Puzzle for Fiends

by Patrick Quentin

  Iris… Iris… Iris.... Iris…

  Chapter 3

  After a few moments the violence of the iris reaction subsided. But it was still there. Even when I wasn’t looking at them, I was conscious of the tall blue and white flowers on the table, and the word stuck in the back of my mind, firmly implanted as a bullet in a dead man’s chest.

  I was still poor at gauging time. For an indefinite period I lay in bed and gradually the smug sensation of well-being returned. The run-of-the-mill amnesiac didn’t come back to such an ideal existence as this. I had a charming mother and a beautiful house. I was rich and they were sending my wife up to me. I had passed through that first, unphysical phase of returning to consciousness. In spite of the faint ache in my head and the cramping casts, I could feel the blood running in my veins again. And the thought of my wife excited my blood.

  Selena. I played with the name speculatively. It was one of those tantalizing names. Selena could be tall and slinky with cool green eyes. Selena could be prissy too, bony, spinsterish, with a tight mouth. I was caught up in a sudden unease. Things had been too good to be true so far. There had to be a hitch. What if Selena was the hitch? A bony, spinsterish wife with a tight mouth.

  The suspense was almost unendurable now. To combat that cold, elbowy image, I conjured up a host of voluptuous fancies. Selena had to be a brunette, I told myself. Wasn’t there a certain type of brunette I was crazy about? What was the word? It was on the tip of my tongue.

  Sultry. That was it. Selena had to be a sultry brunette.

  The door was kicked open. A young girl crossed the threshold. In one hand she carried a small cocktail shaker full of drinks. In the other she held a single empty glass. For a moment she stood there, quite still, by the door, staring at me.

  I stared back, feeling wonderful. She was about twenty-two. She was wearing a dashingly cut black suit with broad shoulders and a skirt that stopped just below the knee showing long straight legs. She had one of those figures that fit under the arm. Her hair, blue-black as tar, fell glossily around her shoulders. She had a face like a chic French doll with a red painted cupid’s bow mouth and brown, uninhibited eyes.

  She crossed to the bed and sat down next to the roses. My mother was an overblown rose. This girl was a cool, red bud. She still clung on to the shaker and the glass, still stared at me appraisingly. Suddenly she smiled.

  “Hello, Gordy, you dreary object.”

  She put the shaker and the glass down, and she moved over onto the spread close to me and kissed me on the mouth. Her lips were soft and fragrant. Her young breasts pressed lightly against my pajamas. I brought my one good arm up and slipped it around her, bringing her closer. I went on kissing her. She squirmed away.

  “Hey, Gordy. A sister’s a sister.”

  “Sister?”

  She shook back her hair and sat watching me broodingly. “Of course I’m your sister. Who d’you think I am? Your brother?”

  I felt dejected. “The doctor said he was sending my wife up.”

  “Oh, Selena.” She shrugged. “She’s off somewhere with Jan. Nate couldn’t find her.” She twisted around and poured herself a Manhattan. She held the glass by its stem, still watching me. “Mother said you’d lost your memory. Boy, you certainly have.” She laughed, a deep, rich laugh, my mother’s laugh, young. “If I had your memories, I guess I’d lose them too.”

  Her skin was white and soft as my mother’s. Against it, the red mouth was fascinating. I knew it wasn’t in the book to feel about your sister the way I was feeling. I put it down to the amnesia.

  “Okay, sister,” I said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Marny. “She crossed her legs, the skirt slipping back from her knees. “Really, this is quite intriguing. Let’s talk about me. What shall I give with?”

  I reached out for her drink. “You could give with that cocktail.”

  She pushed my hand away, shaking her head. “Uhuh.”

  “Why not?”

  “My dear Gordy, one of the things you’re so conveniently forgetting is that we’re making a good boy of you.”

  “I’m a bad boy then?”

  “Terrifically. Didn’t you know?”

  “I don’t know anything. Remember? What’s wrong with me? Drink too much?”

  Marny’s impervious young eyes stared. “My dear, you’ve been potted off and on since you were sixteen. You were stinking the night you had your accident. Now the word’s gone forth. No drink for Gordy. Nate says so.”

