Location: Manhattan Apartment, New York.
Time: April, 1967.
Eyewitness Description:
Author: William Francis Nolan (1928–) is a former racing driver, commercial artist and cartoonist, and now multi-award winning author: having twice won the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award, been voted “Living Legend in Dark Fantasy” by the International Horror Guild and “Author Emeritus” by the SF Writers of America. He became famous with
Ashland frowned, trying to concentrate in the warm emptiness of the thickly carpeted lobby. Obviously, he had pressed the elevator button, because he was alone here and the elevator was blinking its way down to him, summoned from an upper floor. It arrived with an efficient hiss, the bronze doors clicked open, and he stepped in, thinking
First the double vision. Now this. It was getting worse. Just where the hell was he? Must be a party, he told himself. Sure. Someone he’d met, whose name was missing along with the rest of it, had invited him to a party. He had an apartment number in his head: 9E. That much he retained. A number – nothing else.
On the way up, in the soundless cage of the elevator, David Ashland reviewed the day. The usual morning routine: work, then lunch with his new secretary. A swinger – but she liked her booze; put away three martinis to his two. Back to the office. More work. A drink in the afternoon with a writer. (“Beefeater. No rocks. Very dry.”) Dinner at the new Italian joint on West Forty-Eighth with Linda. Lovely Linda. Expensive girl. Lovely as hell, but expensive. More drinks, then – nothing. Blackout.
The doc had warned him about the hard stuff, but what else can you do in New York? The pressures get to you, so you drink. Everybody drinks. And every night, somewhere in town, there’s a party, with contacts (and girls) to be made . . .
The elevator stopped, opened its doors. Ashland stepped out, uncertainly, into the hall. The softly lit passageway was long, empty, silent. No, not silent. Ashland heard the familiar voice of a party: the shifting hive hum of cocktail conversation, dim, high laughter, the sharp chatter of ice against glass, a background wash of modern jazz . . . All quite familiar. And always the same.
He walked to 9E. Featureless apartment door. White. Brass button housing. Gold numbers. No clues here. Sighing, he thumbed the buzzer and waited nervously.
A smiling fat man with bad teeth opened the door. He was holding a half-filled drink in one hand. Ashland didn’t know him.
“C’mon in fella,” he said. “Join the party.”
Ashland squinted into blue-swirled tobacco smoke, adjusting his eyes to the dim interior. The rising-falling sea tide of voices seemed to envelop him.
“Grab a drink, fella,” said the fat man. “Looks like you need one!”
Ashland aimed for the bar in one corner of the crowded apartment. He
At the self-service bar a thin, turkey-necked woman wearing paste jewelry was intently mixing a black Russian. “Got to be exceedingly careful with these,” she said to Ashland, eyes still on the mixture. “Too much vodka craps them up.”
Ashland nodded. “The host arrived?”
“Due later – or sooner. Sooner – or later. You know, I once spilled three black Russians on the same man over a thirty-day period. First on the man’s sleeve, then on his back, then on his lap. Each time his suit was a sticky, gummy mess. My psychiatrist told me that I did it unconsciously, because of a neurotic hatred of this particular man. He looked like my father.”
“The psychiatrist?”
“No, the man I spilled the black Russians on.” She held up the tall drink, sipped at it. “Ahhh . . . still too weak.”
Ashland probed the room for a face he knew, but these people were all strangers.
He turned to find the turkey-necked woman staring at him.
“Nice apartment,” he said mechanically.
“Stinks. I detest pseudo-Chinese decor in Manhattan brown-stones.” She moved off, not looking back at Ashland.
He mixed himself a straight Scotch, running his gaze around the apartment. The place
“Just get here?” a girl asked him. She was red-haired, full-breasted, in her late twenties. Attractive. Damned attractive. Ashland smiled warmly at her.
“That’s right,” he said, “I just arrived.” He tasted the Scotch; it was flat, watery. “Whose place is this?”
The girl peered at him above her cocktail glass. “Don’t you know who invited you?”
Ashland was embarrassed. “Frankly, no. That’s why I—”
“My name’s Viv. For Vivian. I drink. What do you do? Besides drink?”
“I produce. I’m in television.”
“Well,
“Nobody’s dancing,” protested Ashland. “We’d look – foolish.”
The jazz suddenly seemed louder. Overhead speakers were sending out a thudding drum solo behind muted strings. The girl’s body rippled to the sounds.
“Never be afraid to do anything foolish,” she told him. “That’s the secret of survival.” Her fingers beckoned him. “C’mon . . .”
“No, really – not right now. Maybe later.”
“Then I’ll dance alone.”
She spun into the crowd, her long red dress whirling. The other partygoers ignored her. Ashland emptied the watery Scotch and fixed himself another. He loosened his tie, popping the collar button.
“I train worms.”
Ashland turned to a florid-faced little man with bulging, feverish eyes. “I heard you say you were in TV,” the little man said. “Ever use any trained worms on your show?”
“No . . . no, I haven’t.”
“I breed ’em, train ’em. I teach a worm to run a maze. Then I grind him up and feed him to a dumb, untrained worm. Know what happens? The dumb worm can run the maze! But only for twenty-four hours. Then he forgets – unless I keep him on a trained-worm diet. I defy you to tell me that isn’t fascinating!”
“It is, indeed.” Ashland nodded and moved away from the bar. The feverish little man smiled after him, toasting his departure with a raised glass. Ashland found himself sweating.
Who was his host? Who had invited him? He knew most of the Village crowd, but had spotted none of them
