“Hold it!” I said, standing up, tossing the robe aside.
Her full red lips thanked me. Then I grinned, looking her up and down. Her snug sweater was black with white polka dots, and two of the polkas were placed most provocatively. Her tights were coal black velvety stuff, fitting every buoyant, youthful curve. Her small, black slippers had sparklers on the toes. A tiny black hat with a rakish feather topped it off. Really gone.
Meanwhile she had been staring at me, and finally started laughing.
I said: “You are now observing the poetic rage of Walla Walla, Percival Keets. How about it?”
She shook her head. “Wow—you’ll slay ’em!”
“Wait’ll I finish—”
I moved into the bathroom and completed my getup. I put on heavy black horn-rimmed glasses, darkly tinted. I wound a yellow scarf around my throat, like I’d seen in the movies, and fitted a wad of cotton in each cheek. I hardly knew myself. Not that I’d want to, either—
I made an entrance, and Fay burst out laughing. Finally she got her breath and sat down. “Those tight pants are the most, Mark. But why?”
“Now, listen, chick. Most of those spooks have never seen me. I’ve been hid away up here for quite a while. I sent Cable on a fake service call, out of town, Henry isn’t going, and outside of you, none of these Jollies I’ve heard so much about have seen me for a year, maybe never. Besides, I have an element of surprise—”
She quit giggling. “I’ll bet you can get away with it. Ben Cook, the retired farmer, is pretty sharp. You know him?”
“Nope.”
“Chester’s fairly new, and so is Rita Snell. What about the Sproots?”
“I’ve seen them leaving their apartment often enough, but they’ve never been up here. Anyway, if somebody spots me, we’ll call it an observation test or something else ridiculous. I’m not out to embezzle anybody. I just want to gander around…”
“They’ll do plenty of gandering at you, especially some of the unattached gals.”
“Forsooth! This eve you are mine and mine alone!”
“Ass!”
“‘And like an ass, as he did pass, between the lass and I…’”
“Stop, Percy! You’re killing me!”
“Now. Where’s the meeting?”
“Oh—At the Jolly clubhouse. You wouldn’t know about that, I bet.”
“No, and I couldn’t care less. But I’ll try it for one time.”
She giggled. “I’m ready, Percy.”
I kinked my elbow at her and she slid her arm through it. She smiled. “You’re a lot of fun, Mark. This could be a wow of an evening.”
I pinched her and she squirmed away. As we were going out the front door, she said: “Your face, Mark. It’s different.”
I showed her the wads of cotton.
“I see—I’ll have to watch a guy as tricky as you.”
“I read it in a book,” I said.
Now we were outside, and even the cold wind whipping around the hill, the darkness that might conceal my tormenter, couldn’t keep me from enjoying this moment of liberation.
I was outside, away from the disgusting wheelchair imprisonment. I was on my feet, a girl on my arm and a belt of whiskey warming my blood. I was lucky.
The kid who had serviced my car had cleaned it all out, and the motor caught on the first spin of the starter. The old Chevy wasn’t much, but it had taken me up the river road plenty of times, and—maybe it would again.
I let Fay hold the fifth while I got the car turned around, the lights on, and headed in the right direction. She took a nip straight, and I admired her courage. I had one, too. She lit cigarettes for us, and that way I got a sample of what her lipstick tasted like. Fragrant, smooth. The old bus handled like a pickup, as usual.
Away out at the end of River Avenue, beyond all the houses and bulk plants, and even past several sharp turns in the narrowed road, she pointed at a kind of level bench not twenty feet above the water, where several cars were parked. In front of the cars was something I first decided was a broken down barn.
It turned out to be their ‘clubhouse.’ Fay told me the members had had a chance to get the building and this remote chunk of waterfront several years before at a very reasonable figure, and Mrs. Snark had financed the deal. She thought the location very picturesque. No doubt.
