Some had been
there a few days and then had disappeared during the
early morning hours.
He did not know why somebody was abandoning cars
in front of his house or, if not outright abandoning them,
was parking them for such a long time. His neighbors for
two blocks on either side of the house and both sides
of the street knew nothing about the cars.
The cops said that the cars they'd towed away were
stolen.
So here was the seventh. Possibly the seventh. He must
not jump to conclusions. It could belong to somebody
visiting his neighbors. He would find out soon enough.
Meanwhile, he needed to get to bed. To sleep. He had
had more than enough of that other bedtime activity.
The house was his property. He owed nothing on it
except the yearly taxes. It was a five room bungalow,
Spanish style, with a big backyard and a number of trees.
His aunt had willed it to him, and when she had died
last year, he had moved in. He had not seen his aunt
since 1942, when he had been a child, nor had he ex-
changed more than three letters with her in the past ten
years. But she had left all her property to him. There was
enough money so that he had the house left after paying
off the inheritance tax.
Childe had been a private detective, but, after his ex-
periences with Baron Igescu and the disappearance of
his wife, he had quit. He wasn't a very good detective,
he decided, and besides, he was sick of the business. He
would go back to college, major in history, in which he
had always been interested, get a master's and, possibly,
a Ph.D. He would teach in a junior college at first and,
later, in a university.
It would have been more convenient for him to take
an apartment in Westwood where he would be close to
the UCLA campus. But his money was limited, and he
liked the house and the comparative quiet, so he drove
every day to school. To save gas and also to find a park-
ing place easier on the crowded campus, he rode a
motorcycle during the week.
Just now the school was closed because of vacation.
It was a lonely life. He was busy studying because
he was carrying a full load, and he had to keep up the
house and the yard, but he still needed someone to talk to
and to take to bed. There were women who came up to
his house from time to time: teachers his own age or a
little older, some older students, and, occasionally, a
younger chick who dug his looks. He resembled a rough-
hewn Lord Byron. With a clubfoot mind, he always
added mentally when someone commented on this. It
was no secret to him that he was neurotic. But then
who wasn't? If that was any consolation.
He turned on the lights and checked the windows to
make sure again that none were leaking. It was a com-
pulsive action he went through before leaving and after
coming back—at least three times each time. Then he
looked out the back window. The yard was narrow but
deep, and this was good. Behind it towered a cliff of dirt,
which had, so far, not become a mud flow. Water poured
off it and drowned his backyard, and the water was up
over the bottom steps of the back porch stairs. He un-
derstood, from what his neighbors said, that the cliff had
been closer to the house at one time. About ten years ago
it had slid down and covered the backyard almost to the
house. The aunt had spent much money having the dirt
hauled away and a concrete and steel wire embankment
built at the foot of the cliff. Then, two years ago, in the
extraordinarily heavy rains, the cliff had collapsed again.
It had, however, only buried the embankment and come
about six feet into the yard. The aunt had done nothing
about it, and, a year later, had died.
The entire Los Angeles, Ventura, and Orange County
area was being inundated. The governor
was thinking
about having Southern California declared a disaster
area. Houses had floated away, mud slides had buried
other houses, a car had disappeared in a hole in Ven-
tura Boulevard, a woman waiting for a bus in downtown
Los Angeles had been buried in a mud slide, houses were
slipping in the Pacific Palisades' and in the canyons
everywhere.
There was only one consolation about the deluge. No
smog.
Childe went into the kitchen and opened the pantry
and took out a bottle of Jack Daniels. He seldom drank,
preferring marijuana, but when he was downcast and up-
set, marijuana only made him more gloomy. He needed
something to dull his mind and nerves, and Tennessee
mash on the rocks would do it.
He sipped the stuff, shaking and making a face as he
did so. After a while, he could swallow it without re-
pugnance. A little later, he could sip on it with pleasure.
He began to feel numb and even a trifle happy. The
memory of Vivienne was still with him, but it did not
shake him so much now.
The three men had entered and one had delicately
placed the tip of his sword against Vivienne's neck. She
had said something about his breaking the truce.
What truce? He had never found out. But the man
with the sword cane had accused her and her people—
he called them Ogs—of first breaking the truce. The Ogs
had captured Childe and abused him. This was definitely
against the rules. He was not even to be aware of their
existence or of that of the Tocs.
Moreover, they had endangered Childe's - life. He
might have been killed because of their irresponsible be-
havior. In fact, the Tocs were not sure that the Ogs had
not had it in mind to kill Childe.
"You know as well as you know anything that we
agreed on The Face of Barrukh and the Testicle of
Drammukh that we would let The Child develop until
he was ready!" the swordsman said.
"The Child?" thought Herald. "Or did he mean The
Childe?"
Later, he thought, "Possibly the two are the same."
Vivienne, still crouching on the bed, had said, "It was
an accident that he came to our house—to Igescu's, I
mean. He insisted on breaking in and spying on us, and