Dagger of Flesh

by Richard S. Prather

  "Well—"

  "Of course you will. Want to have some fun?"

  "Well—"

  "When you see Peter Sault tell him you're an artist. Maybe he'll show you his oils." She pointed at the list she'd written. "Names, and all the addresses I knew."

  "These oils. They're good?"

  "They're a scream. He does nudes."

  Nudes? Well, I like nudes. "Good," I said. "I dabble in oils in my spare time, then."

  She finished her drink. "More."

  "Uh-uh. I've gotta see a hypnotist."

  "Really, Shell," she said seriously. "I'd like another drink. I don't want you to go. Please." There was a little catch in her voice.

  I looked at her curiously. "What's the matter, Ann? You know I've got work to do, and we can't stay here all night." I grinned at her and looked around. "Certainly not in this place. Kind of a funny place for us to be, isn't it?"

  She didn't smile back. She said flatly, "This is a fairy club. I feel at home here."

  "You? But you're not—"

  She interrupted me. "Not that way, no." She hesitated, then moved closer to me, her thigh pressing mine. She kept her hands folded in her lap and looked at me, unsmiling. I knew, before she spoke again, that she was going to tell me something about herself, and suddenly I didn't want to hear whatever it was.

  But Ann looked directly at my mouth again and went on hurriedly, "They're all sick; that's why I feel at home here. See that little man alone in the booth across from us?"

  I didn't have to look. I'd noticed the guy because the waiter had made three trips to his table while Ann and I had each had one drink. I nodded.

  Ann said, "He's queer, and he doesn't like it. Maybe he feels guilty. So, besides everything else, he's a lush. An alcoholic. He's all right till he takes that first drink, and then he's, well, he's not all right. I'm like him. I'm just like him."

  I frowned at her, still puzzled, and she made her meaning clear for me with the touch of her hands again, and the pressure of her body as she moved closer to me.

  "Only with me it's not liquor, Shell. It's you."

  She was just a little bit of a thing but her actions were so strange that she almost frightened me. And, too, there was a hot urgency about her words and movements that communicated itself to me. She was young, warm, lovely—and I was beginning to think of her more as a woman than as the daughter of my friend.

  I'd already become far too involved with the Weather family, and I liked Ann too much now. I didn't want to get more deeply involved than I was.

  I said, "We've had our talk, Ann. I'll take you home."

  She protested, but followed me when I slid out of the booth and walked to the door. As we left, the pianist ran long white fingers over the keyboard and sighed softly into the microphone.

  Ann stayed huddled over on her side of the car, eyes closed, arms crossed over her breasts as if she were hugging herself, all the way to her home. Once I glanced at her and saw her hips writhe slightly, sinuously. Her eyes were still closed and she seemed unaware of me.

  But when I parked in front of the big house on St. Andrews Place she put a hand on my arm and slid across the seat to sit close by me. "Shell."

  "Yes, Ann?"

  "I hoped you were taking me someplace else. Not here. Not home."

  "I told you I was going to take you home."

  "I know. But I thought ... Never mind. Look at me, Shell."

  She pulled herself against me and her face was so close to mine that I could see nothing except the smooth brow, the big green eyes, the curving red lips. There was a tense expression on her face and her lips were moist and parted.

  "Kiss me, Shell." One arm went around my neck. She pulled herself closer to me, bending my head to hers, and pressed her lips against mine. The kiss was sweet and soft, her lips warm and gentle. At first. Then it became demanding, hungry, less a kiss than an invitation. I put my arms around her, pulled her to me, mashing her lips under mine as her tongue came alive in my mouth.

  Finally I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently away. "Wait a minute, Ann. This isn't good at all."

  "Please, Shell." Her hands were busy and eager and her teeth were pressed tightly together. I could see the pulse of fine muscle at the smooth line of her jaw. Her breath was hot, an inch from my lips.

  "Ann, I've got to go—right now. We can't ... I've got to see Borden."

  "Shell. Don't you like me at all? Don't you think I'm pretty?"

  I could feel the softness of her shoulders under my fingers. Every few seconds her body trembled convulsively and the movement traveled through my fingers and into my body. "Of course you are," I said. "You're lovely, you're wonderful ..." I stopped. I couldn't find words to tell her how mixed up I was.