I found a place to park, we had another nip—and I was beginning to feel it. A nice slick chick, my first day out of that hole for many months, and maybe I should be celebrating. Of course I might get run over and mashed up a little one of these days, but in the meantime—
We piled out—and a sweet nostalgia hit me. The river. I couldn’t see it, but I could smell it and hear it, and it was a wonderful combination. It made me think of my home, my upriver cabin and the thousand things I’d missed rotting here in town. When I got this thing off my back, I’d go up there and stay a solid year—away from the artificial, neoned city with its phonies, perverts and queers.
“Look, Percy—let’s go!”
I snapped out of my reverie, shivering. It was cold. I’d worn a jacket, but it wasn’t enough. My blood was thin. As we breathed, little puffs of fog came from our nostrils.
We walked toward the lights, and now I heard longhair music. What could I expect in such an atmosphere? Fay took my arm, and her slim hip reminded me that the rest of the evening I belonged to her. My legs felt better already.
A single yellow light burned over the entrance to the clubhouse. We walked through frost-whitened grass and up a ramp where cattle had once trod. “This is it, Percy,” Fay murmured.
I nudged her playfully. Then we were greeted with:
“Oh—Fay! So glad you could come!” An old gal of some fifty summers, rakishly dressed, stood just inside the door, passing out leaflets. Her makeup was gaudy.
“I brought a guest,” Fay said. “Percy, this is Miss Cecilia Swatch, our hostess for tonight.”
“Oh—wonderful!” she gushed, examining me with favor. I felt like a dim-wit, and I could tell Fay was getting a big charge out of my ‘suit.’
“—and this is Percy Keets, from Walla Walla. Loves poetry…”
Fay kept pouring it on, while I tried to act half-interested, half aloof.
“Delicious setting,” I ventured, producing my previously borrowed long-stemmed cigarette holder, fitting a smoke into it.
Miss Swatch quivered, she and Fay exchanged more mush, and finally we were inside with mimeographed sheets in our hands.
“She’s really not a ‘miss,’ Percy,” Fay murmured. “Her husband left her a lot of nice real estate. She’s a real pillar of the Jollies.”
I nodded. The interior had been remodeled considerably, and it didn’t smell like cow manure, either. Lighting was very subdued, the ceiling low, a small stage or platform at the south end. About a dozen tables were covered with red and white checkered cloths, the centerpieces were wine-bottle candle holders. A little clean straw scattered here and there for ‘atmosphere.’
Delicious wasn’t the right word. I needed another drink, and I hadn’t brought the whiskey. A few beer bottles shone in the uneasy light, so maybe I’d make out.
A little mousy-looking girl took our coats, she smiled me an awed smile, and we were on our way. Heads turned. A murmur of conversation from several tables faded away. I was getting the treatment.
Then the chatter went up into a higher pitch, the droning music seemed to take on added volume, and several of the acolytes waved at Fay, and presumably at me, too. As she began showing me around, I tinkered with my cigarette holder and tried to look bored.
“Fay—dahling! You look simply too-too…”
This, I discovered later, was none other than Teresa Snark, President. Buxom and well-preserved, she was accompanied by a hawk-nosed individual introduced as Chester Ventley, author of a simply marvelous book of poems called Drifting Leaves. A real daisy, that one.
“Fay, you’re—” He seemed to grope for the right ecstatic word, and set
tled on “—heavenly!”
I felt an urge to spit in his eye. The way his beady eyes moved over Fay, he really believed it. She did a little sexy wiggle for his benefit and Chester nearly swooned.
Teresa gave him a sharp glance, moving the conversation or whatever you called it around to me. Chester calmed down immediately.
Fay introduced me again, and Mrs. Snark grinned all over herself. “Wonderful you could come—Percy.” But she wasn’t so completely taken in as Miss Swatch.
“Delighted,” I murmured. “Delicious setting…”
“That’s the word I’ve been after!” Chester whinnied. “Delicious!”
I felt like throwing up.
“Chester is so sensitive to words,” Teresa murmured in her throaty voice, which sounded like it was put on for the occasion, like the flamboyant dress she wore. For a woman of her age she had good legs, but they usually go last.
“Chester’s going to recite,” she added admiringly.
“I’ll bet Percy would like to, too,” Fay exclaimed. I nudged her, but she ignored it. She was enjoying this. “He has such—unusual approaches…”
“Wonderful!” Teresa said. “Isn’t that nice, Chester?”
