"So you never met Grey." I was watching another blind alley forming.
"No, in fact, I didn't. I only returned after the tragic event of my parents' death. It was quite unexpected. But, I was told that they were traveling to meet Mr. Grey when the mishap occurred. All attempts I made to reach him after the fact failed."
"I assume Authority investigated. Who was in charge?" I leaned forward slightly, expectant.
"An Inspector Borden handled the case. He said he was one of the first on the scene."
I again imagined a hundred Inspector Bordens. "And he told you that they died in the crash and were consumed in the flames." Again, no evidence. Everything was burning up.
"Yes, and do you know that little bastard didn't even seem the least upset when he told me. Seriously, I know you fellows who deal in death all the time get accustomed and somewhat hardened to it, but that Borden--stood right here and said they had died without even having the decency to take that ridiculous metal toothpick out of his mouth."
"Then you saw Inspector Borden?" My mind reeled. "He chewed a brass toothpick and he had glasses, right. He was short, about five foot two, and had a face like a pig, and a head like a toad, sort of."
Hawksbridge laughed long and loud. He smoothed his tie with a flat hand, then dabbed his eyes with a knuckle. "Yes, Mr. Wildclown. That is the man exactly. That's him. A pig! Head like a frog! Ha, ha, ha. Oh I wish I had thought of that."
"It's yours, Mr. Hawksbridge." I put my cigarette out. Adrenaline rushed along my nerves. "What else did he say?"
"He just told me that the car lost control on the elevated highway, and jumped the wall. It fell forty feet and burst into flames. There was no escape for them. The chauffeur died too, I might add. Borden told me there was not enough left for identification, other than through dental records." He looked downcast, rubbed the arm of his chair with a trembling hand.
"Did you ask him about your sister? Did he say anything about her?"
Hawksbridge frowned. "He seemed quite anxious, as a matter-of-fact, when I told him. He said he had only heard rumor about it, but, since my parents didn't officially request an investigation by Authority there had been none."
"Did you tell him about her being pregnant?" I was beginning to want his answer as much as I wanted a drink.
"Funny that, of course I mentioned her condition, and when I did, it peaked his interest. I told him that the family had put an ad in the paper concerning her disappearance, and I believe they had made a few queries about her there. It seems Mother and Father shared my suspicion that she was only angry, and hurt. So they printed a nice apology in the Gazette pleading with her to come home. They had quarreled before…" Hawksbridge paused and picked a pen up from the leather blotter in front of him. "Borden said that he could remember something in the paper about her disappearance. But he didn't know that she was supposed to be pregnant. Funny..." Hawksbridge studied the pen in his hand, tapped the index finger of his left with it. "He laughed it off then, but there was something so fake--so strange--that I was a little disturbed. After all, it was the first emotion he showed here, and his laughter was forced--I'm sure of it. He told me that in all probability she had eloped with her boyfriend, and that she would probably show up when her parents could not interfere with the nuptials. But he asked me to give him a call if she returned."
"And the pregnancies." My mind was rushing around tying threads together. "Grey wrote in his journal that your parents told him of a number of miscarriages."
Hawksbridge paled and the circles under his eyes became dark rings. "Yes, I was here on two occasions when she had these phantom 'pregnancies' or whatever. I can't tell you if it was ever proven that she had actually been pregnant. The whole affair quite disturbed me. We hushed it up, again, or my parents did. They were always concerned with the image, you know."
"I know." My gaze fell, and I studied my boots. "Tell me, your family physician, the man who made the diagnosis, he is missing, or dead?"
"Why yes," Hawksbridge's mouth dropped open in amazement. "He died, one of those accidents in the tub, or something. He fell off a ladder, I believe. Then, well, it is a little unnerving having a dead physician examine you, so I sought another. My parents were gone, after all, and he really was their doctor." He rolled his eyes up to scan his memory. "Dr. Avery Forrester. I believe I could get you his address."
"Thank you." I felt around for another cigarette. "Has the Inspector ever called again? I'll bet he calls regularly."
