Soma Blues

by Robert Sheckley

  They both stood up, giving Arranque looks. Arranque said, “Don’t worry about him. He’s not going to give me any trouble. Are you, sweetheart?” .

  Hob, sitting back in the padded chair with the bad springs, had to agree, though he didn’t say anything. The bogus Special Branch men left, putting on their light and dark raincoats before they went out. Through the opened front door Hob could see that there was a bit of a drizzle.

  “Sorry for the trouble,” Arranque said, “but it was important that I see you right away.”

  “You could have called and made an appointment,” Hob said. “For that matter, how did you know where to find me?”

  “It’s my business to know things like that,” Arranque said. “You’ve become a problem to me, Mr. Draconian. Did you know that?”

  “I had no idea,” Hob said.

  “Luckily, there’s something I can do about it. But that’s later. Right now, there’s someone to see you.”

  Arranque opened the door and said, “Come on in, sweetheart.” And in walked Annabelle.

  8

  She had on a new outfit, a jumpsuit in a color between orange and red and a bright-colored belt to emphasize her small waist. A black-and-white checked silk scarf was thrown across her shoulder.

  “Oh, Hob,” she said, in a voice that seemed to imply it was Hob’s fault that he was here. Then she turned to Arranque, who was standing in the doorway behind her. “You haven’t hurt him, have you?”

  “He’s fine,” Arranque said. “Bright and bushy-tailed as the North Americans say.”

  “Let me speak to him alone,” Annabelle said.

  She stepped into the room. Arranque left, closing the door behind him.

  Annabelle looked around. “Why, this place is filthy!” She dusted off one of the chairs with a tiny perfumed hanky and sat down gingerly. “I don’t want to get runs in my stockings. Oh, Hob, why did you follow me to London?”

  Hob was already seated. He said, “It’s what you wanted me to do, isn’t it?”

  “Of course I did. But I was hoping in my heart of hearts you’d see through my plan and stay as far away from here as possible. Oh, Hob, you’re so clever. I’ve always admired your intelligence, did you know that? Why couldn’t you see that Arranque was certain to have a hold on me, since he hadn’t killed me after he killed Stanley? Why couldn’t you see that?”

  It was not the first time Hob had tried to find a way to deal with a woman’s misplaced self-righteousness. Kate had had that quality, too. She had left Hob and blamed him for it. And now Annabelle was blaming Hob for walking into the trap she had set.

  “If I had it all to do over again,” Hob said, “I would have seen a lot of other things, and acted quite differently. I’d have seen through you at once, for one thing.”

  “That’s what I was hoping you’d do in the first place,” Annabelle said. “I feel bad about this, but it’s really not my fault. Hob, I refuse to feel guilty.”

  “Over what?”

  “This situation you’ve set up by following me to London. It’s not my fault if you’re going to get killed. You’re a big boy. You’re supposed to be able to look after yourself.”

  Hob decided to make believe he hadn’t heard what she’d said. Maybe she was just being dramatic.

  He said soothingly, “No sense guilt-tripping yourself for luring me to this place.”

  She took it the wrong way. “Damn you, you’re being clever now, aren’t you? But you’re wrong. You can’t blame me for this situation! I had to do it!”

  “Why?” Hob asked.

  “For one thing, my own life was in danger. But another and more important reason is that I have responsibilities! I’m not like you. You can just run around and please yourself. But I have a child in school in Switzerland. A minor child not yet fifteen years old! And no husband! There’s no one to take care of her except me. I have to keep myself alive for her.”

  “I suppose,” Hob said, “where a child’s welfare is at stake, anything is justified.”

  “You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you? Oh, you’re such a male chauvinist pig,” Annabelle said.

  Hob didn’t see how that followed, but he didn’t respond.

  “A real mother would do anything for her kid,” Annabelle said.

  “That’s very moving, Annabelle,” Hob said. “Your passion for your child does you great credit. You’re a mother and that of course excuses everything. Now, if you’re finished scolding me, would you mind telling me what in hell is going on?”

