Hector nodded. “And what is your mother’s name?”
Kitty stepped out of the coach and into the sleet. She closed the door and said, “My mother was named Margaret.”
22
Brinke said, “We came up bust. The widow was too distraught for us to even attempt to approach or question her. Hell, Hem had to practically haul her off the coffin.”
“I saw,” Hector said, distracted, thinking of what Kitty had told him. “Terrible.”
Brinke nodded, rubbing Hector’s ankle. “Yes, what did you learn up there, Hector? Who was that woman in white you had in here?”
“Lloyd Blake’s mistress. An American named Kitty Pike.”
Hem said, “You think she’s the one who stabbed him to death?”
“No, not at all,” Hector said. “She’s torn up, too. Not desolated enough to crawl into the grave after him like Mrs. Blake looked to be trying to do, but the mistress is mourning, as well.”
Brinke said, “And did you learn anything from her?”
“Not really,” Hector said. He could tell Hem believed him; Brinke looked skeptical. Hector almost smiled. Brinke fully had his number. In just a few days, she’d taken his measure and evidently learned to read him too well. Hector said, “Hem, I want to find a phone. Can you ring up Dr. Williams? Ask him to come by my place? I think if another hour or two passes, I’m going to be an invalid.”
***
Dr. William Carlos Williams, poet and physician, said, “The tibia, fibula, and talus all seem to be intact. I was afraid at first it was a Pott’s fracture. It does seem to be a slight dislocation, but the tendons and ligaments seem undamaged.”
Williams, dark, slender, vaguely Spanish-looking — and whom Ernest insisted upon calling “WCW” — was talking mostly to Hem, who had already ventured his own layman’s diagnosis regarding Hector’s injured leg. Hem had essentially determined Hector was suffering from some kind of dislocation at the joint. Williams said, “You’re assumption was correct, Ernest. You might have been a gifted physician yourself, I think.”
Hector thought that assertion seemed to please Hem, perhaps too much.
Williams grabbed Hector’s foot and gripped it. He said, “Ernest, if you can get hold of his leg, just below the knee, and hold it rock steady.”
Hem did that. “Got it,” he said, closely watching everything that Williams did.
Williams said to Hector, “You may want to lie back now, Hector, and prepare yourself. Perhaps bite on a wallet, or something.”
Then the physician-poet abruptly twisted Hector’s foot and there was a pop. Straining, Hector bit through his lip, tasted blood.
“There,” Williams said. “Better to surprise you. And that’s got it. I’ll give you something for the swelling, but it should go down on its own now that the joint is properly aligned again. I’ll give you a little something special for the pain, too.”
Brinke said, “How long until he can get up and around, Doctor?”
“Give it at least a day,” Williams said, running a hand back through his close-cropped dark hair. “I’ll wrap it, and teach you both how to wrap it for him, for extra support.” Williams nodded at Brinke and at Hem in turn. “See that he gives it the rest of the day, and tomorrow, to recover.” Then, to Hector, Williams said, “Maybe tomorrow evening you can start putting some real weight on it. But go ahead and use that cane there, anyway. You’ll probably need that for a week or so. And suffice it to say, no running for a while and particularly not any more of this jumping over banisters.”
“Right,” Hector said, grimacing. The pain in his ankle was already receding but now there was a pin-and-needles sensation of intense tingling.
He mentioned it to Williams. The doctor said, “Circulation is returning, that’s all. Out-of-skew as your foot was, your circulation was disrupted. That could have created its own problems. Gangrene in time, or possibly the formation of a clot that might have migrated and caused a heart attack. Perhaps even a stroke, or brain seizure.”
“Can’t thank you enough for the house call,” Hector said. “This was killing me.”
“A dislocation can be more painful than a break in some ways,” Williams said, rooting through his bag. “And as I said, given time, it might well have killed you.”
Brinke said, “As you’re here, would you mind checking his hand, as well, Doctor?”
Williams looked up from his bag at Brinke and said, “What’s this? Another stairwell injury?”
“He cuffed Aleister Crowley,” Hem said, grinning.
