Free Live Free

by Wolfe, Gene

  Barnes shrugged. “What do you think of it? That’s what seems important to me. You were there and you heard him, and now you say you’re going to make me an offer. What do you think?”

  “I haven’t got anything but guesses,” Stubb said, “but I’ll let you have them—I’ve given them to Madame S. here already.” He took off his glasses, inspected their lenses and put them on again. “Ever since I talked to him, I’ve been wondering what the High Country might mean, because if I knew that, I’d have a pretty good idea what kind of a ticket it would take to get you there. Madame S. has her own ideas, but I’ll lay off them—she can tell you herself if she wants to. In the first place, the High Country could really be another country—Switzerland, maybe, or someplace else that’s got a lot of high ground; maybe the highlands of Scotland. In that case, the ticket’s probably his passport. Anybody buy that?”

  He looked at Barnes and Candy, but there was no reply.

  “Me neither. Here’s another guess. Free could be a hillbilly—he talked like one. Maybe he was from someplace in the Smokies. Anybody like it?”

  Candy said, “Jim, I think he talked different depending on who he was with.”

  “You sure of that?”

  “No. I can’t really put my finger on it. Maybe it was something I just imagined. Only that’s the way it seemed to me. I don’t have a hell of a lot of education, Jim. I dropped out of high school. And I don’t think you do either. So I think maybe when he was around us he talked a little simple, so we’d relax.”

  “Fine. That’s a good point, and I want to come back to it in a minute. For now, let’s hold it and clear the decks a little. Anybody go for the hillbilly idea?”

  “No,” Barnes said. “Go on.”

  “Then where are we?” Stubb paused and looked at each of them in turn. A televised war crashed to a close, and an announcer began to speak earnestly about soft drinks. “If he wasn’t from someplace that’s really high up—here or in some other country—what’s left?”

  “Craziness,” Candy said.

  Barnes swiveled to look at her.

  She said, “You ever talk to those old bag ladies in the street? I have, when I’ve had a fifty or hundred-dollar trick and three or four shots afterwards. I’ll be floating along, and I’ll sit down beside one someplace, or one will sit by me. One I met was a princess. One was the bastard of some President. All of them have some crazy story, and if I ever hear one that makes the bag lady not so important as she looks instead of the other way, I’ll give her a five if I’ve got one. But I don’t think I’ll ever need to.”

  “You really think Free was crazy?”

  Candy thrust her chins forward as she considered. “I’ll have to think it over. But right now, yes, I think maybe he was. He let us into his house, didn’t he?”

  The witch said, “And described us to his neighbor long before he did so, or so it sounded when she spoke of it. Was it only I who heard her? Whatever else may be true, Free was not mad.”

  Stubb nodded. “I don’t think so either. Of course, Candy, what you think is up to you. For me, as far as I can see, if the guy wasn’t really from the mountains someplace, and he wasn’t nuts, there’s only one thing left. He told me he came from the High Country, and he came for adventure, and other people did the same thing, and he had his ticket—that was what he called it—hidden away, but it was too late for him to use it.”

  Barnes said, “Then we look for it. It’s probably in the house someplace.”

  “We will. Or rather, I will, tomorrow when it’s light; and if it’s in the house, I’ll probably find it. But suppose I don’t? Suppose it isn’t in the house at all? He told me one time that everything valuable had been stolen from his bedroom one time when he was away. It would be a lot easier to find the ticket if we could find Free.”

  Candy put in, “You said there was only one thing left, Jim. Lay it on us.”

  Stubb smiled and leaned back. “He called it the High Country. Maybe we’d call it high finance, high society, or the high life. I think Free, and that name’s a ringer if I ever heard one, came from a wealthy old family, that kind that’s been playing ambassador and governor and maybe even President for so long they’ve forgotten who great granddaddy stole the money from in the first place. I think when he got out of Harvard, or maybe even before he got out, he went to the Good Will store and bought some old clothes and went on the bum. A lot of them do. Just for an adventure, like he said. And I think that whatever the reason was, he stayed a whole lot longer than most of them do. Maybe he got mixed up with some woman. Maybe he was dodging something up there where he came from; maybe he didn’t want to spend his life running Amalgamated Copper or whatever it was. Then they decided he was dead, and he was ashamed to go home.”