  "Then don't be cruel," she said. "I told you in the bar how I feel. Help me, Shell. Help me ..."

  Her arms tightened around me and she pressed against me. Her lips covered mine again. Her fingers trailed over my cheek and across my chest. The fingers curved and I felt her nails bite through the thin cloth of my shirt. I could feel my heart pounding heavily.

  Her body was soft, yielding against my hands. Then she fumbled with her sweater, pressed my hand upon her skin. I felt her fingers slide under my shirt and her nails raked my chest. I slid my hand up the smooth skin of her side, cupped the firm, warm breast in my palm. Her lips moved from side to side on my mouth and her breath washed over my face. Her breast seemed to burn my palm as she strained her body forward against me. The softness of her breast blended with the smoothness of her thigh, the liquid clinging of her lips.

  "Shell," she whispered softly, "Shell, love me love me love me."

  It was like ice water thrown on my flesh.

  Suddenly I could remember Gladys saying the same thing, in almost the same way, the whispered phrases running together like one word, hot and twisted and eager, Gladys's body straining while her hands clutched convulsively at my skin. Gladys. Mrs. Weather.

  I pushed Ann from me, suddenly, roughly.

  She gasped. "Shell!"

  "Go into the house, Ann." My voice was strange to me, harsh and almost ugly.

  "What's the matter? I don't understand."

  "Please, Ann. Go on inside."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Yes."

  I don't know how long she looked at me, her eyes unblinking, her mouth tight. Finally she lowered her head and said softly, "Why, Shell?"

  "It's nothing. I don't know."

  "Is it something wrong with me?"

  "No."

  "Then why?"

  "I can't tell you. I'm not even sure myself. I'm mixed up. Just—just forget it, Ann."

  For several moments she was quiet, then she sighed heavily. "I'll go into the house, Shell, and upstairs to my room. And I'll think about you. Is that what you want?"

  "I suppose."

  "I'll undress, thinking about you. I'll get naked into bed. And I'll think about you. I'll lie awake. And I'll think about you."

  She stopped. I didn't say anything.

  Ann didn't speak again. After long seconds she got out of the car and closed the door quietly. I heard her high heels clicking over the cement walk. The front door closed behind her.

  I sat in the car for a while, then started the engine and drove downtown.

  Chapter Seven

  JOSEPH BORDEN answered my ring. I'd checked by telephone and had told him I was a private detective, but so far he didn't know what I was after.

  He was a mild-appearing man of medium height, with wavy brown hair and soft blue eyes, a small mustache and a long narrow nose. He was wearing a brown dressing gown with a gold cord looped around his waist. He stood in the doorway of his Catalina Street apartment and said pleasantly, "You're Mr. Scott?"

  "That's right, Mr. Borden."

  "Come in, please." He stood aside as I went in, then motioned toward an angular, modern chair that turned out to be surprisingly comfortable when I sat in it. The living room was a s
eries of curves and angles that added up to a pleasing whole. Two large bookcases occupied half of one wall, bright paper jackets on many of the books.

  Borden sat down in another angular chair a few feet from me and asked brightly, "What can I do for you, Mr. Scott?"

  "You're a professional hypnotist, isn't that right?"

  "Yes, I am." He waited for me to go on.

  "Would you mind giving me a rough idea of your work, Mr. Borden?"

  "Not at all. Primarily I lecture and give public and private demonstrations of hypnosis."

  "That's really why I'm here. You gave a demonstration at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Weather last Saturday night, didn't you?"

  "Yes, I did. Quite successful, I might add." He smiled pleasantly.

  "When you hypnotized Mr. Weather, were positive visual hallucinations part of his posthypnotic suggestions?"

  He widened his soft blue eyes. "Why, no. I suggested no visual hallucinations at all. The only demonstrations I made with him were that he'd make a speech as Hitler, and then there was one last suggestion toward the end of the evening. When I snapped my fingers he was to say, 'Let's have a nightcap.'" Borden smiled gently. "Rather an interesting way of bringing the demonstration to a close."

