Naked as a needle, he was in a small windowless room with three women, equally naked. One was a blonde, one a brunette, the third, a flaming redhead. Their dimensions were Amazonic, and they grew larger as the dream continued, while the room grew smaller. They were trying to seduce him, fighting among themselves for the privilege. They stopped now and then in their pursuit of him to hack at one another, clawing and snarling. He was trying to escape and yet he wasn't. Of course he knew it was a dream. He tried to wake up. He couldn't. Try as he would, he couldn't wake up.
Suddenly the contracting room boiled with violence. Magically, the blonde had a heavy piece of sculpture in her hand. She struck right, then left. Blood spurted, and the brunette and the redhead fell with crushed skulls, then vanished. The blonde advanced on him, breasts bobbing, haunches quivering. He tried to evade her. She pounced, pinning him to the floor. She mounted him in flaming, all-consuming lust.
It was then he realized there was no sound. He wanted to shout as he was seized by a scald of unbelievable sensation. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came from his lips. His arms and legs seemed to be chained to the floor in some way he couldn't comprehend. Yet it wasn't necessary for him to move. The blonde rose and fell on him, her loins pounding at him in a frenzy.
He spun down and down into a whirlpool of pleasure. The walls of the small room were closing in steadily. He had trouble breathing, and his heart threatened to burst free of his rib cage. His ecstasy reached a shuddering peak. The blonde heaved mightily, coming down on him with all her weight. Her head darted at him; her teeth fastened on his lip until the blood came. Then she, too, was gone, and the walls closed in on him with a snap, and the silken dream of pleasure became a hellish nightmare....
He heard the sound of screaming before he was fully awake. The sound scraped at his mind like a scalpel as he struggled up toward consciousness. Wade Carson opened his eyes, and the scream cut off abruptly. The room swam slowly into focus. It was a small, barren room with blinding white walls and ceiling; the only piece of furniture was the narrow bed on which he lay.
Where was he? A hospital? He swallowed convulsively. His throat was raw and painful. Then he saw the screen mesh on the single window and felt the constriction on his chest and arms, and memory hit him like a blow. He knew then that the voice he had heard screaming had been his own. He licked his lip and tasted blood where he had bitten it. His mind churned with panic, and he struggled anew against the strait jacket binding him. He stopped struggling before his mind told him it was futile.
The tiny window in the door opened and the blandly smiling face of the ward attendant appeared. There was nothing brutish about the face. It was nothing like the Frankenstein visage so often worn by asylum attendants in horror movies. It had remained sunny during those terrifying moments when Wade, writhing and screaming during electro-convulsive therapy, had to be forcibly held on the table as the voltage jolted through his brain.
The attendant said pleasantly, "How are you feeling, Mr. Evans? Better, I trust?"
Carson, not Evans, doddammit! But the words never passed his lips. After uncounted injections of Metrazol and countless electroshock treatments, he had finally learned restraint. Restraint. Now there was a dandy word for these surroundings!
He said weakly, "I'm fine, thank you."
The attendant's eyes widened. "Well! We are better, aren't we?"
What was his name? Jocko? Yes, Jocko Remly. Ironic that he should remember this man's name when there seemed so much confusion about his own. He thought it was Wade Carson, but the people in the sanitarium and the svelte blonde who claimed to be his wife said his name was Bart Evans. He tried a smile. "I think so, Jocko."
Jocko's smile broadened. "Indeed, we are making progress. I think the doctor should know about this." The attendant's bland face disappeared from the window.
What was the medical term bandied about his head like a volley ball ? Schizophrenia. Split personality. Two people in one body. He claimed he was one person while people who should know, including his wife (his wife?), stoutly maintained he was someone else. He lay as relaxed as was possible laced in a straitjacket and waited for Jocko to trot down the hall and alert Dr. Max Hunter to the patient's change for. the better.
Dr. Hunter, the head psychiatrist at Shady Glen Sanitarium, was a short, plump man who, standing, bounced like a yo-yo on his built-up heels. Pompous as a politician three terms in office, he irritated Wade's nerve ends like sandpaper. He was a smiler too. He had smiled his way through a million interrogations, had smiled cheerfully while overseeing delicate tortures, and some not so delicate, on the person of Wade Carson. His smile, Wade was sure, was much like that adorning the pure Aryan countenances of Nazi doctors surveying the lines shuffling into gas chambers while mentally tanning hides for lampshades.
But now, without knowing exactly when the decision had come to him or why he had so decided, he made up his mind to go along with everyone. They said he was a man named Bart Evans, so he would be Bart Evans, at least for long enough to escape Dr. Hunter's nut farm. He'd tried resisting and all that had gained him had been a month of mental and physical hell. Or perhaps it had been longer; he was a little vague about time.
Actually, he had little choice. Just last night he had overheard talk of a lobotomy. The blonde woman who claimed to be his wife had been in his room last night when they'd brought him back from electroshock treatments. Yesterday he had been particularly obstreperous and Dr. Hunter had punished him for it. Not that the good doctor would admit to that. It was always, "For your own benefit, Mr. Evans. After treatment, you will feel much better."
Anyway, Wade had come out of it a little early, and the blonde and Dr. Hunter had been at his bedside, conversing in low voices. Wade had feigned unconsciousness and listened.
"Doctor, it has been so long now, and I can't see any change for the better. He still doesn't know who he really is or who I am."
Dr. Hunter had loosed a windy sigh. "These things take time, Mrs. Evans. I can only counsel patience."
"But if he never gets any better? What then?"
"There are several alternatives open to us. We can keep him here indefinitely, under restraints if necessary...."
"But that seems too cruel! And those horrible shock treatments!"
"Well ... there is a lobotomy."
"That's an operation, isn't it?"
Wade's dazed brain had seized on this little tidbit of information with growing horror. He knew what a lobotomy was, knew what it would do to him. It would turn him into a passive animal, a vegetable capable of sleeping, eating, defecating, and little else.
"If you think that's necessary, Doctor. Anything that will bring Bart back to something like normal."
"That is always a last resort, of course, but it is well we are prepared for it. It may become necessary in the end...."
They had been moving out of the room by then, but Wade had heard more than enough....
Jocko came back, interrupting Wade's thoughts. This time Jocko came into the room, a man of forty-odd built like a gorilla, with hands like dangling hams. Wade had felt the brutal power of those hands. Often when he had acted up during the past month Jocko had bounced him off the walls as casually, as easily, as he'd swat a handball.
"Doctor would like to see you now, Mr. Evans."
He released Wade from the strait jacket and helped him sit up on the edge of the bed. The jacket had been so tight that Wade's limbs were numb. Needles of pain jabbed his flesh as feeling slowly returned. Jocko helped him into the bathroom and then left him alone, a rare show of trust. Not that there was anything in the bathroom Wade could use to harm himself or anyone else, nothing more dangerous than a bar of soap.
He took a quick shower and accepted the fresh clothes Jocko handed him through the door. He examined his face in the bathroom mirror. He needed a shave but, since he wasn't allowed a razor, Jocko attended to that, and he'd be damned if he'd ask him for any favors.
The face he saw in the mirror was gaunt, the black eyes receded into deep sockets. His face had always been narrow; now it had the honed look of an axe blade! And he had lost at least ten pounds these past thirty days. He wouldn't have believed it possible. His six-foot frame had always been as lean as rawhide. He was twenty-eight and he felt, at the moment, at least a hundred.
He limped slightly as he turned away from the mirror. The broken hip he'd received at the Pendleton rodeo when Keg O' Dynamite had thrown him like a drunk tossing his cookies didn't normally bother him, but long confinement in the straitjacket and the resultant poor circulation made it act up.
Dressed, he swung around the bathroom door and into the sunniness of Jocko's smile. "Are you ready to see the doctor now?" the attendant asked.
Not trusting himself to speak, fearful his vocal chords had rusted from disuse, Wade merely nodded. He trailed Jocko down the hall, which was another sign of new trust; usually they marched down the hall in tandem, Jocko ever alert for possible flight. Jocko opened the door to Dr. Hunter's office, ushered Wade inside, and closed the door. Wade knew the man would take up his vigil outside the door, legs planted like oaks growing out of the floor.
Wade crossed toward the doctor's desk, feet sinking into the inch-deep carpet with every step. Three walls of the large office were lined with books, books both expensive and esoteric. The fourth wall had two big windows providing a sweeping view westward across the verdant acreage of Shady Glen. Only the delicate tracery of bars across the windows hinted at what the building housed.
The doctor's desk was huge, rich walnut with a high gloss. The top held a pen and pencil set, a desk blotter, a desk calendar, an appointment book, and nothing else. All objects were neatly aligned. Dr. Hunter had a mania for neatness and order that made Wade wonder if there wasn't a case history in one of the books of which the doctor was a classic example.
The doctor arose to greet him. "Ah, Mr. Evans! Jocko tells me you're much improved today."
Wade noted with satisfaction the fading discoloration of the black eye he'd given the doctor a week ago. He said, "If you mean I'm not raving, frothing at the mouth today ... yes, I'm much improved."
The doctor winced visibly. "Please, Mr. Evans! We dislike those terms exceedingly."
Dr. Hunter was, in Wade's limited experience with psychiatrists, a great mincer of words. He had never told Wade to his face that he was crazy; his strongest term had been mentally disturbed. Wade said, "Let's just say I'm not so ... disturbed, then."
Dr. Hunter bounced happily. "Good, good! You do know you're Bart Evans?"
"Yes, I know now that I'm Bart Evans," Wade lied.
"Better and better!" He motioned Wade to the leather chair before the desk, bounced once more and plopped down into his own chair. "And what else do we remember?"
"Not much else, I'm afraid, beyond my first days here."
"That's to be expected, Mr. Evans. The mind often blots out the memory of unpleasantness."
What unpleasantness would the real Bart Evans wish to blot from his memory? It was a question he wanted desperately to ask, but he decided not to push his luck.
Dr. Hunter was saying, "...form of temporary amnesia. It will correct itself in good time, I'm confident. But the important fact is that you recognize your true identity. Equally important, that you admit to that identity. If improvement along other lines is as marked, I can promise you may go home soon to your sweet wife, Janis." His smile stretched. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, Mr. Evans?"
Wade wondered suddenly if the good doctor was banging the blonde Janis. Was that the reason he'd been committed here? But that didn't make any kind of sense! That would mean he really was Bart Evans. And if that were true, the doctor wouldn't be promising to send him home.
Home? Where was home? The last place he remembered thinking of as home was a small apartment just off Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. All his things were there ... had been there. Or was it all the imagine of a sick mind ?
As had been the case so often these past weeks, his mind boggled at all the questions, his thoughts fragmenting and going off in several different directions.
For the rest of his time with the doctor, Wade remained sunk in a sort of self-protective apathy, having to force himself to make the responses he thought the doctor wanted to his questions. Apparently he managed a passing grade because Dr. Hunter was still smiling when he handed Wade over to Jocko. Wade's last glimpse showed the doctor bouncing merrily on his built-up heels, chubby hands laced together behind his back.
Jocko locked the door to Wade's room but he took the straitjacket with him, remarking, "If things keep on this way, we won't be needing this anymore."
It was only midafternoon and dinner would be served shortly, but Wade stretched out on the bed fully clothed and drifted slowly toward sleep. He hadn't slept without being drugged since the morning he'd awakened here. Now he felt that he could. His mind was still plagued with questions but he knew he would never find the answers at Shady Glen. He didn't know what awaited him outside, what answers he might find that he didn't like, but at least he'd have some freedom, certainly more freedom, than he had in here.
For the next two weeks, he was a model patient. He endured the doctor's almost daily inquisition stoically, learned to anticipate the questions, and managed to fabricate satisfactory answers. Now that he was no longer under restraints or existing in a drug-daze, he ate and slept well and gained back the pounds he'd lost. At the end of the two weeks he still had those moments when doubts of his sanity rode his back like a gibbering monkey, but at least his body was healthy again.
One thing did bother him, but he said nothing about it. Most of his time at Shady Glen he'd been hustled back and forth in a robe and slippers, seldom having the occasion to dress. Now that he had more freedom, he was allowed to get dressed every day. The clothes were new sports clothes, rather gaudy for his taste, and fit him perfectly. But no jeans, no cowboy boots. It was the first time in many years he'd worn anything on his small feet but high-heeled boots. Yet he knew better than to ask them for cowboy boots and jeans; those items of clothing belonged to Wade Carson and, for now at least, he was Bart Evans.
A the end of those two weeks, a warm Sunday afternoon, he left Shady Glen, riding in a sky-blue Volkswagen with Janis Evans driving. Dr. Hunter and Jocko Rently smiled widely, as pleased as proud parents, as he departed with Janis.
As the Volkswagen chugged under the archway, he twisted around for a last look at Shady Glen. From this viewpoint it looked like a huge, sprawling inn, Gothic style, a summering place for the wealthy; there were no outward indications of the horrors within.
"So long, Dr. Hunter. God help your mentally disturbed," he muttered. "And good-bye to you, too, Jocko, you smiling, sadistic bastard!"
As he faced around again, Janis slanted sea-green eyes at him and said in her throaty voice, "Poor baby. Was it awful for you?"
"As they say, it was no damned picnic."
"It'll be all better now. You'll see. I've missed you, darling. Do you realize we've never been apart this long since we got married? Not even with you traveling so much. We have a lot of catching up to do."
Again he had that weird feeling of disorientation. Here was this dish-and she was a dish, with honey-blonde hair cropped short, creamy complexion, and pouting rosebud mouth, large firm breasts saucily punching a tight green sweater, lovely long legs exposed by her fucked tweed skirt, about twenty-four, the juices of full womanhood flowing hot in her marvelous body. Here she was pretending to be his wife, hinting at erotic delights to come, and he could find no flicker of response within himself. Or was she pretending?
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, aware of the warmth of her hand on his thigh until she turned onto the freeway and needed both hands for driving. Wade let his thoughts spiral back once more, remembering what he could of those events leading up to the morning when he awoke in a straitjacket, a guest at Shady Glen....
CHAPTER TWO
Wade Carson came out of the west, wearing cowboy boots and faded jeans riding low on narrow hips. Twenty-eight, he had spent his life since the age of twelve batting about from ranch to ranch, from the Mexican border to Canada. An only child, his parents had been killed in a train wreck, and Wade had worked for his keep after that, first on small ranches doing whatever chores he could handle. As he became more skilled around cattle and horses, he worked up to the larger spreads and became a top hand.
He had a way with horses and started following the rodeo circuit. He managed to win enough prize money to keep him at it, yet he wasn't good enough for the leap into big money. Then his hip was broken at Pendleton. In the hospital he took a long, hard look at himself and wasn't particularly enchanted with what he saw.
A few years and he would be walking on his heels, crippled and no longer able to top a bucking bronc. He wouldn't have earned enough money to buy a spread of his own-a rodeo performer's dream-and he could see himself hanging around the fringes, a rodeo ass making a buck when and how he could, drinking too much and yarning about past glories that had never been.
In knocking around he had picked up what schooling he could and was reasonably welleducated. He was also well-read, using the long winters snowbound in line shacks for that purpose. But none of this qualified him toward earning a decent living in another profession.
