Horror in the Heights - Recap

There are sections of Chicago the guidebooks don’t refer to. The guidebooks’ function is to sell the glamour and excitement of our Windy City, and whichever way you dress it up, old age is neither glamorous nor exciting. Roosevelt Heights used to be a plush neighborhood, but the plush neighbors moved uptown, leaving the old people. And old people don’t move easily; they become set in their surroundings. Their friends live next door, they’ve been going to the same store for twenty-five years, and probably most important of all, they can’t afford to relocate even if they wanted to. The battle of fixed income versus galloping inflation never ends. But even inflation took a backseat here in Roosevelt Heights, as a far greater fear overtook the residents, a terror which effectively dwarfed everything else.

On the night of October 14th Harry Starman walks into the Kentucky Maid Packing Corporation. He’s there to break the law – the Hebrew law against gambling on Friday night. Harry passes through a roomful of meatpacking refuse and the rats inevitably attracted to such leavings. Revolted, he quickens his pace through the room and up the stairs to a small rear office. Harry and his friends have gathered here to play a little penny-ante poker as well as escape their wives and the temple.

Buck Fineman is a terrible card player. That and his position as night watchman at Kentucky Maid Packing are the reasons he’s allowed in the game. Tonight Harry has brought wine. Buck goes to retrieve the wine glasses. As he collects them he sees someone crouched in the corner. Calling out he attracts the person’s attention. The man straightens and Buck sees Rabbi Shulman. Buck isn’t sure why the rabbi is here but believes his wife might be responsible and hastens to reassure his rabbi that the game is only for small change. The rabbi says nothing, but approaches closer and opens his arms wide...

It’s been a quiet week at the INS or the report of an old man dropping dead wouldn’t even draw Carl’s attention. But it has and Carl enters the Kentucky Maid scrap room to get the story. He buttonholes the uniformed officer there. According to the officer the victim died of a heart attack, or maybe just old age and boredom. Carl pulls back the blanket against the advice of the officer, and sarcastically endorses the claim. Whatever Carl has seen, it isn’t old age and boredom. The officer’s believes that after the man fell, rats set upon him.

The three remaining card players may know more so Carl talks to them next. Harry Starman is very concerned about the rats. But he adds something: it was only a half hour between the time Buck went for the glassware and the time his poker buddies found him chewed by rats. The policeman says it must have been longer since rats don’t work that fast. Playing up the rat imagery, Karl persuades Tony to let him put the story on the wire. This could start a series of articles about the hazards of being old in Chicago.

Emily is filling in on the advice column this week. She lets Carl in on a secret – the job is just a stepping-stone to her goal of writing a detective novel. The advice column exposes her to “life experience” in the form of people’s problems. And of course, she has free access to typewriters. She shares a letter about a man with vitality problems. Carl tells her the man should get hormone shots.

As Carl heads home for the evening Sol and Miriam Goldstein are leaving a movie, “The Fever.” Sol’s feet hurt and he wants to take a shortcut through an alley but Miriam objects. Buck Fineman’s death has unnerved her. She thinks a person who is scrawling swastikas all over the neighborhood killed Fineman. After she refuses the shortcut Sol starts down the alley and Miriam quickly decides she feels safer with him than alone. Halfway down the alley something makes a lot of noise. A cat screams. And then a police officer steps from the shadows. The Goldsteins breath a sigh of relief as the officer spreads his arms wide in greeting...

Someone hysterical telephones Carl. The little bit he can decipher draws him to the crime scene. There are two bodies this time. From the same cynical Carl learns these are the mortal remains of the Goldsteins. As he moves about the scene taking pictures, Harry Starman emerges. He is the hysterical caller. He claims to know who has killed the Goldsteins and Buck Fineman. It is the man who owns the “Lakshmi Restaurant,” an Indian eatery that does seem somewhat out of place in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Starman believes the man is a Nazi. After the man moved in a couple of months ago (just after rats chewed up Mrs. Resnick) the swastikas began to appear. The other night Harry saw proof: the man painting swastikas around his home behind the restaurant.

Carl and Harry walk to the alley behind the restaurant and Carl climbs some wooden crates. Harry is right, twisted crosses decorate nearly every surface. Carl decides to get a better look but Harry can’t climb so he waits in the alley. Besides apparent Nazi symbolism, the yard contains trash and debris. A short metal stairway leads to a locked door. Carl takes some pictures.

In the alley Harry seats himself on a crate to wait. No sooner has he done so than Carl reappears from the front of the restaurant. Harry’s not sure how Carl got around there but someone else is even more puzzled: Carl, still inside the fence, hears Harry call out to him as if he was in the alley. Moments later, Carl hears a kind of growl then a short sharp scream. Quickly clambering over the wall, Carl finds Harry’s body in the alley. An elderly man appears from around the corner. When he spots Carl he and utters the word “rakshasa.” He disappears before Carl can talk to him. Returning to poor Harry’s body, Carl photographs it just as the police arrive.

The police question Carl at headquarters and he recounts his tale. When he reaches the point where Harry screamed, he belts out an imitation. Tony arrives at that instant and misinterprets the situation. He has just bailed Kolchak out and thinks the police are roughing him up. Carl’s statement is cut short as Tony escorts him out.

The police stick with their rat theory. But Carl wasn’t certain that was true when Buck Fineman died, was even less sure when the Goldsteins met their end, and is now certain the theory is wrong. Rats cannot devour a man in the time needed to take a few snapshots. To check his facts, Carl finds an exterminator, and asks how long it would take a pack of rats to devour a human sized carcass. The exterminator tells him a minute is far too brief a time.

