It's Alive! (15 page)

“Look, sarge, it’s the rag lady!”

They pulled the police cruiser to the curb and jumped out. The sergeant quickly knelt at her head and put his hands along the sides of her neck, feeling for pulse.

“She’s alive, at least. Call for an ambulance.”

The patrolman trotted back to the cruiser to send the call while the sergeant cradled the rag lady’s head in his arm.

She stirred and opened her foggy eyes. She threw her hand up as if to ward off a blow, then slowly lowered it as she peered at the sergeant.

“It’s okay now, lady, just take it easy. We got an ambulance on its way. Don’t try and move.”

She moaned and rolled her eyes. “Oooh, ooww . . .”

“On its way, sergeant.” The patrolman knelt beside them as they heard the siren in the distance. “What’s with her, anyway?”

“Probably hasn’t eaten in a week. Take it easy now, lady.”

She rocked in his arms and moaned. “I seen it, oooh, I seen it—”

“Yeah, yeah, take it easy, we’ll get you into a nice, warm bed.”

“Seen what, sergeant? What’d she see?”

“Martian, dinosaur, pot of gold, maybe John Wayne. Who the hell knows? What’d you see, lady?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oooh . . . baby, I seen the baby . . . ooww . . .”

“What baby?”

The ambulance whined around the corner and lurched to a stop. Two white-clad attendants pulled a stretcher out of the back and ran over to where the rag lady lay moaning. Quickly they arranged a pillow and blankets. “Where’s she hurt, sergeant?” one of them asked, dropping to his knees beside him.

“Nowhere I can find. I think she just collapsed.”

“Okay, ma’am,” the attendant said, slipping his arms under her, “nice and easy now, we’ll just move you onto the stretcher.”

“. . . I seen it . . . aaah . . .”

“There, there.”

They put her gently on the ambulance bed. One attendant stayed with her, the other closed the doors, and went around to take the driver’s seat.

The sergeant waved goodbye and turned toward the cruiser. “Guess we better take her goddam cart,” he said to the patrolman. “Stick it in our trunk.”

The patrolman picked up the cart. “Sergeant, where’s her rags?”

“How the hell should I know? Maybe she sold ’em.” He picked up the telephone receiver on the radio. “Dispatcher, this is Car 31, Car 31. Over.”

“But who would want to buy—”

“Car 31 . . . Yeah, we got a ten-fifty-four here outside the Darwin School playground, turned out to be the old rag lady . . . Yeah, ambulance just left . . . No visible injuries, like maybe she just passed out . . . Only communication was she kept ranting about seeing something or other . . . Yeah, a baby. Right . . . I don’t know, just a baby. Maybe it was Jesus . . . You knew her . . . Yeah. So we’ll get back on our ten-ninety-eight . . . What? Resume our patrol, for chrissake. Ain’t you got no code chart down there? . . . Right. Ten-four.”

“It was just the old rag lady, lieutenant.”

“Yeah, I know,” Detective Perkins said, wetting down a fresh cigar, “but what’s this about seeing a baby?”

“I don’t know. That’s all the sergeant said when he radioed in. This is verbatim.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Perkins said, scanning the transcript. “Listen, get him back on the radio, make him repeat exactly what he heard, tell him I said so. I’m going over to the hospital.”

“But lieutenant, she wasn’t even injured—”

“Just do as I say. You get any more details, call me there.”

Detective Lieutenant Perkins, accompanied by Dr. Norten in his green surgical gear, and Professor Eckstein, hurried along the corridor toward the bed of the rag lady.

“Why the unusual interest, lieutenant?” asked Dr. Norten. “You think she really saw something?”

“You never know.”

They entered the room and went quickly to the bedside.

The rag lady was propped up on pillows, clean and pale, her jaw set in sassy disdain for her visitors.

“Now then, missus, I’m Detective Perkins, and you know the doctor here. I understand you saw something last night. Would you tell me about it?”

“Hmmph. I seen it, that’s all.”

“What?”

“The baby. That monster whippersnapper you been lookin’ for.”

“Now, dear lady,” Dr. Norten cooed, “we all know how you—”

“Tell me what you saw, missus.”

She snorted. “Well, if I’m talkin’ to a real detective! Lot of folks pretend to be the law. I see lots of things, you know, on my rounds. Nobody believes me nohow.”

He flipped open his wallet to reveal his gold shield.

“All right, then. I seen that thing, close up, on the fence. It come right over to me.”

“Describe it”

“Well, it didn’t look much like nothin’ I ever seen before. It had great big eyes, and claws.”

“Mmm-hmm. What else? Did it have hair?”

“No hair. Bald as a bowling ball. Funny, round body too, you know? Claws on the legs. I know, ’cause it was grippin’ real good on to the fence.”

“Mmm-hmm. Did you just find it there, hanging on to the fence?”

“Oh no. It was over there on the swing, swinging up and down. I thought it was maybe one of my friends, one of my many
close
friends. So I called to it. And it come hoppin’ right over to the fence.”

“Hopping?”

