Always Leave ’Em Dying

by Richard S. Prather

  "Not if it makes them happy. You know where she lives?"

  She didn't, so I got out my phone book and city directory. While flipping the pages, I asked her what Hunt looked like, and she said, "About six feet, and he's pretty strong. He'll have real colorful clothes on. He's sort of . . . odd. Oh, and he's bald. Not bald—I mean the other day he shaved all his hair off."

  I looked up at her. "He did, huh? Well, that is a little odd." The phone book didn't help, but an Olive Fairweather was listed in the directory. I got up, grabbed a coat and my gun, just in case, then took Jo down to her car and got my Cad rolling.

  There was a dim light on in the front room of Olive Fairweather's house. I walked to the entrance and rang the bell. The screen door was unlocked, the inside door standing open, and almost as soon as I pressed the buzzer a squeaky voice from inside called, "Come i-in."

  I said, "This is—"

  "Come in, come in."

  "But—"

  "Come in, come in, hurry up!"

  I went in. It was a mistake.

  The light was dim, but not dim enough. Reclining on a couch was a gal who missed complete nudity only because of a strategically draped Mexican serape, and now I knew what they meant when they said, "Sex rears its ugly head." Her eyes were rolled toward the ceiling, either in dreamy ecstasy or in a spasm, and even with no clothes on, she had a plunging neckline.

  "I knew you'd come, Lover-boy," she cooed. "I knew you would."

  "Lady," I said, "you're in for a hell of a shock. I am not Lover-boy."

  Chapter Five

  There was a squawk and a flurry and a blur of Olive and her serape. She loped out of sight, and I thought: Hunt isn't eccentric; he's crazy.

  Olive Fairweather came back wearing a green robe and low-heeled shoes. When she turned on the overhead lights, I got a good look at her. She had short mouse-brown hair, rather nice full lips, and gray eyes. But they weren't pretty gray eyes. Not dawn gray, slate gray, or even muddy gray. They were a sort of Dorian gray. I told her my name and that I was looking for Hunt.

  "I thought Randy—Mr. Hunt—was—would be here," she said. "I'm sorry. I mean, I shouldn't have . . ."

  "It's all right. I shouldn't have busted in. You were expecting Mr. Hunt?"

  "Yes, half an hour ago." She sat down on the couch. "I don't know what's the matter. He promised he'd come."

  "I'm anxious to find him, Miss Fairweather." I told her I was looking for Felicity Gifford, had reason to believe Hunt might have information that would help me, and added, "I understand he knows a woman named Dixon."

  She straightened up on the couch so fast she almost came off it. "Miss Dixon!" she yelped. "Why, the old goat! He's gone out to Greenhaven to see her. Why, the old . . . the old goat!"

  Just like that, bull's-eye, I thought. "Greenhaven, huh? Where is the place? What's Dixon's first name?" And Olive Fairweather suddenly clammed.

  There was a funny look on her face and she calmed down in a hurry. One hand was pressed against her throat as she said slowly, "Oh, I . . . That was just a guess. It doesn't mean anything. I was being foolish."

  "Miss Fairweather, it's important. That's exactly what I've been trying to find out. What's this Greenhaven?"

  She licked her lips. "It's just a man's home. Mr. Greenhaven. A . . . friend of Mr. Hunt's."

  "Mr. Greenhaven?"

  "Well, it's— it's Mr. Green. His home. Immensely wealthy. He calls it Greenhaven."

  She was a lousy liar. More credit to her, because the lousy liars don't practice much, but that didn't help me. And she kept on not helping me. I explained about Felicity and why anything Olive could tell me was important, went from persuasive to volubly griped, but it was no good; she had no more to say. Finally, I got up and headed for the door.

  She came after me and said, "If you should see him anywhere, please tell him I'm . . . worried. Nobody else ever comes to see me, and he said he'd be here. I hope nothing's happened."

  "Yeah," I said, "you're worried. So are Mrs. Gifford and a lot of other people. So am I. Maybe so is Felicity."

  She opened her mouth, then closed it firmly.

  "OK, lady," I said, "I'll tell him if I get the chance." I drove away, not quite so angry with her as I might have been, because of that one thing she'd said: "Nobody else ever comes to see me."

