The coffee worked. George turned around on his back, and lilted himself up by the elbows, looking around the apartment with a mildly perplexed grin on his face. He spotted David just as his friend said, “Good morning.” He did not reply. David was afraid that any second he would start up again with “I’ve got to talk to you,” over and over again, like a foreigner who only knew one phrase of English.
“Want some coffee?”
The man’s mouth worked, but no sound came out at first. His lips formed the word, his voice stuttered, “Y—Yes. P-p-please.”
David sat down on the bed while the coffee perked, filling the room with a brisk, delicious aroma. “Look, George. I gather you’re in some kind of trouble. If I can help you, I’ll be glad to. But you have to spell it out. Level with me. Or there’s nothing I can do. Now I want you to have some coffee—and I’ve got some donuts, too —and then you’re going to take a nice hot bath because frankly,” he smiled briefly to take the sting out of his words, “you need one. Maybe I can even rustle up some clothes that’ll fit you, although you’re a lot bigger than I am. Okay? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
George nodded several times. His eyes seemed clearer. David hoped he’d be more communicative this morning. He got up and poured them both a cup of coffee. George nodded again—not a man of many words—when David asked if he wanted milk and sugar. He handed the cup to him, making sure he had a firm grip on it before releasing it. George bit hungrily into the donut, blew on the coffee to cool it, slurped it down eagerly. It seemed to have a good effect on him.
David sat down again on the edge of the bed. “Well. Why don’t you tell me why you came here last night. Not that I’m not glad to see you. But—I think you’ve got something on your mind.”
“They—they tried to kill me,” George said promptly.
“Who?”
“My father’s—friends. They tried to kill me.”
“George! What are you talking about—”
“They said it would be safe. Said they took good care of their guinea pigs,” he laughed bitterly. “Sure they do. Just look at me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Dad ‘volunteered’ me for one of their experiments. But it didn’t work out right. When I tried to get away they said I couldn’t go; the experiment wasn’t over and I’d ruin everything. But I broke out one night. I broke out, and I’ve been running ever since. I hitched down to New York. Had to hang out in the street. Afraid they’d track me down. Had no money or nothin’.”
“How long have you been running around like this?”
“A week. Two. I don’t know. And David—the worst thing—the worst thing is—” He got up off his feet and walked over to David’s side. “I think it’s affecting my mind, too. God, it’s affecting my mind.” He pushed his hand back through his tangled, greasy hair, pulling it off his forehead. David got a better look at the awful red scar on his brow.
“Who did that to you?” he asked as gently as possible.
George touched his other hand to the scar, but did not answer. A look like a frightened animal came into his eyes. David assumed he had received the injury in the act of “breaking out.”
“Don’t worry about your mind,” David said. “Anybody would feel upset if they were in your condition. If only you’d tell me what this is all about. Just who was experimenting on you? What did they do to you? “
That blank look came over him again and David knew he had said the magic words, the words that made George retreat back into a fantasy land of his own devising. Whatever they had done must have been pretty horrible.
If “they” had done anything at all.
George walked listlessly over to the window and stared out over the rooftops of the smaller buildings beyond. David decided to call the man’s parents at the earliest opportunity. There was a distinct possibility that George had simply run away from home—an odd term to use in regards to a thirty-four-year-old—because of some trouble or something like that. As a kid he had always been getting into fights. Sooner or later he was bound to crack up over the frustrations of small-town life and a small-town job, taking out his anger on some poor slob in Joey’s Bar and Grille. Maybe he’d even killed somebody, or at least busted them up pretty bad. That might have been enough to make him run, unprepared. He had always basically been a moral, if rambunctious sort; the thought of what he’d done might eventually unhinge him. Coupled with the fact that he was suddenly thrust out alone into the world, it would clearly affect him adversely.
David didn’t want to rat on an old friend, but his parents were probably frantic, wondering where he’d gone. There was no way David could take care of him, not in these troubled days ahead; that responsibility had to be his folks’. And it was becoming increasingly clear that he would never be able to get a straight story out of George, that George was incapable of giving one. He would have to wait until George was sleeping again, then would sneak out and call his parents from a pay phone.
“George, you still look a little tired. You can sleep a while longer if you like. Then we can figure out what to do. Okay?”
George turned from the window to look at him. He nodded, finally.
David didn’t want to wait until he fell asleep. “You lie down. I have to go out again.”
George went over to the sleeping bag, and began to lower himself on top of it. He stopped suddenly and looked at David. “Don’t call my father,” he said piteously. “Don’t call him.”
