Part 29 (1/2)
”G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Ed! Don't you start lecturing me now!”
”OK, Russ,” his friend subsided, remembering the h.e.l.l Mandarin had gone through three years before. ”Just wanted to remind you that you'd tried this blind alley once before.”
”Ed, I drink only socially these days.” He waited for the other to say something, finally added: ”Except for an occasional binge, maybe.”
”Just trying to make a friendly suggestion.”
”Well, I can do without friendly suggestions.”
”OK, Russ.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Saunders expected the psychiatrist to drop off, but the other sat rigidly upright all the way. Too much adrenaline, Saunders decided.
He pulled into the long driveway of Mandarin's Cherokee Hills estate. It was a rambling Tudor-style house of the 1920s, constructed when this had been the sn.o.b residential section of Knoxville. Although most of the new money had now moved into the suburbs, Cherokee Hills had resisted urban decay with stately aloofness.
”I'll give you a ring in the morning,” Saunders promised.
”It's all right; I'll call a cab,” muttered Russ.
Saunders shrugged. ”Good night, Russ.”
He climbed out of the car. ”Sure.”
Saunders waited until he was in the front door before driving off.
The phone started to ring while Russ was dropping Alka-Seltzers into a highball gla.s.s. Holding the frothing gla.s.s carefully, he picked up the receiver.
”h.e.l.lo.” He wondered if he could finish the conversation before the tablets finished their dancing disintegration.
”Dr Mandarin?”
”Speaking.” He didn't recognize the voice.
”This is Morris Sheldon from the Frostfire Press. Been trying to get in touch with you this evening.”
”Yeah? Well, what can I do for you, Morris old buddy?”
”Well, I know you were close to poor Curtiss Stryker. I believe he mentioned to me that you were giving him some medical opinions relative to the research he was doing on this last book.”
”I was,” Russ acknowledged, taking time for a swallow of Alka-Seltzer.
”Do you know how far along he'd gotten before the accident?”
”Well now, you probably know better than I. All I'd seen were several of the early chapters.”
”I'd wondered if you perhaps had seen the rough draft of the chapters you were involved in.”
”The poltergeist house? No, didn't know he'd had time to put that in rough draft yet.”
”Yes, he had. At least he said so in our last conversation.”
”Well, that's news to me. I was out of town the last couple days.” Mandarin downed the last of the seltzer. ”Why do you ask?”
Sheldon paused. ”Well, frankly I'd hoped Curtiss might have pa.s.sed a carbon of it on to you. He didn't send me the typescript. And we're rather afraid it was with his papers when the accident occurred. If so, I'm afraid his last chapter has been lost forever.”
”Probably so,” Russ agreed, his voice carefully civil. ”But why are you concerned?”
”Well, as a friend of Curtiss's you'll be glad to know that Frostfire Press had decided not to let his last book go unfinished. We've approached his close friend and colleague, Brooke Hamilton...”
”Oh,” said Mandarin, revelation dawning in his voice. ”Hey, you mean his confidant and bosom pal, Brooke Hamilton, hopes to use Stryker's notes and all for a posthumous collaboration?”
”That's right,” Sheldon agreed. ”And naturally we want to locate as much of Stryker's material as we can.”
”Well, then you're in luck, Morris old buddy. Stryker's dear friend, that critically acclaimed writer and all around bon vivant, Brooke Hamilton, was so overcome with grief at his mentor's death that he wasted no time in breaking into Stryker's office and stealing every shred of Stryker's unpublished writing. Just give him time to sort through the wastebasket, and dear old Brooke will keep you in posthumous collaborations for the next ten years.”
”Now wait, Dr Mandarin! You mean you're accusing Brooke Hamilton of...”
”Of following his natural talents. And may the pair of you be b.u.g.g.e.red in h.e.l.l by ghouls! Good night, Morris old buddy.”
He slammed the receiver over Sheldon's rejoinder, and swore for a while.
Returning to the sink, he carefully rinsed his gla.s.s, then added a few ice cubes. There was bourbon in the decanter.
Sipping his drink, he collapsed on the den couch and glared at the silent television screen. He didn't feel like watching the idiot tube tonight. Nor did he care to go to bed, despite extended lack of sleep. His belly felt sour, his head ached. He was too d.a.m.n mad and disgusted to relax.
Ghouls. All of them. Gathering for the feast. More Haunted Houses of the South, by Curtiss Stryker and Brooke Hamilton. Probably they'd already approached Stryker's agent, set up a contract. Stryker would spin in his grave. If he ever reached his grave.
Mandarin wondered if he ought to phone Stryker's agent and protest-then remembered that he had no idea who his agent had been. No, make that was, not had been. As a literary property, Curtiss Stryker was suddenly more alive than before.
Sheldon would know who the agent was. Maybe he should phone and ask. Russ discarded the idea. Who was he to protest, anyway? Just another obnoxious ”friend of the deceased.”
His thoughts turned to Stryker's unfinished book, to the missing last chapter. Curtiss had promised to give him the carbon. Probably Hamilton had made off with that along with his other tomb spoils.
Maybe not.
Stryker kept a file of all his more recent ma.n.u.scripts. A big filing cabinet in his study at home. Sometimes he worked there at night-when he was pushed by a deadline, or really caught up in something.
Russ hauled himself to his feet. A picture was taking shape. Stryker, due at a friend's home for dinner, knowing he wouldn't be back until late. But too interested in his new chapter to leave the material in his office. Instead he brings his notes home and works on the ma.n.u.script until time to leave. Had anyone thought to check his study?
Someone would soon-if they hadn't already. Climbing the stairs to his bedroom, Russ fumbled through his dresser. There it was-in a box crammed mostly with cufflinks, tie-tacs and spare keys. The key to his house that Stryker had given him once when the author left for several months knocking about Mexico.
A look of angry resolve on his black-stubbled jaw, Mandarin s.n.a.t.c.hed up the key and stalked to the garage. The battery was low in the old GTO that he'd kept because it had been Alicia's favorite car, but the engine caught at the last moment. With an echo of throaty exhaust, he backed out of the garage.
His plans were only half formulated, as he carefully steered the rumbling Pontiac through the downtown streets. He meant to check Stryker's study immediately, however. If the chapter ma.n.u.scripts were there, he'd take it to read, and Brooke Hamilton could go to h.e.l.l. And if he didn't find the ma.n.u.script- maybe that would be because somebody had already broken into the house. A horrid grin twisted Mandarin's face. He'd like for that to be the case. Like to show the evidence to Saunders, place charges against Brooke Hamilton for stealing from a dead man.
It was past 11, and traffic was thinning out-for which Russ was grateful. With far more caution than was his custom, he overcame his impatience and made the short drive out Lyons View Pike without mishap.
He turned into the empty drive and cut his lights. Stryker's house, an old brick farmhouse laid out in a T, hunched dark beneath huge white pines. The windows were black against the brick from the front; the remainder of the house was shadowed by the looming pines from what little moonlight the clouds hadn't kept.
Mandarin remembered a flashlight in the glove compartment and dug it out. The beam was yellow and weak, but enough to see by. Suspiciously he played the light across the front of the house. Seeing nothing untoward, he started around back.