The Nothing Man (13 page)

We left, and Kay led me up the hall to the bathroom where she was
sure
I wanted to wash my hands.

"Just my mind," I said. "I've been thinking some naughty thoughts."

"Oh, you! You're so funny, Clint!" She laughed. And her eyes said, _The hell you are, bud!_

We went into the living-room. Kay produced two handcut glasses and a bottle of sixty-cent sherry, and gave Dave and me a drink. She waited, standing, poised to snatch the glasses from our hands the moment we were finished.

We did and she did, and dinner was served.

It was mayonnaise and something else, something I couldn't immediately identify. It was served on individual plates of Haviland china.

"Well, Father?" Kay smiled at Dave, firmly. "How do you like it?"

Dave mumbled that it was very good, slanting an apologetic glance at me. "Afraid we should have given you something else, Brownie. You'd probably have preferred a steak."

"Oh, of course, he wouldn't!" Kay laughed. "Clinton can eat steak any time… How do
you
like it, Clint?"

"I'd like to have the recipe," I said. "I don't believe I've ever eaten rubber gloves prepared in quite this way."

Her eyes flashed, but she went right on laughing. She was a laughing little woman, this Kay. A joyous little mother.

"Silly! You can't tease me, Clinton Brown. It's iced frankfurters in hot mayonnaise-parsnip ring."

"No!" I said. "I don't believe it."

"Mmmm-hmmm. That's what it is."

"Clint-" Dave frowned. "If you don't-"

"Now you just leave Clinton alone, Father. He can speak for himself."

"It's wonderful," I said. "I don't know how you do it, Kay."

She wasn't kidding me any. Not a goddamned bit. There couldn't be such a thing as iced frankfurters in hot mayonnaise-parsnip ring. This was just what I'd thought: rubber gloves in hand lotion with chopped sponge dressing.

I ate quite a bit of the stuff. I'd had almost nothing to eat since Deborah-since the day before, and I was hungry. It was going to make me sick-I could feel the sickness coming on-but I went ahead and ate.

Kay brought coffee (an unreasonable facsimile thereof, I should say) and something called Marshmallow Grape Surprise. I wasn't up to any further surprise, nor was Dave apparently, so she ate her dessert alone.

"Oh, Clinton!" she said, lapping up the last bite of the mess. "You didn't get our flowers, did you? I mean, the ones we sent to the funeral."

"Kay-" Dave squirmed.

"Now, Father. I just asked Clinton a simple question. I know he couldn't have got them. We didn't get any card of acknowledgment."

She smiled at me, wide-eyed. I said I couldn't understand why she hadn't got the card. "I sent it registered mail," I said. "Registered with return receipt requested."

"Y-You"-she stammered-"you did?"

"Are you sure the kiddies didn't get hold of it?" I said. "They might have mistaken it for a naughty picture."

"Clint-" said Dave.

I was getting tired. Tired and damned sick.

"I got the flowers," I said, "and thank you very, very much. Thank you for all your kindness, Kay. Incidentally, I hope you weren't disturbed when the police called here that night. I could never forgive myself if you were."

"The police?" Kay looked blank. "The police didn't call here."

"A man named Stukey. He called here trying to locate me."

"Not here, he didn't. I was home all-Oh!" Her face cleared. "Father was at the Chamber of Commerce banquet that night. The answering service must have referred the call there."

"Answering service?" I looked at Dave. "I thought-"

"Mmmm-hmmm," said Kay. "It's awfully convenient for Father when he has to be away from home at night. He just gives them the number of the place where he'll be and they call there direct. Just as though it were his own number. I mean, when this number is dialed they automatically call the other-"

"Very interesting. But suppose it was someone who wanted to talk to you?"

"Oh, I never take any calls in the evening! All my acquaintances know that. I keep my evenings free for Father and the kiddies."

That figured, all right. She could give her undivided attention to making them miserable.

"Of course, it's one more expense and I-well-" She sighed bravely. "Goodness knows we don't have a penny to spare. It seems we're always having company, and… Well, anyway, I feel that it just can't be avoided with Father away so much. Let's see, where did you have to go last night, Father? The Rotary Club, wasn't it?"

"Uh-yes," Dave muttered, and he lifted his coffee cup.

His hand trembled. His eyes wouldn't meet mine.

There'd been no Rotary Club meeting last night. There'd been no Chamber of Commerce banquet on the night that Ellen was killed.

I pushed back my chair and stood up.

"I'm going to have to go," I said. "I'm-I don't feel very well."

"Oh, no, you're not!" Kay cried gaily. "We're going to keep him right here, aren't we, Father? We're going to keep this big, bad ol' Clinty right here where we can-"

"Sorry," I said, "and thanks for the dinner. I have to go."

