"I will like hell shut up. Have you got a gun in the house?"
"Huh?"
"I'm going to shoot that damned cat." Belle was in even worse shape than Miles; she had more skin where Pete could get at it-legs, bare arms and shoulders. It was clear that she would not be wearing strapless dresses again soon, and unless she got expert attention promptly she was likely to have scars. She looked like a harpy after a no-holds-barred row with her sisters.
Miles said, "Sit down!"
She answered him briefly and, by implication, negatively. "I'm going to kill that cat."
"Then don't sit down. Go wash yourself. I'll help you with iodine and stuff and you can help me. But forget that cat; we're well rid of it."
Belle answered rather incoherently, but Miles understood her. "You too," he answered, "in spades. Look here, Belle, if I did have a gun-I'm not saying that I have-and you went out there and started shooting, whether you got the cat or not you would have the police here inside of ten minutes, snooping around and asking questions. Do you want that with him on our hands?" He jerked a thumb in my direction. "And if you go outside the house tonight without a gun that beast will probably kill you." He scowled even more deeply. "There ought to be a law against keeping an animal like that. He's a public danger. Listen to him."
We could all hear Pete prowling around the house. He was not wailing now; he was voicing his war cry-inviting them to choose weapons and come outside, singly or in bunches.
Belle listened to it and shuddered. Miles said, "Don't worry; he can't get in. I not only hooked the screen you left open, I locked the door."
"I did not leave it open!"
"Have it your own way." Miles went around checking the window fastenings. Presently Belle left the room and so did he. Sometime while they were gone Pete shut up. I don't know how long they were gone; time didn't mean anything to me.
Belle came back first. Her make-up and hairdo were perfect; she had put on a long-sleeved, high-necked dress and had replaced the ruined stockings. Except for Band-Aid strips on her face, the results of battle did not show. Had it not been for the grim look on her phiz I would have considered her, under other circumstances, a delectable sight.
She came straight toward me and told me to stand up, so I did. She went through me quickly and expertly, not forgetting watch pocket, shirt pockets, and the diagonal one on the left inside of the jacket which most suits do not have. The take was not much; my wallet with a small amount of cash, ID cards, driver's license, and such, keys, small change, a nasal inhaler against the smog, minor miscellaneous junk, and the envelope containing the certified check which she herself had bought and had sent to me. She turned it over, read the closed endorsement I had made on it, and looked puzzled.
"What's this, Dan? Buying a slug of insurance?"
"No." I would have told her the rest, but answering the last question asked of me was the best I could do.
She frowned and put it with the rest of the contents of my pockets. Then she caught sight of Pete's bag and apparently recalled the flap in it I used for a brief case, for she picked it up and opened the flap.
At once she found the quadruplicate sets of the dozen and a half forms I had signed for Mutual Assurance Company. She sat down and started to read them. I stood where she had left me, a tailor's dummy waiting to be put away.
Presently Miles came in wearing bathrobe and slippers and quite a large amount of gauze and adhesive tape. He looked like a fourth-rate middleweight whose manager has let him be outmatched. He was wearing one bandage like a scalp lock, fore and aft on his bald head; Pete must have got to him while he was down.
Belle glanced up, waved him to silence, and indicated the stack of papers she was through with. He sat down and started to read. He caught up with her and finished the last one reading over her shoulder.
She said, "This puts a different complexion on things."
"An understatement. This commitment order is for December fourth-that's tomorrow. Belle, he's as hot as noon in Mojave; we've got to get him out of here!" He glanced at a clock. "They'll be looking for him in the morning."
"Miles, you always get chicken when the pressure is on. This is a break, maybe the best break we could hope for."
"How do you figure?"
"This zombie soup, good as it is, has one shortcoming. Suppose you dose somebody with it and load him up with what you want him to do. Okay, so he does it. He carries out your orders; he has to. Know anything about hypnosis?"
"Not much."
