Honey in His Mouth hcc-60

by Lester Dent

  As he had reached for the lighter, in the moment before pain paralyzed him, he noticed blood on the carpet. He looked down again. The cigarette had fallen from his lips, was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He stretched out his left leg and saw the cloth was soaked with red. The arm, unknown to him, had been bleeding down the trouser leg. He became frightened again. What if he passed out and the car went off the road? That would fix him, wouldn’t it?

  TWO

  It was late afternoon when Walter Harsh’s car turned into a service station across from a chicken hatchery in a small water tower town in northeast Missouri. A bell gave a ping when the wheels ran over a rubber hose, the car stopped, an attendant came out and dipped a sponge in a bucket of water. He took his time squeezing excess water from the sponge. He began to swab the windshield.

  “Tell me, Jack, you got a good doctor in this town?” Harsh was not completely sure that the car had stopped moving. Pain made everything look as if it had a short red fuzz growing on it.

  The attendant misunderstood. “How many gallons was that?” He rubbed at the windshield. His neck stiffened a little. He had smelled the vomit inside the car.

  Harsh was completely confused by receiving a question in answer to what he recalled was a question the way he asked it. What had he asked the bird anyway? Ain’t in no shape to figure something out, he thought. But he was very scared inside, and being scared caused him to wish to be agreeable, so he smiled. It felt as if a hook had fastened under his upper lip and was dragging it up against his nose.

  “How many you say, sir?”

  Harsh could not think what he was doing here. Something to do with a damn building that would not stick up above the trees.

  The attendant finished the passenger side of the windshield and walked around to the other. He saw blood on the side of the car, and there was a faint whistling sound as his breath left him.

  “Holy Moses, Mister. What’s this stuff all over the side of your car?” The attendant bent down and peered, put the end of a finger in the blood, which was coagulated and about like gravy. “Holy Moses!” He ran into the service station and seized the telephone. “Flo, this is Jiggs. Get Doc over here in a hurry. Got a man here bled near to death.” The attendant now had a high thin voice. The telephone fell to the floor when he tried to put it back on the desk. He let it lie. He ran out for another look at the man in the car. “Harold! Harold!” He ran across the street to the chicken hatchery. Soon he came back with Harold, a stocky alert-eyed man. Harold said not to move the victim, never move an accident victim, and was Doc coming?

  Harsh did not bother to comment. Lot of silly rummies, running around hollering, like chickens that had jumped out of that place across the street.

  He closed his eyes, didn’t open them again till he heard another car squeal to a stop ten feet away, then a man’s voice. “What have you here, Jiggs?”

  “Doc, I think he was shot. I didn’t touch him.”

  Doc had the gaunt frame of an Abe Lincoln and the lazy movements and drawl of a cane-pole fisherman. “Jiggs, you better call Kenny Wilson for his ambulance.”

  “Sure, Doc.”

  A hypodermic needle was waved near Harsh’s face. “This won’t hurt. And you are going to be all right.”

  Sure he was all right, Harsh thought, he was fine, they could fart around all day.

  He was on a cart. A fat man in a white suit pushed him along between white walls under a beige ceiling. A nurse walked alongside, wiping the sweat off his forehead and from around his eyes. He was pushed into a room and the attendant left but the nurse stayed. Presently the doctor came in and stood looking at him.

  “Feeling fine, eh?”

  “You want the truth, Doc, I feel like I ain’t all here.”

  The doctor got out a stethoscope, stuck the prongs in his ears and listened to Harsh’s chest. “You have a heart like a horse.”

  “A galloping horse, maybe. What’s the matter with it?”

  “It’s okay. How does your arm feel?”

  “Feel? I don’t feel nothing.” They had cut off his arm, he decided. He was afraid to feel or even look to make sure, yet he wanted very much to know.

  The doctor smoked a cigarette. He put his foot on a chair and knocked the cigarette ash into his trouser cuff. The room was soundless, but there was plenty of noise in the hallways. The bed smelled faintly of stuff they had put in the sheets to sterilize them.

