The Loo Sanction (26 page)

The Cloisters

“. . .
P
hysical beauty is a worthy goal in its own—unh—right, of course. But there are fringe benefits. The rituals—unh—it entails are almost—unh—as valuable as the ends—unh!” Max Strange rested for a moment at the top of a sit-up. “How many is that?” he asked his masseur.

“Sixty-eight, sir.”

Strange blew out a puff of air and began again. “Sixty-nine—unh—seventy—unh. For instance, Dr. Hemlock, I do my best thinking—unh—when I am sunbathing or exercising, or taking steam.” He dropped back on the exercise table with a grunt. “That's enough.”

As the masseur spread creamy lanolin on Strange's body, Jonathan looked around the exercise room, green and dim through the round glasses that protected his eyes from the ultraviolet rays of the bank of sun lamps surrounding Strange. Leonard and Two-mouths stood near him, and three other of Strange's enforcers leaned against the walls with studied, sassy languor, among them the scowling fellow with yellowish temporary caps on his front teeth. The bulging green glasses made the group look like those man/insect mutants so popular with makers of low budget science fiction films.

Jonathan checked his hate, blanking out the image of Vanessa, closing out Leonard. He had to appear casual and loose.

Strange's face and throat were being massaged with heated lanolin, and his voice was rather constricted as he said, “While I've been taking a little sun and exercise, I've been thinking about you a great deal.”

“That's nice,” Jonathan said. “I brought along some copies of newspapers. Evidence that I have been busy. After these writeups, no one will question the price the Horse will bring.”

“Yes, I've already seen the papers.”

“I suppose you're pleased.”

“To a degree. But all this about putting the Horse on display at the National Gallery. I don't recall our agreeing on that.”

“It was an inspiration of the moment. I told you I would need a certain freedom of movement. After my first couple of contacts, I realized that the critics weren't going to buy my story wholeheartedly without some kind of special kudos. And the idea of lending the authority of the National occurred to me. It cost me most of the ten thousand to arrange it.”

“I see.” Strange stayed the masseur's hand. “That's enough. You may turn off the lights.” He sat up on the edge of the table and took off his protective glasses. “You have a subtle mind, Dr. Hemlock.”

“Thank you.”

Strange looked at him without expression. “Yes . . . a subtle mind. Come along. We'll take a little steam together. Do you a world of good.”

“Not just now, thanks.”

Strange glanced to the floor. “It's a pity, is it not, that most attempts to phrase politely run the risk of rhetorical ambiguity.”

They were an unlikely assortment of form and flesh, the four of them sitting in the billowing steam, towels about their waists. Raw material for Daumier. There was the rotisserie-tanned, classically muscled body of Strange—youngest and oldest of them all; Jonathan's lean, sinewy mountain climber's physique; the thin and brittle frame of the two-mouthed weasel—fish-belly white and hairless, a dried chicken carcass, a xylophone of ribs, one mouth grinning from social discomfort, the other pouting for the same reason; and the primate hulk of Leonard with its thick, short neck and stanchion legs—tufts of hair bristling from the sloping shoulders, his head tilted back, his heavy-lidded eyes ever upon Jonathan.

Until Strange spoke, the silence had been accented by the monotonous hiss of entering steam. “I am displeased with you, Dr. Hemlock. You shouldn't have arranged to put the
Horse
on public display without my permission.”

“Well, there's not much we can do about that now.”

“True. Any change in your widely publicized plan would attract attention. I have no choice. And
that
is why I am displeased.”

“Don't worry. The security system in the National is among the best in the world.”

“That is not the point.”

“What the hell
is
the point?”

Strange turned to the thin-chested man with two mouths. “Darling, go fetch that little leather box, there's a good man.”

The weaselly serf rose and left the chamber, swirling eddies of vapor in his wake.

“Darling?” Jonathan couldn't help asking.

“His name. Kenneth Darling. I know, I know. Fate delights in her little ironies. But at this moment I am less interested in the deviousness of Fate than I am in yours.