"Do you know anything but law, Chubby? You haven't any curiosity. A posthypnotic command-which is what this amounts to-may conflict, in fact it's almost certain to conflict, with what the subject really wants to do. Eventually that may land him in the hands of a psychiatrist. If the psychiatrist is any good, he's likely to find out what the trouble is. It is just possible that Dan here might go to one and get unstuck from whatever orders I give him. If he did, he could make plenty of trouble."
"Damn it, you told me this drug was sure-fire."
"Good God, Chubby, you have to take chances with everything in life. That's what makes it fun. Let me think."
After a bit she said, "The simplest thing and the safest is to let him go ahead with this sleep jump he is all set to take. He wouldn't be any more out of our hair if he was dead-and we don't have to take any risk. Instead of having to give him a bunch of complicated orders and then praying that he won't come unstuck, all we have to do is order him to go ahead with the cold sleep, then sober him up and get him out of here... or get him out of here and then sober him." She tuned to me. "Dan, when are you going to take the Sleep?"
"I'm not."
"Huh? What's all this?" She gestured at the papers from my bag.
"Papers for cold sleep. Contracts with Mutual Assurance."
"He's nutty," Miles commented.
"Mmm... of course he is. I keep forgetting that they can't really think when they're under it. They can hear and talk and answer questions... but it has to be just the right questions. They can't think." She came up close and looked me in the eyes. "Dan, I want you to tell me all about this cold-sleep deal. Start at the beginning and tell it all the way through. You've got all the papers here to do it; apparently you signed them just today. Now you say you aren't going to do it. Tell me all about it, because I want to know why you were going to do it and now you say you aren't."
So I told her. Put that way, I could answer. It took a long time to tell as I did just what she said and told it all the way through in detail.
"So you sat there in that drive-in and decided not to? You decided to come out here and make trouble for us instead?"
"Yes." I was about to go on, tell about the trip out, tell her what I had said to Pete and what he had said to me, tell her how I had stopped at a drugstore and taken care of my Hired Girl stock, how I had driven to Miles's house, how Pete had not wanted to wait in the car, how- But she did not give me a chance. She said, "You've changed your mind again, Dan. You want to take the cold sleep. You're going to take the cold sleep. You won't let anything in the world stand in the way of your taking the cold sleep. Understand me? What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to take the cold sleep. I want to take..." I started to sway. I had been standing like a flagpole for more than an hour, I would guess, without moving any muscle, because no one had told me to. I started collapsing slowly toward her.
She jumped back and said sharply, "Sit down!"
So I sat down.
Belle turned to Miles. "That does it. I'll hammer away at it until I'm sure he can't miss."
Miles looked at the clock. "He said that doctor wanted him there at noon."
"Plenty of time. But we had better drive him there ourselves, just to be-No, damn it!"
"What's the trouble?"
"The time is too short. I gave him enough soup for a hone, because I wanted it to hit him fast-before he hit me. By noon he'd be sober enough to convince most people. But not a doctor."
&nb
sp; "Maybe it'll just be perfunctory. His physical examination is already here and signed."
"You heard what he said the doctor told him. The doctor's going to check him to see if he's had anything to drink. That means he'll test his reflexes and take his reaction time and peer in his eyes and-oh, all the things we don't want done. The things we don't dare let a doctor do. Miles, it won't work."
"How about the next day? Call `em up and tell them there has been a slight delay?"
"Shut up and let me think."
Presently she started looking over the papers I had brought with me. Then she left the room, returned immediately with a jeweler's loop, which she screwed into her right eye like a monocle, and proceeded to examine each paper with great care. Miles asked her what she was doing, but she brushed his question aside.
Presently she took the loop out of her eye and said, "Thank goodness they all have to use the same government forms. Chubby, get me the yellow-pages phone book."
"What for?"
"Get it, get it. I want to check the exact phrasing of a firm name-oh, I know what it is but I want to be sure."