  Instead she looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “Oh, Hob. You were warned off this thing. Why didn’t you give it up?”

  Hob said, “I’m a private detective. I was hired to find Stanley’s murderer.”

  “Everybody knows your private detecting is a joke. Why did you push it so far?”

  “A joke? What do you mean, a joke?”

  “It’s something you do to keep up your self-respect. Like half the people on Ibiza say they paint or write or compose. But they’re not serious. It’s just something to talk about at parties. I thought it was that way with you, too. I had no idea you’d go on trying to find out who killed Stanley.”

  “He was your friend,” Hob pointed out. “I’d think you’d be interested.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “I know who killed him. And why.”

  “Would you mind telling me?”

  “Stanley was trying to sell the soma I gave him. This was before I knew how stupid a move I’d made. Before I even knew about Arranque and the others. All I knew was Etienne had scored, and he wasn’t sharing it with me.”

  “So the soma came from Etienne?”

  “Of course. I thought you knew that.”

  “I guess I could have figured it out if I’d put my mind to it. And where did Etienne get it?”

  “He got it at the meeting in Havana. It was his allotment.”

  “What meeting in Havana? What allotment?”

  She tried to make herself comfortable on the sagging chair. Her skirt was riding up over her beautiful knees. She tugged it down but it rode up again. She forgot about it.

  “This was a couple of months ago. Etienne and I were an item for a while, you know. He’s a beautiful guy, and really classy. And it seemed like he had all the money in the world. I thought he was rich. He acted like he was rich. I didn’t know then that he was on an allowance from his father. It wasn’t much. But it came with an airline pass good for going anywhere in the world. He could take me or anyone else he pleased on that pass. And he knew people all over the world. We could stay with his rich friends in all sorts of places, get by without money at all. That’s how we got to Havana. Etienne had heard something was going on there. He wanted to check it out.”

  Annabelle opened her bag and searched until she found a crushed and almost empty pack of cigarettes. She extracted a bent one, straightened it out, and lit it with what looked to Hob like a solid gold Dunhill lighter.

  “Well, it turned out this meeting in Havana was a sort of underworld get-together for the purpose of giving out territories.”

  “Territories?” Hob said.

  “In a new dope trade. This soma. It’s the latest thing, you know. Etienne had heard about the meeting from some of the men who work for his father. That’s Silverio Vargas. He’s got a fabulous finca on the island, and he’s very rich. But he keeps Etienne on a tight leash. So Etienne decided to go into business for himself.”

  She paused and inhaled dramatically. “I wasn’t paying much attention to all this. Havana was just another resort to me. I spent most of my time on Veradero Beach. Etienne got his consignment or whatever you want to call it, and we went back to Ibiza.”

  “And back in Ibiza you took his dope?” Hob asked.

  “Well, I needed money. Badly. I told you, I’ve got a kid in a private school in Switzerland. Whatever else I do, I keep the school bills paid so she can stay there. She’s going to have a better life than her mom ever had, I can tell you t
hat. And Etienne had understood this from the beginning. He knew that I didn’t come free. I couldn’t afford that, not with a kid in private school. He understood I had to have money. Not a lot of money, but enough money to pay my bills and take care of my kid. And he said, don’t worry, no sweat, I’ll get it for you. Only he didn’t. And we came back from Havana and all that talk and he had the stuff, the soma, with him, but he didn’t have a damned cent in cash money. And my bills were overdue. So finally I had to act. Etienne took his Montessa and went across the island for somebody’s birthday. He was gone for two days. While he was away, I took his stash and made a deal with Stanley.”

  “Why Stanley?” Hob asked.

  “I don’t know if you ever really knew Stanley. He was good people. He was trustworthy. He said he knew plenty of people in Paris who were interested in a new turn-on. He’d sell the stuff and we’d split what he got fifty-fifty. This wasn’t the first deal we’d done. I knew I could trust Stanley.