  Greenhaven was a high cement wall and a big iron gate. At least, that was all I could see of it. I had found a flock of Greens in the phone book, plus one Greenhaven, the address here, and six telephone numbers.

  I parked off the narrow street near the wall, went to the gate, and banged on it. A guy walked over from my right somewhere and peered out at me. "What you want?"

  His chops hung three or four inches above mine, so I glanced down to see what he was standing on. Just enormous feet; he was a monster. That, plus the way Olive had acted, made me unsure of how to handle this. I said, "Does a guy named Green own this place?"

  "Don't get lippy. Who you want to see?"

  "Well . . . Miss Dixon. There's a Miss Dixon here, isn't there?"

  "Yeah." He pulled out a big key and unlocked the gate. I followed him to a small shedlike room, where he scribbled the time, my name, and Miss Dixon's on a pad, tore off the top sheet, and handed it to me. I turned around and got my first good look at Greenhaven. Approximately half an acre of lawn extended up to a large gray building at the end of a graveled drive, and fifty or more people were in sight at tables and chairs, or sitting on the lawn. There were lights burning all over the place.

  "Having a party, huh?" I said.

  "Yeah, party. Don't get lippy."

  "Who's getting—" I let it go, walked up the drive. Looked like a party, all right. Big one. There were a lot of elderly cats doddering about, also a number of younger men and women. As I passed a table where two middle-aged women were seated carrying on a quiet conversation, I got my first inkling that something was out of joint in this joint.

  One of the women was saying, "How do you like this dress, Mattie? Don't you think it looks nice?"

  "No, I don't. It makes you look like an old hag."

  "Oh, how silly. It can't be that bad."

  "Haw!"

  "Oh, Mattie. Isn't that a little strong?"

  "Not strong enough. Makes you look like an old hag."

  "Oh, dear. I thought it did something for me."

  "Does. Makes you look like an old hag."

  Then I was out of earshot. I wanted to go back and listen some more. I knew both those people had been women, and therefore I couldn't have heard what I thought I'd heard. That was a shock, but the next thing I saw stunned me—for an entirely different reason.

  From the corner of my eye I noticed a woman dressed in white looking toward me. I glanced at her and stopped dead in my tracks. She was everything I like. A little dish who could make me forget I had ever seen Miss Perrine. She had big dark eyes, one brow raised above the other as she looked at me, a saucy little nose, and red lips that pouted just enough. And she had red hair. Hair like women used to have before they started masquerading as men, long and thick and glossy, brushing her shoulders. But that wasn't all; she had a shape that, even motionless, was nearly as sensational as Lilly Christine doing calisthenics.

  I might have stood there gawking indefinitely except that I heard a bunch of yowls and yells behind me and looked over my shoulder at something so peculiar that I kept staring. Fifty feet away was a guy playing badminton; at least, that's what it looked like, except there wasn't any net or racket or shuttlecock. No partner, either, and for a moment I thought maybe he was doing ballet exercises.

  He was certainly swatting away energetically enough, rushing forward and back and leaping into the air. He threw something invisible down to the grass, then ran toward me and leaped over the net. Can't be badminton, must be tennis, I thought. And then I began wondering just what the hell was going on out here.

  The energetic guy was still running straight at me, but about five yards away he skidded to a stop,
bobbed his head at me, and grinned. "Throw me the ball," he said.

  "Huh? What . . . what ball?"

  "The ball, the ball! Throw me my ball!"

  For a couple of seconds I actually looked around for it, then swallowed. The realization had suddenly hit me that I was in some kind of cackle factory—and at the same moment, I understood why such a big ape had been out at the gate. Probably several more apes were handy in case of uprisings. The tennis player was raising a hell of a racket, and because I wanted no uprisings now that I seemed close to Miss Dixon, I said, "Sure, fellow, don't get excited. Where— uh, where's the ball?"

  "Right there." He pointed at my feet.

  Feeling very damned silly, I said, "Oh, that ball," bent over, and pawed at the ground. "Not there, you fool," the guy shouted at the top of his lungs. "By the other foot. You blind or something?"

  I grabbed some air by the other foot, straightened up, and threw it to him. He beamed, leaped into the air, and caught it, then ran off without so much as a thank you.

