It was difficult to think straight. To think at all.
"Up and about, are we, Love? There's a man. High time, too. We're wasting all this jolly good fun, you know."
Her voice was a jabbing, raucous shrill trumpet blare against my eardrums. I winced, trying to rouse myself. I couldn't feel much of anything. My eyes ached dully. The old familiar Heathrow ache. It took long seconds for me to realize and understand that I was lying on the floor and there were no bonds of any kind on me. My hands and legs were free. I was still fully clothed, and somehow that too was all wrong. There just wasn't any sense to things. The room, the naked lady, the freedom—I was supposed to be dead, wasn't I? And what of Malvolio Morrow and Torin Bird and Desmond Allan Cursitor? Wasn't this the same house on Imperial Street in Stoke-Newington? It ought to be—it had to be.
"You're wondering what all this is, aren't you now, Love? Don't blame you. Must be a bit of a shock at that to wake up and find yourself with me all primed and ready for you—" The low chuckle in her throat tip-toed around the little room like a promise. "You're a very lucky man, you know that, Love? Old Morrow doesn't often give me what I want."
Tiny things started to swim back into focus. I made an effort, clenched my teeth, and leveled my eyes at her, not moving from the floor. I wasn't ready yet for quick moves. For any kind of moves. Not even the ones that this long-legged hellcat wanted from me. Or seemed to want.
"What is old Morrow giving you, Christine?"
"You, Love. That's what. Not that I haven't got it coming, mind. I've done for him all this time. Regular errand girl. Get this, get that—all the food and the papers—time I was getting something I wanted. The pay isn't all that good, you know. Being cooped up here with that freak Sebastian and old Morrow—" She giggled and lay back against the lounge, arching her breasts so that I could see how big they were, and then she V'd her legs so that I could see all the way up into the shining and dark Garden of Eden which is most of the story of all Mankind. "They're two regular old darlings, you see. What I mean, as queer as—" she groped for a quick image and didn't do so bad, considering her brain quotient—" Chinese lanterns on old Waterloo Bridge! You know what I mean?"
"I know. And I wish I didn't. Tell me. What did you hit me with? One of the stone lions in Trafalgar Square?"
That didn't strike her as very funny. The stupid eyes narrowed with an unfamiliar shrewdness. In matters of sex, she was a quiz kid, obviously. When she wanted something, she knew how to be smart.
"Think I'm crazy, Love? I gave you love taps. If I'd hit you the way Morrow wanted me to, you'd be pushing up daisies now. Be grateful. I had a hard time of it, talking him into letting me have you this way. He's all for killing, you know. I don't know why and I don't care. But, come off it, puppet. We're wasting the evening talking like this."
I tried sitting up. It worked. My head did not roll off my shoulders the way it ought to have. My eyes didn't fall out of their sockets. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Something didn't make sense. But I couldn't begin to think what that might be. I was still unravelling, still trying to come up out of the fog of a blow-induced sleep.
"Where is everybody, Christine?"
She had slipped off the couch, come to me, and scrambled to the floor to join me. She raised a seductive, soft, white arm and looped it about my neck. She smelled of honey and jasmine and all the good things of the bedroom, but the time and place were wrong. The girl was wrong, too, but I wasn't about to tell her that.
The vapid eyes searched my face. She smiled, she cooed, she stuck her tongue out at me. She giggled somewhere inside her small mind. Gently and suggestively, her hands reached down for my crotch.
"Don't play the damn fool, Love," she moaned low. "What do you care about all them? It's me and you and that's all there is to it. I fancied you as soon as I laid eyes on you in the hall downstairs. You going to spoil all that now and how I feel right this second with talk about those silly men? Come on, Love. Do me proper now—"
Her hands were exploring, traveling, giving me all the messages she could muster in such short time. I shifted my weight and then took both her wrists in mine. Hard. She let out a tiny squeak of surprise, but she mistook it for male passion, the caveman technique and she adored it. She fell against me, grinding her full body against mine. She wanted to kiss and start biting, but I dug my head around her shoulder so that my mouth was very close to her ear. I blew into it, knowing what that would do to such a Grade A, unsubtle nympho. She moaned again, sighing, writhing, as if her body had been taken over by snakes.
