Lady Slings the Booze Page 9

  “At roughly the same time, Juicy Lucy and a client blinked and found themselves outside in the street together. As if that weren’t frightening enough, a taxiful of sailors on leave was just passing—and both ladies were naked. They reentered the House at high speed, and there was some unpleasantness when the sailors attempted to come in after them. Fortunately my receptionists are well trained, and managed not to hurt any of the sailors enough to require medical attention. I questioned both ladies afterward about dizziness, odd noises, any other strange phenomena, but they were so highly traumatized they remembered nothing. As both are female, I did not inquire about discharges. They were both bruised across the shoulder blades and the backs of their thighs.”

  “I see what you mean,” I said. “This guy’s sense of humor gets nastier and nastier.”

  “You haven’t heard the third event yet. At about one-thirty that morning, the…the client who sent you to me was in a studio down in the Discreet Wing. He was just leaving the bathroom. Mark that: he had just finished examining himself with some care in the mirror, naked.”

  I shuddered. “No one ever said he didn’t have guts.”

  She frowned. “Joe, I know it is necessary for you to be disrespectful of him, and I understand that. But I must ask you to remember that worse men than he have held his job—and that he is an old and dear friend of mine.”

  “Sorry. Continue.”

  “As he approached his artist of the evening, he heard what he could only describe as a ‘chipmunk noise’—and suddenly she burst out laughing.” I started to speak…and she glared so ferociously I stilled myself. Then suddenly her expression softened. “Damn it…I don’t want you giving yourself a hernia, so you may laugh during this next part. But one wisecrack and I’ll smite you on the mazzard. Looking down,” she went on grimly, “the client discovered that he had been redecorated.”

  I began to grin. In spite of herself, and without losing her thunderous frown, she joined me. Nonetheless her voice was flat, clinical. “Most of his pubic hair had been shaved off. A rude slogan had been written across his abdomen, apparently with Ellen’s pen.”

  I was giggling by now. “What did it say?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as sober as hers and failing.

  She sighed. “Do you really need to know?”

  “It might be a clue to the psychology of the individual,” I wheedled.

  She pursed her lips. “Let’s just say it involved a crude pun on his last name.” I was laughing outright now. “His testicles had been painted bright green—” My head began to hurt from laughing. “—and his penis as well—” My sides began to ache. “And a small bell, of the sort one finds affixed to the collars of cats—” At this point Sally lost it too, giggled helplessly is she finished, “was dangling from the end of it,” and we howled together for a short while.

  But shortly she got control of herself, and kept it. “As you can see, even a friend cannot help laughing. That is precisely why he is so upset—and rightly so. Such things should not happen in my House.”

  Her voice held such controlled anger that I managed to sober up myself. “Let me get something straight. Obviously he hasn’t broadcast what happened to him—and I assume his artist can keep her mouth shut or she wouldn’t be performing in the Discreet Wing. I bet Cynthia and her client haven’t told anybody what happened either. But what do the staff and clients think happened to the two ladies you mentioned?”

  She nodded grimly. “That one has been causing talk. The most popular theory is that they were engaged in something exotic involving a window ledge and slipped, and are both properly too embarrassed to admit it. That story may hold for a little while. But if this sort of shit goes on, it won’t be too long before I’ll have a panic that empties my place. That’s why you were hired.”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard her use a word you can’t say on television. I got the point: she was pissed. And it was clear that she had every right to be. If your whole business is getting people relaxed, the last thing you want around the House is gremlins. “Have any other weird things happened tonight?” I asked. “Compared to a talking dog or telepathic twins, I mean? Assaults like the others?”

  She hesitated. “Aren’t you getting tired by now, Joe? You should rest—”

  Now I was pissed. Very pissed. “Arethusa felt a burning sensation,” I stated.

  She sighed again and nodded. “In mid-air,” she agreed, “as she was falling to the floor. In a split second. And down the hall, a man of the cloth discovered that…never mind; there was another incident and the details are not important.”

