Pattern for Panic (14 page)

Then I swore nastily.

“What's the matter?” Monique asked.

“Guess.” We were up the goddam creek without a paddle.

“Paddle with your hands,” I said softly. “Keep this thing moving. If we can get out far enough we ought to be O.K."

She went
clink.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered. “Did you
clink?
"

“Hmmm?”
Clink.

“What the crud are you doing up there?” I said. I carefully scooted forward a couple of feet, banging into a thwart or whatever canoes have. The moon was behind thick storm clouds in the distance. But there was a little illumination and I could see the dim moon glow glimmering on Monique. It was gleaming on her hands. No, it was gleaming on something
in
her hands. Bottles.

“You didn't run nineteen miles with those damn bottles, did you?
Did
you?"

“These?”
Clink.
“I didn't even think about them. I just ran. When you're running, you don't think about bottles."

“Yeah. I guess you're right. Well, paddle."

We paddled. We didn't seem to be going much of any place, but it took me half a minute to catch on. “Well, woman,” I said, “I know you're sitting facing me, but you don't have to paddle at me. We're killing ourselves standing still. What the hell are you, a Communist? You want to go back to shore? Paddle backwards."

We finally got coordinated. I kept looking around toward land, but I didn't spot any more lights. We made pretty good time, considering the silly way we were traveling. Finally we got close to the middle of the lake and just coasted.

“What do we do now?” Monique whispered.

“I don't know,” I whispered back. “I don't know where those guys are; might be anywhere around the shore. Might even be in a boat on the lake."

“Oh, Lord.” She tilted the bottle and I heard it go
glurk, glurk.
She scooted toward me, moving carefully down the middle of the boat. I met her halfway.

“Here,” she said. “You might as well have a drink."

I had a drink. We passed the bottle back and forth a few times, not saying much. Finally Monique gave me the bottle and it was empty. I threw it and the mix bottle away. I felt pretty good.

“How you feel?” I asked her.

“Wonderful."

“You know we almost got killed? Still might.” My tongue was floppy.

“Doesn't worry me like it did."

“Wish I knew where those guys were on shore. Wish we had a paddle. Well, here we are. Alone at last."

“It's kind of peaceful,” she said.

“Peaceful, ho. Bullets cart stumming at you, start coming at you, it'll be peaceful. We're still in trouble. Don't you realize?"

“It's kind of nice. Look, the moon's coming out. Isn't it pretty?"

“Great. That's all we need. Moon's coming out. Only thing worse is for the sun to come out."

“Oh, how silly. The sun can't come out at night. You sound so silly."

“You sound like a real brain, yourself. Running around with bottles. Oh, boy, we're a pair. How in hell did we get out here? You ‘member?"

She didn't say anything. I looked around the shore. I couldn't see any lights. As a matter of fact, I could see very damn little of anything. The moon was fairly bright now, and I looked back at Monique. I squinted at Monique.

“Don't sit like that,” I said. “Please ... don't sit like that."

“How else am I going to sit? And why not?"

“Just don't ask me, see? If you knew what I've been through tonight—just don't, that's all."

“I can't sit any other way. What do you think this is—a yacht? It isn't very comfortable, either."

“Oh, hell,” I said, “sit any damn way you want. What do I care how you sit? But sit still, will you?"

“I told you it's uncomfortable. I've got to get comfortable.” She moved around for a few seconds. “Ah, there, that's better."

“The hell you say. That's worse. That is—oh-h, that's horrible. Hey, listen, Monique. I've known guys to go clear off their trolley from less than this. I've been through hell tonight. Hell. You're asking for it. Listen. Dammit. Pretty quick I'm going to jump in the water. Have a heart, Monique. You doing this on purpose?"

She laughed. “Uh-huh. Didn't you know that? You're awfully cautious. Shell, how did I look in the tub?"

“Well, I thought at first you were dead, you know. That didn't help, right off. But you looked pretty good."

“Pretty good?"

“You looked fine. You looked terrific.” Come to think of it, she didn't look half bad right now.

She said, “Shell, isn't this funny? We're in the park on the lake, in a boat."

“You call this a boat?"

“All alone. You could at least kiss me. You never have. But you've looked at me like you wanted to kiss me. Kiss me."

