Whatever Goes Up

by Troy Conway

  I hopped to the window and found I could stare out at the bushes and the stars. I could also see a helicopter hovering about the house.

  At sight of that whirlybird, my heart began hammering. Good old Walrus-moustache! When I didn’t report in, he’d sent some Foundation agents to find me. The lights were still on in the house; that meant that our two birds had not yet flown the coop. I practically danced up and down in my delight.

  Then I saw the girls running across the lawn, waving up at the chopper craft. So much for my happy thoughts about the Old Man. This was an Opposition whirlybird. It would land and pick up the girls and there went our chance to find out who was going to get killed.

  But the helicopter did not land. It hovered in the air about a hundred feet above the lawn. Instead—The girls began rising. They went up side by side, levitating as easily as I was standing there gaping at them. I looked for wings. I searched their shapely bodies for some sort of flying rocket belt, a la Buck Rogers. No wings, no rocket belt. No nothing but their girlish bodies in mod clothes.

  Midge was wearing a belt dress with black leather boots and a leather helmet for her golden hair. Laura had on bell-bottomed slacks and a matching tunic, with a silver pendant around her neck. No balloons were attached to them either, other than their natural attributes as well-developed females. No, sir. They were just lifting upward, smiling and looking up at the helicopter.

  Magic! It had to be magic or else I was so filled with gas I was hallucinating here in the cellar with my nose poked against the window glass. Yeah, like on lysergic acid diethylamide (also known as LSD). I was damn sure I wasn’t on a hallucinogen, however. Things like pot and speed and LSD are not my bag.

  My jaw was open as I watched Midge and Laura hover like angels near that chopper craft. The light coming from an upper-story window framed them so neatly there was absolutely no mistake about it. I was not having visions. Those girls had levitated the way Friar Joseph of Copertino is reported to have levitated, just rising upward into the air in defiance of gravity.

  An instant later they were in and the whirlybird glided sideways and off into the sheltering darkness. I stood there gawking, not believing my eyes.

  I slammed the glass with my forehead. I hit that pane a good smack. The glass shattered and cut my forehead, but the cool night air wafted in and I leaned against the cellar wall and breathed it in.

  My head was in reasonably good working order by the time I knelt down and fumbled around for a piece of broken window pane. I managed by trial and error to cut through the cord that held my wrists. I cut my fingers in half a dozen places before I freed myself, but when my hands were loose, it was easy to get my legs back in working order.

  I stood on my tiptoes and managed to get my head through the window without slashing my neck. I bellowed, I yelled, I shouted.

  Only the nighttime darkness heard me.

  This house was in a remote part of the Outer Banks. I could have used a bull-horn and not have been heard by anybody. I thought about the cellar door. Maybe I was being a damn fool, standing here and roaring, when all I had to do was go open the cellar door.

  Rather sheepishly, I stumbled around until I found the cellar stairs and mounted them. The door was locked. I spent fifteen minutes trying to slam a shoulder into that door and open it the way they do in the movies. All I got out of it was a bruised shoulder.

  I sat down on the top step and tried to think. There must be a way out. The door was impenetrable, the cellar window was too small for me to squeeze through. My voice was too weak to carry very far.

  I sagged into the wall, sweating and half nauseous. The gas inside me was getting to my inner man. I felt like retching.

  An hour later, I heard Walrus-moustache yelling my name. More hallucinations!

  “Damon, have you gone deaf?”

  “Funny,” I said out loud. “That sounds just like the Chief.”

  “It had better damn well sound like the Chief because it is the Chief, you nincompoop! Now come away from that corner over to this window.”

  I turned and stared. The Old Man had his face down there at the level of the window, peering in at me. I heard him say, “Dammit, where the hell’s that flashlight? Somebody get me a flashlight, dammit.”

  “No need, Chief,” I laughed. “I’m on my way.”

  I was halfway to the window when my legs got all rubbery. I found myself sinking down on that cold stone floor, aware only of a vast surprise. This sort of thing had never happened to me before. Then I lost touch with the world.