  “No, they’re not,” I said. My head still hurt, I was still exhausted and weak. But I was all business. “All right, first of all, you keep records of who goes in and out of this place?”

  “Computerized.” she agreed.

  “I’ll need printouts. Including Discreet Wing clients. Second, I hear there are tape recorders hooked up to Mary’s bugs: do you still have tapes for all the days in question?”

  “Yes. You’ll have to go upstairs to the Snoop Room to hear them, when you’re well enough. Removing them from the room erases them.”

  “First thing tomorrow. With luck I should have this son of a bitch in a bag by tomorrow night.”

  I had at last succeeded in favorably impressing her. Her eyebrows went up, and she beamed involuntarily. “You really think you can catch the bastard?”

  “With some planning, cooperation, coordination, and luck, yeah, we’ve got a good shot,” I said. “At the very least I think I can guarantee he won’t trouble you any more. Unless I’m completely mistaken, and what we’re dealing with here is a poltergeist.”

  “I do not believe in either poltergeists or the straightforward ghosts presented in the film inexplicably titled Poltergeist,” she said.

  “Neither do I,” I agreed. “So I think I’ve got it right.”

  “Joe, you’re a marvel!” she exclaimed. “You pull this off and you’re comped here for life.”

  It was about the most breathtaking offer anyone had ever made me, but I was so stoked I let it go by almost unnoticed. “The in-out roster probably won’t do more than narrow it down a little,” I said. “I imagine you get a lot of every-night regulars here.”

  “We do,” she agreed with some pride.

  “But once I have a chance to go through those tapes I think I can tell you who he is. I already know what he is.”

  “Fantastic! And what is that?”

  “A guy with a time machine,” I said.

  6. Spot the Son of a Bitch

  Love is the most subtle form of self-interest.

  — HOLBROOK JACKSON, quoted in The Portable Curmudgeon (compiled by Jon Winokur)

  TO my surprise, Lady Sally McGee frowned hugely and snorted loudly said even more loudly, “Preposterous!”

  I was a little taken aback. I’d expected her to take a time machine more or less in stride. “Coming from you,” I said, “that’s rich. In a joint with a talking German shepherd and a pair of telepathic blondes, what’s so preposterous about a simple time machine?”

  “Out of the question,” she snapped. “Dismiss it from your mind. ‘Time machine,’ indeed! Try something a little more plausible for heaven’s sake. Martians, say, or a teleport.”

  “If either of those could be stretched to fit the facts, I would,” I insisted. “But they can’t.”

  “Neither can a time machine,” she said just as stubbornly. “Setting aside for the moment the fact that such a thing is absurd, it simply doesn’t fit the facts known.”

  “Yes it does,” I said. “Cripes, you didn’t even need me to figure this out. Any John D. MacDonald fan would have done. Which is like saying, ‘every third citizen.’ Hiring a genius was totally unnecessary.”

  “Apparently,” she said with some…what is that word? Sounds a little like “asparagus;” and means she was trying to break my horns? Rhymes with “prosperity”…“asperity,” that’s it. “Listen to me, Joe. Just
assume I have a direct pipeline to God on this one question, okay? Put time machines out of your mind and keep thinking—or you’re no use to me.”

  Now here’s a funny thing. When I know I’m right, the President of the United States couldn’t get me to back down. Even Lady Sally couldn’t convince me that what I knew was so wasn’t so. But I shut my big mouth and let her change the subject. It surprised me even as it happened. I mean, I hadn’t even proved to her yet why I had to be right—which is usually the very least I have to do before I’ll drop out of an argument.

  She had a kind of a forceful personality, I guess.

  And maybe I was off my game on account of that clout on the skull. All of a sudden I decided my ten minutes were about up. “You’re the boss,” I said. “Uh…can I still have the printouts and access to the tapes when I wake up?”

  “Of course,” she said, “as long as you promise to do some constructive thinking about them.”

  All right, then. No point in pushing it now: tomorrow morning I’d get my hands on the proof that she needed and I didn’t. Then I’d magnanimously accept her apology. “Okay. I’m going to fall out, now if it’s all right with you.”