“Look, will you
stop
sitting like that? I tried to tell you. And if I try kissing you this damn boat will turn over."

“Oh, silly.” She slid forward and got her knees under her, leaned close to me. “I feel so good,” she said. “There now, you can kiss me easy."

“I better kiss you easy. I kiss you hard and we'll sink."

Her mouth covered mine as I got the last word out. Even under the circumstances, the kiss was everything I had imagined Monique's kiss would be. Everything about her, her eyes, lips, body, was fiery hot, and this was like kissing a branding iron. I could feel the boat rocking. I was getting to the point where I didn't care.

Her lips left my mouth and caressed my neck. “Mmmm, Shell,” she said. Minutes went by. “Mmmm.” She whispered in my ear.

“Don't be silly,” I said.

She kissed me some more. All this was a little difficult, what with the canoe rocking, but I was doing very well, I thought. I was fairly proud of myself.

Monique whispered in my ear again.

“Well,” I said, “it sounds impossible."

“No it's not. Put your foot there."

“Oh, now look. I can't do that. I'll turn the boat over."

“No, you won't. I'll ... lean on this side."

“How the devil you going to lean on that side? You know what you're saying?"

“It's the only way."

“There must be another way."

“Oh!” she said. “Well, we can try it, can't we? If it doesn't work, we can try something else."

“But we'll be all wet."

“Oh, Shell! You'll make me
hate
you."

“Well ... can you swim?"

“My God. Can I swim, he says! At a time like this he wants to know can I swim. I never saw such a cautious man."

I said one last time, “O.K., but don't blame me if I turn this stupid boat over."

“You won't."

“I will."

“Shut up. Now, put your foot there."

I put my foot there. I moved maybe three inches and the boat turned over. As the water closed over my fat head I remember thinking: I knew it; I just knew it.

I was pretty well looped from all those drinks, anyway, and I couldn't get oriented for a few seconds. I was paddling around but I wasn't sure where I was going. Pretty quick my hand scraped bottom, though, and I got my directions straight and shot up to the surface. It wasn't much of a shot.

Monique was standing there about a yard away with a very sad expression on her face, and her hands on her hips. I guess they were on her hips; they were out of sight under the water, which only came up to her chest.

“Now you've done it,” she said.

“Now I've done it?
I
did it? Listen, whose idea—"

“And what did you think you were doing down there? The water was swirling around like crazy."

“I was swimming up."

“Oh, goodness. Up. It's only four feet deep here."

“O.K., I was fighting an octopus. What you think I was doing? Down there laughing?"

She sighed. “What a mess,” she said. “Where's the boat?"

I told her what impossible thing she could do with that damnfool boat.

She moved a little closer. She looked odd. She looked just like a bust floating over the water. “Damn, damn,” she said. “Oh-h, damndamn."

Then silence fell between us. A pretty sticky silence. I heard the rumble of thunder. Lightning flashed—and then, the way it usually does, it suddenly started to rain. In ten seconds it was coming down like a waterfall.

“Oh, it's raining,” Monique said.

“That's a clever remark. Yeah, you're a very clever girl. Your conversation keeps opening up new vistas."

“Oh, shut up."

“It's raining, she says. Hell, it could be worse. We might be dry."

“Oh, shut up."

“Well, I suppose we could walk around and see if there's a way out of ... hey, I'm sinking."

“I'm pretty stinking myself."

“Look, stupid, I'm
sinking
. Going to
sink.
"

“Go ahead and sink."

“Ah, Monique, don't talk like that. My feet are stuck in this muck—"

“Oh, shut up."

I seesawed around in the gunk underfoot and finally got up onto terra firma, or whatever the stuff was. “You ready?” I asked Monique.

She wasn't speaking to me.

We started slopping out. Oddly, my gun was still in its holster. That didn't surprise me. Nothing would ever surprise me. From now on I was Unsurprisable Shell Scott.

Slop, slop, we went, and finally we were out. Nobody shot at us. We walked through the park to a road and caught a cab. The driver charged us extra for dripping.

Monique came out of the shower. “You can use it now,” she said a bit frigidly. She was in a towel again.