“Divine!”
I really needed a drink, believe me.
Finally they pulled out, leaving us more or less alone. We found an empty table and I sat down thankfully. My legs needed a rest, and so did my ears.
Someone put two bottles of beer on our table, and Fay smiled at me impishly. The candle light softened and enhanced her youthful good looks. She was easily the best looking doll in the place, although a few glances about the room said there were at least two serious competitors.
Fay caught my wandering stare and sighed. “You’ll get to meet them, Percy.”
“Uh—sorry.”
“I’ll bet! Anyway, it’ll do you no good with the one talking to Ben Cook. That’s Rita Snell—rich as all get out, and a man-hater.”
“She isn’t dressed like one.”
“Draw your fangs back, lover. She’s got a sharp tongue.”
Other things about her were sharp, too. Maybe a bit athletic and wind-blown, maybe a bit tall, too—but there was plenty of zoom.
My eyes swung back to Fay. I said, “Neither one can touch you for looks.”
Fay gave me a pixie smile. “True, perhaps. But did you look real close at Marie Goddard? She’s over there with the Sproots.”
I glanced around, not wanting to disappoint my escort, and the glance held. The Goddard gal wore slacks, bright orange and black in a wild pattern, and a loose woolly pullover sweater. She wasn’t beautiful according to popular standards, but she had plenty to make a man’s mouth water. Especially under the sweater.
Fay giggled. I turned to her again. I said:
“You know men pretty well—”
“I’m not blind, Percy. Maybe it’s the way she wiggles around in her clothes, or something.”
It was something, all right.
“She goes to Idaho College,” Fay added. “Got a little Lark, and gets around.”
“No doubt. Fill me in on this Ben Cook.” This would give me a chance to look at the Snell babe again, and wonder why she hated men when she had so much to attract them.
“Sure. He’s a retired farmer, widowed. Real friendly sort and pretty well-educated.”
I nodded. I wanted to meet them all, eventually. Most of all, I wanted to hear their voices. I was hoping some trick of expression, some odd tone would give me a lead. And I wasn’t sure just why I was so hipped on this Jolly business, except that several of those threatened and one dead had this in common. The ‘club.’
Cook was a pipe-smoker, rather heavy-set and jovial. But who wouldn’t be jovial with a big lush doll like Rita cooing in your ears?
Their conversation ended, and Rita stood up, looking around. Her slacks weren’t as snug as Marie’s, and didn’t have to be. She was class.
She moved lithely toward us and Fay nudged me under the table.
“Hi, Fay,” she said pleasantly.
Fay hi’d back and the tall gal didn’t even look at me. She stood by the table, though.
“This is Percy—” Fay began.
“Men bore me,” she said coolly, disdainfully.
I took the bait. “Well, goody for us! Women certainly don’t bore me.”
“That’s obvious. Sorry, Fay—”
I stood up, and her wide-set bluish eyes flicked over me. Like maybe I had just oozed out from under a rock. I said, “Who do you think you’re kidding, Rita? Not me.”
She blinked.
I continued, “It’s a good act. I think men scare you.”
She flushed.
“Look, you two,” Fay said, “Don’t fight!”
“I ought to slap his face,” she said, keeping her voice down, talking to Fay.
“Go ahead,” I said, grinning. “Maybe it would release some of your inhibitions.”
She emitted a lady-like snort and walked away. I enjoyed the rear view nearly as much as the front. I sat down, and Fay giggled. “I think you won, Percy.”
“Let’s drink to it!”
We did.
Before we could go into man-hating any further, Fay nudged me again. Marie Goddard was approaching, beer bottle in hand, looking sultry and provocative.
Fay whispered, “I knew she wouldn’t miss a new male. Don’t let your eyeballs pop out.”
I put down the silly cigarette holder and had a strong impulse to take my dark glasses off—eyeballs or no.
“Well—Fay,” she breathed, swaying over, standing so she was directly in front of me, one lush hip extended, left hand on it. She looked lazy, indolent and—sexy. No other word for it.
