Button Button: Uncanny Stories Read online

  "Are there snakes out there?" Jean asked.

  The sheriff didn't answer. He just pressed his mouth together and stepped on the accelerator so the men had to break into a trot to keep ahead of the bumper.

  A few hundred yards further on, Lou turned off and started down a dirt road.

  "Oh my God, where did they take him?" Jean asked.

  "Should be right down here," the sheriff said.

  Then Lou pointed to a clump of trees and Jean saw their car. The sheriff stopped his coupe and they got out. "All right, where is he?" he asked.

  Lou started across the broken desert ground. Jean kept feeling the need to break into a run. She had to tense herself to keep walking by the sheriff’s side. Their shoes crunched over the dry desert soil. She hardly felt the pebbles through her sandals, so intently was she studying the ground ahead.

  "Ma'am," Lou said, "I hope you won't be too hard on me. If I'd known you was with him, I'd've never touched him."

  "Knock it off, Lou," the sheriff said. "You're both in up to your necks, so you might as well save your breath."

  Then Jean saw the body lying out on the sand, and with a sob she ran past the men, her heart pounding.

  "Bob-"

  She held his head in her lap, and when his eyes fluttered open, she felt as if the earth had been taken off her back.

  He tried to smile, then winced at the pain. "I been hit," he muttered.

  Without a word, the tears came running down her cheeks. She helped him back to their car, and as she followed the sheriff's car, she held tightly to Bob's hand all the way back

  to town.

  A Flourish of Strumpets

  One evening in October the doorbell rang.

  Frank and Sylvia Gussett had just settled down to watch television. Frank put his gin and tonic on the table and stood. He walked into the hall and opened the door.

  It was a woman.

  "Good evening," she said. "I represent the Exchange."

  "The Exchange?" Frank smiled politely.

  "Yes," said the woman. "We're beginning an experimental program in this neighborhood. As to our service-"

  Their service was a venerable one. Frank gaped.

  "Are you serious?" he asked.

  "Perfectly," the woman said.

  "But-good Lord, you can't-come to our very houses and-and-that's against the law! I can have you arrested!"

  "Oh, you wouldn't want to do that," said the woman. She absorbed blouse-enhancing air. "Oh, wouldn't I?" said Frank and closed the door in her face.

  He stood there breathing hard. Outside, he heard the sound of the woman's spike heels clacking down the porch steps and fading off.

  Frank stumbled into the living room.

  "It's unbelievable," he said.

  Sylvia looked up from the television set. "What is?" she asked.

  He told her.

  "What!" She rose from her chair, aghast.

  They stood looking at each other a moment. Then Sylvia strode to the phone and picked up the receiver. She spun the dial and told the operator, "I want the police."

  "Strange business," said the policeman who arrived a few minutes later.

  "Strange indeed," mused Frank.

  "Well, what are you going to do about it?" challenged Sylvia.

  "Not much we can do right off, ma'am," explained the policeman. "Nothing to go on." "But my description-" said Frank.

  "We can't go around arresting every woman we see in spike heels and a white blouse," said the policeman. "If she comes back, you let us know. Probably just a sorority prank, though."

  "Perhaps he's right," said Frank when the patrol car had driven off.

  Sylvia replied, "He'd better be."

  Strangest thing happened last night," said Frank to Maxwell as they drove to work. Maxwell snickered. "Yeah, she came to our house, too," he said.

  "She did?" Frank glanced over, startled, at his grinning neighbor.

  "Yeah," said Maxwell. "Just my luck the old lady had to answer the door."

  Frank stiffened. "We called the police," he said.

  "What for?" asked Maxwell. "Why fight it?"

  Frank's brow furrowed. "You mean you-don't think it was a sorority girl prank?" he asked.

  "Hell, no, man," said Maxwell, "it's for real." He began to sing:

  I'm just a poor little door-to-door whore;

  A want-to-be-good But misunderstood . . .

  "What on earth?" asked Frank.

  "Heard it at a stag party," said Maxwell. "Guess this isn't the first town they've hit." "Good Lord," muttered Frank, blanching.