  I suppose I should have been discouraged to hear that about myself, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t remember any especial interest in liquor and I didn’t have any particular desire for her drink. I’d only asked to be sociable.

  I said: “Tell me more about myself. What am I except a drunk?”

  “I guess the police word for you’s playboy. But to me, darling, you’re just a lush. A sweet one for those who like lushes. Selena likes lushes.”

  “Selena? Oh yes, my wife.” I paused. “Do you like me?”

  Marny swallowed half her drink. “I’ve always thought you were quite a louse.”

  “Why?”

  She grinned a sudden, spontaneous grin. “Wait till your memory comes back, dear. Then you won’t have to be told.”

  Her hand moved to tug her skirt down. It made me conscious of her knees. I said:

  “If you’re my sister, I wish you’d go sit somewhere else. You—you unnerve me.”

  “Really, Gordy.” Marny twisted back onto the chair by the roses. “Nate says I’m to try to refresh your memory. Shall I tell your tales from your childhood?”

  “Tell me anything you like.”

  “Check if I strike a chord.” She paused, reflecting. “Remember the time when...? No, we’d better not go into that. Remember the Winter Ball at Miss Churchill’s dancing school in St. Paul when you spiked the fruit punch with gin and started an orgy in the men’s cloak room?”

  I grinned. “What an enterprising lad I was. No. I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

  Marny wrinkled her nose. “How about the time when Father took us to the Aurora Clean Living League Summer Camp up in the Lakes? You bet me you could stir up an unclean thought in Mr. Heber and switched clothes with me and had him proposition you in the canoe?”

  “I see what you mean about the advantages of amnesia,” I said uneasily. “No. I don’t remember a thing. What the hell is the Aurora Clean Living League?”

  She put her glass down. “Gordy, you can’t have forgotten the Aurora Clean Living League. It’s the most important thing in our lives.”

  “What is it?”

  Marny shook her head. “Skip it. Have a few more easy moments, while you may, darling.” She leaned forward. “We’re not getting anywhere with this system. Tell me. What do you remember?”

  I’d almost forgotten that I was not myself. Somehow Marny had made my forgetfulness seem like an amusing, frivolous game. That question brought back the old disturbing sensation of something being hidden behind something, of everything being wrong and faintly menacing.

  “I remember iris,” I said.

  “Iris?” Marny’s alert eyes moved to the vase on the table. “What sort of an iris?”

  “I don’t know. “My disquiet was almost fear now. “Just the word. Iris. I know it’s important if only I could pin it down.”

  “Iris. “Marny’s lashes flickered over the candid eyes and for a moment they did not seem quite so candid. “Probably some hideous Freudian image. There’s nothing else?”

  I shook my head. “A plane, maybe. Someone... Oh, what’s the use?”

  “Gordy, don’t get depressed, darling.” She was back on the bed again, holding my hand. “Think what a snazzy life you’ve got. All the money in the world. No worries. No work. All of Southern California to play around in. Us—and Selena.”

  “Selena?” My doubts about Selena started to stir again. “Tell me about Selena. What’s she like?”

  “If you’ve forgotten Selena,” sa
id Marny, finishing her cocktail and pouring another, “you’re in for a shock.”

  I asked anxiously: “Thin and sharp nosed with steel rimmed spectacles?”

  “Selena?” Marny wiped a smudge of lipstick off her glass. “My dear, Selena’s probably the most gorgeous thing in California.”

  I was feeling contented again, and smug. “A nice temperament too?”

  “Angelic. She just adores everything and everyone.”

  “And a fine, sterling character?” I asked enthusiastically. “Would the Aurora Clean Living League endorse her?”

  Marny gave me that straight, uninhibited stare. “The Aurora Clean Living League would not endorse Selena.”

  “Why not?”

  Marny put her drink down. “That,” she said, “is something you might as well find out for yourself.”

