She shuddered like a small girl who’d just been offered a fresh worm, and I felt a pang of compassion for the old hoodlum. I also got a vivid mental image of him snoring wet-mouthed at the ceiling. Not a pretty picture.
“You must have had some idea what you were marrying,” I said, looking around for someplace to sit. There was a chair at the table, and I reached for it.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she said spitefully. She patted what little bed she had to spare. “Sit over here by me.”
It was a tempting offer, but I said: “No thanks, not on the first date.” I turned the chair around and straddled it, facing Genie. “You didn’t say what you were doing here,” I reminded her.
“Waiting for you.” I’ll give her credit; she said it without coquetry. But somehow I didn’t feel flattered.
“Why me?”
“Who else?” she said, almost bitterly. “What am I going to do, go crawl into bed with Hugo? Or maybe that asshole Kinsey? Listen, these people think Pops Martin is pretty hot shit around here. He’s the Grand Old Man, Hugo’s right arm. If I so much as batted an eye at any of the guys in The Institute, they’d break both legs copping out on me. Most of them are eunuchs, anyway. I doubt if they could come up with one good hard-on between the bunch of them.”
If I’d wanted straight talk, I’d come to the right place. Genie didn’t waste much time on circumlocution. “If that’s what you were looking for, why marry Pops?” I asked. “You don’t look like a girl who would be short of candidates.”
She shrugged, dropping the neckline of her nightie another inch down her breasts. If it was calculated, it was a nice move. “I didn’t get a better offer,” she said. She must not have liked the expression in my eyes because she added: “Do you know what they had me doing here? Washing dishes. Then waiting on tables. That sort of dreck. As Genie Robbins, I was strictly another pair of hands. As Mrs. Pops Martin, I don’t wash dishes. I’ve got status. I drive that Thunderbird Hugo gave him, and everyone kisses my ass. Does that sound like a bad deal, to you?”
“Not that part of it, maybe,” I said, “but if you’re up here tonight, what are you going to do all the other nights?”
“I’ll manage,” she said. I must have looked doubtful. “Christ,” she added explosively, “tonight was special. You know, I was a princess today. A fucking princess.”
“You looked like a princess,” I said, without stretching the truth too much. Who says there can’t be hard-faced princesses with eyes older than time?
“It was beautiful,” she said. A bit of glow came into her flinty eyes, and she looked even younger. “Did you see the ceremony on the lawn?”
“Yeah, it was very impressive,” I said.
“Impressive?” she said indignantly. “It was wonderful —beautiful. And you saw us at dinner all by ourselves at that special table. Did you ever see so many flowers? And maybe you noticed that Hugo didn’t give us any shit at the sitch. Not us. Not tonight. Then after the sitch, we went up to Pops’ apartment. He put on a very romantic record, and I went into the bathroom—a private bathroom, all to ourselves!—to put on this.” She fingered the sheer material of her nightgown lovingly. “I splashed on my best perfume—twenty bucks an ounce—and came back out into the bedroom. Do you know what I found?”
“You tell me.”
“Him!” She spat out the word like a bad taste. “Sound asleep in the bed—snoring—and with no teeth in! Do you blame me for coming up here?”
“I don’t,” I said. “But Pops might if he finds out.”
“He won’t.”
“You know him better than I do,” I shrugged. “But you can’t know him all that well if tonight was a big surprise to you. I don’t want to be gross, but there must have been some engagement period.”
“Huh?” She was puzzled, but then it dawned on her what I was getting at. She got a bit shrill: “Are you kidding? I never let him lay a hand on me. No free samples. You don’t know Pops Martin, and I do. Any girl who gives him what he wants can forget it.”
“So, you’re still the virgin bride?”
Her laugh was like enamel cracking. “Yeah, that’s right. Come over here and see what you can do about that.” She raised both arms invitingly, and the front of her nightie did another nose-dive.
“I’d like to, Genie,” I said without moving. “I really would.”
“Well, then?”
