Always Leave ’Em Dying

by Richard S. Prather

  A man raced up with a blanket, threw it over the still figure. The moaning began again. Across from me, a woman cried out softly and slumped, someone's arms going about her and holding her off the ground. Those actions, the first quick movements in the few seconds I had stood here, brought me out of my own shock and I began backing away through the hundreds of others who had pressed near and were massed in a circle that had Trammel as its center. I was suddenly aware of the possibility that someone might recognize me. All eyes, though, were on the blanket-covered figure, and I pulled the hat lower on my forehead, raised the raincoat's collar to hide my face more completely.

  Someone bumped into me and I swung around, but it was only a woman turning to push out of the crowd. Keeping my face down, I walked toward Trammel's house, breathed more easily when I reached the shadow at its side. Then somebody near me let out an exclamation, grabbed my arm.

  I jerked my head around and in the dimness saw a square chunky man with big eyes in a red face, a Guardian, and he opened his mouth just in time for me to close it with an uppercut I didn't even know I'd started. His teeth clicked together and as he started to fall, I sprinted into blackness. Yards farther, I looked back, but nobody was following me; the picture there was still the same, people edging away from the blanket-covered body.

  For a while I walked without purpose or direction, wondering how the accident had happened—and then, slowly, I began wondering if it had been an accident. Plenty of people must have wanted Trammel dead. I remembered the sudden flurry of activity I'd seen this afternoon following one of the explosions. But it didn't make much difference to me now, one way or the other.

  I kept walking until I found myself on residential streets, out of habit avoiding lights and hiding my face when I passed other men, and then I became aware that I was on a familiar street, before a familiar place. Automatically I had come back to Lyn.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lyn was wearing a blue robe when she opened the door. Her face was somber, but when she saw me, she smiled suddenly and said, "Shell, I was worried, so darn worried—" and then she was pressed close to me, her arms around my neck and her head moving against my chest.

  In a moment, she stepped back and looked at me, started to say something and stopped. I guess she could tell by my face that things had gone wrong, and she asked, "What happened?"

  "Everything blew up. Literally. Hell with it." I tried on a grin. "Come back here. Wait, I'll go outside and knock and we'll try it again. Or maybe—"

  "What do you mean, everything blew up?"

  I told her. I told her the whole thing. We sat on that lumpy couch and she was quiet until I finished. Lyn knew all that I'd done until tonight, all I'd figured out, and she knew how much this night might have meant to me. She said softly, "I'm sorry, Shell. Are you sure it was Trammel?"

  "Yeah, baby, I'm positive. The light was dim, but everybody could see him well enough. His face wasn't messed up much more than usual, just one side. Besides, I walked up and practically stepped on him—and you know what old Squashhead looked like. Nobody could possibly mistake him for any other human being. For any human being, to tell the truth. Nope, Lyn, Trammel's kaput."

  "What will you do now, Shell?"

  "That's a good question."

  I honestly didn't know what I could do now, and my mind was still a little dulled by the suddenness of what had happened. We sat on the couch, not talking, and I leaned back with my eyes closed. A minute later I felt Lyn's breath on my cheek, and after that her lips, soft, warm, and gentle.

  I turned toward her and her lips slid over mine, still soft and warm, but in moments they were less gentle, more demanding. I slid my hands beneath her robe, against bare flesh; her skin felt hot under my fingers, and her flesh had the same liquid, yielding softness as her lips and tongue. I pulled her close, held her tight against me. There were soft noises deep in her throat and then, without opening her eyes, she spoke to me in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.

  I lifted her, held her close against me, and walked toward the bedroom. Her mouth was still moist and parted, her eyes were still closed.

  In the morning, the sky was overcast and there was a chill in the air. You'd think I had enough to depress me without the weather's being gray and gloomy too. Still, I was nowhere near as low as I had been several hours earlier, for I was sitting on the couch, which, last night, I had not slept on.

