Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (11 page)

A blind red film burning my eyes, I stared stupidly at the contents of the
obeah
and cursed Two Moons Wainscoting aloud for five minutes. Then I quickly scooped the objects into the leather sack, went outside, and tossed the thing into the sea. The buoyant sack floated on the surface, bobbing up and down, drifting away from shore on the outgoing tide. A great idea struck me. I would recover the
obeah
from the sea, pay a return visit to Two Moon's establishment, and feed him each object in the leather bag, one at a time.

This idea delighted me so much, I kicked off my sandals, on impulse, and dived into the sea. I soon found, with mounting apprehension, that in spite of all the strokes I was taking, I wasn't making any headway. It wasn't until then that I recalled that the natives, skilled as they are with small sailboats, never venture out in fishing boats after dark, nor will they swim after dark, not even in the bay. I was trapped in a riptide. Though I panicked, I did remember someone saying that the only way to get out of such a situation was to head for shore at a diagonal.

I've tried the diagonal business, but it hasn't worked. And so like a drowning man—which I am—clutching at a straw, I've continued swimming out to sea, trying to get my hands on that
obeah
. It's my only hope. But the currents keep carrying it just beyond my grasp. My strokes are getting much weaker now, it seems, and I'm no closer to getting my fingers on the
obeah
than I was in the beginning. The night is so black I don't even know where land is anymore. The tiny, scattered lights of Bequia have been extinguished for some time, and the night is so dark I can't even make out the mass of St. Vincent. There are barracuda out here in the deep water, and didn't Two Moons tell me to watch out for barracuda?

“
Obeah! I believe in you! I believe, I believe, I believe! I—
”

Pain.

Pain in his chest, and in his stomach, and in his leg. And a girl was singing to him, her voice too loud. And it was dark, with shifting blue-gray forms in the distance.

I'm Don Denton, he thought. I've hurt myself.

How? How have I hurt myself? But the girl was singing too loudly, and it was impossible to think, and figure it out. And his terrific visual memory—so great a help to him as an actor—was of no help to him now. He felt himself falling away again, blacking out again, and with sudden terror he knew he wasn't fading into sleep, he was fading into death.

He
had
to wake up. Open the eyes, force the eyes open,
make
the eyes open. Listen to that damn loud girl,
listen
to her, concentrate on the words of the song, force the mind to work.

“
Good night, good night.
We turn out every light;
The party's done, the night's begun,
Good night, my love, good night
.”

It was dark, blue-gray dark, and his eyelids were terribly heavy. He forced them up, wanting to see, wondering why the singing girl and the blue-gray dark.

It was the television set. All the lights in the room were off, and the shades were drawn against the night-glow of the city. Only the television lit the room, with shifting blues.

As he watched, the girl stopped singing and bowed to thunderous applause. And then he saw
himself
, striding across the stage, smiling and clapping his hands together, and memory came flooding back.

He was Don Denton, and this was Wednesday night, between the hours of eight and nine, and on the television screen he was watching
The Don Denton Variety Show
, taped that afternoon.

The Don Denton Variety Show
was, in television jargon, live. The show that he was watching now was not a kinescope of a previous show, nor was it filmed, employing the cutting and editing techniques of film. Since it was neither, since it had been run through just as though it actually were going on the air at the time it had been performed, it was a live show, even though it had been recorded, via videotape, two hours before airtime. Due to various union requirements, it was much cheaper to do the show between five and six than between eight and nine. At the end of the show, at nine o'clock, an announcer would rapidly mumble the information that the show had been prerecorded and that the audience reaction had been technically augmented—a euphemism for canned laughter and canned applause—and so honesty and integrity would be maintained.

Denton watched all his own shows, not because he was an egotist—though he was—but out of a professional need to study his own product, to be sure that it at least did not deteriorate and, if possible, to see how it could be improved.

Tonight, after finishing the show, he had had dinner at the Athens Room and then had come home, where he now was, to watch the show. He was alone in the apartment, of course; he never permitted anyone else to be in the place while he was watching one of his shows. He had come home, changed into slacks and sport shirt and slippers, made himself a drink, flicked on the television set, and settled himself in the chair with the specially-built right arm. The arm of this chair was a miniature desk, with two small drawers in the side and a flat wooden workspace on top, where he rested his notebook.

Across the room, the eight o'clock commercials had flickered across the television screen, and then the opening credits of
The Don Denton Variety Show
had come on. He had watched and listened in approval as his name was mentioned by the announcer and appeared on the screen three times each, and then the fanfare had blared forth, the camera had been trained on the empty curtain-faced stage, and through a part in the curtain had come the tiny image of himself, in response to a thunderous burst of applause from the tape recorder in the control booth.

He had frowned. Too much applause? He didn't want the technical augmentation of the audience reaction to become too obvious. He had made a note of it.

