Killer, Come Back to Me Read online

  She disappeared that night.

  When he found the next day that she was really gone and there was nowhere to find her, it was like standing in the center of a titanic explosion. All the world was smashed flat and all the echoes of the explosion came back to reverberate at midnight, at four in the morning, at dawn, and he was up early, stunned with the sound of coffee simmering and the sound of matches being struck and cigarettes lit and himself trying to shave and looking at mirrors that were sickening in their distortion.

  He clipped out all the advertisements that he took in the papers and pasted them in neat rows in a scrapbook—all the ads describing her and telling about her and asking for her back. He even put a private detective on the case. People talked. The police dropped by to question him. There was more talk.

  But she was gone like a piece of white incredibly fragile tissue paper, blown over the sky and down. A record of her was sent to the largest cities, and that was the end of it for the police. But not for Fabian. She might be dead or just running away, but wherever she was he knew that somehow and in some way he would have her back.

  One night he came home, bringing his own darkness with him, and collapsed upon a chair, and before he knew it he found himself speaking to Sweet William in the totally black room.

  “William, it’s all over and done. I can’t keep it up!”

  And William cried, “Coward! Coward!” from the air above his head, out of the emptiness. “You can get her back if you want!”

  Sweet William squeaked and clappered at him in the night. “Yes, you can! Think!” he insisted. “Think of a way. You can do it. Put me aside, lock me up. Start all over.”

  “Start all over?”

  “Yes,” whispered Sweet William, and darkness moved within darkness. “Yes. Buy wood. Buy fine new wood. Buy hard-grained wood. Buy beautiful fresh new wood. And carve. Carve slowly and carve carefully. Whittle away. Cut delicately. Make the little nostrils so. And cut her thin black eyebrows round and high, so, and make her cheeks in small hollows. Carve, carve…”

  “No! It’s foolish. I could never do it!”

  “Yes, you could. Yes you could, could, could, could…”

  The voice faded, a ripple of water in an underground stream. The stream rose up and swallowed him. His head fell forward. Sweet William sighed. And then the two of them lay like stones buried under a waterfall.

  The next morning, John Fabian bought the hardest, finest-grained piece of wood that he could find and brought it home and laid it on the table, but could not touch it. He sat for hours staring at it. It was impossible to think that out of this cold chunk of material he expected his hands and his memory to recreate something warm and pliable and familiar. There was no way even faintly to approximate that quality of rain and summer and the first powderings of snow upon a clear pane of glass in the middle of a December night. No way, no way at all to catch the snowflake without having it melt swiftly in your clumsy fingers.

  And yet Sweet William spoke out, sighing and whispering, after midnight, “You can do it. Oh, yes, yes, you can do it!”

  And so he began. It took him an entire month to carve her hands into things as natural and beautiful as shells lying in the sun. Another month and the skeleton, like a fossil imprint he was searching out, stamped and hidden in the wood, was revealed, all febrile and so infinitely delicate as to suggest the veins in the white flesh of an apple.

  And all the while Sweet William lay mantled in dust in his box that was fast becoming a very real coffin. Sweet William croaking and wheezing some feeble sarcasm, some sour criticism, some hint, some help, but dying all the time, fading, soon to be untouched, soon to be like a sheath molted in summer and left behind to blow in the wind.

  As the weeks passed and Fabian molded and scraped and polished the new wood, Sweet William lay longer and longer in stricken silence, and one day as Fabian held the puppet in his hand Sweet William seemed to look at him a moment with puzzled eyes and then there was a death rattle in his throat.

  And Sweet William was gone.

  Now as he worked, a fluttering, a faint motion of speech began far back in his throat, echoing and re-echoing, speaking silently like a breeze among dry leaves. And then for the first time he held the doll in a certain way in his hands and memory moved down his arms and into his fingers and from his fingers into the hollowed wood and the tiny hands flickered and the body became suddenly soft and pliable and her eyes opened and looked up at him.

  And the small mouth opened the merest fraction of an inch and she was ready to speak and he knew all of the things that she must say to him, he knew the first and the second and the third things he would have her say. There was a whisper, a whisper, a whisper.

