The Celestial Bed

by Irving Wallace

  He tried to think. To go to a doctor, you had to pay him. Therefore, there should be bills around. But he always kept track of her bills and filed them at the restaurant office for his accountant and the IRS. Yet he'd never once seen a receipt, or a bill, from her so-called doctor. Obviously, she paid in cash always, out of the small savings she'd had when she'd moved in, or out of her earnings or whatever she skimmed off her household allowance.

  No bills, not one.

  Wrong. There had been one bill, he remembered, one bill on an M.D.'s letterhead way back in the beginning. It had slipped through before she got smart. And Zecca had it, and if he remembered right, it had been on the doctor's letterhead stationery.

  He snatched up Nan's telephone, dialed his restaurant, and got his head waitress, who was also his floor manager.

  "Marge," he said, "I'm coming in, but I have no time for those interviews with the temporary cashiers. Cancel them out for today, and let that bimbo we have stay on and keep robbing us until I throw her out. I'm coming in on something else, a tax matter, so I'll be in my office and don't let anybody bother me."

  Leaving the bitch's dressing room, Zecca tore out of the house, jumped into his Cadillac, and was on his way to sweet revenge.

  A half hour later, in the rear room cubbyhole office of his restaurant, he'd checked when Nan had started working for him, knowing she'd gone to fix her snatch with the doctor sometime after that.

  Ten minutes passed before he had the doc's receipt in hand. He felt triumphant.

  Dr. Stanley Lopez—a spick yet—and his charges for the first overall checkup.

  The only receipt. No others either because she paid him in cash or, more probably, because he paid her for banging her. Some shots she was getting!

  Receipt in hand, with Dr. Lopez's address on it, Zecca turned his Cadillac toward the downtown district of Hillsdale.

  Fifteen minutes later he slowed in front of a six-story medical building with a parking lot underneath. Zecca drove down the ramp, left his Cadillac with an attendant, found Dr. Lopez's name on the directory beside the elevators, then took the first elevator going up.

  He got off at the fourth floor.

  The frosted glass door just to the right of his elevator read: Stanley M. Lopez, M.D. Zecca pushed open the door, balled up his fists, and almost bounded across the fancy reception room to where some kind of good-looking Latina gal was busy over some paperwork.

  Her expression was startled when she saw Zecca.

  He guessed it showed on his face, how he felt, so he tried to contain himself.

  "Yes?" the receptionist asked.

  "I want to consult with Dr. Lopez about my—my wife."

  "She's a patient here?"

  "A regular."

  "Her name, please."

  "Zecca," he said automatically, and then he corrected himself. "No, actually she likes to use her maiden name. Her name—my wife's name is Nan Whitcomb. She was coming in to see Dr. Lopez today."

  The receptionist furrowed her brow. "That can't be, I'm afraid. Dr. Lopez had no appointments today. He has to conduct a seminar at USC. You're sure your wife is a patient who comes here regularly? I just can't seem to place her name."

  "I'm sure, all right," said Zecca grimly, digging into his jacket pocket for the receipt he'd brought along. "Have a look. Here's your receipt for a bill she paid."

  The receptionist took it, stared at it, puzzled, then slowly got up and made her way to a file cabinet behind her. She knelt down, pulled out the bottom file drawer, fingered through the tabs, and then pulled out a manila folder. "You're right, sir. We have a file for 'Whitcomb, Nan.' Let me have a look."

  Walking slowly back to the counter, the receptionist had opened the folder and was studying the contents inside. Suddenly, she raised her head, smiling at Zecca. "I think it's all clear now. I was actually right. Your wife isn't Dr. Lopez's regular patient. She just visited him the one time for a physical checkup. She was a referral from Dr. Freeberg. He always has his patients come to Dr. Lopez for a checkup before working with them. Dr. Freeberg's the one you want to see for any consultation."

  "Dr. Freeberg? Nan never mentioned him."

  The receptionist stammered, looking up at Zecca's glowering face. "Maybe because she's shy. Most wives are, when it comes to this."

  "Comes to what?"

  "Visiting a sex therapist. Dr. Arnold Freeberg's a sex therapist who runs the Freeberg Clinic on Market Avenue. About five minutes from here. Your wife must be a patient there. I'm sure Dr. Freeberg will be pleased to arrange a consultation with you."