I went on in, undressed and stepped into the warm stream. This wasn't much of a hotel. When we'd come in, we hadn't looked very well-heeled, but we had our lodging for the night. I soaped up and showered, then went out into the one room, also wearing a towel.

“Clothes are still wet,” I explained. Monique was sitting on the bed.

She glared at me. “You weren't going to put them on, were you? You weren't going to run out on me! You're not going to get away with it!"

“Don't get hysterical, I—"

“You got me in the bathtub!” she shouted. “You got me in the boat! You got me in the lake—and you never
got
me!"

I grinned at her. “Relax, honey. I'm not going anywhere."

“You serious?"

“Sure, I'm serious."

She looked at me for a while, her face softening. “Well, that's better.” She raised a dark eyebrow; her tongue started to move around inside her cheek.

I told her, “I'll admit I said some slightly—unfriendly things back there in the lake. But that ... sort of dampened my spirits. And we are no longer in the lake.” I paused. “So can't we be friends?"

She moistened her scarlet lower lip, looked at me from heavy-lidded eyes, smiled slowly. “Maybe we can,” she said. Her fingers rumbled at her side, then she lifted her body from the bed, slid the towel free, sank down on the bed again.

“At least,” she said, “we can try."

Chapter Eleven

I woke up suddenly, cold perspiration on my body, the sheet clammy beneath me. Sunlight streamed through the open window. Half awake, half asleep, I still could see shadowy figures moving in the nightmare, fantastic and unreal, unearthly, as nightmare figures are.

I had been looking into a sterile, gleaming laboratory filled with curved retorts and huge glass beakers and flickering Bunsen burners, and great vats filled with a slimy, molasses-like brew, a bubbling lava with tenuous, misty threads wriggling from its oily surface and floating through the air like writhing worms. Shaggy, misshapen apes reeled about the white and gleaming room, moving jerkily. The disembodied head of General Lopez hung in the steaming air, a jagged hole gaping from one bloody side, the gray brain hanging, Daliesque, from it to the floor.

Dr. Buffington stood, twice as tall as life, in the center of his laboratory, bending down to peer at first one and then another of the apes, examine the pendant brain, stare at the bubbling vats. A tiny, doll-sized girl danced mechanically, clapping her hands and rolling her dark eyes, head rocking back and forth as if in time to a metronome. Buff lay silently in the corner of the room, her face bloodless, her staring eyes the solid white of boiled eggs.

The apes moved jerkily, crashed into the tables, overturning them as glass shattered noiselessly in the total silence of my dream. The apes fell, one by one, and rolled and shuddered, then lay still, their bodies melting into black putrescence. The boiling vats melted to the floor, the slimy lava pouring endlessly. The gray brain twitched and writhed, pulsed slowly like a feeding snake.

I sat up in bed, rubbed a hand across my cold forehead, and shuddered. Monique stirred restlessly beside me. I got up, washed and dressed, checked my .38 again. I'd cleaned it the best I could before going to sleep, and it was O.K. I awakened Monique.

She blinked at me drowsily, stretched. “Oh-h, did I sleep!” She blinked some more and frowned slightly. “Hi. You look sort of sick."

“I had a dream, a nightmare. Haven't snapped out of it yet, I guess. Look, I'm going to take off. You want anything to eat, or are you going to sleep some more?"

She yawned. “Sleep, I guess. Where are you going?"

“I don't know yet—but don't you go anywhere. I'll call you later.” I remembered there wasn't any phone. “I mean, I'll drop back when I can. I'll see you later, honey.” She nodded and I went out.

While I grabbed some fried Vienna sausage with toast and coffee, I thought about what I'd do today. Last night's events had followed one another too quickly for me to fit them together into any real pattern. I was slowly coming wide awake and I felt good enough, my thoughts clear.

How closely tied together the attempted murder of the General and the kidnapping of Dr. Buffington and his daughter were, I didn't yet know. But there was no longer any doubt in my mind that both events were the work of the same man or group—and that man or group was Communist. For quite a while I had wondered why the doctor would be kidnapped, taken forcibly, and held against his will. I thought of my dream. I remembered the doctor saying, “I refuse to let my brain father such a monster"; and my reply, “Hope nobody ever changes your mind, Doc."