Grumbling, Miles fetched it. She thumbed through it, then said, "Yes, `Master Insurance Company of California'... and there's room enough on each of them. I wish it could be `Motors' instead of `Master'; that would be a cinch-but I don't have any connections at `Motors Insurance,' and besides, I'm not sure they even handle hibernation; I think they're just autos and trucks." She looked up. "Chubby, you're going to have to drive me out to the plant right away."
"Huh?"
"Unless you know of some quicker way to get an electric typewriter with executive type face and carbon ribbon. No, you go out by yourself and fetch it back; I've got telephoning to do."
He frowned. "I'm beginning to see what you plan to do. But, Belle, this is crazy. This is fantastically dangerous."
She laughed. "That's what you think. I told you I had good connections before we ever teamed up. Could you have swung the Mannix deal alone?"
"Well... I don't know."
"1 know. And maybe you don't know that Master Insurance is part of the Mannix group."
"Well, no, I didn't. And I don't see what difference it makes."
"It means my connections are still good. See here, Chubby, the firm I used to work for used to help Mannix Enterprises with their tax losses... until my boss left the country. How do you think we got such a good deal without being able to guarantee that Danny boy went with the deal? I know all about Mannix. Now hurry up and get that typewriter and I'll let you watch an artist at work. Watch out for that cat."
Miles grumbled but started to leave, then returned. "Belle? Didn't Dan park right in front of the house?"
"Why?"
"His car isn't there now." He looked worried.
"Well, he probably parked around the corner. It's unimportant. Go get that typewriter. Hurry!"
He left again. I could have told them where I had parked but, since they did not ask me, I did not think about it. I did not think at all.
Belle went elsewhere in the house and left me alone. Sometime around daylight Miles got back, looking haggard and carrying our heavy typewriter. Then I was left alone again.
Once Belle came back in and said, "Dan, you've got a paper there telling the insurance company to take care of your Hired Girl stock. You don't want to do that; you want to give it to me."
I didn't answer. She looked annoyed and said, "Let's put it this way. You do want to give it to me. You know you want to give it to me. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes. I want to give it to you."
"Good. You want to give it to me. You have to give it to me. You won't be happy until you give it to me. Now where is it? Is it in your car?"
"No."
"Then where is it?"
"I mailed it."
"What?" She grew shrill. "When did you mail it? Who did you mail it to? Why did you do it?"
If she had asked the second question last I would have answered it. But I answered the last question, that being all I could handle. "I assigned it."
Miles came in. "Where did he put it?"
"He says he's mailed it... because he has assigned it! You had better find his car and search it-he may just think he actually mailed it. He certainly had it with him at the insurance company."
"Assigned it!" repeated Miles. "Good Lord! To whom?"
"I'll ask him. Dan, to whom did you assign your stock?"
"To the Bank of America." She didn't ask me why or I would have told her about Ricky.
All she did was slump her shoulders and sigh. "There goes the ball game, Chubby. We can forget about the stock. It'll take more than a nail file to get it away from a bank." She straightened up suddenly. "Unless he hasn't really mailed it yet. If he hasn't I'll clean that assignment off the back so pretty you'll think it's been to the laundry. Then he'll assign it again... to me."
"To us," corrected Miles.
"That's just a detail. Go find his car."
Miles returned later and announced, "It's not anywhere within six blocks of here. I cruised around all the streets, and the alleys too. He must have used a cab."
"You heard him say he drove his own car."
"Well, it's not Out there. Ask him when and where he mailed the stock."
So Belle did and I told them. "Just before I came here. I mailed it at the postbox at the corner of Sepulveda and Ventura Boulevard."
"Do you suppose he's lying?" asked Miles.
"He can't lie, not in the shape he's in. And he's too definite about it to be mixed up. Forget it, Miles. Maybe after he's put away it will turn out that his assignment is no good because he had already sold it to us... at least I'll get his signature on some blank sheets and be ready to try it."