"Well, he does, in fact. He said he has sort of taken it on as a personal crusade--Julie's disappearance. Calls once or twice a month with updates. I don't take the calls myself anymore. I let Johnson, my butler, handle it. Seems to me he, Johnson, mentioned a recent increase in frequency."
"Victor Davis," I said abstractly, cigarette dangling unlit from my mouth. "Did you know him?"
"Oh, he was someone Julie met while I was away. Never did meet him. He worked for, what was it, a pharmaceutical operation of some kind. I think he delivered prescriptions."
"Can you remember the name of his employer?"
"What was it?" Hawksbridge rubbed his chin. "Something ridiculous. Sprint Prescriptions, or Speedy Prescriptions, something like that. I can only remember that there was something fast-foody about the name."
"And you've never heard of him again?"
"No." Hawksbridge leaned forward on his elbows. "He never turned up?"
"Grey couldn't find him. I don't know what happened to him." I lit my cigarette. "Among Julie's things, did you ever find a picture of him or anything? A clue to go by."
"No, I assumed Mr. Grey would have looked at anything of interest. Father said he went through her belongings...Borden took a look as well." He paused. "I don't suppose it would do any harm if you looked through her things. Her room is exactly as I found it."
"Thank you, again, Mr. Hawksbridge. If I could have your permission to call again, if I have a question, I would be grateful." I stood up.
"Oh certainly, and I'll get you Dr. Forrester's address. But please, you must forgive my manners. I have been quite ungracious. Would you let me offer you a drink now, unless matters are pressing." He seemed genuinely embarrassed.
"Nothing's that pressing." I envisioned an expensive imported Scotch whisky. Hawksbridge summoned Johnson and in moments we were both sipping a fine single malt, neat. Hawksbridge talked a great deal about his late Uncle Henry after I asked him about the stuffed animals. "Hank loved hunting, he had the real blood in the family." I accepted another drink and then another before I frisked Julie's room. She was certainly a clean freak. A shoebox full of birthday cards had titillated me at first, but left me cold--just aunts and uncles, and a granny in Wales. It was obvious that Julie Hawksbridge had wanted to keep her affair with Davis a secret. Not a Valentine, or a birthday card, nothing. Of course, Grey may have taken anything pertinent, I know I would have. I shared another drink with Hawksbridge before I left. I found it a pleasant diversion to hear about someone bagging a lion on the Serengeti, or spearing a hippopotamus on the Nile. I believe Uncle Hank and I had something in common. We were both hunters.
In Hank's case, his prey had been dangerous and difficult to find, but he knew what he was looking for when he set out. In my case the prey had chameleon qualities. It could coalesce out of nothing, or leap out of a friendly face. I might accidentally offer it my throat. No, you had to be careful who you trusted when hunting murderers. Any dark alley you pass could swallow you up forever.
Chapter 51
I looked into a pair of beautiful blue eyes. They sat in a long face, almost too thin to be gorgeous, but somehow making up for physical substance with a naive essence that brought into mind the seductive image of tussling on a couch after school, around four-thirty, just before the parents got home. A lengthy straight nose, with the right nostril curving up just a hair more than the left; a narrow mouth with delicate pink lips, the type that look thin until they kiss you; and dark arched eyebrows like waywar
d question marks--all this framed by straight light-brown hair. Hawksbridge had told me that Julie colored her hair when the mood hit her--but what I saw in the picture was her natural shade. He had given me the photograph of his sister moments before I left. I looked into its celluloid eyes as Elmo drove us toward Dr. Forrester's residence. I was surprised to hear that Forrester was still in one piece. I had expected to find out that he had had an accident with a high-speed blender, or had cut his head off while shaving. Whoever else was looking for Cotton's Regenerics secret was doing a real butcher job in the detective department. They were killing, mutilating, and burning everything. Maybe dead was good enough to keep Forrester out of the picture. He was a minor player after all. So I knew he couldn't tell me much. If there had been a court existent that I thought was legitimate, I knew my lack of evidence would leave me making my case with shadow puppets and shoulder shrugging.
