The Face

Someone would remember a certain experience of Nominal Mom’s, and maybe they would look at Fric and think, Here’s a booby in need of a hatch.
        Worse, he had earlier lied to Mr. Truman, and now he would have to admit to that lie.
        [293] He had not reported his weird conversations with Mysterious Caller because even that stuff had seemed too wickedly strange to be believed. He had hoped that if he just talked about a heavy-breathing pervert, Mr. Truman would track back the calls, find the scumbag-assuming that Mysterious Caller was a scumbag-and get to the bottom of this bizarreness.
        Mr. Truman had asked if Fric was telling him everything, and Fric had said, “Sure. It was this breather,” which is where the lie had been told.
        Now Fric would have to admit that he’d not been what cops called “entirely forthcoming,” and cops on TV weren’t happy with dirtbags who withheld information. From then on, Mr. Truman would be rightly suspicious of him, wondering if the son of the biggest movie star in the world was actually just another sleazeball in the making.
        Yet he had to tell Mr. Truman about Mysterious Caller in order to tell him about the Robin Goodfellow who was actually Moloch, and he had to tell him about Moloch in order to prepare him for the story of the totally insane events that had happened in the attic.
        This seemed like way too much crazy stuff to explain to anyone in one big load, let alone to a cynical ex-cop who had seen it all twice too often and who hated unforthcoming slopbuckets. By not telling Mr. Truman the full truth earlier in the evening, Fric had dug a hole for himself, just like stupid people in stupid cop shows were always digging holes for themselves, innocent and guilty alike.
         Lying won’t get you anything but misery.
        Yeah, yeah, yeah.
        The sole proof of his tale was the crumpled photograph of the pretty lady with the gentle smile, which had been thrust into his hands by the man in the mirror.
        He stared at the door to Mr. Truman’s apartment.
        He looked at the photograph.
        The photograph didn’t prove anything. He could have gotten it from anyone, from anywhere.
        [294] If the man in the mirror had given him a magic ring that allowed him to turn into a cat, or had given him a two-headed toad that spoke English out of one head and French out of the other, and sang Britney Spears tunes out of its butt, that would have been proof.
        The photo amounted to nothing. Just a crumpled picture. Nothing more than a portrait of a pretty lady with a great smile, a stranger.
        If Fric reported what had happened in the attic, Mr. Truman would think that he’d been smoking weed. He would lose whatever credibility he currently had.
        Without knocking, he turned away from the door.
        In this battle, he stood alone. Standing alone was nothing new, but it sure was getting tiresome.

CHAPTER 45
        
        HAVING EATEN TOO MUCH CHINESE TAKEOUT, having refreshed his knowledge of the more obscure corners of Palazzo Rospo, having fed the leftovers to the garbage disposal, Corky Laputa prepared a second martini and returned upstairs to the guest bedroom at the back of the house, where Stinky Cheese Man lay in a state of such emaciation that even ravenously hungry vultures would have considered him to be slim pickings and would have declined to sit deathwatch.
        Corky called him Stinky Cheese Man because after many weeks abed, unbathed, he had acquired a stench reminiscent of many things objectionable, including certain particularly strong cheeses.
        A long time had passed since Stinky had produced any solid waste. Odors associated with the bowel had therefore ceased to be an issue.
        Upon first taking the man captive, Corky had catheterized him, with the consequence that urine-soaked bedclothes had never been a problem. The catheter line served a one-gallon glass collection jug beside the bed, which was currently only a quarter full.
        The sour, biting stink resulted largely from weeks of repeated fear sweats left to dry without attention, and from natural skin oils [296] accumulated so long that they had turned rancid. Sponge baths were not among the services that Corky provided.
        Upon entering the bedroom, he put aside his martini and picked up a can of pine-scented disinfectant from the nightstand.
        Stinky closed his eyes