He decided on Hollywood. He knew of many rodeo performers who had become stunt men in TV westerns and movies. Why couldn't he do it? He knew he was unsophisticated in city ways, but he was in good health and reasonably intelligent, so why couldn't he adapt? He had saved a few dollars out of recent rodeo purses, enough to keep him eating a few months until he learned the ropes.
In Hollywood he found that cowboys were in somewhat the same situation as the beauty contest winners who flocked there by the large numbers. There were hundreds, thousands-or so it seemed to Wade-of cowboys, authentic and fake, who had come to Hollywood with the thought of doing stunt work in westerns. The word was "in." To get work you had to have an in, had to know somebody. Wade didn't know a soul. He had never felt so lonely in his life. In a city of millions, he felt lonelier than he had when riding the high country, the nearest store fifty miles away.
Grimly, he stuck it out. It had to get better; it didn't seem possible it could get any worse. He rented a small bachelor apartment and daily made the rounds of the studios and the casting agencies. like others before him, the trade papers became his Bible. He read them word for word. At the hint of anything hopeful he joined the lemming rush and ended the day dejected and rejected. There were jobs to be had: Gas station jockey, cab driver, et cetera. But he'd be damned if he'd settle for something so mundane, not so long as he had a few dollars left. His encounters with women mostly involved tramps, bar pickups. He didn't have the money to spend on women. He did have one experience during his first week in Hollywood that spooked him, leaving him with the thought that if all Hollywood women were like that....
Lonely, discouraged, he went into a bar late one night. The place was almost empty, a few couples in the booths, a lone woman at the bar. Wade took a stool well down the bar from her and ordered a beer. He'd taken but a sip of the beer when she slid onto the stool beside him, her thigh warm against his.
"Buy me a drink, cowboy?" Her voice was low, raspy.
He glanced around at her. Her hair was a bright red, her face chalk white, a touch of red on each cheek like fever spots.
"Why ... I guess so," he said reluctantly. He had only five dollars. If he spent that, he'd go hungry tomorrow.
He didn't spend all the five. When her drink came, the redhead took half of it in one thirsty gulp. Then her hand stole into his lap. Before he realized it, her hand Was inside his trousers.
"What are you doing?" he demanded with a gasp.
She laughed coarsely. "What does it feel like?"
Wade shot a look around the lounge. Nobody seemed to be watching them. She didn't let up her caress for an instant. Even when he ordered another drink, she picked it up in her left hand.
"I can't take much more of this!" She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Who said you had to."
"Where can we go?"
"Are you ready to go?" Her hand moved. She smiled lewdly. "You are ready, aren't you?" She drained her drink with a toss of her head. "Come along, cowboy."
She slipped off the stool with a flash of silken limbs. Wade followed her toward the back of the bar, weaving slightly. The drinks hadn't affected him; he was lust-drunk. She led him down a narrow passageway and outside into a darkened alley. Once outside, the door closed, she caught his hand and backed up against the wall.
"Here?"
"Here. What better place? See?"
She released his hand briefly, hiked her skirt, then seized his hand again and placed it on her. She had nothing on under the skirt. His hand encountered her female brush. He jerked his hand back with indrawn breath, then put it back again, cupping her. She cried out softly, sagging against him. She fumbled with his zipper, releasing him. He grunted sharply and surged toward her. She caught his maleness and guided him into her.
Wade rammed himself into her with brutal force. She uttered a shrill cry and went wild, clawing and beating at him, her cries like those of a female cat mounted by a torn. Mindless with lust, Wade lunged to her again and again until his passion broke. He shuddered, moaning, and pinned her to the wall. She squirmed against him, her fingers like claws in his back. Then she went limp and sagged. He caught her, holding her upright for just a moment, but the strength was running out of his own limbs rapidly. He loosed his hold on her.
When his sanity returned, she was gone, and he hadn't even learned her name.
His last few dollars were almost gone when he finally got a chance for a week's work as an extra. It wasn't a western but a big-budget comedy-chase picture. Two thousand extras were needed, a number far above normal. To fill the quota the union relaxed the usual restrictions and allowed the producer to hire a number of 'nonunion extras and at a reduced wage scale.
Wade was told to report at the studio at seven-thirty in the morning. He was there, lost in a milling swarm. He had to line up to receive a salary voucher to be turned in at the end of the day. It took him an hour to work up to the head of the line, pick up his voucher, and board the bus that was to take them the two miles from the front gate back to where the movie was being filmed.
He almost gave up and dropped out of the line. He felt smothered and found it hard to breathe; he had never been caught up in such a crush of humanity. In fact, he had never seen so many people together at any one time. At the rodeos there had been crowds, of course, but they had been a group of roaring faces in the stands, nothing so close and so personal.
He gritted his teeth and endured, moving forward inch by inch. Once on the lot, the voucher stuffed in his pocket and forgotten, he was glad he had made it inside.
It was his first time on a studio lot and he found it fascinating. The crowd of extras swarmed like ants, yet he had a certain freedom of movement. Due to the unusual number of people present, the other sets on the enormous lot were off limits, guards posted around the area, roughly a half-mile square, where the movie was being shot. Even so, access was allowed to a number of sets. In the center was a large park with streets on four sides, all lined with business buildings. It was supposed to represent a small town square of fifty years ago, complete with an ice cream parlor with wrought-iron tables and chairs, a fire station with a horse-drawn wagon, a police station with broad steps, et cetera. The park was the holding area for the two thousand extras when the cameras weren't rolling.
Wade wandered behind the false-fronted buildings, amazed at how realistic they looked from the front with nothing behind but scaffolding and catwalks for the cameras. He prowled alone, ducking out of sight when he saw a guard or another explorer. It was easy to hide. He thought about how it would be at night with all the people gone. From the front, the buildings gave the appearance of being occupied, needing only the opening of a door to step back in time and be greeted by a smiling shopkeeper of another age. But behind those doors, the ones that would open, it was shadowed and skeletal. He sensed it would be eerie back there at night, inhabited by the ghosts of those acting in past movies made there.
Some of those exploring clambered up ladders and scrambled across narrow catwalks two, three, four stories high, until shouted down by the guards. Wade didn't climb. He'd always had a dread of heights. Anything higher than a barn loft gave him vertigo.
At lunch his loneliness was eased somewhat. Lunch was provided free by the studio. At noon the extras gathered in the park, lining up before catering trucks doling out the lunches.
Wade received his, opened it to peek inside. A cold beef sandwich, a thimble-sized paper cup of cole slaw, a hard boiled egg, a slab of apple pie. He moved down the line to a table, where huge coffee urns steamed, and received a paper cup of coffee. He turned away with the cup in one hand, lunch box in the other, and looked about for a place to eat. All the benches were filled, the grassy areas as well. Up the street, he saw the steps of the police station; there was room left to sit. He started that way.
He forgot about the curb. He banged his toe against it, lurched to one side, received a bump from behind and the box slipped out of his grasp, sandwich, egg, and pie making a splat-tery, unsavory mess in the street.
A hoarse voice said, "Doesn't look very tasty down there, does it?"
Wade glanced around. Standing a few feet away was a tall, slat-thin man with rust-colored hair and melancholy blue eyes. He was dressed in an ill-fitting blue suit. There was about him the shy, gangling charm of a James Stewart. There was also about him a faint medicinal odor that Wade couldn't identify.
Now his shy smile came, like a grimace in a clown's doleful mask. "Hello. I'm Russell Sylvester."
"Wade Carson," Wade said automatically.
Sylvester's gaze moved over Wade from head to toe. "Cowboy? Range or drugstore?"
Unconsciously, Wade bristled. "I've punched a cow or two."
"And here bucking for a stunt-riding berth. Right? Been in town long?"
"Only a few weeks."
Sylvester nodded thoughtfully. He held out his unopened lunch box. "Here, Wade. Have mine."
Wade back a step. "Oh ... I couldn't do that!"
"Of course you can. I only took mine because
I had it coming to me. I never eat lunch. Ulcers." He gestured vaguely toward his stomach, then held up his other hand holding a carton of milk. "This is my lunch."
Wade remembered, suddenly, that in an effort to save money he'd only had a doughnut and coffee for breakfast and was now starving. He took the extended box and ducked his head in thanks.
"So where'll we eat?"
Wade jerked his head toward the station steps.
"Excellent! Let's go."
Sylvester walked with the jerky-knead stride of an animated skeleton. Halfway across the street, he took an inhaler from his pocket, poked the snout into each nostril and sniffed twice loudly. That probably accounted for the medicinal odor. "Damn sinuses," Sylvester said in explanation. "This smog is hell on them. I should move out to your country. Where? Arizona? Colorado?"
"Almost anywhere there's a cow, from the Mexican border to Canada. I've been on the rodeo circuit the last three years."
Sylvester's gaze sharpened. "Big money?"
Wade shook his head. "I wasn't good enough. Only picked up a piddling prize now and then; third place, second place a time or two."
Sylvester nodded and seemed to lose interest. They sat on the top step, leaning back against the plasterboard front of the building which had been constructed to resemble stucco. Sylvester cocked an amused glance at the large letters over the door spelling out "Police Station." He said, "First time I ever ate lunch on the steps to a police station."
His voice held an undertone of irony but Wade took only casual notice. He was already eating. The food was good for a prepackaged lunch. Sylvester leaned his head back and sipped slowly at his milk with his eyes closed. When Wade was finished with the lunch, he took out a pack of cigarettes, but one in his mouth, and offered the pack to Sylvester.
The man shook his head. "Never use them. Cancer." At Wade's look, he chuckled. "Oh, I have my vices, never fear. Women, for example."
Wade grinned. "There's a health danger there, too, I understand."
"Been lucky, I guess." Sylvester rapped his knuckles against the wooden door. Then he laughed fully. "What the hell! Nobody lives forever."
Sylvester was easy to talk to. Wade found himself talking as he hadn't for a long time. He told the man about the loss of his parents, about the many jobs, about the rodeo circuit and his gradual disillusionment with it, and finally about his reasons for coming to Hollywood. Sylvester listened closely, interjecting a question now and again.
Once they were interrupted by a voice over the loudspeakers, summoning the extras to the outdoor set where the movie was being shot.
Sylvester gestured. "Don't pay any attention to that. I'll be surprised if they shoot a foot of film today. This is a business for kooks. They'll fiddle around for hours over camera setups."
Wade noticed that only about half of the extras were obeying the call. The rest stayed in the park. Some dozed on the grass; others played cards, read paperbacks, or just talked.
And Sylvester was right. Not a camera rolled during the day. At three-thirty they were given the word to board the buses parked alongside the park. Huge boxes were placed at intervals along the street for the vouchers. People fought and scrambled to get to the boxes and deposit their vouchers, then board the buses.
Wade had already filled out his voucher with name, address, and Social Security number. He looked with dismay at the crush of humanity around the boxes.
Sylvester chuckled. "Here, let me take care of it. I'm an old hand at this game. And you stay right here. I'll be back and show you how to get on a bus without being trampled to death."
Sylvester took Wade's voucher and disappeared into the crowd. He was back within a very short time and managed, by some minor miracle, to maneuver them onto one of the buses to the accompaniment of a barrage of invective from those not so fortunate.
As they left the bus at the parking lot before the studio gates, Sylvester said, "You have a car?"
"No."
"Neither do I. How about let's take a bus into Hollywood and have dinner together?"
Sylvester knew his way around Hollywood very well. He took Wade to a tiny Italian restaurant off Hollywood Boulevard where they drank red wine as powerful as a mule's kick and ate delicious Italian food. Sylvester's concern for his health apparently didn't extend to alcohol; he matched Wade glass for glass of dago red. Wade wondered, but didn't ask, just how the man's ulcers stood up under the rich, spicy Italian food.
The ate and drank and Wade continued the story of his life. They left the restaurant stuffed with food and awash with wine, stopped at a small bar for two nightcaps apiece, then wended their way to Wade's apartment, Wade talking all the while. In his wanderings, Wade had never remained in one place long enough to form lasting friendships. Now he felt toward Sylvester as though he'd known the man all his life. But he was talking too much. He said so.
"You hear me complaining, Wade? I'm a good listener." Sylvester smiled sincerely.
At the apartment Wade insisted Sylvester occupy the narrow, pull-down bed while he slept on the couch.
The cameras rolled the next day. In the middle of the afternoon, all the extras were gathered in the street before what was supposed to be a bank building, its false front rising three floors. A chase between four policemen and two bank robbers was to take place on the rickety fire escape down the front of the building, the director explained to the waiting extras. They were instructed to stand grouped together, heads tilted back, looking up and pointing. They were to scream every time one of the six men on the fire escape seemed about to fall. The men were stunt men doubling for the stars of the picture.
Wade and Sylvester stood on the rear fringe of the crowd. As one section of the fire escape broke loose and swung back and forth like a pendulum across the front of the building, Sylvester said, "How'd you like to try a stunt like that, Wade? It pays a hell of a lot better than falling off a horse."
"That's not for me," Wade said emphatically. "I get spooked when I get two feet off the ground. I'd freeze up there."
For some time Wade had been observing, covertly, a woman who stood nearby. She seemed to be alone. She wasn't the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, but she was handsome. Or perhaps striking was the word he wanted. She was tall, with jet-black hair tied back in a bun that gave her a curiously old-fashioned look.
Her complexion was the color of rich cream, seemingly untouched by sun. Her mouth, with the new fashionable pale lipstick, was rather large. Too large, which probably kept her from being unusually beautiful. From where he stood Wade couldn't see the color of her eyes. There was something hauntingly familiar about her face, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
She was in dark slacks and a white sweater that was rather loose, showing the shape of her breasts only when she moved. Yet there was no doubt about her figure. It was rich, full, exciting.
It was difficult to guess her age. He had never been very good at guessing a woman's age, anyway. He judged her to be around thirty-five, give or take a year or two.
A collective indrawn breath from the crowd made Wade realize that his full attention had been on the woman for some time. He looked around and saw that the section of fire escape was swinging wildly, seemed in imminent danger of breaking loose any second. His glance jumped back to the woman. She was swaying slightly as though buffeted by a high wind. She started to fall. Wade took two quick steps and caught her before she crumpled to the ground. Her face turned up to him and he saw that her eyes were gray. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp. There was an empty bench close by. Wade got her to it and stretched her out full length.
He wondered frantically what he should do. He chafed her hands between his; he'd read somewhere that was one thing to do when a person fainted. Apparently it was false information ; it did nothing to revive her. He looked around. Sylvester was watching the activity on the fire escape. Wade opened his mouth to call to him.
"No, please! Don't call anyone." Her voice was low, raspy. One hand closed convulsively on his. "I'm all right. Really I am."
Wade glanced down at her. The gray eyes were open now. He saw tiny, twin images of himself reflected in them.
She smiled warmly. "I'm sorry: It was silly of me, fainting like that. But I'm deathly afraid of heights and watching those men up there...."
"I'm the same way. I get dizzy on a step-ladder."
"You do? That's nice."
Nice? That struck him as an odd comment. He looked at her more closely. Her eyes fluttered closed again. There was a vague, offbeat quality about her, as though she existed in a dream-like state. Before he could ponder it further, she sat up suddenly, without letting go his hand.
"I think I'd better go now." Her eyes opened. "Will you be here tomorrow, hey?"
