"Being on the air live, risking all, taking a chance of making a fool of
yourself-that keeps the juices flowing.
That's why I hesitate to accept one of these offers to syndicate the
show or to go network with it. They'd want it on tape, all neatly
edited down from two hours to ninety minutes. And that wouldn't be the
same."
The program director, a heavyset man in a white turtleneck sweater and
houndstooth-check slacks, said, "Twenty seconds, Tony."
"Relax," Prine told Harris. "You'll be off in fifteen more minutes."
Harris nodded. Prine seemed friendly-yet he could not shake the feeling
that the night was going to go sour for him, and soon.
Anthony Prine was the host of Manhattan at Midnight, an informal
two-hour-long interview program that originated from a local New York
City station. Manhattan at Midnight provided the same sort of
entertainment to be found on all other talk shows-actors and actresses
plugging their latest movies, authors plugging their latest books,
musicians plugging their latest records, politicians plugging their
latest campaigns (as yet unannounced campaigns and thus unfettered by
the equal-time provisions of the election laws)-except that it presented
a greater number of mind readers and psychics and UFO "experts" than did
most talk shows. Prine was a Believer. He was also damned good at his
job, so good there were rumors ABC wanted to pick him up for a
nationwide audience. He was not so witty as Johnny Carson or so homey
as Mike Douglas, but no one asked better or more probing questions than
he did.
most of the time he was serene, in lazy command of his show; and when
things were going well, he looked somewhat like a slimmed-down Santa
Claus: completely white hair, a round face and merry blue eyes.
He appeared to be incapable of rudeness. However, there were
occasions-no more often than once a night, sometimes only once a
week-when he would lash out at a guest, prove him a liar or in some
other way thoroughly embarrass and humiliate him with a series of
wickedly pointed questions. The attack never lasted more than three or
four minutes, but it was as brutal and as relentless as it was
surprising.
Manhattan at Midnight commanded a large and faithful audience primarily
because of this element Of surprise that magnified the ferocity of
Prine's interrogations. If he had subjected every guest to this abuse,
he would have been a bore; but his calculated style made him as
fascinating as a cobra. Those millions of people who spend most of
their leisure hours in front of a television set apparently enjoyed
secondhand violence more than they did any other form of entertainment.
They watched the police shows to see people beaten, robbed and murdered;
they watched Primarily for those unexpected moments when he bludgeoned a
guest with words that were nearly as devastating as clubs.
He had started twenty-five years earlier as a nightclub comic and
impressionist, doing old jokes and mimicking famous voices in cheap
lounges. He had come a long way.
The director signaled Prine. A red light shone on one camera.
Addressing his unseen audience, Prine said, "I'm talking with Mr. Graham
Hams, a resident of Manhattan who calls himself a 'clairvoyant," a seer
of visions. Is that the proper definition of the term, Mr. Hams?"
"It'll do," Graham said. "Although when you put it that way, it sounds
a bit religious. Which it isn't. I don't attribute my extrasensory
perception to God nor to any other supernatural force."
"As you said earlier, you're convinced-that the clairvoyance is a result
of a head injury you received in a rather serious accident.
Subsequent to that, you began to have these visions. If that's God's
work, His methods are even more roundabout than we might have thought."
Graham smiled. "Precisely."
Now, anyone who reads the newspapers knows that you've been asked to
assist the police in uncovering a clue to the identity of this man they
call the Butcher. But what about your last case, the murder of the
Havelock sisters in Boston? That was very interesting too. Tell us
about that."
Graham shifted uneasily in his chair. He still sensed trouble coming,
but he couldn't imagine what it might be or how he might avoid it.
"The Havelock sisters.. - " -two-year-old Nineteen-year-old Paula and
twenty-two year old paige Havelock had lived together in a cozy Boston
apartment near the university where Paula was an undergraduate student
and where Paige was working for her master's degree in sociology. On
the morning of last November second, Michael Shute had stopped by the
apartment to take Paige to lunch. The date had been made by telephone
the previous evening. Shute and the elder Havelock sister were lovers,
and he had a key to the apartment. When no one responded to the bell,
he decided to let himself in and wait for them.
Inside, however, he discovered that they were at home. Paula and Paige
had been awakened in the night by one or more intruders who had stripped
them naked; pajamas and robes were strewn on the floor. The women had
been tied with a heavy cord, sexually molested and finally shot to death
in their own living room Because the proper authorities were unable to
come up with a single major lead in the case, the parents of the dead
girls got in touch with Graham on the tenth of November and asked for
his assistance. He arrived in Boston two days later. Although the
police were skeptical of his talents-a number of them were downright
hostile toward him-they were anxious to placate the Havelocks, who had
some political influence in the city. He was taken to the sealed
apartment and permitted to examine the scene of the crime. But he got
absolutely nothing from that: no emanations, no psychic visionjust a
chill that slithered down his spine and coiled in his stomach. Later,
under the suspicious gaze of a police property officer, he was allowed
to handle the pillow that the killer had used to muffle the gunshots-and
then the pajamas and the robes that had been found next to the bodies.
As he caressed the blood-stiffened fabric, his paranormal talent
abruptly blossomed; his mind was inundated with clairvoyant images like
a series of choppy, frothing waves breaking on a beach.
Anthony Prine interrupted Graham. "Wait a minute. I think we need some
elaboration on this point. We need to make it much clearer.
Do you mean that the simple act of touching the bloodstained pajamas
caused your clairvoyant visions?"
"No. It didn't cause them. it freed them. The pajamas were like a key
that unlocked the clairvoyant part of my mind. That's a quality common
to nearly all murder weapons and to the last garments worn by the
victims."
"Why do you think that is?"
"I don't know," Graham said.
"You've never thought about it?"
"I've thought about it endlessly," Graham said. "But I've never reached
any conclusions."
Although Prine's voice held not even the slightest note of hostility,
Graham was almost certain that the man was searching for an opening to
launch one of his famous attacks.
For a moment he thought that might be the oncoming trouble which he had
known about, in a somewhat psychic fashion, for the past quarter of an
hour. Then he suddenly understood, through the powers of his sixth
sense, that the trouble would happen to someone else, beyond the walls
of this studio.
'When you touched the pajamas," Prine said, ,did you see the murders as
if they were actually taking place in front of you at that very moment?"