by Jim Nisbet
Another door stood behind the first one. This one was also made of wood, covered with foam and black burlap, and opened away from Windrow. The music had gotten louder yet, but still not as loud as it should have been, had someone actually been playing a cello immediately beyond it. Windrow recognized that he was letting himself into a sound-proofed room. He examined the door jamb with his flash. It would be at least eight inches thick.
Quietly, he slid the restraining bolt out of its socket and turned the knob below it. The door opened. He pushed it so that it folded all the way back on its hinges, against the wall behind it.
Herbert Trimble sat on a bench against the far wall, playing the cello.
He looked terrible. He had a black eye. His hair was ragged. But his good eye had enough mascara and eyeliner on it to make it look almost as bad as the bad one. There was rouge on his cheeks, a sort of peach color, and he had on lipstick, a bright, crimson lipstick. But he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, or his depilation compound had failed him. Stubble of black beard poked through the thick surface of makeup on his jaw and cheeks, and the lipstick was crooked and badly applied, as if done hurriedly and without the advantage of a mirror.
He had on the same cravat Windrow had seen on him early the morning of the day before, untied, and the same pants, but he wore a woman’s yellow summer frock over them. The straps of the frock exposed the bare, thin white shoulders and the stubbled masculine, black hairs growing back on his chest. His underarms had been shaved, but not recently.
Herbert had painted the nails of his fretting hands with a polish that matched his lipstick, more or less. On his feet, he still wore the black evening socks and the black Italian leather shoes he’d had on the last time Windrow had seen him.
Trimble stopped bowing in the middle of a phrase and looked at Windrow. “Hello, Mr. Windrow,” he said with a strangely friendly smile. He closed his eyes, as if concentrating on something, then opened them again. The pupils found Windrow, and the eyes laughed with the mouth: a short curtailed chuckle. Then the eyes closed again, and the bow hand began to sway in time, and the body made as if to synchronize with it, but no string sounded.
Windrow wondered where the mind was. Still holding his gun on Trimble he stole a glance around the room.
The wall behind Trimble might have been the one in the photographs, but it was covered in wood now, and festooned with shackles and metal rings and chains and hooks. Windrow dropped his eyes to the floor at Trimble’s feet. The four-inch drain was there, the same one he’d seen in the picture taken of Feyn hanging from the wall. Against the wall to his left was a door, which he guessed would lead to the breezeway next to the house. Next to it was a table covered with bottles of liniment, makeup, one of brandy; a razor; a many-thonged whip; a porcelain basin; a pitcher; towels. Under it stood a suitcase.
The bench Trimble was sitting on was big enough to use as a palette. Against the other wall were two chairs, and a couple of racks on which hung several different kinds of whips, handcuffs, shackles, lengths of chain, much rope, gags, masks, leather thongs and clothes, and a large, medieval mace, flanked by two halberds. Windrow guessed, or hoped, that most of this stuff was ornamental. But he would never be sure.
“Herbert,” he said.
No answer.
“Herbert. Are you a prisoner here?”
No answer.
“Herbert, if you’re here against your will, tell me so, and I’ll get you out of here.”
Trimble suddenly straightened his posture and opened his eyes long enough to look sideways at Windrow. He closed them and, bowing his head, began to primp his hair with his free hand.
“Why, Mr. Windrow,” a voice said, “I didn’t realize you cared so very much as all that.” It was Trimble speaking but it was an affected feminine voice. “If I’d known you were coming …” Trimble chuckled, and didn’t finish the sentence. Then he said. “You were so … so brusque, the last time we met”—he looked at Windrow coyly, through his eyelashes—“I didn’t think you cared to renew our acquaintance.”
“Last time we met, Herbert, your friend Harry Feyn bashed me over the head with a blunt instrument. I didn’t have the time to be properly brusque.”
Trimble stopped primping and looked at Windrow with genuine puzzlement in his expression.
“You were hurt when last we met?” She—for, Windrow realized, she it was—arched her back. “I’m sure I didn’t hurt you. I’m always most careful in those matters. Hmph. You must have me confused with some other girl, you dog.” She winked at Windrow.