  He took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve; when he looked up for a moment, his eyes seemed grotesquely small. “But before he started his little adventure, I think he left himself an out—something that would bring him back to Harvard and Newport and all that if he ever wanted to go. Something that would make him rich, really rich, no matter what his family did while he was gone. Even if he was declared legally dead, for example.

  “I’m not going to ask if anybody buys that idea. Somebody does—me. I’ve talked it over a little with Madame S. here, and although she doesn’t see it my way, she agrees that Free wasn’t nuts, and he really did have something very valuable salted away.” The thick lenses back in place, Stubb looked toward the witch. “Right?”

  Her nod was guarded, but unmistakably a nod.

  “So I talked to her. I said, listen here, whatever it was, I’m going after it and you’re going after it too. You’ve got your way of operating and I’ve got mine, and it’s even money we’ll just screw each other up so somebody else gets it or nobody gets it at all. I’ve never doublecrossed a client, and I never will. Let’s join and split it down the middle. She’s a smart lady; she agreed. Now we’re making the same offer to you two. You lived with him just like we did. It’s likely one of you—maybe both of you—heard something we didn’t, something that might be important. Throw in with us, and you’re each in for ten percent of whatever we find. But it’s got to be now, and you’ve got to be willing to work for the partnership as well as talk. Do you want in?”

  “We get ten percent,” Barnes said.

  “Right.”

  “You said you were giving us the same deal you made with Madame Serpentina, and you said the two of you were going to divide it equally.”

  “Divide what?” Stubb snorted. “We don’t even know if anything’s really there. If it is, ten percent could be a fortune.”

  Candy yawned. “Jim, if it was just you, I’d be in. You know that. The way it is …”

  Barnes said, “And I’d be delighted to assist Madame Serpentina; but that would be—uh—a matter of gallantry. This is business, and not very good business, not very profitable business.”

  “Candy said she thought Free was crazy. Do you think so too, Ozzie?”

  Slowly, Barnes shook his head.

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m going to reserve that,” Barnes said. “I’ll tell you in the morning. Maybe.”

  “In the morning?”

  Barnes shrugged. “You’re going to have to let Candy and me stay here. As Madame Serpentina said a few minutes ago, it’s already so late that if it were summer it would be getting light out.”

  Candy said, “That’s right. Dibs on the bathroom.”

  “If you two stay here, you’re going to be sleeping on the floor,” Stubb told them. “I should have said we will—all three of us. Let’s get that straight right now.”

  “What the hell!” The fat girl stared at him openmouthed. “There’s two double beds.”

  “Right. And if more than one person uses them, the maid will report it, and the hotel will know there’s been more than one person staying in the room. We can’t afford that. It’s Madame S.’s room, so she gets a bed. The rest of us
bunk on the floor or in chairs—or not at all.”

  Chapter 19

  EGO VENDO

  Candy was in the bathroom, in the tub. As Barnes lay on his back, almost precisely where the table from which they had eaten had stood, he could hear her singing, and occasionally splashing.

  “Oh, the Captain’s it was lofty,

  And Chips, he always would,

  The Cook’s was hot and greasy,

  But the Mate, he never could!

  They sailed down to Rio,

  They sailed back again,

  But six days out of seven

  Was all she saw of men!”