“For that alone I waive my fee,” Williams said. He checked Hector’s hand, making him extend his middle finger. Then Williams asked Hector to shake hands. As they gripped one another’s hands, Williams said, “Squeeze my hand, Hector, hard as you can.” Finally, Williams kneaded Hector’s purple-blue knuckle. “Not broken, I think,” Williams said. “There’s not much to do for it but to give it some rest. Keep it limber, but don’t strain it. And don’t go around swinging on any more diabolists. At least not for a week or two. Anyway, the proper thing to do to diabolists is to shoot them. Preferably with silver bullets.”
There was a knock at the door. Hem put a hand on the knob, then hesitated. He called through the door, “Who is it?”
A deep, husky female voice: “Hemingway? Is that you? Open the door. It’s Gertrude Stein.”
Williams, whom Gertrude often publicly and privately criticized, rolled his eyes. Hector smiled and winked at his poet-doctor. “Me too. But what can we do?”
“Leave,” Williams said, “with all dispatch.” He smiled and patted Hector’s good leg. “Or at least, I can. You? Punishment perhaps for playing at the dime-novel hero, eh?”
“Then it’s another sorry lesson learned the hardest way,” Hector said, dropping his head back on the pillow as he heard Hem open the door for Gertrude. Hector braced for some biting remark from Alice. He smiled up at Brinke; she was sitting next to him on the bed, stroking his forehead. He said, “Darling Brinke, this day…” She smiled.
Gertrude said, “Dr. Williams, Miss Devlin.” Gertrude stood at the foot of his bed, smiling frostily at Hector. “My poor, poor star. Hadley dropped off some books at Sylvia’s while Alice was there and thusly does word spread.” Gertrude pointed at his leg. “This is from chasing that horrible Sánchez, is it? It’s not broken is it?” Gertrude had also studied medicine. Hem had told Hector that Gertrude had been inches from obtaining her medical degree when she walked away from it all to write fiction.
Williams answered for Hector. “Badly dislocated, but I’ve fixed that.”
Gertrude smiled and nodded. “Doctor Williams. It’s so good to see you functioning in your true métier…Doctor Williams”
“He’ll be fine.” Williams handed Brinke a small paper envelope. “For his pain. Give him two pills, shortly. Then one more this afternoon, and perhaps another later, before he sleeps. After that, he can take them as he feels he needs them. But they’re pretty powerful, so sparing is better.”
Hector said, “Any reason I can’t drink while I’m on these pills?”
Williams furrowed his brow: “The pills should make you quite numb, all by themselves, my friend. But a single glass of wine would be all right, I suppose. But no more. The wine will likely magnify the effects of the painkillers. As you’re rangy and have what I sense to be a high tolerance for pain, I suppose the wine might even be advisable in some ways. At least it will keep you in one place. But I really think you’ll find the pills enough in themselves.”
Williams closed his bag, then turned to Hem. “I’ll see you later this evening regarding Bumby. We should think about his circumcision, too. I could do it this evening.”
Hem made a face. “Yeah…we’ll talk about that. I’ll walk you out, WCW.”
Brinke thanked Williams. As Hem and Williams stepped out of the room, Hector saw that Estelle Quartermain was standing quietly in the doorway. She had previously been obscured behind the two men. Hector smiled meanly: the B
ritish mystery writer had cut her hair, and quite short. He guessed that Estelle had attempted to approximate Brinke’s new haircut, but whatever stylist she had found had taken it to too-mannish extremes. The resulting effect was closer to Joan Pyle’s masculine crop than Brinke’s sleek, boyish cut. Hector thought her new hairstyle made Estelle look like one of the many lesbians in the Quarter striving for archly male appearance. Estelle patted her head self-consciously with one hand as she noticed Hector focusing on her cropped hair. In her other hand, Estelle clutched a white cardboard box.
Gertrude gestured to Estelle and took the box from her and placed it on the bed by Hector’s wrapped and elevated foot. “A special treat Alice baked for you,” she said.
Hector was tempted to say, “Made with hemlock?” but said instead, “That was very kind of her. Please thank Alice for me.” Hector was proud of himself for his graciousness. He said to Gertrude, “Despite the bum leg, we did poke around the Lloyd Blake murder a bit today.”