  “Tell me, Doc.”

  “Yes?”

  “My left arm, where did you cut it off?”

  The doctor laughed as if someone had cracked a huge joke. “My lord, man. Your arm is full of medication, is all. You’re not going to lose the arm.”

  “Oh. It didn’t feel as if it was there.” He felt good about the arm, and asked the doctor for a cigarette. The first puff made him sick and he tried to heave and his left arm hurt as though lightning had struck it. “Jesus God! What did you do to it?”

  “Set it.” The doctor waited for the attack of pain to subside. “The arm was badly broken. But listen, the arm’s not the thing. Here’s the thing: Did you know you have O-negative blood?”

  “What?”

  “You have O-negative blood. Rather rare around here —only seven people out of a hundred have it. Do you know anybody we can get hold of who does? Any blood relatives in these parts?”

  “Doc, I didn’t know there was such a thing as O-negative blood, whatever it is.”

  “Well, you need a blood transfusion, Harsh, and we have no O-negative in our blood bank. If you know anybody that we can reach who has it, you had better tell me.”

  “I can’t help you, Doc. How about just any old blood?”

  The doctor shook his head. “If you’ve got O-negative, you can’t take any other type. It could kill you.” A heavy, white-haired, middle-aged nurse came into the room. She said she had been on the telephone to the Red Cross and learned they had an O-negative donor listed in a nearby town. He was a mechanic and was out at somebody’s farm fixing a tractor, but the police were sending a car over to bring him in. The doctor turned to Harsh. “You’re a lucky man, Harsh. I guess we’ll be able to get you fixed up.” But Harsh was asleep.

  It was morning. He was lying on a hospital bed as naked as a jaybird under the sheet. The doctor came in and yanked back the sheet and pressed thoughtfully on his body with fingertips, then drew the sheet up to his chin.

  “You’re feeling great, my boy.”

  “That is one hell of an overstatement, Doc. What did you do to me?”

  “The donor got here, that mechanic. You’re full of his blood now and good as new.” The doctor took a chart off a hook at the foot of the bed, looked at it, and put it back on the hook. “By the way, Harsh, there’s a city policeman out front. I’ll bring him in, so you can thank him for getting that blood donor up here for you.”

  “Tell you the truth, Doc, I feel too sick to be seeing any cop.”

  “Nonsense. You’re not that bad off.”

  The doctor turned and went out. As soon as he had gone, Harsh tried to get out of bed. He did not want to talk to a police officer. But weakness seized him and he had to flop back on the bed and lie helpless. The blood out of that grease monkey, he thought, didn’t have much strength in it.

  The policeman threw the door wide and came in. He was a big man with a bald head and an unfriendly manner, and it was immediately clear he was interested in getting more than thanks. He listened while Harsh said he understood the police had hunted up the blood donor, and thanks. Thanks a lot. Harsh wanted to get rid of him, and he was very polite.

  “No sweat at all, fellow. Line of duty.” The officer got out a notebook. “Now, about that arm. What happened to it?”

  “Well, a car sideswiped me, officer. Like I put in the report.”

  “What report?”

  “Hey! Say now, I guess I didn’t get around to that. Tell you the truth, I was in pretty bad shape. All the time I remember thinking, my arm is all smashed to hell
, I got to get to a Doc, and I got to report this like the law says.”

  “So those were sideswipe marks on your car?”

  “Tell you the truth, officer, I wouldn’t know if my car was marked up or not. With this arm the way it was, I just couldn’t get up the steam to notice anything else.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I had my elbow out the open window, the way a fellow drives along. Then like I say, here comes some bird and sideswipes me. You know something, officer, for a while there I didn’t even know I was hurt.”

  “You remember anything about the car?”

  “I couldn’t swear, but I think it was a green Chevy, this year’s model, a four-door, I think. The guy, he was in it all by himself, a smallish guy with a dark face, and he was wearing a tan cap. You know, that’s about all I remember. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I was crowding the center line.”

  “When it happened, didn’t the other car stop?”