  “Certainly. Sleep well, Joe—again I apologize for exposing you to danger without briefing you. Don’t worry, I’ll send Arethusa in to keep watch on you.”

  “That’ll be a comfort,” I said.

  And it was.

  IT wasn’t that Arethusa knew a lot of fancy acrobatic tricks, or had one that could peel a banana, or any of that. She understood that I was in rocky shape. What she did, she taught me about her. And about me. I mean, when I say that she played with me, for the first time in my life I mean that the way a little kid would mean it. She played with me like a kid might play with another kid that had been whacked on the head recently and needed some diversion. Well, if this was a sane culture, I mean, and kids were allowed to have sex as part of playing, like God intended. She made me think about stuff like that. I’d thought I had given up playing forever when I became a PI.

  What I’m trying to say is, what happened between us wasn’t at all like anybody screwing anybody, and that’s a memory to kill for. She even made my head stop hurting.

  “Tell me about yourself, Arethusa,” I said sleepily when I could.

  “I will,” she promised. “But tomorrow. Sleep now.”

  I glanced at my watch. Four A.M. My head did feel heavy as I swing it back to her. “Well…okay. But I really want to know you better.”

  She—well, there isn’t a word. I mean, “leer” is not what happens when a mature and sexually satisfied woman spots an unintentional double-entendre, but “smile” doesn’t seem to cover it either. Interesting, that there is no word for a woman appreciating bawdiness. Anyway, she did that, and said, “Better than—that?”

  “Yes,” I said simply. “Even better than that.”

  Her eyes seemed to glow in the semidarkness. “In that case, there is all the time in the world. Close your eyes.”

  With reluctance, I did. No problem: I could still see her clearly. “Wake me if I sly in my deep,” I murmured.

  “I promise.” She dialed the room lights down another notch, levitated noiselessly from the bed, and made herself comfortable in a chair beside it. I heard her slip on a silk robe. A southing sooned.

  I slept, and dreamed of a blonde sandwich with Quigley filling.

  I came half awake at a gentle knock on the door.

  I glanced at the bedside clock thinking, Jesus, it feels like I’ve only slept ten minutes, and here it is—

  Four-ten A.M. I had only slept ten minutes…

  Arethusa was up out of her chair like a shot, looking pissed. Then she opened the door and got respectful.

  I don’t mean like J. P. Morgan was standing there and now she had to kiss ass. More like if it was Gandhi, or maybe Warren Beatty.

  Which is weird, because the guy looked more like a retired pug or longshoreman or beat cop than anything else. He resembled that actor Brian Dennehy a little. He was something over fifty, big and solid and Irish as Paddy’s pig, with red hair just about everywhere but on the top of his head, and a dead cigar in his teeth. He had a jaw like a bulldozer, an artistically broken nose, and very pronounced laugh lines. But he wasn’t smiling now. He looked as upset as a guy that big and confident ever looks. I hoped he wasn’t upset with me. He looked like one of those guys you don’t want to shoot because it could annoy them.

  “I’m sorry, Arethusa,” he rumbled in a gravelly baritone. “I’ve got to talk to him, and it won’t wait.”

  I’d have bet cash she was going to tell him indignantly that I might be seriously injured and had to get my rest and like that. But I think she decided he knew all that, and gave him the credit of assuming he wouldn’t bother me anyway without a good reason. “If you say so, Mike,” she said, and stepped aside to let him in. She dialed the room lights up just a bit. (I didn’t see how she did it—and I remember noticing that even when the lighting brightened, it was so artfully indirect that it was hard to tell just where the bulbs were.)

  I thought about pretending to be asleep, and sticking to it. But something told me the quickest way to get rid of this guy and get back to sleep was to deal with him. “I don’t go on duty until tomorrow,” I told him, pretending to pull the covers over my head. “Try another artist.”