“That’s what I said. Like a goshdam kangaroo. Except farther. It hopped farther, higher.”

“Hmm. Did you have any conversation with it?”

“Conversation?”

“Yeah, did it talk to you?”

“Now looka here, you may be a detective, but that don’t cut no ice with me if you’re gonna wisecrack. How could I talk with a thing like that? I don’t even speak French good no more. It just hung there and cried, just like a baby.”

“I see.”

Dr. Norten took Perkins by the elbow and turned him around and whispered to him, “Detective, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. She could have read all this.”

“Mmm. So it just hung there and cried?” Perkins pulled away.

“Cried louder and louder. And then it started up the fence.”

“And?”

“Next thing I seen was them policemen and the ambulance fellers.”

“What happened to your, unh, belongings?”

“My cart! Where’s my cart?” She sat up straight.

“We have your cart, missus, but there was nothing in it.”

She shook her head and pursed her lips. “Now that just goes to show ya, can’t leave nothing lying around for one minute, somebody up and steals it.”

“You think somebody would steal your possessions?”

“Hmmph, these days? You kiddin’ me? Why, just the other day I was carrying a shopping bag full of T-bone steaks, with my purse lyin’ on top of it, with five hundred dollars in it, and six Mexicans came sidling up to me and started sweet-talkin’, and next thing I knew, they run off with my meat and my money.”

“See, lieutenant,” Dr. North said, smiling sadly, “what we’re dealing with here?”

Perkins bowed. “Thank you, missus. Get a good rest now.”

“I hope my credit’s good. My medical insurance just run out.”

Detective Perkins stood in the hospital corridor and rubbed his chin pensively.

The doctor and the professor stared at their shoes. “I wonder,” Perkins mused, “what happened to her rags.”

Professor Eckstein fidgeted with his tie. “Maybe the thing took them.”

“Now, professor,” Norten said, “I can’t believe that
you
take the rag lady seriously. After all, she apparently wasn’t even attacked, or hurt in any way.”

“Well, perhaps she wasn’t a threat to it, once she passed out. And if the thing
was
there, perhaps it took the rags. Perhaps it wanted to build a nest.”

“A nest?” Perkins narrowed his eyes.

“Maybe it’s getting cold.”

“Surely, professor,” Dr. Norten said, “if it’s gone this long . . .”

Professor Eckstein studied the ceiling. “It could be starting to get cold—if it’s running out of adrenaline . . .”

Dr. Norten stepped firmly on the professor’s foot.

“What’s this about adrenaline?” Detective Perkins asked.

The professor looked back and forth between Perkins and Norten. “Um, well, unh, just that, um, any warm-blooded animal can, ah, run out of energy, and get cold.”

“I see.” Perkins peered at him and chewed his cigar. “Well, maybe the rag lady didn’t see anything at all. Maybe she just left her rags someplace. I’ve got to get back to the station house. Thank you, gentlemen, for your time.”

They watched him walk away toward the front entrance.

“Well, professor,” Dr. Norten hissed, “you almost blew it.”

“Sorry. Although he’s the police, after all, and I thought he should know everything that would help them catch—”

“Not
now,
professor, don’t you see? The matter of hormonal balance means nothing to him. That’s a matter best left to the medical profession. It has nothing to do with their search for this mutant.”

“But I was thinking, doctor, that if this thing thrives according to our thesis, then quite naturally its supply of hormones would tend to be used up when it’s on its own. There’s only one place it could go to get the vast amounts needed to restore its strength.”

“No need to belabor what we already know, professor.” The doctor bade him goodbye, then ran into his office to scribble down some hasty notes with a trembling hand.

The United Parcel delivery man handed Frank the large box and he lugged it into the house and put it on the living-room floor.

“My, what’s that, darling?” Lenore came into the room wiping her hands with a dish towel.

“From the office. Must be a present of some kind. Heavy.”

“Well, go on, open it! I’m excited.”

He slit the tape with a letter opener and folded back the flaps. He sat staring at it. “It’s my stuff. My office stuff.”

“Why would anybody—”

“Pen set, ashtrays, your picture, books—all my stuff.”

“Frank . . .”

“I’ve been kicked out of my office.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”

She knelt beside him on the floor. “Look, there’s a note stuck in there.”

He opened the envelope and read aloud:

Dear Frank,

Thought it was best for everybody, to close things out this way, without going through all the goodbyes and crap up here that might embarrass you. Everybody here thinks you’re terrif, as you know. You’re a hell of a PR man, one of the best anywhere, but it just wasn’t going to work out any longer staying with our firm, under the circumstances.

I know you’ll understand how difficult this decision has been for me. I really can’t afford to lose you, but that’s the way it goes.

A check for a month’s pay will be in the mail to you. You know I’ll give you absolutely the highest recommendation whenever you need it. My loss will be somebody else’s gain.

My best to Lenore. And please keep in touch, by phone.

Your friend,
Buck Clayton

P.S. I know you must be going through one hell of a trying time right now. Guess it’s rough being a parent, although I’ve never been one—that I know of, ha-ha.