  “Not that I saw. He high-tailed it right on down the road.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Officer, I wish I could tell you for exact sure, but it was south of the Iowa line a little ways, is the best I can do.”

  The officer took a bite at the end of his pencil. “Your correct name is Walter Harsh. You’re from Hollywood, California. Right?”

  “No. I don’t know where you got your information about me, officer, but I ain’t from Hollywood, California. I’m from Quincy, Illinois. Say now, wait—I’m the president of National Studios of Hollywood, that must have given you the idea I’m from Hollywood, California.”

  “The National Studios of Hollywood, eh?”

  “You got it.”

  The officer put this down in his notebook. “But your name is Walter Harsh?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Now what is the address in Hollywood of this National Studios?”

  “You’re mixed up, officer. There ain’t any address in Hollywood. The address of National Studios of Hollywood is in Quincy, Illinois, the same as my address.”

  “Oh.”

  “I hope you got it right now, officer.”

  The policeman pulled a chair to the bedside and put one foot on it to make a desk for his notebook. “Harsh, are you a movie guy?”

  “Motion pictures? Me? Oh brother, did you miss it again.”

  “Well, what are you?”

  “I’m nothing but a photo drummer.”

  “What is that?”

  “I take pictures of people house-to-house. Which reminds me, officer, in my car. My box. I mean my camera, did you notice was it still in my car?”

  “The hospital people had your camera and suitcase brought in and put with your other stuff in a locker here at the hospital.”

  “Say, that’s all right. I was afraid somebody would make off with it. That camera set me back.”

  The policeman’s eyes were not leaving Harsh. The creases in his uniform were very neat, as if this was the first time he had worn the uniform. There was the faint smell of gun oil about him, and his brass and leather were shiny.

  “Now, Harsh, let’s get one more thing. Who do we notify at National Studios of Hollywood. I mean who do we notify that you are laid up with an accident?”

  “Well, I guess it won’t be necessary. I am the company.”

  “How is that now?”

  “I am National Studios of Hollywood. I am all of it.”

  The officer removed his foot from the chair, put his notebook away, buttoned the pocket flap, then straightened his coat by giving little tugs at the skirts. He took a deep breath, causing his leather harness to squeak audibly. “Well, now.” The officer inflated his chest again, as if he liked the sound of the leather when it squeaked. “If this checks out, I guess you’re all in the clear.”

  If this checks out. You’re not out of the woods yet, Harsh thought. The cop was going to do some prying around.

  The policeman had his hand on the doorknob when the door opened and the doctor came in. The doctor grinned. “How did it go, John? Get the information you needed?”

  The officer patted a spot on his coat over the notebook. “I guess he told me enough to start on.”

  The doctor pointed to a chair. “Stick around a minute, John.” The doctor took Harsh’s pulse and patted him on the chest. “Nothing to keep you down, my boy.” He turned to the policeman. “I have a pleasant little surprise for you, John.”

  “How’s that, Doc?”

  The doctor produced a postcard from his pocket and handed it to the officer. “Read that, John. Better read it out loud, because Mr. Harsh might like to know about it.”

  The officer read from the card. “The O-Negative Blood Group Foundation. The Foundation is endowed for the purpose of aiding individuals who possess this rare blood type. Accordingly, a reward of $25.00 will be paid to any person making a direct donation of O-negative blood to another individual. An additional $25.00 will be paid to any individual instrumental in finding a donor for such a person in need of O-negative blood. The Foundation is doing this to facilitate a supply of O-negative blood. The above rewards will be paid only if immediate notice is telegraphed to the O-Negative Blood Group Foundation, 1133 Nash Street, New York, N.Y.”

  The cop turned the card over. He looked puzzled. “What does this add up to?”

  “It means you get twenty-five dollars, John, if you notify that outfit right away.” The doctor looked pleased. “I just happened to remember that card, which came in a while back, and I dug it out of the file. John, you get twenty-five, the mechanic who donated the blood gets twenty-five. How does that strike you?”

  The cop grinned. “I’ll be goddamned.”

