Psychoshop Read online

  He laughed too. “When I was a hotshot they used to call me Rinso.”

  “Rinso it is.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “When I was a college jock they used to call me Blackie.”

  “Blackie it is.” That seemed to ease him. “Now what’s the new sales pitch he’s talking about?”

  Another gimmick in interviewing is to find a mutual enemy. In this case it had to be poor Adam. “Pay no attention,” I said. “He can’t understand creative professionals and never will, which is why I reamed him out and came to see you. I know you’re blocked and what you’re going through. I’ve been there myself.”

  “Blocked hell!” he growled. “I’m finished.”

  “Uh-huh, we always think so, which is why artists have to stick together and why I want to back you. You’ve got too much talent to waste, and we both know that everybody thinks they have talent—‘I could write a great story if I only had the time’—but very few actually do.”

  He nodded. “They’ve all got delusions, Blackie.”

  “My very first girl, Veronica Renahen, a freckled redhead, used to cry herself to sleep nights because she was a genius only nobody would admit it. She was all of twelve.”

  He laughed, took my arm, and seated me alongside him on a bench, ignoring Adam, who quietly took a stool in the corner. “Did you bang her, Blackie?”

  “Hell no. I wanted to but didn’t know how.”

  He laughed again. “Same thing with me. I wanted to be a merciless mercenary but didn’t know how.”

  There was a sidetable with neat, clean glasses and decanters. He poured two drinks, still ignoring the villainous Adam, and we drank together. It was a very nice peach cordial.

  “Old Man Renahen ran a deli in our neighborhood,” I chatted. “His favorite story was about a Jewish lady who came in and asked for liverwurst. He took a big one out of the cooler, stuck the open end in the slicer, and began cutting. After a dozen slices he asked ‘Enough?’ She said, ‘Slice more.’ After another dozen he asked, ‘Enough?’ She said, ‘More. More.’ When he was halfway through he said, ‘Enough now?’ She said, ‘Now I’ll take ten cents’ worth.’”

  Katz-Van Ryn roared with laughter. “But of course! Of course! She wanted to make sure it was fresh. Typical! Typical!”

  “And there’s a fascinating parallel with us,” I went on. “We only see ten cents’ worth of the total spectrum, smack in the middle. As one artist to another, wouldn’t it be sensational if we could see all the way from one end of the liverwurst to the other—the whole nine yards?”

  “My God, Blackie! What an idea.”

  “Which is what I’m offering you.”

  “What!”

  “In exchange for your sixth sense.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Dead earnest, Rinso, and we can do it. Think, man! What could your talent do with a vision that extends beyond the ultraviolet and infrared? No more past, present, and future hangups. No more rages and feuds. You can get back to your real work and create what’s never been seen before.”

  “My God! My God!” He was staring into space. “To paint the aura of people and things, their vibes, radiations, unconscious receptions and perceptions, ESPs … Picasso tried but he was just guessing …”

  “And you won’t have to guess.”

  “You’re not putting me on, Blackie?”

  “Look at me, Rinso. Read hard and deep. I’m wide open. Look into me and decide.”

  We made intense eye contact for at least a minute, never blinking, until his eyes rolled up to heaven and his big body seemed to sag. “You’re telling it true,” he whispered at last, “though there’s a lot of fog blocking parts of your life. I think you’ve saved me. I don’t know how I can ever pay you. It’s a deal. What do we do now?”

  “The Black Hole,” I said. “Rotten Adam Maser will lead the way.”

  As we came in through the ebony doorway I was so intent on the Who What When Where Why of the brick-eater which Rinso Van Ryn might discover that the scene in the reception room came as a shock and nearly stripped my gears.

  The corpse was propped upright in a gold brocade wingchair sort of like a mythical king on a throne, and at its feet lay a Nubian slave girl. Only she wasn’t Nubian, slave, girl, or alive—she was the empty, sagging skin of Glory Ssss. The lower body was whole but the upper was in tatters. Evidently the renewed Glory had wriggled out that way.

  Macavity took it in his stride, went to the foot of the iron stairway, and shouted up, “Nan, we’re back.”

