The Noir Novel by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, detective, Adventure, Short Stories, horror
ISBN: 9781479406272
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

CARNAL PSYCHO, by Duane Rimel

Copyright © 1961 by Novel Books, Inc.

CHAPTER ONE

The telephone rang, and a familiar chill of apprehension, of accumulated hatred, flared inside me. Some things you can get used to, even unpleasant things—as long as they are known. It is the unknown that frightens and rasps your nerves, twisting emotions until you are ready to boil over.

Before the phone rang I had been having a better than usual afternoon—my coffee tasted right, my injured left leg had eased its infernal throbbing, and I had begun reading a new book my young friend Henry Dee had brought up. It was by Julian Huxley, that famous biologist. Sometimes the remote past is more fascinating than brush wars and mine cave-ins.

But the damn phone wouldn’t quit.

I swore and yanked the receiver out of its cradle, hoping the TT fanatic who had been pestering me for long weeks had got his fill. I growled hello.

A nicely-modulated feminine voice asked if this was Mark Jason. A voice that evoked rich fantasies, the kind a lonely man gets who has been out of circulation a while, like me.

I admitted that I was Mark Jason.

“I—I hope I’m not intruding, Mr. Jason. Henry’s told me so much about you—this is Louise Schmidt.”

“Oh—yes…” Henry Dee’s current ‘steady’ and my hunch about her voice had been correct. I hadn’t met her, but I’d seen a snapshot, and maybe the afternoon wasn’t going to be a bust, after all.

“I—shouldn’t bother you, I guess, but—”

“Try me, Louise.”

“I—got one of those—calls.”

I swallowed an oath. I’d told Henry about the spook calls I’d been receiving, and he’d evidently passed it on to her. It didn’t make much sense unless the TT artist was doing what he’d threatened to do—start in on my friends.

I heard her take a deep breath. “I—called Henry, and he’s coming up to see you…”

“Good enough, Louise. I’m really sorry. Well talk about it later.”

“Oh—thanks, Mark! I was so scared, I—”

“Take it easy, Louise.”

She thanked me again and cut the connection. I reached down and pulled the phone jack out of the wall. The telephone company had installed it after I’d reported getting anonymous pester calls. Telephone Tormenters they’re called, in company jargon. They usually pick on young, pretty girls, brides, just-marrieds. Sex-deviates, generally. In my case it wasn’t, however—I didn’t have the right kind of plumbing. And there was a definite, vicious purpose in those I had received…

Louise had got me edgy and impatient—now I’d have to wait for Henry to come up and give me the low-down.

Oh, I could have gotten out. My leg was much better than I let on, because I had been hatching up a little plan for this tormenter. Sure it ached and hurt, but I could use it, and I was much luckier than some hit-and-run victims. I was alive. The graveyards are full of a lot of them who aren’t, believe me.

For over a year I had lived in the same bungalow next door to a three-story frame monstrosity called

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