  The tiny head turned this way gently, that way gently. The mouth half opened again and began to speak. And as it spoke he bent his head and he could feel the warm breath—of course it was there!—coming from her mouth, and when he listened very carefully, holding her to his head, his eyes shut, wasn’t it there, too, softly, gently—the beating of her heart?

  Krovitch sat in a chair for a full minute after Fabian stopped talking. Finally he said, “I see. And your wife?”

  “Alyce? She was my second assistant, of course. She worked very hard and, God help her, she loved me. It’s hard now to know why I ever married her. It was unfair of me.”

  “What about the dead man—Ockham?”

  “I never saw him before you showed me his body in the theater basement yesterday.”

  “Fabian,” said the detective.

  “It’s the truth!”

  “Fabian.”

  “The truth, the truth, damn it, I swear it’s the truth!”

  “The truth.” There was a whisper like the sea coming in on the gray shore at early morning. The water was ebbing in a fine lace on the sand. The sky was cold and empty. There were no people on the shore. The sun was gone. And the whisper said again, “The truth.”

  Fabian sat up straight and took hold of his knees with his thin hands. His face was rigid. Krovitch found himself making the same motion he had made the day before—looking at the gray ceiling as if it were a November sky and a lonely bird going over and away, gray within the cold grayness.

  “The truth.” Fading. “The truth.”

  Krovitch lifted himself and moved as carefully as he could to the far side of the dressing room where the golden box lay open and inside the box the thing that whispered and talked and could laugh sometimes and could sometimes sing. He carried the golden box over and set it down in front of Fabian and waited for him to put his living hand within the gloved delicate hollowness, waited for the fine small mouth to quiver and the eyes to focus. He did not have to wait long.

  “The first letter came a month ago.”

  “No.”

  “The first letter came a month ago.”

  “No, no!”

  “The letter said, ‘Riabouchinska, born 1914, died 1934. Born again in 1935.’ Mr. Ockham was a juggler. He’d been on the same bill with John and Sweet William years before. He remembered that once there had been a woman, before there was a puppet.”

  “No, that’s not true!”

  “Yes,” said the voice.

  Snow was falling in silences and even deeper silences through the dressing room. Fabian’s mouth trembled. He stared at the blank walls as if seeking some new door by which to escape. He half rose from his chair. “Please…”

  “Ockham threatened to tell about us to everyone in the world.”

  Krovitch saw the doll quiver, saw the fluttering of the lips, saw Fabian’s eyes widen and fix and his throat convulse and tighten as if to stop the whispering.

  “I—I was in the room when Mr. Ockham came. I lay in my box and I listened and heard, and I know.” The voice blurred, then recovered and went on. “Mr. Ockham threatened to tear me up, burn me into ashes if John didn’t pay him a thousand dollars.

  “Then suddenly there was a falling sound. A cry. Mr. Ockham’s head must have struck
the floor. I heard John cry out and I heard him swearing, I heard him sobbing. I heard a gasping and a choking sound.”

  “You heard nothing! You’re deaf, you’re blind! You’re wood!” cried Fabian.

  “But I hear!” she said, and stopped as if someone had put a hand to her mouth.

  Fabian had leaped to his feet now and stood with the doll in his hand. The mouth clapped twice, three times, then finally made words. “The choking sound stopped. I heard John drag Mr. Ockham down the stairs under the theater to the old dressing rooms that haven’t been used in years. Down, down, down, I heard them going away and away—down…”

  Krovitch stepped back as if he were watching a motion picture that had suddenly grown monstrously tall. The figures terrified and frightened him, they were immense, they towered! They threatened to inundate him with size. Someone had turned up the sound so that it screamed.

  He saw Fabian’s teeth, a grimace, a whisper, a clenching. He saw the man’s eyes squeeze shut.

  Now the soft voice was so high and faint it trembled toward nothingness.