  I nodded. "Then what?"

  "Mr. Weather mixed some highballs, we all had a drink, and I went home. I never allow drinking during a demonstration." After a short pause he added, "Of course I was careful to see that everybody had been properly awakened before I left, and that all suggestions were removed."

  "Did anyone go with Mr. Weather when he mixed the drinks?"

  "He was kind enough to invite me to see his den—everyone else was familiar with it. He's quite proud of the room."

  "Uh-huh. The reason for all these questions, Mr. Borden, is that Jay Weather has had a hallucination every single day since the party. He thinks there's a parrot on his shoulder. I'm pretty damn sure it's a posthypnotic suggestion."

  "What's that?" He sounded surprised.

  I explained in more detail and he said, "It does sound like the result of hypnosis, but I assure you, Mr. Scott, it can have no connection with the demonstration Saturday night. There was no mention of a parrot or any other visual hallucination. And even if there had been, I'm far too careful and competent a hypnotist to leave any suggestion in a subject's mind after a demonstration." He seemed irritated.

  "One last thing, Mr. Borden. Would you briefly describe your demonstration that evening?"

  He nodded. "Certainly. I gave the gathering—eight people—a short lecture on fundamentals. That is, some pretrance instruction. Then after a few demonstrations I attempted group hypnosis."

  I interrupted, "In other words, you tried to hypnotize all of them at once?" He nodded, and I asked, "What if all eight of them went into trance?"

  He smiled. "That would never happen with such a group, Mr. Scott. But I was able to induce deep trance in three of those present, utilizing Andrew Salter's 'feedback' technique in which the subject is asked to describe how he feels and those sensations are fed back to him, so to speak, at the next attempt. Incidentally, I consider that a most important step forward." He squinted at the floor. "Let's see, those three were Mr. and Mrs. Weather and another woman with an odd name. Lovely girl."

  "Ayla Veichek?"

  "Yes, that's it. At any rate I conditioned those three to instantaneous hypnosis, then awakened them all and demonstrated with only one at a time. That was so the other seven persons present might observe the trance phenomena."

  "Just a minute, please, Mr. Borden. What do you mean by instantaneous hypnosis?"

  "A common procedure. Once a subject is in deep trance he may be given the suggestion that later he will go instantly to sleep when a certain sign is made or a certain word or phrase is spoken. For example. Subject A is hypnotized. He is then told that he will later go into a deep, sound sleep when I snap my fingers and say, 'Go to sleep.' Then he is awakened, and when I snap my fingers and say 'Go to sleep,' he immediately does so."

  I shook my head. "You mean you could go to Mr. or Mrs. Weather, or Ayla Veichek, right now and put them to sleep?"

  "Not at all. I told you, Mr. Scott, that before I left the Weathers' I removed all suggestions. Remember, there were five people there who were never at any time hypnotized. Five besides me. Now I'd have to begin all over again, with their consent."

  "Uh-huh." I ran over it in my mind, then I said, "Well, thanks for the dope, Mr. Borden. That's about what I wanted." I glanced at my watch. It was sixteen minutes after nine p.m. I looked at Borden again, thinking of the strange power he'd had, for a while, over those three people at the party. I still wondered about Jay's parrot.

  I said, "The more I learn of hypnotism the more interesting it gets. Just tell people to go to sleep and, bang, off they go."

  He laughed. "It's not as simple as that, Mr. Scott. There are several methods ..." He paused, frowning slightly. "Well, for example," he said, and left the sentence unfinished.

  Then he walked to a corner of the room and pulled a table away from the wall. On it was a large portable record player and another gadget like nothing I'd seen before. It was a cardboard disk about six inches wide, with a black spot in the middle and alternate black and white strips curving from the center to the outer edge of the disk. The strips began almost as pinpoint lines at the center, then widened to about half an inch at the disk's edge.

  Borden flipped a switch on the player and said, pointing to the black and white disk, "There are many methods of fixing attention in order to aid the induction of hypnosis—crystal balls, a spot on the wall, a bright object—but I've found this very effective." He flipped another switch and the disk began to revolve, the lines blending into each other, the spiral almost forcing my eyes to the black center.