“One little thing bothers me. I can understand that you’re disappointed at Pops’ lack of enthusiasm for honeymoon calisthenics. But it still seems to me that marrying him was a pretty drastic step. What was keeping you from kissing off the dishpan and Pops Martin and just hitting the road?”
“These.” She turned both thin arms elbows down, palms up. “Come over and have a close look,” she said.
That intrigued me, and I did. At first, in the flat light, I couldn’t see anything unusual about her arms, but then in the blue-white crook of her elbow I could make out a pale pattern of tracks like the faded reminders of aerial bombing. One major vein on her left arm had that destroyed look they sometimes get when a needle has been stuck in them a couple of hundred times too many.
“See?” she said with a bittersweet smile.
“I get your point. And you think this place helps?”
She shrugged, and the rest of the top of her nightgown fell, covering the needle tracks on her arms. She took my hands and pulled me toward her. It would have taken a more determined man than I was just at that moment to have pulled away, so I sat down next to her legs. “I haven’t used any since I came here over a year ago,” she said, “and it’s the first time I’ve been clean since I was fourteen years old. I don’t know what you think of The Institute, but it’s better than the gutter, and I’ve been there.”
I believed her. Whatever other kind of fraud Hugo Fischer was, The Institute seemed to work for some. I wondered whether it was because of him or in spite of him.
“Tell me, Genie,” I said, “did you…”
“I’m tired of telling,” she complained, slipping down to a horizontal position and trying to pull me on top of her. She didn’t have to try very hard to be honest, and I was just kissing my chastity goodbye when the intercom directly over my head cleared its throat and began to bark.
“Attention all residents and guests! Attention all residents and guests! Gather in the Horizon Room immediately! Immediately!” said a voice that sounded suspiciously like Hugo Fischer bellowing into a garbage can.
“Shit!” said Genie, snapping to a sitting position. Her eyes rambled around the room looking for another exit, but there was only the window.
Just then an obscure rumbling commenced as feet hit the floors and doors began to fly open. In the hallway outside toy door, a babble of sleepy voices broke out, and somebody with a heavy foot thundered by hitting all the doors with a blunt instrument and crying: “Up, up, up! Let’s move it! Now!”
“What are we going to do?” Genie whispered, suddenly turning from teenage seductress to trapped rat. She struggled into the rest of her nightgown and jumped out of bed.
“I think I’ll just stay here,” I said. “I’ve never been much for midnight frolics. Fischer probably just wants to find out if anyone is having any interesting dreams.”
“You can’t,” she said. “They’ll come through all the rooms to see if anyone’s missing. When Hugo calls a meeting, everybody comes.”
By then, the noise from the hallway had risen to a modest din, and the gazelle in clodhoppers bounded by again, dealt my door a mortal blow and bleated: “Out, out, owwwwwt!”
“Then I guess we’ll have to go,” I said. “You weren’t wearing anything else when you came up here, were you?” Genie was nervously nibbling her thumb and looking sick. “No!” she wailed. “Christ, Pops is going to kill me for this.”
“No, he won’t,” I said, trying to comfort her. After all, it was her honeymoon, and she’d already had two disappointments that night. “Tell me, who’s sleeping on th
is floor?”
The panic began to drain from Genie’s face. Maybe she figured I knew what I was doing. “Mostly guests,” she said, “and maybe a couple of newcomers.”
Outside in the hall, I could still hear a bit of scampering about, but it was dying down as the sleepyheads filtered downstairs.
“Just a second,” I told Genie. Opening the door carefully, I stuck my head, out into the hall, making sure that no passerby could see into my room. Just my luck, Rachel Schute was just coming out into the hall knotting the sash of an apple-green dressing gown. Redheads ought to always wear green.
“Hello, Joe,” she said, a bit startled to suddenly see me. There was something else in her expression.
“Hi, Rachel,” I said. “Isn’t this fun? What do you suppose the great man wants?”
“We’ll find out when we get downstairs,” she said, with reproof in her voice. “Are you ready to go down?” She paused and turned toward me as if waiting for me to join her.
