The Cunning Read online

  THE

  CHILLS

  That’s what they all felt that day. Warren Clark felt it as he watched his wife get ready to meet her lover. Joe Marks felt it as soon as Irene told him to expect company. Carrie Humphreys had the creeps so bad she kept looking over her shoulder—instead of at the neighbors.

  THE

  CREEPS

  Emily Nesbitt got them when she saw strangers sneaking into exclusive Eden Estates. Warren got them each time he thought about the red truck that accelerated as he crossed in front of it. They all sensed something evil lurking in the shadows, but no one dared to mention it—until they were caught in the deadly grip of

  THE

  CUNNING

  DEATH MASKS

  Warren had never felt so alone in all his life. Imagine being at a party with so many people and feeling entirely alone. He’d had enough. He was tired of stalling—he had planned this last day of living since early this morning and he was ready. All this business of trying to find someone to talk to—what difference would it make if he did? Crying on a shoulder couldn’t solve anything.

  “Scotch and water, please,” he said as he approached the bar.

  Warren gripped the glass and stared across the room. All these people made him sick. Analyzing, labeling, telling him to get his head together or whatever they called it. Just a lot of phrases adding up to more stalling.

  Nobody looked as he reached into his pocket, pulled out the poisonous pellet and dropped it in his drink. All the masks were firmly in place; the talking, smiling, lying masks. And suddenly all the faces turned to stare, not at Warren, but at a figure looming in the hall doorway.

  A man was standing there, a big man in a poncho. He wore a mask too, but it was real—and so was the gun in his hand . . .

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  are published by

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  475 Park Avenue South

  New York, N.Y. 10016

  Copyright © September 1981

  Previously published as There is a Serpent in Eden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 0-89083-825-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  ONE

  Warren Clark couldn’t have picked a better day to kill himself.

  The sun rose promptly at 6:34, just as the weather bureau said it would. The sky was unusually smog-free and the temperature ideal; not too hot, not too cold, low humidity and a mild wind from the southwest—perfect for winter vacationists, door-to-door salesmen and women who wanted to do the laundry.

  The sun would set at approximately 6 P.M. Warren was going to wait until then. He had always liked sunsets, and the view here was superb. The blending of shadow and flame over the parkland below was ample recompense for the price of the condominium. Not that he had to worry about the cost; he’d saved enough through the years so that he could live just as he wanted.

  And today he wanted to die.

  The only problem was to get through the next eleven hours or so without cracking up. Cracking up would spoil everything. Cracking up would mean doctors and consultations and bedrest—they wouldn’t call it “restraint,” not at a hundred dollars a day—in a private sanatarium. And worst of all, it meant he would be watched.

  No sharp instruments, no belt or necktie or shoelaces, and, “You mustn’t get yourself excited, Mr. Clark. Why don’t you just look out of the window and watch the sunset?” He could picture himself watching the sunset in the sanatarium. Watching a hundred, a thousand, perhaps ten thousand sunsets—through the bars.

  That would never happen, if he got through today. Just eleven hours and the California winter vacationists would end their sunbathing, the salesmen would unpack their sample-cases, the housewives would take the clean, snow-white wash out of the dryer to fold and put away. And a man could watch the sunset from his own window, and he could fold up his clean white soul and put it away forever.

  The hands of the bedside clock crept to seven. The sun began to eat up the bedroom carpet, inch by inch. Shadows disappeared (where do they go, where do you go when the time comes to disappear?) and now Warren could see the dim outline of the figure in the other twin bed.

  She lay quite still (not dead, certainly not dead!) with hands folded under the pillow, her hair carefully coiffured, even in sleep.

  It was characteristic of Sylvia that her hair would be perfectly arranged after a night of slumber. Warren felt a faint recurrence of an old desire once again. Not sexual desire—merely an impulse to destroy that passive impassivity.

  He wanted to muss up Sylvia’s hair. He wanted to drag her out of bed, haul her under the cold shower and wash the skin softener, the wrinkle remover and the eye cream from her face. To rip off the mask and actually see his wife. Sylvia Bollings Clark, age none-of-your-damn-business, childless, aimless, hopeless, but never helpless. Never, while she wore the mask. The mask of Today’s Woman, the mask of eternal youth, of endless self-sufficiency.

  Warren stretched out his right arm as he turned over in bed. What would happen, he wondered, if he did just that—mussed her hair, dragged her out? Or if he woke her up the way he used to, when they were newly married?

  But that had been long ago and far away. Another country, and the wench was dead. Warren tried to remember how it had been in that other country, what the wench was like before she died.

  He had been poor in that country of long ago. A “struggling young accountant” with all that the term implied. When the war came, his 4F classification made it easier to get a job in a big firm, but he made no big money there. And afterward, when he opened his own office, things were rough for a long time. It was only imperceptibly that he’d edged his way across the border of poverty and become a citizen of the Promised Land. A first-class citizen, bearer of credit cards, user of computers, manipulator of brandy inhalers, buyer of annuities. Everything came gradually.