“No. I won’t. I just have to take care of some things. I’ll be back in a little while.” He put on his jacket, waited until George’s head hit the small pillow at the top of the sleeping bag, and left the apartment again. He did not remember the Bartleys’ number and did not have it written down anywhere. He would have to call information; another good reason to call from outside. He would have to distinctly say the name “Bartley” when he spoke to the operator, and the sound of it might make George go absolutely berserk.
There was a phone at the corner across from the entrance to Riverside Park. Two little girls were skipping rope near a huge marble statue depicting a man astride a horse, sword upraised in the air. Classical music played sweetly from somebody’s window. David could not tell if it was live or recorded.
He got the number from information. He dug out the change he would need for the call, wishing he had the nerve to call collect; it was not inexpensive. Three rings and someone picked up. “Bartley residence.” A woman’s voice. French. Since when had the Bartleys had a maid? Apparently Ted Bartley had come up in the world in the past ten years.
“May I speak to Mr. Bartley, please?”
A pause. “May I ask who is calling?” Jeez, he was getting the full treatment. He gave her his name.
“Mr. Hammond. I’m afraid Mr. Bartley isn’t in.” She hadn’t even taken the time to check.
“Then can I speak to Mrs. Bartley?”
“I’m afraid that both Mr. and Mrs. Bartley are out of town for the week.”
“Well, when will they be back?”
“Not for a few days, I’m afraid. Could I take a message?”
David explained the situation as clearly and concisely as possible. When he was through, he heard the maid exhaling dramatically, pausing as if for effect. When she finally spoke, she sounded flabbergasted. “I had thought that George had accompanied his parents. I guess I must have been mistaken.”
“Perhaps they went to look for him. Did you know where they were off to?”
“Something about a conference, or a convention, in Lancaster. I’m not sure.”
“Surely they left a number where they could be reached.”
“Yes, yes . . .”
“Well, could you call them for me? Explain the situation? I don’t know what to do with him.”
“Are you sure it’s George?”
“Yes. I’m afraid it is.”
“All right. I’ll get in touch with them. May I have your number so I can call you back?”
“That I couldn’t say, sir. I’ll try and get in touch with them right now.”
“All right. Thank you very much.”
She hung up.
He replaced the receiver on the hook, staring out at the park and the little girls, hearing but not listening to the music, not knowing quite what to do. How long would he have to sit up there, playing nursemaid? He felt terribly sorry for George, but there was nothing he could do to help him. He was shaken out of his reverie by a middle-aged woman tapping him on the shoulder. He made way for her so she could use the phone.
Back at the apartment, he settled into the business of waiting.
Three hours later, he was still waiting.
He had made lunch, had two more cups of coffee, read four or five different art magazines for the fiftieth time, tried to start a paperback novel three times, all the while watching the steady rise and fall of George’s chest as he slept. But the phone, that damnable phone, never rang.
And to think that he could have gone out, could have applied at several agencies, bought some new supplies. What wasted time! He had debated whether or not to call the Bartleys back, but figured that if the maid had reached them they would have rung him up by now. It was all very frustrating.
He waited another hour. George began to toss and turn in his sleep, but showed no signs of waking. The man probably needed medical care. Perhaps it would be better to forget all about the Bartleys and their convention and take George to the nearest hospital. Assuming George would go of his own free will, which was unlikely. This whole business was a hot potato and was the last thing David needed right now.
He dialed the Bartleys’ number again. This time there was no answer. What had the maid done—driven to Lancaster after them? He hung up, waited ten minutes, then called again. Still no answer. He let it ring a full twenty times in case the woman was hard of hearing. The Bartley cottage wasn’t all that big, assuming they still lived there. If they had hired a maid they might have been able to afford a new house, too. George had never seemed foolhardy enough to run from affluence, though.
He was hungry again. He made himself a light supper of canned peas and corned beef hash. He thought of waking George, but wasn’t in the mood for his company, the soulful stares, the cryptic words, the haunted eyes. He already felt guilty about calling his parents. But what else could he have done?
He turned on the TV set, keeping the volume low so as not to disturb his visitor. The I Love Lucy rerun was half over when the commercial came on. The commercial. The one that had eluded him last night. He had wondered where he’d seen that woman before—the one at Peg O’ Hearts—and now he knew.
It was a commercial for Exclusiva Cosmetics. She was the Exclusiva woman! She looked different in this particular ad—there was a whole series of them—with her hair done up, and her body tucked into tight-fitting jeans and a white blouse; an odd combination of tomboy and glamor girl. “I wear Exclusiva—and nothing else,” she purred, looking at the camera with a combination of arrogance and sensuality. There were shots of her dancing at a disco, dining in a fancy restaurant, walking down the city streets hand in hand with a male model, wearing her Exclusiva wherever she went. That certain quality she had, a humanity beneath the artifice, came through even in her ads. As the music came up, the screen showed a closeup of her beautiful face. Creamy, flawless cheeks, full lips, large blue eyes, a slightly turned-up nose. Her head was not exactly round, but not narrow either. She did not have the gaunt look of other models. “In my Exclusiva,” she said confidently (the camera pulled in for a tight closeup now, her lips shining provocatively), “I’m exclusively yours.”
