A couple of quick gins had restored Miss Marjoribanks’ equanimity. “It saves you the expense of having him put down, Carioca dear,” she said loftily. “You know perfectly well that he’d got totally out of control. If there’s any talk of suing, I suggest you remember what this incident has cost me. I’ve lost at least six pedigree hammerheads, and I can assure you they don’t come cheaply. If your Wilberforce hadn’t launched that insane attack on poor Rosalie, the whole thing would never have happened.”
Carioca drank rapidly from her glass, her black eyes furious as she sought for a telling rejoinder. In the corner of the room an original Hector Bartholomew sat on its pedestal, mute and motionless. I switched it on in the hope that it would improve the atmosphere, and the arms began to swing pleasantly, the lights flashed, and the soothing music played gently.
“I’ll remind you that Wilberforce was under your care at the time of the incident, Miranda. You call yourself a veterinarian and yet you have no control whatever over the animals in your establishment. My God. Every time Wilberforce came back from his treatment, he was more savage than ever. You’re no better than a motor mechanic. Why, by the time your stupid girl provoked him into attacking, he’d become a different fish altogether. He’d become crude and brutal—yet he used to be such a pet.”
Miranda suddenly dropped the pretense. “For Christ’s sake, woman, he was only a goddamned fish. They’re all only goddamned fish—it’s only you and I who pretend they’re intelligent and lovable like dogs. They’re cold stupid fish and they’ve no more brain than a walnut. There’s a whole goddamned shoal of the bastards out there—take the pick of the litter with my compliments and get the hell out of here!”
“And that’s just exactly what I propose to do,” snapped Carioca, jumping up. “Although no other creature can possible replace dear sweet Wilberforce.”
“Uh … do you think we might call the hospital and see how Rosalie is?” I ventured.
“Get that woman out of here right now, Joe Sagar!” shouted Miranda, like Carioca jumping to her feet.
Carioca was already flinging open the door preparatory to a sweeping exit. She stopped so suddenly that I almost ran into her. “There aren’t any fish there,” she said wonderingly.
“What! Of course there are fish there.” Miranda Marjoribanks joined us at the door and together we stared at the enclosure. It was indeed empty. The gate stood swinging, the fish—the land sharks, garden barracudas, morays, rays, sawfish, and numerous others—were all gone. “Oh, my God,” muttered Miranda. She swayed, and I helped her back into the living room. I don’t know whether it was the shock or the gin which had hit her. I laid her on the couch and got her a drink and the visiphone.
“Would you rather I called the police?” I asked.
“But … but the police will destroy them all, with guns. All my capital’s locked up in those fish. We could never round them up—and a lot of them will make straight for the ocean. What am I going to do, Joe?”
“Are they insured?”
Her face had crumpled; the statuesque, cultural Miranda Marjoribanks was falling to pieces at last—over a matter of common, sordid cash. “That last big shipment of sharks … I hadn’t got around to insuring them yet. This will ruin me, Joe.”
She was stretched out on the couch and I was looking at her foot; the dressings were off and I could see the thin white scar around the base of her big toe.
I forgot all about the visiphone and the police.
“Well, I’m sure I feel terribly sorry for you, Miranda darling,” crowed Carioca Jones triumphantly. “But Joe and I must be going now. So unfortunate that you’re not in a position to replace dear Wilberforce. I really shall have to sue you now. Come on, Joe.”
I was looking at the toe; the soft, young roundness, the faint star-shaped scar just above the joint … I thought of the sun and the beach, and the pretty girl with nice breasts telling me how the spear-gun had gone off by accident; and now that pretty girl had disappeared … disappeared, all except for one little part of her, perhaps.