  "You'll note," Border said in a pleasant, conversational tone, "that there is a definite fascination about that disk as it revolves. I often use this to focus the attention of the subject and to aid in reducing sensory impressions. Then, add some soothing, pleasant music in the background, and the effect is intensified."

  He turned a dial and pulsing music swelled from the record player. It was definitely relaxing.

  "You can see how this helps," Borden said. "The eyes are centered on the disk and the music provides a soothing counterpoint to my voice. It relaxes you, relaxes you completely."

  He was right about that. The spinning disk and the music combined had a definite hypnotic quality even without Borden's voice thrown in. And his voice seemed to add to the soothing, relaxing effect. He was still speaking, and suddenly it seemed to me that his voice changed slightly, became more resonant and took on a deeper, richer tone.

  He said, "Your arms are very, very heavy; your legs are very, very heavy," and his voice was powerful and deep.

  And I could feel it. I could feel a heaviness in my arms and legs that hadn't been there before. I could—What the hell was going on here? I shook my head rapidly from side to side, got my hands on the arms of the chair and pushed myself to my feet.

  "Very damned interesting," I said.

  He smiled. "Indeed it is, Mr. Scott. You can see there's much more to hypnosis than merely telling people to go to sleep."

  He turned off the switches and the music stopped abruptly. The circle of cardboard slowed and stopped.

  I wanted to get the hell out of here. "I'll see you again," I said, and went to the door.

  "By all means. I'm quite interested in this parrot you mentioned." He walked to the door with me and as I left he said, "Incidentally, Mr. Scott, I think you'd make an excellent hypnotic subject, yourself. Well, let me know what happens, if you will."

  "Sure," I said, and the door closed behind me.

  I walked out to the street and climbed into the Buick. On an impulse I looked at my watch. Only twenty-one past nine, and it had been sixteen past when I'd glanced at it before. I laughed at myself, thinking that I was working myself into a fine state of jittery nerves, but still feeling a li
ttle relieved that I could account for all the time I'd spent in Borden's apartment.

  It was still early. I decided to make one more call, then head for home. I looked at the list Ann had written for me. I hadn't talked to Ann's Arthur, or Jay's lawyer Robert Hannibal, or Miss Stewart. Nor had I seen Peter Sault or Ayla Veichek, who sounded more interesting. Particularly Ayla. Ann Weather had left me in a damned shaky state, and no matter what Ayla looked like, she was a woman.

  Then I noticed something about the addresses that made both Peter and Ayla even more interesting. Peter Sault lived at 1458 Marathon Street, Apartment Seven. Ayla Veichek lived at 1458 Marathon Street, Apartment Eight.

  I headed for Marathon Street.

  There was light inside, slipping under the door of Apartment Seven as I knocked. In a moment I heard footsteps and a tall, thin man in his late twenties with a smudge of paint on his chin and a long paint brush in his hand opened the door.

  "Hi," he said cheerfully. "Come on in. Watch your step."

  I went inside, watching my step, and avoided tramping on one knee-length boot by stepping on a book next to it. I managed the hazards and stopped in the middle of the room. The place wasn't very tidy, but if he didn't mind, neither did I.

  "I'm Peter Sault," he said. "Who're you?"

  "Shell Scott, Mr. Sault." I let him look at my license. "I'm a private detective."

  He grinned, showing even white teeth. "No kidding? What's up?"

  "Just checking on a party you and Ayla Veichek went to last Saturday at Jay Weather's place."

  "Oh, yeah." He grinned. "A real ball, that one." Then he sobered and frowned. "Why you checking on that? Something happen?"

  "Uh-uh. Nothing very important, anyway. I just wanted to talk to some of the people who were there so I can find out what went on."

  A door behind him opened and a tall, black-haired woman stepped into the room. She looked mean. Her hair was pulled tightly away from her forehead and tied in back, flowing down over her shoulders. She had a thin black robe around her and she was as Ann had described her—voluptuous-looking and somewhat delicious. Ann had been right about something else too—I would call her sexy. She had long, long, red fingernails, her mouth was the color of blood, and black eyebrows slanted up from the bridge of her nose like wings, and that wasn't all that slanted up.