  Lyn was sitting on it, too. That is, in a way she was; I sat on the couch, and she sat on my lap. Those weren't the only reasons for my feeling better; the gal had a way with words, and a fine, logical mind, which she used like a woman part of the time, and like a psychiatrist part of the time. Both as woman and as psychiatrist she was terrific, and I was back to normal.

  She said, "Look at the worst possible side of the mess, Shell. Even if everybody in the world believes terrible things about you, you know they're not true. And I know it, too."

  "That's the best part. So what's next? Find an island, build a cabin, and get a fifty-year sunburn? Think of the fun we'd have peeling each other."

  She smiled, dimples popping into delightful prominence in her cheeks. "Don't be silly. There must be something you can do. We know you're innocent, so there must be some way to prove it."

  I grunted.

  She slid off my lap, saying, "I'll fix us more coffee. You concentrate."

  While she made noises in the kitchen, I concentrated, with the usual result. As far as I was concerned, the outside world was on fire. I couldn't roam around, talk to people, ask questions, or even pop anybody on the head. The heat on me had been bad before, but it was really a fire now, an eighteen-alarm inferno. We'd read the morning papers and listened to the news broadcasts; all of them had the latest development.

  The Guardians said I'd blown Trammel to pieces.

  Nobody else said so, but my name was always mentioned, since the guy I'd slugged had passed word on that I was there; and though the possibility of an accident was admitted—since, as I'd guessed last night, there'd been some kind of peculiar misfire and some unbanged explosive could have been lying around—a bright six-month-old child might have guessed I'd done the buzzard in.

  And the story—all of it, from my session with Trammel and the Guardians clear on up to last night's "tragedy"—had been picked up by the wire services today. Which was no great surprise to me. If there'd been pressure on the local police before, they were about to get squashed by it now.

  Lyn came in carrying two cups of coffee. "Well, what have you figured out?"

  I glared at her.

  She grinned. "Look, you've been thinking too much about it. This is the psychiatrist speaking, sir. Get your mind off trouble for a while; let your subconscious work."

  "OK, psychiatrist. It will take more than my subconscious, plus my conscious and eight miracles, to get out of this one. But OK, let's talk about you. I really don't know a hell of a lot about you. For one thing, how come such a sweet young lass is a psychiatrist at all?"

  "Dad was a psychologist at Duke. I knew from the time I was so high that I wanted to be one, too, only more so. And I'm either blessed, or burdened, with a horribly retentive memory. Skipped a couple of early grades and did six years of college and pre-med in four. Then four years of medical school, two interning, and there you are. I was in private practice for a few months, then Greenhaven."

  "Incidentally, what the devil goes on out there? Guys wandering around in the halls, strange things happening outside. I sure heard some strange things."

  "Well, Greenhaven's a little different from most such places. We really don't have any homicidal cases—as you know now." She grinned. "Just the staff. There's the usual psychiatric treatment, but besides that, we stress personal honesty more than anything else."

  I frowned at her. "What's that got to do with fixing up people in the shape I was supposed to be in?"

  She grinned again. "We seldom get anybody as bad as you were supposed to be. And it's got more to do with men
tal health than you might think, Shell; it's the most important single thing, really. Without the technical talk, basically, we almost force the patients to be honest with each other, and that's all it takes for a lot of them. They've all got so used to big or little dishonesties that it's difficult for most of them at first. But all by itself, that improves their mental health surprisingly. Or maybe I shouldn't say surprisingly, since their dishonesties bother them whether they know it or not, give most of them their neuroses in the first place."

  "I think I saw your process in operation." I told her about the two old hags and she laughed. I said, "And how many of your charges get their teeth knocked out?"

  "None. Oh, it might not work in Podunk, but nobody gets too angry in Greenhaven, because it's normal there. Everybody knows the others are just telling the truth as they see it, not making up nasty things to say." She dimpled. "It isn't like the world."

  I got a big kick out of that. "Baby," I said, "can you imagine what the world would be if it were like that? A place where everybody had to be honest? No wars, no misunderstandings, no Communists, no Emily Posts, no jury trials—no detectives, even. You'd just ask a guy whodunit and he'd say, 'Me, I done it.'"