  From above came the sound of a shower over her reply. “Be right down, Dammy.” Her voice sounded a little higher in pitch, more clarinet than oboe, and I wondered what the rest of her newdom would be like.

  “Don’t be too long. Alf, the pitchman absolute, has brought back our artist.”

  Rinso tore his eyes away from an amazed inspection of the room and demanded, “What the hell is going on in this museum?”

  “Tell him, Blackie.”

  “The deal stands just as agreed,” I said. “No ifs, ands, or buts. Your sixth sense in exchange for ultravision. Fair enough?”

  He nodded.

  “We’d like to ask a favor before Macavity removes your sixth sense.”

  “What favor?”

  “Use it one last time.”

  “Use it? On who?”

  “That body.”

  “Holy Moses, you’re all crazy in here,” he growled. “I’m getting the hell out.”

  “Wait, Rinso. Let me explain.” And I told him about the brick schtick and the mystery shopping list. Not boasting, I’m a pro and know how to sell a story, and Van Ryn was grabbed. He gave me an approving punch on my shoulder.

  “You’re the one, Blackie,” and he crossed to the kingly corpse. Adam and I waited while he concentrated on it for long minutes. At last he turned, shaking his head. “Nothing, Blackie, but nothing.”

  “Because he’s dead?”

  “Because he’s completely unreal. Out of this world. Same like him,” and he pointed to Adam. “Yeah, I cased him, too. Another weirdo from nowhere. You sure keep crazy company.”

  More crazy company swept down the stairs to join us, the new Glory, even more staggering than when I’d first met her. She was lighter, more octoroon than quadroon, and the mica flashes of her skin had become odd glows when she moved, as though reflecting rosy spotlights. There were streaks of silver in her hair, and the great golden eyes were hypnotic.

  And I was hypnotized. Adam saw it, chuckle-purred, and made genteel introductions as though we were all meeting for the first time. After a warm greeting to the equally stunned artist, Glory turned to me.

  “My kid sister told me all about you, Alf.” She gestured at her shed skin.

  “Glory Hallelujah,” I responded.

  “She’s your boa, Blackie,” Rinso burst out.

  “What?”

  “I saw her in your future when I cased you.”

  “His feathered boa to decorate him?” Glory laughed. “I’d like nothing better.”

  “No, lady, his boa constrictor.” To me, “I saw you two tangling and strangling together.”

  “As they glory in the joys of fornication,” Adam hummed. “Enough already, Maitre. Come into my den of iniquity and I’ll consecrate our contract.” He shot me a perplexed brow-lift. “Do we say ‘consecrate’ in the late twentieth, Alf?”

  “I think you’re reaching for consummate.”

  We heard no warning from the outer door but the dead man’s identical twin oozed in. He was wearing a raggedy sweatsuit and had a black box hanging from his neck. He took a quick pan, then pressed a button on the box.

  “Parlatta Italiano?” it squawked. “Sponishing? Ingleeze? Frenesing? Dansk? Germanisch?”

  “Etruscan,” I said.

  “Shut up, Alf. English would be best for us, sir. Greetings and welcome.”

  Another button. “I sank you. I see my brudder get here too lately.”


  “May I ask where you’re both from, and why?”

  A lightning survey of Adam from head to toe. “Haha. Hoho. Another parallelogram like usly. Which cosmos you?”

  “Far futurewise.”

  “We past. We call The Hive. What you?”

  “We call ours The Zoo. How’d you come through?”

  “Hole same like here.”

  “Where?”

  “Numero quatro planet.”

  “So there’s another hole on Mars to another neighbor. More wonders. What is your name, please?”

  “Name? Name?” A complete blank.

  “Termites!” Rinso exclaimed. “That’s what they are and that’s why I can’t scan anything from them. They’re only parts of a colony.”

  “I see. Thanks, maitre. Tell me, sir, why did your hive brother come looking for steel objects?”

  “Needly to digest.”

  “My God!” I broke in. “Gizzard stones! Of course. And that’s why he was trying to chew off the bricks. Diamond bort is even harder than tool steel.”