  "Yeah," said Zecca, "I'm sure he will. Dr. Arnold Freeberg, you say?"

  "Dr. Arnold Freeberg. When you leave our building downstairs, turn left, then right at the first block. That's Market. You can walk it in ten or fifteen minutes. If you're driving, five minutes. I'll write out the address of the Freeberg Clinic for you."

  Jamming her card into his pocket, Zecca mumbled his thanks and left the reception room.

  Waiting for the elevator, Zecca boiled with inner rage.

  So Nan, his little cunt, was living it up with a sex therapist, whatever that was. He didn't have to guess. He knew. Dr. Freeberg, a kike for sure, was sticking it to her daily. And Nan was loving it. Some treatment.

  Well, he told himself, as the elevator arrived, he had a more lasting treatment for both of them when he got his hands on them. He'd make mincemeat of the doc. And he'd bring Nan home on a leash and keep her there on her back where she belonged until she appreciated what she had.

  The first thing to do was to find out where this Freeberg had his Nan stashed. He had to catch them in the act together. Then he'd know what to do next.

  Leaving the elevator, he already knew what to do next.

  Making Freeberg into mincemeat was too good for the fucking bastard. He should waste the son of a bitch—or have one of the boys who owed him do it for him.

  That was the solution. Waste him.

  An eye for an eye, like the Good Book said.

  The telephone call from Roger Kile, who had introduced himself as Dr. Arnold Freeberg's attorney-at-law in Los Angeles, had come to District Attorney Hoyt Lewis in Hillsdale at eleven fifteen this morning.

  Lewis had speculated through the week whether the call would come from Dr. Freeberg himself or his lawyer . . . and what Freeberg's decision would be. Now he knew that Freeberg had hired a lawyer to make the call for him. And now Lewis would know what decision Freeberg had made.

  "I'm calling you," Kile was saying, "to discuss the ultimatum you've given my client, Dr. Arnold Freeberg. As Dr. Freeberg's attorney, I am empowered to discuss the matter on his behalf."

  "Mr. Kile," said Hoyt Lewis coolly, "I'm not certain there is much to discuss."

  "Perhaps not," said Kile. "At the same time, to be positive my client has your ultimatum right, I would appreciate it if you would repeat the terms of your offer to him. I'd like to hear, in your own words, what you told Dr. Freeberg when you visited him."

  "I'll be glad to oblige you. I presume you intend to record exactly what I conveyed to Dr. Freeberg?"

  "I do, sir."

  "Very well. In my one meeting with Dr. Arnold Freeberg, I informed him I had investigated his practice of employing sexual surrogates, mainly female, to cohabit with males for pay. I told him that, from evidence available, his present role as a therapist fell under a California statute that regards pandering as a crime. I told him that his female surrogates fell under the section that regards prostitution as a crime. I told him that if so charged and convicted, he was liable to a prison sentence of up to ten years, and the single sex surrogate I selected as an example to be charged could, on conviction, serve a prison sentence of a half a year."

  "And then you offered my client a compromise," stated Kile.

  "Yes, a compromise out of a spirit of generosity. Actually, Dr. Freeberg possesses no criminal record. This is a first-time offense—excluding his run-in with my counterpart in Tucson—and in the bel
ief that Dr. Freeberg had misunderstood the law of California, I offered him another chance. Quite simply, Mr. Kile, I told him he could avoid any charges or prosecution if he ceased his use of sex surrogates and confined his practice solely to that of being a licensed therapist. On the other hand, if he elected to ignore my offer, but persisted in operating, as he has been doing, I would have him arrested, arraigned, and prosecuted."

  "Let me interject something right here, and be frank about it," said Kile. "When I first undertook defending Dr. Freeberg and his surrogates, I was a bit uncertain about his work and about the law. I knew Dr. Freeberg was legitimate and sincere, and was directing his surrogates, but one possibility niggled my mind. That he was covering himself with his advice and his directions, and that the surrogates might be prostitutes masquerading as surrogates. When I began my researches, I talked to a number of sex surrogates. I learned quickly that there was a qualitative difference between a sex surrogate and a prostitute. Today I am satisfied, to a moral and legal certainty, that there is no question at all that the surrogate and prostitute are qualitatively different beings. Freeberg and his surrogates are healers. The pimp and his prostitutes are nothing but exploiters. Obviously, every other district attorney in California and New York acknowledges this difference, and that's why there has never been, in twenty-five years, a legal action against a therapist and a surrogate."

