Jon braced himself, his leg was tensed and ready to kick, and he noticed the comic on top of the stack in the box.
An EC.
“Vault of Horror” number 18.
What a beautiful cover! A couple kissing by a wishing well, out of which was crawling an oozing, decomposing ghoul. What an artist that Johnny Craig was. Jon didn’t have that issue; it was an early one, kind of hard to find.
He grabbed hold of the box and settled it in his lap and started flipping through titles. They weren’t all EC’s, but many of them were; there was an early one, “Crypt of Terror” 17, worth probably sixty bucks, and some rare science-fiction titles like “Weird Fantasy” and “Weird Science.” Jesus, here was a “White Indian” with Frazetta art! What a find! The box was a treasure chest. This was fantastic.
“Enjoy yourself,” Walter said.
And was out the door.
Four
1
Nolan got out of the car. He moved slowly, but he was alert, and his movements were both deliberate and fluid. You would never guess he’d just driven well over two hundred miles in under three hours. He stood and looked in the window of the shop; a hanging wooden sign, with the words “Karen’s Candle Corner” spelled out in red melted wax, dominated a display case of candles and knicknacks, while in the background faces on posters seemed to stare out of the dim shop like disinterested observers.
He watched in the reflection of the window as the black Chevy pulled in behind his tan Ford, and wondered if anyone in the world besides cops and hoods still drove black Chevys.
Greer got out of the car, made a real effort to shut the door silently but it made a noise that echoed in the empty street. It was three o’clock in the morning (a bank time-and-temperature sign spelled it out just down the street) and downtown Iowa City could have been a deserted backlot at some bankrupt Hollywood studio. The sky overhead was a washed-out gray and the streetlamps provided pale, artificial light.
Nolan watched Greer approach in the reflection. The dark little man yawned, stretched his arms, scratched his belly. Greer had discarded the Felix-dictated sporty ensemble and now had on an ordinary, rumpled brown suit, such as a fertilizer salesman might wear. A common sense outfit, Nolan thought, encouraged; maybe Greer wasn’t such a hopeless schmuck after all.
As for Nolan, he was wearing the same clothes he’d worn all day: yellow turtleneck, gray sports jacket, black slacks. The only wardrobe change he’d made before leaving the Tropical was taking his jacket off long enough to sling on his worn leather shoulder rig. Like Nolan, the holster was old but dependable, and he felt good having a Smith and Wesson.38 with four-inch barrel snuggled under his arm.
Greer walked up to Nolan and they looked at each other in the reflection.
Greer said, “You move right along, don’t you?”
Nolan shrugged.
Greer said, “What were you trying to do, lose me?”
Nolan said, “If I was trying to lose you, you’d be lost.”
Greer yawned again, said, “Wish to hell you’d’ve stopped for coffee.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Listen, what’s happening? What are we doing in Iowa City, for Chrissake?”
“I’m going to talk to a woman. This is her place.” He pointed to the floor above the shop, where the lights were on. “She’s a civilian, so don’t go waving guns around.”
“What do you take me for?”
Nolan said nothing.
“Hey, why don’t you go fuck yourself, Nolan? I don’t like being here any more than...”
“Shut up. Don’t be so goddamn defensive. Are you still pissed off because I made a fool of you this afternoon?”
“Well, I...”
“I did that because I didn’t want Felix sending anybody with me, I wanted to be left alone with this. But Felix sent you anyway, so let’s forget about that.”
Greer sighed, grinned, said, “Okay. I’ll just stay in the background and do what you tell me to.”
“Good.”
Between the candle shop and a record store was a doorway, beyond which were steps. Nolan and Greer went up them. When they got to the landing, they found two doors; one was labeled “Karen Hastings,” the other was blank. Nolan knocked on the labelled door.
A voice from behind the door said, “Who is it?” The voice was female and firm, masking the fear pretty well.
“Nolan. Jon’s friend.”
The door opened tentatively, the night-latch chain still hooked. The face that peeked out was haggard but pretty, framed by long, curly brunette hair. “You’re Nolan?”
“Yes.”
“How... how do I know that?”
“You don’t, unless you recognize my voice from the phone.”
“Prove you’re Nolan.”
“How?”
“What’s Jon’s hobby?”
“Pardon?”
“Jon’s hobby, what is it?”
“He collects funny books.”
She unlatched the door. She was a little startled by seeing Greer in the background. Nolan glanced back over his shoulder at Greer, who in the darkness of the stairwell looked somewhat like the gunman he was.
“Don’t worry about him,” Nolan said. “He’s here to help, too.”
“Okay, come in, both of you.”
They stepped in and were hit by the coolness of the air-conditioned apartment. Nolan looked the woman over quickly: she was nicely built, kind of busty, pretty face accented by a large but sensual mouth; she wore a short-sleeve scoop-neck sweater, rust-color, no bra, and a long dark dress. Her clothes and free-flowing hair were styles befitting a girl twenty or younger, though she was thirty or more. A singularly attractive woman, Nolan summed her up as, though too old for a kid like Jon.
“Heard anything from Jon?”
“No,” she said, regret in her face. “Not a word. What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out.”
“You got here fast. That was an Illinois area code, wasn’t it? I looked it up. What’d you do, drive it straight?”
Nolan nodded, exchanging a brief smile with Greer.
“Well, sit down, I’ll get you some coffee.”
“We’ve got some things to do, maybe you shouldn’t waste time...”
“It’s already ready. I’ll just go in the kitchen and pour it out. Besides, both of you look dead on your feet. Excuse me.”
She left and Nolan and Greer took seats on the sofa. The room was panelled in deep, rich brown, the walls cluttered with paintings and arrangements of related bric-a-brac; the theme of the wall opposite them was Camelot, lots of brass knights’ heads and crossed broadswords and an oil painting of a surreal castle in blues and grays. The furniture was modern, in masculine browns mostly, with thick colorful candles stuck on everything that wasn’t moving. Nolan got two impressions from the room: first, she got stuff wholesale as a shopkeeper and consequently had more decorative shit than any ten people needed; and second, she was trying to compensate for the lack of a live-in male by all the wood and dark colors.
She came back with coffee, which was strong and black. Greer sipped it and smiled and said, “Thanks, ma’am,” like a shy cowboy in an old movie.
She sat next to Nolan on the sofa and said, “Can we do anything? I’ll do whatever you want me to. I feel I can... trust you. You’re the man Jon speaks about, aren’t you? He never mentioned your name, until tonight, anyway... but you’re the man he talks about, the older man he looks up to, respects. Am I right?”
Nolan felt strangely touched, both by the woman’s open concern for Jon, and her telling of Jon’s affection for him. He was having trouble fighting the notion that Jon was dead, and the woman’s small emotional outburst chipped at his personal wall.