“How touchingly faithful.”
“Not exactly. She went into business for herself.”
“What kind of business, a taco stand or something?”
“She’s a hooker.”
Her little gasp of surprise sounded genuine. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t expect—I didn’t want that kind of fate for her.”
“People’s fates don’t depend on what you want, Mrs. Decker, not even your own.”
“I wish you’d have something nice to tell me for once instead of all this ugliness and death and dirt.”
“You gave me a dirty job,” Aragon said. “I’m glad it’s over.”
“Wait a minute, don’t hang up. Reed’s here trying to—I wish you’d stop interrupting, I can’t listen to two people at once. All right, I’ll ask him—Reed wants to know if you’ve been to the American consulate.”
“No.”
“They often get information about American citizens which the Mexican authorities don’t have or won’t admit having. Reed thinks you should go there and ask questions before you come home.”
“It’s a good idea.”
“Will you do it?”
“Yes.”
“That means you’re still working for me?”
“I guess I am.”
“Try sounding a little happier about it.”
“Yippee,” Aragon said and hung up.
Ordinarily it was Reed who put Marco to bed after dinner. Tonight Gilly did it herself. She gave him a sponge bath, then she rubbed his back with alcohol and dusted it with baby powder. She cleaned his teeth and applied moisturizing cream to his lips and drops to lubricate the eye that never closed. She gave him his shots, one to help him sleep, another to keep him free of pain for a few hours. She wasn’t as quick or thorough as Reed and she did some things the hard way, like the bath in the wheelchair instead of on a rubber sheet on the bed. But in the end everything was done and Gilly had a real sense of accomplishment. She’d always been full of natural energy and it was a relief to use some of the surplus on a constructive task.
Violet Smith came to say good night before she left for her evening meeting at the church of the Holy Sabbathians. She assisted Gilly in lifting Marco out of his chair and into the bed. He was very light and brittle, like a hollow glass child.
“Upsy-daisy,” Violet Smith said cheerfully. “My stars, he’s getting skinny. It casts a reflection on my cooking.”
“Why shouldn’t it?” Gilly said. “You’re not a very good cook.”
“I never claimed I was. Anyway, cordon bleu would be wasted in this house, what with sickness and booze and that fancy-pantsy male nurse who thinks he’s Mr. Wonderful. I do good plain cooking for good plain folks.” She emphasized the word “good.” It might not help, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. “Nighty-night, Mr. Decker. We’ll all be praying for you at the meeting.”
Gilly waited until Violet Smith was out of earshot. “Reed thinks we should try and stop her from going to these meetings. He doesn’t trust her discretion. What do you think?”
She often asked his opinion to make him feel he had a hand in running the house. She even waited a few seconds after each question as though giving him a chance to consider and to answer. He had no answer. If he had, he couldn’t have spoken it, and if he could have spoken, he wouldn’t. Answers were useless when there were no issues left to be resolved, only time to be put in.
“She and Reed are beginning to feud over everything. Someday when you’re better I’ll fire both of them, and you and I will take a long trip together. Maybe I’ll buy another home on wheels like Dreamboat . . . Just think, if B. J. and I had gone away together in Dreamboat the way I’d planned, none of these terrible things would have happened. He wouldn’t have deserted me for Tula and wouldn’t have gotten involved with Harry Jenkins and been sent to jail. Tula wouldn’t be walking the streets in Rio Seco, and Jenkins himself would be alive. You’ve often heard me talk about Jenkins, B. J.’s old partner in crime.”
She watched the fingers of his right hand to see if he raised them to indicate interest. They didn’t move. Perhaps the sleeping hypo had already taken effect; perhaps he couldn’t remember Jenkins and didn’t want to. She went on talking anyway. Nothing could have stopped her now.