“Any particular deviousness?” Might as well play it out.

Strange leaned his head back against the sweating tile wall and closed his eyes. “Where have you been for the past two days?”

“Arranging for the auction. Contacting critics and reviewers. Setting up the National Gallery display. Earning my money, really.”

“Conscientious man.”

“Greedy man. What's troubling you, Max?”

“I had you followed from the time you left here.”

“Nu?”

“And again, as before, my man lost you in the maze of streets in Covent Garden.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I'm sorry your people are incompetent. If I'd known the idiot was following me, I'd have left a trail of bread crumbs.”

“For two days, you did not return to either your Baker Street flat or the one in Mayfair. Where were you?”

Jonathan sighed deeply, then spoke slowly and clearly, as though talking to a backward child or a travel agent. “After making the arrangements for the
Horse,
I went to ground down in Brighton. Why, you will now ask, did I go to ground? I'll tell you why I went to ground. It seemed wise to maintain as low a profile as possible until the thing was done. What did I do in Brighton? Well, I read a bit. And I took long walks through The Lanes. And one evening, I—”

“Very well!”

“Are you satisfied?”

“Don't talk like one of my employees.”

“By the way, where are your employees? When I came in, the place seemed deserted.”

“So it is, save for a small staff. The Cloisters is no longer in business.”

“That will leave a great gap in the social lives of our betters.”

Strange waved off this oblique line of conversation with the back of his hand. “When you returned to London this morning, you went to your Baker Street apartment. From there you took a taxi to Miss Vanessa Dyke's house in Putney.”

“Right. Right. The fare was one pound six—one fifty with tip. The driver thought the government ought to ban private cars from the city. Particularly when there is fog—which, by the way, he ascribed to massive ice floes broken off the polar cap in result of recent Apollo moon shots—”

“Please!”

“I don't want you to think I'm holding any details back.”

“While in Putney, you undoubtedly discovered the accident that had befallen Miss Dyke.”

Jonathan glanced at Leonard. “Accident. Yes.”

“It must seem to you,” Strange said, stretching his legs over the pine bench until the muscles stood out, “that our treatment of Miss Dyke was overreactive. After all, she was guilty only of setting you on our path at a time when we were actively seeking you out ourselves. But the years have taught me that violence and terror, if they are to be effective deterrents, must be exercised systematically and inexorably. We propose certain rules of conduct, and we have to enforce them without reference to individual motives. In this we operate as governments do. It is our good fortune to have Leonard here to carry out the punishments. I loose him like an ineluctable Fury, and punishment becomes both automatic and profound. The effect of Miss Dyke's action is of no weight in this. She was punished for her intention.”

Cold air entered the steam room, and the vapor undulated as Darling returned carrying a small black leather case.

“Ah!” said Strange. “Here we are. Leonard, will you give Darling a hand?”

Leonard rose and threw his thick arms around Jonathan's chest, locking his hands in front and pinning Jonathan's arms to his sides. After the first automatic reaction, resistance to that python grip was pointless. With fumbling haste, Darling opened the case, took out a syringe, and injected its contents into Jonathan's shoulder.

“You may let him go, Leonard. But if he makes the slightest gesture of aggression toward me, I want you to beat him, hurting him rather a lot.” Strange looked obliquely at Jonathan. “It's not that I'm a physical coward, Dr. Hemlock. But it would be a great pity if you were to damage my face. Surely, as a lover of beauty, you understand.”

Jonathan breathed as shallowly as possible, fighting to bring his pulse rate down and to clear his mind. “What's going on, Strange?”

Strange laughed. “Oh, do come on! The midnight bell has rung. Time to stop the dance and remove our masks. Don't worry about the hypodermic. It won't kill you. In fact, there will be no effect at all for five or ten minutes. And even then, you'll find it quite pleasant. The little girl you toyed with the other evening was under a similar drug. It relaxes you, calms your aggressive impulses, makes you docile and obedient.”

Jonathan felt nothing as yet. “Why are you doing this?”