“Hi, Marie,” Fay said. “This is Percy Keets—my guest.”
I didn’t miss the emphasis on ‘my.’
I stood up and her eyes followed my ascent as I unfolded. She held out a soft, plump, small-fingered hand. I took it, feeling a definite pressure. A charge of voltage slid up my arm.
“Fay—you’ve been holding out. I mean really.”
Fay giggled. “Brawny, isn’t he?”
“Mmmmmm. Somehow he doesn’t fit the get-up, though. You really gone, chum?”
“Oh, I’m real poetic,” I said.
She sat down, squirming around in her chair like it was hot. She had conveyed a definite message when I’d held her hand—the little job, in that brief encounter, had managed to deftly tickle my palm with her finger!
Now she managed to convey a message with her sweater, too. She sipped her beer, those thick red lips making me envy the snout of the bottle.
“What—what’re you majoring in at school?” I asked, just for kicks.
She caressed the bottle-neck with a restless tongue. “Well, dad thinks I’m taking a business course. Ha, ha!”
“Well, are you?” Fay asked.
“Fay, you know me better than that, kid. Why not be honest, huh? I’m majoring in men.”
Fay shook her head. I had a gulp of beer and grinned.
“No kiddin’, kids. What could be more interesting?”
“No poetry?” I asked.
“I dig this guy, Fay. I mean really. I like TV jingles. Sometimes I wonder why I come to these busts.”
This girl wasn’t dumb. Beneath that silky chestnut mane was a sharp brain. And her ha-ha had no more resemblance to the one I’d heard on the phone than she resembled an old maid.
“When do things start?” I ventured.
“Real impromptu, these cats,” Marie said, her slumberous eyes caressing me. I had a feeling she’d seen through my ‘disguise’ immediately, and it was making her curious. If I’d seen any of these people previously, I didn’t remember them. They moved in a different world. Cook appeared to be the kind of a guy you would like to know, but he was a stranger, too. Cable would have given me away immediately—I was glad I’d lured him out of town.
I noticed Jerry and John Sproot, fellow-residents of Hil
lview. They seemed to be all wound up with several other members over some papers. Real togetherness there—they wore identical sweaters.
Fay noticed my scrutiny. “They’re on the entertainment committee.”
“Goody. I’m ready to be entertained.”
“I could try, Percy,” Marie said.
“Look, you two…” Fay said.
“Sorry, Fay. Really. Can I sit here with you kids?”
I decided to let Fay answer. I was the guest. Fay nodded, smiling. I think she wanted to see me get the treatment.
“This cat of yours interests me,” Marie said casually. “In a purely sexual way, of course.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Fay said, lightly. No claws showing, either.
“Well, who wants a cat nobody else wants?”
“You’re so poetic, darling.”
“Really, Fay—I think you’ve got something here.”
“I know it. He recites such nice poems.”
“Ha, ha!”
It might have gone on quite a while if Mrs. Snark hadn’t got up on the platform and spoken into a little mike. I listened, but didn’t hear much. As far as I was concerned, it was all a lot of little bits of nothing in particular.
I’d drawn a blank. Of course it was nice to be out with Fay and hear her spar around verbally with a plum like Marie, but I hadn’t got anywhere at all with my project. Somehow Henry and I had got off on the wrong trolley.
These oddballs looked harmless enough—but then many infamous killers down through history had looked angelic, as did many young widows who managed to let their elderly and heavily insured husbands slip down a stair or fall off a cliff. Murder could be so subtle. And what was one more traffic death after an annual 37,000? Nothing. I had contributed one myself.
My lovely introspection was shattered by words from Mrs. Snark that struck nearer home.
“—and now it is with great pleasure that I introduce a guest from out of town, Percival Keets!”
CHAPTER SIX
Fay nudged me emphatically. Marie said, “It’s all yours, kiddo.”
A ripple of applause, and I rose awkwardly. I felt like a donkey’s south end, and probably looked it. However, in order to get ‘attuned’ to this shindig, I had that same afternoon dug out a booklet about real poetry, so I could maybe give with the right lingo—
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