  The little red-haired gal was still watching me, frowning now, and I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it. I couldn't think of anything that would make sense of this. Finally, I decided to play it light. I laughed and said, "Can't see a thing without my glasses." She wasn't amused. So I walked on up to the gray building, through a big door like the entrance to a library, and into a short high-ceilinged corridor with a polished dark floor. Two closed doors with plain frosted-glass windows were on my right. I walked to the corridor's end, where it bisected another long hallway lined with more doors. Just around the corner was a room with a wire screen enclosing it. Inside were rows of wooden compartments and I could see clothing, boxes, packages in them.

  The only person in sight was a small, slightly potbellied man walking down the hall toward me. He was about fifty years old, dressed in a brown suit, and whistling silently through pursed lips. The little man stopped alongside me. "Good evening," he said. "I haven't seen you before, have I?"

  "Evening. I just got here."

  "May I be of assistance?"

  "Maybe. I'm looking for Miss Dixon—or a man named Randolph Hunt, if he's here."

  He pursed his lips. "Nurse Dixon, eh? She won't be back for"—he glanced at his wrist watch—"several days."

  "She's a nurse, huh? She . . . Several days?"

  He pursed his lips again. "Yes." He was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Perhaps I can help you. I am Dr. Nichols, the chief psychiatrist."

  That settled it. "Doctor," I said, "where am I?"

  "Don't you know, my boy?"

  "I mean I know this is Greenhaven, but what is it?"

  "Why, Greenhaven—" He broke off, staring over my shoulder. "Oh, dear," he said.

  I looked around, and there was the little beauty with the hair and shape and everything. She was standing about a yard away, looking at me. "What's the matter?"

  The doctor didn't speak, so I said, "I was just explaining to Dr. Nichols here that I've got—"

  She interrupted. "Just a moment. I'm Dr. Nichols."

  "Yeah, sure," I said. "We're all three Dr. Nichols." I was starting to get a little griped, because finding out anything in this place was beginning to stack up like a lifetime job, and I was in a hurry.

  The girl said quietly, "I am Dr. Lynette Nichols. Follow me, please."

  I went along. We all walked down the hall to a door marked, "Dr. Nichols, Chief Psychiatrist." She opened the door and said to me, "I have to take Mr. Wallace to his room, but I'll talk to you in a minute. What's your name?"

  She spoke crisply, and I noticed that what I'd earlier thought was a white dress was actually a starched uniform. "Shell Scott," I said. "I'm a private detective."

  Her lips curved upward a little at the corners. "What's so funny?" I asked her. "Look, I need some help, some information—from somebody here—and it's important." I told her why I was at Greenhaven and what I wanted to know.

  She nodded. "All right, I'll be back in a minute."

  "Please hurry, will you? I wasn't kidding when I said it was important."

  She nodded again, turned, and went out, the guy following her docilely. I stood in the doorway and watched her walk down the hall. She paused for a moment and spoke with two white-jacketed men who, I assumed, were either doctors or a couple of Napoleons, and all three looked back toward me. She went on down the corridor. The two men walked up to me.

  One of them, a big-nosed guy wearing rimless glasses, introduced himself as Dr. Wolfe, and the other guy as Yancey. Yancey was a thin, pale egg with washed-out blue eyes. Wolfe asked my name, and after I told him, he said softly, "I understand you're looking for happiness, Mr. Scott. Well, we all are—"

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Man, you couldn't tell the nuts from the squirrels in here. "What do you mean, I'm looking . . . Oh, Felicity," I jerked my head down the hall. "That what she told you?" He nodded. "It's a girl's name," I said. "Felicity Gifford. And I wish to God everybody here would stop giving me this fancy runaround. Tell me something. Is that little doll really a psychiatrist?"

  Wolfe nodded, light bouncing from his glasses. "Yes, Lyn Nichols. She's the chief psychiatrist here." He turned suddenly and left with the other man.

  I perched on the desk and looked around at filing cabinets, a small table, and some chairs, wondering if everybody were goofy in this place, then got up and paced back and forth nervously. After a while, I heard footsteps and glanced at my watch, thinking the girl was returning; it was already nine-twenty. A guy came inside, though, the big ape from the gate. Right behind him was another monster. The first guy walked toward me, said, "Mr. Scott, wasn't it?" and stuck out his hand.

