This was no longer true.
That night he had come home to his house in the 800
block of Sherbourne Drive. It was raining then as now,
and water was pouring down his driveway into the street.
The street was flooded but the water had not yet risen
to cover the sidewalk. It was after one o'clock, and
he had just left a party at Wendy's to come here be-
cause he had to get out one of his comic magazines.
As editor of Vampirella and some horror maga-
zines, he had hard schedule dates to meet. He had to
edit Vampirella tonight and get it out in the morning,
air mail, special delivery, to his publisher in New York.
He had unlocked the door and entered the front room.
This was a rather large room decorated with large and
small original paintings of science-fiction and fantasy
magazine covers, paintings done on commission, stills
from various horror and so-called science-fiction movies,
photographs of Lon Chaney, Jr., as the Wolf Man, Boris
Karloff as Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi as Dracula.
Each bore a signature and a dedication of best wishes
and fondest regards to "Forry." There were also heads
and masks of Frankenstein's monster, the Creature from
the Black Lagoon, King Kong, and a number of other
fictional monsters. The bookshelves reached from floor
to ceiling at several places, and these were jammed
with the works of science-fiction authors, Gothic novel
writers, and some volumes on exotic sexual practices.
Forry's house had to be seen to be visualized. It had
once been his residence, but he had filled it with works
evaluated at over a million dollars. He had moved into
Wendy's apartment and now used the house as his busi-
ness office and as his private museum. The day would
come—perish the day!—when he would no longer be
around to enjoy, to vibrate with joy, in the midst of
his dream come true. Then it would become a public
museum with the great Ray Bradbury as trustee, and
people would come from all over the world to view his
collection or to do research in the rare books and with
the paintings and manuscripts and letters. He was think-
ing about having his ashes placed in a bronze bust of
Karloff as Frankenstein's monster and the bust put on a
pedestal in the middle of this room. Thus he would be
here in physical fact, though not in spirit, since he re-
fused to believe in any survival after death.
California law, however, forbade any such deposit of
one's ashes. The morticians' and cemetery owners' lobby
had insured that the legislature passed laws beneficial to
their interests. Even a man's ashes had to be buried in
a cemetery, no matter what his wishes. There was a
provision that ashes could be scattered out over the sea,
but only from an airplane at a suitable distance and height.
The lobby ensured that the ashes of a number of de-
ceased were stored until a mass, thus economical, flight
could be made.
Forry, thinking about this, suppressed his anger at the
money-hungry and essentially soulless robbers of the
bereaved. He wondered if he could not make some
arrangements for an illegal placing of his ashes in the
bust. Why not? He could get some of his friends to do
it. They were a wild bunch—some of them were—and
they would not be stopped by a little illegality.
While he was standing there, taking off his raincoat.
he looked around. There was the J. Allen St. John
painting of Circe and the swine, Ulysses' buddies. And
there, pride of his prides, and there … and there ...
The Stoker was gone.
It had been hung on a place opposite the door so
that anybody entering could not miss seeing it. It had
displaced two paintings. Forry had had a hard time
finding space in this house where every inch of wall
was accounted for.
Now, a blank spot showed where it had been.
Forry crossed the room and sat down. His heart beat
only a little faster. He had a faulty pacemaker; it con-
trolled the heart within a narrow range, and that ex-
plained why he had to take stairs slowly and could not
run. Nor did excitement step up the heart. The emotions
should have beat.
He thought of calling the police, as he had done sev-
eral times in the past. His collection had been the object
of attentions of many a burglar, usually a science-fiction
or horror addict who brushed aside any honesty he might
have possessed in his lust to get his hands on books,
paintings, stills, manuscripts, masks, photographs of the
famous, and so forth. He had lost thousands of dollars
from this thievery, which was bad enough. But the realiza-
tion that some of the works were irreplaceable hurt him
far worse. And the thought that anybody could do these
evil things to him, who loved the world as he did not
love God, hurt. Who loved people, rather, since he was
no Nature lover.
Putting aside his first inclination to call the police, he
decided to check with the Dummocks. These were a
young couple who had moved in shortly after the pre-
vious caretakers, the Wards, had moved out. Renzo and
Huli Dummock were broke and houseless, as usual, so
he had offered them his hospitality. All they had to do
was keep the house clean and fairly well ordered and
act as helpers sometimes when he gave a party. Also,
they would be his burglar insurance, since he no longer
lived in the house.