"Well ... sure," he said, startled. "But should you...? "
"Yes, I'm fine now. But I'd better go. You're nice. I like you," she murmured. Astonishingly, she winked at him. "You be here tomorrow, same place, but before noon, say about ten, and I'll thank you properly."
She squeezed his hand, stood up and started off. Wade, still on his knees, twisted around to stare after her. He saw Sylvester watching now, frowning slightly. The woman was swallowed up by the crowd almost at once. Bemused, Wade got to his feet, dusted at his knees and crossed over to Sylvester. She wouldn't show up, of course, yet he knew instinctively that he would be looking forward to it.
Sylvester said, "And what was that all about?"
Wade told him, briefly, what it had been all about.
At the end of it, Sylvester gestured sharply. "You'd better stay away from her, boy. From the way she's acting, I'd say she's turned on."
"Turned on?"
"Full of dope, probably marijuana. Maybe even heroin. Whatever it is, she could be dynamite."
Wade shrugged. "I think you're wrong, Russell. Anyway, it's the first time a good-looking woman like that ever made...." He grinned. "Well, a pass, I guess you'd call it. So I'm not about to miss the chance. If she doesn't show up ... well, what the hell!"
"You're a fool, you know that?" Sylvester said violently. "A cowpoke down out of the hills who should never have climbed down off his horse! The first woman who swishes her tail at you, you're off and running, like a dog after a bitch in heat!"
Wade blinked. Sylvester's outrage seemed all out of proportion. A man he'd known one day and he was telling him what to do. His own temper surfaced. "I don't see any reason for you to get all riled up just because I...."
But he was talking to himself. Sylvester was striding away. Wade took two steps after him and stopped. He'd be damned if he'd ask any favors of him! He remembered that he'd given Sylvester his voucher that morning. He hoped the man wouldn't forget to drop it into a box. Well, if he didn't, to hell with that, too. The money they were paying for extra work wouldn't make or break him. But he was sorry they'd quarreled, if it could be called that. Sylvester was the only friend he'd gathered unto him in Hollywood. Maybe the woman would make up for the loss. If she showed up.
She showed up. But Sylvester didn't. At least Wade didn't see him. Of course, he could be there; it wouldn't be hard to get lost in the crowd. But he knew where Wade would be, so let him do the searching out. And Wade couldn't find it in him to be too perturbed. His anticipation of his second meeting with the dark-haired woman outweighed any concern over Sylvester's absence.
They were finishing with the shooting of the fire escape sequence and Wade's attention, despite his mounting anxiety, was momentarily on the fire escape when the raspy voice said in his ear, "I'll bet you didn't think I'd be here, hey?"
He glanced around with a start, feeling his mouth already beginning to stretch in a foolish grin. "Why, I ... I...."
"Never mind, sweetie. The thing is, I'm here." She tucked her arm in his and he was instantly aware of the warm fullness of her thigh against his. "I had to come and thank you for being so gallant yesterday. That's why I like you strong, silent cowboys. Just like Coop."
"Coop?"
"Gary Cooper."
"Oh." He recognized it as blatant flattery, but it sent a pulse of warmth through him nonetheless.
"What is your name, sweetie?"
"Wade Carson."
"Hi, Wade. I'm..." she hesitated for just an instant, then tossed her head, "Claire Duncan."
There was something about the way she said it that suggested the name should be familiar to him. He searched his memory but the name didn't ring a bell.
As one of the stunt men dangled from a section of the fire escape by his fingers, she shuddered and turned her face away. In a small voice she said, "Do we have to stay here? I'll bet you haven't seen all the sets, hey?"
"No, I'd like to, but the guards...."
"Pooh on the guards! I know how to get around them. I've been here before. Not for a long time...." A shadow moved across her face, then she smiled brilliantly and tugged at his arm. "Come on, we'll have fun! And don't worry about missing lunch. I've packed enough for both of us." She swung the huge straw bag on her other arm.
And they were off. She led him through a labyrinth of shadowed warehouses filled with stacked scenery, through one after another, until they were out of danger of being seen. Then Claire took him on a tour of the empty sets. She knew them intimately, but Wade was too intrigued by what he saw to wonder how she came about the knowledge. They roamed through a South Sea island village, an opulent
Roman villa, a southern plantation of Civil War vintage, a weird jumble of simulated glass and steel which Claire said was supposed to be a city of the future and had been used in a science-fiction movie. And, finally, a town of the old west.
In the western town was a saloon, an authentic frontier saloon, at least as authentic as the many Wade had seen on television and in the movies. Batwing doors led into it. There was a long bar with a foot rail, a back bar with bottles all empty but painted to them nearly full, a long mirror behind the back bar. Scattered about on the floor were round tables and straight-back chairs. Cuspidors dotted the floor like copper mushrooms. To the right was a staircase leading to the "rooms" upstairs. Only when Wade looked up was the illusion shattered. There was no ceiling, only catwalks climbing to dizzy heights, and arc lights like Cyclopean eyes. After the one glance, he didn't look up again.
There was a thick film of dust over everything. Wade dusted off a table and two chairs, and Claire's huge bag disgorged tuna fish sandwiches, two thick slices of pineapple upside-down cake, and a thermos of martinis, chilled and delicious.
Claire watched him with solemn gray eyes. "Didn't I tell you my lunch would be better than anything from the wagon, hey?"
"You told me. And it is." He toasted her with a paper cup filled with gin and vermouth.
She was in a pink sweater and a light blue skirt today. The sweater was as voluminous as yesterday's, but somehow she appeared more voluptuous than if her clothes had fitted her like a glove. Her hair was down today, a dark cloud almost to her shoulders. Wade felt desire flow thick and hot through him.
Claire was very gay, with none of the vague melancholy of yesterday. "You're enjoying all this, aren't you?" She swept an arm around.
"Iam, indeed!"
"I'm glad, sweetie." Her delight in his enthusiasm was child-like.
It was apparent to Wade that this was all old stuff to her but he didn't dare question her too closely for fear it would break the spell. And it was a spell. He was enchanted with her, half in love with her. Certainly he had never felt this way toward another woman.
Claire had the larger share of the martinis. She didn't get smashed, but she continued in the vivacious mood, refused to entertain a serious moment. Before he had finished eating, she leaped to her feet, clapping her hands together. "I'll bet you didn't know I was an artist, did you, sweetie?"
"No, I didn't," he said with a smile.
"You don't believe me, I can tell. Wait ... I'll show you." She rummaged through the big bag and took out a pink lipstick and a wad of tissue. Then she hurried around behind the bar and wiped the dust from a wide area of the mirror. With quick, darting glances back over her shoulder at him, she began sketching on the mirror with the lipstick.
Curiosity drew Wade toward her. When he was halfway to the bar, she stopped him with a palms-up traffic cop's gesture. "No, please, don't come any nearer, sweetie! Stay right there, hey, and make like you're posing. Okay?"
He halted, pulled up a table and settled a haunch on it, crossing booted foot. "Like this?"
She angled a glance at him. "That's fine. Just fine."
She sketched in broad sweeping strokes, her hand sometimes blurring with speed. It went on for a half hour, an hour, and Wade became uncomfortable, yet he didn't move a muscle.
Finally it was finished. She stood back. "Come look, sweetie."
He moved around the bar for a close look. It was a caricature, of course, depicting him as a Western badman complete with ten-gallon hat, drooping moustache, a cruel sneer, and two blazing sixguns. And yet she had caught the essence of Wade Carson. It was there under the fun-poking, vague and smokily outlined but there. He knew nothing about painting, but he recognized that she had a strong artistic talent.
"That's good," he said in astonishment. "Damned good."
"Thank you, kind sir," she said with a mock curtsy.
He glanced at his wristwatch with a start. "We had a late lunch, you know that? And all that exploring ... if we don't hurry, we'll miss the last bus."
They hurried back to the bus area, holding hands like small children. They didn't make it back in time, but Claire had a car, a flame-red Mustang, and she drove them back into Hollywood. She was a skillful driver but fast, cutting in and out of the freeway traffic with reckless abandon. She scuttled over Cahuenga Pass and into Hollywood like a low-flying bird.
Wade took her to dinner at an exclusive restaurant, Claire's choice. This was turning into an expensive day, he thought ruefully, but it was a worry he shrugged off easily. Whatever it cost him, it was going to be worth it. He knew, without it once being mentioned, that he was going to make love to Claire before the evening was over. Unless she was making a complete fool of him, and he couldn't see any reason for her going to the lengths she had if that was her purpose.
The luncheon martinis, the before-and-after drinks took their toll; he wasn't accustomed to so much alcohol consumption. Afterward, he was a little vague about the ride to her apartment. And once there she took him by the hand and led him directly to the bedroom without switching on any lights.
Just inside the door she turned into his arms, coming on hungry and strong, her lips hot and seeking. She groaned and drove her tongue into his mouth like a wedge. He could feel the shape of her breasts against his chest and he was certain she wasn't wearing a bra when he felt the nipples stirring. He let his hand drift down her back to rest on the out-curve of her buttocks.
Claire ripped her mouth away with the sound of wet paper tearing. "You make me so hot, sweetie. So hot!" She arched in against him. She chuckled, her head falling back. There was a night light at the bed, throwing enough light to show her wicked grin. "You too, hey? Oh, yes!" Her pelvis moved against him with a lewdness that took his breath away.
She pulled back out of his arms and started toward the bed. Walking, she removed first one shoe, then the other, leaving them where they fell. The outer edges of the room were in shadow. He could see the bed. And that was enough. A queen-size item, it dominated the room. There was a pink bedspread across it and in the middle of that a huge pink something that looked, to Wade, like some sort of an enormous doll. Or an Easter bunny.
At the bed, Claire knocked the bunny-or whatever it was-to the floor with a sweep of her arm. "Not tonight, Bugsy. You don't sleep with me tonight."
She stripped the bedspread away and faced him, both hands beckoning to him. "Come here, sweetie. Undress me. Kiss me. Love me. Do everything! Hurry! God, do hurry!"
He went to her quickly and undressed her with fingers suddenly thick as sausages. She didn't help him in the least. She stood with her hands dangling limply, her eyes closed, head tilted back. She seemed dazed or in a hypnotic trance.
His hunch had been correct. She wasn't wearing a bra. Her breasts were firm, uptilted, the nipples a dark rose. Her skin was incredibly white, marbled with delicate blue veins.
Under her skirt she wore a black garter belt and black panties. Wade's breathing had a raspy, laboring sound as he removed the final two garments. Finally she stood before him without a stitch. His gaze roamed over the rounding belly, across the curling blackness of pubic hair, and down the long slender sweep of leg. He glanced up and saw that her eyes were open now, watching him. They had a bright, hot glitter. He took a step toward her and his knuckles brushed, inadvertently, across her taut abdomen. It was then he realized that she had been holding herself under iron control.
She came at him in a frenzy, her mouth working. "God, sweetie! Dear God!" Her fingers were talons fastening in his back, her mouth a steaming, honeyed cave.
Her hips ground against him. When she took her mouth away her breath came in a warm expulsion, sweet as nectar. With growing need, his hands roved over her. Her breasts were warm to his fingertips. Glowing nipples rose under his hands. It seemed to Wade that her breasts were like explosives; touch the nipples in a certain way and they would go off. The imagine dizzied him. He closed his eyes as a shudder passed over him. When he opened them, she was on the bed, one leg drawn up in the classic invitation. And somehow, almost without his knowledge, his clothes were gone, flung aside like so much confetti, and they were together on the huge bed.
Despite the urgency of his desire, he was tender with her. He cradled her in his arms while he filled his mouth with her nipples, first one, then the other. They were like moist, heated pebbles as he drew the flat of his tongue back and forth across them. Under his caresses, she lay with her head thrown back, the tendons in her neck standing out. Her eyes were wide but somehow sightless, her lips pulled back over her teeth. He searched for the touch buds of her passion with his fingers and lips. His hand opened, fan-fingered, on her thigh, moved and then moved again.
A strangled moan escaped her and veins pulsed in her straining throat. Her breasts rolled unevenly. Finally, as his nerve centers raged with desire, she drew him over her. "Please, sweetie. Do it!"
Wade positioned himself, hesitated briefly, then surged quickly, taking her.
Her eyes flared as though in surprise. "Hey!" Then her face clenched tight as her ecstasy began. She searched for him with her loins as his hands cradled her hips. She was strong and demanding. She was artful and violent. Her mouth next to his ear, she screamed obscenities. Her nails ripped and tore at his back and he savored the pain. Pleasure stained her cheeks and an expression of the sweetest purity blossomed on her face. Her rhythm quickened. Then her body shuddered violently, and her beatific cries contracted to guttural whimpers.
Release came to Wade with stunning suddenness. Spasms of ecstasy ripped and tore at him. For a long moment he was mindless; his was pure sensation. Nothing existed for him but the bursting of his passion.
He was dimly aware of collapsing on her and of rolling off and onto his back. He lay fighting for breath. It seemed a long time before full awareness finally seeped back, then he realized that Claire had left him. He heard her in an adjoining room which he assumed was the bathroom. He pulled the sheet up over himself and lay with an arm thrown across his eyes. In a little while he heard the whisper of her bare feet on the rug. He took his arm down. She was still naked. She was smoking a cigarette, the smoke spiraling up lazily. She stopped when her knees touched the bed. The cigarette had an unfamiliar, acrid odor.
"Have one, sweetie?"
He stared with awakening suspicion at another cigarette she held out to him. It was brown in color and looked to be hand rolled, not machinemade.
Wade took it gingerly. "Is this...? "
She said amusedly, "Right, sweetie. It's pot. Light up and have a ball, hey?"
Marijuana? So Sylvester had been right about that at least; she'd been doped up yesterday. Wade experienced a surge of disillusionment. But he took the reefer, without looking at her, and lit it. He didn't want to appear unsophisticated in her eyes.
Claire had smoked hers down until it was too short to hold; now she leaned down, breasts bobbing, and ground it out in the ashtray on the nightstand. Then she got on the bed beside him. She lay on her side turned away from him, knees drawn up slightly.
Wade smoked the cigarette cautiously. It had a strange taste and the smoke pouring into his lungs was strong. But it seemed to have no immediate effect on him. After a few more pulls, he felt some dizziness, a slight exhilaration, and by the time he crushed it out, he felt drowsy, his eyelids very heavy. Claire was already asleep. He chuckled. Smoking a marijuana cigarette was certainly no prelude to an orgy, as he'd been led to believe. He stretched out on his back and tumbled into a deep well of sleep.
When he awoke, Claire was gone. He held his watch up to the light and blinked at it. He had slept for more than four hours. He sat up. "Claire?"
There was no answer. The apartment was silent as a tomb, but he saw a glow of light from the living room. She must have gone out there for another reefer, or a drink, and had fallen asleep. Wade got out of bed and dressed quickly. His head throbbed and there was a foul taste in his mouth.
He moved stumblingly down the hall and into the living room. The room blazed with light. It was tastefully furnished, with a deep white rug, modernistic furniture that reminded Wade of mammoth, squatting insects, a small bar, a picture window with the drapes drawn. In the corner by the window was a white piano. On the piano and on the walls were many framed pictures; pictures of a smiling Claire alone, pictures of her posing with people Wade dazedly recognized as movie stars. He started around the couch and stopped short. Claire, still as naked as when he'd last seen her on the bed beside him, lay on the rug on her back in a wanton sprawl. In the crook of one arm, cuddled in a lover's embrace, was the pink bunny she'd knocked off the bed.