  I extended my arm and said, "That's right—"

  The words ended in a grunt, because the guy latched onto my wrist and jerked me toward him. Even in here, it was the last thing I'd expected, and I was off balance. As I stumbled half a step toward him, he reached behind me and grabbed the left shoulder of my coat, spun me as easily as if I'd weighed ten pounds, twisting my arm behind me. I started to jerk away too late.

  He was fast, and he was good. Undoubtedly he got a lot of practice with this sort of thing in Greenhaven, but there was one thing he probably didn't know: I'd had a lot more unarmed defense in the marines, and judo elsewhere, and plain rough-and-tumble all over, than he could have guessed.

  "Watch it, mister," I said. "What's the idea?"

  "Come along quiet," he said. "Be easier on you."

  He wasn't even breathing hard, and he sounded almost bored. The other guy stood in front of me and a little to the side in case he was needed. I still wanted to know what was coming off.

  "Listen, stupid, I'm not a patient," I said. "So unwind your—" and that was all.

  He jerked my arm up behind my back and shoved me forward, and it hurt enough so that I no longer cared to reason with the bastard. He had me in a good arm lock, and he must have expected me to be awed and cooperative. I was neither. I let him shove me almost to the door, then I stepped straight up instead of ahead and slammed my heel down on his instep as hard as I could. The thin bones crumpled like paper. As he yelled and loosened his grip, I jerked my arm free, swung toward him with my left fist on its way. It landed with a satisfying smack against his lips.

  He staggered back. I stepped aside, ducking, as the other guy hit me from behind and bounced past me. When he spun toward me raising a hamlike fist, he was wide open, and because it was his left fist moving, I swung my open right hand down first, cracked its edge against his collarbone. It caved in with a sound like that of bone breaking, which is exactly what it was, and he yelled just before the edge of my left palm landed and broke his collarbone on the other side.

  The guy who'd grabbed me in the first place was facing me, his face dripping red, but he didn't worry me much now because the other guy wouldn't be lifting even a finger for a while. And that was where I made my mistake—assuming there were only two of them.

  My back was to
the door and I heard the small sound behind me, but the sound immediately after that was a great big crashing sound, and it was inside my head. I was conscious clear down to the floor, even felt myself sprawling out on the carpet, but that was all, and it got black everywhere.

  I couldn't have been out very long. When I came to, a couple of guys were carrying me down the corridor. Both guys were strangers; the other two apes wouldn't be carrying anything but grudges for a long time. It took me a little while, but I figured out that I was on a stretcher and in a strait jacket. Everything was blurred, but I could see the two doctors and the little psychiatrist, or whatever the hell they were.

  I started talking softly, but I soon was yelling. They all ignored me. I kept yelling; they kept carrying me down the corridor.

  Chapter Six

  I realized my eyes were closed, and forced them wide again. I'd lost track of the number of times that had happened; with the drug making my thoughts sluggish, my body numb, it was difficult to know if my eyes were actually open or not. I couldn't even think any more. I'd gone back over this whole day without remembering a thing to explain what had happened, explain why somebody had tried to kill me—and I never would know unless I got out of here.

  I arched my body violently, more in anger than with any purpose, felt pain burn across my back, but pushed with all my strength at the cloth around me—and heard the sound of canvas tearing. My arms moved. The shock of that movement, plus the sharp pain, cleared my head a little, and I understood what had happened. The blade that had cut me must first have sliced nearly through the canvas sleeves that held my arms and extended on around my body; my sudden movement had torn them the rest of the way.

  In another few seconds, my hands were bare; soon I'd pulled the jacket off and was standing beside the bed, sweat beaded on my face. Dizziness swept over me and I almost fell, catching the bed's edge for support; then I groped my way to the room's rear, forced the window up, slid through, and dropped to the ground outside. My coat and gun had been taken from me before I'd been put in the strait jacket, and it was cold; fog had drifted inland from the sea. For a moment, I leaned back against the building's wall. Felicity's name spun in my brain. I knew that I'd come here because of her, but I couldn't remember the rest of it, couldn't remember why.