  “Well, Etienne came back, and he was furious when he found his dope missing. I thought I could just wait till he got over it—this wasn’t the first time I’d snitched somebody’s stash; they always come around after a while. But this time it wasn’t that simple. There was all this stuff about soma being a new drug, and people being assigned exclusive territories, and everybody under a vow not to sell any until it was time for everyone to start selling.”

  “When was the selling supposed to start?” Hob asked.

  “After the hotel opening,” Annabelle said. “Well, he was mad as hell, Etienne, and he was scared, too, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Stanley was in Paris, and I didn’t even have a telephone number for him. Etienne said we were finished, and he moved out of my place. And he told what happened to Arranque. He had to, I guess. And Arranque came to see me.”

  “When was this?” Hob asked.

  “Just three days after we got back from Havana. It wasn’t a very nice meeting. I thought at first I could bluff Arranque, but he beat me up. He was careful not to mark up my face, though. He had a thing for me as soon as he saw me, but he had to do what he had to do. He hurt me, Hob, and I told him everything I knew about Stanley and who he knew in Paris. And the funny thing was, I didn’t resent what he did, even though it hurt like hell. I knew he was right, by his standards. He was in charge of all the soma arrangements, and here I was screwing up his deal. He was accountable to people, and I was accountable to him. It’s funny how a thing like that can get you close to a person. After he beat me, he was crying—actually crying, Hob—and it came out that he thought I was so beautiful that it broke his heart having to beat me. And he took such great care not to mark me where it’d show. And one thing led to another, and we made love after that, and it was beautiful. And then he told me to keep my mouth shut until he came back, and he left, and the next thing I heard was that he and Etienne had gone to Paris to get hold of Stanley and get the dope back. And then I heard Stanley was dead, so I guess he’d sold the stuff already, and Arranque was doing the best he could to plug the leak.”

  Hob felt numb at the end of Annabelle’s story and didn’t know what to say. Finally he said, “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “I’ve got to talk to someone, don’t I? And I feel bad about this, Hob. I feel terrible about the spot you’re in.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “That’s not up to me, Hob. That’s up to Ernesto.”

  “Annabelle, you could get word to someone, couldn’t you?”

  “Hob, you don’t understand. You had your chance. You saw how dangerous it was. You could have walked away and nobody would have bothered you. But you didn’t take it. And now you’ll just have to take what comes.”

  “And what about you, Annabelle?”

  “I’ve got my own life to worry about. And believe me, I’m worrying about it plenty. More than you’ve ever worried about your own.”

  “Is that your idea of a life? Being a gangster’s girlfriend?”

  “I’m after a lot more than that, Hob. I’ve got a chance now at something really big. I’m not going to tell you what it is. I thought you were a friend, but you’re really quite unsympathetic. And I’m not going to let you or anything else stand in my way. I’ve been kicked around enough. It’s going to stop now.”

  “Shit,” Hob said.

  “Oh! You are no gentleman!” Annabelle cried, and rushed out of the room. The effect was spoiled when she found the door locked and had to knock several times before Arranque let her out.

  9

  “She’s something, isn’t she?” Arranque said, coming into the room and casting an admiring glance back at where Annabelle had been.

  “No doubt about it,” Hob said.

  “I want you to know something,” Arranque said. “I want you to know that even though I’m going to have to kill you, it’s nothing personal.”

  “Glad you told me that,” Hob said. “It makes it a lot easier.”

  “Well, I’m hoping it will.”

  “Maybe I can make it easier on you still.”

  “How?” Arranque said. “You plan to kill yourself?”

  “No. I hope to spare you the necessity of killing me.”

  “How do you figure to do that?”

  “By giving you my word that if you let me out of here, I’ll drop this case. Annabelle was right. It’s too rich for my blood.”

  “You’re not serious, are you?” Arranque asked.

  “Perfectly serious.”