  Chapter 4

  I hadn’t said anything in reply when the door opened. A girl came in, a girl in a brief white cotton dress with no sleeves. The first sight of her dazzled me. She was the blondest girl I had ever seen. Her hair, cut loose to her shoulders like Marny’s, was fair as fresh country cream. Her skin too was cream, a deeper shade of cream darkened by the sun. Her body, her bare arms and legs had the molded quality of sculpture. Looking at her, I felt I was touching her. And, although she was full bosomed and thighed, she moved to the bed with a grace that was liquid as milk.

  “Gordy, baby.”

  Her lips were natural dark red; her eyes were blue as summer in the sky. She sat down on the bed, studying me, the cream hair spilling forward.

  “Scram, Marny,” she said.

  Marny was staring at this new, breath-taking girl, her brown eyes stubborn with antagonism. She seemed small, now, artificial, rather metallic.

  “Really, Selena,” she drawled, “do you have to be in that much of a hurry? His leg’s in a cast, you know.”

  “Scram.” Selina turned to Marny then and her face relaxed into a swift smile that would have coaxed a platoon of mules. “Please, darling, be a sweet baby. You can be sweet if you try.”

  Marny’s long black lashes flickered. “All right, I suppose. “She got up and, with a sudden rough movement, pushed past her sister-in-law and kissed me aggressively on the mouth. “If things get too hot for you, brother, ring an SOS on the buzzer, I’ll be up.”

  She mussed Selena’s hair. “Take it easy, Snow-white.”

  She picked up her cocktail shaker and her glass and strolled out of the room, kicking the door shut behind her.

  “That Marny. Such a sordid infant. Sweet, though.” Selena’s sunwarm fingers curled into mine. “How do you feel, baby?”

  I grinned. “Better by the minute.”

  Her smile drooped swooningly. “I’m your wife, Gordy. You don’t remember me, do you?”

  This settled it, I was thinking. Being Gordy Friend exceeded the dreams of the most ambitious amnesiac. “I can’t imagine getting hit that hard on the head, but I guess I was.”

  “Poor baby. What’s it matter anyway? Remembering things is usually so embarrassing.”

  Selena leaned over me, pressing her mouth quickly against mine. Her lips were warm and liquid as her walk. They seemed to melt into mine. It was a kiss that blotted out the memory of other kisses. Dimly I thought: Didn’t I say something about brunettes? Sultry brunettes? I must have been out of my mind.

  “I loathe sitting on beds.”

  Impulsively Selena tumbled back on the grey and gold spread next to me, her hair foaming over the pillow.

  “Ah.” She sighed in satisfaction and twisted around to take a cigarette from the bedside table. As she lit it, she murmured: “What happened to that divine candy I got for you? I bet your mother ate it.” She gazed around the room through half-shut lashes, blue-grey as the cigarette smoke. “She’s taken half the flowers out too. How boring, I wanted to make your return to consciousness a real production.”

  “As returns to consciousness go, I’d call this colossal,” I said.

  “You would, baby?” She turned her head so that her face was almost touching mine on the pillow. “Darling, with those bandages you look different, kind of tough. Isn’t this exciting? It’s almost like having a new man.”

  It’s hard to say what Selena was doing to me. She probably was the most gorgeous thing in California. Marny was right about that. But she was more than that. It wasn’t that part of me remembered her. It didn’t. But there was none of the awkwardness of a completely strange girl lying on my bed. It was exciting, yes, but it was somehow natural too. Selena made it that way. Some easy, ungrudging thing about her made her sensuality clean and spontaneous as a pagan Greek’s.

  With my good hand I caught up some of the soft, shining hair, letting it slide through my fingers.

  “My wife,” I said. “How long have I been married to you?”

  “Two years, darling. Two years and a bit.”

  “Where in heaven’s name did I find you?”

  “Those bandages, they do something to me.” She arched her head up on her neck, kissing me. “Pittsburg, dear.”

  “I bet you were the Pride of Pittsburg.”

  “I was. They were crazy about me in Pittsburg. In the Junior League poll I was voted the girl most likely to exceed.”

  “Honest?”

  “Honest. “She nestled against me, bringing my hand down from her hair and holding it against her dress. “Darling, Nate’s awfully worried about you. Nate’s so sweet. Do try and get your memory back. It would do such things to his professional pride.”

