The World's Finest Mystery Part 60

He had gone to Canada. Staying with friends near Ottawa. But then his mother had died and he had thought it essential to be present at her funeral. That was not in San Francis...o...b..t someplace in the North, the name of which I have forgotten. Nick's father was the mayor. They say he had not agreed with his son's decision to flee to Canada. They say he hadn't known that he would come down for the funeral, just for the day. The family reunion took longer than he had expected, and eventually Nick was talked into staying overnight. And then, next morning, there was the police.

"Nick a.s.sumes that his father had turned him in. That in the course of the night, all of a sudden, he had realized that as mayor he had no choice but to enforce the law. And after all, everybody had seen that his son was back. Nick locked himself into his father's study. When the cops threatened to force the door open, he had taken the pistol out of his father's desk, put the muzzle at his temple and pulled the trigger."

He had been lucky. The bullet had penetrated his skull too far to the front and caused no lasting brain damage. Only that he was blind. And at that, of course, unsuitable for military service. He was lucky twice. At the hospital where he was nursed he met Marie. She was a young probationer then, and of course she was also fervently against the war. They got married three months later.

After breakfast my brother and I went out to explore. The university and botanic gardens. Nick did not want to join us. The sun was shining. Only too soon would I be on my way back home to Hamburg. To drizzling rain and 17 degrees centigrade. I congratulated my brother on his wonderful life here in California. If I were him, I would never leave the place.

My brother looked at me. "You wouldn't believe how lonely I felt over here for the first few months. Sure, all the people I had met were nice and friendly, but most relationships are rather superficial. If it hadn't been for Nick and Marie, I would have despaired." That was something he had never mentioned in his phone calls. But there had been frequent calls during the first months. Suspiciously frequent calls, I would say with hindsight. When the calls got less frequent, our mother concluded that he had found new friends. Or a friend rather.

"You have really been lucky with Nick and Marie," I said. "Such nice people. I think it's marvelous how compatible they are."

My brother nodded. "So it seems, doesn't it? But all the same they will split up later this year!"

I thought I couldn't trust my ears. "What do you mean by that?"

"Marie will leave him," he said.

I stared at him.

"You can't see it yet, can you? She's pregnant, into the fourth month. And not by Nick."

No, I had not realized that. "And she chose you to confess that to?" I could not get over it.

My brother nodded. "Of course. It is my child, after all."

"Your child!" I exploded. Oh, yes, I could easily imagine how it had happened. My brother, the charming boy, the heartbreaker. Whenever he wanted a woman, he just had to look at her with his big dark eyes. Irresistible. At least that's how it seemed to me. He had once demonstrated this glance to me, just for fun, and I had spent hours in front of the mirror afterward, practising. I had no chance. My eyes were lighter, smaller, and on top of that I lacked his maturity, as I know now, which gave him this air of superiority. Sure, he was a good-looking guy and an able scientist. Why else would they have called him to Berkeley?

I might have hit him. In fact, I should have done it, although it would have been futile because it would not have changed anything. And on top of that he was the stronger, so in the end I would have got a beating.

"You consider me a pig?"

I spared him my reply.

My brother lit a cigarette. He had never smoked back home. He was nervous. "Dear little brother, you must know that it always takes two," he said. "To make love, I mean. And I can a.s.sure you, I didn't rape Marie."

I said nothing. Not raped but seduced, I thought. With your eyes. That was something poor Nick was unable to compete with.

"You're outraged, I can see that." That didn't require much. I blush easily when I'm excited, and apart from that my lips get quite thin. My brother tried hard to explain that Marie would have left Nick anyway; it was just a matter of time. That their marriage had been a romantic mistake from the very beginning. Only later had it occurred to Marie that his attempted suicide had not been a heroic act at all- otherwise he would not have run away to Canada in the first place. Grabbing the gun had been nothing but a panic reaction.

