Kolchak The Night Strangler by Richard Matheson, Jeff Rice Read Free Book Online

not…”
    “Read the eyewitness description in 1910. Never mind,” I cut him off. “I’ll quote it. ‘He had the face of a dead man … skull bones … ’”
    “Just you hold it right there, Kolchak! Do you really and truly expect me to print a story about… about…” He choked on the words.
    “… a corpse who’s been strangling women for the past 83 years?”
    I just smiled at him and rocked back on my heels.
    “You can’t deny facts, Vincenzo. Published facts. Eyewitness accounts. Right there in the Chronicle . Written by one Jimmy Stacks and predecessors. Employed by the Chronicle . Paid with Mr. Crossbinder’s own ill-gotten gains.”
    I pointed to my copy. “There’s your story, Vincenzo. Interesting. Provocative. The only question is: Are you grown up enough for…”
    “ Out!! ”
     

Chapter Seven
     
     
     
    Monday, April 10, 1972
     
    It was beautiful. Just beautiful! I opened my apartment door and there was the Daily Chronicle . Headline, in 96-point Bodoni Bold:
     
    THIRD WATERFRONT SLAYING
    Six Murders Every 21 Years
    Since March, 1889
     
    And a big fat “By Carl Kolchak.” Everything. Just as I had written it, with no deletions. And with the extra added attraction of a truly nasty-looking artist’s rendition of Joyce Gabriel’s accounting of what the killer looked like: flesh flaking off his face; teeth long and irregular; the cartilage of the nose protruding through drum-tight flesh; and eyes peeking out like baleful fires from beneath a skull-like brow devoid of eyebrows. What hair that could be seen was thin and white under the turned-down brim of his hat.
    It was all just lovely. It had knocked a story on the first sustained B-52 bomb raids over North Vietnam since 1968 to one side of the bottom half of the front page.
    The obit column listed give names: Claire Bisbee, 29, the killer’s latest victim; Hugh Moreland, 70, a former Seattle auto dealer (Puyallup area); Dr. William Cook, 87, who’d been a local GP for 37 years and had arrived the year of the Great Fire; Thomas Cotner, 20 of Winthrop; and Robert Miller, 15 (address unknown), who were both killed in separate auto accidents.
    Another day had begun. Things were looking up. Even the weather prediction was for higher temperatures… 55 degrees and only partly cloudy skies.
    I stumbled out to the hallway pay phone and called Louise to set up a lunch date. She suggested the Space Needle, which was fine with me. I’d never been up there and it was a good chance to get a look at the town.
    I hummed to myself all through the shower and shave and my one-shot Scotch breakfast. Then I went to the office to kiss Vincenzo on both cheeks.
    Things were really crackling when I got there and Vincenzo was nowhere around. All I could learn from one of my new colleagues was that he’d been called up to the “old man’s” office and that it didn’t bode well. Once again I had taken up residence inside a pressure cooker.
    Just before lunchtime he showed up and motioned me to join him in his office. He was drinking milk from his ever-present quart carton. A sure sign of trouble.
    “I knew it! I knew it!” He was holding a badly wrinkled copy of “our” paper. He slammed it down on his desk, took another gulp of milk, burped, and picked up a note. His face was livid.
    “Permit me to read you a brief memorandum. Quote:
     
    ‘Any repetition of this morning’s front page assault on the minds and sensibilities of our readers will result in the instant dismissal of all responsible persons.”
    • • •
    “Unquote. Signed… Guess who?”
    I ventured an answer. “God?”
    “You’re almost right.”
    He began muttering to himself. “How could I let this happen to me again? How could I?”
    Vincenzo feeling sorry for himself was a disgusting sight. Besides, now that I had gotten him to progress this far I couldn’t let him backslide without a fight.
    “Now just hold on, Vincenzo. We wasted an awful lot of time in Las