"Claire?" he said uncertainly. He started toward her. She must have really belted the booze to have passed out like that. He dropped to one knee beside her. It was then he saw that her eyes were open, staring emptily. A chill sped down his spine. He touched her cheek with his finger. The touch was just enough to cause her head to roll the other way, and he saw that the back of it was crushed like an egg shell. The black hair was matted with blood, the white carpet stained scarlet with it. Then he saw something else. A few feet away lay a piece of sculpture, a female head that vaguely resembled Claire. The heavy pedestal was also stained with blood.
His stomach heaved and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. He closed his eyes and fought back waves of nausea. Abruptly the full import of his situation struck home to him. Alarm tingled along his nerve ends like electric shocks. He had to get the hell out of there!
Then the front door flew open with enough force to bang it back against the wall, and he knew it was too late. He came to his feet as a small, dapper man in a blue Italian silk suit came toward him with mincing steps. His face was small, the triangular shape of a fox; his eyes were like black buttons, hard and knowing. Wade, his thought-stream frozen, stood as though his shoes were nailed to the floor as the man detoured around the couch. At the sight of Claire's body, he stopped short, his thin lips pursing in a soundless whistle. A small gun, in keeping with his size, appeared magically in his right hand, the snout aimed at the general vicinity of Wade's heart.
"Well, now, I got a phone call about a murder here," he said in a mild voice. "And for once the information is correct." With his left hand he took a card case from his pocket, flipped it open, passed it once before Wade's face, then returned it to his pocket. "Lieutenant Brewer, Homicide. Why'd you kill her, friend?"
"Kill her? I didn't kill her."
"Of course you didn't, friend. They never do. You just dropped in to hold hands with the corpse. I'll say this for you ... you picked a good one. The newspapers'll love this one."
"The newspapers?"
"They like nothing better than the juicy murder of a once-famous movie star."
Wade's glance flickered around the room at all the framed pictures of Claire posing with movie personalities. And, finally, he knew. Ten years ago Claire Duncan had been big, in the top ten of box office stardom year after year. Then something had happened to her; she had dropped out of sight. She still appeared regularly in the late, late movies on television.
He blurted, "I didn't know who she was!"
"Oh, come now, friend," the man said amusedly. Then he shrugged narrow shoulders. "Not that it matters a damn. You can tell us all about it down at the station."
The knowledge that Claire had been the Claire Duncan was, incongruously, the last straw. Panic hit him and he bolted, running straight at Lieutenant Brewer. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, perhaps the sheer foolhardiness of it-whatever the reason, he took the man completely by surprise, bowling him over, sending him tumbling aside, the gun flying out of his hand.
Wade ran on, racing at top speed through the open door, down the stairs and out into the street. It was very late; the streets were deserted. Within a few blocks, he was on Hollywood Boulevard. He spotted a cruising cab, hailed it, and gave the driver his address. He was possessed by one overpowering thought; get to his apartment, collect what money he had hidden in a bureau drawer, pack his few clothes, and get out of town.
It took him three tries before he could key his door open. He pushed it wide and stepped inside, fumbling along the wall for the light switch. He heard a whisper of sound to his left, turned that way, and the building fell in on him. He plummeted down into pain-filled blackness....
CHAPTER THREE
He had awakened in Shady Glen Sanitarium ... awakened to a wife and a new identity.
And now, in the Volkswagen bouncing off the Highland Avenue exit of the Hollywood Freeway, he sat up and opened his eyes.
Janis slanted a glance at him, reached across to pat his knee. "Home soon, baby. You've had a nice nap."
He didn't enlighten her. If she chose to think he'd been asleep, let her.
"When we get home, I'll mix a pitcher of martinis-if you want to get stoned, go ahead-then I'll cook you a steak, baked potato, and new green peas. And I've got fresh strawberries and shortcake already made. Everything you like, baby."
He grunted. Then he decided there was nothing to be gained by being uncivil. She was either responsible for his being in Shady Glen or she wasn't. Even if she was responsible, he would learn nothing by being raunchy. He said, "That sounds fine." Oddly enough, it did sound fine. All the items she had mentioned were his favorite foods.
She turned right on Sunset, drove out to the Strip and turned left. After a few blocks she wheeled the Volkswagen into an underground garage beneath a new apartment building, a towering structure of steel, concrete, and glass. Her apartment was on the fourth floor. It was luxurious; two bedrooms, a large kitchen, a sunken living room carpeted in a dull green as deep as uncut grass. The west side of the living room was all glass, commanding a view of the Pacific Ocean, Wade supposed, on a clear day. The building was on a hill and the view to the west was tremendous. The rent on the apartment had to be at least two hundred. Bart Evans-if there was anyone by that name-must earn good money.
On a record cabinet in one corner was a large, framed picture. Wade walked over and picked it up. It was a picture of him, full face, and slanting across one corner was the inscription: "To Janis, with all my love, Bart."
A roaring seemed to fill Wade's head. He couldn't recall ever having the picture made. To the best of his knowledge, the only picture ever taken of him had been for rodeo publicity purposes, and this certainly wasn't one of those. Yet the handwriting was his, or a remarkably clever forgery. Behind him Janis spoke, her voice filtering faintly through the roaring. "Remember when that was taken, baby? Just after your last trip back to New York."
He had never been in New York in his life. He set the picture down without answering. He stepped to the window and stared out at the panorama of greater Los Angeles, his forehead pressed against the cold glass. Then he felt the familiar lurch of vertigo and he had to turn away.
Janis was heading toward the kitchen. She smiled back over her shoulder. "I'm sure you'd like a quick shower, baby, and get into fresh clothes. Those you have on, I'm sure you'll never want to wear again. Why don't you toss them out into the hall and I'll give them to the Salvation Army or somebody? Hurry up now and I'll have those martinis ready."
The first bedroom down the hall was redolent with the mingled odors of perfumes, scented soaps, and the essence of woman. He had the impression of female clutter ... a profusion of bottles on the dresser, ashtrays stacked high with cigarette butts showing traces of pale lipstick, and through a half-open closet door, robes, nylon stockings, and dresses hanging. He pushed the door all the way open and saw nothing even remotely masculine.
The second bedroom was wholly different, almost monastic in its maleness. In the closet a row of suits, slacks, and sports jackets, a rack of conservative ties, a stand with shoes neatly aligned. And in bureau drawers, shirts, socks, and folded pajamas, studs and tie clasps, hair brushes and combs.
It gave him cause to wonder. Just how compatible were Mr. and Mrs. Evans? Separate bedrooms, neither encroaching on the other by so much as a stray sock or a pantie girdle. A cold marriage? A loveless (sexless) marriage? And yet there had been the promise of pending intimacy in the Volkswagen.
He was struck by another thought. Could Janis have set it up this way? Was she willing to play the game (whatever it was) only so far and no further? You have your bedroom, I have mine; stay in your bed and out of mine. Could that be it?
He was determined to find out before the evening was over. He was going to be the randiest male Janis had ever encountered. After all, he'd just spent a month on a whack farm, hadn't he? What could be more randy than a man who had just spent approximately thirty nights either in a strait jacket or locked in a cell-like room, the nearest female on another floor?
He stripped down to the skin and tossed every item into the hall as instructed. He took a fast shower and came back to get dressed., Then he had another shock. Everything, shorts, socks, shirts, even the shoes, fit him perfectly; as perfectly as though each piece had been handmade to his measurements. Yet he was willing to swear he'd never seen a single garment before, much less worn one. And they weren't new; all had been worn at least once or twice. And search as he might he couldn't find cowboy boots, Levi's, or a string tie. Had he ever ridden a bucking horse? His hip, as he straightened up from searching a dark corner of the closet, told him that he had.
When he entered the living room, the Grand Canyon Suite was on the stereo. It was his favorite piece of music. Now how could she possibly know that a cowboy liked anything but cowboy music? Did Bart Evans like the Grand Canyon Suite, too?
Janis had on a postage-stamp apron and was busily engaged with dinner. She paused long enough to give him an incandescent smile. She was a beautiful, desirable woman, and Wade knew they would have presented a tranquil portrait of domesticity to an outsider.
The martinis were good, at least as good as the last ones he'd had, the batch Claire had brought along in the thermos. The dinner was good, too, though the steak was a little charred for his taste.
Janis had an explanation for that. "I know you like your steak rare, Bart. I'm sorry. Your coming home has got me all nervous, I guess."
The clothes, the music, the way he liked his steak-how could she know all those things about him if he wasn't really Bart Evans? One explanation did occur to him. During those early, drugged days at Shady Glen, he could have been slipped a jolt of Pentothal, then quizzed exhaustively as to his personal habits. But that would mean Dr. Hunter was in on it. And it didn't explain why the clothes fit him so well.
Over coffee, more relaxed now, he said cautiously, "You know I still don't remember you ... or any of this?"
"Dr. Hunter told me. But it'll all come back to you, baby. I'm sure it will."
"What about my job? I must've had one. How does my employer take to my being out all this time?"
"Oh, you don't work. Not at a job. Not since we came to California." Janis smiled across the table at him. "You have a good income from investments, stocks and bonds, and real estate." She raised and lowered a hand in a helpless gesture. "Don't ask me for details.
I'm stupid about business. But I do know we've never wanted for money."
"I'm independently wealthy then?" he asked with a skeptical grin.
"I don't know about that, but I know there's always money when we need it."
He thought of the fifty-some dollars he'd left hidden in the bureau drawer at his apartment and it was all he could do to keep from laughing aloud. He wondered if the money was still there. He said, "But you mentioned something about trips. To New York and so forth?"
"That's where we moved from about six months ago. You still have real estate investments there. You've taken several trips back to check on them."
"Why did ... we move here if everything's back there?"
"That was for me, baby." Her look was tender. "I had to get out of those awful winters, one cold right after another, and you moved without a murmur."
She looked as healthy as a young animal. The more he heard, the less sense any of it made. "How did it happen? What exactly happened to have me committed?" He added with a straight face, "Oh, is it too unpleasant to talik about?"
"It is unpleasant, Bart, but you're entitled to know what happened, if you don't remember." She peered at him closely. "You're sure you don't remember?" she asked suspiciously.
"I remember a lot of things," he said roughly, "but what I remember doesn't jibe with what Dr. Hunter says is the truth."
"Well..." she sighed, "you tried to kill me."
He stared. "Kill you!"
"Yes. You'd been acting strangely for some time. Moody, hard to get along with, jealous." She smiled. "You must know how silly that is. I've never given you cause ... but you don't remember, do you? I keep forgetting."
Watching the play of emotion across her lovely face, feeling her knee touch his inadvertently, or perhaps not so inadvertently, he thought it would be very easy to be jealous of this woman.
"Well, on this particular night you didn't come home for dinner. ... You'd taken to staying out late, which wasn't like you at all. You'd been drinking when you came home and you started in on me right away, talking wild and accusing me of all sorts of crazy things. Before I knew it, you had me by the throat and were pounding my head against the wall. I managed to pick up a lamp and knock you out with it. I knew about Dr. Hunter through a friend. I called him and he sent Jocko over right away. He gave you a shot before you came to and then took you away. Poor darling." She reached across the table to stroke the back of his hand with just her fingertips. "The doctor says this fantasy of yours about finding a woman murdered is a defense your subconscious has thrown up to compensate for your trying to kill me...."
He threw her hand off. "I don't believe it!" He'd made a promise to himself to keep his temper reined in, but this was too much, too damned much! "I don't believe a word of it!"
She blinked at him. "What, baby?"
He brought his fist crashing down on the table, causing the dishes to dance. A cup rolled off the edge and smashed on the floor. "It's all some kind of a screwy concoction. I don't know the purpose behind it but ... my name is Wade Carson, not Bart Evans, and I never saw you before I woke up on that whack farm." He was glaring at her, his breath coming in gasps.
Her fingers plucked at her blouse in agitation, and Wade saw real fear behind her eyes. She said sorrowfully, "I guess you're having a relapse. Dr. Hunter warned me that might happen. He told me to call him and have you...."
She didn't voice the word, yet it hung in the air between them, an implied threat. Recommitted. Back to the loony bin. That would really tear it. Wade fought for control. After a little while, he said in a low voice, "No, Janis, don't do that. I'm sorry. It's just that...."
"I don't want to, baby. Believe me, it's the last thing in this world I want to do." Her smile was timid. "You won't try to kill me again?"
He started to laugh. He choked it off when it threatened to turn into hysteria. "No, I won't try to kill you. You have my solemn promise."
She seemed to sag with relief. Then she straightened up and smiled brightly. Yet he glimpsed the fear still lingering behind her eyes. She jumped to her feet. "Why don't you go on to bed, baby, while I clean up the kitchen ? You must be dead." She began moving about the kitchen, her movements jerky.
He watched her for a moment. Either she was a superb actress or he was crazy. He said dully, "Yes, I think I will go to bed."
She nodded without looking at him and he left the kitchen quickly.
He undressed without turning on a light. He took a pair of pajamas out of the chest of drawers, then changed his mind and returned them. He didn't like sleeping in the raw, yet the thought of sleeping in pajamas belonging to a man he wasn't even sure existed didn't appeal to him. He didn't need any favors from Bart Evans!
He stood naked at the window, moodily smoking a cigarette. He stared down at the street below, stubbornly fighting back the vertigo. He wasn't a prisoner here. What was to prevent him from just walking out? But then he would never know; for the rest of his life he would never know. And there was Claire. ... If her death wasn't some nightmare conjured up by a sick mind, he was wanted for murder. He couldn't run from that for the rest of his life. Running was what had got him into this in the first place. If he had stayed and talked to that cop, Lieutenant Brewer, none of this would have happened. By fleeing he had damned himself as much as if he'd run through the streets, shouting, "I killed Claire Duncan!"
For some time, aware of it only with a tiny part of his mind, he had been watching someone on the street below, smoking a cigarette. At first he had thought it was his own reflection in the window but there was someone down there. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. The closest street light was a half block away and the figure was only a shadow alongside the trunk of a palm tree; only the cigarette ember, winking like a red eye, was visible.
Wade snorted impatiently, turned away to crush out his cigarette, and climbed into bed. The bed was pure luxury, a far cry from the hard, narrow one at Shady Glen. He was tired and should be sleepy, but he wasn't. He was in a strange place with an identity every instinct in him refused to accept and with a wife who was a complete stranger.
Then he heard her footsteps in the hall. They paused at his door. The knob turned, the door opened, letting in a faint light from the hall, and Janis said, "Bart? Are you asleep, baby?"
His first inclination was not to answer. Then he sighed softly and said, "No, I'm not asleep."
She closed the door and came across to the bed. There was enough light coming through the window to show the outlines of her figure, the pale oval of her face. She had changed to an ankle-length robe that gave off a crackly sound as she walked.
Belatedly, Wade remembered his naked state, and he pulled a blanket across his loins. She stopped close enough for him to reach out and touch her. A warmth came from her and a scent of musk.
"You feeling better now?" Her voice was husky.
"I'm all right. I'm fine now."
