Pattern for Panic (19 page)

I looked at Monique again as lightning hissed like a million snakes no more than a hundred yards away, crackled in the air as it struck the earth and the thunderous, snapping rumble roared in my ears. I jumped, startled. The car was climbing—laboring up the slanting road. I was shaky, nervous. I didn't like what had happened to me, the way I felt. It was foreign to me, strange, unnerving. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't calm myself; and it seemed that when fright started building in me it grew of its own accord. It wasn't like me and I had to fight it constantly.

Lightning flashed farther away, and it was seconds before the booming rumble of thunder reached us. We crested the top of the grade and started down the other side. For just a moment, from the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a gray building to the right, perhaps a mile from us. It was only a blur, the short flash of something looming there in the murk of gathering darkness nearly obscured by the mist and falling rain.

I could feel tension rising inside me, tightening in my belly. I put my right hand on the gun in my pocket, slipped my finger through the trigger guard. Then Monique spoke. I jerked my head around toward her, too quickly, too suddenly for the simple words she spoke, my nerves jangling.

“I'd like a cigarette, Shell."

She was smiling, the smile a caricature painted in red on her white face. I told myself to stop it, relax, take it easy, stop it. Weakness licked at my arms and legs. She kept smiling.

“Sure, Monique. Just a minute."

Something was going to happen. It wasn't thought, or a hunch, but knowledge. I could feel it building, growing, getting closer. I looked at the rearview mirror. Nothing. His eyes weren't staring back at me; he peered through the windshield as the wipers clicked back and forth, monotonously. I remembered suddenly the tiny girl in my dream, her head rocking back and forth like the arm of a metronome. The wipers swished back and forth, and clicked, and clicked.

I felt for the cigarettes, thinking, talking mentally to myself. The gun, keep your hand on the gun, maybe she's not doing anything, maybe it's your imagination. I had put the cigarettes in my right coat pocket I could feel them against the hand holding my revolver. I shook my head, let go of the gun, pulled out cigarettes and transferred them to my left hand, started to put my right hand back into my pocket. The steady, fixed smile was still on Monique's lips.

And then it happened, suddenly, as Monique raised her left hand and touched the driver's shoulder.

The driver slammed on the brakes and the car slowed and swerved as tires caught at the road. I was thrown forward against the front seat, unable to reach my gun. Monique threw herself against me, her hands clutching and scratching, slicing across my face and gouging at my eyes, her lips still pulled away from her white teeth in a parody of that smile.

The car stopped as I smashed my fist against Monique's jaw, knocking her away from me. The driver spun in his seat, a gun in his hand swinging toward me. I shoved my hands toward the gun, felt the jar and pain as the metal hit them, grabbed the gun and twisted it; then Monique was clawing me again, her fingers clutching at my arm. As the driver raised up in the seat, facing me, I lunged toward him and shoved him backward. The gun slipped from my grasp as he fell against the steering wheel, the horn braying for a moment, and then the gun clattered as it dropped to the floor boards in front.

I swung my elbow with all my strength into Monique's belly and she gagged, bending over. The driver pawed toward the gun. I reached for him, got my fingers in his coat and jerked him to me. He tried to turn but I sliced the edge of my right palm along his jaw, a glancing blow. I jerked at his collar as I bent forward over the front seat, spun him partly around, my right hand held high and spread open, blood thundering in my head. He turned toward me as he brought his hands up, digging for my throat, and I swung at his face. My palm sliced his nose and red squirted from it over his mouth as the thin bones crumpled. But I'd struck too low to kill. He was stunned, sagging momentarily—and his face was a foot from mine, the bare, unprotected bridge of his nose suspended before my eyes. I swung my open hand toward it, felt it strike and his body tug against my fingers. I swung once more and dropped him, dead, upon the seat.

Monique was trying to straighten up, her mouth smeared and twisted, eyes fixed on me. I grabbed her throat and slapped her across the face, then back, again, and again. “You bitch. I ought to kill you."

I let her go and she buried her face in her hands. I grabbed her purse and went through it but there was nothing of importance, at least no gun. In a minute she took her hands from her face, looked at me.