Windrow rubbed his cheekbone with the muzzle of his pistol. The guy Trimble was very gone, that was obvious. But Windrow still didn’t think this confused creature could have done what was done to Virginia Sarapath. On the other hand, if someone wanted to hang her murder on Trimble, there wouldn’t be much trouble getting him put away somewhere for keeps. Nobody would believe a thing he said. They could convict him criminally insane, give him his cello, and lock him up. It probably would happen to him anyway. It looked like Feyn had already gone pretty far in that direction. Why?
“Herbert—I mean, Honey …?”
Honey was straightening the straps to her gown. The cello bow lay forgotten on the bench beside her, the cello leaned near it.
“Yes, Mr. Windrow?” Her voice had become theatrically frosty.
“Would you like to come with me, to get out of here, to go someplace safe?’
“Safe, Mr. Windrow?” Honey Trimble frowned and looked toward Windrow, but avoided his eyes. “What do you mean, safe? This is Harry’s home, and I feel perfectly safe here.”
“You’re not worried what Harry might do when he comes back and finds you’ve talked with me?” Windrow was grabbing at straws.
Honey looked away from him.
“Will he hurt you,” Windrow said softly, “when he finds out?”
Honey looked at him fiercely. A tear ran down her cheek. Great canyons of misunderstanding opened between them. Windrow could suddenly see clear to the bottom of them. It meant something.
“Why will he hurt you, Honey? Doesn’t he know I want to help you?”
Honey looked at Windrow and bit her lip.
“Why, Honey?”
When the tip of his steel cane pricked Windrow in the back of the head, in the little hollow at the top of his spine, Harry Feyn gave his own answer.
“Because he’s afraid, Mr. Windrow,” the new voice said.
Had there been an electrical charge on the tip of the unsheathed sword it could scarcely have had a stronger effect on Windrow’s nervous system. The tingle raised the hairs and traveled a ways down the top end of his spinal column oscillating from side to side.
“Throw the gun toward Herbert, Mr. Windrow, gently.”
Windrow underhanded the gun to Trimble. The latter caught it with surprising alacrity.
“Thank you. Now hand that white book under your arm toward me. Ah … thank you.” The man sighed audibly. “That’s a great relief,” he said. “I shouldn’t leave these valuable things lying around, especially in this neighborhood. Step forward, Mr. Windrow, if you please. Thank you.” Feyn circled around Windrow’s left, dragging the point of the sword around the depression just under his left ear. Windrow looked askance at Feyn. He, too, strongly resembled his pictures, except that he was dressed in a three-piece tweed suit. He had short black hair, balding in front, and a neat moustache. His eyes were intense and worried. But Windrow noticed that Feyn kept his back leg crooked a bit and his sword arm bent at the elbow, which was lowered toward his hip. He was set up for a quick thrust, which suggested he knew how to use the unusual weapon in his right hand.
“Now back yourself toward the door.”
Windrow did so. The door caught on his shoulder and pushed shut behind him.
Trimble blurted a few words. “He—he wanted to take me away, Harry. He said I would be safe. W-what did he mean? Harold?”
Feyn had backed away from Windrow, who stood quietly. Windr
ow realized that Trimble had suddenly become masculine again.
“He meant the police, Herbert,” Feyn said, “and you know what he told us about the police.”
“Who told you? Driscoll?”
Trimble gasped at the name and his head jerked from Feyn to Windrow. He began to mutter and babble. “Oh!” he said. “Sammy, how could you! Oh!” He wrung his hands. “She was so good to us, Harold, so kind …” Windrow watched Trimble closely. He was sliding from his male role to his female role and back again. It was too quick a change to be anything but genius or bad mental health. Windrow guessed the latter. Facial expressions characteristic of both sex roles flitted across Trimble’s face, singly and in clusters, out of order, like mixed up frames in a movie.
“He’s coming apart, Feyn,” Windrow said. “He’ll be a basket case by sunup. He already is. Where do you think you’re going to hide out with this?”
“He’s a great artist,” Feyn said evenly, “and he’s my friend. He’ll be himself again, as soon as we get out of town.” He opened the door behind him by feel. As Windrow had expected, it led to the waiting night.