  "Mainly because the moral climate in this country had not deteriorated to its present low ebb," said Hoyt Lewis. "Now it's reached a new low, and I want to put a stop to it. The process of cleansing has to start somewhere, and I've decided it should start here. I repeat, I can't see a clear distinction between a pimp and his prostitutes, and a sex therapist and his sex surrogates. This test case will prove there is no real distinction, and when I'm through, not a state in the Union will permit the use of surrogates."

  "But you must acknowledge," insisted Kile, "that a vast difference in motivation and behavior separates a female surrogate from a common prostitute?"

  Hoyt Lewis's voice hardened. "I acknowledge no such thing. I am familiar with the arguments. Dr. Freeberg presented them to me most eloquently. To my mind, they don't hold up, and they won't hold up in a court of law. A female sex surrogate is as unlicensed as a streetwalker—"

  "Mr. District Attorney," Kile interrupted, "I see the surrogate as secondarily licensed under the law. She is, after all, serving with the continuing guidance of a fully licensed therapist and serving in the capacity as an adjunct or assistant to him."

  "Sorry, Mr. Kile. I disagree. Dr. Freeberg's sex surrogates, at his instigation, are performing lewd sexual acts for hire. They are prostitutes in disguise. I won't have that in Hillsdale." He paused. "I see no purpose served in continuing this debate. I have given Dr. Freeberg a fair choice. Freedom to continue his practice in Hillsdale without the use of sex surrogates, or prosecution for pandering and prostitution if he persists in using surrogates. I assume you've called with his decision?"

  "I have."

  "What is his decision?"

  "I am empowered to state, as Dr. Arnold Freeberg's attorney-at-law, that because we are certain he is behaving within the law, he will continue his practice and his use of partner surrogates."

  District Attorney Hoyt Lewis had not anticipated with any certainty that this would be the decision. He had guessed that Roger Kile had presented his feeble arguments on behalf of his client to make Lewis think twice about prosecution, and that, when the chips were down, he would back off into the compromise. This was better than he had hoped.

  "Dr. Freeberg is going on with the sex surrogates, you say?" Lewis repeated. He felt strangely elated. "That's definitely the decision?"

  "Definitely."

  Lewis wanted to say, "Your funeral," but aware that he was being taped, he refrained. He said instead, "I'm sorry. I guess there's nothing more to add except—I'll see you in court."

  "If you have a case," said Kile mildly.

  "Mr. Kile, I assure you, I very much have a case."

  An hour later, District Attorney Hoyt Lewis had the Reverend Josh Scrafield across his desk from him.

  "I hated to break in on your day, Reverend Scrafield," the district attorney began. "I know how busy you are, but since this concerns the matter of Freeberg and his sex surrogates—"

  "There's not a thing that concerns me more than that matter. That quack doctor is polluting our community."

  "I'd offered Freeberg a compromise, as you know," said Lewis. "His lawyer just phoned me with his decision."

  "And?" said Scrafield eagerly, coming forward in his chair.

  "Dr. Freeberg has elected to ignore my offer. He intends to continue his use of surrogates."

  "He's going on with his foul practice?" said Scrafield, with delight in his voice. "He's going to continue?"

  "And so are we," said Lewis calmly. "We are going to prosecute to the full extent of the law."

  The Reverend Scrafield wet his lips. "Pandering and prostitution," he said, half to himself. "Mr. District Attorney, you can't lose. We'll beat the drums for you the minute you give the green light. You'll win the case and enjoy all the benefits and advantages to be derived from the victory. This is the greatest thing that could have happened to us. The case against Freeberg is open-and-shut."

  Hoyt Lewis nodded. "I believe it is—that's why I'm proceeding. But it all depends on the star witness you brought me."

