Dagger of Flesh (19 page)

I said, still in the same flat voice of the hypnotized man I was pretending to be, "That was all I'd managed to figure out when I had to come here. But it's all about the way it happened, isn't it, Hannibal?"

He wasn't looking at me. He was still staring fixedly at the hypodermic, and I opened my eyes wide.

He'd been sitting quietly, listening all this time, and now he answered slowly, unconsciously, without even thinking about it.

"Not quite," he said dully. "Borden thought we wanted to play a practical joke on Weather. He got panicky after Jay's death and after you talked to him. He phoned me and went to pieces, and I—" he looked at his big hands— "had to take care of him." Hannibal shook his head. "God, I didn't start out to kill Weather, much less Borden. I wouldn't have if Gladys hadn't badgered me, and if it hadn't looked so perfect, and if the old fool hadn't gone to see ... you ..."

His voice faltered as, all of a sudden, it hit him. I wasn't supposed to ask questions—I couldn't! Fear stained his face and he jerked his head up to stare at me. He couldn't have been more surprised and shocked if I were a corpse that had suddenly risen from its casket.

His mouth dropped open and he gasped aloud.

I grinned at him.

"Yes, Hannibal," I said softly. "There are cops in the rooms on both sides of us taking all this down, and cops outside in the hall, and you're through."

He couldn't grasp it. It was too sudden, too unnerving. He'd been living with the memory of murder and hadn't liked that digging into him. And now this—all his carefully laid plans crumbling.

His face was blank for a long moment, his fists clenched; then he felt the solidity of the hypodermic in his hand and glanced at it. Footsteps pounded in the hall outside. Hannibal's face twisted and he got his legs under him and lunged toward me, bent far over with the point of that needle driving at me, and I grabbed the arms of the chair I sat in, jerked my legs up and planted both hard leather heels in the middle of his pretty face.

I slammed my feet solidly into him and the shock coursed up my legs and into my spine, but it stopped him and sent him staggering backward. The great, handsome length of him slipped to the floor, his face twisted and streaming blood, and as he crumpled to the carpet he still gripped the gleaming hypodermic he'd been ready to inject me with.

I never knew for sure whether he did it on purpose, or if he was just stunned, or if it was an accident in the way he fell, but he slammed the needle into the flesh at the side of his stomach and shoved the plunger home.

The door burst open, its lock splintered by heavy shoulders. Two plainclothes officers stumbled into the room, guns in their hands. Another officer was right behind them.

They took in everything with one quick glance and I yelled, "Get the bastard! He jabbed himself with that hypo."

From there on in, it was a walk.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

 

HANNIBAL lasted fifteen or twenty minutes before he died, and even the dying part had been well thought out, only the guy who died in such a strange fashion was supposed to have been me. I hated to think how this might have turned out, considering what was in that vicious hypodermic, if I'd really gone into a hypnotic trance when I'd walked into the room.

A doctor had come in right on the heels of the police, but it didn't do any good. Hannibal talked like mad for a while, getting it off his chest, then anxiety grew in his face, and fear. Right at the end he was sorry he was going out—sorry for a lot of things—but even when the doctor knew what was wrong with him it was too late. Hannibal's pupils dilated and his hands started trembling. Then his arm muscles began twitching and perspiration flooded his face.

They tried, but they didn't even get him out of the hotel. He went into convulsions and collapsed, and it wasn't pretty to watch. Then he died.

 

That had been three hours ago. Now I was sitting in my car smoking a cigarette and thinking. I knew that the impetus behind the whole mess had been furnished by my recent love, Gladys, who was now cooling her heels in a cell. All the neat variations on the old murder theme had been supplied by the late Robert Hannibal, who had liked the way Gladys looked and the way she loved. I thought about the way Gladys looked and loved, and for a moment I was sorry for her. Then I remembered the rest of it and stopped feeling sorry at all.

I knew now that Hannibal had sent Lucian and Potter out of town, but they'd undoubtedly be picked up soon. I also knew I had been lucky that the inexpert Hannibal hadn't killed me Thursday night with an overdose from the first hypodermic he'd used on me then—but I was even luckier that he'd never got to use the second one—because it was full of adrenaline.

He'd had it all planned, even the suggestion he was going to give me. First a big slug of adrenaline in my veins; then I was supposed to leave the hotel and start running until my heart stopped and I dropped dead. L.A. DETECTIVE DROPS DEAD OF HEART FAILURE ON DOWNTOWN STREET. Hannibal was a cute bastard, all right.

