Nightmare in Pink (15 page)

I wondered if I was now a very happy fellow. This would be the lion's den, of course. The quiet and spacious luxury of the inner sanctum, where Mulligan and Hersch kept a pet named Charlie Armister. Marvelous talent for organization.

I lay and wondered how happy I was. How uninhibited. Maybe Mulligan could use me as chauffeur, replacing the greedy and unreliable Harris. But a job like that would require initiative. I would need supervision. Maybe they had gathered us all up and made us all very happy. Terry and Joanna. And Nina.

Then I knew I was not happy at all. I could remember every fraction of every instant with her, every kiss and contour.

No matter what the bastards did, McGee would keep trying. He would keep on clattering on in there, banging the rusty armor, spurring the spavined old steed, waving the mad crooked lance. I rolled up and sat on the edge of the bed. The rug was thick and soft against bare feet. I could see a dressing table, a faint gleam of bottles and jars aligned against the mirrors. I saw a small white fireplace, stood up, swayed for a moment and tottered over to it. There was a rack of shiny fireplace tools. Brass. I selected the poker. As I turned, I saw myself in a mirrored door. Big brown spook with a surgical turban. I tottered and brandished my weapon and whispered, "Tally ho."

I prowled silently to the door that was ajar. It was a bathroom done in pink, gold and white. It was empty. I wrapped a big towel around my waist and knotted it. I went back through the bedroom and put my ear against the closed door. I could hear a low distant murmur of voices.

I opened the door cautiously. It opened onto a dim carpeted hallway. At the end of the hallway was a living room. I could see a segment of it, a drift of smoke, a tailored male shoulder. Several men seemed to be talking at once. Plotting. I heard the rattle of ice in a glass.

The hell with them. I would burst among them and see how many skulls I could crack before they wore me out. I took the brass poker in both hands. I took a deep breath. I headed for that big room, and just as I got there, I let out the war cry of a thousand disreputable years of McGees.

As I yelled, the towel knot came undone. The towel slipped and wrapped around my ankles. I plunged free and went stumbling across the room in wild, head-down run.

I ran into the glass doors of a huge break-front desk loaded with porcelains, crashed, rebounded, cracked myself across the mouth with the handle of the poker, lay dazed and sprawling and looked up into the frozen astonishment on the faces of a dozen men, and on the face of Terry Drummond, and on the face of Nina Gibson, and on the old, worn, dignified face of Constance Trimble Thatcher.

"Whose apartment is this?" I managed to ask In a humble voice.

"We had been making a quiet investigation for some time," he said.

"Who is we?"

"A cooperative venture between interested agencies. Certain small irregularities came to our attention. When Miss Gibson went to the Bureau with your letter, they turned her over to us and she told us what she knew. It… uh… became a matter of greater urgency. We decided she should have protection at all times. The two men with her were the two you assaulted."

"How did I do?"

"Splendidly, until you fell and hit your head on the edge of the table. Mrs. Drummond insisted you be brought here."

"Now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"What are you doing about all this great urgency?"

"Everything is going reasonably well."

"Don't I have the right to know what's going on?"

"What right? For blundering around endangering people?"

"The inherent, God-given right of every total damned fool, Mr. Beggs."

A little smile curled in the deep shadow of the nose.

"What particularly concerns you?"

"What about Charlie?"

"You do have rather a nice instinct for these things. Mrs. Drummond conveyed to me your fears about Mr. Armister, and so we dated our blank warrants and went in two hours ago. We had to break in. There was a suicide note, in his handwriting, beside him, and an empty bottle which had contained sleeping pills. There was no one else there. They pumped him out and gave him stimulants and began walking him. He's quite confused about what happened. He is at the hospital now. His wife is with him."

"What about Mulligan?"

"We believe we will locate him."

"And Bonita Hersch?"

"Apparently Miss Hersch and Mr. Penerra are in the company of Mr. Mulligan. We have two other men in custody, and they seem to have the feeling that the others ran out on them. They may give us some excellent suggestions as to where to look. We believe that Mulligan and company delayed a little too long before trying to leave. Over confidence, probably"

I hesitated before asking the next question. "Toll Valley?"

"What about it?"

"Is it out of business?"

"Hardly. It is a perfectly reliable place. But their Mental Research Wing has been closed down, and all staff persons, those who are well enough at the moment, charged with illegal practices, administering unauthorized medicines, performing unnecessary operations, that sort of thing. I imagine it will be a very lengthy investigation, and public interest may well die down before it is settled one way or another."

"Doctor Varn?"

"Killed himself at two o'clock this afternoon."

"There were some other people out there…"

He took out a small black pocket notebook. "Olan Harris, George Raub, John Benjamin and Doris Wrightson. Yes. They have been moved to other institutions for intensive care. They were all employed by Armister interests in one way or another. I'm in hopes they can be made well enough to testify. If you have no other questions…"

"What about what happened out there?"

The little eyes sighted along that nose. They were as unreadable as raisins. "Apparently there was some sort of mixup where experimental compounds were accidentally used in their commissary department. There was such confusion I doubt if we will ever know exactly what happened. It is even possible that Doctor Varn did it purposely, on an experimental basis."

"There were deaths?"

"Four. One was apparently from heart disease. One fell into a fountain and drowned. One woman stabbed herself with a serving fork. And an attendant apparently died of a fall."

"Is there any record of… my escaping from out there?"

"I don't know what you are talking about. There is no record of your ever having been out there, Mr. McGee. Mrs. Thatcher, who is, by the way, an old friend, assures me that there would certainly never be any reason for you to have been sent to such a place. She thinks you are unstable, but not in any particularly mental way"

"Testimony?"