  “I wish I could believe you,” Arranque said. “But I don’t. I’m afraid I’m going to have to fix your clock.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “ ‘Fix your clock’ is a North American expression for ‘kill you.’ ”

  “Oh. I’ve been out of the country for a while.”

  “Try to put yourself in my shoes. Even if I believed you, I still couldn’t let you live. I have to make an example of you. I have to show what happens to people when they fool around with soma people. This isn’t no tiny little operation. This is the big time. We need to establish respect from the start. Like the mafia’s got respect. You know what I mean?”

  Hob nodded. He saw no reason to be difficult just now.

  “I have to do something dramatic with you,” Arranque said. “Something that’ll get people’s attention. Something spectacular. Or at least interesting.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Hob asked.

  “I’ve got a couple ideas,” Arranque said. “But it would be premature to talk about them now. Try to take it easy, seamus. I’ll get back to you soon.”

  Hob decided it was not the time to tell Arranque the word was “shamus” rather than “seamus.” No sense getting the guy riled up at you.

  And that was the last Hob heard until almost an hour later.

  “All right,” Arranque said. “Tie him up and bring him out.”

  The two bogus Special Branch men bound Hob’s hands behind him with a length of transparent plastic cord. Then he did the same for Hob’s feet. Then the other man took out a cigarette lighter and applied it to the knots, warming them but not setting them on fire. The knots melted into blobby masses the size of crab apples.

  “Nobody unties those knots,” one of them said. The other nodded.

  “Okay, carry him out here.”

  The two men lugged Hob out of the room, and, following Arranque, down a short flight of stairs to the main floor of the factory room. Here, beneath overhead fluorescents hanging from chains, the skeletons and corpses of once busy machines littered the floor. The place seemed very old. Hob guessed that most of the equipment dated from the early years of the twentieth century. Not that he was any expert.

  “Put him on the chute,” Arranque said.

  The chute was waist high, an open-sided metal slide about three feet wide with sides about two feet high. It extended at an angle from a point in the factory wall near the ceiling and extended across the room at a slope to where it entered a bulky metal object th
e size of a garage, whose function Hob could not guess, though he feared the worst.

  The bogus Special Branch men laid Hob on the chute on his back. Hob found that he was lying on rollers. Arranque walked to a wall and did something Hob couldn’t see. Machine noises started up. They came from belts beneath the chute, and from the garage-sized object ahead of Hob’s feet and about fifteen yards away.

  “This gadget is an ore crusher,” Arranque said to Hob. “The chunks of ore are carried on this conveyor belt and fed into the crushing machine. It’s straight ahead of you. If you crane your neck a little, you can see it.”

  Hob craned his neck and saw that a panel had slid open on the garage-sized machine, revealing two long steel rollers. The rollers had begun to turn—slowly, ponderously at first, then with increased speed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that anything coming down the conveyor belt would be brought in between the two rollers and crushed to something small and, in his case, bloody.

  Annabelle appeared and walked over to Hob.

  “Hob,” she said, “I’m really sorry about this. But it’s not my fault. I did warn you.”

  Hob couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that all this was happening. He said, “Stop apologizing and get me out of here.”

  “Oh, Hob,” she said, and began to cry.

  “I’m not really a cruel guy,” Arranque said. “But I need to make an impression on my partners. Especially the Indians. When they hear of this, they’ll know I’m someone to be reckoned with.”

  From where he was lying, Hob couldn’t think of anything amusing to say. He heard another click. Arranque had turned another switch. The roller wheels under Hob began to move very slowly.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Arranque said to Annabelle, adding, “and stop that sniveling, will you?”

  “I just hate to see this happening to someone from Ibiza,” Annabelle said, drying her eyes with a tiny handkerchief.

  “He was warned,” Arranque said, as if that explained everything. “Take it easy, Mr. Draconian. I’m off to Ibiza now. Your buddy Nigel ought to be just about finished hanging my pictures. When he’s done, I’ll send him to hell to join you.”