  Serious as he was, that made the big redhead grin around his cigar. “Ah, wouldn’t that be something?” he said. “Two big micks in the same bed! Yeah, they’d have to hide the women, wouldn’t they?” Because he was trying to keep his voice down, you couldn’t have heard him more than two rooms away. He stuck out a hand the size of a baseball mitt. “Hello, Ken. My name’s Mike. I’m Sally’s husband.”

  I already provisionally respected the guy, on Arethusa’s say-so. But now my respect went up a couple of notches. For a guy like this to hold on to a woman like that, he had to be something Special. Now I really hoped he wasn’t upset with me. In my line of work, “client’s husband” is a synonym for “pain in the ass”—and he looked like he could constitute a large-size pain. I stuck my own hand out and said, “Pleased to meet you, Mike. But that ‘Ken’ stuff is my House name—and I don’t have any secrets from Arethusa. Call me Joe.”

  His smile dented slightly, “I’m afraid you do…at least for a little while. Let’s keep it ‘Ken’ for now, okay?”

  “If you say so,” I agreed. His handshake was firm but not aggressive. He’d given up that kind of childishness a long time ago.

  “Arethusa, darlin’,” he said, “would you do me a favor?”

  “Of course, Mike.”

  “Go ask Sal to give you some of my special coffee, and brew up two cups drip-style? Unless you’d like some too, Ken?”

  “Well…how long do you need me to be coherent?” I asked.

  “We should be done by the time Arethusa gets back,” he said.

  “Then I’ll pass. Unless it’s really special.” I’m a coffee freak.

  “I’ll have her brew you some for breakfast,” he assured me. “She’ll still be awake then. Thanks, darlin’. Take your time.”

  “I understand,” she told him, and left.

  When the door had closed behind her, I said, “I meant that about not keeping secrets from Arethusa. I haven’t told her a damn thing yet—there hasn’t been time—but she’s somebody I can’t lie to.”

  “Then just settle for keeping your mouth shut as much as possible,” he advised, “at least about your case. Once it’s over you can make your own decision—for now, hang on to your cover. You’re just a guy who got a shot at the second greatest job in the world.”

  “What’s the greatest?” I had to ask.

  “Mine,” he said. “I mean it, Joe: Sal needs this kept as quiet as possible.”

  “How do I know I’m authorized to discuss it with you?” I asked.

  He shifted the cigar stub in his teeth. “Easy: you’re not an asshole. Now can we get down to business before A
rethusa comes back and I have to make up another errand? It just embarrasses everybody.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Where have you been while all this crap has been going on, Mike?”

  He blinked. “Fair enough.” He sat heavily in the chair Arethusa had vacated. “I should have been here. I’ve got my own business out on the Island, night shift, but I sleep here in the House most mornings. But sometimes I get involved in things out there. The last couple of days I been showin’ a guy out in Suffolk County how to use a computer system, so it was simpler to sleep out there.” He looked embarrassed, a strange expression on that face. “If I’d have been here, you might not have taken that whack on the head tonight. Sal kept saying everything was fine on the phone, and I just found out different a little while ago. I’m sorry.”

  “No problem. It’s what I’m paid for. Question is: now that you’re back, am I still hired?”

  I had succeeded in surprising him. “Are you kidding? In the last century I think I overruled Sally twice already. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “Is that your line of work, Mike, teaching computer systems?”

  He looked thoughtful. “I guess you could say that. Teaching folks about reprogramming, yeah. This guy was a little different, though: a computer is the only way he can talk to people without barking.”

  Some friend of Ralph’s? I had to let that go: my nose was wrinkling uncontrollably. “Excuse me,” I said. “I know this is changing the subject, and I know it sounds crazy, and I mean no disrespect, okay? Maybe somebody’s playing a gag on you—but I’m just about certain that’s not a cigar.”

  He looked down at it and went briefly cross-eyed. “It isn’t?”

  Someone had to tell him. “I’m pretty sure it’s a piece of shit.”

  He grinned, not at all offended. “A common error.” He lit a wooden match with his thumbnail and brought it toward the thing.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I said, alarmed.