I felt hollow, sick inside, drained and empty. “My God, Monique, why?” I said. “Why?"

She stared at me, her face frozen.

“Why?” I said again. “I liked you, Monique; I liked to be with you. You were—hell, I don't know. It was good to touch you, talk to you, kiss you. Like last night. You can't be two people, that had to be you."

“You wouldn't understand."

I didn't answer her for a moment. “Maybe I wouldn't, Monique. Make love to me one night, be wild and warm and savage, even sweet and tender, in bed. And kill me the next."

“We—weren't going to kill you. Shell."

I laughed at her. “You weren't, huh? Maybe not. Maybe you were going to let someone else do it. But you knew damn well I was as good as dead.” I looked around, at the darkening sky, the rain still falling lightly. “What difference does it make who kills me?"

“I'm sorry. Shell."

“You mean you're crazy, you're out of your mind. I think I'm a little crazy myself.” I stopped, let my breathing slow down. “All right, Monique. I guess I didn't fool you for a minute, did I?"

She shook her head. “Not for a minute."

“Where did I slip?"

I didn't really expect her to tell me, but she answered with sudden heat and contempt that surprised me. “A dozen ways. The very first thing you said to me in Turcos was ‘It has been a long time.' You were supposed to ask, ‘How long has it been?' I knew you were a dirty spy the moment you opened your mouth—and as soon as I told the driver to go to the Reforma instead of Juarez, he knew too.” Her lips curled. “You were easy to fool."

She didn't even sound like Monique any longer—and that thought gave me another small shock. Undoubtedly she wasn't Monique, at least that was, almost surely, not her real name. But she had tricked me—and Emilio had, too. Even the not-very-bright cop had easily crossed me up; the passwords and “childish” ritual had served their intended purpose after all.

I felt the nervousness and anxiety building up in me again. I knew most of it was due to whatever had happened to me in Amador's room, but even knowing the reason couldn't stop it from tearing at my confidence, filling me with unfamiliar doubts and fears. And I knew, too, that if I was going to help the doctor and Buff I couldn't go on making mistakes, letting myself be out-maneuvered. The next mistake might be, literally, my last. So, what I didn't know, Monique would have to tell me.

I looked at her, wondering if even now I could hurt her, torture her, fill her with pain until she had to speak. I looked at her lovely, sensual face, beautiful even with the lipstick smeared and her cheeks red where I had slapped her. Then I got the dead man's belt and strapped Monique's wrists and ankles together, pushed the driver to the floor, lifted her to the front seat, and climbed behind the wheel.

As I started the car she said, “Is he—dead?"

“That vanguard of the proletariat you've got your feet on? Yeah, he's dead."

I drove ahead until I could turn off the road, then bumped over rough ground until we were among trees, hidden from cars that might go by. I got out and looked in the Plymouth's trunk, found a piece of fine wire and some tools. I bent and broke the wire, then used it to bind Monique's hands behind her and her legs together. She didn't speak. I carried her out of sight of the car and placed her on the wet ground beside the trunk of a tree. Rain still fell in a drizzle through the limbs above her. I went back to the car and got the dead man, carried him to where Monique was and dropped him heavily in front of her. She shrank back from the limp corpse.

I talked to her, questioned her, but she wouldn't say a word. I was sure that if I could leave her alone with the dead man, as night fell and it grew darker and more quiet here, she'd finally break. But I didn't have that much time, and I had to make her talk. I went back to the car, out of Monique's sight and took off two of the hubcaps.

In a few more minutes I had taken out the car's battery, poured part of the acid from its cells into one hubcap, and replaced the battery. Into the other hubcap I put a mixture of gasoline that I'd squeezed from a rag dipped in the tank and water from the radiator. The diluted acid was strong enough to burn, to blister.

Monique couldn't see me as I carried both hubcaps back behind her. I put one of my improvised bowls behind the tree near which she lay, close enough so I could reach it with my hand, then squatted beside her with the other one.

“Look, Monique. That's acid in there, battery acid. You understand?"

She turned her head toward me, anxious, frightened now.