"I wondered ... is there anything I can do for you, baby?"
Sudden desire struck him. His arousal was abrupt and fierce. He decided to play her game, whatever it was. He brushed the blanket away and said, "Just what did you have in mind?"
He heard her indrawn breath, and her voice pulsed with excitement. "That ... that will do nicely. Oh, yes, baby, very nicely indeed."
She did something to the robe and it fell open. She had nothing on underneath. Her body was pale ivory in the faint light, all curves and hollows, all shadowed mystery. Her fine breasts rose and fell unevenly.
He reached out a hand slowly, very slowly, and touched her, fingertips gently caressing the silken flesh of her inner thigh. He moved his hand higher and made a cradle of it. She gasped aloud, "Ah-h, baby!" She swayed, seemed about to fall. She caught his hand and pressed it to her, then she did fall, coming down on her knees beside him on the bed.
He raised upon one elbow, but she placed both hands flat on his chest and pushed him back down. "You lie still. You've had a bad time of it, baby, so let me. Let me do everything!"
He resisted briefly. He didn't need any favors from her. But then, what the hell? If that was the way she wanted it, why not relax and enjoy it? He relaxed and prepared to enjoy it.
With a supple motion she straddled him, a knee on each side of him, the robe fanning out on each side like giant wings. Wade placed a hand on each hip, thumbs extended, and ran them up, the thumbs trailing across her stomach, drumming across her ribs and on up to the tumescent nipples. He cupped a breast in each hand and rotated his thumbs across the nipples.
Janis shivered, sighs of pleasure coming from her. She dipped her face toward him. She drew first one erect nipple, then the other, back and forth across his chest in a tracery of desire. She leaned farther down. She found the throbbing pulse at the base of his throat and used her mouth like a suction cup. Wade stiffened, his heels drumming on the bed. And all the while her fingers danced over him, caressing, stroking, her touch as light as a feather.
Finally she raised her face. "Baby? Now."
"Can't you tell?"
"Well ... yes." Her laughter was sudden and rich and full. "But I didn't want to rush you into anything."
She moved around, raised herself and shimmied down. "Ah-h, God! Heaven, sweet heaven!"
And then she seemed to go crazy. Her pelvis whipped at him in a frenzy. Her yelps of delight sounded like the cries of a small animal in distress.
Wade gave himself up to sensation, closing his mind to everything else. Nothing was required of him. Only when his ecstasy began did he raise himself to meet her, matching her frantic rhythm with difficulty.
The vague thought had been in his mind that she might forget herself in sexual rapture and drop a clue that would help unlock some of the mystery. She didn't. Or if she did, Wade was himself too caught up in passion to notice it at that particular time.
Toward the end, she had to catch hold of his shoulders to anchor herself, her fingers like steel claws, and she leaned down to his mouth, pinning his head to the bed. Then she ripped her mouth away and arched her head back, a scream escaping her as release struck them simultaneously. They clung together, shuddering again and again. They ended up in a tangle of limbs, bodies oiled with perspiration, hearts pounding, lungs laboring for breath. Janis extricated herself almost at once and got out of bed. She left the room without a word, face averted as though in shame.
After the door closed behind her Wade felt around for a cigarette, got up, lit it and walked to the window and looked down.
Suddenly he stiffened. The shadow, the winking eye of the cigarette, was still by the tree trunk. There was no longer any doubt; someone was watching the apartment building. Of course, whoever it was could be spying on any of the hundred or so tenants in the building, but Wade was convinced that the watcher was interested in one Wade Carson. Or one Bart Evans.
CHAPTER FOUR
Although she wasn't pushy about it, Janis watched him closely for the next few days. The first morning she reminded Wade of the pills Dr. Hunter had given him. "I didn't see you take one last night. Did you?"
"I forgot."
"Then don't forget again, Bart. The doctor said they would help you."
She stood over him while he took one after breakfast, after lunch and after dinner. Wade suspected the pills were either strong tranquilizers or mild sedatives. After taking one he felt listless, about as energetic as a neutered cat, inclined toward napping.
Janis was brisk, business-like, always finding something to do around the apartment. She wore no makeup, had on a loose housedress about as sexy as a potato sack, and seldom lit long enough to speak two words. When she was forced to talk to him, she was twitchy, fingers plucking at her dress, eyes darting about nervously, looking everywhere but at him. It gradually dawned on him what was bothering her. She was embarrassed about last night! Which was another thing (soon he'd need a tabulator to keep tally) that didn't make any kind of sense. She was supposed to be his wife, wasn't she?
And yet, that next night after he was in bed, she came to him, feverish and wanton as a mink, making love with an overpowering urgency that took his breath away. The lethargy induced by the pills left him under her skilled ministrations and his desire soon matched hers.
She wouldn't let him turn on a light. Which made him wonder. Did she have some kind of unsightly blemish she didn't wish him to see? If so, it certainly wasn't noticeable to the touch, for by the time she'd left his bed that second night he would have been willing to swear there wasn't a micro-inch of her body he hadn't touched.
They made love in straining silence. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, she closed it with her lips. Only at the peak of her climax did she take her mouth away and let her stuttering cry of completion sound in the room. The instant it was over and they were untangled, she got up and left the room, again without a word, leaving him with the impression she was ashamed of losing control of herself, ashamed of the need that had spurred her into his arms. And when Wade got up to smoke a cigarette by the window, there was the shadow by the palm tree, the cigarette coal a red dot in the night.
He decided to play her game to the hilt. He took the pills on schedule, napped, didn't leave the apartment, and ate three meals a day. The latter wasn't hard to take; Janis was a fine cook. And at night she visited his bed for as long as it took, which wasn't hard to take, either. She was as expert at lovemaking as she was at cooking.
But after four days, it began to pall. He knew he would soon be climbing the walls unless he got out for a little while. None of his questions had been answered and it didn't seem-likely they ever would be in the apartment. Janis was visibly less nervous around him now, although pumping information out of her was like dipping soup with a fork. The only strange thing about her behavior was the fact that she never once mentioned in daylight what went on between them at night.
After breakfast on the fifth day, Wade said casually, "I think I'll take a walk today. I'm going whacky cooped up in here."
She gave him a long look, her face very still. Then she smiled slowly. "All right, Bart." That was another small change in their relationship. Since their first heated coupling, she hadn't once called him baby. "The fresh air might do you good. You can't stay penned up in here forever, that's for sure."
Having expected opposition, he was taken aback. He was tempted to tell her he was going down to the bank and cash a check, as well as check on his purported stocks and bonds. He wondered if the bank would honor his signature on one of the checks he'd seen in the desk drawer, personalized checks on the joint account of Bart Evans and Janis Evans. The balance showing in the account was quite heavy. Wade hadn't found any of the stock certificates, but one drawer of the desk was always locked and he hadn't asked Janis for the key. He assumed that the certificates, if there were any, were locked away in the drawer.
Outside the apartment building he breathed deeply a few times, stretching his arms until the joints popped. It was like being let out of prison. His glance jumped to the palm tree. The shadow had been there every night, but he'd never seen anyone in the daytime. Before walking off he looked up at the window to the apartment. He wondered if Janis lurked back out of sight, spying on him. He couldn't see her, but he would have wagered she was there.
As he walked away, he kept looking back to see if he was being followed. He saw no one. After turning a corner at the end of the block, he leaned against the building and smoked a cigarette. Five minutes passed and nobody came around the corner. Either the nightly figure was a product of his imagination or he wasn't the subject under surveillance.
He didn't go anywhere in particular. He just strolled aimlessly. It felt so damned good to be outside again. It was very pleasant and he enjoyed it immensely. Until he heard the siren. Instinctively, he whipped into a doorway, cowering in numbing terror. People passing by swiveled white faces to stare at him. Then a city ambulance screamed past, and Wade shakily emerged from the doorway, feeling reduced to midget-size under the gaze of those people watching him. He went directly back to the apartment, the ghost of his terror yipping at his heels all the way.
Janis greeted him cheerily. "Did you have a nice walk? You weren't gone long."
He forced a smile. "I'm like a man just up out of a sick bed, I guess. Get tired easily. I'll try again in a day or two. I'll stay out longer next time."
He went to his room, took a pill, and stretched out on the bed. He looked at it from all angles, those angles that he could see. Most of it was murky, hidden, like a giant iceberg with ninety percent of its forbidding bulk buried beneath chill water.
Oddly enough, he felt safe back here. The apartment and Janis was like being caught in a scented, nylon nightmare. He could stay here and grow fat from her cooking, contented from the erotic offerings of her lush body, like a sacrifice being fattened for the kill, like a death row prisoner being granted his every wish. Because there had to be a deadly purpose behind it; Janis had a reason for having him here. He couldn't see the shape of the danger, yet he knew it was there.
He had two choices. He could remain here until the axe fell, and then it would be too late, or he could get out and try to track down his old identity. There had to be some evidence of his old existence. A man just didn't vanish overnight, then wake up another person without some trace of the old one being left behind. He would use the apartment as a base of operations, of course. If he couldn't find proof of Wade Carson ever existing, he would have to wait for whatever fate Janis had planned for him and face it.
Dr. Hunter and Janis could be right. His personality could have divided and he could be two people. If that were true, nothing really mattered. It would only mean he was crazy. He might have fooled Dr. Hunter but he certainly hadn't fooled himself in that respect. If he was a whack, he was still as crazy as he had been a month ago.
After Janis left his bed that night Wade fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed of Jocko's smile, of barred windows, of needles, of electroshock treatments, of straitjackets binding him.
The next day he found thirty dollars in his (Bart Evans') card case. He was reasonably sure it hadn't been there before; Janis must have slipped the three tens inside the case. He didn't mention it and neither did she. Yet it was curious, another small thing that didn't make sense.
That day he didn't leave the building, but he did wander through the building. He managed a few words with the janitor in the basement, with the manager of the building, and with two of Janis' neighbors on the same floor. He made it all as casual as possible, telling all those he talked with that this was the first opportunity he'd had to get acquainted. They were wary of him, undoubtedly suspicious of his motives. When he was done, one glaring fact stood out: not one had ever seen Bart
Evans face to face. Bart and Janis had lived in the building three months and in all that time not a soul had glimpsed the man. They all knew, vaguely, that he traveled a lot and assumed he spent most of his time out of town. Contact with the manager-rent paying, et cetera-had all been made by Janis.
Two mornings later, Wade started out immediately after breakfast. He walked up to Sunset Boulevard and took a bus into Hollywood. Insofar as he could tell, he wasn't followed. He got off the bus two blocks from his old address. He held his breath as he turned the corner, then let it go with a sigh. In this, at least, his memory hadn't failed him. The building was there; a two-story structure still badly in need of paint. A sign in front said: NO VACANCY. He was strongly tempted to go right up to his old apartment on the second floor. But he didn't have a key. If he tried to break in, he could easily end up in jail.
He rang the manager's doorbell. He had seen the woman twice, once when renting the apartment, once when he'd complained about a plumbing failure. He remembered her as a woman of sixty with a sour-apple face, ill-fitting dentures, and the disposition of an evil witch. She was addicted to television. Wade recalled that her TV set had been going every time he passed her door.
And now, as he stood before the door, he heard the blare of the set, heard the sound of soap-opera sobbing, and felt an inward relaxation. How could he know this if he hadn't once lived here?
The door cracked enough for him to see the familiar sour countenance. "What is it? No vacancy. Can't you read?"
Wade shaped his face in what he hoped was an ingratiating smile and said, "You remember me, Mrs. Lang? Wade Carson. I used to have Apartment 206."
"Don't remember you." The door opened wider. "Nope, never saw you in my life."
Wade scrubbed at his chin with the back of his hand. "Well, maybe you don't remember my face. I only saw you twice. The thing is, I had an ... accident and have been in the hospital. Now I've come back for my things."
The door opened all the way and the woman glared at him venomously. "Your things? You accusing me of stealing your things? I've never seen you before, you've never lived here, and you say you've come for your things! What kind of a racket is this?"
"But I did live here, Mrs. Lang," he said desperately. "Only for a little while but I did live here. You must have my name on your records somewhere. Wade Carson."
"You say you lived here. Show me the canceled check you paid the rent with."
"I paid cash. I didn't have a checking account," Wade explained as patiently as possible.
"Then where's the receipt?"
"I don't have it...." He thought back, frantically searching his memory. "It was among my things, the things I left in the room."
"A-likely story!" The bird-black eyes blazed. "There are no things, as I keep telling you."
"But you must have kept some sort of record. Please, Mrs. Lang, it's very important to me. Surely you remember me. Forget about my things. The important thing is for you to remember my living here, remember my name. Wade Carson."
"You never lived here. And I don't know any Wade Carson." She started to close the door. "I don't know what your game is, young man. Probably some confidence game, like they're always showing on the TV. Whatever it is, I'm not having any."
The door was closing fast. "Please, Mrs. Lang...." He tried to get his foot in the door. He was too late; it slammed shut in his face. He stood for a little, staring at the closed door, the idiotic chatter from the television set pounding against his ears. Despair shrouded him like a fog. Slowly then, he turned and trudged outside. She had to be lying. She must be lying! Yet what reason could she possibly have? Unless she had been paid to lie. But why would anyone go to all that trouble? Another explanation occurred to him. She could have found the fifty-odd dollars he'd left in the bureau and pocketed it. That seemed the most likely. In that case it was only his word against hers. And even if it was safe for him to go to the police, they would want to know where he'd been the past month. And who could he get to back up his story? Janis?
He laughed without humor and started up the street. The casting agency whose responsibility it was to handle the checks for the extra work he'd done was only a few blocks away. The young lady there was very helpful but she could find no record of any checks being issued to a Wade Carson. And that could only mean that Sylvester hadn't deposited the vouchers in the boxes. Without much hope, he asked her if any checks had been issued to Russell Sylvester. She went through the files again and returned with a negative report. Wade thanked her and left the building. At the corner he sank down onto a bus-stop bench and lit a cigarette. He looked at what he had. He had nothing. A big fat nothing!
And now, thinking back, he realized just how little he knew about Sylvester. He didn't know where the man lived, he didn't know what he did for a living, he hadn't seen any papers verifying the fact that his name actually was Sylvester, and he had certainly revealed nothing personal about himself. He had seemed knowledgeable about extra work. Wade closeted himself in a public phone booth. First, he looked in the S columns. No Russell Sylvesters listed. He spent an hour calling all the casting agencies with no results. He finally called the union. Nobody would admit to knowing a Russell Sylvester.
After leaving the booth a grim thought struck him: Apparently Sylvester was also two different people. A split personality? Schizophrenia? A case for Dr. Hunter's files? His laughter was high, scratchy. A sick joke. A very sick joke indeed!
He took a bus downtown to the building housing the largest Los Angeles newspaper and got permission to go through the morgue files. He went through the issues starting back with the night he had found Claire dead. And in the afternoon edition of the day following he found what he was searching for: "Claire Duncan Murdered!" There was no mention of a Lieutenant Brewer. Claire's body had been found by a cleaning woman at ten the next morning. Everything else was as Wade remembered it. She had been naked, her skull crushed, and she had been clutching a huge pink Easter bunny. The follow-up stories tagged it the Easter Bunny Murder.