And the relationship between my brother and Marie, that was no romantic mistake? Wasn't it perhaps just an easy escape from her unattractive everyday life with a cripple? Because a cripple he was, regardless of all his skills and his charm. But I didn't mention it, as it was too late anyway. The baby was on its way; the decision had been made. "When are you going to tell him?" I queried.

My brother could not conceal a hint of uncertainty. "In a few weeks, I think. At least we didn't want to bring the issue up before your visit. We wanted to show you a little bit of California without any problems."

The next few days pa.s.sed like a dream. We rode the cable car, took a short and very cold bath in the Pacific and payed a visit to the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf. In the evening, drinking wine in Nick's living room, we talked and laughed a lot, and during all this I nearly forgot the dark clouds that were gathering over the three of them. When on the last evening late at night a hailstorm swept over the house, Nick and my brother sang loudly and rather out of key "It Never Rains in California". My brother shouted so loudly that Parker, the dog, looked at him reproachfully. I have no idea what became of Parker afterward.

The last entry in my diary describes the flight back home. However, that was by no means the end of the story. Three weeks later. The short note was on the last page of my newspaper, which I used to look at first, for the weather. Under the heading "The World in Brief" there was an entry saying that in San Francisco a blind man had shot his wife by mistake. The man's name was given as de Boer. No first names were mentioned. I was alarmed. Of course, Nick's and Marie's second name was Mintford, but de Boer sounded familiar, too. Marie's maiden name, perhaps? And the house was owned by her parents, as far as I knew. You couldn't trust a newspaper in such matters, and surely there could not be all that many blind men in San Francisco.

I rang up Nick. Or I tried. I let the telephone ring over twenty times, but n.o.body answered. I checked the time. Early morning in San Francisco. Nick and Marie would still be at home normally. I tried again, dialing with greater care, but to no avail. n.o.body lifted the receiver.

The next day, when the original events were already two days old, the Abendblatt gave a more detailed report, and this time there could be no doubt. The names had been corrected. They said, Nicolas Mintford had mistaken his homecoming wife for a burglar and shot at once. Marie had not realized the danger because the flat had been in total darkness. She had been dead by the time the ambulance arrived. There was no mention of any unborn baby. A tragic accident.

Accident? I had my doubts. Had Nick not moved about in his flat in light and dark with absolute confidence and recognized every sound? Was it possible that he might have mistaken Marie for a burglar at any time of day? Was it not much more likely that Marie's intention of leaving him had triggered the same kind of panic as the cops had done with his suicide attempt? That he had knowingly shot at Marie? And, if so, wasn't then my brother in extreme danger, too? If Nick had killed his wife in anger, wouldn't he possibly or even most likely try to kill my brother as well? After all, he had caused Marie's decision.

I tried to call my brother at his job. In vain. Finally I got hold of the operator. The girl tried to put me through, but again with no result. The phone kept ringing in my brother's office. Then the girl's voice again: "Mr. Berger is not in his room; do you want me to leave him a message?"

I asked her to put a note on his desk, saying would he please ring me back at once. I did not leave the house for the next few hours. In vain. My brother did not call. Perhaps he spent the weekend with friends somewhere in the country. Perhaps he had hidden in some hole in mournful misery over the death of Marie and refused to hear or see anybody. Or he was dead already. I was helpless. I could only wait for him to call.

When he eventually called, very much later, everything was clear anyway, even without him admitting anything. We did not even touch on the issue, and police investigations had been closed some time since. Again I had not understood anything. One thing I know by now, however: Nick's revolver, of which I had been so afraid for my brother's sake, had been confiscated by the police, of course.

Hamburg, today. My big brother, nervously pacing the room. And me, just as nervous, watching him. "I just had to come," he said. "You are the only person to whom I can talk about this."