I sat in the car and thought a lot more, but mostly I thought about Ann. She'd inherit everything now, but it wasn't going to be much consolation for her, not for a while. There was an awful lot of room in the big house on St. Andrews Place, particularly for such a little girl. It would take some time till she had completely recovered from this, and she was confused enough already. I hoped this didn't get her down too much. I liked Ann. I didn't know whether it was a good idea or not, but I started the car and headed for St. Andrews Place. She could always tell me to take off.

She answered the door. "Hi, Ann," I said. "I was out this way, so I stopped. See how you were, you know."

She smiled. "Come on in, Shell."

We sat on the divan in the living room. I noticed that most of the lights were burning downstairs, as if she were trying to erase all the shadows.

She said, "I'm glad you came by, Shell. I didn't like Gladys, but I still can't believe—" She broke it off and shook her head.

"Yeah. Pretty bad, I know. You all right?"

She smiled. "I'm all right. I feel sort of numb, that's all."

We talked a few more minutes, quietly and almost casually, and she asked a few questions about what had happened, just to get it straight in her mind, she said. I told her the things she wanted to know as briefly as possible.

Then she said, "You don't have to sit around with me, Shell. I'm all right, honest. I think maybe I'd like to be alone, get the crying over with. If I'm going to cry, that is. I really don't know."

She stopped for a moment, then glanced at me with an odd look on her face. "I've done a lot of thinking, Shell. About everything—about me, too. Everything's mixed up, but I guess I hated Gladys too much, maybe. And loved Dad too much. Too much of everything." She stopped talking again and shrugged. "Skip it. That's not what I wanted to say, anyway. But thanks for coming tonight, Shell."

I got up to go. "Anything I can do, Ann ..."

"I know."

"Maybe I'm stupid to mention it now," I said, "but if you feel up to it one of these days, maybe I can buy you another drink at Frankie's."

She smiled and her eyes crinkled a little. "I'd like that, Shell. I really would. And thanks."

I left her at the door, and she waved to me as I drove back toward town.

In the office, where it had all started, I sat behind my desk and wondered if I'd ever be quite the same again. It had been like a nightmare. I knew I hadn't committed murder, but the thought that it could have happened haunted me.

I couldn't help wondering how it would have ended if it hadn't been Hannibal, who wasn't expert in hypnotic technique, but Joseph Borden or somebody like Bruce Wilson, somebody who really knew how to control another person's mind. Or even what might have happened if Hannibal had been able to spend more time working on me. Enough more time so that I couldn't have recognized that posthypnotic suggestion to go to the Phoenix.

Even now that Hannibal and Gladys had talked, and I could account for almost all the things I'd done during the past three days, there were still little blank spots, still small gaps in my memory. Of course, I realized some of my knowledge was the knowledge I'd got from listening to the recording I'd made of that first session at the Phoenix Hotel. It wasn't as if I'd actually lived it, but like something that had happened to another person, something I'd just been told about. I wondered if this thing that had happened to me might have happened, with variations, to others; to others who might not have been as lucky in finding out as I had been; to others who never did learn that the impulses in their minds were really the suggestions of somebody else; or to others who simply didn't remember. I knew, now, that it could have happened to many persons who would laugh if such an apparently insane possibility were suggested to them.

I thought I had this whole picture put together now, but vague doubts were still with me. Just as sometimes you wonder where the dream ends and reality begins, I wondered which of my memories were real and which were false, what had actually happened and what hadn't.

Then I shook the momentary depression off. The hell with it, Scott. You've got the picture now. You can even check back, go over some of the ground again and check up on your actions and conversations. Should be easy, you're a detective.

I started feeling more like myself. Tomorrow I'd nose around a little, and in a few days I'd have everything pinned down tight. Get back to normal and then forget it, that was the thing. I was being an old maid, anyway. I knew damn well I'd talked to Gladys and Ann, Hannibal, Arthur, Peter and Ayla ... yeah, Ayla.

That had been real enough. The only hypnosis there was in Ayla's white thighs. I couldn't have imagined the moist heat of her lips, the curve of her breasts, her long red fingernails. I couldn't have imagined that!

Of course, it wouldn't hurt to make sure. I could check up tomorrow just to make sure my memory wasn't playing tricks on me.

A mean-looking woman, Ayla. That foot swinging gently, obviously for effect. That smooth white thigh. Uh-huh. Have to check up on that tomorrow.

I grabbed the phone book, looked for the number and started dialing.

Hell, I was already back to normal. Why wait till tomorrow?

 

 

The End