“Uh, no—no,” I said a bit hurriedly. “I’ve got a couple of—uh—things to do. You go right ahead. I’ll be right there. Save me a seat.”
Rachel looked puzzled, bit her lower lip and said: “All right, Joe. I’ll see you downstairs. But don’t be too long. Hugo likes people to be prompt,”
“I’ll bet,” I said to her departing back. I was watching her about to disappear down the stairs when she looked back at me. I shut the door in a hurry.
Back inside my room, Genie was flitting here and there in her bridal nightie like a nubile moth. “Listen,” I said. “I think everyone’s gone down from this floor. I’ll check again, and then we can creep down before Fischer sends his bloodhounds up to sniff us out. Where is your room?”
“On the next floor down,” she said.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll go down the stairs first. If the way is clear, I’ll whistle and head on downstairs to the big meeting. You make it to Pops’ room and get something on.”
“But what will I tell Pops? Remember, I was supposed to be in bed with him.”
“Tell him anything,” I suggested helpfully. “Tell him he didn’t wake up when the first announcement came and that you rushed out of the room before he did. Tell him anything but the truth.”
“Well, okay,” she said doubtfully.
“Right,” I said. “You ready?” She nodded, and I turned to open the door again.
“Joe?” she said, and I turned back to find her in my arms. She was like an armload of animated meringue, and I didn’t fight very hard when she kissed me. Her lips tasted like perfumed orange Kool-Aid. “Thanks,” she said, when she’d stopped molesting me, “for caring whether I get caught.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, putting her feet back on the floor, “but we’re both going to get caught if we don’t get moving.” A peek out of the door told me that the hall was deserted, and I moved out into it, whispering: “Follow me.”
It was clear sailing to the head of the stairs. “You stay here, now,” I said, “until I whistle. Then run like hell. If I start talking to someone in a loud voice, you’d better make it back to my room.”
“Then what?” she asked, not looking as confident as she had a few moments before.
“God knows.” I gave her hand a squeeze and started down the stairs. The next floor down was deserted. Giving the best whistle I could manage, I started blithely to turn toward the next flight only to come face to face with a breathless-Rachel Schute.
“Joe,” she said. “I forgot…”
Whatever she forgot was soon forgotten as her eyes caught sight of someone we both knew coming down the stairs behind me. Rachel’s face froze in surprise that was about to turn to something else when she spun around and flew back down the stairs.
Genie was frozen, too, with one bare foot in the air, but I dashed back and yanked her down to the next landing. Once her feet touched the floor again, I gave her a shove in the general direction of her room and then carried on down the stairs trying to whistle nonchalantly through a bone-dry throat.
12
When I got downstairs, most of the mob had filtered into the large drawing room that seemed to be the Horizon Room. I followed along, keeping close to the walls and playing the interested but detached observer. The last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to myself, which made it doubly unfortunate that I was just about the only one there who was fully dressed. My clothes aren’t much at the best of times, but even after being dropped in the dirt by J. B. Carter, I stood out like Diamond Jim Brady at a slumber party.
When I got into the big—and now crowded—room, it hadn’t changed much since that afternoon except that someone had spray-painted HUGO FUCK YOURSELF!!! on the expensive embossed wallpaper in a nasty shade of purple paint.
I began to get a glimmer why Fischer had asked us all to join him. And why that same charismatic figure was standing barefoot in a bright yellow terrycloth robe in front of a massive fireplace glaring at the assemblage. His birthmark seemed to be especially livid. Flanking him were Don Moffitt, looking as though he wanted to maim somebody—anybody—and Pops Martin, who was trying to be tough but mostly looked sleepy and a bit bewildered. He was peering around the room anxiously. I spotted Rachel among the crowd, but she studiously refused to acknowledge that I existed.
