I held it open with the flat of my hand. “My name is Michael Hammer.”
The green eyes narrowed. “The detective?”
I grinned. “You must get the New York papers up here.”
“We do. Hopeful isn’t the end of the world.”
“It was for Bill Reynolds.”
Her expression softened, and she cracked the door open, wider. “Poor Bill. Were you a friend?”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve come to ask about his death.”
“That’s right.” I shrugged. “I’m a detective.”
“Of course,” she said, opening the door. “And you’re looking into the circumstances. A natural way for you to deal with such a loss …”
She gestured for me to enter, and I followed her through a high-ceilinged entryway. The hairless ape appeared like an apparition and took my trenchcoat; I kept my porkpie hat, but took it off, out of deference to my hostess.
In front of me, a staircase led to a landing, then to a second floor; gilt-framed family portraits lined the way. On one side of us was a library with more leather in bindings and chairs than your average cattle herd; on the other was a formal sitting room where elegant furnishings that had been around long enough to become antiques were overseen by a glittering chandelier.
She led me to a rear room and it was as if, startlingly, we’d entered a penthouse apartment—the paintings on the wall were abstract and modern, and the furnishings were, too, with a television/hi-fi console setup and a zebra wet bar with matching stools; but the room was original with the house, or at least the fireplace and mantle indicated as much. Over the fireplace was the only artwork in the room that wasn’t abstract: a full-length portrait of my hostess in a low-cut evening gown, a painting that was impossibly lovely with no exaggeration on the part of the artist.
She slipped out of her lab coat, tossing it on a boomerang of a canvas chair, revealing a short-sleeve white blouse providing an understated envelope for an overstated bosom. Undoing her hair, she allowed its length to shimmer to her shoulders. The severe black-framed glasses, however, she left in place.
Her walk was as liquid as mercury in a vial as she got behind the bar and poured herself a martini. “Fix you a drink?”
“Got any beer back there?”
“Light or dark?”
“Dark.”
We sat on a metal-legged couch that shouldn’t have been comfortable but was; she was sipping a martini, her dark nyloned legs crossed, displaying well-developed calves. For a scientist, she made a hell of a specimen.
I sipped my beer—it was a bottle of German imported stuff, a little bitter for my taste, but very cold.
“That’s an interesting butler you got,” I said.
“I have to apologize for Bolo,” she said, stirring the cocktail with her speared olive. “His tongue was cut out by natives in the Amazon. My father was on an exploratory trip, somehow incurred the wrath of the natives, and Bolo interceded on his behalf. By offering himself, in the native custom, Bolo bought my father’s life—but paid with his tongue.”
With a kiss-like bite, she plucked the olive from its spear and chewed.
“He doesn’t look much like a South American native,” I said.
“He isn’t. He was a Swedish missionary. My father never told me Bolo’s real name … but that was what the natives called him.”
“And I don’t suppose Bolo’s told you, either.”
“No. But he can communicate. He can write. In English. His mental capacity seems somewhat diminished, but he understands what’s said to him.”
“Very kind of you to keep somebody like that around.”
“Like what?”
I shrugged. “Handicapped.”
“Mr. Hammer …”
“Make it Mike—and I’ll call you Victoria. Or do you prefer Vicki?”
“How do you know I don’t prefer ‘Doctor’?”
“Hey, it’s okay with me. I played doctor before.”
“Are you flirting with me, Mike?”
“I might be.”
“Or you might be trying to get me to let my guard down.”
“Why—is it up?”
She glanced at my lap. “You tell me.”
Now I crossed my legs. “Where’s your research lab?”
“In back.”
“Sorry if I’m interrupting. …”
“No. I’m due for a break. I’d like to help you. You see, I thought a lot of Bill. He worked hard. He may not have been the brightest guy around, but he made up for it with enthusiasm and energy. Some people let physical limitations get in their way. Not Bill.”
“You must have a thing for taking in strays.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well … like Bolo. Like Bill. I understand you took in another handicapped veteran, not so long ago.”
“That’s right. George Wilson.” She shook her head sadly. “Such a shame. He was a hard worker, too—”
“He died the same way as Bill.”
“I know.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as … a little odd? Overly coincidental?”
“Mike, George was a heavy drinker, and Bill was known to tie one on, himself. It may be coincidental, but I’m sure they aren’t the first barroom patrons to wobble into the street after closing and get hit by a car.”
“Nobody saw either one of them get hit by a car.”
“Middle of the night. These things happen.”
“Not twice.”
The green eyes narrowed with interest and concern. “What do you think happened, Mike?”
“I have no idea—yet. But I’ll say this—everybody seemed to like Bill. I talked to a lot of people today, and nobody, except maybe the police chief, had an unkind word to say about Bill. So I’m inclined to think the common factors between Bill and this George Wilson hold the answer. You’re one of those common factors.”
“But surely not the only one.”
“Hardly. They were both war veterans, down on their luck.”
“No shortage of those.”
“And they were both handicapped.”
She nodded, apparently considering these facts, scientist that she was. “Are you staying in Hopeful tonight?”