  I came to in Heaven. I knew where I was, all right. An angel was smiling down at me and soothing my forehead with a perfumed palm. Do angels smell of Chanel perfume? And wear nurse’s caps perched atop bright red hair? This angel did.

  “All right, all right,” growled the Old Man, moving in on my Florence Nightingale. “Can he hear me?”

  “Yes, sir. He can hear you.”

  The Chief stuck his face in front of the nurse so I was ogling him. “Get that stupid look off your face, Damon,” he shouted.

  “Yes, sir, Chief,” I gulped.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I was damn near murdered in cold blood,” I shouted back, “all on account of you!”

  His shocked face restored some of my confidence. I slid a hand sideways so my fingertips touched the redheaded nurse on her palm. I let my fingernails tickle it. The redhead hid a smile behind her free hand but did not draw her palm away.

  “On account of me?”

  “Next time you interrogate a prisoner, find out if he’s a normal man or not! The only thing those girls knew about him was that he’s a homo.”

  The Chief groaned. The nurse looked interested.

  “Oh, no,” Walrus-moustache muttered. “Not again. Why did you have to play games with them?”

  “They tempted me, Chief,” I remarked virtuously, “and you know how quickly and—ah—strongly I react to temptation.”

  The nurse was squeezing my finger between her soft, pink digits. There was a delightful look in her brown eyes.

  Walrus-moustache growled, “I don’t suppose you learned anything?”

  “Nothing,” I murmured.

  “Then how are you going to stop a murder?”

  “I’m sure I can’t tell you,” I answered, lost in the brown eyes beaming down at me as the nurse went on soothing my forehead. “Since I didn’t even learn who was going to get killed, the how and why of it needn’t concern us.”

  “Young lady—get lost!” thundered Walrus-moustache.

  My redheaded nurse looked startled, and scared. “Y-yes, sir,” she gasped and rose to her feet. She ran from the room. I gazed after her shapely legs under the mini-skirted uniform before I turned on my case officer.

  “What’s the idea?” I howled. “I’m a sick man!”

  “Damon, you aren’t taking this situation seriously.”

  “I am, I am! But what can I do?”

  “You can begin by thinking.”

  “Oh, I’m thinking, all right, Chief.”

  “About this case you’re on—not about the nurse.”

  The Chief was right. I was not thinking about the case. But what in hell was there to think about? I had seen two girls rise upward into the air and step into a chopper craft. The helicopter had cut out for parts unknown. Big deal!

  “You should have seen them,” I muttered dreamily.

  “They flew right up into the air. It was scary.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Damon?”

  I told him about the girls levitating. He told me I was nuts.

  “Dammit, I know what I saw. Go outside if you don’t believe me, around to one side of the house, to the south. You may see their footprints there. Those footprints will end abruptly where they took off for that helicopter.”

  “Sure, sure,” Walrus-moustache soothed me.

  “Then the whirlybird flew north,” I went on.

  Walrus-moustache snorted. He
was badly disturbed.

  “Just a hint, a hint,” he pleaded. He seemed to have forgotten all about the levitating females. Obviously he thought I’d been imagining the whole thing.

  Nothing came to me. I shrugged and looked helpless.

  “Oh, hell!” shouted the Chief. “Go on back to your motel.”

  I felt a little sorry for him. He could not even lecture me, because he had nothing to lecture about, other than the fact that I had goofed. And it was not so much my goof as it had been that of the Foundation boys who had interrogated Albert Frame. He could not appeal to my patriotism, because nobody knew whether patriotism was involved in the murder we were not going to prevent.

  He took another look at me and shrugged.

  “Okay, okay—you look pretty sick,” he admitted. “Miss Kolb! Where the hell’s that nurse?” He scowled at me. “So I’d better make sure you live through the night I’ll send her along to play doctor for you.”

  The redhead came back fearfully.

  “Miss Kolb. you’d better go with him,” he told her. “I don’t want anything happening to him. He needs rest and medicines. You know what to do. Stay with him for a day or two, then phone me. I’ll try and come up with some solution to the case by that time.”