  He would get up, Barnes thought, and have a shower when she was finished. He wished he had clean underwear. Perhaps Madame Serpentina would not object if he washed what he had, and left them—undershirt. Jockey shorts—to dry on a towel bar. On the shower curtain rod. He would sleep in his pants and shirt. Would Stubb object if he pressed his pants under the mattress of the spare bed? No, he couldn’t do that. Tomorrow—today—he would have to get his bag, his sample cases, from the lockers in the bus station. They were good for only twenty-four hours. They had taken almost the last of his money. Would Madame Serpentina allow him to store them here? Surely she would, even if he couldn’t sleep here again. In the lobby, perhaps, for a time. If only she had gone naked to bed. He would have seen her, no matter how dark the room. He had seen more, much more, through the hole. It didn’t matter now—the house was gone anyway—the black ball swinging. He would have to sell something to get more coins for the lockers. His watch, perhaps. No, that was gone, already gone. The ticket was in his wallet. Free’s ticket? Could that have been what old Free meant? Was it in pawn, whatever he had possessed, the thing he had so obliquely spoken off? Or was it oblique, the knight hooking left, hooking right, the bishop sliding off to one side? Perhaps it only seemed so now, Free’s treasure. Money or bonds, Stubb thought. Madame Serpentina thought it was a crown, though she hadn’t said so. A treasure in a wall; a wall with a sign, Free had said. An unmistakable sign. The picture was in one sample case now, but the hole was no longer behind it. Would never, never be again. He slid aside the picture and reached through, drew forth a treasure … a what? A chest filled with gold and emeralds. Slithering from some childhood memory, an old cobra, white and blind, twined about them. Surely not that. That was not like Free at all, Free who had owned no turban, whose complexion had been, if anything, lighter than his own. And anyway such treasures are found under floors. This was in a wall. Did the others know? Candy, Madame Serpentina? Free had breakfasted with Candy, she said. Or Stubb, Stubb was much too clever to be safe, but he couldn’t sell. He hadn’t sold them on it, and he had wanted to so much. Perhaps because he was too clever, too clearly dangerous even for Candy who loved him.

  No one, Barnes thought, has ever loved me. Possibly Little Ozzie would have if things had been different. I can sell, he thought, but in the end they find they’ve been sold a bill of goods, of bads. I’m never as good as they’ve been led to believe, never earned as much as they thought I would. Still I’ll have it on my stone, he thought, if I can. “He Could Sell.” If I were rich I’d have a gate so I could have a stone shield over it: Meus Vendo. Something like that—the ones who carved the shield would know. They’d have to.

  “The Bosun’s pipe, it felt like tripe,

  The Chaplain’s it was good;

  The Cabin Boy’s was just a toy,

  The Mate, he never could.”

  There was a grunt and a heaving splash—presumably Candy was rising from the tub.

  I wonder if she’s left me any hot water, Barnes thought, then remembered that he was in a hotel, with hot water enough for a thousand bathers. He wondered if she had left any dry towels. Meus vendo, ego salum. Lois had wanted a big house. He would show it to her sometime. “That’s the gatekeeper’s lodge, of course. We could follow the drive up to the main entrance, Lo, but the poplar walk is really nicer, and we might see some deer. That? Just a peacock, we’ve got quite a flock. Going to have one for Christmas dinner, just to thin them out.”

  The bathroom door opened, releasing a gush of steam and blinding light. The towels of the Consort were voluminous indeed, and Candy had contrived, though barely, to wrap herself in one. Wet, her always tousled hair hung in ragamuffin curls. Her immense legs, thick as pillars at the thigh, glowed pink above feet like boiled shrimps. Barnes sat up. “Finished?”

  Candy shook her head. “I just want to borrow a pair of tweezers, if I can. I need to do my eyebrows.”

  The witch spoke from the bed. “I do not have them.”

  “Sure you do. Come on, give me a break. I’ll give them back.”

  “I do not tolerate the touch of iron unless I must.”

  “Listen, I didn’t want to say this, but I’ve seen your eyebrows. They look very nice.”

  “Shall I show you what I use?” the witch asked.

  She threw back the bedclothes and stood up, all in one smooth motion. Her nightdress—if it was in fact a nightdress—was of an unrelieved black, not silk or nylon, Barnes decided, something rougher and less lustrous.

  “Here. They are clam shells. What you call the razor clam.”

  “Clam shells?”