“No. I got a court appearance in the city tomorrow. I’ll be back on the weekend. Poke around some more.”
She put a hand on my thigh. “If I think of anything, how can I find you?”
I patted the hand, removed it, stood. “Keep your gate open,” I said, putting on my porkpie, “and I’ll find you.”
She licked her lips; they glistened. “I’ll make sure I leave my gate wide open, on Saturday.”
I’d gone back into Hopeful, to talk to the night shift at the diner, got nowhere and headed home in the downpour, pissed off at how little I’d learned. Now, with my car in the ditch, and rain lashing down relentlessly, I found myself back at the Riddle mansion well before Saturday. The gate was still open, though—she must not have received that delivery of supplies she’d talked about, yet.
Splashing through puddles on the winding drive, I kept my trenchcoat collars snugged around me as I headed toward the towering brick house. In the daytime, the mansion had seemed striking, a bit unusual; on this black night, illuminated momentarily in occasional flashes of lightning, its gothic angles were eerily abstract, the planes of the building a stark ghostly white.
This time I used the knocker, hammering with it. It wasn’t all that late—maybe nine o’clock or a little after. But it felt like midnight and instinctively I felt the need to wake the dead.
Bolo answered the door. The lights in the entryway were out and he was just a big black blot, distinguishable only by that upended Buick shape of his; then the world turned white, him along with it, and when the thunder caught up with t
he lightning, I damn near jumped.
“Tell your mistress Mr. Hammer’s back,” I said. “My car’s in a ditch and I need—”
That’s when the s.o.b. slammed the door in my face. Second time today. A red heat of anger started to rise up around my collar but it wasn’t drying me off, even if the shelter of the awning over the slab of porch was keeping me from getting wetter. Only I wasn’t sure a human being could be any wetter than this.
When the door opened again, it was Victoria. She wore a red silk robe, belted tight around her tiny waist. The sheen of the robe and the folds of the silk conspired with her curves to create a dizzying display of pulchritude.
“Mr. Hammer … Mike! Come in, come in.”
I did. The light in the entryway was on now, and Bolo was there again, taking my drenched hat and coat. I quickly explained to her what had happened.
“With this storm,” she said, “and the bridge out, you’ll need to stay the night.”
“Love to,” I said. Mother Hammer didn’t raise any fools.
“But you’ll have to get out of those wet things,” she said. “I think I have an old nightshirt of my father’s …”
She took me back to that modern sitting room and I was soon in her Pop’s nightshirt, swathed in blankets as I sat before the fireplace’s glow, its magical flickering soothingly restful, and making her portrait above the fire seem alive, smiling seductively, the bosom in the low-cut gown heaving with passion. Shaking my head, wondering if I’d completely lost my sanity, I tucked my .45 in its speed rig behind a pillow—hardware like that can be distressing to the gentle sensibilities of some females.
When she cracked the door to ask if I was decent, I said, “That’s one thing I’ve never been accused of, but come on in.”
Then she was sitting next to me, the red silk gown playing delightful reflective games with the firelight.
“Can I tell you something terrible?” she asked, like a child with an awful secret.
“I hope you will.”
“I’m glad your car went in the ditch.”
“And here I thought you liked me.”
“I do,” she said, and she edged closer. “That’s why I’m glad.”
She seemed to want me to kiss her, so I did, and it was a long, deep kiss, hotter than the fire, wetter than the night, and then my hands were on top of the smoothness of the silk gown. And then they were on the smoothness underneath it. …
Later, when she offered me a guest bedroom upstairs, I declined.
“This is fine,” I said, as she made herself a drink behind the bar, and got me another German beer. “I’ll just couch it. Anyway, I like the fire.”
She handed me the bottle of beer, its cold wetness in my palm contrasting with the warmth of the room, and the moment. Sitting next to me, close to me, she sipped her drink.
“First thing tomorrow,” she said, “we’ll call into town for a tow truck, and get your car pulled out of that ditch.”
“No hurry.”
“Don’t you have a court appearance tomorrow?”
“Acts of God are a good excuse,” I said, and rested the beer on an amoeba-shaped coffee table nearby, then leaned in and kissed her again. Just a friendly peck.
“Aren’t you thirsty?” she asked, nodding toward the beer.
Why was she so eager for me to drink that brew?
I said, “Dry as a bone,” and reached for the bottle, lifted it to my lips, and seemed to take a drink.
Seemed to.
Now she gave me a friendly kiss, said, “See you at breakfast,” and rose, sashaying out as she cinched the silk robe back up. If you could bottle that walk, you’d really have something worth researching.
Alone, I sniffed the beer. My unscientific brain couldn’t detect anything, but I knew damn well it contained a mickey. She wanted me to sleep through this night. I didn’t know why, but something was going to happen here that a houseguest like me—even one who’d been lulled into a false sense of security by a very giving hostess—shouldn’t see.
So I poured the bottle of beer down the drain and quickly went to the couch and got myself under the blankets and pretended to be asleep.
