Death Trance (41 page)

'Reece!’ Louv shouted.

'Don't touch him!’ Randolph warned. 'He's all right; he's gone into the death trance. He looks that way because time and space are different in the death trance. The way you see things is different. Believe me, he's okay.’

'Jesus,’ swore Louv, stepping away.

Michael stood up, his image wavering as if viewed through water. Then Waverley stood up, and Reece. Frank Louv took another pace back, then another. 'Jesus,’ he repeated, more in awe than in fear.

Silently, quickly, in a strange, translucent flurry, Michael and Waverley and Reece walked towards the living-room door, opened it and disappeared. It was all over in a moment, and then Randolph was left with Louv, Wanda and the panting Dobermans. Louv sat down on the arm of the sofa, shook his head and said, 'I never seen anything like that. Not ever. They was just like ghosts.’

'They went into the world of the dead, that's all,’ Randolph explained.

That's all? Are you kidding?’

'I've done it myself. It's something like being hypnotized. You can actually meet people who are dead… their spirits, or their ghosts if you like.’

The mad-looking Louv ran his hand through his thinning hair, agitated and nervous.

Randolph nodded towards the open French doors. 'Are you supposed to keep her tied up like that the whole time they're gone?’

Louv sniffed, cleared his throat and said, 'Oh, yes. Yes. Sure. Those are the orders.’

'You like working for Mr Graceworthy?’ Randolph asked.

'Sure I like working for Mr Graceworthy.’

'I guess he pays pretty good.’

'He sure does. I used to work for Midas, you know, fitting mufflers. But this pays double.’

'More interesting too, I'll bet.’

'It sure is. Gets rid of your what's-its-names too. You know what I mean, when you're all up tight.’

'Latent aggressions,’ Randolph suggested.

Louv swung his cosh around and around. 'That's it, something like that. When you've been out in Nam, I mean you can't unlearn all that stuff. I was in III MAP at Chu Lai. That changed my life, that war. Made me a different person. When I got back here, all I could get was a job in a supermarket, collecting carts from out of the parking lot; then that job at Midas. And all the time, you know, I was trained for handling an M-Sixty and for breaking people's necks with my bare hands.’

Randolph rubbed the back of his neck to ease the tension building in his muscles. 'So you found your vocation at last,’ he said.

'Sure did.’

'It's a pity you went to Waverley Graceworthy first. I could use a talent like yours.’

The cosh went around and around unceasingly, but Randolph could tell that Louv was waiting to hear what he had to say.

'I've been looking for a head of security for almost six months now,’ Randolph said. 'A top man, trained by the military, to run all my security operations. Also to make sure that none of my competitors try to get funny.’

Louv stopped swinging the cosh. 'What kind of money are you offering?’ he asked. 'Just supposing that anybody was interested, that is.’

'Eighty-five Gs, plus expenses. Plus a handgun of course, with a full permit.’

Louv thought about that. Then he started swinging the cosh once more.

Randolph said, 'Of course there would have to be some kind of a transfer fee, a kind of bonus, to attract the right man.’

'Really?’

'I was thinking of maybe fifty.’

'Fifty thousand?’

'What do you think?’ Randolph asked. 'Fifty cents?’

'And this job,’ Louv asked obliquely, 'would this job be head of security? I mean the real top banana in security, not under nobody else?’

'You've got it,’ Randolph told him.

There was a long silence. Louv stood up, walked across to the French doors and sniffed distastefully at the warm night air. Then he came back, smacking the end of the cosh into the palm of his hand.

'You can take somebody's head off with one of these,’ he informed Randolph, a preoccupied expression on his face.

Randolph decided to take the plunge. 'Do you want the job or don't you?’ he asked.

Td need some time to think it over.’

'There isn't any time to think it over. You get the job only on the condition that you accept it right away.’

The man sucked in his breath. 'Well, I don't know about that. You've seen what Mr Graceworthy's like when he loses his temper.’

'If you take the job and if you let me out of here right now, nobody is going to have to worry about Mr Graceworthy, ever.’

'I only got your word for that.’

The man walked up and down the room a few more times, swinging his cosh and smacking it into the palm of his hand. On his fourth crossing of the patterned carpet, he stopped beside the silk-draped mask of Rangda and said, 'That's some face, wouldn't you say?’

'Well,’ Randolph replied cautiously, 'it's supposed to be scary. It's supposed to frighten people away.’

'Oh, yeah?’ The man lifted one corner of the silk scarf and stared eyeball to eyeball at Rangda's grotesque snarl.

'Phew,’ he said, shaking his head. 'That's really some face.’

They deliberately make it scary so you won't be tempted to put your hand into its mouth.’

Louv looked at Randolph narrowly. 'Why should anybody be stupid enough to put his hand in its mouth?’

'I don't think stupid is quite the word for it. By tradition, they always place a piece of gold in the mask's throat. I think it has something to do with giving the actor who wears it a golden voice, some kind of superstitious rubbish like that. But it's a hefty piece of gold. Every mask has one. Maybe ten or eleven ounces, and what's the price of gold?’

'You're putting me on,’ the man said slyly.

'Try it and see,’ Randolph smiled.

This is a put-on, right? You think I'm some kind of stupid putz who goes around sticking his hand in masks, looking for gold.’

'You've got my secretary guarded by attack dogs, you've got me covered by a cosh that could take my head off my shoulders. Do you think I feel like making jokes?’

'Yeah, and what if Mr Graceworthy comes back and wants to know where's the gold? What kind of trouble is
that
going to get me in?’

'Mr Graceworthy doesn't know about the gold, and my friend Michael Hunter isn't going to tell him, for sure, and this is quite apart from the fact that Michael Hunter probably won't be coming back. You know how Mr Grace-worthy works. Mr Graceworthy employs people like you and Reece, and that speaks for itself.’