“You’re crazier than he is,” Windrow said, “if you think you can hide Trimble safely. How are you going to pull it off? Where are you going to go?”
“We’re all taken care of, Mr. Windrow. We just don’t want to hurt you.”
“Me? you’re all taken care of? By whom? Driscoll? I’ll just bet you will be. He’s already killed twice, hasn’t he? Maybe more times than that. You think he’s going to stop now?” Windrow gestured at Trimble. “Your friend here may be loco, but the guy that did in Virginia Sarapath is really sick.” He turned to Trimble. “Who killed Honey, Herbert? Who killed your wife? Was it you?” Trimble looked wildly from Feyn to Windrow at these questions. He was visibly crumbling under the strain of dealing with Windrow and Feyn in the same room.
“Stop it!” Feyn shouted. “You’re hurting him!”
“Who—who, Herbert?” Windrow persisted. “Was it Harry? Was it Sammy Driscoll?”
“Shut up!” Feyn screamed, and he whipped the sword in the air so that it made a deadly noise in front of Windrow’s face. Trimble was shaking, visibly terrified, and stuck, as if completely dumbfounded by an impossible choice. A long groan escaped him, a wail so profound, and so devastating that Windrow hardly knew what he himself was saying. Feyn looked desperately from Windrow to Trimble and back again, not daring to leave Windrow to himself but determined to help his friend through the door to freedom.
They all heard the first crash against the door that led to the garage, but curiously, only Trimble recognized it for what it was. He screeched and stood up, holding Windrow’s pistol in two hands that shook so badly that Windrow watched him, fascinated, amazed that the weapon didn’t discharge; but when Trimble lowered the weapon and pointed it directly at Windrow’s chest, Windrow took it for granted that Trimble was about to blow him away. He was about to make a desperate leap to cover the fifteen feet that lay between himself and the mad Trimble, and somehow still avoid Feyn’s long, thin sword, when the door behind him splintered and knocked him directly into Trimble’s line of fire.
The big pistol bucked and roared in Trimble’s hands, the recoil knocking him backward against the wall behind him. The load caught Windrow, he wasn’t sure where, somewhere in his upper body, and spun him left almost 180 degrees on his collapsing knees. As the red came down over his eyes, he saw that Feyn had disappeared and the door to the alley was closing behind him. He heard the clatter of the sword as it caromed off the door jamb behind him and saw it fall to the floor as, sitting now and facing directly away from Trimble, he heard Trimble fire again and again. The shots went over Windrow’s head and although the sounds he heard weren’t quite connected with what he saw, he watched big slugs dig up the cloth and blow splinters out of the wooden door. As he sagged to one side, the door sprang open violently again, and only when he saw the uniforms and Gleason’s face, did he finally understand what had happened behind him. But when he saw all the muzzles of their guns spitting sparks and smoking, and heard the roar of his own gun being fired and the pugatorial screams of Herbert Trimble behind him, and heard the shotgun boom in front of him—once, twice, and again—he wanted to hold up his arms, palms out toward them, toward them all to tell them to stop, to say: “Time out.” He wanted to tell them there’d been a mistake, perhaps two mistakes, but at least one mistake. So he fell on his face.
Chapter Seventeen
THE DREAM WAS LONG. IN THE DREAM ALL POSSIBLE AND certified events, factual and counterfactual, swirled around him. The sparks were constant for a time—he would never understand how much time—but they spit and littered his dream world, as if they produced and acted in its disjunct progressions, and they always wound down to long periods of fretful density, characterized by blankness, but bearing the import of something left undone, a step that wanted taking, a message that needed delivering. Or the gun. Its dark muzzle never wavered from his eyes; it opened up and roared dark eternity at him, like the animate mouth of a cave filled with death.
In the throes of this last ministration, he would try to turn over, but the straps held him on his back. Sometimes the night nurse would listen to him and stroke his cheek, so that part of him at least would know that it was not alone. Small comfort. The pieces of him were only visibly joined together in that bed; the synchronicity of them, their unity, was intangible to Windrow, who went two weeks not knowing his name.