But, of course, I would not be able to help him, and he knew it. "The air mail letter then," I said, "that came from you, right?" He nodded. The envelope had contained nothing but a newspaper clipping. The article said a blind man had jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge at dawn the previous morning. Suicide no. 828. By chance the fall had been witnessed from a pa.s.sing coast guard vessel; they had eventually pulled the man out of the water, but he was dead by then. A probable cause for the suicide had been the death of his wife, whom the blind man- as reported yesterday- had accidently shot dead.

"What did you think?" he asked.

I shrugged. To be honest, initially I had been relieved. Suicide. And my brother would not be in danger anymore. But then I had my doubts. Suicide? Sure, Nick knew his way around the house perfectly well. He went everywhere and did anything he wanted. But the Golden Gate Bridge was at the other end of the town. It was much beyond Parker to take his master there. Even if Nick had taken a taxi it would have been difficult to get on the bridge without help.

"There is only one possible reason why you had sent me that letter," I said.

He avoided my eyes. "Police investigations found no traces of foreign interference."

"You didn't come all the way to tell me that," I said.

My brother did not say anything for a while. Then, finally: "He did not even put up a fight." I looked up. He wept. My big, strong brother. My poor brother.

Richard Laymon.

Boo.

RICHARD LAYMON'S first novel was the now-notorious The Cellar, as heart-stopping a mix of noir, woman-in-peril, and horror as has ever been concocted. In the ensuing quarter century, his worldwide reputation as a true master of dark suspense- albeit one with a truly sly sense of humor- made him a brand name in England. His books were just beginning to find wide favor in the States before his untimely death last year. "Boo," which first appeared in the anthology October Dreams, shows his sense of humor running dead even with his sense of the macabre.

Boo.

Richard Laymon.

The last time I ever went out trick-or-treating, it was with my best friend Jimmy and his sisters, Peggy and Donna. Peggy, Jimmy's kid sister, had a couple of her little friends along, Alice and Olive. There was also Olive's older brother, Nick.

Donna, Jimmy's older sister, was in charge.

We all wore costumes except Donna. Being sixteen, Donna thought of herself as too old for dressing up, so she went as herself in a plaid chamois-cloth shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers.

Peggy wore a Peter Pan outfit. When I saw her in the green elf outfit and feathered cap, I said, "Peter Pan!" She corrected me. "Not Peter Pan, Peggy Pan."

One of her little friends, I don't remember whether it was Olive or Alice, sported a tutu and a tiara and carried a wand with a star at one end. The other girl wore a store-bought E.T. costume. Or maybe she was Yoda. I'm not sure which.

Nick I remember. All of fourteen, he was a year older than Jimmy and me. He was supposed to be a Jedi warrior. He wore black coveralls, a black cape, and black galoshes. No mask, no helmet. We only knew he was a Jedi warrior because he told us so. And because he carried a "light saber," pretty much a hollow plastic tube attached to a flashlight.

Jimmy was "the Mummy." Earlier that night, Donna and I had spent ages wrapping him up in a white bedsheet that we'd cut into narrow strips. We kept pinning the strips to Jimmy's white longjohns. It took forever. It would've driven me nuts except for Donna. Every so often, she gave Jimmy a poke with a pin just to keep things interesting. We finally got it done, though, and Jimmy made a good-looking mummy.

My costume was easy. I was Huck Finn. I wore a straw hat, an old flannel shirt, and blue jeans. I had a length of clothesline over one shoulder, tied at the ends to a couple of my belt loops to look like an old rope suspender. As a final touch I had a corncob pipe that my dad let me borrow for the night.

So that was our group: who we were and how we were dressed that night.

Jimmy and me, Donna and Peggy, Alice and Olive and Nick.

Seven of us.

Except for Donna, we carried paper bags for our treats. Donna carried a flashlight. For the most part, she took up the rear. She usually didn't even go to the doors with us but waited on the sidewalk while we rang doorbells, yelled "Trick or treat!" and held out our bags to receive the goodies.