I started to turn away from the table. She jumped up and flung her arms around me from the rear, hugging me around the waist.

"Help me, Father! You know what he wants to do. He's going off to some dirty ol' bar, and-"

I brought an elbow back suddenly. She grunted and reeled backward, batting her fat little head against the wall.

"F-Father," she whimpered. "H-He-he!"

"I saw it." Dave was looking at me at last, very white around the mouth. "Get out, Clint. I've put with… I've tried to-to-Get
out!
"

"Out of your house, Father?" I said. "Out of your life? Out of your journalistic sphere? Could you possibly mean that I am fired, Colonel?"

"Clint! I'm asking you to-"

"I thought you were telling me," I said. "Am I fired, Colonel?"

"Yes!" he yelled. "Yes! Now-get-out!"

I got out. I couldn't have stayed another minute if I'd been paid to.

I headed for the car, half-doubled over, a thousand hot knives twisting in my stomach. I started vomiting, and I am an old hand at that game, a charter member of the Heave-It League, but this was in a class by itself.

I drove homeward, my head necessarily out the window all the way, and I was going as strong when I got there as when I had started. There wasn't anything in me, but the heaving went right on.

I uncorked a bottle and upended it into my mouth. The stuff wasn't halfway down before it started bouncing. I choked and made another try. The same thing happened- and more.

A great hand seemed to grab me in the guts and squeeze. The bottle fell from my hands. I fell to the floor, writhing.

That one passed, that convulsion. But there were indications that others were on the way. I staggered into the bedroom, jerked open the bureau drawers. I knew what I had to do, but there was something else I had to do first. Get into some pajamas. A pair with all the buttons and no holes. Even then there was a chance that they might see, but- But I had to risk it. I knew I'd die if I didn't.

I was struggling to get my pants over the pajamas when Stukey arrived. He gave me one startled glance. Then, with none of the questions asked which he had doubtless come to ask, he started helping me with the pants.

"Jesus, keed!" he panted. "Come on! Let the screwin' clothes go. I'll take you in my car, open up the siren. You got any particular place in mind?"

"Any of them," I said. "Any hospital."

"Jesus!" He pulled my arm around his shoulders, lugged me toward the door. "When'd it hit you, pal? What done it?"

"I-rubber gloves," I said. "An original recipe."

"At's the ol' keed, the Brownie boy," he said. "Pile it in, pal."

I was in the hospital two days-very dreary ones, since the authorities made drinking difficult for me and sometimes impossible. There was little to do except lie there and think, endlessly, unproductively, unpleasantly, to chase myself around and around in that unbroken, seamless circle.

Kay… well, of course, she'd done it deliberately. I'd had a standing dinner invitation for weeks, and she'd known that I'd come eventually. So a few franks-just enough for me-had been allowed to spoil, and, their rottenness disguised with more slop, I'd eaten them. Yes, she must have done it deliberately, or so I believed-and I will admit to some slight prejudice where Kay is concerned. But just what her motivation had been, I was not sure. Was it merely some more of her sheer orneriness, a typical Kay Randall stunt? Had the little woman only been demonstrating that regardless of poor ol' softie-Father's feelings,
she
had no use for me and I'd better behave if I didn't want to catch what-for?

That was probably the case. And to be fair to her-a painful necessity-she probably had had no intention of killing me. Dave told her everything, practically, or, rather, she wormed everything out of him in long jolly evenings beside the mayonnaise bowl. She would sit him down amid the antimacassars and pull his sweet ol' funny head into the environs of her cute little old belly button, and then Father would simply have to tell her what was on his mind. She would be very hurt if he did not; she would be afraid he didn't love her any more. And when Kay felt that way-as Father well knew-the aforesaid environs went out of bounds. There were no larksome expeditions thereto, nor invasions thereof, nor maneuvers thereon. So Father, who was already yearning for a brisk patrol with a barrage at the end, would tell all (approximately). He would say, "_Well, it's Brownie, dammit. I don't mind, personally, but I'm afraid Mr. Lovelace will_…" And Kay's eyes would grow moist and her mind murderous, and she would say, "_Oh, how awful. Perhaps if we showed more interest in Clinton, invited him out for a good homecooked meal_…"

Exit Father and Mother to bedroom. Enter frankfurters, parsnips, mayonnaise, and Clinton Brown.

That must have been the deal. Kay had given Clint a lesson, and Clint would know that he had had one. He-I- would know that the poisoning had been intentional, and take the hint. I was to lay off of Father or else.