Gertrude edged around and sat on the foot of the bed. Hector winced a little as the bed dipped and his ankle rolled a little toward Gertrude, who seemed oblivious to the effect that her settling bulk was having on Hector’s posture in his own sickbed. She said, “So you said you intended to do. At his funeral, you said. And what have we learned?”
“We have learned that Lloyd Blake had a mistress…a mistress who said that Lloyd was approached by a woman who was trying to buy his magazine,” Hector said. “Lloyd was supposed to be meeting with this woman the night that he was murdered.”
Gertrude said, “And what is this woman’s name?”
“Blake’s mistress didn’t know that,” Hector said. “But this mystery woman is American. We know that.”
“Nearly everyone in the Quartier Latin is American,” Gertrude said, glumly. “The Quarter is teeming with you — you generation of lost, drunken, and promiscuous young Americans. The curse of devalued European currency.”
“Nothing lasts forever,” Hector said, accepting a glass of water from Brinke.
Estelle said, “You’re sure she didn’t say something that might tip us to this woman’s identity?”
“I’m sure.”
Hem closed the door behind himself. Hem took the envelope of pills from Brinke, shook loose two pills, then handed them to Hector.
Hector took his medication, drained the glass of water, and dropped back on his pillow. To Estelle he said, “And you? Anything new to report on the poisoning of Charles Turner?”
“The snuff arrived as a gift to Mr. Turner, a few hours before the gathering at Miss Stein’s salon,” Estelle said.
“A gift from…?”
“It was an anonymous gift, according to Mrs. Turner. It arrived with an unsigned congratulatory note praising the quality of the latest issue of Charles’s magazine. Mr. Turner often used snuff and most who knew him seemed aware of that, according to his wife.”
“So the suspect pool is vast,” Brinke said dryly. “That’s convenient for someone. Anything else, Estelle?”
Estelle tugged at her shortened forelock, looking at Brinke’s hair. “No,” she said tersely. “I’m afraid not.”
Gertrude said, “So now what, Hector? Hemingway?”
“I’m benched until tomorrow night,” Hector said. “So I suppose for now we all best do what I’m ordered to do — hunker down. Bide our time. If we ever do identify a good target, we’ll go to Simon if the evidence seems prosecutable.”
Estelle moved closer to see Hector’s eyes. For his part, Hector was suddenly seized by more violent, erotic images of himself with the mystery writer. He saw himself taking her from behind…roughly.
Hector could feel himself getting hard and he raised his good leg a bit before his erection could make a tent of the sheets.
Hector also felt deliciously warm and realized then that his pain pills were kicking in.
The British mystery writer said, “And if it isn’t prosecutable, Hector?”
“Then we may have to take matters into our own hands,” he said, smiling. Hector thought he might even be leering at the mystery writer.
Estelle wrinkled her nose and said, “Nietzsche said that it’s wise counsel to ‘distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.’”
Hector waved a suddenly heavy hand, realizing he was already feeling profoundly dopy from his pain medication. “Well, I’m not sure it’s prudent to allow the ramblings of a man who died of syphilis to direct one’s thinking, Quarts.”
Shut up, Hector told himself. Your tongue is loose from the drugs Williams gave you and you might say anything now. You’re sounding like an idiot. Shut up.
“You’re slurring,” Gertrude said to Hector. She lightly patted his bandaged ankle. “The doctor probably gave you morphine. Well, sleep now. We’ll plan on talking tomorrow night.” Gertrude looked to Brinke, said, “You’ll arrange it?”
“We’ll see how ambulatory he is,” Brinke said “You might have to come back here to Hector, otherwise. Or perhaps the night after next.”
Hem said, “I’ll make the decision on that. Hector’s in my care now.” Hem took Estelle’s arm and steered her to the door.
Brinke said, “You’re coming back, aren’t you, Hem?”
“Sure,” he said. Hem turned and took Gertrude’s arm. “I’ll walk you two down. Tell you about what Hector and I discovered about Victor Leek this morning.”
Brinke said her goodbyes to Gertrude and Estelle. When Hem closed the door behind him, Brinke leaned down and kissed Hector’s lips. She said, “You still with me, Tex?”