"Christine," I said fiercely. "I want you too. But I don't want any interruptions, either. Once I get started, nothing stops me. So just tell me where everybody is and if the door is locked, and then we can begin. You were right to want me like this. I'm ten inches long, baby, and seven orgasms is nothing for me—" I'd met her kind before.
"God!" It was all she'd ever wanted to hear. She shuddered and her body twitched as if I'd struck her with a hot poker. "Oh, Yank—I've always had a good time with Americans, but I never met anyone that big—"
"You just have. Now, tell me, Christine, before I lose my urge for you. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"
She certainly didn't, not after what I had told her.
"Oh, Love," she mooned, "you're such a nervous Nellie. Well, there's just nothing to worry about. We have this old place all to ourselves. That is if you don't count that bag of skin and bones in the other room. But he won't stir. He's practically starved to death and couldn't lift a finger without it making him weak enough to lie down again. Don't you see? Old Morrow's flown the coop and taken that brat with him. They left about an hour ago. For someplace. Don't know where."
"What bag of skin and bones?"
"That Cursitor fellah. That's who. The one that caused all this whoopdedah. Didn't you know?"
It was as I suspected. As I should have known. And old Malvolio Morrow had banked on the incredible stupidity of this Christine, banking on her great physical charm too to keep me on the premises long enough for something to happen. Something bad. Else why hadn't he simply cut my throat and taken off? But now I knew why he hadn't cut my throat. A corpse who is a homicide raises questions, triggers investigation and all kinds of meddlesome activity and follow-ups. But a corpse that is hard to identify—
Suddenly I was thinking as clearly as a computer. An IBM genius.
Like ice water over my dulled senses, I had the answer. At least, part of the answer. My estimation and admiration for Malvolio Morrow soared. And my spirit and Christine's sex appeal dropped a hundred points. There was just no time left to pick flowers. Maybe no time at all.
"Come on now, puppet," Christine cooed in a hoarse whisper, digging her hands into my waistband, pulling at my belt buckle. "Aren't you going to bang it proper like you said—you'll like me—I know you will—I do everything—wait and see——"
She was just never going to think of anything else. Least of all her own salvation. I thought for only a second of the sheer absurdity of a shrewdie like Malvolio Morrow employing such a deep thinker. But then again, perhaps he knew what he had been doing all the time. Everything was working out the way he wanted it to, wasn't it? He'd gotten his hands on Torin Bird, left Cursitor, whom he no longer needed, and abandoned Sebastian to Scotland Yard or the London Police Force at the very least, and now he had left this frivolous, brainless girl—who had kept the house for him, supplying it with food and other necessities —behind also. Leaving her with me, who obviously, like all Yanks, would pause in the day's occupation for a piece of bird tail, letting precious time slip by. Enough time for a lot of things to happen. For him to escape with the boy, for him to burn all his bridges behind him. Including London Bridge—
Burn——
That one word racing through my mind was all the stimulus needed. I knew now what Malvolio Morrow certainly was up to, and it made my blood run cold. Suddenly, I lurched to my feet, spilling Christine off my lap, and shook myself comp
letely awake. The magazine on the floor caught my eye. It was a Paris Match, the pictorial of articles and features.
Match——
Another word to conjure with, another stimulus.
"Well, I never——" Christine blurted from her sprawled, humiliated posture on the floor, glaring up at me, her bosom yo-yoing with deep indignation. She started to splutter, but something in my face stopped her. Just like that. I must have looked as terrified as I felt.
"And you never will again, if you don't pay attention to what I'm saying! Christine, I don't know how you hooked up with Morrow but can't you see what his leaving me behind like this means? There isn't anytime for hanky-panky, as much as you want it and as much as I'd like it. Your boyfriend hasn't just taken off and wished us well. If he's left Cursitor here too, then it means only one thing. No, don't argue with me. Think, girl, think. Morrow has to leave no trace behind. This house, poor Cursitor, me, you—there can't be anything that could trace back to him and keep him from leaving London with the kid. That means only one thing to me. This place is wired for sound, somehow. A big sound. And I do mean a bomb. A time bomb. Do you hear me, for Christ's sake? We've got to get out of here and get out now or there won't be enough left of all of us to cover a tuppence. Forget your genes and your mad passion for me and help me get Cursitor and get us out of here. Morrow's been gone a hour, you say—lady, we just can't have much time left!"