Carl visits the Lakshmi “Food of India” restaurant and orders beef curry. He is the only customer, which permits the waiter to answer a few of his questions. The waiter thinks the old man who owns the place is crazy. Pressed for an example the waiter recounts how the owner was talking to an old local and asked whether he saw any of his friends or relatives hanging around at night. And when the local told him all his friends and relatives were dead, the old man replied that that didn’t matter and did he see them? Carl also asks if the man ever mentioned a “rakoosha” or a “rakaka” or “raka…something”. But the waiter says no. Before Carl can take the interview farther the curried beef kicks in and he’s forced to seek a bathroom.

Looking for the bathroom Carl finds himself in garbage strewn yard he last saw just before Harry Starman’s died. There’s another door next to the backdoor of “Lakshmi,” and Carl forces it with little difficulty. Concrete steps lead around and down to the basement. To the left is a long and largely empty warehouse. To the right is a small, spare apartment. Many candles burn here and there are several wall hangings depicting swastikas – some bent right, others left. Carl begins to take pictures. On the concrete stairs ancient feet shuffle painfully downwards. In the left hand of this visitor is a large crossbow, cocked and loaded with a long bolt.

Carl whirls to the sound of a shuffle, in time to photograph the old man he saw earlier. The old man lets fly a crossbow bolt but his aim is bad and the shot goes wide. Carl wastes no time in leaving. Behind him the old man is despondent as he begs forgiveness from Brahma.

Tony is anxious for some actual writing about Roosevelt Heights. Carl has made a lot of noise but so far has not followed through. Carl might have a new angle based on his fresh pictures. It turns out the Nazi’s did not invent the swastika. It’s an ancient Hindu sign used to ward off evil spirits.

While Carl begins researching this Officers York and Boxman patrol Roosevelt Heights. They stop to investigate a furtive movement in an alley. Someone lurks there behind a large packing case. The figure steps into the open and Boxman sees Sergeant DeVito. This surprises him since last he’d heard DeVito was still in the hospital. Meanwhile York sees his mother. York’s mother ducks back behind the crate and he follows her. There are some growls. Boxman draws his service weapon and closes. Sergeant DeVito is now bent over the body of his partner York. DeVito straightens and turns. There is blood at the corners of his mouth. Boxman isn’t sure what’s going on, but he knows he doesn’t want DeVito any closer. But DeVito does approach, slowly and purposefully. Finally, Boxman empties his weapon into DeVito, without effect...

Carl drops by a gallery to visit Lane Merriott, expert on East Indian Art. Merriott is discussing a purchase with customers when Carl irritates him enough to interrupt that transaction. He tells Carl the first syllable, “rak,” isn’t enough to go on as there are “a plethora” of words in the Indian language beginning with that syllable. But the creature’s fondness for human flesh enables Merriott to identify it instantly; it is a rakshasa. The rakshasa are disciples of Ravana a monstrous evil spirit. They are evil spirits that can possess a man’s mind and make him see what they want him to see. After Ravana was destroyed the rakshasa drifted into a timeless void from which they periodically send emissaries to see if the time is right for their return. The time will be right, according to Merriott, when the world is teetering on the brink of disaster. Carl suggests the horde of monsters might be getting their marching orders right now. Legend claims one might destroy a rakshasa by shooting it with a crossbow bolt that has been blessed by divine Brahma.

Carl writes the story. Predictably, Tony dismisses it as drivel. Carl insists it go on the wire as is. He believes that if even one paper picks it up some bloodshed will be prevented. But Tony has no interest in the story at all.

Carl returns to the filthy yard behind the Lakshmi, and climbs back down to the old man’s apartment. The old man is dying, lying on his bed and praying to Brahma. He apologizes for shooting at Carl, blaming poor eyesight and the infirmities of age. He tells Carl that he serves Great Brahma by traveling the world and hunting the rakshasa. For sixty years he has sought the monsters and in that time dispatched a few of them. But now his time is over. He is helpless and he can sense this rakshasa lurking about waiting to strike. He urges Carl to depart before the monster arrives and he gives Carl his crossbow and blessed bolts. He also warns Carl to be careful, for the rakshasa will present himself as someone Carl trusts. Carl cynically tells the old man there’s no danger, for he trusts no one. The old man is still anxious, telling Carl that the rakshasa’s power allows it to find someone its victim trusts.

A creaking from the backyard door drives Carl into the warehouse half of the basement, where he wends his way among the crates and cartons. Finally he sees a shadow in a darkened corner. Then Emily emerges. She tells Carl she has followed him to gather source material for her novel. Carl isn’t so sure. He warns her not to come closer, threatening to shoot her if she does but she continues to advance. Finally Carl shoots. For a moment Emily is wide-eyed with pain, and then it isn’t Emily any longer but a tall, fanged monster covered in matted grey fur. It gazes at Carl in dull surprise for a moment before it pitches over dead.

Back at INS, Carl finishes dictating his story into his tape recorder. Miss Emily enters dressed to the nines; a gentleman is with her. He tells Carl that Miss Emily gives very good advice and specifically that her recommendation to get hormone shots was spot on. Now he’s taking Emily out on a date. Realizing this is the writer who had vitality problems, Carl offers Miss Emily a cheery and perhaps slightly lascivious good luck wish before returning to his narration.

I’d like to tell Miss Emily that the rakshasa appeared to me as her. According to the legend, it meant that I trusted her. But then I would have also had to tell her that I shot a steel arrow straight into her. I don’t think she would have appreciated that. But in the final analysis, what’s the difference. As long as we all trust each other, why should anyone’s feelings be bruised? And if you happen to be walking a lonely country road one night and you see your favorite aunt coming toward you…good luck to you, too!

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