  “I’m not made to live this way. This way. There’s nothing for us now. Everyone will know, everyone will. Even when you killed him and I lay asleep last night, I dreamed. I knew, I realized. We both knew, we both realized that these would be our last days, our last hours. Because while I’ve lived with your weakness and I’ve lived with your lies, I can’t live with something that kills and hurts in killing. There’s no way to go on from here. How can I live alongside such knowledge?…”

  Fabian held her into the sunlight which shone dimly through the small dressing-room window. She looked at him and there was nothing in her eyes. His hand shook and in shaking made the marionette tremble, too. Her mouth closed and opened, closed and opened, closed and opened, again and again and again. Silence.

  Fabian moved his fingers unbelievingly to his own mouth.

  A film slid across his eyes. He looked like a man lost in the street, trying to remember the number of a certain house, trying to find a certain window with a certain light. He swayed about, staring at the walls, at Krovitch, at the doll, at his free hand, turning the fingers over, touching his throat, opening his mouth. He listened.

  Miles away in a cave, a single wave came in from the sea and whispered down in foam. A gull moved soundlessly, not beating its wings—a shadow.

  “She’s gone. She’s gone. I can’t find her. She’s run off. I can’t find her. I can’t find her. I try, I try, but she’s run away off far. Will you help me? Will you help me find her? Will you help me find her? Will you please help me find her?”

  Riabouchinska slipped bonelessly from his limp hand, folded over and glided noiselessly down to lie upon the cold floor, her eyes closed, her mouth shut.

  Fabian did not look at her as Krovitch led him out the door.

  Yesterday I Lived!

  Years went by and after all the years of raining and cold and fog going and coming through Hollywood Cemetery over a stone with the name Diana Coyle on it, Cleve Morris walked into the studio projection room out of the storm and looked up at the screen.

  She was there. The long, lazy body of hers, the shining red hair and bright complementary green eyes.

  And Cleve thought, Is it cold out there, Diana? Is it cold out there tonight? Is the rain to you yet? Have the years pierced the bronze walls of your resting place and are you still—beautiful?

  He watched her glide across the screen, heard her laughter, and his wet eyes shimmered her into bright quivering color streaks.

  It’s so warm in here tonight, Diana. You’re here, all the warmth of you, and yet it’s only so much illusion. They buried you three years ago, and now the autograph hunters are crazy over some new actress here at the studio.

  He choked on that. No reason for this feeling, but everyone felt that way about her. Everyone loved her, hated her for being so lovely. But maybe you loved her more than the others.

  Who in hell are you? She hardly ever saw you. Cleve Morris, a desk sergeant spending two hours a day at the front desk buzzing people through locked doors and six hours strolling around dim soundstages, checking things. She hardly knew you. It was always, “Hello, Diana,” and “Hi, Sarge!” and “Good night, Diana,” when her long evening gown rustled from the stages, and over her smooth shoulder one eye winking. “Night, Sarge; be a good boy!”

  Three years ago. Cleve slid down in his projection room loge. The watch on his wrist ticked eight o’clock. The studio was dead, lights fading one by one. Tomorrow, action lots of it. But now, tonight, he was alone in this room, looking over the old films of Diana Coyle. In the projection booth behind him, checking the compact spools of film, Jamie Winters, the studio’s A-1 cameraman, did the honors of projection.

  So here you are, the two of you, late at night. The film flickers, marring her lovely face. It flickers again, and you’re irritated. It flickers twice more, a long time, then smooths out. Bad print. Cleve sinks lower in his seat, thinking back three years ago, along about this same hour of night, just about the same day of the month…three years ago…same hour…rain in the dark sky…three years ago.…

  * * *

  Cleve was at his desk that night. People strode through doors, rain-spangled, never seeing him. He felt like a mummy in a museum where the attendants had long ago tired of noticing him. Just a fixture to buzz doors open for them.

  “Good evening, Mr. Guilding.”

  R. J. Guilding thought it over and vetoed the suggestion with a jerk of one gray-gloved hand. His white head jerked too. “Is it?” he wanted to know. You get that way being a producer.

  Buzz. Door open. Slam.

  “Good evening, Diana!”