For a few days after the murder, the police had searched for a man who had been seen with Claire early the evening before in a Hollywood restaurant. The description vaguely fitted Wade, but could equally have described thousands of men. Within two weeks, coverage of the story slackened off. At first the police had reported progress but soon they were at a dead end. No important clues had been found; at least the police admitted none. The case was still unsolved.
But what had happened to Lieutenant Brewer? Why hadn't he reported the murder? Was it a lie about the cleaning woman finding the body, a red herring tossed out by the police in the hope of trapping her killer? Or was there really a Lieutenant Brewer? But if he, Wade, had dredged the man up out of some sick imagine, how could he know the details of Claire's death? There was one explanation. He could have read about it in the newspapers. It was all there, even down to detailed photographs of every room in the apartment. And the mysterious man in the restaurant. ... Had he read about that, too, and put himself in the man's place, dreamed up the rest of it, the meeting with Claire, et cetera, to fit the pattern?
After all, why would a woman like Claire Duncan have been working as an extra? According to the newspaper reports, her career had been over but she had been far from destitute. Shrewd investments by a business manager when she had been in the big money had left her more than solvent.
It was mid-afternoon by the time he left the newspaper building; he was little wiser than when he'd left the apartment that morning. He knew there had been a Claire Duncan and that she'd been murdered, but he'd found no evidence that Wade Carson had ever existed. Or, for that matter, Russell Sylvester.
He stepped into a phone booth and dialed police headquarters. He made no effort to disguise his voice. He asked for Lieutenant Brewer. He was passed along to different people. Finally the third person, a man, said, "Lieutenant Brewer? of Homicide? Just a minute, please, while I check."
The man returned within a few minutes. He had sounded bored the first time. Now his voice was more alert. "There is no Lieutenant Brewer on the LAPD."
"Are you sure? I could be mistaken about his rank...."
"I'm sure. There is no one named Brewer of any rank. I've checked carefully." The voice took on an edge of suspicion. "Just who is this, please? And what is your business with...."
Wade hung up and left the booth. He walked away quickly, his shoulders hunched, expecting the wail of a siren behind him any second. That took care of another name. No Wade Carson. No Sylvester. And now no Lieutenant Brewer. A few blocks away he boarded a bus for Hollywood.
He stood across the street from Claire's apartment building for a long time. He knew he was taking an awful risk. But something had drawn him here. This building, the Duncan apartment, represented his last real contact with reality. Almost against his will he walked across the street and inside the building. He didn't take the elevator, but walked up the stairs. He didn't see anyone on the stairs or in the hall on Claire's floor.
He thumbed the doorbell and waited, his heart thudding in his chest. Then his pulse seemed to stop as he heard light footsteps inside. The doorknob turned, the door swung open, and he stared down into Claire's solemn gray eyes.
CHAPTER FIVE
It wasn't Claire, of course. This girl was smaller, smaller in every way, several years younger, her face more piquant than Claire's had been. And her hair was brown, not black. Only the enormous gray eyes were the same. She was in gold capris and a white, sleeveless blouse that outlined small, firm breasts.
"Yes?" Her voice had some of the husky timbre of Claire's.
Still unnerved, Wade swallowed. He said the first thing that came into his head. "I was looking for Claire Duncan. Is she home?"
Her face grew still. "Haven't you heard?"
He was stuck with the lie now, and he had to follow through, improvising as he went along. "Heard what? I've been out of town for a while."
"How well did you know her?"
"Not very well. I met her a few times when we worked as extras together." He held his breath, wondering if that would go over.
She nodded as though accepting it. "I understand she'd been working as an extra now and then. She couldn't stay away from the studios, even if she could only go there as an extra. Quite a comedown." Her voice had a bitter twist. Then she tossed her head. "I'm Claire's sister, Lisa. Claire was murdered over a month ago."
He let his face register shock. "Murdered!"
"You haven't heard? The papers, television ... everything was full of it. She couldn't cut it as a star anymore, but she showed them. She went out in a blaze of publicity, even if she had to get herself killed to do it!"
He looked at her warily, at a loss to understand the hostility she expressed toward her dead sister. He said carefully, "I haven't seen a paper until this week. I've been away on a ... a hunting trip."
"She was killed right here. In this apartment." She stood back, motioning him inside, and he had the fleeting notion she was about to ask him to pay an admission and then conduct him on a tour of the scene of the crime. Instead, she closed the door and crossed to the couch to sit down. Wade followed her, his glance darting around the room. It was exactly as he remembered it. But there had been all those pictures in the papers....
The stain was gone from the carpet. He tore his gaze away from the spot and looked at Lisa. She had a cigarette in her mouth and was searching the end table for a match. Wade sprang forward to hold a light for her, lit one for himself, then sat down on the couch, a careful distance from her.
She drew deeply on the cigarette, head back, eyes closed, and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes were angry, her mouth set in a thin line. "What were you? A drinking companion? A fellow pot smoker? Bed companion? Or all three?"
Wade was so startled he came close to dropping his cigarette. He had to fumble for words. "I ... well, I did have a drink with her a time or two, yes. But as for the rest ... I didn't know her all that well."
"It wasn't necessary to know my sister all that well." Then she sighed softly and seemed to sag wearily. "I'm sorry. What is your name?"
Since he had two to choose from, he decided to use the one he'd had the longest. "Wade Carson."
"Well, Mr. Carson, I suppose you think I'm some kind of a bitch, talking like this about my own sister. I loved her, you'll have to take my word for that, but I was fed up. That's why I went back home. Her drinking, the drugs, and indiscriminate choice of men had ruined her career. And one of those men finally killed her."
"How do you know that?" He covered up quickly, "I mean ... did they catch him?"
"No, the case is still unsolved. And the police aren't even too sure it was a man who killed her. But I know. And the newspapers hinted at it without coming right out and saying so. The Easter Bunny Murder!" Her voice burned with bitterness again.
"The Easter Bunny Murders?"
"She was found with an Easter bunny clutched in her arms. She called it Bugsy, after Bugs Bunny of cartoon fame. Isn't that just too, too cute?"
It wasn't a question requiring an answer. Her voice had the sound of tears. Wade had to look away in acute embarrassment. She was going on, her voice low, almost dreamy. Afterward, he was never sure why she told him all of it. It could have been because it had all been bottled up in her for so long that it simply had to come out. He liked to think that a spark had ignited between them, a rapport immediately established. Whatever the reason it poured out of her in a torrent.
"Claire always had a doll. Of course I did, too, but I gave them up around eight or somewhere in there. Claire didn't. But you'll notice I said a doll, not dolls. I know the psychiatrists' files are full of case histories of women who have kept many dolls around them, even after they married, had children. Even into old age. But Claire was different in that one respect. She only kept one at a time. She would keep it until she grew tired of it, then get a new one and throw the old one away, forget it as though it had never existed. She didn't always keep them until they fell apart. Sometimes she'd get tired of one right away, discard it, and throw a tantrum until Father would buy her a new one.
And that's the way she was after she left home. She always kept a doll. And that's the way she was with men. With one difference. She never kept the same man for long, as she sometimes would a particular doll. She never slept with one man more than a few weeks, usually not more than a night or two. But I'll give her credit for one thing. She never had more than one man sleeping with her at the same time. One doll at a time, one man at a time. Faithful in her fashion, that was Claire." Her laughter was harsh, biting. "When we were girls together on the ranch...."
Wade interjected, "The ranch?"
"I was born and brought up on a ranch in Arizona. Poor Daddy." Her laughter was easier now. "He always wanted sons he could make into ranchers. So he wound up with two kooky daughters. I liked ranch life, however, and became as good around a ranch as most cowhands." She glared at him as though daring him to deny it.
He said, "I was born on a ranch, too. I worked on one or another until a short time ago."
"Is that so?" she said politely, without the least interest. Her gaze was on him, but it was plain she didn't really see him. She was looking inward, looking back into a past that held unpleasantness. "Claire never liked it. To her, ranch life was a prison. Some people are born to thrive in bright lights. That was Claire. She escaped as soon as she could. She entered a beauty contest at the county fair. She won and was offered a piddling movie contract in Hollywood. She was barely eighteen. Father, Mother ... we all argued with her. Even out in Arizona, we knew how small the percentage were of beauty contest winners who made it in Hollywood. Claire wouldn't listen. And she proved us all wrong. Within two years of coming out here, she was a star. Within four years, she was big, very big. I was eight years younger than Claire. I watched her success without envy, hard as that may be to believe. I was perfectly content to spend the rest of my life on the ranch. I had no urge for the city and my name in lights."
"What happened to her? I mean, why did she...? "
"What happened? A combination of things. I could say she went bad, but that wouldn't be strictly accurate. I guess she was one of those people who can't take overnight fame. She was very sweet when we were children on the ranch. Oh, she was always restless, a little spoiled perhaps, but she could be sweet when she wanted to be. And she could still be sweet when I came out here to live with her....
"We never saw her those first years she was away. We heard from her, long letters, expensive long-distance phone calls, and received extravagant presents, but she didn't come back to Arizona until Father died. She came back for the funeral. I think she had started downhill even then. She was hard, brittle, glittering like a diamond. But she was drinking too much and even during those few days she was at the ranch she bedded down with a cowhand. ... Only two days after we buried Father!" Lisa's voice broke and she turned her face away.
Wade lit two cigarettes, held one out to her. She took it with a muffled thanks and drew savagely on it without once looking at him.
In a moment she resumed, still without looking at him. "Mother died two years later. I always read everything about Claire that I tame across, of course, and there had been rumors in the gossip columns about her binges, her fights with directors. The studio broke her contract, exercising a morals' clause, it was rumored. No other studio would sign her after that. She began free-lancing. She did make a couple of pictures after that. One was a smash, the other laid a bomb."
Lisa laughed, a scratchy sound. "Smash! Laid a bomb! I've been around this town just long enough to learn the language. Anyway, Claire disrupted shooting schedules and was always in trouble. Pretty soon not even the independent producers would touch her. When she came home for Mother's funeral, she was drunk when she got off the plane. She begged me to come back with her. She needed me, she said. With me living with her, she would straighten out. That was a little over a year ago. I left the ranch for the foreman to run, and came back with Claire. She did need me, I guess. Certainly she needed someone. Or something. And I think she did make a sincere effort to straighten up her life. But she was too far gone. Either that or I didn't have the strength she needed. She started drinking again when she couldn't get parts. Soon she was back on drugs. She didn't even bother to hide it from me. But when one of the men she'd brought home got out of her bed in the middle of the night and crawled into bed with me...."
Lisa had been sound asleep. As was her habit, she was sleeping in the raw. The first thing she was aware of was the stench of whiskey breath, then a hand squeezed her breast like a vise. Another hand explored her loins, a cruel finger probing her femininity. She came alive, fully awake. In her outrage, she yelled at the top of her voice and began to beat on his face and shoulders with her fists.
"Come on, girlie. Why all the fuss? You're Claire's sister, aren't you?"
Lisa knew then that her cries were a waste of time. She would have to defend herself. She tried to drive a knee into his groin. But she was too late. He was too strong, too big, and he had all the advantage. He drove a leg between her thighs like an iron bar and rolled over on top of her. She attempted to clamp her thighs together. The intruder in her bed hit her a ringing blow alongside the head. Then he struck her again with the other hand, and she tumbled into unconsciousness.
When she came to, he was inside her, pounding at her relentlessly, grunting like a rooting pig. Before she could gather her strength to fight him again, it was all over. He went rigid, his breath leaving him with a snort. He fell onto her with all his weight, and Lisa almost fainted again. He lay on her panting, his hot breath scorching her face. Finally the spasms of his passion ebbed. He grunted again, rolled off her with a groaning effort, then was gone.
"That finished it as far as I was concerned," Lisa continued. "I packed up and went home. That was a week before she was killed. If I had stayed on, maybe she would still be alive. I blame myself. That's why I ... oh!" Her face crumpled, an anguished wail was wrung from her, and the tears came. To Wade's enormous astonishment, she threw herself into his arms, yowling and hiccupping sobs. She burrowed close, tears soaking his shirt front like warm rain, her fingers digging into the muscles of his back. The body filling his arms was delightful, curved in all the right places, but he gave little thought to that. It had been so long, so damned long, since a woman had turned to him for comfort. He held her; he patted and stroked and made soothing sounds. After a long time she said in a rusty voice, "Wade ... you know I didn't mean all those spiteful things I said about Claire, don't you?"
"Yes, Lisa. I know. I understand."
And so, as easily as that, it was Wade and Lisa.
After she had pushed herself out of his arms, suddenly shy, after she had been in the bathroom for twenty minutes, she said with a puzzled air, "Did you say you were from Arizona?"
He shook his head. "No, that wasn't what I said. I said I was ranch born and raised. Oh, I've worked ranches in Arizona, as well as most of the other western states."
"Then you're my kind of people!" She sat down on the couch, drew her knees up, and rested her chin oh them. She frowned. "But if you're cow country people, what in the world are you doing out here ? "
"Well, I came out here to get into stunt riding." He scrubbed at his chin with the back of his hand. He felt uncomfortable telling her about it, as though confessing to some dark sin. Possibly it was because of her expressed contempt for the ways of Hollywood. He told her then of the ranch jobs, the lonely winters in the line shacks, his way with horses, his rodeo stints and the hip broken at Pendleton. She listened intently, chin propped on her knees, gray eyes clinging to his face. She listened without comment, the only break coming when he lighted cigarettes for them. It wasn't until she got up to turn on a light that he realized it was dark.
"And did you plan on staying here the rest of your life doing jobs for men who haven't the guts to do it themselves?"
"Oh, no," he said quickly. "I intended staying here only long enough to earn enough money to buy a spread of my own. A small one, one large enough to raise horses. I thought I'd raise them for rodeo work. Buckers, roping horses, and the like. It's good money if you know what you're doing. I guess all rodeo bums have that dream." He added ruefully, "The thing is, it's not all that easy out here. The streets aren't paved with gold like I'd thought."
She nodded gravely. "Our ranch is small as ranches go. Dad stocked the place with Black Angus cattle a few years back. We're doing very well with them. He also raised horses for rodeo work, even a few Brahma bulls. The trouble is, we could never find a man who knew rodeo stock. Not one who would stay around very long. Soon as rodeo season rolled around he was off. I just had a thought! If you're through with following the rodeos and think you could handle it...." She expelled a thick cloud of smoke as though to hide an attack of embarrassment. "If you could handle the job, it might work into something good for both of us. If you'd be interested, that is."
"I would be interested...." He let his voice trail off. Now wasn't the time to talk about it. Whatever was growing between them was too new, too fragile, to risk pressures until they knew each other better. Wade knew he couldn't make any promises to this girl until his own problems were solved. And he was in an impossible situation, made so by his not telling her the truth in the beginning. How could he now tell her that he was-likely wanted for killing her sister? Or, worse yet, how could he tell her he might even be a whack? He got to his feet abruptly as he resumed, "I think I would be, but why don't we wait? Would you have dinner with me?" The invitation came out sounding more formal than he had intended.
Lisa cocked her head to one side as she considered it, her lovely face grave. Then her smile came. It was sudden, sweet, dazzling, and he realized this was the first time he'd seen her smile. "I'd like that very much, Wade. Give me ten minutes to change!"