“Jenkins died last night and was buried late this afternoon. They bury people as soon as possible in Mexico, I’m not sure why. The funeral only cost fifty dollars, imagine that. In this town they don’t even allow you to look at a coffin for fifty dollars. Since he’s already buried, there won’t be an autopsy and probably nobody will ever know for sure what killed him. Aragon thinks some kind of drug was slipped into his drink. He didn’t say so directly but he gave the impression that he suspects B. J. did it. That’s rather funny, isn’t it?”
He didn’t think it was funny. Laughter had been lost longer and farther back in his brain than speech.
“Naturally, I told Aragon the idea was ridiculous. I’m not so sure it was, though. Oh, I know B. J. could never have done anything violent. But merely putting something in a drink, that’s such a quiet little crime, hardly more than running off with one of the servants.”
He willed her to stop talking and go away. It was useless. His will had no more power than the rest of him. He could only listen and wish he was deaf and hope for an earthquake, a thunderstorm, the ringing of a phone, a dog barking, the sound of a car in the driveway,
a low-flying plane. Shut up and leave me alone, leave me be.
“And Tula,” she said. “Poor little Tula. I drove down to Rio Seco years ago before B. J. and I were married. It was an evil place. You could smell it rotting, the garbage, the sewage in the streets, the decadence and decay. What a strange fate for such a pretty young girl. A ‘nymphet’ I believe they’d call her nowadays. You know what a nymphet is? I looked it up in the encyclopedia. It’s a young nymph. And a nymph is like a larva and a larva is sort of a worm. Wormlet—that doesn’t sound quite so flattering or mysterious, does it? Wormlet. It describes her
perfectly.” Her brief laugh was more like a cough. “If the worm turns, I wonder if the wormlet makes a turnlet. B. J. would have thought that was funny. He had a nice sense of humor.”
I don’t. Go away.
She pulled the woolen blanket up around his shoulders. “B. J.’s women, Ethel, me, Tula—they’re the only ones I know of for sure—none of us have had happy lives. I’m not claiming it was his fault, it’s just a fact. Maybe he wrecked things for people, maybe he chose people who were bound to wreck things for themselves. Anyway, Tula’s life is finished and Ethel has lost herself in some weird religious group. That leaves me. I might still have a chance . . . Yes, the more I think about it, the more the idea appeals to me of buying another motor home like Dreamboat. I won’t be able to get one exactly like it because that was eight years ago, they’ve probably changed quite a few things about it. But basically it will be Dreamboat, and I’ll have the name painted on it just the same way. Then when you’re better, you and I will go on a vacation together.”
She smiled down at him. It was a stage smile that, seen at a distance, might have projected warmth and good cheer. Close up, it chilled him. Her mouth was cold red wax, her teeth were dwarf tombstones, the dimple in her cheek was a hole made by an icepick.
“You and I, dearest,” she said, “you and I will go on a long vacation.”
It was the night Ethel Lockwood was scheduled to address her fellow Sabbathians. The group leader for the occasion had been a poor choice, a nervous young man who stammered and was attempting to overcome his affliction by making protracted speeches in public.
“And so in c-c-conclusion, let me w-w-welcome our f-f-f-friend in need and our f-f-f-friend in deed, Ethel.”
“Thank you, George,” Ethel said, wishing they hadn’t picked such an incompetent boob to introduce her, “for the long long long introduction.”
It
was too late now for her to read the pages of blank verse she’d written as a tribute to the Holy Sabbathians and their evenings of cleansing and healing. It would have been a shame to omit any of it, so she decided to save it for next time. Sin and sickness were very dependable: there would always be a next time.
Ethel’s outfit had been purchased for the occasion at a thrift shop. The ivory-colored chiffon dress looked gauzy and spiritual and floated around her like ectoplasm.
“Thank you also, sisters and brothers, for giving me this opportunity.” To match her dress she wore her best voice, so delicate it seemed to emanate from another world.
“Speak up, I can’t hear you,” Violet Smith said from the back row.
“I came here this evening not for myself but for the sake of a very ill and helpless man. He is at the mercy of a merciless woman. I have known her for many years and I repeat, she is without mercy. I beg the Lord to intercede on his behalf.”