There weren’t enough chairs and couches, so most of us perched on window sills or just leaned against the walls. I was a leaner, myself. My watch told me it was after 2 a.m., and my head still throbbed where J.B. had sandbagged me. I noted that among those in the high priced seats were Mrs. J.B.—Tommy slumped beside her looking like a big baby in a set of woolly green pajamas— Rachel, Cousin Harold, Mrs. Harold and Dr. Carey. First among equals, you might say. Fischer’s wife, Lenore, was sitting behind his right shoulder looking played out.
A half-moon-shaped area between Fischer and the front row was left vacant, and he stalked its periphery while security men in gray coveralls moved among the crowd, taking a head count. Finally, one of them sidled up to him and announced that all residents and guests were present or accounted for. Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Genie tucked neatly in a far corner of the big room. She was swaddled to the chin in a very demure fuzzy blue kimono, and doing her best to be invisible. She wasn’t looking anywhere near me, and that suited me fine. Just at that moment, Pops spotted her, too, and his face was a confusion of emotions. Before he could decide which of them to vent, however, Hugo put his big hands on his hips and began to speak.
“We’re all here, friends,” Fischer said, “so I suppose we can begin.” A graveyard stillness fell over the room. Fischer surveyed us all for an uncomfortably long time, as if trying to extract a confession by sheer will power. The strain in the room was palpable, and I was thinking of confessing myself when Fischer broke the silence.
“Look about you, friends,” he intoned, “and see the handiwork of one among us.” He raked us with Gatling gun eyes, and we all dutifully inspected the graffiti as if we’d been looking at much else since we’d come into the room.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he cracked the word like a whip, pouring the maximum scorn on the scrawl and its anonymous author. “Isn’t it witty? Doesn’t it strike right at the heart of authority?”
Me, I didn’t think it was so wonderful. I’d seen better in public toilets. I’d written better.
“Hank Willis!” The name rang out like a shot, and a depressed looking guy with a receding hairline and matching chin stopped studying his thumb and gave all his attention to Fischer. He didn’t actually say: “Yes, Sir!” but he certainly began to look a lot more alert.
“Hank,” said Hugo, in a benign tone with a hook in it, “why don’t you read to us the work of the Phantom Scrawler?”
I’ll give Willis some credit: He had the guts to shoot Fischer a “what the hell for?” look and keep his lip buttoned.
“Go right ahead,” said Fischer with a flourish of his right hand. “We’re all listening.”
Willis opened hi
s mouth. I’m not all that sure that he was going to obey Fischer, but Fischer didn’t give him a chance.
“Oh, not from there, Hank,” he said with deceptive bonhomie. “Come over here”—he pointed to the empty crescent before him—”where we can all see you and hear you.”
Willis thought about that a lot, and looked around at the others as if to gather support. But a corridor to the place of honor was already opening for him. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to take advantage of it. He stood, his eyes on Fischer’s fleshy, flawed face, as if trying to read something that wasn’t there. But Fischer’s expression of benign impatience didn’t change.
“Come on, Hank,” he said. “We’re all waiting.”
Willis squared his puny shoulders and began to move through the crowded room. He didn’t look at anyone in particular as he walked, but Susan Wallstrom—looking sleepily attractive in a soft-pink house coat—seemed to be trying to communicate some sort of support to him. If Willis received it, he wasn’t letting on.
When he got to the dead center of Fischer’s little no man’s land, Willis stopped and once again looked into Hugo’s eyes. His expression said: “All right, I know it’s crazy, but I’m here.” I wouldn’t say it was exactly a duel; Fischer was too powerful for that. He could have blown Willis away without trying. But in a chicken shit way, it was a sort of rebellion, and I could tell that Fischer didn’t like it. Not in front of the children.
Moffitt and Pops Martin didn’t like it much either. They strained at invisible leads, as if ready to rip out Willis’ throat on command. And they weren’t the only ones. The look on the faces of the lads in gray was positively predatory. I wasn’t sorry that it was Willis up there in the limelight instead of me.
The silence got on Pops’ already taut nerves and he snapped: “All right, sucker, start reading!”
Charles Alverson - Joe Goodey 02 - Not Sleeping, Just Dead Page 11