With most women, he knew, ten minutes meant at least a half hour, but Lisa was true to her promise. She was ready within the ten minutes. She had put on a yellow sheath dress of some webby material, long white gloves, sheer hose on long lovely legs and white shoes with high heels. Her gray eyes were outlined with a trace of blue shadow and her full mouth was shaped with a pale lipstick.
Under his gaze she smiled again and turned around once, coming up on her toes. "Will I do, sir?"
"You'll do," he said gruffly, swallowing. "You'll do very well, indeed."
And that set the tone for the evening. During dinner, they carefully avoided talk of Claire or anything within several hundred miles of Hollywood. Lisa did most of the talking, telling Wade of the ranch. Her face was incandescent as she talked of it, talked of horses and cattle, talked of the scent of sage after a hard, slanting rain had pounded across the mesas, talked of cold mornings on fall roundups when breath escaped like smoke and hot coffee had the flavor of nectar.
She talked and Wade listened, and knew he was hopelessly in love with her. It was crazy, impossible-and unbelievably wonderful.
He had taken her to the same Italian restaurant where he'd had dinner with Sylvester. He had some vague idea that the surroundings would trigger some memory that would be of help to him; perhaps he'd even had the crazy hope that Sylvester would be there. But he drank red wine like water, ate meatballs and spaghetti without tasting it, while he drowned in those great gray eyes and heard only the husky throbbing of her voice. He forgot everything else.
The restaurant was two blocks from the boulevard. Afterward, they walked that way arm in arm. A block away from the restaurant Lisa stumbled and fell against him. "Hey, I lost a shoe!"
He supported her while she stooped to work the shoe back on. Inadvertently, he turned and looked back the way the had come. And he saw, about fifty yards behind them, a man turn his back as though to light a cigarette against the wind. But there was no wind. The night was warm and still. Chill fingers danced along his spine. They were being followed. Some time during the evening his shadow had found him again. But how was that possible? Had he been followed all day without being aware of it? It was a disquieting thought, not only because it meant he had been under observation all day but it also meant that Lisa was now involved in whatever was happening to him.
Lisa straightened up with a laugh. "There! I'm all shod again! Wade ... what is it? What's wrong?"
He tore his gaze from the man back there and forced a smile to his face. "Nothing, Lisa. Nothing at all." He took her arm and hurried her along to the boulevard. He looked both ways along the street and spotted a cruising cab. He motioned it into the curb, hustled Lisa inside, and gave the driver the address to Claire's apartment. As the cab pulled away from the curb, Wade glanced back through the window and saw the man following also hail an empty cab. The second cab fell into line two cars behind them. The man on the street hadn't necessarily been following them. His being there, his stopping when they did, could have been a coincidence. Now there was no longer any doubt.
CHAPTER SIX
"Wade, please! You're hurting my hand!"
He glanced around. He had her hand in a crushing grip. He released her hand and said, "I'm sorry."
"Wade, what is it? Something's bothering you since we left the restaurant. Now what is it?"
He looked at her thoughtfully, the piquant face illuminated briefly as the cab sped under overhead street lights, then falling into shadow again. He was going to have to tell her the truth some time; it might as well be now. He took the plunge. "Lisa, I lied to you."
"Lied?" Her face jumped into the light and was as quickly in shadow again. "Lied about what?"
He looked back through the cab window. "And right now we're being followed. I don't know who he is, but it may place you in danger. That's why I have to tell you, to prepare you."
"Followed? Danger? Prepare me? For heaven's sake, Wade, what on earth are you talking about? You're not making any kind of sense!"
She seized his arm and gave it an exasperated shake.
"I know more about Claire's death than I told you. At lease I think I do. But first I must ask you some questions. You'll just have to accept my word that they're important."
"Questions?" Her face darted into the light again, eyes staring at him. "Are you a detective?"
"A detective?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Hardly. Hardly that."
"Then what are you?"
"I'm just a guy, a cowhand out of time and place. I didn't lie to you about that. But there's more to it ... Lisa, you said the police haven't solved the case. Do they have any leads at all, any they told you about?"
"They have very little to go on, or so they told me." Her voice was low, somehow accusing. "They said Claire had been seen with a man in a restaurant the night she was killed.
But that means nothing. She was always being seen with a man. And nobody has come forward to admit being in the apartment with her that night. They did find a few unidentified fingerprints. On an ashtray on the nightstand by the bed. Where else?"
"Unidentified?"
"So they told me."
Wade had never been fingerprinted. To the best of his knowledge, his prints weren't on file anywhere. The prints were-likely his. "And her body was discovered by a cleaning woman late in the morning after she was killed?"
"So I was told. What difference does that make?"
"Did you ever hear of a man named Lieutenant Brewer in connection with the investigation? He's supposed to be on Homicide."
"The man who questioned me was named Hawkins. The men with him sometimes called him Hawkshaw. I never heard of a Brewer."
The cab pulled into the curb in front of the apartment building. As Wade paid the driver, he glanced back up the block. A few doors up the street, the second cab pulled up and discharged its passenger. Wade didn't wait to catch a glimpse of the passenger. He seized Lisa's arm and hurried her inside. Neither said anything about Wade coming in with Lisa; it was taken for granted. And neither said a word until the apartment door was closed behind them and they were finally alone.
Then Lisa whirled on him, her eyes flashing danger signals. "Now what is this all about?"
Wade motioned to her with one hand and strode across to the window. But he was in for a disappointment. The window didn't overlook the street. Probably the man watching had taken up a position where he could watch the front door. Wade wondered, idly, if the building had a back entrance.
"Wade," Lisa said in a strangled voice, "will you pay attention to me?"
Wade turned toward her with a sigh. "All right, Lisa. The man in the restaurant with Claire? That was me. The fingerprints on the ashtray? Mine. At least I think they were." At her shocked look, he nodded quickly. "Yes. I made love to her that night. Or she made love to me. That might be a better way to put it. But I didn't kill her. I swear to you, Lisa!"
She was already across the room to the telephone, stumbling in her frantic haste. She picked up the receiver and started to dial.
"Lisa ... let me tell you my side of it first. I know you don't owe me anything but ... well, I listened to you, didn't I? If, after you hear what I have to say, you still want to call the police, I won't stop you."
She stopped dialing and looked over at him. He held himself very still. He sensed that a single step in her direction would panic her.
After a long moment, she slowly replaced the receiver and came toward him uncertainly. "All right, Wade, I'll listen. I do owe you that much. But I can't promise anything."
He nodded.. "Right. No promises."
They sat down, each on the opposite ends of the couch, and he told her about it. He began with the day he met Sylvester and brought her up to the present moment, omitting nothing. She sat tensely, listening with that idol-stillness of hers. Slowly, she relaxed. When he was finished, she accepted the cigarette he offered and leaned back, studying him through a thin veil of smoke.
Now her smile came. "You have to be telling the truth, Wade. It's too incredible a story, too bizarre, to be a lie."
"Either that or I really am whacky," he said ruefully.
She shook her head violently. "I refuse to believe that. You're no crazier than I am."
"Thanks for that much, Lisa. Even if you're no expert, it makes me feel better hearing you say it."
"But what does it all mean, Wade?" She moved along the couch toward him. "It doesn't make any sense. There's no logic to any of it."
"You're telling me?" He took her hand between both of his. Hers jumped for an instant, then remained still. "I've thought about it until my brain's raw. I've found very little today that's of any help."
"But you can't just vanish without a trace! There has to be proof that Wade Carson exists. A Social Security card, a driver's license, and so forth. All those things can be traced back."
"Yes, I've thought of that. But it would all take time, and somehow I don't think I have much time. And that would only prove that I'm not crazy. I would still be open for a murder charge. Although I can't see how, I'm sure your sister's death is at the core of it."
"Then we have to find who killed her!" Then she laughed. "Look at me! A detective yet!"
"Me too. And the detecting I've done today has proved only one thing. A detective I'm not."
"But we have to try, darling. We have to try."
Wade's heart lurched at the "darling." Lisa gave no indication that she had noticed. Maybe it had been nothing more than a slip of the tongue.
"This woman," she said with a grimace of distaste, "this Janis. She must be the key to it. She has to know you're not her husband."
"Apparently she's the only one. And that reminds me." He glanced at his watch with a start. "My God, it's nearly midnight! If I don't get on back she'll have, if not the police, Dr. Hunter and Jocko out looking for me."
"You have to go back to her?" She stood up with him.
"I don't see I have much choice, do you?"
Her shoulders heaved in a sigh. "I suppose not. But I hate to know you're...."
Her voice died away as her gaze met his and locked. He took a step, she took a step, and it was the most natural thing in the world for him to take her into his arms. Her body was supple, soft and heated to his touch. Her mouth was sweet. Wade felt the firm shape of her breasts against his chest. The nipples stirred, and Lisa moaned deep in her throat.
When they broke the kiss to gasp for breath, Wade bracketed her face with his hands, his thumbs on her throat. The pulse there beat wildly. He kissed her again, gently this time, his lips barely touching the softness of hers.
"Darling ... I don't want you to go back to her."
"You think I want to?" he asked huskily. He felt a great surge of exultation. Crazy as it seemed, knowing her for only a few hours, he was drawn to her as she was to him. The endearment was no slip of the tongue this time. He said, "And if I keep this up, I'll never leave!" He stepped away from her.
Lisa laughed softly. In the eternal female gesture her hand came up to pat at her hair. "How about that man watching downstairs? You could slip out the back door."
Wade shrugged. "No, I want him to know I've left. If he's the same man who's been watching me, he knows about Janis, knows that's where I belong. If he doesn't see me leave, he'll watch this place all night."
"I don't mind. I'm sure he means me no harm."
"I do mind," he said sharply. "And I'm not so sure. I don't know who he means to harm. Maybe nobody. He might just be keeping tabs on me, but I'm taking no chances on you getting hurt."
After promising to get in touch with Lisa the next day, he left the apartment with a light step. He'd read about hearts singing but had never really believed it, putting it down as a writer's romantic imagine. Now he wasn't so sure. He felt like jumping up and down and singing at the top of his voice.
Outside the building he stopped to light a cigarette and looked both ways along the street. He saw no one. He started walking; after a half block he whirled around and glanced back just in time to see a dark figure duck out of sight behind a hedge.
He grinned, his mood suddenly gay. He murmured, "I'd feel lost without you, old buddy."
He stopped under a street light to check his money. He had enough left to take a cab. He thought it ironic that Janis was paying for his evening with Lisa. A new thought struck him.
Could his shadow be a private detective Janis had hired to keep tabs on him? If that were true, the day had indeed cost her! She would undoubtedly be furious. He walked on humming under his breath, walked on until he found an empty cab to hail.
Janis was already furious. She was pacing the floor tigerishly when he let himself in the apartment. And she was half smashed, a glass in her hand. She lurched toward him, some of the liquor slopping out of her glass. "Where the hell have you been ? " she cried wildly. "I've been half out of my mind!"
Well, that's a new switch, he thought wryly. How does it feel, baby? And yet he was sure he detected genuine concern under her fury. He said, "I'm sorry you're upset. It's been so long since I've been on my own I guess I forgot the time. I wandered around, had a couple of drinks and then dinner." He watched her intently. If the shadow had been in touch with her ... but, of course, he hadn't. Not yet.
Some of the tension seemed to leave her. She drained her glass, swayed, and said in a blurred voice, "You could have called me, goddamn it!"
"I could have. I didn't think of it."
She gestured suddenly, her smile tremulous. "It's all right. It's over and you're all right. That's what counts. I was afraid you might have had a...."
"A relapse?" he said, his voice hard.
She shook her head violently. "No, no, not that. I'm sure that won't happen now." She took two stumbling steps and fell against him. The glass dropped from her hand, thudding onto the carpet. Her breath had the scent of gin.
Automatically, he caught at her slumping body, thinking she was about to pass out. Then her arms looped around his neck. She breathed into his ear, then ran the tip of her tongue inside.
Wade thought of Lisa and he felt a quiver of revulsion toward this woman. He reached up to unlock her arms from around his neck, then stopped as she said, "It's been a long day without you, baby. A damned long day!"
So it was "baby" again! What had brought about the change? The gin? Or could she possibly have missed him? Whatever the reason, he sensed that this time, unlike the other times when she had been wholly intended on feeding animal needs, he might be able to get information from her.
He released her hands and dropped his down to cup the jut of her buttocks. At his touch she arched against him, moaning, her pelvis moving lanquidly. Wade hated himself for what he was about to do; it made him feel like a male whore. Yet if it would help squeeze information from her, he could throw a blanket over his conscience for as long as it took. His eyes closed as he kissed her, and the image of Lisa danced on his eyelids. He closed his mind to all thought of Lisa.
Janis pulled her mouth away to murmur, "I need it, too, baby! God, do I ever! But not here. Not on the floor like animals! In your bedroom."
They moved down the hall, his arm around her waist. Twice before they reached his bedroom, she turned into his arms seeking his mouth with burning hunger. She was in a tight pink dress of some silken material. As her passion mounted, her entire body seemed to grow tumescent and she threatened to split the dress. Or so it seemed to Wade. The familiar roaring sound filled his head; he was rapidly forgetting his purpose in starting this.
Inside the bedroom she fell against him, her mouth moist and open. Through the tight dress he felt the taut-nippled breasts. She rubbed her breasts back and forth across his chest. Then she tilted her face up, standing on tiptoe, and ran the hot point of her tongue behind his ear-lobe. In a sudden, spasmic motion she thrust herself against him, her pelvis making a circular motion.
"Would you have called the police if I hadn't shown up soon?"
"Not the police, baby," she said thickly.
"Dr. Hunter?"
"Not him, either."
"Who, then?"
"I called Garth..." Her voice snapped off with a sound as clearly audible as ice cracking, and her body went tense.
"Garth? Who's Garth?"
"Just a friend. Nobody you know."
He could feel her withdrawal and he sensed that he would get nothing more from her. If he persisted, he would probably spook her. He found her breasts through the dress and fondled the unharnessed nipples. After a moment she relaxed again, the breath leaving her in a sigh.
"Open my dress, baby," she said in his ear.
He fumbled for the side zipper and drew it down. When his hands moved inside the dress, he discovered, without surprise, that she was naked. His fingers feathered the soft mound of her belly and she shivered convulsively. She arched her mouth to his and took his tongue greedily.
In a little while she pulled back to say, "Why don't you take these damned clothes off?"
"Whose?" he asked dreamily.
"Ours. Yours and mine."
Without a word, he reached down for the hem of her dress and peeled it up over her head, tossed it aside. In the dim light he saw her shiver under the impact of his gaze. When his glance reached her loins, Janis moved her hips in a motion as old as time and managed to make it seem fresh and immediate. His excitement doubled and he started toward her.
His knuckles barely grazed her, bringing a hiss of indrawn breath from her, before she twisted away from him. "Hurry, baby. Get rid of your clothes." She ran to the bed and fell across it in a wanton sprawl. She waited impatiently, her hips in constant, lewd motion.
When he joined her on the bed, she encased him in writhing, heated flesh. Slowly he probed at her body with lips and tongue and fingers. He savored each quiver of her body. In a short while, she was trembling from head to toe. Her fingers pulled and hauled at him. Finally she moaned, "Please, baby. I can stand just so much and no more! If you don't do something, I'll...."