So…

But there was Tom Judge, what he had told me. And there was the fact that Dave had been away from home on those two nights, that he had lied about his whereabouts and let me think, at least in the instance of Ellen, that he
had
been at home. Then there was that reef connecting the mainland and the island, and a lone taxicab crossing the border. And… and most of all there was Deborah, that strange feeling I'd had about her, that I could never have…

Did I say yes? Did I say that it did make sense? I did not. I didn't pretend to know what it all meant-if it meant anything. Nevertheless it existed, so much to be explained, and I had been poisoned. I had almost been killed.

I went round and round the circle, thinking, trying to look into myself, where the clue to the mystery probably lay. What had I overlooked, what small factoi that kept me from seeing what I should see?

I didn't know. I don't know now-now, when this manuscript is approximately two thirds finished and its pages flow higgledy-piggledy over my desk. (_And has someone crept into the room? Is someone lurking in the shadows behind me, trying to read what I have written?_)

But I can tell you this, my good friends-oh, yes, and you sorry ignominious foes-I have a strong hunch that I
will
know before it comes time to type # # # or -30-. And my hunch tells me that I will be quite as much surprised as you are.

Now, perhaps a few words about the doctor are in order.

I had slept almost none at all the first night, but promptly at seven o'clock a nurse came in and induced me to wash and presented me with a breakfast tray. She was a grimly prim little person, unpleasantly reminiscent of Kay Randall. She crisply advised me that I was to partake of the food at once and that it would do me a lot of good (an obvious and preposterous falsehood). I replied that it was just such victuals as these that had put me where I was and that the burned child shuns the fire.

We were discussing the matter, i.e., the digestibility of cold oatmeal, skim milk, and stale toast, when the doctor came in. He told the nurse to leave the tray; I could eat or go hungry, just as I pleased. She left, and without preliminary he asked me how much whisky I drank a day. I replied that I never kept track of it.

"You'd better start in," he said curtly. "The amount of alcohol in your bloodstream now would be lethal for the average person. I can't answer for the results if you keep on going as you've been doing."

"That's fair enough," I said. "After all, I don't believe I consulted you in the matter. May I ask a question, Doctor?"

He nodded, flushing, an angry glint in his eye. "If you make it snappy."

"It's a question that's frequently arisen in my mind when coming in contact with the medical profession. Briefly, if treating the sick annoys you so much, why don't you get into another racket?"

"All right"-he turned on his heel-"I've warned you. And I'm telling you this, too. You'll do no drinking while you're here. You can crack up and go into d.t.'s, that's up to you. But you won't do it in this hospital."

He stalked out righteously, a true-blue man of mercy, a man who took no nonsense from the people who paid him. Around nine o'clock in the morning, Stukey arrived.

I thanked him for his help the night before. I demanded the pint which I felt sure was responsible for the bulge in his coat.

"Well, look, keed." He hesitated. "They told me downstairs that-"

"They are insane," I said. "Feeble-minded. A few of the worst mental cases, allowed to play hospital as occupational therapy. My word on it, Stuke, also my hand. Place the pint in it."

"Yeah, but-pal. If it's going to-"

"Did it ever? Have I ever been noticeably affected by it? Give, my friend."

He gave it to me, watching the door anxiously as I drank. I had a small one-no more than a third, at most- and tucked the bottle under my pillow.

"Now," I said. "Now, you will have some questions."

"Yeah," he nodded tiredly, "I guess. Goddammit to hell, anyway."

He didn't get down to the questions immediately. He was sore about having to let Tom Judge go, and the dragnet wasn't producing anything, and he knew it wasn't going to (nothing but a reduction in his graft). And he was completely baffled as to how to proceed.

I told him to keep a high heart; honest effort was never lost. If nothing else resulted from the investigation, we would at least have a clean city.

"Yeah." He looked at me oddly. "A lot of fun, ain't it?"

"We-ell," I said, "I do believe there are slight overtones of humor.

"Uh-huh, sure. Real funny, all right. I try to be a pal to you, an'-"

"Perhaps I can be one to you," I said. "I was down to Mexico the other day, and I learned about a reef-"

"I know all about it. Hell, there was waves running ten feet high over the damned thing. A guy tried to cross that, and he'd've wound up in Key West."

"Still, it's within the realm of possibility," I said.

"That realm I don't know nothing about. Maybe they got a bay up there, too, and a guy who could've swum across it in the storm."

"Is that an innuendo, Stuke? Are you returning to your original evil suspicions?"

He grinned sheepishly and shook his head. "Lay off, will you? How many times I got to apologize? I was sore and I wasn't thinkin' straight and-well, to hell with it. What d'you know about this Mrs. Chasen?"