I thought of Marigold, and I feared for Marigold, as I sat in the mock-Tudor house and the sharks and barracudas and morays and rays and sawfish flopped and crawled into the rough scrubland of the flat, sedimentary Peninsula. …
13
The Princess Louise bar was aswill with lunchtime drinkers and it seemed to me that curious eyes were frequently turned in our direction. This was probably because people recognized my companion as the famous Carioca Jones, although I suspected that numbers of them were wondering who that poor fool was, sitting with that spectacular old witch. Carioca had dressed, or undressed, for the occasion; pallid intense face behind Ultrasorb hair, dark eyes glowing at me as she leaned across the table with slithe-skin accessories shining lust red. My worst shock had come when I removed the stole from her shoulders; she was naked from the waist up. As I watched her in horror and embarrassment it seemed she consisted entirely of dark hypnotic nipples.
“I can’t think why you should have the slightest doubts, Joe darling,” she was saying. “I have over two hundred names on the petition and if that isn’t enough to make that poisonous man Lambert see reason I don’t know what is. I shall demand that he release dear Joanne forthwith.”
“But the law is the law,” I said helplessly. “It’s not up to Lambert. He’s just the warden.”
Her face became shrewd, not a pleasant sight. “And that’s just where you’re wrong, Joe. Lambert is in sole charge and if things are made hot enough for him he’ll be forced to concede. He was badly shaken by our last demonstration and I know for a fact that his superiors on the mainland have told him to play things cool. There’s a big public outcry building up and I intend the Foes to be in the vanguard.”
More drinks arrived. Carioca drank gin and orange; it has been my experience that women who drink gin and orange are always a little peculiar, in one way or another. “I want to know why you’re going to all this trouble, Carioca,” I said decisively. “Joanne’s due out in a couple of months, anyway.”
“Would you like to spend even two months in that ghastly dungeon, Joe?”
“All right, if it suits your purpose to petition for her release I’ll go along with you. But how do you justify giving her preference over all the other prisoners?”
“Well really, Joe. You know perfectly well there’s no chance of getting everybody released, so why not select dear Joanne as our symbol? And quite honestly she should never have been jailed in the first place; she tells me she was an unwitting accomplice in some petty swindle.” She smiled like a skull. “Won’t it be nice to see dear Joanne outside those dreadful walls again, Joe? Won’t it?”
Later, as we walked through the forbidding corridors of the state penitentiary toward Lambert’s office, I had to agree that she was right. The pen is a comparatively modern structure in common with all buildings on the Peninsula, yet the architect had managed to retain the traditional atmosphere of gloom and despair which we associate with such establishments. Recently Hector Bartholomew created an emotion mobile so diabolical—the artist has been going through a bad spell—that it struck terror into the guts of all who saw it. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the Prison Commission bought it as a feature for the pen’s entrance hall.
Lambert watched us guardedly as we entered. Carioca strutted up to his desk and laid down a somewhat scruffy exercise book with an extravagant gesture. “Now just what do you propose to do about that, pray?”
The governor of the penitentiary handled Carioca well. He left the book where it was, glancing from it to her inquiringly. “About what?”
“Open it.”
Lambert opened the book, flipped over the pages. “It seems to be a list of names, Miss Jones. What am I supposed to do with it? Is it some sort of mailing list? Where are the addresses?”
“It’s a petition, you fool, as you very well know. All those good people are demanding that you release Joanne Shaw immediately. Please be good enough to
instruct your jailor to bring the keys, and we will take no more of your time.”
Lambert smiled broadly, leaning back in the chair. “I see no demands for release. All I see is a list of names. Miss Jones, if you want to petition for the release of any prisoner, then I suggest you draw up your document properly and send it to the Prison Commissioners on the mainland. I have no authority in such matters. Right?”
Carioca snatched the book from his desk, flushing. “You know perfectly well any such communication would be ignored. Joe—” She appealed to me. “Tell this wretched man exactly what he may expect, if he ignores the wishes of the public.”
I was on the spot. “Uh, there seems to be a certain amount of discontent.”