He went upstairs after calling a number of times and
getting no answer. The bedroom was the only room in
the house which had space for residents. There was a
bed and a dresser and a closet, all of which the Dum-
mocks used. Their clothes were thrown on the bed, the
floor, the dresser top, and on a pile of books in one cor-
ner. The bed had been unmade for days.
The Dummocks were not there, and he doubted they
could be anyplace else in the house. They had gone
out for the night, as they quite often did. He did not
know where they got their money to spend, since Huli
was the only one working and she did that only between
fits of apathy. Renzo wrote stories but had so far been
able to sell only his hardcore pornography and not much
of that. Forry thought they must be visiting somebody
off whom they were undoubtedly sponging. This increased
his anger, since he asked very little of them in return for
room and board. Being here nights to watch for burglars
had been their main job. And if he reproached them for
falling down on this, they would sneer at him and accuse
him of exploiting them.
He searched through the house and then put on his
raincoat and went out to the garage. The Stoker painting
was not there.
Five minutes later, he got a phone call. The voice was
muffled
and unrecognizable, although the caller had iden-
tified himself as Rupert Vlad, a friend and a committee-
man in the Count Dracula Society. Since Forry took all
his calls through the answering service, he could listen in
and determine if he wished to answer any. This voice
was unfamiliar, but the name got the caller through.
"Forry, this isn't Vlad. Guess you know that?"
"I know," said Forry softly. "Who is it?"
"A FRIEND, Forry. You know me, but I'd just as
soon not tell you who I really am. I belong to the Lord
Ruthven League and the Count Dracula Society, too. I
don't want to get anybody mad at me. But I'll tell you
something. I heard about you getting that painting of
Dracula by Stoker. I was going to come over and see it.
But I attended a meeting of the Lord Ruthven League
… and I saw it there."
"You what?" Forry said shrilly. For once, he had lost
his self-control.
"Yeah. I saw it on the wall of, uh, well …"
There was a pause.
Forry said, "For the sake of Hugo, man, don't keep
me hanging in air! I have a right to know!"
"Yeah, but I feel such a shit finking on this guy.
He…"
"He's a thief!" Forry said. "A terrible thief! You
wouldn't be a fink. You'd be doing a public service! Not
to mention servicing me!"
Even in his excitement and indignation, he could not
keep from punning.
"Yeah, uh, well, I guess you're right. I'll tell you. You
go right over to Woolston Heepish's house. You'll see
what I'm talking about."
"Woolston Heepish!" Forry said. He groaned and then
added, "Oh, no!"
"Uh, yeah! I guess he's been bugging you for years,
right? I kinda feel sorry for you, Forry, having to put up
with him, though I must say he does have a magnificent
collection. I guess he should, since he got some of it from
you."
"I never gave him anything!"
"No, but he took. So long, Forry."
26
Fifteen minutes later, Forry was outside the Heepish
residence. This was two blocks over from Forry's own
house, almost even with it. In the dark and the driving
rain, it looked like an exact duplicate of the Ackerman-
sion. It was a California pseudo-Spanish bungalow with
a green-painted stucco exterior. The driveway was on
the left as you approached the house, and when you
stepped past the extension of the house, a wall, you saw
the big tree that grew in the patio. It leaned at a forty-
five degree angle across the house, and its branches lay
like a great hand over part of the tiled roof. At the end
of the driveway was the garage, and in front of the ga-
rage was a huge wooden cutout of a movie monster.
You turned to the right and onto a small porch to face
a wooden door plastered with various signs: NO SMOK-
ING PERMITTED. WIPE YOUR FEET AND YOUR
MIND BEFORE ENTERING. THE EYES OF HEEP-
ISH ARE ON YOU (hinting at the closed-circuit TV
with which Heepish scanned his visitors before admit-
ing them). ESPERANTO AND VOLAPÜK SPOKEN
HERE. (This bugged Forry, who was a long-time and
ardent Esperantist. Heepish not only imitated Ackerman
with the Esperanto, but, in his efforts to go him one
better, had learned Esperanto's closest rival, Volapük.)
Forry stood for some time before the door, his finger
held out to press on the doorbell. The skies were still
emptying their bins; the splash of water was all around.
Water roared out of the gutter drains and covered the
patio. The light above the door gave a ghastly green
illumination. All that the scene needed was thunder and
lightning, the door swinging open slowly and creakingly,
and a tall pale-faced, red-lipped man with sharp features
and black hair plastered close to his head, and a deep
voice with a Hungarian accent saying, "Good evening!"