  She clapped her hands. "Think of it! Advertisers would say, 'This little pill won't cure ulcers or dandruff or anything. It's worthless!'" She squealed with laughter and I joined her.

  Then suddenly I remembered who I was. "What the hell am I laughing at?"

  "Oh, come on."

  "I just happened to think. In your happy world, I wouldn't be in this mess. And Arthur Trammel would never have got started in the first place. Baby, I'll bet half the people in Greenhaven were put there by guys like that lying lecher."

  "At least half."

  "Maybe he's the price we pay for civilization. And you know what? It isn't worth it." I had some coffee. "I really like your honest world, honey. Just one little word and the walls would come tumbling down—including Greenhaven's. Maybe that's Utopia, Brave New World."

  We had a lot of fun imagining ramifications of the Greenhaven world, and then suddenly Lyn said, "Enough. Pretend you've got a client named Shell Scott. He's in an awful jam, and you've got to unjam him."

  I was quiet for a minute or two. "It's possible. Trouble is there's nothing to convict but a corpse."

  "Well, convict the corpse. That would clear you."

  "OK. You and I are sure Trammel was playing around with lush little dolls, Trammelites who figured the Master couldn't do anything wrong if he tried. And we know he tried. So there must be other girls who could tell stories about Trammel and that healing hand of his."

  "Do you think there might be others like—like Felicity?"

  "There might even be other dead ones, but I kind of doubt it. Trammel never had a detective hot on his neck before. But I'll give ten to one Felicity wasn't the first girl he sent to Greenhaven."

  "So all we have to do is find them."

  "All I have to do—only it isn't quite that simple. After I find them, I've got to get them talking. You'd have to know those Trammelites to realize how close-mouthed and adoring they are about that guy. And they'll probably be even more close-mouthed this soon after his death. There's thousands of them, too; be a job finding the right ones. You can bet Trammel was the only guy who knew all the names." I lit a cigarette and said, "I think I know one name, though: Betha Green."

  I told her how Betha had acted and she said, "Think you'll talk to her again?"

  "Yeah, but not right away. This damn town has to cool off a little first. Better if Trammel cools some more, too."

  "Betha Green," Lyn repeated softly.

  We spent a lazy morning and afternoon and about six o'clock I took a shower. When I came out Lyn was gone and a note said she'd be back in an hour or two. I almost walked a path in the carpet until I heard her key in the lock and she came inside.

  "Where the hell have you been?" I asked her.

  "I went to see Betha Green."

  "Damn you, how many times—"

  She walked up close to me and grinned. "It's done, so be sensible. Don't you want to hear what happened?"

  I sputtered another minute, then said, "OK. But I still damn you. Betha say anything?"

  "Not a word. She was scared. I asked her about Trammel, Greenhaven, Dixon—all of it. She denied everything, but if I do say so, I'm a good psychiatrist. I'd take an oath she was lying."

  "You shouldn't have gone, Lyn. Hell, you said yourself that if there's any place I'm safe it's here in the apartment of the psychiatrist who declared me nuts. So we can wait. And nothing came of it, anyway." I frowned at her. "What did you mean, she was scared? Because you talked to her?"

  "No." Lyn pulled me over to the couch. As we sat down she said, "The funniest thing. She'd heard it and said all the Trammelites had heard it. I don't know whether Betha herself believed it or not."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "There's a rumor going around that Arthur Trammel will arise in three days."

  Chapter Nineteen

  There's a what?" I blinked at Lyn. "Who will arise? Not Trammel, baby. I wonder where the idea got started."

  "Probably among the Trammelites themselves," Lyn said. "They all must be shocked by his death, and I imagine most of them want their leader back. Wishful thinking. Now that it's started, a lot of them will believe it'll happen—until they're disappointed."