He groggily reached out, took Brinke’s hand, and then placed it on the sheets between his legs. He could hear the drunkenness in his voice, but couldn’t do anything about it. “This enough to prove I am? Take off those clothes and come to bed.”
“I’d love to, darling, but Hem’s coming back.”
“He won’t mind.”
Hector felt very drunk now. He almost felt as though he needed to put his good foot on the floor to stop the room from spinning. Yet when Hector was truly that drunk from alcohol, there was always a sense of nausea — an awareness of an impending need to retch.
But now Hector felt warm, infinite.
He wondered what the hell Williams had given him. And he badly wanted to be inside Brinke…wanted to come.
Brinke moved her hand from his lap and said, “Put that away for now. Save it for later. I’m going to ask Hem to sit with you for a time, Hector.”
“You stay, too,” he heard himself say, his voice thick.
“No, I can’t, Hector. While you were with Hem, while you two were looking for Victor Leek, you had a visitor. Your friend, Molly Wilder. I was coming down the stairs as she was climbing them. It was…awkward. But we talked for a time and I invited her to a late breakfast. We talked a good deal more while doing that. Now, at least, Molly knows about us. We agreed to meet again for lunch — to talk about you and to talk about her poetry. I even confided to her that I’m Connor Templeton. Wanted to give her more of a sense of me than just some ‘muse’ or ‘whore.’ I like her well enough, Hector. I think Molly might even like me, despite some other feelings. But she seems very fragile, too. Very lonely. Yet, I think I can reach her.”
“—S’good.”
“God, you’re flying, aren’t you, Hector?”
“Sure.”
“Sleep then,” Brinke said. “I’ll spend a few hours with Molly. Try to see what I can do to prop her up some more.”
Hector found moving his lips had become more than he could manage. He wanted to caution Brinke about being alone with Molly. He wanted to warn Brinke against being alone with Margaret Wilder. He knew he needed to tell Brinke about what Kitty Pike had said about the alleged, interested potential buyer of Lloyd Blake’s magazine — some American woman named “Margaret W.”
But all Hector could manage was, “Molly…no…”
Her voice, fading. “She’s truly reconciled to us, I think,” Brinke said. “I ca
n tell.”
Hector tried to shake his head. But that, too, was now something far beyond his capability.
He heard Brinke and Hem briefly talking, but couldn’t make out their words. The door closed. Hem leaned down so close to Hector that he could smell the peat smoke on Hem’s clothes. Hem said, “I’m going to borrow your typewriter, if it won’t keep you up, Lasso. Need to transcribe some manuscript pages. It’s a new story about an Indian camp up in Michigan. About a pregnant squaw. I think it’s damn fine. Maybe my best yet.”
***
A woman’s voice…Hector wanted to reach out to it, but he still couldn’t move. The voice said, “It’s Hadley, Hector. Tatie had to check in on Ford. Ernest said it’s time for another pill. Here, now.” He felt her lifting his head, then felt her fingers at his lips. He tasted something hard and bitter in his mouth. “No, don’t bite it,” Hadley said. “Here.” Then he felt the drinking glass at his lips…pushed up against his teeth. He drank from the glass, then drank some more.
Languor, mounting.
***
Voices…drunken giggles.
“The corkscrew is over there.”
“Think four bottles will be enough?”
“Can always stretch it out with the Perrier.”
“What are these?”
“Some kind of brownies or cakes that Alice B. Toklas baked. Gertrude left them. Help yourself. And maybe get one for Hector, too. See if you can’t get him to eat a bit. It’s been hours since he last had food and those pain pills are probably shredding his stomach.”
Hector felt another pill being pushed into his mouth. Brinke’s voice: “Here, wash it down with this, Hector.”
He tasted wine.
Another voice — the voice of the second woman: “You sure that’s a good idea? Wine to wash down medication?”
“Dr. Williams said it is fine if Hector had a glass.”
That other voice, close by his face…the scent of lilacs: “Here, Hector — take a few nibbles of this.”
Hector tasted of the small cake that had some scent about it he couldn’t identify. He realized then he was hungry and allowed whoever was feeding him to give him all of the cake, and then a second piece. The voice: “He’s starving, I think. I wish we had something more substantial to give him.”
One True Sentence: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 1) Page 14
