I was awakened shortly after dawn by a loud thumping in the living room.
Someone was at the door. Very slowly and groggily I rolled out of my pleasantly
warm bed. "Why couldn't they have waited until a decent hour?" I stumbled down
the spiraling stairs, while still rubbing sleep from my eyes and trying to pull on my
robe. I was shivering. "Just a minute!" I yelled, as another spurt of knocking began.
"Who's there?"
"Police, Mr. Randolph," replied a rather gruff voice.
I opened the door a crack (It never pays to be too receptive in a city the size
of Los Angeles.) and was shown a brown leather case containing a metal badge and
an identification card. Nodding his head toward his companion, the gruff-voiced
man said, "This is Sgt. Williams and I'm Lieut. Carter. May we come in?" I
motioned them into the living room.
"Nice place you have here," commented Sgt. Williams, make a feeble
attempt at small talk.
I started with the usual amenities. "Would you care for some coffee?"
"No, thank you," answered Lieut. Carter, for the both of them, obviously
intending to stick to business.
"I'm sure you won't mind if I do; I wasn't expecting you quite so early. It
won't take but a second."
While I was making the coffee, I took them in to the minutest detail, trying to
assess my position. I could see them both quite clearly through the louvered
windows of my kitchen. Lieut. Carter was a large man of about forty or forty-five,
whose gruff voice definitely suited him. He was probably in excellent physical
condition, despite the rudimentary tire around his waist, and the gray that was
beginning to streak his straight, black hair at the temples. There was something
decidedly Indian about this man --- the high cheek bones, the siena tint of his skin,
the prominent, hawk-like nose, which most certainly had been broken more than
once, and the thick black hair. He rose and began to pace around the room with his
enormous hands behind his back, his dark eyes, with the look of a born cynic,
casting occasional glances toward the kitchen. I thought, "here is a cop who has
come up the hard way; probably at least a twenty year veteran, who knows all the
angles, and is now trying to size me up. He is no doubt a bachelor, or perhaps,
divorced, and lives for his work. He doesn't care much about clothes; his suit is
right off the rack and doesn't fit too neatly. He'll be the difficult one to convince.
He does disturb one's composure.
Sgt. Williams, on the opposite side of the coin, might be more open minded.
He undoubtedly joined the police force straight out of college --- perhaps majored
in criminology. Calmly relaxed and tidily dressed in a handsome suit of the latest
style, he reminded me of a tall, slim, modern-day Viking. Since he only seemed
slightly older than I and already a sergeant, "This," I pondered, "must be the local
'boy-genius'."
As I returned to the living room, carrying my coffee, I said, "I assume you've
come to see me about the phone call I made last night." I tried to give an air of
confidence, which was a commodity I had a monstrous lack of at the moment. I
seated myself, carefully.
Lieut. Carter, still with his hands behind his back, walked across the gold
plush carpeting and stood looking down at me; from my angle, his size seemed
tremendous, much more than it really was. "How did you know about the girl?"
"I saw it," I answered, taking a sip of my coffee. Thank goodness the cup
wasn't shaking!
"How could you? We know you couldn't have been at the scene; it's simply
impossible. The time of the murder has been fixed at 1:15 A.M. and you called us
from here (We checked the telephone company records.) at 1:22 A.M. No way
could you get from North Hollywood to Westwood in seven minutes." He paused,
the said abruptly, "You know who the murderer is, don't you?"
"No, I don't know him, but it's not necessary for me to know him or to have
been there to be aware of what is happening. I saw it, but not in the usual sense of
the word."
"What do you mean, 'Not in the usual sense of the word'? Either you saw it
or you didn't, and you couldn't have!" His tone was becoming more and more
sharp and his eyes had begun to flash in anger.
"Lieut. Carter," I interrupted calmly and forcefully, "I have a very rare ability
that a minuscule number of people understand. I don't need to be in a certain place
to see or hear something --- I can be miles away, even an ocean away."
An expression of incredulity swept across his face, as the thought glided
through his mind that I was either a nut or a liar, or both. I had even caught Sgt.
Williams attention. He had seemingly been off in a dream world, while his boss had
done all of the talking, I guessed that that must be their normal procedure.
However, now he turned to me. "You mean you're a psychic?" he said skeptically.
Before either of them could get another word in, I continued, "Call it what
you want; I prefer to say that I have a gift or a talent, much as an artist or musician.
You can check it out at U.C.L.A., with the guys that are researching that sort of
stuff; I was one of their test subjects."
The lieutenant glanced at his subordinate with that "what-in-the-world-have-we-got-here" look. "Do you have some place where the sergeant and I could speak
privately?" It was a polite way of saying, "Get lost!"
"Of course," I replied, "right here is perfectly all right. If you will excuse me
while I go up and put some clothes on; it is a bit chilly?" I climbed the stairs to my
bedroom; I could feel their eyes on my back all the way. As I slipped into an old,
dark pair of jeans and a turtle-neck sweater --- suitable for this morning's drab
weather --- I was able to hear their muffled voices below. I couldn't make out their
words, but I could guess. They probably didn't believe a single thing I had said and
were wondering what kind of freak I was. Nevertheless, I knew for sure they would
check out all that I had told them. "That will at least give me a chance to convince
them," I hoped.