  "Chet Hunter? Never mind about him. He's enrolled as a patient with Freeberg, busy every day at that clinic or somewhere with a young chippy named Gayle Miller."

  "They're going at it?"

  "Chet Hunter assures me they are. I haven't seen him since we were all together, but I speak to him regularly on the phone."

  "I'm sure," said Lewis, "he's keeping some written record of his daily—uh—activity?"

  "He is. A day-by-day record, a journal. It's all on paper."

  "Excellent," replied Lewis. "Now is the time to see Hunter again and find out what he has for us." Lewis rose behind his desk. "There's still that one thing to nail down, the one truth I must have." His tone underlined what followed next. "That they are actually engaged in sexual intercourse," he said. "That's the key. After they do that, we're on our way. I'll serve Freeberg and Miss Miller immediately. Until then, we'll hold off. As soon as Hunter tells us that intercourse has taken place, he's to deliver his tape recording of the payoff session to us. He will be using a tape recorder, won't he?"

  "Of course. He knows all about it."

  "I'll require that corroborative evidence on tape to support Hunter's verbal testimony in court." Momentarily, Lewis worried, "Can he get away with it? How'll he do it?"

  "He uses a miniature voice-activated recorder in his research work. Keeps it well hidden in the vest pocket of his jacket. It'll pick up every word, every sound, while they're going at it."

  Lewis seemed relieved. "That's all I'll need to proceed. Once Hunter has the intercourse session in his journal, and backed up by the actual tape, he should inform you, and then you should inform me. When that's done, I will then arrest and arraign Dr. Freeberg and Miss Miller. So contact Chet Hunter as soon as possible and find out where he stands."

  The Reverend Scrafield was on his feet, grinning and winking. "If Chet's home I'll see him immediately. Congratulations, Mr. Lewis. As you put it, we're on our way."

  A half hour later, the Reverend Scrafield had settled himself into the dilapidated uncomfortable armchair in Chet Hunter's apartment and surveyed the cramped quarters with distaste.

  "This is where you see her?" said Scrafield.

  "See her?" repeated Hunter from his chair opposite the clergyman. "Oh, you mean Gayle Miller."

  "Freeberg's little whore you're involved with. Does she come here?"

  "No. She rents a house—more a cottage, actually—about twenty minutes from here."

  "I think maybe you'd better give me her address so Hoyt Lewis will have it handy when he's ready to haul her in."

  Relu
ctantly, Hunter jotted down Gayle Miller's address on a slip of paper and handed it to the clergyman.

  Scrafield considered the address. "Where do you do it? In her bedroom?"

  "Not in her bedroom. In her therapy room."

  "In her what?"

  "An extra room she has to demonstrate the exercises, sort of half office, half social room with a large couch and a floor mat to lie down on."

  "Have you laid her?"

  "Well . . ." Hunter hesitated. "Why don't you read what I've been doing?" He reached for the carefully typed sheaf of papers on his desk and gave it to Scrafield. "I've been keeping a sort of play-by-play record of our activities together. Every time I've finished an exercise, that evening I write an exact report on what happened. In fact, I also typed three more pages this morning, so those twenty-one pages you have are right up-to-date. I'd suggest you look them over, so you know—"

  "All I know," said Scrafield, "is that our district attorney has ants in his pants waiting for you to finish the job. He's itching to get going, and he delegated me to meet with you and find out where we stand."

  "Well, that journal of my daily encounters with Gayle Miller will give you and the D.A. a comprehensive picture of exactly what's going on."

  "All right, let me read it."

  "I can get us some coffee while you're reading."

  Scrafield was already going over the typescript. "Yes, coffee'll be fine."

  Hunter went into his pantry-like kitchen and puttered about making coffee, feeling uneasy about Scrafield's reading and concerned with the clergyman's reaction.

  At last he brought the coffee out into his living room, setting Scrafield's cup on the end table beside him and placing his own cup on his desk. Scrafield had ignored his coffee and was concentrating on the journal. Hunter drank his own coffee, pretending not to watch for his visitor's reactions.

  Another ten minutes went by before Scrafield finished his reading and put Hunter's journal on his lap.

  He fixed a cold eye on the researcher. "Chet, I've got to tell you—this is a pile of crap."