"From you, Mr. McGee? I think not. I think we can struggle along without you. When we organize these matters, we like to be able to call upon witnesses who will stay within the areas we propose to prosecute."

It puzzled me for a moment, and then I said, "Oh! Charlie."

He nodded his approval. "Of course. What purpose would be gained? We will have enough without that. We don't seek sensational press coverage in these matters. The courts will appoint trustees to make audits and sort everything out and manage the money henceforth. And we do expect that some recovery of monies will be made. If we can lay hands on Mr. Mulligan, I expect he will be glad to arbitrate the matter."

"He should be gutted and broiled."

"You are very savage, but I imagine that disbarment, poverty and total anonymity will be a far more galling fate for Mr. Mulligan."

Someone knocked on the door. Beggs went to the door. He spoke in low tones to someone for a little while and then came back and stood beside my bed. "We expect to take Penerra off a Mexico City flight when it stops in Houston. And Canadian authorities have the Hersch woman. Apparently Mulligan tricked her and abandoned her in Montreal."

"How about Mulligan?"

"She may have some useful information for the man I am sending up there. The report says she is very upset."

"What do you want of me?".

"Mr. McGee, we would all take it as a great favor to everyone concerned if you would gather your strength and go back to Florida where you came from, and keep your mouth shut. As a matter of fact, if you do not keep your mouth shut, I will subpoena you for every single court action arising from this whole mess, and it may take from three to five years to clean up, and I shall call you every time and let you sit and listen to what my people have to listen to, year after year. I assure you, Mr. McGee, that no one has ever made a more dreadful threat to you, or meant it more sincerely"

He smiled, swiveled the bulk of his nose around, and followed it out of the bedroom. Terry came in and talked. Nina came in and talked. Servants brought dinner on a tray. Terry brought wine. Terry and Nina and I talked. The doctor came back and looked me over. He wanted to know what had happened to my mouth. Terry told him I had engaged in mortal combat with a breakfront desk. And lost. He looked at her with great suspicion, and told me I was ridiculously, impossibly, grotesquely healthy. But to get a lot of rest. He left pills, very small lavender ones. I took two. I washed them down with wine. Terry talked. Nina talked. I began to yawn…

In the stilly depths of night and sleep, came a perfumed silken sliding, a warmth, a closeness and cautious caress. "Nina?" I said.

"Yes darling," she whispered.

A slow writhing luxurious warmth under shortie wisp of sheerness. Head tucked into my neck. A long slow arousing, coming from the pill-sleep into the needs of love. It was a sweet hypnosis, without haste. When she was shudderingly readied, and I was turning her to take her, too many little things added up to an almost subliminal wrongness.

Something about the scents of her, something about lengths and textures, something about a less springy feel of her hair against my cheek, something about the way she avoided kissings, something about the deep sweep of curves which did not seem right to my hands, even something about the catch of her breath in response. I stopped and pinned her and ran my hand over her hair and her face. My fingertips felt the soft little serrations on her face.

"Terry!" I whispered.

She hitched herself at me frantically. "Never mind," she said in a gritty whisper. "It's way too late now. Do it. Come on, damn you!" And she tried in a convulsive grasping to join us. I broke her arms and legs away from me, and struggled away from her and stood up and went over to the other side of the room and sat, trembling, on the bench of the dressing table.

I sat and listened to all the foul growling words she could think of to call me. She raved her low-voiced threats. "Jo was going to be generous, and I'll make sure you won't get a dime. And I'll tell that cheap busty little girl of yours that you laid me. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Are you through?"

"God, what a priss you are. You don't deserve an honest-to-God woman. Little shop girls. That's your speed, McGee. You can be a big hero to them. Come back here and prove you're a man."

"Are you through?"

She did not answer. I saw a pale stirring, and then the shape of her, indistinct, sitting on the edge of the bed. In her normal wry mocking tone she said, "Hell, I guess it was worth a try. "

"I'm sorry Terry."

"Am I that repulsive to you?"

"You know better than that."

"Then, just between friends, what put you off?"

"After I knew it was you?"

"After you knew it was me."

"When I knew it was you, I knew it wasn't Nina. That's about the only answer I can give you."

After a silence she said, "I guess that's the only answer there is. In some nutty way I guess I have to admire you. You are a strange animal, McGee. I'm not used to your kind. I don't think I've ever bedded another man who could have quit right then and there."

"It wasn't exactly easy."

"Thank you, ducks. That's some help. But, you know, you have left me in one hell of a condition."

"Go take a cold shower."

"There's romance for you. Well, I got tricky, and it didn't work, and I have only myself to blame."

I saw paleness move toward the door. She stopped at the door and said, "I hereby accuse you of probably being a pretty good man."

"Thank you."

"And I am not a very nice woman."

"You are probably nicer than you are willing to admit Teresa."

"Ho, ho, ho," she said and went out and the latch clicked as she quietly closed the door.

I went back to the bed. It was scented with her. My heart was still running a little fast. I laughed at myself silently. Mocking and derisive. I had defended my honor. Righteous prig. I knew what I should have done. Once I had suspected who it really was, kept my damned mouth shut. Saved astonishment until later.

How many times do you find yourself in bed with a legend? The three unholy McGees-the one I try not to be, and the one I wish I was, and the one I really am. Going ahead with it would have been the one I guess I try not to be.

But sometimes I wish there was less clown in the one I really am. I go about getting walloped with bladders, and setting my own nose on fire. Maybe I want to be a true hero. But whenever I hear that word, the only hero I can think of is Nelson Eddy, yelling into Jeanette's face. And wearing his Yogi Bear hat.

While considering a cold shower for myself, I dropped back into sleep.