'So what you're saying is, if I was to take the gold, and if the dogs weren't too obedient all of a sudden so that you and she could get out of here without having your asses gnawed off, then nobody would be none the wiser? You're talking a deal here, right?’

Randolph nodded. 'You've got it. And it's all in your favour too. If there isn't any gold there - which there is of course - but if there isn't, you don't lose anything. And if there is, I still have to trust you to let us go free.’

'And this ain't no put-on?’ the man asked again with a surprisingly amiable smile.

Randolph shook his head emphatically.

The man hesitated for a moment, then knelt on his hands and knees and peered between Rangda's curving fangs.

'It's pretty dark in there. I don't see no gold.’

'It's right at the back,’ Randolph assured him.

Slowly, carefully, Frank Louv inserted his hand between Rangda's curling lips and into her mouth. Randolph coughed out of nervousness and the man looked up at him and said, 'No funny business, right? Otherwise I whistle up those dogs.’

'You have my word,’ Randolph told him. Cold perspiration ran down inside his armpits.

'I can't feel nothing so far,’ the man reported.

'Farther in,’ Randolph urged him.

'What kind of a shape is it? Any special shape?’

'Well, they usually make it in the shape of a -’

The blistering roar that came out of the mouth of the Witch Widow's mask made even Randolph's scalp turn cold. The eyes swiveled, the fangs stretched apart and the mad-looking Louv shrieked in fear. He tried to snatch his hand away but then Rangda's jaws snapped together and there was a sound like someone cracking the ribs of an umbrella.

The man screamed again - a long, ululating scream this time - and tried to wrench his arm away from Rangda's tightly closed teeth. He tugged and tugged, screaming and whimpering and almost laughing from pain; then his arm suddenly came free and he held it up. It was bitten off just below the elbow, with veins and sinews hanging from it like bloody vermicelli. His face was shocked and ashen-grey.

'Jesus, my arm. Jesus, my arm…’ He kept babbling and waving the stump at Randolph as if he were threatening to hit him with it. Blood splattered everywhere; his arteries were spouting like faucets turned on full blast.

The mask roared again and the man staggered away from it, terrified. 'Jesus, dear Jesus!’ he shrieked, then tripped and collapsed and lay on the carpet shuddering.

The Dobermans outside on the lawn immediately stood up, their fur bristling, their ears perked up, their tails erect. But Louv, trembling and crying as he was, was unable to whistle the command that would make them attack.

Randolph crossed the room and stepped through the French doors. Wanda, tied to the chair, stared at him in horror.

The mask,’ she cried hysterically. 'The mask actually bit him!’

Randolph tried to sound calm. 'It happened before, in Denpasar. Almost the same thing. The mask isn't actually Rangda, that's what Michael said, but it's kind of a personification of Rangda, which means that it can bite just as she does.’

'Oh, my God,’ Wanda whispered. 'You have to get us out of here.’

Randolph approached the chair but the Dobermans shifted around and growled at him, warning him off. He took another step and then another, but this time they pounced forward and barked at him furiously.

'They were told to guard me,’ Wanda said desperately.

'They don't have to take their instructions so goddam seriously,’ Randolph complained. Behind him, on the blood-patterned carpet, Frank Louv tried to get up on his knees but collapsed again.

'The meat!’ Wanda exclaimed. 'They took the meat away from me when they tied me up. They left it on the landing upstairs.’

'Wait,’ Randolph said, 'and keep calm. They won't bite if you keep calm.’

'What about the mask?’

'The one thing the mask
can't
do is walk.’

'Oh God,’ Wanda said. Randolph hurried back into the house and leaped up the stairs three at a time. He reached the landing just as Waverley's butler was distastefully picking up the plastic bag of sirloin steak from one of the tapestry-covered chairs. He stared at Randolph in surprise.

'What the 'ell are
you
doing up 'ere?’ he demanded, his upper-class English accent slipping away like water.

'Collecting my property,’ Randolph told him and grabbed for the bag of steak.

The butler tried to tug the bag away but Randolph shoved him hard in the chest with the flat of his hand, and then again, and the butler released his hold.

'Just stay out of this,’ Randolph told him. 'It's more than you can handle.’

The butler, winded, could do nothing more than watch in amazement as Randolph ran back down the stairs, skated across the hallway and into the living room. Outside the French doors, the Dobermans were pacing nervously and growling and yapping, and when they saw Randolph, they barked even more furiously.

'Here, dogs,’ Randolph called. 'Here, dogs! Dinner time!’ He reached into the plastic bag and clawed out two or three pounds of warm, wet steak. He held it up so the dogs could get the scent of it and then he tossed it over to the far side of the lawn.

The dogs hesitated, uncertain of what to do. They had been ordered to guard Wanda but their attention had been diverted by the mask's attack on Frank Louv, and nobody had told them what to do next. Randolph threw another handful of meat and shouted, 'Go on, dogs. Dinner, for God's sake!’ and at last their appetites overcame their confusion. They leaped away across the grass and began wolfing down the steak.

Randolph wrestled with the knots that tied Wanda to the chair; in the end he had to twist one of the chair's arms sideways and break it off in order to free her.

'Listen,’ he said as he yanked at the last of the cord, 'I promised Michael that I would go after him into the death trance.’

'But you can't!’ Wanda protested.

'I have to. This may be my last-ever chance.’

'But Randolph -’

'Please, Wanda, I know what the risks are. What I want you to do is to go down to the cellar, find out where Herbert is and ask him to drive you home. Don't take any nonsense from the butler, or from any of the other servants if they try to stop you. Call the police if anybody gives you trouble. Go home, please, and wait for me there.’