It was about eight-fifteen in the evening. I was hungry, and a little light-headed from Hawksbridge's friendly scotch bottle, or it could have been the half-pint of whiskey I had consumed at Grey's office. I certainly attributed the blame to Hawksbridge. I hated to start so early in the day, but once started... After returning to Grey's, I had put a call through to Forrester. He was skittish at first, but relaxed noticeably when I assured him I had absolutely nothing to do with Authority. He was busy though, and had asked me to come over at eight-thirty.
The Chrysler's headlights counted trees as we turned onto Comte Avenue. It was strange when one stumbled upon streets with names that had lived on past the Change. The majority of them had slowly melted and dissolved into something stickier and nastier. All the better to fit into Greasetown. What was Greasetown's pre-Change name? It didn't matter. All cities had become Greasetowns if what the news said was true. My stomach grumbled and burned hungrily, but the way this case was shaping up, supper could wait. I knew that the more time I let pass the better my chances of turning around and finding myself dead.
We drove along Comte Avenue until we found 1675. Comte Avenue was in one of the besieged and embittered neighborhoods huddled just outside the border of New Garden District. Nice little place, but decay was setting in, and the residents didn't have the money for denial. Forrester's was a large, red brick house with warm orange windows. I told Elmo to park the car under the long, low boughs of a maple tree whose roots had slowly lifted the sidewalk at its base into a mound. I got out, smiled at Elmo, told him to wait, and then walked up to the front door. A record was playing. I heard that plain enough. The song was sad. Whoever sang it was wondering what she would do when someone, I supposed her lover, was far away. I disregarded the sympathetic wave it generated in me. Overhead, a porch light designed to resemble a coach and four was hung from a heavy brass chain near the door. I pulled my collar up, and my hat down, then knocked once, twice, three times, and waited. I heard the distant creaks and groans of movement come from inside. I waited. The door slowly opened on a chain. A thin slice of a person appeared at the crack. A cutting of eyebrow leapt up and away from a piece of eye. A sliver of mouth opened.
"What the..." The voice was thin enough to slip through. "Who?"
I held my license up. "Wildclown, I'm a private investigator. I called earlier. Dr. Avery Forrester?"
The fragment of eyebrow lowered over the eye then leapt up again. "Why are you dressed like that?"
"Well, it's a, a..." I started to reply, but it suddenly seemed as though my tongue was screw-nailed to my jaw. "I'm, uh..." I stopped talking and worked my mouth. My hands suddenly achieved independent life, the right one whipped out and pushed at the door. "A, a!" The chain banged tight. Someone had cut the power off to my mouth, like it hadn't been paying its bill. Tommy had staged a mutiny. My vision doubled, I groaned in a very unprofessional manner. My left hand whipped down below my gun and grabbed the swollen bulge that was growing there. I seemed to retain some control of my right because with it I grappled my left away from my groin.
"N-n-not, n-o! T-T-T..." I twisted inside; my thoughts took on eight dimensions. I saw the face at the door, then, it disappeared. I reeled back and slid into a garden rake and broom, we fell in a clattering pile. "I-I-I!" was all I could manage, like a wiener dog half-crushed by a car. The left hand now made a grab for the gun; I tackled it with the right. The left whipped the gun out and turned it to my face. I pushed with all my strength against it. I felt veins popping out of my neck. My breath went out of me. I choked, and gagged, fighting for control. The gun wrenched around, the barrel gaped at me, I pushed, but it seemed the right lost impetus. The hand dropped suddenly. I squirreled my head away from the barrel of the gun. I heard three things: an enormous boom, a terrified voice screaming "No!" and a deafening roar of silence as a black vacuum engulfed me.
Chapter 52
A Maruichi band was playing a frenetic song in my head. Funny, instead of guitars and maraca's everybody played drums. Oh there was some joker playing the xylophone but he was using the bones that covered my temples to strike the notes. I realized the band grew louder, the closer I came to consciousness, so for a moment, I stopped resisting the warm darkness that tried to cover me.
Transition.
Walls of jade-colored ceramic tile bulged in at me. The grout was very dark, rust-colored and from all corners came the reek of mildew.