There was no light from the interior of the house.
Every window was curtained off or boarded up or barred
by bookcases. Forry had not seen the interior of the
house, but it had been described to him. His own house
was so furnished.
Finally, he dropped his hand from the doorbell. He
would scout around a little. After all, he would look like
an ass if he barged in demanding to have his painting
back, only to find that his informant had lied. It would
not be the first time that he had been maliciously mis-
informed so he would get into an embarrassing situation.
He walked around the side of the house and then to
the back. There should be a room here which had once
been an anteroom or pantry for the kitchen. In his own
house, it was now piled with books and magazines; in
fact, he kept his collection of Doc Savage magazines just
off the kitchen door.
The curtains over the windows were shut tight. He
placed his ear against the window in the door but could
hear nothing. After a while, he returned to the front.
That there were two cars in the driveway and a number
parked in the street might indicate that Heepish had
guests. Perhaps he should return to his house and phone
Heepish.
Then he decided that he would confront Heepish di-
rectly. He would not give him a chance to deny he had
the painting or to hide it.
Having made up his mind, he still could not bring him-
self to ring the doorbell. He went to the front of the
house and stood in the bushes for a while while the rain
pelted him and water dripped off the branches. The con-
frontation was going to be dreadful. Highly embarrass-
ing. For both of them. Well, maybe not for Heepish.
That man had more nerve than a barrel of brass mon-
keys.
A car passing by threw its water-soaked beams on him
for a minute. He blinked against the diffused illumination
and then walked from under the shelter of the bush. Why
wait any longer? Heepish was not going to come out and
invite him in.
He pressed the button, which was the nose of a gar-
goyle face painted on the door. A loud clanging as of
bells came from within followed by several bars of organ
music: Gloomy Sunday.
There was a peephole in the large door, but Heepish
no longer used this, according to Forry's informants. The
pressing of the doorbell now activated a TV camera
located behind a one-way window on the left of the
porch.
A voice from the Frankenstein mask nailed on the
door said, "As I live and don't breathe! Forrest J (no
period) Ackerman! Thrice welcome!"
A moment later, the door swung open with a loud
squeaking as of rusty hinges. This, of course, was a re-
cording synchronized to the door.
Woolston Heepish himself greeted Forry. He was
six feet tall, portly, soft-looking, somewhat paunched, and
had a prominent dewlap. His walrus moustache was
bronzish, and his hair was dark
red, straight, and slick.
He wore square rimless spectacles behind which gray
eyes blinked. He hunched forward as if he had spent
most of his life reading books or working at a desk. Or
standing under a rainy bush, Forry thought.
"Come in!" he said in a soft voice. He extended a
hand which Forry shook, although he wished he could
ignore it, let it hang out in the air. But, after all, he did
not know for sure that Heepish was guilty.
Then he stiffened, and he dropped Heepish's hand.
Over Heepish's shoulder he saw the painting. It was
hung at approximately the same place it had hung in
his house. There was Dracula sinking those long canines
into the neck of a blonde girl!
He became so angry that the room swirled for a mo-
ment.
Heepish took his arm and walked him towards the
sofa, saying, "You look ill, Forry. Surely I don't have
that effect on you?"
There were five others in the room, and they gathered
about the sofa where he sat. They looked handsome and
beautiful and were dressed in expensive up-to-the-latest-
minute clothes.
"My painting!" Forry gasped. "The Stoker!"
Heepish looked up at it and put the tips of his fingers
together to make a church steeple. He smiled under the
walrus moustache.
"You like it! I'm so glad! A fabulous collector's item!"
Forry choked and tried to stand up. One of the guests,
a woman who looked as if she were Mexican, pushed him
back down.
"You look pale. What are you doing out on a night
like this? You're soaked! Stay there. I'll get you a
cup of coffee."
"I don't want coffee," Forry said. He tried to stand up
but felt too dizzy. "I just want my painting back."
The woman returned with a cup of hot coffee, a pack-
age of sugar, and a pitcher of cream on a tray. She
offered it to him, saying, "I am Mrs. Panchita Pocyotl."
"Of course, how graceless of me!" Heepish said. "I
apologize for not introducing you, my dear Forry. My
only excuse is that I was worried about your health."
The other woman was a tall slender blonde with large
breasts, a Diana Rumbow. The three men were Fred
Pao, a Chinese, Rex Bilgren, a mulatto, and George