For the first couple of hours that night, everything went along fine. If you don't count Nick going on occasional rampages, bopping us on the heads or prodding us in the b.u.t.ts with his light saber, proclaiming, "The Dark Side rules!" After a while, Jimmy's bandages started to come off and droop. At one point, ET (or Yoda) fell down and skinned her knee and spent a while bawling. But nothing major went wrong and we kept on collecting loot and roaming farther and farther into unknown territory.

It was getting very late when we came to a certain house that was not at all like the others on its block. Whereas they were brightly lighted and most had jack-o'-lanterns on their porches, this house was utterly dark. Whereas their shrubbery and lawns were neatly trimmed, this house seemed nearly lost in a jungle of deep gra.s.s, wild foliage, and brooding trees. It also seemed much older than the other houses on the block. Three stories high (not two like its neighbors) and made of wood (not brick), it looked as if it belonged to a different century.

The houses on both sides of the old one seemed unusually far away from it, as if whoever'd built them had been afraid to get too close.

Though Nick usually ran from house to house without returning to the sidewalk, cutting across lawns and brandishing his light saber with Peggy and Olive and Alice chasing after him, this time he thought better of it. All four of them came back to the sidewalk, where Jimmy and I were walking along with Donna.

"What's with that house?" Nick asked.

"It's creepy-eepy-eepy," said either Olive or Alice, whichever one was the fairy G.o.dmother princess ballerina.

"It doesn't look like anyone lives there," Donna said.

"Maybe like the Munsters," I said.

"I think maybe we should skip this one," Donna said.

"Hey, no," Jimmy protested. "We can't skip this one. It's the best one yet!"

I felt exactly the same way, but I never could've forced myself to disagree with Donna.

She shook her head, her bangs swaying across her brow. "I really don't like the looks of it. Besides, it'd be a waste of time. n.o.body's there. You won't get any treats. We might as well just-"

"You never know," Jimmy interrupted. "Maybe they just forgot to turn their lights on."

"I think Donna's right," I said. "I don't think anyone's there."

Jimmy shook his head. By this time, all the "bandages" had slipped off his head. They dangled around his neck like rag necklaces. "If somebody does live in a place like that," he said, "wouldn't you wanta meet him? Or her. Maybe it's a creepy old woman. Just imagine. Like some crazy old witch or hermit or something, you know?"

For a while, we all just stood there and stared at the dark old house- what we could see of it through the bushes and trees, anyway, which wasn't much.

Looking at it, I felt a little shivery inside.

"I think we should just go on," Donna said.

"You're in charge," Jimmy muttered. He'd been ordered by his parents to obey Donna, but he sounded disappointed.

She took a deep breath and sighed. It felt good to watch her do that.

"It's probably deserted," she said. Then she said, "Okay, let's give it a try."

"All right!" Jimmy blurted.

"This time, I'll lead the way. Who else wants to come?"

The three girls jumped up and down, yelling, "Me! I do! Me! Me-me-me!"

Nick raised his light saber, and said, "I'll come and protect you, Princess Donna."

"Any trouble," I told him, "cut 'em to ribbons with your flashlight."

"Take that!" He jabbed me in the crotch.

He didn't even do it very hard, but the tube got me in the nuts. I grunted and gritted my teeth and barely managed not to double over.

"Gotcha!" Nick announced.

Donna bounced her flashlight off his head. Not very hard, but the bulb went dark and Nick yelped, "Ow!" and dropped his light saber and candy bag and grabbed the top of his head with both hands and hunched over and walked in circles.

"Oh, take it easy," she told him. "I barely tapped you."

"I'm gonna tell!" he blurted.

"Tell your little a.s.s off, see if I care."

The ballerina fairy-G.o.dmother princess gasped.

ET or Yoda blurted, "Language!"

Little sister Peggy Pan almost split a gut, but seemed to know she shouldn't laugh at Nick's misfortune so she clamped a hand across her mouth.

Jimmy, more concerned about my fate than Nick's, patted me on the back and asked, "You okay, man?"