  And everything went gradually. Where, now, was the 20-20 vision, the firm, flat belly, the first two inches of hairline on the forehead, the spring in the calves as he bounded out of bed? Where do shadows go when they disappear?

  Warren stared at his wife, wondering if she knew the answer. There was a time when he’d prided himself on being able to read her face, but he couldn’t read the mask. And the mask was permanent now.

  What had the wench been like before she died? He tried, tried very hard, to remember Sylvia Bollings. The blonde secretary with the long legs, the girl who liked chop suey and dancing and (surprise of surprises, when he noticed the book during his first visit to her apartment) The Importance Of Living. The young married woman who for many years wore little or no makeup. When did Sylvia put on the mask?

  Was it before or after she urged him to make the break and open his own office as a CPA? Was it before or after the doctor told her she was sterile and they decided not to adopt a kid, not yet anyway with the business just getting on its feet? Was it when they bought the big house in Brentwood because it would be ideal for entertaining? Or when they sold it because the place was too damned big and who needed all those people underfoot?

  Warren watched his wife, watched the even rise and fall of her breasts, metronomes powered by breath. The sun chewed up more of the carpet; the shadows were almost gone now, and suddenly he realized where they went.

  They went inside his head and they were moving around in there, hiding things. Covering up the past, concealing dates and data, blotting out logic and reason and leaving only the foolish flow of meaningless questions and sentimental symbolism.

  “The wench is dead.” That was a lot of crap. Sylvia wasn’t dead, damn her to hell. She w
as alive, very much alive and demanding. He’d given her everything she wanted and it wasn’t enough. And it wasn’t enough for him either.

  No, he was through with lying to himself, with waiting for tomorrow. In that other, poverty-stricken country where he’d lived for so many years, everybody waited for tomorrow. Tomorrow would be better, tomorrow would bring the big chance, the big job, the big deal, the girl of your dreams, or a complete set of bulging biceps sent prepaid by Charles Atlas.

  Even in this country—the country of tax shelters, company jets, and another martini, make it very dry this time—he had waited. One more contract and we’ll be over the hump. Perhaps the Silver Cloud will make her happy. Maybe if I can get away we can go down to Acapulco together for a few weeks and straighten out again. Maybe she’s right about selling the business and taking things easy. Maybe buying the condominium is the answer—just the two of us, together again. Eden is a nice place. Maybe we’ll start all over there.

  But lately there hadn’t been any maybes about tomorrow. It just came, and it always brought the same old things.

  Old things.

  He’d been fifty-six when they moved into Eden, two years before. That wasn’t so old. For some people, yes; the poor devils who lose their jobs and find they’re unemployable, living in the twilight zone between forty-five and the coming of social security benefits, with nowhere to go. But he didn’t need a job. Voluntary retirement, assured income, and only fifty-eight last month. Didn’t look it, either, not when he took off his glasses.

  Appearances don’t matter. Fit Napoleon with a pair of horn-rims and he’d look like a dentist.

  Warren frowned. At fifty-eight he’d lived longer than Napoleon. Longer than Lincoln, Shakespeare or Columbus. And what had he to show for it? He’d achieved nothing except his longevity. And the sea tortoise lives for two-hundred years.

  Soon the problems would begin. The little brown liver-spots on the backs of the hands. Out, damned spot. Cover it with something you get at the drugstore when you go there to buy the stuff that holds your dentures in place. Stay with it, let your sideburns grow so that you look like an elderly raccoon, a mandrill, an aging orangutan. The world is full of long-haired old men—grandfathers trying to look like grandmothers.

  Dye your hair, buy a toupee, have your face lifted. But you aren’t fooling anyone. One sure way to know you’re over the hill: when the insurance salesmen stop calling.

  When you’re young, so few of your contemporaries die that death is only a rumor, at worst an accident occurring in the distance. But as you grow older, death grows too, until it’s omnipresent, omnipotent. Death becomes a fact of life.

  And how do you fight it? Youth has so many allies—parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, teachers, employers. But as time goes on, you lose them one by one until you face the big fight, the big crises, utterly alone.

  The perils of age. Prostatic pain gnawing your genitals. Glaucoma blotting out the light. Arthritis paralyzing the once skillful hands, hobbling the nimble feet; cardiac cripplings; the stroke that turns animal to vegetable, artificially irrigated. Senility contracts the world—to an apartment, then a single room, finally to a hospital bed.

  Of course, at fifty-eight, that was all in the future. But did it have to be? This slow crawl into oblivion? The weary, wracking journey to still one more country from which no traveler returns?

  Not when there was a better trip.

  Warren couldn’t remember when he’d first begun to think about it. Last week, last month, last year? It seemed to have come in bits and pieces. First, the thought of going; then the reasons why he might like to go. Finally, planning how to travel. There were so many ways available, particularly to a first-class citizen.

  You could travel fast, with the sleek, streamlined speed of a high-powered bullet. You could travel slow, lying in the tub and watching the thin red threads of life unravel from your wrists. You could travel on a variety of fuels—alcohol was one, and narcotics offered a fashionable trip.

