Killer, Come Back to Me

“Who’s there?”

“Cognac.”

“Oh, fine, fine!” Cousin William’s weak-chinned, rabbity face poked out, his soft hands darting after the offered liquor. “Thank God. Now go away and let me get drunk!”

The door slammed, but before it did Johnny got a brief glimpse of the cluttered, disorderly interior of Cousin William’s Designing Room—the mannequins standing stiff around with brilliant silks draped, cut, fixed to them, watercolor sketches of capes, hats, suits, thumbtacked to the plaster walls. Bright heaps of woolens, threaded spools, and all. The door cut it off, locked it in, and Cousin William was nervously attending his cognac behind the shining knob.

Johnny eyed the hall phone, his anger simmering. He thought of Mom and Dad dancing, Uncle Flinny and Grandma playing their eternal chess, Cousin William drinking—and himself a stranger in this great old echoing house. He snatched up the phone.

“Uh—I want—that is—give me the police station.”

Another deep voice cut in on the operator’s.

“Hang up the phone, Johnny. Hang up and go to bed.” Dad’s very resonant and cultured voice.

Johnny hung up slowly. So this was his reward for finding a body? He sat and cried with frustration. He felt like the lady in the trunk, the lid slammed in his face by five people! Slammed!

He was twisting in bed when Uncle Flinny softly opened the door and poked his curly, soft-haired, big head into the room. His eyes were round, black, gentle, peaceful-looking. He came in with slow, soft movements, sat on the edge of the chair beside the bed like a very quiet little bird. He folded his birdlike fingers.

“Since you’re retiring early,” he said, “I thought I’d better come tell your bedtime story early too. Yes?”

Johnny felt himself too old for stories. Being raised in such an adult house with few contacts with children, and having an advanced education with such mature talk and mature people around, he felt himself far above bedtime stories. But he resigned himself, sighed, and said, “Okay, Uncle Flinny. Go ahead. Shoot.”

Uncle Flinny held onto his neatly pressed black trousers at the knees as if they’d explode and slowly pieced out his tale.

“Well, once there was a young woman who was very beautiful—”

Oh-oh! Johnny’d heard this story a thousand times before. He fidgeted. A body in the attic and he had to listen to this.

“And,” continued Uncle Flinny, “this beautiful young girl fell in love with and married a young knight. They lived happily for years. Until one day a Dark One kidnapped the beautiful woman and ran away with her.” Uncle Flinny looked sad and old.

“And then the husband came home,” prompted Johnny.

Uncle Flinny didn’t hear him at all. He just kept talking in a funny soft monotone. “The husband chased the Dark One into a Dark Land. But no matter how hard he pleaded, or tried to catch up with the Dark One, he never could. His wife was gone forever. Forever.”

Uncle Flinny’s breathing was uneven, harsh. His eyes glowed dark, round. His lips trembled. He wasn’t himself. He was someone else off a million miles in that Dark Land. He seized his knees tighter and bent over them.

“But the husband searched and searched, vowing that someday he would find and kill the Dark One, and, wonder of wonders, he did! He struck the Dark One down, but oh God above, after striking the Dark One he found that somehow the Dark One looked like his beautiful wife! And he found to his horror that he himself was growing—darker and darker.…”

The end. Johnny hoped there’d be no more. Uncle Flinny sat sighing in the atmosphere he’d built from the story. He’d forgotten Johnny was a part of the room. His hands were shaking and he was out of breath. He just sat there.

Johnny shivered for no reason he knew. “Thanks. Thanks very much, Uncle Flinny,” he said. “Thanks for the swell story.”

Uncle Flinny turned blind eyes. “Unh?” He relaxed, recognizing Johnny. “Oh, yes. Anytime. Anytime at all.”

“You sure get steamed up, Uncle Flinny.”

Uncle Flinny quietly opened the door. “Good night, Johnny.”

“Oh, Uncle!”

“Yes?”

Johnny stopped himself. “Never mind.”

Uncle Flinny shuffled out. The door closed gently.

Johnny bounced furiously on the springs. “The things I’ve had to do the last few days, to keep this family happy! Listen to Uncle Flinny—wait on Grandma—get out of the way of Mother —obey Father. And keep Cousin William drunk. Guh!”