Something squirmed in her eyes, she tried to think, think in an orderly, logical sequence of cause and effect, motive and intent, and it wasn't easy. But she wasn't too stupid to be afraid. Her robust, warm glow of aroused flesh lost several shades of rosiness. She shook her head, violently. Her estimate of her own value was priced too high.
"No—old Morrow wouldn't do that to me. We've worked together too long. I'm valuable, I am, anytime he comes to London——"
I laughed harshly, cutting her short and heading for the door.
"You'll be telling yourself that even when this dump comes crashing down around your beautiful ears. Well, so long, dummy. I'm heading out. If you're smart you'll get dressed and do the same. Where's Cursitor's room, and don't argue with me or I'll jump up and down on you with both feet, so help me. Geezis, aren't you scared at all?"
"—down the hall. The last door—" Suddenly she was on her feet, her voice considerably changed from the hot tonsils routine she had been giving me. But its normal high, shrilling pitch was still there. "A bomb? Lord I didn't see him monkeying about with anything like that—"
I wasn't listening anymore. There just couldn't be enough time left.
Not if I was using Malvolio Morrow's time-table for disaster.
What I thought was the only thing that made any sense. The Christines and Noons of this world, as well as the Cursitors, wouldn't mean a hill of beans in the plans of a Malvolio Morrow. He no lonoger needed us. That was all I had to know. All I might ever know. We had joined Sebastian in Limbo.
I stumbled down the dark hall, trying not to panic, trying not to hear the non-present tick-tick-tick of some infernal device planted somewhere on these beknighted premises. I didn't want to die in Stoke-Newington. I didn't want to die anywhere. I didn't want to die at all.
I wanted to see Melissa Mercer and Felicia Carr again.
My two fair ladies, even though one of them was the loveliest hue of sepia there is in all the woman world. Lovely Melissa—gorgeous Felicia. Where were my wandering girls tonight? One black, one white. Both tops.
I knew one place they certainly weren't.
They weren't in a rickety, dismal dump in Stoke-Newington, trying to run away from a planted bomb, trying to save the world for Democracy.
Or save it for global peace. Or 2001 A.D.
Or whatever the hell was the President's excuse this time.
I ran down that dimly shining hallway, pale with moonlight streaming in through an uncurtained window, looking for Desmond Allan Cursitor. Or rather, what was left of the man who had left America with his wife and kids, sailing on the Queen Elizabeth Two, to come to his native country. The English physicist who loved America more and had undertaken a very dangerous assignment when he should have stayed home and reaped the benefits of a long and distinguished career.
That Cursitor. A 007 at the age of forty-nine!
The one who now only faced the danger of blowing up any old second. Taking a pair of comparative strangers with him.
I hung on to my cool and found the door that Christine had mentioned. The last door. A planked and beamed travesty of a door.
I just didn't know what I would find on the other side.
AN UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE,
TOASTED ENGLISH STYLE
□ The bomb must have been planted somewhere on the first floor of the house. Such a frame structure couldn't have had much of a foundation to begin with. They did not build well when that section of Stoke-Newington sprang into being. They couldn't have, at those prices.