  "Why not?" asked Maxwell. "It was just a matter of time. Why should they let all that home trade go to waste?"

  "That's execrable," declared Frank.

  "Hell it is," said Maxwell. "It's progress."

  The second one came that night; a black-root blonde, slit-skirted and sweatered to within an inch of her breathing life.

  "Hel-lo, honey," she said when Frank opened the door. "The name's Janie. Interested?" Frank stood rigid to the heels. "I-" he said.

  "Twenty-three and fancy free," said Janie.

  Frank shut the door, quivering.

  "Again?" asked Sylvia as he tottered back.

  "Yes," he mumbled.

  "Did you get her address and phone number so we can tell the police?"

  "I forgot," he said.

  "Oh!" Sylvia stamped her mule. "You said you were going to."

  "I know." Frank swallowed. "Her name was-Janie."

  "That's a big help," Sylvia said. She shivered. "Now what are we going to do?"

  Frank shook his head.

  "Oh, this is monstrous," she said. "That we should be exposed to such-" She trembled with fury.

  Frank embraced her. "Courage," he whispered.

  "I'll get a dog," she said. "A vicious one."

  "No, no," he said, "we'll call the police again. They'll simply have to station someone out here."

  Sylvia began to cry. "It's monstrous," she sobbed, "that's all."

  "Monstrous," he agreed.

  What's that you're humming?" she asked at breakfast.

  He almost spewed out whole wheat toast.

  "Nothing," he said, choking. "Just a song I heard."

  She patted him on the back. "Oh."

  He left the house, mildly shaken. It is monstrous, he thought.

  That morning, Sylvia bought a sign at a hardware store and hammered it into the front lawn. It read NO SOLICITING. She underlined the SOLICITING. Later she went out again and underlined the underline.

  Came right to your door, you say?" asked the FBI man Frank phoned from the office. "Right to the door," repeated Frank, "bold as you please."

  "My, my," said the FBI man. He clucked.

  "Notwithstanding," said Frank sternly, "the police have refused to station a man in our neighborhood."

  "I see," said the FBI man.

  "Something has got to be done," declared Frank. "This is a gross invasion of privacy."

  "It certainly is," said the FBI man, "and we will look into the matter, never fear."

  After Frank had hung up, he returned to his bacon sandwich and thermos of buttermilk.

  "I'm just a poor little-" he had sung before catching himself. Shocked, he totted figures the remainder of his lunch hour.

  The next night it was a perky brunette with a blouse front slashed to forever.

  "No!" said Frank in a ringing voice.

  She wiggled sumptuously. "Why?" she asked.

  "I do not have to explain myself to you!" he said and shut the door, heart pistoning against his chest.

  Then he snapped his fingers and opened the door again. The brunette turned, smiling. "Changed your mind, honey?" she asked.

  "No. I mean yes," said Frank, eyes narrowing. "What's your address?"

  The brunette looked mildly accusing.

  "Now, honey," she said. "You wouldn't be trying to get me in trouble, would you?"

  "She wouldn't tell me," he said
dismally when he returned to the living room.

  Sylvia looked despairing. "I phoned the police again," she said.

  "And-?"

  "And nothing. There's the smell of corruption in this."

  Frank nodded gravely. "You'd better get that dog," he said. He thought of the brunette. "A big one," he added.

  Wowee, that Janie," said Maxwell.

  Frank downshifted vigorously and yawed around a corner on squealing tires. His face was adamantine.

  Maxwell clapped him on the shoulder.

  "Aw, come off it, Frankie-boy," he said, "you're not fooling me any. You're no different from the rest of us."

  "I'll have no part in it," declared Frank, "and that's all there is to it."

  "So keep telling that to the Mrs.," said Maxwell. "But get in a few kicks on the side like the rest of us. Right?"

  "Wrong," said Frank. "All wrong. No wonder the police can't do anything. I'm probably the only willing witness in town."

  Maxwell guffawed.

  It was a raven-haired, limp-lidded vamp that night. On her outfit spangles moved and glittered at strategic points.

  "Hel-lo, honey lamb," she said. "My name's-"

  "What have you done with our dog?" challenged Frank.