"Mr. Randolph!" Sgt. Williams called.
"Yes, just a moment," I shouted, as I slipped on a pair of worn out
moccasins. I have preferred moccasins over any other kind of shoe since my
childhood, perhaps it's a vestige of my Indian blood.
Once I was downstairs and seated again, Lieut. Carter began anew, "Will
you us exactly what you 'saw' last night?" That word, "saw," emerged with no
small amount of difficulty.
I related in detail the episode of this morning's early hours. I could tell by
their facial movements that what I was describing agreed with their facts. When I
had completed my monologue, Lieut. Carter asked, "Is there anything else you
might remember about the assailant?"
"I would say he weighed about 170 lbs. And was maybe 5 ft. 7 or 8. He
wasn't tall, but he had a strong build. Right handed, at least that's the hand that
held the knife. He probably either had dark hair or wore a stocking cap --- there was
enough light to reflect off the knife, but none reflected off his hair. I got the
impression, from his movements, that he might be in his late thirties or forties --- he
didn't move as thought he was very young, but then he's not old."
"Anything else?" piped up Sgt. Williams, after he had jotted everything down
in his pad.
"He's going to kill again; I felt it last night and the time before. He is
consumed with hatred that is becoming more and more twisted and distorted, but
it's not detracting from his intelligence --- if anything, it might be amplifying his
hims mental agility. What I felt during that experience was terrifying; I've never
known that a person was capable of such emotions."
Both of my visitors appeared more than slightly puzzled. Carter was the first
to break the silence. "You mentioned last night to our operator and again just now
that this man has committed two murders; how do you know?"
"I saw the other one too, but I didn't report it because I wasn'[t sure until I
saw it in the morning paper. Besides, it was so hazy I figured I wouldn't be able to
add anything that you didn't already know. After last night, though, I had to do
something; I felt rather guilty that I hadn't reported the other one, but apologizing
won't cure that."
"Tell us now."
"It was about 2:30 in the morning and I had just gone to bed; I was almost
completely asleep --- in that strange state where one is seven-eighths gone, but he
can still hear things, as if they are way off int he distance, in another world. (I could
still hear the party that had been going on all night upstairs.) It's like one is floating
in water; in this condition the weirdest thoughts enter the mind, but, it is also when
I am the most receptive to psychic impressions. Anyway, I was laying there, within
seconds to total oblivion. Suddenly, there was the rear of a not so glamorous night
club. It was quite dark; there was only a dim street light down the alley and the
other dim bulb over the back door of the decaying building. The whole place was
squalid and shabby --- trash was overflowing the bins, paper, bottles, and cans were
scattered all over the area. There was some decrepit furniture piled up a little down
the alley.
"The place was entirely deserted, except for a small, red, foreign car parked
across the alley. A tall red-headed woman exited from this back door, locked it, and
walked toward the automobile; she must have had the night's privilege of locking
up the joint. As she walked, a gust of wind blew open her coat, revealing a very
scant costume with bangles; it was red too. She moved quickly and continuously
glanced around, then fumbled and dropped her keys while trying to unlock the car
door. She slipped into her seat and reached round to push down the lock, as she did
a figure raised up from the back floor and grabbed her around the neck. She
sounded the car horn --- no one was near enough to hear it. She was pulled
screaming into the back seat. They struggled; he had a knife. Then silence. The
black figure remained in the car for at least a couple of more minutes, but then I
awoke.
"I had the sensation that it had really happened, but I thought, 'Maybe this
time it truly is a nightmare.' So, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Besides, as I
said before, it was most indefinite --- as though I was witnessing it through a thick
fog and in slow motion."
Lieut. Carter put on the flase facade of accepting the story, but the cynical
gleam remained in his eyes. Sgt. Williams, on the contrary, was becoming a
believer.
"Is there anything else you can recall, Mr. Randolph?" asked the gruff voice.
"Just one thing," I said after a long pause. "I think the woman was raped ---
at least sort of --- after her death. He was going to do the same to Barbara; did he?"
This statement took them both by complete surprise and caused a stillness of
several seconds duration.
"Could you identify anyone involved in either crime?" Carter questioned.
"Only Barbara; I never got a good look at any of the others, not even the boy
friend."
Carter immediately produced a number of photographs, all of fairly young,
red-headed women. Fortunately, I chose the correct one. Then, having risen, he
asked, more in the tone of an order, "Will you come down to the station sometime
this afternoon to make a formal statement, and, would you consent to a polygraph
test?"
"Yes, I'll be down around two," I replied, showing them to the door, since
they seemed inclined to leave.
"Thank you most sincerely for your help," said Carter in a manner that had a
less than sincere ring to it. As I closed the door, I had the feeling that I was the fly
about to enter the spider's parlor, and I was to learn later that I was quite right.