"Something special," I said. "Something extra special, Stuke. I wanted to bring her down to the police station that day, but she wouldn't go. Afraid you'd want to fingerprint her, I believe-very broadly speaking-and her rear end was tender from previous attempts."

"No foolin', keed. Where-"

"I drove her around for the better part of a day. I fed her lunch, booze, and put her on the train."

"You took her out to the dog pound."

"And back. With many a pleasant way stop along the lonely route. As I say, Stuke, she was quite a dish. A wonderful partner in the ancient and honorable pastime of parking."

He sat staring at me steadily for a second. He frowned and said, "Yeah, but, keed-" Then he shrugged and went on: "You know she was supposed to take a boat to Europe? Well, how come she didn't instead of hangin' around L.A.?"

"Doubtless she was in love with me," I said. "She couldn't leave California as long as I was in it. Of course, we'd only known one another for less than a day, but-"

"Cut it out, Brownie. What'd she say when you saw her in L.A.?"

"Now now, Stuke. Puh-lease!"

"Okay, so you didn't see her. Didn't talk to her either I suppose?"

"I did not," I said. "The record of her call to the Press Club is an outrageous forgery, one more link in a Communist plan to do me in."

Stukey grinned reluctantly. "No offense, keed. Just habit. I even try to trip myself up. What'd she call you about?"

"About Ellen. You know, to say that she was sorry and so on."

"Yeah? What else?"

"Oh, just to say that she loved me and there could never be another man in her life and-"

"Always clownin'." He sighed. "She didn't mention any other guy? Someone that could have brought her back here, or she might've come back here to see?"

"No, she didn't. As I mentioned a moment ago, there could be no other man where she was concerned."

"Keed," he said. "I'm beggin' you. Be serious huh? This thing has got me runnin' in circles. The autopsy-well, maybe it wouldn't have told us nothin', anyway, but even that nothin' would have been some help. We could've found out what
didn't
happen to her, if we'd had anything halfway like a corpus, an'-an' it's all like that, keed! Just nothin' to work on. There's fifty buses into here a day and six trains and four airplane flights, an' how the hell you goin' to know when she got here or whether she came alone or… or what? I'm telling you. Let me tell you how it stands. I got a couple of pretty good pictures of her from her home-town paper, and we duped a batch and showed 'em around. Well. Up to date we got her placed on eight buses and one train and there's a truck driver that swears she tried to thumb a ride out of Long Beach with him."

I opened the bottle and had another drink. I offered him my deepest sympathy. "Just keep striving, Stuke," I said. "Your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground."

"I'm laughin'," he said. "It's funny as hell, this is. On top of everything else I got those bollixing poems. All the something I got is something to screw me up."

"You don't think they're a clue?" I said.

"Clues, schmooz. Sure, they're a clue and what the hell you goin' to do with it? The guy's got a head on him, he's sharp like tacks, he ain't a money killer. That's your clue, an' you can buy it cheap. It ain't givin' me nothing but ulcers."

"Terrible," I said. "Now, wait a minute, Stuke. I'm not laugh-"

"Well"-he shrugged and stood up-"I wish I could. Why'n't you kill that jug, so's I can take it with me."

I took the last drink and handed him the bottle. He trudged out drearily, his snappy hat pulled low over his eyes, a pronounced sag in the shoulders of his suit.

I was a little ashamed for having laughed at him, and I'd honestly tried not to. But I hadn't been able to help it. Poor Stuke, lord of the pimps and bookies, terror of the panhandlers-Stukey, stripped of his last penny of graft and with no prospects but hard work. No graft, no glory. Nothing but having to earn his salary if he hoped to keep drawing it.

Poor Lem. I couldn't help laughing, pathetic as he was.

He returned that night with another pint, and the next morning, ditto. Not officially. It wasn't business, keed, he said. He just happened to be out this way and figured I could use a little company.

He came out Saturday morning and drove me home, and he remained to visit there, with rather startling, even alarming, results. You see, I was getting just a little weary of him. I had had several hours of his moaning and groaning in a mere forty-eight, and- But let's move back a bit. Back to the hospital and Thursday.

Stukey didn't know about my trouble with Dave, so, as a friendly act, he'd left word of my illness at the office. He hadn't talked with Dave, just the switchboard operator. But I knew that Dave would be informed as soon as he arrived at work, and I was frankly worried when he didn't call.

It was just possible that he
had
fired me, that he intended to make it stick, or try to. And I knew what would happen if he did. Lovelace was already a little down on Dave just as he was very much up on me. He'd never let Dave fire me. He'd insist that I be taken back. Moreover, he'd credit Dave with one more error in judgment, one more than Dave could comfortably stand.