Lambert interrupted me, frowning. “I’m surprised at you getting yourself involved with these nuts, Joe. Maybe you think you’re doing it for Joanne Shaw, but you can take it from me that all your friend Miss Jones is after is power. She wants to build the Foes into a strong political organization—and other branches are doing the same, all over the country. She’s not doing this for Joanne Shaw. For Christ’s sake, look at her, man. Look at her hands! Those are Joanne Shaw’s hands! What sort of twisted thinking are you trying to put across?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I muttered. “There’s a lot of things happened since—”
“Well, for Christ’s sake.” He was staring from me to Carioca. “For Christ’s sake. Yes, I’m goddamned sure a lot of things have happened. I tell you this, Joe. I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt over the complaints your S. P. girls have been making against you, but now I’m not so all-fired sure.”
“Just what the hell are you driving at, Lambert?”
“Any man who can fool around with a woman twice his age must be pretty goddamned strange, that’s what I’m driving at!”
“What do you mean, twice his age?” shrilled Carioca.
“What makes you think I’m fooling around, you bastard?” I shouted, losing control.
“For Christ’s sake, it’s all over the Peninsula!” he yelled back, spittle spraying. “That funny business about the girl from the Ancia Telji—and you and this godawful woman here are always together, and you can’t keep an S. P. group at your farm for ten minutes without they start complaining you’ve been feeling them up. I tell you this—you’ll rent no more girls from my pen. You’re through, Sagar. Get the hell out of here and take a cold bath, that’s my advice to you!”
“I propose to complain to your superiors about your slanderous insinuations, you foul-mouthed sonofabitch!” screamed Carioca.
Lambert and I were on our feet, glaring at each other over the desk like fighting cocks, while Carioca pranced about nearby. I wanted to take a swing at the man but the desk was in the way. I found a uniformed guard standing beside me, and suddenly the whole sordid business assumed an air of the ridiculous. “For God’s sake,” I muttered, sitting down again. “Pull yourself together, Heathcote. You know that every time I report one of your girls for laziness, she reports me for rape. It’s traditional. It doesn’t mean a thing. Maybe you’ll apologize to Miss Jones and we’ll get out of your hair.”
Lambert seated himself, although slowly; and his lips were still trembling with rage. Suddenly he appeared weak and ineffectual and I wondered once again what sort of pressures he was under, and whether he was man enough to handle them. “No apologies,” he said curtly, staring at the desk, not meeting my eyes. “A few days ago Miss Jones and the Foes were standing outside those gates calling me every name under the sun. I guess we’re quits. Get her out, Joe.”
“That sounds reasonable enough,” I admitted, standing, turning, and running straight into Carioca, who hadn’t budged.
“Are you going to take that, Joe Sagar?” she asked, standing her ground.
“I understand you want to visit Joanne Shaw,” remarked Lambert with great meaning.
I took Carioca firmly by the arm and led her from the room.
By the time we reached the bleak visiting room Carioca had composed herself. I felt the usual flutter around the chest and stomach at the sight of Joanne sitting smiling on the other side of the wire. We sat down.
“How have they been treating you, you poor darling?” asked Carioca.
“Fine.” Joanne grinned. “Although a scotch would be welcome right now, and that’s one thing they don’t stock here. Uh, how are the Foes of Bondage?”
Carioca launched into the story of Lambert and the petition’s fate, with appropriate gestures, while I studied Joanne. I’d heard that prison life tended to corrupt, that the cells were full of lesbians and sadists and worse, yet Joanne was still as gentle and beautiful as when I’d first met her. I found it easy to believe that Carioca was right, that her conviction and imprisonment had been unjust—a reasonable possibility in these days of manual labor shortages, not to mention organ shortages.
She watched Carioca from her side of the wire with a gentle smile; after that first moment she had scarcely looked at me. And soon I began to feel out of it. She and Carioca were doing all the talking, and there was no contribution I was able to make. Another thing I noticed: Joanne kept her hands out of sight while talking to Carioca, as though she didn’t want to remind her ex-boss of anything unpleasant—whereas on every occasion when I’d visited her alone, she’d practically flaunted those steel fingers before my eyes.
Maybe it was the reaction from my duel with Lambert, but I found myself descending into a gray mood as the two women prattled on. God damn it, it was almost as though Joanne held me responsible for her disfigurement. … And for the first time, I allowed my mind to play with this possibility. And I could see a terrible logic behind this theory. I tried to forget it—and I promised myself that the next time I visited Joanne, I would come alone.
