THE HORROR EXPERT
A New Novel by
Frank Long
BELMONT BOOKS
NEW YORK CITY
THE HORROR EXPERT is an original full-length novel
published by special arrangement with the author.
BELMONT BOOKS
First Printing December 1961
© 1961 Belmont Productions, Inc., all rights reserved
BELMONT BOOKS
published by
Belmont Productions, Inc.
66 Leonard Street, New York 13, N. Y.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TWISTED
"She had a secret library of psychological case histories, featuringpathological and brutal departures from normalcy in the area ofsex. She never missed a weird movie. Terror in any form excited herphysically...."
Helen Lathrup had a curious twist in her imagination ... a twist thatneeded an outlet in real life. Close friends found themselves drawninto a nightmare world of terror and guilt. Finally one violent acttriggered an explosion.
"She's the kind of woman who can make a man hate and despisehimself—and hate her even more for making him feel that way. I'm notthe only one she's put a knife into. Do you hear what I'm saying, doyou understand? I'm not her first victim. There were others before me,so many she's probably lost count. But she'll do it once too often.She'll insert the blade so skillfully that at first Number Fifteen orNumber Twenty-two won't feel any pain at all. Just a warm gratefulness,an intoxicating sort of happiness. Then she'll slowly start twistingthe blade back and forth ... back and forth ... until the poor devilhas been tormented beyond endurance. He'll either wrap a nylon stockingaround her beautiful white throat or something worse, something evenuglier, will happen to her. I know exactly how her mind works, I knowevery one of her tricks. I keep seeing her in a strapless evening gown,with that slow, careful smile on her lips. She's very careful about howshe smiles when she has the knife well-sharpened. It's a wanton smile,but much too ladylike and refined to give her the look of a bar pickupor a hip-swinging tramp. Brains and beauty, delicacy of perception,sophistication, grace. But if she were lying in a coffin just how manyof those qualities do you think she'd still possess? Not many, wouldn'tyou say? Not even her beauty ... if someone with a gun took careful aimand made a target of her face."
The voice did not rise above a whisper, but there was cold maliceand bitterness in it, and something even more sinister that seemedto be clamoring for release. It was just one of many millions ofvoices, cordial or angry or completely matter-of-fact that came andwent in the busy conversational life of New York City. It might havecome from almost anywhere—a quickly lifted and re-cradled telephonereceiver perhaps, or from a recording on tape or from the recklesslyconfidential lips of a man or woman seated in a crowded bus, or walkingalong the street in the company of a close friend.
It might even have been addressed to no one in particular—an angryoutburst prompted by some mentally unbalanced person's compulsive needto bare secret, brutally uninhibited thoughts.
But whatever its precise nature and from whatever source arising, itwas quickly lost and swallowed up in the vast conversational hum of acity that was no stranger to startling statements and ugly threats.
Chapter I
The heat had been oppressive all night, but now the streets wereglistening, washed clea