  “To hell with Nate. “I studied the gentle line of her nose in profile. “Tell me more about myself. Do I love you?”

  The blue, blue eyes went solemn. “I don’t know. I really don’t know, Gordy. Do you?”

  “On a snap judgement, I’d say yes. “I kissed her before she kissed me. “How about you? Love me?”

  She moved away slightly, stretching contentedly. “You’re awfully sweet, Gordy. I simply adore you. I really do.”

  “But I’m an ornery character, aren’t I? Good for nothing. Drink too much.”

  “That Marny.” For a moment her face was almost savage. “The mean little limb of Satan. What’s she been telling you?”

  “Just that. That I’m an amiable heel and a lush.”

  “Really, she makes me sick. What if you do drink too much? How can anyone be nice without drinking too much?”

  “Do you drink too much?”

  She smiled and then laughed, a frank, husky laugh. “Darling, I do everything too much.”

  She sat up again suddenly, straightening her skirt, stubbing her cigarette on an ashtray.

  “Baby, this is all gay, but I’m supposed to help make you remember.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it?”

  “I haven’t been doing anything. I’ve just been being pleased at having my husband conscious again. You can’t imagine how dreary it’s been sleeping with a husband as unconscious as a corpse.”

  “You’ve been sleeping here?”

  Her eyes opened wide. “But, of course. Ever since you came back from the hospital. “She pointed at the other bed. “Where d’you suppose I’d been sleeping?”

  “I’d only just started thinking about it,” I said.

  “Really, darling, and you all plaster of Paris.” Selena grinned and took another cigarette, inhaling smoke deeply. “But seriously, I mean, let’s talk about something—anything. Just something you’re supposed to remember.”

  I said: “Okay. I’ll take the Aurora Clean Living League.”

  “The Aurora Clean Living League? Really, I mean, do we have to talk about that?”

  “I’m supposed to know about it, aren’t I? It’s important, isn’t it?”

  “It’s terribly, terribly important, of course, but it’s terribly, terribly dismal.”

  “Even so—give with the Aurora Clean Living League.” Her full mouth drooped sulkily. “All right. Well, it all begins with your father. I suppose you don’t
remember your father, either?”

  I shook my head. “They tell me he was called Gordon Renton Friend the Second and that he died a month ago. That’s all.”

  “Your father,” Selena brooded. “How to describe your father? He was a lawyer in St. Paul. He was terrifically rich. That was the nice thing about him. But the important thing about your father was that he was godly.” Absently she had picked my hand up again and was stroking it. “Incredibly godly. Against things, you know. Against tobacco and dancing and lipstick and liquor and sex.”

  “Uhuh. Go on.”

  “What nice hands you have, darling. So square and firm. Like a sailor’s hands.”

  “A sailor.” Something stirred faintly deep down in my consciousness. “Selena, I wondered—”

  “Oh, yes, your father.” Selena’s glance had moved from my face and she was talking rather quickly. “What else about him? Well, as you can imagine, he was awfully dismal to live with. And then, ten years ago, when you all thought things were just about as lugubrious as they could be, your father met the Aurora Clean Living League and fell in love with it.”

  The disquiet had gone again. I had almost forgotten it. “Did he have sex with it?” I asked.

  “Gordy, don’t be frivolous.” Selena was smiling down at me again. She had tucked my hand into her lap. “The Aurora Clean Living League is a nationwide organization to make America pure. It publishes dozens of pamphlets called: Dance, Little Lady—to Hell and Satan Has a Deposit on Every Beer Bottle and things like that. It runs jolly summer camps where youth can be hearty and clean-living. And, of course, they’re frightfully against…”

  “… lipstick, tobacco and dancing and liquor and sex,” I said.

  “Exactly, baby. Well, the head of all this gloomy business was a repulsive man called Mr. Heber. Mr. Heber was the Aurora Clean Living League in St. Paul. And Mr. Heber loved your father at first sight and your father loved Mr. Heber at first sight. Your father started deluging the League with money and made St. Paul cleaner and cleaner and cleaner by the minute. And all the time, he made all of you cleaner and cleaner too.”