  The nurse bent over the sofa, her brown eyes wistful. “Do you think you can get up by yourself? And walk? Or shall I call for a stretcher?”

  I slid my right arm about her waist. “Just give me a hand, honey. The old professor is a little weak, but I’m not out yet.”

  I made it to my feet and walked about the room leaning on Miss Kolb, my arm around her middle. She was soft female flesh, all perfumed, and I felt her thigh nudge mine as we walked, and the brush of her curved hip.

  “Damon, have you got a tape recorder?” the boss-man asked.

  “Sure, Chief.”

  “All right, this is what I want you to do when you get to your motel room. Without fail, mind! I want you to get in bed—alone!—and talk into that recorder. Tell it everything that happened to you, everything you did and said, everything those girls did and said. Understand?”

  “Everything?” I asked weakly.

  Walrus-moustache glanced at Miss Kolb. He muttered, “Miss Kolb is a nurse. She’ll understand. Maybe something—a dropped word, a phrase, anything like that—will hit your memory cells. It may furnish us with a clue as to who those women mean to murder. We have to know, Damon. We—must—know!”

  “Right, Chief,” I nodded.

  My body was discovering that it was not nearly as strong as my mind believed it to be. I got dizzy, so dizzy I would have fallen if Walrus-moustache hadn’t jumped to my left side to help the redhead keep me on my feet.

  “He’s worse off than I thought,” I heard him say. “Let him stay here. Put him into a bed in one of the upstairs rooms. You stay with him, nurse. I’ll leave a man on guard down here, to make sure you’re both all right. I’ll stay at a hotel in Manns Harbor.”

  I leaned back against the sofa. I passed out.

  I came to in a bed in a small bedroom dimly lighted by a small lamp on a night table. I opened my eyes to the face of a bearded man sitting beside the bed, a hypodermic in his hand. Just beyond him I made out my redheaded nurse. She looked worried.

  “That ought to bring him around,” murmured the doctor. “He needed rest; he’s had it and we can begin feeding him.”

  Whatever was in that hypodermic worked like magic.

  In ten minutes, I was feeling myself again, I opened my mouth and bellowed. Moments later I heard footsteps on the stairs and on the hall floorboards. Then Miss Kolb stood in the doorway, beaming at me.

  “You’re better,” she said. “I’m so glad. You had us all worried for a while. But the doctor was just here, he said you’ll come along fine now. I’ll go boil a couple of eggs for you. With toast and coffee.”

  I ate my meal with the redhead seated on the edge of the mattress, hand-feeding me. There was a tape recorder downstairs for me to play with as soon as I ate my breakfast, she informed me. It had come yesterday, with the compliments of Walrus-moustache.

  “Yesterday? How long’ve I been here?”

  “You passed out on us day before yesterday. You’ve been asleep ever since. The doctor said it was the best thing that could’ve happened to you.”

  I digested that as I digested my food.

  Two whole days lost. Those girls might have already zeroed in on their victim. If they had, there wasn’t anything I could do. But on the off-chance that they had not, that they had been delayed for one reason or another—

  “I guess you’d better bring the recorder up here,” I admitted with a wry grin. “I’d hate to think somebody was killed on account of some slip-up of mine.”

  Miss Kolb beamed and patted my hand.

  Ten minutes later I was putting down words on tape. I told the whole story, leaving out nothing. It ended with my being pushed down the cellar stairs.

  As an afterthought, I told how I had turned off the gas, how I had broken the window, and saw these two flying fleshpots rise up into the air.

  This was the unexpurgated edition, which I would erase from the tape later on. I would provide Walrus-moustache with a censored version but first I wanted to see if anything in our sexual antics could clue me in about Midge and Laura.

  I ran the tape back, listening intently. Nothing. In disgust I shut off the damn thing and lay there, thinking. Thinking was no better than listening, as far as inspiration went, so I yelled for Miss Kolb and asked for a paper.