  “What?” She walked from the rainy night with it shining in little clear gems on her white oval face. He’d like to have kissed them away. She looked lost and alone. “Oh, hello, Cleve. Working late. The darn picture’s almost finished. Gosh, I’m tired.”

  Buzz. Door open. Slam.

  He looked after her and kept her perfume as long as he could.

  “Ah, flatfoot,” somebody said. Leaning over the desk, smiling ironically, was a pretty man named Robert Denim. “Open the door for me, country boy. They never should’ve put you on this job. You’re glamor-struck. Poor kid.”

  Cleve looked at him strangely. “She doesn’t belong to you anymore, does she?”

  Denim’s face was suddenly not pretty. He didn’t say anything for a moment, but by the look in his eyes Cleve’s doubts were removed. Denim grabbed the door and jerked it viciously.

  Cleve purposely left the buzzer untouched. Denim swore and turned around, one gloved hand balled into a fist. Cleve buzzed the buzzer, smiling. It was the kind of smile that drained Denim’s hesitation, made him decide to pull the knob again and stride off down away into the halls, into the studio.

  A few minutes later Jamie Winters entered, shaking off rain, but holding onto a man-sized peeve. “That Diana Coyle woman; I tell you, Cleve. She stays up late at night and expects me to photograph her like a twelve-year-old kid! What a job I got! Fooey.”

  Behind Jamie Winters came Georgie Kroll, and Tally Durham hanging onto him so that Diana couldn’t get him. But it was too late. By Georgie’s face he was already got; and by Tally’s she knew it but couldn’t believe it.

  Slam.

  Cleve checked his name chart, found that everybody who was working tonight was already in. He relaxed. This was a dark hive, and Diana was the queen bee with all the other bees humming around her. The studio worked late tonight, just for her, all the lights, sound, color, activity. Cleve smoked a cigarette quietly, leaning back, smiling over his thoughts. Diana, let’s just you and me buy a little home in San Fernando where the flood washes you out every year, and the wild flowers spring up when the flood is gone. Nice paddling in a canoe with you, Diana, even in a flood. We got flowers, hay, sunlight, and peace in the valley, Diana.

  The only sound to Cleve was the rain beating at the windows, an occasional flare of th
under, and his watch ticking like a termite boring a hole in the structure of silence.

  Tictictictictictic…

  The scream pulled him out of his chair and half across the reception room, echoed through the building. A script girl burst into view, shambling with dead kind of feet, babbling. Cleve grabbed her and held her still.

  “She’s dead! She’s dead!”

  The watch went tic, tic, tic all over again.

  Lightning blew up around the place, and a cold wind hit Cleve’s neck. His stomach turned over and he was afraid to ask the simple question he would eventually have to ask. Instead he stalled the inevitable, locking the bronze front doors and making secure any windows that were open. When he turned, the script girl was leaning against his desk, a tremble in her like something shattered in a finely integrated machine, shaking it to pieces.

  “On stage twelve. Just now,” she gasped. “Diana Coyle.”

  Cleve ran through the dim alleys of the studio, the sound of his running lonely in the big empty spaces. Ahead of him brilliant lights poured from opened stage doors; people stood framed in the vast square, shocked, not moving.

  He ran onto the set and stopped, his heart pounding, to look down.

  She was the most beautiful person who ever died.

  Her silver evening gown was a small lake around her. Her fingernails were five scarlet beetles dead and shining on either side of her slumped body.

  All the hot lights looked down, trying to keep her warm when she was fast cooling. My blood too, thought Cleve. Keep me warm, lights!

  The shock of it held everybody as in a still photo.

  Denim, fumbling with a cigarette, spoke first.

  “We were in the middle of a scene. She just fell down and that was all.”

  Tally Durham, about the size of a salt shaker, wandered blindly about the stage telling everybody, “We thought she fainted, that’s all! I got the smelling salts!”

  Denim sucked, deeply nervous, on his smoke. “The smelling salts didn’t work…”

  For the first time in his life Cleve touched Diana Coyle.

  But it was too late now. What good to touch cold clay that didn’t laugh back at you using green eyes and curved lips?