The image of himself on the television screen had smiled and spoken and cracked a joke. Sitting in his chair at home, Don Denton had nodded approvingly. Then the image had introduced a girl singer, and Denton had turned over the pad to doodle awhile on its back. And then—

Then that memory came back, too, and he understood at last how he had been hurt. For the apartment door, off to his right, had suddenly opened, he remembered that now, and he …

H
E TURNED ANNOYED.
The show was on, damn it, he was not to be disturbed. They all knew that, knew better than to come here between eight and nine on a Wednesday night.

The only light came from the hall, behind the intruder, so that he—or she—was silhouetted, features blacked out. It was January outside, and the intruder was encased in a bulky overcoat, so Denton couldn't even tell whether it was a man or a woman.

Denton half-rose from the chair, frowning in anger. “What the hell do you—?”

Then there was a yellow-white flash from the center of the silhouetted figure, and the beginning of a thunderclap, and silence.

Until he heard the girl again, singing too loud.

H
E WAS SHOT!
Someone—
who?
—had come in here and shot him!

He sat slumped in the chair, trying to figure out where in his body the bullet might be and the extent of the damage. His legs ached, with a throbbing numbness. There was a clammy weight in his stomach, pressing him down, nauseating him. But the bullet wasn't there, nor in his legs. Higher, it was higher, higher …

There! Inside the chest, high on the right side, a burning core, a tiny center of heat and pain radiating out to the rest of his body. There it was, still within him, and he knew it was a bad wound, a terribly bad wound …

A crowd applauded, and he was startled. He focused his eyes again, saw himself again on the television screen, stepping back and to the side as the comic came out—“It's a funny thing about these new cars …”—and just to the right of the television set was the telephone on its stand.

He had to get help. The bullet was still in his chest, it was a terribly bad wound, he had to get help. He had to stand; he had to walk across the room to the telephone; he had to call for help.

He moved his right arm, and the arm seemed far away, the hand a million miles away, pushing through thick water. He tried to lean forward, and the pain buffeted him, slapping him back. He gripped the chair arms with hands that were still a million miles away; he slowly pulled himself forward, grimacing against the pain.

But his legs wouldn't work. He was paralyzed below the waist, nothing but his arms and his head were still working. He was dying, good God, he was dying, death was creeping slowly through his body. He had to get help before death reached his heart.

He tugged himself forward, and the pain lashed him, and his mouth stretched open in what should have been a scream. But no sound at all came out, only the strained rush of air. He couldn't make a sound.

The television set laughed with a thousand voices.

He looked again at the screen, the comic leering there. “Please,” he whispered.

“‘That's all right,' she says,” the comic answered. “‘I got an extra engine in the trunk.'”

The television set roared with merriment.

Bowing, bowing, on the screen, the comic winked at the dying man, laughed and waved and ran away.

Then the unwounded image of himself came back, tiny and colorless, but whole and sound, breathing and laughing, alive and sure. “That was great, Andy, great!” The image grinned up at him from the screen, asked him, “Wasn't it?”

“Please,” he whispered.

“Who do you suppose we have next?” the image asked him, twinkling. “Who?”

Who? Who had done this? He had to know who had done this, who had shot him, who had tried to murder him.

He couldn't think. A busy spider scurried across his brain, trailing gray threads of fuzzy silk, webbing him in, slurring his thoughts.

No! He had to know
who!

A key. There was a clear thought. A key, it had to be someone with a key. Remembering, thinking back, he seemed to hear again the tiny click of a key, just before the door had swung open.

They had to have a key; he had locked the door; he remembered that. The door was always locked, this was New York, Manhattan, one always locked doors.

There were only four people in the world who had keys to this apartment, aside from Denton himself, only four people in the world.

Nancy, his wife, from whom he was separated but not divorced.

Herb Martin, the chief writer for
The Don Denton Variety Show
.

Morry Stoneman, Denton's business manager.

Eddie Blake, the stooge-straight-man-second comic of the show.

It had to be one of the four. All four of them knew that he would be here, alone, watching the show at this hour. And they were the ones who had keys.

One of those four. He let the remembered faces and names of the four circle in his mind—Nancy and Herb and Morry and Eddie—while he tried to figure out which one of them would have tried to kill him.

And then he closed his eyes and almost gave himself up to death. Because it could have been any one of them. All four of them hated his guts, and so it could have been any one of them who had come here tonight to kill him.

Bitter, bitter, that was the most bitter moment of his life, to know that all four of the people closest to him hated him enough to want to see him dead.

His own voice said, “Oh, come now, Professor.”

He opened his eyes, terrified. He'd almost faded away there, he'd almost passed out, and to pass out was surely to die. He could no longer feel anything in his legs, below the knee, and his fingers were no longer really parts of him. Death, death creeping in from his extremities.

No. He had to stay alive. He had to fool them, all four of them. He had to somehow stay alive. Keep thinking, keep the mind active, fight away the darkness.

Think about the four of them. Which one of them had done this?

“
Gott im Himmel
,” cried a gruff voice, and the canned laughter on the TV set followed dutifully.

Denton strained to see the television screen. Eddie Blake was there now, doing that miserable Professor routine of his. Denton watched, and wondered. Could it have been him?

E
DDIE
B
LAKE STOOD
in the doorway of the dressing room. “You wanted to see me, Don?”