The explosion, when it came, depending on what sort of bomb or device had been used, shot upward and outward. In fiery seconds. Number Twelve-Oh-Nine was a flaming shambles. Rafters, beams, shooting splinters of wood and shrubbery rained down for a distance of a hundred yards. There had been no time to warn anyone in the adjacent homes. Or to do more than make like a fireman, behave like a maniac, and just run, run, run. There hadn't been any time at all to pause and inspect the physical ruins of the man known as Desmond Allan Cursitor. There had only been time to sling him over my shoulder, stagger down the hall, bound down the stairs, and put as much distance between me and the doomed building as possible. I was only aware of two, plainly self-evident things. Cursitor's slight, angular body, clad in rumpled, soiled white shirt and slacks which had been cream-colored at some time, was a bag of broken bones, withered flesh, and nearly emaciated human being. He had not been conscious when I swept him up in my arms. And Christine had come tagging along behind me, stumbling on three-inch spiked heels, clad in a blue silk miniskirt and gaudy fur three-quarter jacket that made her seem like a refugee from an underworld night club. She was alternately sobbing and cursing, as terrified as was possible for a girl of her limited intellect. After that, plunging down the stoop of the house and running and dragging from the front door took all the effort and strength I had left. I wasn't exactly in tip-top shape myself. Two bad eyes and a ringing head were what I had to show for the London job. And a handful of failure. Morrow had Torin Bird—Torin and that great priceless gift he said he had and owned—and I had had the kid, and I'd lost him. Lost him but good.
And the dark night, speckled with the lighting of the surrounding cottages and frame houses and tall stone buildings, was the dreariest night of them all. Until explosion, fire, violence, and pandemonium lit up the sky. That corner of a town called Stoke-Newington became Bedlam in ten flying seconds. And the force of the blast, as far off as we were, was enough to send us all sprawling to the hard sidewalk just as we reached the corner of the main thoroughfare. Christine screamed like a wounded bird, the man on my shoulder gurgled a noise that was barely human, and I slammed down on Imperial Street and could only lay there, gasping for breath while Desmond Allan Cursitor whimpered like an animal. And Christine's damned sobbing fit was working the edges of my nerves raw.
A dozen doors banged somewhere, fifty frightened voices began to shout and yammer for some kind of information, and a hundred windows rode up with that grating sound that could raise hackles on the leathery back of an elephant. The sky glowed with flame. Smoke filled the air. I clung to Cursitor, comforting him, holding him, trying to calm him down, as I lurched erect again, stumbling to support myself against the nearest building wall. Christine tried to run on by me, her high heels clicking erratically, heard in all that clamor, and I wouldn't let her. Just as an incredibly loud and high, keening siren split the flames and darkness in half, I hooked a shoe around her shapely ankle. She went down like a ton of bricks, and I lumbered toward her and sat down on her, still clutching Desmond Allan Cursitor to my sho
ulder like a bag of wet cement.
I was breathing louder than a three-piece band, but I wasn't going to let go now. There were too many loose ends, too many unraveled threads that needed gathering. Christine was just about the only answer I had left. And Cursitor, of course. If he didn't die on me before the Bobbies came.
She tried to twist around to bite me, clawing at me with one of her long-fingernailed hands. Her stupid eyes held only one expression now. Pure hatred. With the added topping of fear. I didn't argue or reason with her. I wasn't sure I could convince her of anything now, and I was too tired and worn down to hang on much longer. Without help, that is.
I hit her. A short, downward, chopping, hard punch. It did the job. Her head snapped, her long hair spread out, and she lay quietly beneath me. She was in a new class, now. One of the very few women I had ever cold-decked in a lifetime of being nice to members of the opposite sex.
My brain, senses, and muscles began to leap-frog, waltz, and do the danse macabre of utter disorganization. A million flying, random, and pointless thoughts, images, and notions whirled through what was left of my conscious mind. The one holding Christine and Cursitor.
London Town, Old City and New, possessed me.
The ducks in Round Pond, the horses in The Ring in Hyde Park, the newspaper buildings on Fleet Street, the trooping of the Colours in the Horse Guards' Parade. Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.
The English, bless them, who always called a spade a spade. Why do Americans call elevators elevators? Of course, it was a lift. They certainly don't elevate you but they sure do lift you. And why do we call them drug stores when you can't buy drugs in them—why not call them the chemist's the way all of Britain does—they certainly do sell chemicals! And who ever heard of a shoemaker making shoes, but he sure as hell was a cobbler. And why shouldn't they call their subway the Underground—isn't that exactly what it was—underground? And by God, all candy stores ought to be called sweet shops, the all-inclusive title, far more fitting. And wicked old Jack The Ripper—there was the classic example of the English telling it like it is and was, because Jack didn't knife those poor prosties but he sure as hell ripped them!
London Bloody London Page 9