  I lay there and read the entire paper. Even the society pages caught my eye. Debutante Martha Therese Walcott was marrying Emmet Hazelton of Edenton, Harriet Gail Oddsley was divorcing her husband whom she had found in bed with two women. Wanda Weaver Yule, the former rodeo star and widow of financier Harold Hayes Yule, was injured in a freak accident when her car motor exploded. Helena Mae Thurwood was visiting her grandchildren in Charlotte. All the local news that’s fit to print

  I got bored, after a time.

  I thought about the fact that all Southern women had two names instead of one, and used them all the time. The men too. Names like Billy Joe, Eddie John, Jimmy Lou. I wondered why, but I had no answer.

  I yelled for Miss Kolb. I asked, “You must have a came Miss Kolb? What is it? Sue Ellen? Cissie Fran? Gertrude Jean?”

  She hooted with delight. “Lord, no. It’s Evelyn Linda. Or Evvie Lynn. It makes up my first name, the combination of both. Cute, isn’t it?”

  “Not as cute as you,” I told her. “I was just wondering why women down South use both their names.”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t really know. I’ve never even thought about it. What started you off on that?”

  My hand gestured at the newspaper lying on the floor. Evvie Lynn bent to pick it up, and her uniform gaped nicely. She had changed brassieres, I saw. She was wearing a black one now. Couple of days ago, it had been a white one.

  Her hands smoothed over the paper. She began to read. I listened with half a mind, being more intent on the golden gloss of her nylon stockings where they framed her legs. In her mini-skirted uniform that rode up on her thighs, I got a good look at her excellent underpinnings.

  Then she said something that took my mind off her legs. I turned my head to stare at her. “How’s that again?”

  “What?” she asked blankly.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I was reading from the paper, about the Yule woman. She’s one of the richest people in this part of the country, you know. Her husband made a fortune in textiles, up Greensboro way. She used to be a rodeo star, years back. It say here she was lucky to escape injury when her car motor exploded. I understand she’s considering making a comeback on the rodeo circuit. She doesn’t have to do it, you understand, she’s worth millions. It’s just that she’s bored, I imagine.”

  “What Yule woman?” I asked.

  “Why, Wanda Weaver Yule. Right here. The—“

  �
�Yaaaa-hoooo!”

  I reached out, grabbed her, yanked her over on me and kissed her. “Wanda Weaver Yule, honey! That’s the one!”

  Evvie Lynn Kolb gulped. “The one what?”

  “Make believe you’ve been knocked out. You’re rehearing things through fuzzy eardrums. What does Wanda Weaver Yule sound like?”

  “Wander wherever you will?” she asked doubtfully.

  So I had slurred the words to make it sound that way, but she got the message. Only she had not heard my tape recorder, so it didn’t mean a thing to her.

  “A telephone! I need a telephone and the telephone number of that hotel at Manns Harbor where the boss-man is staying.”

  Five minutes later, Walrus-moustache said he was on his way.

  As I replaced the phone, I glanced up at the redhead. She was hovering over me in the downstairs hall where the telephone was as if she expected me to collapse at any moment. Hell, I was fine. My discovery of the murder victim was doing me more good than a shot of insulin for a diabetes patient

  Oooops! I had to censor that tape recording before the boss-man arrived. “Upstairs,” I shouted at Miss Kolb. “And hurry!”

  I made her close the door again while I worked on the tape recorder. She gave me an arch look as she left. She was no fool, Evvie Lynn.

  The tape was nice and proper by the time Walrus-moustache came storming into the bedroom. I made him sit down, I played the tape for him. Then I explained about “wander wherever you will” and how it formed the name of Wanda Weaver Yule.

  “Sounds good,” he admitted. “But why would anybody want to kill her? As far as I know, she’s clean. No bad habits, has no enemies, treats her employees real good. I asked about her at Manns Harbor.”

  “I don’t know why they want to kill her, they just do. Now let me get dressed and I’ll go visit her with you. Maybe she knows why.”

  CHAPTER THREE