How many men—and quite a few women—wished she was saying those very same words to them? David laughed. He felt like a kid again, getting crushes on beautiful movie stars. But the woman had that effect on him. Momentarily, he felt thrilled that he had been that close to her in the bar, that she had smiled at him, had been near enough to touch. Then he snickered, and said out loud, though softly: “She has to take a shit just like everyone else does. Don’t get hung up on images, Davey boy.”
He looked over to the sleeping bag to make sure that he hadn’t disturbed George. No, he was still fast asleep, snoring again, a slight whistling sound coming from between his parted lips. David wished that he had made the man take a bath. The odor was beginning to permeate the room, and it was bound to get worse.
He tried the Bartleys’ number again. No answer. He did not want to sit here and keep George company all evening. Then again, what else did he have to do? If he couldn’t watch over a friend—a former friend, at least— for a few hours of his life, what kind of person was he? Still, George’s presence didn’t make it any less lonely.
He watched some more TV, then rang the Bartleys’ number again. This time it was picked up on the first ring. He heard the French woman’s voice again, informing him whose resident it was.
“Yes. This is David Hammond again. I—”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Hammond. I’ve reached the Bartleys and they left a message for you in case you should call again.”
“I’ve been calling and calling all afternoon.” He wondered why she didn’t get in touch with him.
“They wish me to tell you that their son George is with them in Lancaster, and that they have no patience with practical jokers. And neither, I assure you, do I!” She hung up again, emphatically.
“But, but,” David stammered into the silent receiver. He had wanted to tell her who he was, to tell her that the Bartleys had known him for years, that he had grown up with George, that he ought to be able to recognize their son, that they couldn’t do this to him. That he would have no reason to make up such a story, no reason to play such an absurd and sick and pointless practical joke.
But all he could do was look over toward the figure sleeping in the bag over in the corner.
For if that wasn’t George Bartley . . .
Who—or what—was it?
Chapter Three
“Get up!”
The sleeping figure groaned, stirred, then turned over, pushing his face down sloppily into the pillow. A drop of spittle fell from his mouth.
“I said Get Up!”
Careful not to hurt him, David nudged George’s body with the tip of his shoe. He didn’t want to use his hands on him again, couldn’t bare to touch him after that one time last evening.
George only dug his head further into the pillow, shimmied his body deeper into the sleeping bag.
David crouched down beside him and peered into his face, trying to imagine what he would look like if the beard was gone, if the skin weren’t quite so mottled, the eyes open and clear. Last night he had been sure that this man before him was George Bartley, but now he had no choice but to assume that it was someone else. This person was in such sad shape that he probably wouldn’t recognize his real name anyway.
And yet? What if there were some other explanation for what the Bartleys’ maid had said, her denial of David’s allegations? Perhaps George had been running from some crime, perhaps his parents had disowned him, no longer concerned about his welfare. It wouldn’t be the first time that a mother and father felt that way about a child who disappointed or disobeyed them, and it wouldn’t be the last. Yet the maid had seemed to be telling the truth when she had said that she had thought George was with his parents.
And what about this man’s strange story about experiments, running away, the implications he’d been held against his will? Who in Hillsboro would do a thing like that to someone? Where was he being “experimented” on? Bellevue’s psycho ward, probably.
David looked closer at the man. That was George’s nose, George’s eyes, all right. But could he be positive? He searched his memory, straining to reca
ll if he were remembering the features of someone other than George Bartley, some other friend or acquaintance. But no—if it wasn’t George, then it was nobody he had ever met.
He had called the Bartleys’ house back since the last brief conversation, but the woman wasn’t answering.
“Get up! I’ve got to talk to you, George. Or whoever you are.”
Finally the man woke up with a start, turning over to face David, rubbing his eyes to see more clearly. David had prepared a cup of instant coffee, and handed it to him when he seemed awake enough. “Drink this up. It’s time we had a little talk. I want some satisfactory answers, or I’m throwing you out right now.
“First,” David continued, squatting in front of the man, “what is your name?”
“George. George Bartley.”
“Really? Isn’t that interesting? According to the maid at your house in Hillsboro, George Bartley is on a trip with his parents at this very minute. George Bartley is several hundred miles away. How do you explain that?”
The man’s eyes widened with fear. “You didn’t—call them? Did you?”
“Yes I did.”
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