"Please relax now, Jimmy." A voice to my left. I was strapped into a dentist chair of some kind. A hunk of rubber was fixed between my teeth with a belt that circled my skull. I turned my head as far as I could. I looked up and into the blue, unshaven jowl of a man holding a pair of metal paddles with wooden grips. His nose was long and pointed, and his armadillo eyes peered out of thick, horn-rimmed glasses. He smelled of sweat and aftershave. "If I am to put these demons to rest, you must, relax. You shake the paddles each time I have applied them. Cooperate. You'll never forget him if you don't cooperate." His breath stank of sugar and vomit. His teeth had rotted down to black nubs. I felt the paddles at my temples. They were cold round circles. I tried to growl or speak, but nothing came. Then, my back was arching uncontrollably as the electric current was applied.
Transition.
A brief moment of blackness, and the Maruichi band started up again. I opened my eyes, and listened to the pounding staccato music. A hazy brilliance was all I could make out, strange blurred shapes moved through it. Dancers! Morris Ackerby and Shelley Donaldson turn and turn on the dance floor out on a cruise away from their spouses. They fall in love in the sunny south when they see the Prince and Princess Charming in one another--until it all ends with Morris ejaculating prematurely, as they rut like pigs on some trash strewn beach. Eight brown-skinned street urchins watch from inside a cardboard box. "They're all the same," whined the dissatisfied housewife, her hands a blur on her damp pelvis. "Where am I?"
Transition.
"Christ, stop it! Stop it!" I growled between teeth clenched tight enough to shatter. The hallucinations fell like broken glass. Then I heard a voice.
"Take it easy, Mr. Wildclown. You have had a seizure of some kind. Try to relax." Then through closed eyes I heard the voice speak to someone else. "That is his name, Wildclown? Has he ever had a seizure like this before?"
"No sir, not really like, with the gun and all." It was Elmo. "He has moments when he feels kind of poorly, I think--sleeps standing up type of thing. But he never tried that before."
"It's difficult in a seizure, to draw a relationship between intent and action. Dangerous, in fact. The body does strange things when it loses control. I had a patient once who suffered temporal lobe seizures and when in the midst of one, he might do anything. On one occasion he found himself hopping up and down in the middle of the street. The honking horns brought him out of it."
"Well," I grumbled as I raised myself with Herculean effort. I levered into a sitting position on a couch that was covered in rough tartan fabric. "I don't think you'll get any action like that out of me. But we'll see how I'm feeling later." I opened my eyes. Elmo knelt close by, bes
ide a coffee table stained with pale cup rings. A thin weedy individual crouched on the other side of it. He wore a stethoscope around his willow neck. From the slow cautious way he climbed to his feet, I could tell he was dead.
"Dr. Forrester, I presume." I rubbed my temples. The Maruichi band seemed to have taken a break. "You'll have to forgive that one. I've been waiting a long time to use it."
"Yes, Avery Forrester. You had quite a moment there, Mr. Wildclown. You're very lucky to be alive." He smiled. The doctor was one of those lengthy, angular people. He was all bone and skin. His legs and arms grew on and on, as though he had some procrastination gene for growth that could never get around to finishing off the project. The skin on his face was sagging somewhat in a dead man's jowl, but aside from that he appeared quite youthful. He had thick black hair, and long rubbery ears to match his nose, which continued to point accusingly at me. Dr. Forrester's mouth was wide, and eyes deep and dark. He wore denims, a plaid shirt and a comfy wool cardigan.
"I haven't been eating well." I shook my head. "Do you have a drink doctor?"
"Certainly," he said, turning to Elmo. "Friend?"
"Yes sir," Elmo said in his Sunday school voice.
Dr. Forrester disappeared through a door he had to duck to get through. I looked around. Elmo still stared at me worriedly. I smiled at him then scanned the room. It was a cozy little place. Two walls were completely covered in books, and the far end was a fireplace. I looked at some of the titles. Great Expectations, and Last of the Mohicans sat uncomfortably cheek and jowl with medical texts: Treating Fatalities, Advanced Rigor-Treatments to Prolong Flexibility in Dead Connective Tissue, Psychology of the Deceased and Health for the Exhumed.
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