“Oh, I think you've served your purpose now, don't you? And you should be pleased to know that your plans will go ahead just as you wanted. In an hour the armored van will arrive to carry the
Horse
to the National Gallery, where it will be the object of attention by the ogling masses. And tomorrow it will be on the floor of Sotheby's. We've known about you all along, of course. About your friends in Loo. About the pompous old vicar.”

Did he know about Maggie? That was Jonathan's primary worry.

“Tell me, Jonathan—I feel I may use your first name now—is your mind still clear enough to reason out why I have let you go so long?”

“It's fairly obvious. You had a real problem in arranging the open auction of the films without alerting the British authorities.”

“Precisely. And the good Lord sent you along to do it for us—
and
with the benediction of the Loo organization too! Obviously, you intended to intercept the Marini
Horse
while it was in the National Gallery. But now you won't have to trouble yourself about that. Tomorrow, a little after noon, the gavel falls. The British government, with all its trade concessions, defense secrets, wealth, and problems, becomes the property of the highest bidder. And Amazing Grace and I disappear.”

“But if I don't show up with the films . . .” Jonathan stopped and frowned. That's odd, he thought. He had forgotten what he was going to say.

Strange laughed. “Naturally, I have considered that. Your vicar knows the films are in the
Horse,
and if you don't bring them, he will be constrained to make other arrangements—loathe though he is to bring the police in on this. I have taken that possibility into account, and I have neutralized it. And of course I'm neutralizing you. You won't be going anywhere near the National Gallery.”

Jonathan somehow didn't care. The steam felt very good. Caressing. It penetrated his muscles and tingled them pleasantly. There was nothing to be afraid of. Maximilian Strange was a handsome man, a cultured man . . . What did that have to do with anything? “Do I, ah . . .” What was he going to say? “Oh, yes! Do I die?”

“Oh, I imagine so,” Strange said with warm concern. “But not just now.”

“I see,” Jonathan said, recognizing the profound meaning in these words. “And if I don't die now,” he reasoned, “then I die later. I mean, everyone dies sooner or later, you know.” He felt he had them there. No one could deny that.

“We'll keep you around for a while, just in case something goes wrong. You may be of some bargaining value.”

That was right, Jonathan thought. He should have thought of that himself. That was a very good idea.

“Help him up to his room,” the steam said.

“No, that's all right,” Jonathan's voice said. “Thank you, but that's all right. I can . . .” But he couldn't. He couldn't stand up. And that was amazingly funny.

No, it was not funny. It was really very serious. And dangerous.

But funny.

A helpful man named Darling—that's funny too—helped Jonathan to his feet. Leonard looked on benevolently.

“Don't dress him,” the steam said thoughtfully. “Nudity has a great psychological deterrent. No one is brave when he is nude.”

That was wise, really. How could you be a hero with your ass hanging out? Poor Leonard. He couldn't talk. But he had killed Vanessa! Don't forget that. And these other goons, they had held her onto the table. Jonathan would teach them.

“Leonard,” he said soapily, tapping his knuckle against the tree-trunk chest, “you're dumb. You know that? You are as dumb as a bullet. You are, in fact, a dumdum.”

“Come along, mate.” Darling led him out of the steam room.

“It's cold out here, Darling. I need my attaché case to keep me warm.” Would they see through that?

“Just come along with me, mate. You're drunk with the dope.” Darling's voice had an odd echo. Then Jonathan realized why. He had two mouths! Naturally, he echoed.

The stairs were very difficult to climb. It was the undulations, of course. The room they led him to was the one he had been in the other evening. With Maggie.

Mustn't mention her name!

Jonathan was guided to the bed, where he lay down slowly, very slowly, deeply.

“Wait a minute!”

Darling answered from everywhere. “What is it?”

“I don't seem to have my attaché case. I need it . . . for a pillow.”

“Look, mate. Give over, won't you? I've already been through it and took out the guns. Mr. Strange give 'em to me as a present.”

Jonathan was deeply disappointed. “That's too bad. I wanted to shoot you all. You know what I mean?”