She gave me a special smile when she left, and my heart ached for love of her. It would always be the same, I knew; she could lift me to the heights with a glance, then drive me to suicidal despair with indifference. It wasn’t deliberate, this indifference of hers, and maybe I imagined most of it; but when I was with Joanne I always felt that she didn’t understand what love was all about, as though we were on different wavelengths.
So it was that when Carioca Jones and I left the long awful room I was in a foul mood of depression, which probably accounts for my attitude when we encountered Lambert in the corridor.
“Heathcote,” I said flatly as he tried to hurry past us, “I’d like to take a look at the Ambulatory Organ Pool, if you don’t mind.”
I had said it. I had put into words the fears that had been with me for days, the fears which I hadn’t dared to voice because the state penitentiary is a Government institution and almost as respectable in concept as the National Art Council. A man just doesn’t question the workings of the pen.
Lambert thought so too. “What the hell for?” he asked.
“I’m a citizen and I just want to know what goes on, that’s all.”
He hesitated, puzzled. “Do you know a donor in the Pool?”
“Yes.”
“A relative, Joe?” His manner was changing and he watched me almost with sympathy.
“No.”
“Then I’m afraid I can’t help you.” He seemed relieved. “It ought to be obvious why we can’t have members of the public snooping around the Pool, Joe; so don’t let’s start another goddamned argument, huh? It’s Bob Gallaugher’s department, anyway.”
Carioca was watching me with interest, black eyes gleaming as she scented a dispute. As it happened, the rotund figure of Gallaugher appeared at that moment, walking along the corridor toward us.
Ignoring Lambert, I took a step toward him. “I’d like to arrange to visit Marigold Carassa in the Pool, Gallaugher. I’m not a relative but I can have her father here goddamned quickly if I need to.”
His eyes flickered. “There’s nobody of that name here, Sagar.”
“There shouldn’t be, but there is.” I tried to sound positive.
�
��Wait a moment.” Lambert was watching me curiously. “Bob … that was the girl Joe was asking about before, wasn’t it? You know, the one from the Ancia Telji, who Joe—” His voice trailed off.
“That’s right,” I said harshly. “She spent the night at my place.”
Gallaugher was looking uncomfortable, as though ‘this revelation offended his moral sense. “Uh … she left on the antigrav, with all the other immigrants. I told Sagar that.”
Lambert sighed with some frustration. “Is that good enough for you, Joe? I mean, can we drop this discussion and get on with some work?”
“The hell with you all,” I mumbled dispiritedly, and left.
I drove Carioca to her house, then headed for home. It was late afternoon by now and I wanted to see Dave Froehlich before he locked up the factory. It seemed we might have to make some concessions to the S. P. girls, to placate Heathcote Lambert.
Near Skipper’s Marina I stopped, seeing a number of police standing around. A tiny antigrav hopper was just taking off, and a group of men stood beside a rectangular metal object. I climbed from the car, walked over, and spoke to Warren Rennie. “How’s the detective work going?” I asked. “Find any clues yet?”
He frowned at my facetiousness in front of his men. “We had a delay. The lampreys have only just arrived.” He indicated the object; I saw now that it was a cage, solid black steel with a mesh at one end. One of the policemen was opening the small door, slowly and with infinite caution. He held a large bag at the widening gap.
The bag suddenly began to twist and billow vigorously as something thrashed inside it. The policeman slammed the cage door—I noticed he wore thick gloves—then plunged his hand into the bag and drew out the lamprey. It was eel-shaped, black, and loathsome with a flat snout. It was about three feet long and four inches thick. It writhed continuously while the man fitted a tight harness over it. Then someone handed him a long pole, to the end of which he attached a trace of the harness. He swung the lamprey out; it wriggled and twisted at the end of its line like a hooked fish—to which it bore a marked similarity. Then he lowered the lamprey to the ground.
The Girl With a Symphony in Her Fingers Page 13