  The doctor waved a hand. “They got Foundations for everything these days. Some rich guy with O-negative blood probably kicked the bucket and left all his money to this Foundation, and this is the way they figure out to spend it.”

  Harsh had listened. It was all right with him if some bughead Foundation wanted to throw its money away, but it was a shame, he thought, to see any of it going to a cop.

  THREE

  The hospital was as noisy a place as Harsh had ever been in. There was continual tramping up and down the hall, talking, bottles and bedpans clanking. When finally he couldn’t stand it, he yelled, “Shut the goddamn door!” Someone hurriedly closed the door, after which it was quieter, but not much. The sun was shining; if he had just felt better, it would be a good day to walk out of the hospital. The way he was now, stuck in the hospital bed, he was helpless, and anyone who wanted to do a job on him would have a free hand to do so. He was thinking of the policeman. If Harsh could get out of the hospital, he could find a private room and sack up there with no cop in his hair, stay there until he was in physical shape to cope with the situation. He could even get hold of Vera Sue if he got the notion. He fancied the idea of Vera Sue for a nurse. If a man was red-blooded, that was the stuff that would cure him.

  Harsh tinkered with his left arm, feeling the cast with his fingers. It felt like a sack of concrete that had set. The arm throbbed. Could he make it out of here, he wondered, if he gave it another try? He’d better, Harsh thought. The cop was a beaver, a guy like that might hear about D. C. Roebuck being found dead in a field not all that far away and put two and two together. He picked up his left arm with his right hand and inched it toward the edge of the hospital bed. The cast weighed a ton. His hand sticking out was swollen and bluish. He clenched his teeth, worked his legs around, got them hanging off the bed. It was a high hospital bed, a long way down before his feet found the cold bare floor. He rested, panting, studying the plaster cast on his arm, noticing it was shaped so it could be carried in a sling. He pulled one of the sheets loose from the bed and tried to tear it, but his strength was not up to that, so he folded the whole sheet and knotted it in a sling that was big as a tent. His belly hurt from lying bent over backward on the bed. Okay, he thought, here it goes. He stood and took two steps and went down on the floor with a crash that sh
ook the building and put out his lights.

  Awakening, Harsh found he was back in the hospital bed. He was getting nowhere fast. He had a hazy impression he had tried to get out of the bed numerous times and each time had crashed on the floor, but that was probably all imagination. He wondered how long he had been lying there, whether it was hours or days. Then he heard a conversation outside his door. It was a nurse and the policeman, John. The cop was arguing. “Nurse, the Doc said he should be over the shock from the fall by now. He said it was okay for me to go talk to him if I wanted to.”

  The nurse put her head in and looked at Harsh. Unfortunately she caught him with his eyes open. “He seems to be awake. But we’ve had him under medication two days, so I don’t know what shape he’ll be in to talk.”

  The officer pushed past her. “I’ll give it a whirl.”

  The cop closed the door in the nurse’s face and came over to look down at Harsh. “You ever been in jail, Harsh?”

  “Officer, I’m awfully sick. I can’t talk to you now.”

  The officer ignored this. “Where were you in jail, Harsh? Come on with the answers.”

  “You sure are a guy who gets it wrong, Officer. I never been in anybody’s pokey.”

  “Yeah? Then why has a detective showed up around here making inquiries about you, Harsh?”

  “I don’t know anything about any detective, or anybody like that.”

  “Neither do I, but I plan to find out. All I know, you’re being investigated by somebody—the F.B.I. or a detective or someone. I ain’t run into this investigator myself, as yet, but I’ve heard tell.”

  “It must be a mistake.”

  “Well, maybe and maybe not. I heard about it, and I’m going to look into it. I’ve already been looking into you, Harsh. And let me tell you, I got the stuff on you. You’re one of these packs of jack-leg grafters who are traveling around our small towns skinning the people out of their money. That’s what you are, and we been having trouble with your kind. Complaints, that’s what. We been wanting to lay our hands on one of you skunks.”

  “Officer, shouldn’t you be looking for the guy who sideswiped me? Isn’t he the real criminal, not me?”