“Wh-wh-what is the p-p-p-problem, sister?”
“I wish you wouldn’t interrupt me any further, George. I am about to state the problem. This woman I referred to has engaged a man to find her first husband. If and when he is found, I have reason to believe that the second husband, the sick man, will be—I hesitate to say such a word, to think such a thought, but even the most devout Christian must sometimes entertain unchristian thoughts.”
“Entertain” seemed exactly the right word. The audience stirred in anticipation. Ethel’s previous confessions had been dull and her illnesses commonplace: eating red meat, loss of temper, sinusitis and impacted wisdom teeth.
“What I’m afraid of,” Ethel said, “is that this poor old man will be murdered.”
She went on speaking. Every now and then she raised her arms, and from her angel-wing sleeves would come the scent of gardenias to sweeten the poisoned air.
“Violet Smith is late getting home tonight,” Gilly said. “It must be a very interesting meeting.”
14
It was almost midnight when Aragon’s call to his wife in San Francisco was finally put through. Once the connection to the hospital was made, he had to hang on the line for another five minutes while Laurie was tracked down and brought to a phone.
She sounded breathless. “Hello, Tom?”
“How did you know it was me?”
“The operator told me. She recognized your voice. She thinks it’s cute.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“What do you think?”
“You roll your r’s a bit too much.”
“Rrrrreally?”
“I don’t mind. I roll mine, too, being Scottish.”
“Let’s roll our r’s together.”
“That sounds dirty,” Laurie said. “I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.”
“Are you?”
“Well, sort of sure. Tom, have you been drinking?”
“Just enough to ease the pain of reporting in to Gilly, the Dragon Lady.”
“Is she that bad?”
“I don’t know. And the more I talk to her, the more I don’t know.”
“You have been drinking. In fact, it sounds as if you’re at a party. Are you?”
“I may be the only person in Rio Seco who isn’t,” Aragon said. “This is when all the natives start whooping it up. Men, women, children, dogs, donkeys, anything that can move is out moving.”
“Would you like to be whooping it up with them?”
“No. I prefer to sit and talk to my beautiful wife who rolls her r’s.”
“I think you’re a dirty young man.”
“You should know, lassie.”
“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me lassie,” she said. “You sound sort of funny, Tom. What’s the matter?”
“It’s a long story, involving someone I liked . . . I have a medical question to ask you. Can you spare a minute?”
“Ten or so. I’m on my break, in the interns’ lounge.”
“What do you know about hallucinogenic drugs?”
“More than I want to, in one way. Not enough, in another. We’ve had kids brought in here so stoned we thought they were hopeless mental cases until the stuff wore off. Sometimes it didn’t. Last month an eight-year-old boy died of respiratory failure after an overdose of mescaline. He was never able to tell us how much he took or where he got it. His parents are both users, involved in some kind of consciousness-raising meditation, but neither of them would admit anything. In fact, they threatened to sue the hospital . . . Exactly what do you want me to tell you?”
“Just keep talking.”
“The trouble is that so many new hallucinogens are available now in addition to old stand-bys like hashish and LSD. Their street names are often enticing—Cherry Velvet, Angel Dust, China Dolls. The lethal doses vary tremendously and there is no real antidote. If the victims are in a state of great excitement, we calm them down with tranquilizers or barbituric acid derivatives, or pump their stomachs if there’s a chance some of the drug hasn’t been absorbed into the system. Ordinarily, though, we simply provide custodial care until the effects wear off. Does this sound like a lecture?”
“I asked for it. Go on.”
“In addition to the new drugs, we’re faced with combinations of old ones, or mixtures of old and new, which can be lethal. A tolerable amount of cocaine taken at the same time as a tolerable amount of methedrine becomes intolerable . . . This someone you liked, is he dead?”