  "Why, nothing, honey, nothing," she said. "He's just off getting acquainted with my poodle Winifred. Now about us-"

  Frank shut the door without a word and waited until the twitching had eased before returning to Sylvia and television.

  Semper, by God oh God, he thought as he put on his pajamas later, fidelis.

  The next two nights they sat in the darkened living room and, as soon as the woman rang the doorbell, Sylvia phoned the police.

  "Yes," she whispered, furiously, "they're right out there now. Will you please send a patrol car this instant?"

  Both nights the patrol car arrived after the women had gone.

  "Complicity," muttered Sylvia as she daubed on cold cream. "Plain out-and-out complicity."

  Frank ran cold water over his wrists.

  That day Frank phoned city and state officials who promised to look into the matter.

  That night it was a redhead sheathed in a green knit dress that hugged all that was voluminous and there was much of that.

  "Now, see here-" Frank began.

  "Girls who were here before me," said the redhead, "tell me you're not interested. Well, I always say, where there's a disinterested husband there's a listening wife."

  "Now you see here-" said Frank.

  He stopped as the redhead handed him a card. He looked at it automatically.

  39-26-36

  MARGIE

  (SPECIALTIES)

  BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

  "If you don't want to set it up here, honey," said Margie, "you just meet me in the Cyprian Room of the Hotel Fillmore."

  "I beg your pardon," said Frank and flung the card away.

  "Any evening between six and seven," Margie chirped.

  Frank leaned against the shut door and birds with heated wings buffeted at his face. "Monstrous," he said with a gulp. "Oh, m-mon-strous."

  "Again?" asked Sylvia.

  "But with a difference," he said vengefully. "I have traced them to their lair and tomorrow I shall lead the police there."

  "Oh, Frank!" said Sylvia, embracing him. "You're wonderful."

  "Th-thank you," said Frank.

  When he came out of the house the next morning he found the card on one of the porch steps. He picked it up and slid it into his wallet.

  Sylvia mustn't see it, he thought.

  It would hurt her.

  Besides, he had to keep the porch neat.

  Besides, it was important evidence.

  That evening he sat in a shadowy Cyprian Room booth revolving a glass of sherry between two fingers. Jukebox music softly thrummed; there was the mumble of postwork conversation in the air.

  Now, thought Frank. When Margie arrives, I'll duck into the phone booth and call the police, then keep her occupied in conversation until they come. That's what I'll do. When Margie-

  Margie arrived.

  Frank sat like a Medusa victim. Only his mouth moved. It opened slowly. His gaze rooted on the jutting opulence of Margie as she waggled along the aisle, then came to gelatinous rest on a leather-topped bar stool.

  Five minutes later he cringed out of a side door.

  "Wasn't there?" asked Sylvia for a third time.

  "I told you," snapped Frank, concentrating on his breaded cutlet.

  Sylvia was still a moment. Then her fork clinked down.

  "We'll have to move, then," she said. "Obviously, the authorities have no intention of doing anything."

  "What difference does it make where we live?" he mumbled.

  She didn't reply.

  "I mean," he said, trying to break the painful silence, "well, who knows, maybe it's an inevitable cultural phenomenon. Maybe-"

  "Frank Gussett!" she cried. "Are you defending that awful Exchange?"

  "No, no, of course not," he blurted. "It's execrable. Really! But-well, maybe it's Greece all over again. Maybe it's Rome. Maybe it's-"

  "I don't care what it is!" she cried. "It's awful!"

  He put his hand on hers. "There, there," he said.

  39-26-36, he thought.

  That night, in the frantic dark, there was a desperate reaffirmation of their love.

  "It was nice, wasn't it?" asked Sylvia, plaintively.

  "Of course," he said. 39-26-36.

  That's right!" said Maxwell as they drove to work the next morning. "A cultural phenomenon. You hit it on the head, Frankie-boy. An inevitable goddamn cultural phenomenon. First the houses. Then the lady cab drivers, the girls on street corners, the clubs, the teenage pickups roaming the drive-in movies. Sooner or later they had to branch out more; put it on a door-to-door basis. And naturally, the syndicates are going to run it, pay off complainers. Inevitable. You're so right, Frankie-boy; so right."