  “You hold them like this. You see, while he lived, the clam made a perfect seal between the halves of his shell. If the finest hair comes between them, it is caught. Come, I will show you.”

  The bathroom door closed behind the two women, leaving the room in darkness again. Barnes put his hands under his head. Backed as it was with soft urethane, the carpet felt as soft as a mattress. Candy’s voice came faintly through the door: “Ouch!” From the doorway where he lay listening for footsteps in the hall, Stubb said, “Well, you never can tell. Sisters under the skin. Who said that?”

  “Kipling.”

  “He was right. You know, you don’t come over as smart, Ozzie, but I think you really are. That stuff with the salesmen was pure genius. The sneezing powder too.”

  “I’m like Candy,” Barnes said. “I want a chance to sleep on it.”

  “Sure.”

  The bathroom door opened and the witch came out. Her nightdress, or whatever it was, was slit up the side—Barnes saw a flash of skin against the dark fabric. She slipped back into bed.

  “Stubb,” Barnes asked, “how do you spell your name?”

  “Ess, tee, ewe, bee, bee. Why do you want to know?”

  “I just wondered. I never came across it before, and I write down a lot of names, taking orders and so on.”

  “There used to be an Eee on the end. We lost it someplace.”

  “Stubbe,” Barnes said, pronouncing it stew-bee. “I think it means a room. Something like that.”

  “Stubb,” Stubb told him. “Now it means me.”

  The witch announced, “I am going to sleep. The one who wakes me will be very sorry.”

  Stubb told her, “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got a bed.”

  “I have a knife also. Anyone who enters this bed will learn where it is.”

  “Sure.”

  No one else spoke. The imposing gate loomed at the end of a road that wound among mountains. Ego Vendo. The red car had right-hand drive and was as long as a bus.

  Little Ozzie peeped out his window as the dark woods gave way, past the wall, to lawn and grounds. “Is there broken glass on top?”

  His father nodded. “I don’t like unexpected company to wake me up.”

  “Gosh!”

  The big car tooled along the drive, rolling over some gleaming substance Barnes could not quite identify. Other drives branched to right and left, and eventually he took one. Lions roared, confined in big, gilded cages like birdcages.

  “We let them roam at night,” he told Little Ozzie. “Here.” He took something from his pocket and hung it around Little Ozzie’s neck on a silver chain. “This’ll protect you if you go outside after dark. Don’t run, though. Let them smell you.”

  “Gee!”


  “When they get used to you, you can even ride on one. Would you like that?”

  A million stories down, the doorman’s whistle blew faintly. Who would want a cab at this time of night? Barnes lifted his wrist, but no scarlet numbers burned there. The last parties were leaving the bar where Candy had sung, the street-level bar, and all the other bars, all over the city. Glass clinked in the bathroom. Madame Serpentina’s toiletries must be in there, he thought, and the fat girl’s using them. Wonder if she minds.

  “Here’s the main bath for your suite. The copper door leads to the hot pool, the marble arch to the cold one. We tried just putting in temperature controls when we built this place, but it took too long to cool the water down or heat it up. Want to see the cold one first? Seals, polar bears, stuff like that? All tame.”

  “Gee, it sounds neat.”

  “It is neat.”

  Little Ozzie thought, his small face puckered with effort. (That was good. He’d have to think when he took the helm at Barnes Industries, Inc.) “The hot one. I want to save the cold one. What’s in the hot one?”

  “Mermaids.”

  The bathroom door opened with another burst of light. “All through, Ozzie. You still want that shower? Hey, you asleep?”

  Barnes sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Almost.”

  “I’m going to sleep over here. That all right with everybody? Jim, you said there was a spare blanket?”

  “In the bottom drawer there,” Stubb told her.

  Barnes got to his feet. “Boy, my suit’s going to look like hell tomorrow.”

  Stubb said, “I’ll show you a place that’ll press it while you wait for fifty cents.”

  “Do you wish a pillow?” the witch asked Candy. “They will not think there is more than one if both pillows are mussed—many sleep with two. I require only one.”