“He was killed in a fall from a bridge. The police claim it was an accident. In a broad sense they’re right. If someone tampered with the brakes of my car and I couldn’t stop in time to avoid a collision with a truck, it would be an accident. I think someone tampered with Jenkins’ brakes. About forty-five minutes before I found him, he called me from a nightclub to postpone a date we’d made. He said he’d met someone with money to invest in Mexico and that he’d sold him the idea of investing in a chicken tortilla business. I was skeptical. I knew Jenkins was anxious to leave town before his girlfriend got out of jail and I didn’t want him to leave until he gave me the rest of the information he’d promised me. I went to the nightclub and found Jenkins in pretty bad shape. He was vomiting, sweating profusely and breathing very rapidly. He seemed to be out of his head. Or rather, in and out, mainly out. He recognized me briefly and talked to me.”
“Did he ask you for anything?”
“Help. He asked me for help and I couldn’t—”
“I meant something specific, a drink of water, perhaps.”
“He asked me for some water. He even tried to get some for himself out of a fountain. The fountain was dry.”
“Go on.”
“I went to find help for him,” Aragon said. “I thought he’d stay there at the fountain until I came back. He didn’t. He started running away when he saw me again as if he was trying to escape from an enemy. I ran after him. He was probably heading for home, he lived on the other side of the bridge. Well, he didn’t make it. Suddenly he went to the railing, leaned over and fell.”
“Did he seem dizzy?”
“Crazy, dizzy, how do you tell the difference?”
“Vertigo and disorientation are both signs of LSD poisoning. So are the other symptoms you mentioned—profuse sweating, very rapid pulse, nausea and vomiting, dryness of the mouth, dilation of the pupils. An autopsy might reveal traces of LSD in the urine.”
“There won’t be an autopsy. He’s already buried. And the bottle he was drinking from is in a pile of rubbish with a hundred other bottles like it, and the man he was drinking with can’t be identified, let alone questioned.”
“Is your story the only evidence of foul play?”
“My story is not evidence. Even if it were, even if the police were certain that Jenkins was murdered, it wouldn’t concern them much. He was unimportant, an ex-convi
ct with no money and a warrant waiting for him in Albuquerque and maybe a dozen other places. He was low man on the totem pole. There was no way up, no way down. The only way was out, to grow wings and fly out.” I met this pigeon . . . the chicken tortilla business is a winner . . . the hustlers flock around the jail like starlings . . . I’m chicken birdie, lean fly. “He talked a lot about birds. I mean, they came naturally into his conversation more than into most people’s. He may even have been trying to fly when he went off the bridge.”
“That’s not uncommon with LSD.”
Aragon heard a faint tap-tap-tap on the line and he knew Laurie was drumming her fingers on the table or desk the way she did when something was bothering her and she was trying to straighten it out in her mind. He said, “Okay, what’s the matter?”
“The man who gave Jenkins the LSD, or whatever, had no way of predicting that Jenkins would either attempt to fly or suffer an attack of vertigo just as he happened to be crossing a bridge. He was betting on a very, very long shot. That’s dumb.”
“So we have a dumb murderer. They’re not, as a class, noted for brains.”
“Or else the bridge thing wasn’t actually necessary and the man was sure Jenkins had already ingested a lethal dose. He could have been waiting around for Jenkins to pass out when you appeared at the club and scared him off . . . You have to consider a third possibility, too.”
“Such as?”
“There wasn’t any murder or any murderer. A couple of guys were getting their kicks by mixing drinks and drugs, like the housewife taking her Valium with a glass of muscatel or the high school kid carrying a flask of vodka to wash down the rainbows he can buy in the hall for a quarter apiece. Alcohol is usually half of the lethal mixtures in the cases that come our way.”
“Jenkins was drinking beer—”
“Mild, but still alcohol. Drink enough and you’re drunk.”
“—and only one bottle, according to the bartender. The man with him was someone Jenkins hoped to con out of enough money to get him to Mexicali. He needed all his wits about him. He wasn’t likely, under the circumstances, to mess around with any drugs or to break his pattern of nursing along one beer for a whole evening.”
Ask for Me Tomorrow Page 12