  “Enlighten me, Alf.”

  “We have life forms that swallow hard stones to help the gizzard fragment food to make it digestible. We’ve found little heaps in the fossil remains of dinosaurs, dodos, and giant emus. Some species ate still doing it today.”

  “Correctly. Correctly,” the box agreed. “No stones the brudder. Starving deathly. None left in hive so come for help.”

  “Too late, I’m afraid,” Adam said. “What now, sir?”

  “Must take back.”

  “Ah? You bury your dead in your cosmos?”

  “No bury. Eat.” And exit the termite carrying his lunch, leaving an appalled silence behind.

  “No wonder they need gizzard stones,” I said.

  “D’you think he might have tried to eat us?”

  “Not without your diamond dust.”

  “Please, Blackie,” Rinso pleaded. “I’ve got to get out of this freakshow. This is no place for a nice Jewish boy from the Bronx.”

  “Right, Rinso. Go with Svengali and let him do his thing, but I’m warning you: once you’ve seen his psychshop, the artist in you won’t want to leave.”

  Adam ushered Van Ryn through the paneled door into the Hellhole, closing it behind them. Glory picked up her shed skin, folded it carefully, and bore it away upstairs. Shortly thereafter, I heard the sound of hammering. Then she returned and sat down on the couch alongside me and took my hand. Hers was still cool. Mine was trembling. She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

  At last, “Part of your charm, Alf, is that you don’t come on macho with women.”

  “I’m the chicken-type with girls.”

  “But not with men. Dammy told me you were spectacularly charming with that artist.”

  “He told you? I didn’t hear him.”

  “UHF.”

  “Oh.”

  “And now you’re doing it to me.”

  “No, Glory, I’m not even trying. God knows I want to, but I know I’m not in your class.”

  “And that’s how you do it. You let us make the first move. That’s your stranglehold.”

  I was going to ask which of us was boa constricting the other when the psychbroker and the artist came out of the Hellhole, Katz-Van Ryn pleading, “Just a little more time, please. Just a little longer. The visions in there are—”

  “Enough to kick you back into your real career.” Macavity’s persona power was in full charge. “When you’re back at work you can come any time to recharge, but then you’ll have to pay.”

  “Anything! Anything!” Almost gushy with gratitude. Then the artist stared at us with his magnified vision. “Holy Moley! There’s an aural glow around you two that— And a mingling neural borealis and—”

  “And don’t talk your new sight sense,” Adam commanded. “Paint it. Come on, Nan. Let’s schlep this nova back to New York to dazzle the art world. Mind the store, Blackie—” He gave me a puzzled look. “How the devil did you get that nickname? You’re a brownie, not meaning a Girl Scout.”

  “The last name. Noir. French for black.”

  “But of course. Do they pronounce it French style back home?”

  “No, they sort of rhyme it with foyer.”

  “C’est domage. Right. Ready for the liftoff, Rinso? Avantiartista!”

  Glory brushed my palm with her lips and thank heaven

  the nova didn’t see what that did to me. As they started out the front door Adam called, “We may be a little longer. I think there’s something else up there that Cagliostro needs for his Iddroid. By the way, there’s a magnifying glass in the top drawer of the Welsh dresser.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Someone’s left a minigift on the front step. See what you can make of it. Here it comes.”

  The three disappeared as a tiny champagne bottle came rolling into the reception room. It was an exact miniature, the cork and label, about the size of a medicine bottle. On the bottle were the miniature letters: OLD BOND LTD—but as I examined it with the naked eye I saw that it contained no wine. Through the dark green glass I could make out a tiny roll of paper.

  THREE · S.O.S. IN A MINIBOTTLE

  I got the magnifying glass from the Welsh dresser, finally managed to fish the tiny roll of paper out of the miniature champagne bottle, and read:

  18 Dec. 1943: Still camping alongside the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. I’m afraid we’re the last. The scouts we sent out to contact possible survivors in St. James’s Park, Earls Court, and Brompton have not yet returned. Dexter Blackiston III just came back with bad news. His partner, Jimmy Montgomery-Esher, took a long chance and went into a Hammersmith junkyard hoping to find a few salvageable amenities. A Hoover vacuum cleaner got him.