But I couldn’t have been more alert if I’d been in a foxhole on the front line. My eyes only seemed shut; they were slitted open and saw her when she peeked in to see if I was sleeping. I even saw her mouth and eyes tighten in smug satisfaction before the door closed, followed by the click of me being locked in. …
The rain was still sheeting down when, wearing only her daddy’s nightshirt, I went out a window and, .45 in hand, found my way to the back of the building where a new section had been added on, institutional-looking brick with no windows at all. The thin cotton cloth of the nightshirt was a transparent second skin by the time I found my way around the building and discovered an open double garage, also back behind, following an extension of the original driveway. The garage doors stood open and a single vehicle—a panel truck bearing the Hopeful Police Department insignia—was within, dripping with water, as if it were sweating.
Cautiously, I slipped inside, grateful to be out of the rain. Along the walls of the garage were various boxes and crates with medical supply house markings. I could hear approaching footsteps and ducked behind a stack of crates.
Peeking out, I could see Chief Dolbert, in a rain slicker and matching hat, leading the way for Bolo, still in his chauffeur-type uniform. Dolbert opened up the side of the van and Bolo leaned in.
And when Bolo leaned back out, he had his arms filled with a person, a woman in fact, a naked one; then Bolo walked away from the panel truck, toward the door back into the building, held open for him by the thoughtful police chief. It was as if Bolo were carrying a bride across the threshold.
Only this bride was dead.
For ten minutes I watched as Bolo made trips from the building to the panel truck, where with the chief’s assistance he conveyed naked dead bodies into the house. My mind was reeling with the unadorned horror of it. I was shivering and not just from the water-soaked nightshirt I was in. Somehow, being in that nightshirt, naked under it, made me feel a kinship to these poor dead bastards, many of them desiccated-looking souls, with unkempt hair and bony ill-fed bodies, and finally it came to me.
I knew who these poor dead wretches were. And I knew why, at least roughly why, Chief Dolbert was delivering them.
When at last the doors on the panel truck were shut, the chief and Bolo headed back into the building. That pleased me—I was afraid the chief would take off into the rainy, thunderous night, and I didn’t want him to.
I wanted him around.
Not long after they had disappeared into the building, I went in after them.
And into Hell.
It was a blindingly well-illuminated Hell, a white and silver Hell, resembling a hospital operating room but much larger, a Hell dominated by the silver of surgical instruments, a Hell where the walls were lined with knobs and dials and meters and gizmos, a Hell dominated by naked corpses on metal autopsy-type tables, their empty eyes staring at the bright overhead lighting.
And the sensual satan who ruled over this Hell, Victoria Riddle, who was back in her lab coat now, hair tucked in a bun, was filling the open palm of Chief Dolbert with greenbacks.
But where was Bolo?
I glanced behind me, and there he was, tucked behind the door, standing like a cigar store Indian awaiting his mistress’ next command, only she didn’t have to give this command: Bolo knew enough to reach out for this intruder, his hands clawed, his eyes bulging to where the whites showed all around, his mouth open in a soundless snarl.
“Stop!” I told the looming figure, as he threw his shadow over me like a blue blanket.
But he didn’t stop.
And when I blew the top of his bald head off, splashing the white wall behind him with the colors of the i
nside of his head, red and gray and white, making another abstract painting only without a frame, that didn’t stop him either, didn’t stop him from falling on top of me, and by the time I had pushed his massive dead weight off of me, his fat corpse emptying ooze out the top of his bald blown-off skull, I had another fat bastard to deal with, a live one: the chief of the Hopeful police department, his revolver pointed down at me.
“Drop it,” he said.
He should have just shot me, because I took advantage of his taking time to say that and shot him, in the head, and the gun in his hand was useless now, since his brain could no longer send it signals, and he toppled back on top of one of the corpses, sharing its silver tray, staring up at the ceiling, the red hole in his forehead like an extra expressionless eye.
“You fool,” she said, the lovely face lengthening into a contorted ugly mask, green eyes wild behind the glasses.
“I decided I wasn’t thirsty after all,” I said, as I weaved my way between the corpses on their metal slabs.
“You don’t understand! This is serious research! This will benefit humanity …”
“I understand you were paying the chief for fresh cadavers,” I said. “With him in charge of the state’s potter’s field, you had no shortage of dead guinea pigs. But what I don’t understand is, why kill Bill, and George Wilson, when you had access to all these riches?”
And I gestured to the deceased indigents around us.
Her face eased back into beauty; her scientific mind had told her, apparently, that her best bet now was to try to reason with me. Calmly. Coolly.
I was close enough to her to kiss her, only I didn’t feel much like kissing her and, anyway, the .45 I was aiming at her belly would have been in the way of an embrace.
“George Wilson tried to blackmail me,” she said. “Bill … Bill just wouldn’t cooperate. He said he was going to the authorities.”
“About your ghoulish arrangement with the chief, you mean?”
She nodded. Then earnestness coated her voice: “Mike, I was only trying to help Bill, and George—and mankind. Don’t you see? I wanted to make them whole again!”
“Oh my God,” I said, getting it. “Bill was a live guinea pig, wasn’t he? Wilson, too …”
A Long Time Dead Page 8