She did try to get my signature and I tried to oblige. But in the shape I was in I could not write well enough to satisfy her. Finally she snatched a sheet out of my hand and said viciously, "You make me sick! I can sign your name better than that." Then she leaned over me and said tensely, "I wish I had killed your cat."
They did not bother me again until later in the day. Then Belle came in and said, "Danny boy, I'm going to give you a hypo and then you'll feel a lot better. You'll feel able to get up and move around and act just like you always have acted. You won't be angry at anybody, especially not at Miles and me. We're your best friends. We are, aren't we? Who are your best friends?"
"You are. You and Miles."
"But I'm more than that. I'm your sister. Say it."
"You're my sister."
"Good. Now we're going for a ride and then you are going for a long sleep. You've been sick and when you~ wake up you'll be well. Understand me?"
"Yes."
"Who am I?"
"You're my best friend. You're my sister."
"Good boy. Push your sleeve back."
I didn't feel the hypo go in, but it stung after she pulled it out. I sat up and shrugged and said, "Gee, Sis, that stung. What was it?"
"Something to make you feel better. You've been sick."
"Yeah, I'm sick. Where's Miles?"
"He'll be here in a moment. Now let's have your other aim. Push back the sleeve."
I said, "What for?" but I pushed back the sleeve and let her shoot me again. I jumped.
She smiled. "That didn't really hurt, did it?"
"Huh? No, it didn't hurt. What's it for?"
"It will make you sleepy on the ride. Then when we get there you'll wake up."
"Okay. I'd like to sleep. I want to take a long sleep." Then I felt puzzled and looked around. "Where's Pete? Pete was going to sleep with me."
"Pete?" Belle said. "Why, dear, don't you remember? You sent Pete to stay with Ricky. She's going to take care of him."
"Oh yes!" I grinned with relief. I had sent Pete to Ricky; I remembered mailing him. That was good. Ricky loved Pete and she would take good care of him while I was asleep.
They drove me out to the Consolidated Sanctuary at Sawtelle, one that
many of the smaller insurance companies used-those that didn't have their own. I slept all the way but came awake at once when Belle spoke to me. Miles stayed in his car and she took me in.
The girl at the desk looked up and said, "Davis?"
"Yes," agreed Belle. "I'm his sister. Is the representative for Master Insurance here?"
"You'll find him down in Treatment Room Nine-they're ready and waiting. You can give the papers to the man from Master." She looked at me with interest. "He's had his physical examination?"
CHAPTER 5
I was complaining to the bartender about the air conditioning; it was turned too high and we were all going to catch cold. "No matter," he assured me. "You won't feel it when you're asleep. Sleep... sleep... soup of the evening, beautiful sleep." He had Belle's face.
"Oh yes!" Belle assured her. "Brother is a therapy-delay case, you know. He's under an opiate... for the pain."
The receptionist clucked sympathetically. "Well, hurry on in then. Through that door and turn left."
In Room Nine there was a man in street clothes and one in white coveralls and a woman in a nurse's uniform. They helped me get undressed and treated me like an idiot child while Belle explained again that I was under a sedative for the pain. Once he had me stripped and up on the table, the man in white massaged my belly, digging his fingers in deeply. "No trouble with this one," he announced. "He's empty."
"He hasn't had anything to eat or drink since yesterday evening," agreed Belle.
"That's fine. Sometimes they come in here stuffed like a Christmas turkey. Some people have no sense."
"True. Very true."
"Uh-huh. Okay, son, clench your fist tight while I get this needle in."
I did and things began to get really hazy. Suddenly I remembered something and tried to sit up. "Where's Pete? I want to see Pete."
Belle took my head and kissed me. "There, there, Buddy! Pete couldn't come, remember? Pete had to stay with Ricky." I quieted down and she said gently to the others, "Our brother Peter has a sick little girl at home."
I dropped off to sleep.
Presently I felt very cold. But I couldn't move to reach the covers.
Door Into Summer Page 7