When he woke up, they’d gotten him addicted to morphine to keep him quiet. His insurance policy provided him a bed, but not a private one. His delirium kept everybody else in the room awake. Braddock and his committee, through a sympathetic doctor, had him moved to a room of his own, where Windrow would disturb no one, but the morphine continued. When he’d realized what was going on, Windrow decided he liked it. The treatment continued except that they began to decrease the doses. This slight shortcoming, a long, graceful jump shot from half court that arched up nicely, just right, but fell every time just short of the basket, gave him something to think about. Some of the time.
Gleason showed up with an armload of cheap murder mysteries. Windrow tried some of them, fitfully, but soon gave up. Most of them based their ideas of intrigue on international travel, large amounts of money, businesslike brutality, and noserings disguised as logic. The books gathered dust on the bottom shelf of his night table while he stared out the window, listening to his integument knit itself.
Marilyn was there much of the time. To pass additional time they took up an active interest in the Giants, who were a mere fourteen games out. She read him the sports pages, the only section of the newspaper they let him see, and they listened to the games together. She was working nights in a small neighborhood diner on Sacramento Street. In the afternoon she would show up more or less promptly at two and slip him a nip of brandy, perhaps two—she wouldn’t bring anything stronger—and he would exercise himself trying to keep from choking on it. The fumes taxed his one good lung, and convulsed the punctured one, but the little taste took the edge off the morphine, helped him get from the twelve o’clock feeding to the four o’clock.
Marilyn was there the day Gleason came in with news.
“They found Feyn. Motel room in Sparks.” He looked from Windrow to Marilyn.
Windrow managed to speak hoarsely through his recently dampened lips. “Tell her, too.”
Gleason shrugged. “Hung himself. Used a lampcord and ceiling fixure. Maid found him.”
Marilyn avoided their eyes. “Do you think—was he—?”
Gleason lit a cigarette. “Did he kill your sister? Bdeniowitz thinks so.”
The door opened and the floor nurse stuck her head in. “Please, sir.” She pointed. “No smoking on this ward. If you want to smoke—”
“I can go down six flights to the lobby,” Gleason finished the sentence for her. He walked to the window, took one long drag, and flipped the butt into the parking lot below.
W
indrow managed to turn his head toward Gleason. “Why—?” he rasped.
Gleason stood before the window with his hands in his pockets, looking down into the parking lot. “He mutilated himself,” he said, “before he did it. It was the same … Sort of like …” He didn’t finish the sentence. Marilyn squeezed Windrow’s arm gently.
“They found a straight razor on the floor of the bathroom. There was blood in the bowl. Hell,” Gleason muttered, “there was blood everywhere.”
A tear ran down Marilyn’s cheek. She stared at the edge of Windrow’s bed, still holding his arm, but less gently.
Gleason didn’t turn around. They were all silent for a long moment.
Gleason rattled the change in his pocket. “Say, Marilyn,” he said, pulling the change out of his pocket and examining it in his hand. He extracted two quarters from it. “Would you step down the hall to the machine in the foyer, and get us a coupla cups of joe?” She looked at him. “Please?” He extended the two coins to her.
She looked at Gleason for a moment longer, then took the two quarters from him. Gleason watched her leave. “With cream,” he said. “Extra cream.” He turned to Windrow as the door swung to. “Gotta have that extra dose of alumae-sala-sody-silicate. Christ, and they call this a hospital.”
Windrow looked at him. “What else?” he croaked.
Gleason sat down next to the bed in the chair that Marilyn had just vacated. “Bdeniowitz will kill me, if he ever—”
Windrow narrowed his eyes and barely moved his head.
“They found a picture. It was propped on the little shelf under the bathroom mirror.” Gleason pinched his sinuses and scrubbed his tired, birdlike face with his hand. “It was a black-and-white, showed her sister … tied, chained I guess, to a wall. She didn’t have much clothes on, either.” Gleason sighed. “I guess you know which wall, and whose chains,” he said. He looked at Windrow and looked away. “She’d been beaten up a little,” he said, “whipped by the look of it, though it’s hard to tell from a picture. She had this, this kind of … dazed expression. It …” Gleason’s voice trailed off. “Chrissakes, Marty.” He stood up and paced back to the open window. “She looked grateful,” he said, almost to himself.