  Warren had found his way and now he was committed. No more planning. No fussing with passports, no tickets to buy, no itinerary to plan. His desk was clear, his will was made. And the only thing he had to do now was get through the next few hours.

  He wondered how he’d say goodbye to Sylvia when the time came. Or if he would even bother. How do you say goodbye to a mask?

  Warren turned away, glancing at the clock on the nightstand. Somewhere in the recesses behind the clock-face (it was a mask too, a mask of Time with the real processes controlling movement hidden away) a mechanical crisis arose. A sprocket caught, a lever was depressed.

  The alarm rang. And its sound caught another sprocket, depressed another lever, so that Warren Clark’s body rose mechanically to begin the last day of his life.

  TWO

  “It’s great to be alive.”

  Joe Marks stood in the privacy of his patio, whispering the words. No need to whisper, he was all alone. But you never know. Suppose somebody just happened along and saw him standing out there in his pajamas early in the morning, talking to himself?

  Of course he wasn’t talking to himself. He was talking to the roses. But that would be even worse if anyone knew. You hear about poor old Joe? He’s really flipped—he talks to flowers.

  Some people prayed, said it helped things grow. Joe didn’t go that far; he’d never been much for praying, even in church. But the flowers were alive. Plants, trees, even grass, had life, and there’s nothing wrong with talking to something that lives. Maybe the roses could hear him, maybe they could understand. Just too bad they couldn’t talk back.

  Joe wondered what it felt like to be a rose on a morning like this, blooming for the first time, petals unfolding under the warmth of the sun. Queen Elizabeths, beautiful shade of red. Must be a wonderful sensation, coming alive like this. Out of the darkness of the bud into the light. And the smell of them—lovely. That was how roses talked. Their smell spoke to you.

  He grinned self-consciously. Maybe he was flipping. Roses grew in fertilizer and that had a smell too. What was the manure trying to say to him?

  Never mind. Being alive was all that counted, whether it was your first day as a rose or your God-knows-how-many-thousandth day as a dried up old man. And there was no sense fooling himself about that. He knew what he was. A bowlegged, bald-headed little old runt with a face like a prune, not a rose.

  The thing was, he didn’t feel old, not on a morning like this. Not here, in Eden.

  Joe moved out across the patio, his slippers flip-flopping over the sun-warmed flagstone, then stood at the border of the hedgerow and peered at the rooftops below.

  Row after row of rooftops, stretching as far as the eye could see. Well, not quite that far, but at least a mile in every direction, not counting the mall or the golf course off to one side. Must be six, seven thousand units here already, with building still going on, he thought.

  Eden.

  “Who do they think they’re fooling with a name like that?” He remembered blowing his stack when Irene told him about it in the first place. “And it’s not a retirement community, either—just another high-priced old peoples’ home. You know what a condominium is? That’s a fancy name for a four-room apartment. And I don’t care about the golf course. You know I don’t play golf.”

  “You could learn,” Irene said. “It’s good exercise.”

  “Sure it is. I read it in the Bible. That’s what they did in the Garden of Eden. Adam played golf and Eve caddied for him. Until one day she got him to take a bite out of a golf ball and—”

  “It won’t hurt us to take a look at the place,” Irene told him.

  And that’s how it happened. Funny, how both of them had seen exactly what they wanted, right away.

  The condominiums weren’t cheap, but then they weren’t looking for bargains. They settled on the biggest and the best—a hillside layout, split-level, three bedrooms and a den, garden patio, subterranean parking.

 
Irene was crazy about the built-ins, the maid service, the instant availability of repair and maintenance men, the landscaping and lawn care. With all the problems and responsibilities of running a household taken off her shoulders, she was free to enjoy herself for the first time in years.

  She was the one who ended up on the golf course, renting the horse from the stables, using the pool at the clubhouse, lunching at the restaurant. She loved the whole recreational program, from ceramics classes to discussion groups; if she wasn’t taking lessons in oil painting she was studying French or attending foreign policy lectures. Monday night for photography club meetings, Tuesday afternoon for bridge, Wednesday morning for the psychology course, plus ballroom dancing, sewing demonstrations, cinema showings. Something doing every minute of the day, every day of the week, and always with people, people, people.

  For Joe it was just the opposite. He wasn’t interested in shuffleboard or bowling or horseshoe pitching and he couldn’t have cared less about the educational program or the entertainment. What he liked was privacy.

  And strangely enough, he found it here. In the midst of this mob, this endless parade of planned activity, he could enjoy the luxury of being completely alone. Once he made it plain that he wasn’t a joiner, nobody bothered him. It wasn’t like settling into a suburb or resort area, or even moving out into the country where the neighbors are always curious about newcomers. Here there were strangers coming and going every day and, just as he thought, most people worked so hard at their retirement that they never noticed anyone outside their own orbit.

  That was the big plus for him. Anonymity. Nobody knew who Joe Marks was, nobody gave a damn. So Joe Marks didn’t have to give a damn, either. He could rise early or sleep late, dress or undress as he pleased, read the paper, watch television, go for a stroll whenever he wanted, night or day. Sixty miles of paved sidewalk right here inside the grounds and, every inch covered by security patrols around the clock.