  Frank drove on, nodding grimly.

  Over lunch he found himself humming, "Margie. I'm always thinkin' of you-"

  He stopped, shaken. He couldn't finish the meal. He prowled the streets until one, marble-eyed. The mass mind, he thought, that evil old mass mind.

  Before he went into his office he tore the little card to confetti and snowed it into a disposal can.

  In the figures he wrote that afternoon the number 39 cropped up with dismaying regularity.

  Once with an exclamation point.

  I almost think you are defending this-this thing," accused Sylvia. "You and your cultural phenomenons!"

  Frank sat in the living room listening to her bang dishes in the kitchen sink. Cranky old thing, he thought.

  MARGIE

  (specialties)

  Will you stop! he whispered furiously to his mind.

  That night while he was brushing his teeth, he started to sing, "I'm just a poor little-" "Damn!" he muttered to his wild-eyed reflection.

  That night there were dreams. Unusual ones.

  The next day he and Sylvia argued.

  The next day Maxwell told him his system.

  The next day Frank muttered to himself more than once, "I'm so tired of it all."

  The next night the women stopped coming.

  "Is it possible?" said Sylvia. "Are they actually going to leave us alone?"

  Frank held her close. "Looks like it," he said faintly. Oh, I'm despicable, he thought.

  A week went by. No women came. Frank woke daily at six a.m. and did a little dusting and vacuuming before he left for work.

  "I like to help you," he said when Sylvia asked. She looked at him strangely. When he brought home bouquets three nights in a row she put them in water with a quizzical look on her face.

  It was the following Wednesday night.

  The doorbell rang. Frank stiffened. They'd promised to stop coming!

  "I'll get it," he said.

  "Do," she said.

  He clumped to the door and opened it.
/>
  "Evening, sir."

  Frank stared at the handsome, mustached young man in the jaunty sports clothes.

  "I'm from the Exchange," the man said. "Wife home?"

  No Such Thing as a Vampire

  In the early autumn of the year 18-Madame Alexis Gheria awoke one morning to a sense of utmost torpor. For more than a minute, she lay inertly on her back, her dark eyes staring upward. How wasted she felt. It seemed as if her limbs were sheathed in lead. Perhaps she was ill, Petre must examine her and see.

  Drawing in a faint breath, she pressed up slowly on an elbow. As she did, her nightdress slid, rustling, to her waist. How had it come unfastened? she wondered, looking down at herself.

  Quite suddenly, Madame Gheria began to scream.

  In the breakfast room, Dr. Petre Gheria looked up, startled, from his morning paper. In

  an instant, he had pushed his chair back, slung his napkin on the table and was rushing for the hallway. He dashed across its carpeted breadth and mounted the staircase two steps at a time.

  It was a near hysterical Madame Gheria he found sitting on the edge of her bed looking down in horror at her breasts. Across the dilated whiteness of them, a smear of blood lay drying.

  Dr. Gheria dismissed the upstairs maid, who stood frozen in the open doorway, gaping at her mistress. He locked the door and hurried to his wife.

  "Petre!" she gasped.

  "Gently." He helped her lie back across the bloodstained pillow.

  "Petre, what is it?" she begged.

  "Lie still, my dear." His practiced hands moved in swift search over her breasts. Suddenly, his breath choked off. Pressing aside her head, he stared down dumbly at the pinprick lancinations on her neck, the ribbon of tacky blood that twisted downward from them.

  "My throat," Alexis said.

  "No, it's just a-" Dr. Gheria did not complete the sentence. He knew exactly what it was.

  Madame Gheria began to tremble. "Oh, my God, my God," she said.

  Dr. Gheria rose and foundered to the washbasin. Pouring in water, he returned to his wife and washed away the blood. The wound was clearly visible now-two tiny punctures close to the jugular. A grimacing Dr. Gheria touched the mounds of inflamed tissue in which they lay. As he did, his wife groaned terribly and turned her face away.

  "Now listen to me," he said, his voice apparently calm. "We will not succumb, immediately, to superstition, do you hear? There are any number of-"