I said, “Monique, you have one of the loveliest, sultriest, sexiest faces I've ever seen. I know you're proud of it, proud of your beauty. And you should be. Few women are lucky enough to have beauty like yours."

“Shell,” she spoke finally, breathlessly. “What are you doing? What's all this?"

“You know what I want to find out from you. Culebra, his headquarters. Tell me about that, about the Doc and Buff, where they are and what's going on—everything you can possibly tell me—and all this means nothing. This is just in case you won't tell me without coaxing."

She licked her lips. “Don't, Shell. You know I won't tell you anything. I know I'm right, and I won't say anything to help you. You know I won't. Shell, you said you liked me, liked to touch my skin, kiss me, love me."

“That was last night, honey. Will you tell me? Now?"

“No. I will not, Shell. I won't.” She spoke positively, with conviction.

“All right. Then listen, Monique. Here's what you'll have to be able to stand. I'm telling you first because I really don't want to do it. Not to you. But I will."

I looked around. The weather would help. The fact that she had been tense for quite a while, and had just gone through an emotional shock would help, too. And she seemed tired, which was good. The defenses of her mind would be down more than usual. The time was made to order for a little repeated suggestion.

As I had told Doctor Buffington, almost anybody can be made to believe anything in the world, if he's properly prepared, kept in a state of fear and tension, properly conditioned; and if the right weapons—the right words—are used. It's the Soviet method of mind attack, perfected during years of use against its own and enemy peoples. I'd have to do the best I could with what I had at hand; but at least the weather was perfect, the mood was right.

The sun was just a dim glow in the gray sky behind heavy clouds. Rain pattered monotonously on the leaves above and dropped down upon us; lightning flashed far away while thunder rumbled occasionally, faintly, like great whispers. It was nearly dark here in the shadow of the trees.

I pulled the dead man closer to Monique, held her head so that if she looked she'd have to see that waxen face; and if she closed her eyes it would be even worse for her, because the imagination always paints more frightening pictures than the eyes can see.

I held her head in my hands and spoke from behind her back. “Monique, listen,” I said. I spoke very slowly, deliberately letting the words drag while my voice got lower, softer, deeper. “First I'm going to strip you naked, and strip the dead man naked. I think he's dead. I'm almost sure he's dead. And I'll bind you both together, your warm body pressed against his own and your face against his cheek. I'll tie his arms around you, and yours around him, and I'll leave you here alone, like lovers. You'll feel his body cooling, the flesh becoming cool and damp while darkness falls. And then it will be night, dark night, and you'll hear rustling all around you, in the grass and in the branches of the trees. Right now you think you'll know it's only wind, or crawling things, but when it happens you won't know. The sounds will crawl into your mind like worms."

I talked to her for minutes more, softly, as the darkness deepened, and finally I said, “And then, Monique, you'll feel the dead man moving, stirring, his body dead, and yet not dead, against you. It won't be anything unearthly, just rigor mortis, but you'll begin to wonder when his cold arms tighten against your back, pull you close against him like an obscene rape by Death. You'll think he's dead, you'll know he's dead, but still you'll wonder. Look at him, Monique. You can almost see the lips moving now, moving toward your mouth. Later—you'll have time to think, imagine. When it's dark and something rustles near you, when you're here alone with him, when he pulls you close and his body arches and his flesh crawls against your own, you'll know his lips are moving in the blackness, reaching for your mouth—"

"Stop it! Stop it!"

She was almost screaming, and the sudden piercing shriek of her voice startled me. I swallowed, kept talking softly. “But that's not all, Monique.” I fumbled for a leaf, dipped it in the acid and brushed it across the back of her hand. I kept talking till I knew she could feel the acid stinging, then brushed the leaf across her hand again. “Feel that, Monique? The acid? It's burning now, already eating at your skin. Before I leave, leave you here alone with him, there'll be acid on your face to eat your loveliness away, to eat the flesh, dissolve it from your bones. You'll feel it biting, burning, tearing out your eyes. First you'll go blind, and then—"

“Please—Shell—please—please—I know you won't. I know you wouldn't. You're just frightening me, trying to frighten me."