  "I suppose," I said. "Hope springs eternal in the human beast. But I wonder how the rumor got started . . ." I stopped, and after a while I grinned at Lyn. "Hell, what do you bet," I said, "that Trammel does arise?"

  This time she blinked at me.

  "Baby, I think you called this one dead wrong," I said. "Those anxious Trammelites aren't going to be disappointed. It won't be Arthur, not unless they put him back together first, but it will be a Trammel—and it will still be good old All-High Arthur to the flock."

  She kept frowning, then smiled at me. "I'm supposed to be the psychologist."

  "Now we're even. I'm supposed to be the detective. But this might be just what I want. It's too good for the remaining Guardians to pass up. It's made to order. Trammelism is a big operation, profitable, getting powerful, but without Trammel himself it's just another cult. If the Guardians want to stay in business, the boss has to come back—so he will. That is, somebody will. He'll arise, all right."

  "Shell," Lyn said, "I know what you mean, of course, and it's not impossible. But you know what Trammel looked like. He was almost a freak."

  "He was a freak. Maybe they'll get some thin egg and squeeze his head together in a vise, but they'll get somebody and make him up so he looks enough like their boy. The resurrection will probably come off on a dark night and a thin guy with a beak like Trammel's will leap up shouting hallelujahs. The handful of believers present won't get a good look at the fake and he'll be whisked off after five seconds. Word spreads from mouth to mouth, and presto! The Master will have risen. How does it sound, Dr. Nichols?"

  "I'd better take your pulse, Mr. Scott. But, seriously, you might be right."

  We batted it around a while, then let it lie. The last thing I said about it was "I could be wrong. Let's wait and see."

  We didn't have long to wait.

  Los Angeles was headed for the cackle factory.

  The next three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, were the craziest, most fantastic, goofiest that even L.A. had ever seen. It was a slow explosion, a three-day time bomb, and even for those of us smack in the middle of the thing, it was difficult to believe.

  Even on Friday, the very next morning after I'd said, "Let's wait and see," I was convinced that the Guardians were going through with a real, right-before-your-eyes resurrection. Friday was the "First Day," time being counted, apparently, not from the exact moment of Trammel's death, but from Thursday, when the rumor had started. And on Friday the whispered rumor had already become, comparatively, a shout.

  Even then there was an indication of how big the thing would bec
ome. Nobody knew at the moment the peculiar speed with which it would snowball and spread; nobody would know until later, when accounts would come in from widely separated places. But on Friday, even then, the germ of frenzy and fanaticism was present and growing. At first, though it hit the newspapers, it was just another story, a line or column here and there, but by Saturday, the "Second Day," it was big.

  It was big enough for the first time to crowd me out of some of the local stories, and it got a surprising amount of space. Primarily it was just an interesting story, something novel to yak about, and naturally not many people of the million or more who read it took it seriously.

  But by this Second Day excitement among the Trammelites, among the myriad other cults, even among many of the ordinary everyday citizens of Los Angeles, had grown to fever pitch. The belief, the frantic hope grew, and the rumor had become a slogan mouthed by the faithful: Trammel will arise! Though the fever was fairly well localized among the odd balls, the unstable, the crackpots, it was frightening that so many men could so quickly believe so patent a lie.

  Saturday morning the forthcoming resurrection in a sense became official. The Guardians themselves announced to a number of Trammelites that on Sunday at three o'clock in the afternoon Arthur Trammel would be reborn. I even knew the approximate location they mentioned. I'd been in the area half a dozen times for target practice or plinking at tin cans set at the base of a cliff out there; it was only a few miles from L.A., near a small town named Hollis.

  I found it hard to believe, but it had been picked up by the newspapers and was in announcers' words over the air—treated a bit facetiously, usually, but reported nonetheless.

  Lyn and I had been talking about it, and I said to her, "All they've got to do is get the resurrection itself accepted. If the followers think Trammel is risen, they'll believe he can do anything—and will the money roll in? I hope to tell you. There'll be Trammelites everywhere you look; those Guardians will be billionaires."