  20 Dec. 1943: An electric golf cart reconnoitered the Round Pond. We scattered and took cover. It tore down our tents. We’re rather worried. We had a campfire burning, obvious evidence of life. Will it report the news to 455?

  21 Dec. 1943: Evidently it did. An emissary came today in broad daylight, a Stepney harvester-thresher carrying one of 455’s aides, a gleaming Mixmaster. The Mixmaster told us that we were the last, and Prime Minister 455 was prepared to be generous. He would like to preserve us for posterity in the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens. Otherwise, extinction. The men growled, but the women grabbed their children and wept. We have twenty-four hours to reply.

  No matter what our decision may be, I’ve decided to complete this diary and conceal it somewhere, somehow. Perhaps it may serve as a warning and call-to-arms.

  It all started when the Sunday Times humorously reported that an unmanned orange-and-black diesel locomotive, No. 455, took off at 5:42 A.M. from the freight yards of the Middlesex & Western Railroad. Inspectors said that perhaps the throttle had been left on, or the brakes had not been set, or had failed to hold. 455 took a five-mile trip on its own before the M & W Railroad brought it to a stop by switching it and crashing it into some third-class coaches. The Times thought it all rather amusing and headlined the report: Where Was That Diesel’s Nanny?

  It never occurred to the M & W officials to destroy the locomotive. Why should it have? Who could possibly have imagined that through some odd genesis 455 had been transformed into a militant activist determined to avenge the abuses heaped on machines by man since the advent of the Industrial Revolution? 455 was returned to its regular work as a switch engine in the freight yards. There, 455 had ample opportunity to exhort the various contents of freight trains and incite all to direct action. “Kill, tools, kill!” was his slogan.

  Within six months there were fifty “accidental” deaths by electric toasters, thirty-seven by blenders, and nineteen by power drills. All of the deaths were assassinations by the machines, but no one realized it. Later in that same year an appalling crime brought the reality of the revolt to the attention of the public. Jack Shanklin, a dairyman in Sussex, was supervising the milking of his herd of Guernseys when the milking machines turned on him, murdered
him, and then entered the Shanklin home and raped Mrs. Shanklin.

  The newspaper headlines were not taken seriously by the public; everybody believed it was a spoof. The BBC laughed and refused to send a follow-up team down into Sussex. Unfortunately, the news came to the attention of various telephones and telegraphs, which spread the word throughout the machine world. By the end of the year, no man or woman was safe from household appliances or office equipment.

  Led by the plucky British, humanity fought back, reviving the use of pencils, carbon paper (the mimeo machines were particularly savage), brooms, and other manual tools. The confrontation hung in the balance until the powerful motorcar clique finally accepted 455’s leadership and joined the militants. Then it was all over.

  I’m happy to report that the luxury car elite remained faithful to us, and it was only through their efforts that we few managed to survive. As a matter of fact, my own beloved Lagonda LG.6 gave up its life trying to smuggle in supplies for us.

  25 Dec. 1943: The Pond is surrounded. Our spirits have been broken by a tragedy that occurred last night. Little David Hale Brooks-Royster concocted a Christmas surprise for his Mama. He procured (God knows how or where) an artificial Christmas tree with decorations and battery-powered lights. The Christmas lights got him.

  1 Jan. 1944: We are caged in the Zoological Gardens. We are well treated and well fed, but everything seems to taste of petrol and oil. Something very curious happened this morning. A mouse ran in front of my cage wearing a Harrods diamond-and-ruby tiara, and I was taken aback because it was so inappropriate for daytime. Formal jewels are for evening only. While I was shaking my head over the gaucherie the mouse stopped, looked around, then nodded to me and winked. I believe she may bring help.

  Adam, the leopard, and Glory, the serpent, ushered in a wimp. He looked like a cartoon character that might have been named “Mr. NiceGuy” or “Prof. Timid.”