Her body convulsed as he took her. Staring down at her, he saw her lips twisting with mindless desire, the veins in her eyelids blue and trembling. Her nails gouged his back. Her eyes opened wide as he drove against her. When she saw him looking at her, she muttered something, then pulled his head down and bit his lip.
Their rhythm doubled and redoubled. Wade gloried in the throbbing of his senses, in the yielding, grasping need of her body. The slashing, demanding speed of her lashing hips drove him to an unbearable height of sensation before his ecstasy broke. His mouth was open and his throat felt raw when a measure of sanity returned to him. He vaguely recalled the sound of a snarling animal in the room and he knew it must have come from him. He was lying half across Janis, chest heaving as he fought for breath.
Now she began squirming, pushing at him. In that, she hadn't changed! He rolled over and let her get up. He heard the whisper of her bare feet as she walked away. Yet there was one difference tonight. She was back in a few minutes. She nudged his shoulder with a knee, then put her weight on the knee, leaning toward him, bare breasts swinging inches from his face, as she said, "Bart, you didn't take your pills today. Not one pill. Here, be a good boy now."
In one hand she had a glass of water, in the other two large pills. He took the pills without argument, washed them down with water, and returned the glass to her. "Sleep tight, baby," Janis said as she moved off, her voice cottony in the dark, faintly mocking.
And he did. He fell into a deep, dark sleep almost before she was out of the room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Some time late in the night he swam partway up out of the well of sleep. Or dreamed he did. He awoke to the sound of voices quarreling. Two voices. A man and a woman.
"...not to let him out of your sight ... except when Carl was watching him...."
"...best I could, Garth ... couldn't keep him penned up in here like an animal ... not my fault Carl didn't do his job right ... like somebody else I can mention...."
"...our purposes, he is an animal. He doesn't even exist ... sound like you're feeling sorry for him, for God's sake! Next thing you'll tell me you like going to bed with him...."
"...told me to go to bed with him...."
"...sure I did. He's your husband, isn't he? But that doesn't mean you have to like it. Do you...? "
Silence ... do you?"
"...better than some I can mention...."
"...bitch! You slut! You utter bitch!"
The sound of a blow, a woman's cry of pain.
Wade tried to struggle up to full consciousness, but the effort was too much. He dropped back, rapidly going under.
"...can't wait any longer. Can't risk it, not since the sister ... tomorrow night we'll do it ... when he's asleep, some time after midnight...."
The voices faded out, and Wade dreamed. He dreamed of a woman he couldn't quite identify. The dream was very dark, but he did smell the sharp odor of gin.
"Just lie back, baby," she crooned in a fuzzy voice. "Let me do it. Let me do it all. You'll like what I do to you!" She worked on his body with her fingers and lips and tongue. She played on his nerve ends like a musical instrument. As her face moved, her head darting and dipping, her hair trailed across his skin like tiny, electric wires. She knew all the right things to do.
His desire started as a core of heat in the center of his being and spread until he was consumed by it, spread until he was in a quivering state of readiness. Soon he was pitching and tossing on the bed. He could hear a constant moaning sound, and he knew it came from him.
"You see, baby?" She chuckled hoarsely. "Now we go! Now we really go!" She rose off the bed, swung one leg across his midsection, and shimmied down, encasing him in silken, pulsing flesh. She drove at him brutally, hips grinding in a frenzy.
His passion burst. A white light exploded behind his eyes, blinding him. A stuttering cry came from the woman astride him. As his hips bucked, she fastened her hands on each side of his rib cage and held on grimly, held their bodies welded together, as her pelvis ground savagely against him. Then it was over. With a guttural groan of content, she slid off him and was gone. And the nylon dream turned into a nightmare out of hell, a nightmare of Easter bunnies bleeding pink, of astringent medicinal odors stinging his nostrils, of faceless men following him, of straitjackets binding him until he screamed his throat raw.
When Wade awoke the next morning, he didn't know what had been a dream, what had been reality. His head throbbed, his mouth had the taste of foulness, and he had trouble focusing his eyes. It took him several minutes to orient himself. Then he glanced at his watch and sat up with a grunt. It was after ten o'clock. He was driven by a sense of urgency. He had to see Lisa, had to find out if the hours spent with her, the way they felt toward each other was a dream as well. He listened. The apartment was very quiet. It occurred to him that the two pills Janis had given him last night must have been sleeping pills, instead of the pills Dr. Hunter had given him.
He got up, showered, and shaved. He felt considerably better after the shower. Dressing, he wondered how he was going to get away from Janis. Feeling in his pocket, he pulled out his hand. Janis had not forgotten to leave him some money. He smiled.
Entering the living room, he discovered it wasn't going to be a problem. Janis was sprawled on her back on the couch, arms and legs akimbo. She was in a robe which was fucked up around her waist, with nothing on underneath. For a frightening moment Wade thought he was reliving that nightmarish instant when he had found Claire's body. He froze in his tracks and it took all his will power to force his legs to carry him to the couch. Then he saw that her mouth hung open and she was snoring softly. There was an empty gin bottle overturned on the carpet a few inches from her trailing hand. Relief swept over him. She wasn't dead, merely stoned to the eyeballs.
He started to turn away, then swung back, leaning down for a closer look. One eye was swelling rapidly, already discolored. She was going to have a beautiful shiner. Could he be wrong in thinking he'd dreamed everything last night? He didn't have time to ponder it now. In the kitchen he found a notepad, tore off a sheet and penned her a short note: "Janis, I'll be back. Don't call the police, Dr. Hunter, or anybody else." He resisted an impulse to sign it Wade, signed Bart instead and pinned it to her robe.
He was hungry and dying for a cup of coffee, but he left the apartment without eating. He had no way of knowing when she'd passed out; she could wake up any minute.
Almost from force of habit he paused just outside the building while he lit a cigarette and glanced both ways along the street. He saw no one. But that didn't mean anything. He was beginning to think that his shadow could follow him without being detected. The times Wade had seen him, he'd let himself be glimpsed on purpose. So that didn't make any kind of sense. What did make sense about this mess he was in?
Except Lisa. That made sense. If Lisa loved him, was with him, when all the fog cleared away, if it ever did, he would be more than content.
He stopped on the way to Lisa's for a hearty breakfast and three cups of black coffee. It was just twelve when he rang the doorbell. There was no response. After a moment, he rang it again and waited, apprehension beginning to prick at him. Then he heard the pad of her footsteps inside.
"Who is it?" Her voice reached him only faintly through the door.
"It's me, Wade."
"Go away! I don't want to see you!"
"What?" He aimed an idiot's gape at the blank door. "What did you say?"
"I said go away!" Her voice gained strength, but it sounded strange, high, and trembling. "Just go away and leave me alone!"
His temper surged. "Now just what the hell is this? I will not go away! Either you let me in, Lisa, or I stay parked out here before your door until I grow a beard down to my knees!"
After a moment the chain rattled as she removed it. The door opened a crack. Wade pushed it wide and went in, fast. Lisa, in sunburst capris and a white sweater, was backing slowly toward the couch, both hands crossed over her lips as though to stifle a scream. The gray eyes were enormous. Her hair was a rat's nest.
Wade's glance raked the living room. He had somehow expected someone to be with her. "Is anyone in here with you?"
She shook her head in mute denial. She had backed until she bumped into the couch. Now she was sidling along the back of the couch, never taking her gaze from him. He took a step toward her, and she cowered away from him.
He stopped. "Then if you're alone, what's got you spooked?" He took a closer look at her and saw that her eyes were puffy and red. She had been crying! Compassion displaced his anger. "Lisa, you've been ... what's wrong? What's happened?" He started toward her again.
She darted around the end of the couch until it stood as a barrier between them. She spoke for the first time since he'd barged through the door. "Stay over there! Don't come near me!"
He stared at her in utter bafflement. "I don't understand all this! What's got into you?"
"I had a visitor this morning.
He stiffened. "A visitor? Who?"
"He said his name was Barnes."
"What did he look like?"
"He was slender, sort of dark, well-dressed..." she broke off. "What difference does that make?"
"What did he want?"
"He said he was a private detective, hired by Janis Evans to watch you when you're away from the apartment. He says you're a schizo and your wife hired him to keep watching you until she can make up her mind whether or not to have you recommitted. She loves you very much and dreads having to send you back to the sanitarium. He said you're dangerous. He followed you all day yesterday and saw you take me out to dinner last night. He came to see me to warn me that I shouldn't ever see you again. If I do, he can't be responsible for what happens."
"I'll just bet he won't be responsible," Wade said absently. His mind was on the dimly remembered conversation he'd overheard, or dreamed, last night. "Did he give you a first name?"
"No, and I didn't ask." Her voice climbed. "What difference does it make what he looks like or if he even has a first name? It's what he said!"
He focused his attention on her, finally realizing the state she was in. "What has changed from last night, Lisa? I told you all this. You didn't learn anything new."
"But it sounds so ... so much more real coming from someone else! If it isn't true, why would anyone go to all that trouble to come here and warn me against you?"
"I don't know the answer to that. I've been wracking my brain and something keeps nudging at the edge of my mind but it's not clear at all." He pounded the heel of his hand against the side of his head in an exaggerated gesture. Then he took a deep breath and said gently, "Lisa, do you really think I'm dangerous?"
"I ... I don't know what to think!" she said wildly. "I don't want to think that, but this man sounded so ... damned convincing!"
It was the first time he'd heard her swear and he knew it revealed the scope of her uncertainty. "If he's who I'm beginning to think he is, he can be very convincing." He smiled at her. "I would never harm you. Even if I were really whacky, I would never do that. Don't you know, Lisa? You must know! I love you."
"Don't say that!" She held both hands but, palms toward him, as though pushing him away.
"I know it's early for me to be saying it, but I do love you. I've never said those words to anyone in my life, Lisa."
"Wade ... please, not now. Not until. ... " Her face was twisted, her voice tortured. He longed to go to her, but he knew it would be a mistake. She smiled brightly, too brightly, and said in a too cheerful voice, "I was just making myself a late breakfast. Could I fix you something?"
"I've had breakfast but you could force a cup of coffee on me." Something within him relaxed a little. He didn't know if she wholly believed him yet, but she wasn't forcing him out.
"I won't promise it to be as good as coffee brewed in an old, battered pot out on the range on a cold morning. Maybe someday...." Her voice died, her glance slid away and she hurried toward the kitchen.
Wade followed her, thinking, Yes, someday!
In the kitchen she tied an apron around her waist and bustled. Wade sat in the breakfast nook, sipping coffee and watching, thinking what an adorably domestic picture she made.
As she bustled, she chattered, as though gripped by nervousness. "I'm a good cook, do you know that?"
"You cook, ride, and herd cattle? Indeed a woman of many talents," he said, laughing.
"I went along on roundups when I could get my father to let me. He thought I was too young to ride then. In those days we had a Chinese cook called Fang. I don't think that was his real name, but the hands called him that because he didn't have a tooth in his head. You know how cowhands are. They called me Big Sister because I was the youngest and the littlest. But Fang was a marvelous cook. The cowhands, even the drifters, always came back and hired on for roundups, because Fang was such a good cook. Most ranch cooks can't even boil water. I'd hang around the camp all day, getting underfoot. And Fang, in self-defense, I think, taught me how to cook."
She never once glanced at him while she talked. But Wade was content to lean back and listen to the run of her voice. She brought a great platter of ham and scrambled eggs, a plate of biscuits to the table, and attacked the food with a large appetite, talking in between bites.
"Claire didn't cook. She hated anything domestic. She had a woman who came in to cook for her or she ate out. I couldn't put up with that. After I'd lived with her a few days, I made her let the woman go and I did the cooking. She even gained a few pounds. At first. Until she went back on drugs again." Her face darkened. She sat for a moment with her head down, brown hair falling around her face like wings.
To break the tension, Wade reached over for a biscuit, buttered it and spread it with jam. He took a bite. "Hey! These are good! They're light enough to fly like a bird."
Her head came up and she smiled. For the first time he noticed the slight indent of a dimple in her right cheek. She bobbed her head. "Thank you, sir. All compliments accepted and filed for future reference."
Her brief melancholy gone, she chattered on. She drew Wade into the conversation and they talked again of cow country. By the time she was done eating, he was swept up in it, his troubles momentarily forgotten. She leaned on the table on her elbows, chin propped on one hand, her face bright and animated. When he paused for a moment, she said, "I don't realize how much I miss all that when I'm away until I talk to somebody like you, darling."
A tingle went through him at the endearment. He was certain it had slipped out. That was all right; it could only mean that she had forgotten her fears of an hour ago.
When she got up and started clearing the table, he got up, too. "The least I can do is wash the dishes."
Half turned away, she turned a laughing face toward him. "Who ever heard of a cowhand washing dishes?"
"This cowhand, ma'am, has washed many a dish."
He seized the apron strings and pulled. The apron came off. Lisa turned towards him, still laughing. She was very close to him, so close he could feel her breath warm on his face. Without volition he started to put his arms around her.
She leaped back, stumbling in her haste, and had to catch at the table for support. Her eyes flared with unreasoning terror. "No! Don't touch me!" Her voice went high and shrill. "Don't touch me!"
CHAPTER EIGHT
"For Christ's sake!" Wade said explosively. 'Wow what's the matter?"
"I ... oh, I'm sorry, Wade. I don't know what's the matter with me. Honest, I don't. But when you started to touch me just then I thought of Claire and ... oh!"
Wade winced and stepped back from her.
"You see?" she said in a stricken voice. "I don't know what's come over me ... I am sorry, darling." She brushed the tips of her fingers lightly across his cheek, then became brisk. "Well, if you insist on helping, I'll wash, you dry. Okay?"
He relinquished the apron which she tied around her waist again. His face felt as stiff and cold as a mask out of glacial ice. But Lisa chose to ignore it. She stacked the dishes in the sink, gave him a dish towel, and he dried the dishes she handed him, his movements wooden. They finished quickly, neither speaking during the chore. Then Wade hung up the dish towel and said, stiffly, "Well ... I guess I'd better be going."
He was halfway to the door when her voice stopped him. "Wade?"
He looked back over his shoulder. Her face had undergone a change. It was tender, luminous; her lips seemed swollen, bee-stung. She beckoned. "Come here to me, darling."
He went to her quickly, his pulse accelerating. This time she came into his arms without reservations. She stood on tiptoe to meet his mouth. They kissed so fiercely their teeth clashed together painfully. He filled his hands with the firm, saucy outcurve of her buttocks. She shifted, adjusted, her mouth never leaving his, until the curves and hollows of her body fitted against his as though both bodies had been precision-tooled to mesh.
At the first touch of his lips a soft, sighing sound escaped her and he knew instinctively that she was his to do with as he wished. This thought plus the feel of her in his arms sent sparks of sensation along his nerve ends like the racing of a burning fuse. Yet he held himself in check, fighting for a semblance of control. It was early in their relationship yet, very early. If he pushed too fast and too far, he might drive her away from him forever.
As though scanning his thoughts, she took her mouth from his to say throatily, "Let's move into the bedroom, darling. When we're married, I'll neck with you in the kitchen whenever you wish. After the dishes are done, of course. But I do think the bedroom's better the first time."
"You mean, in broad daylight?" he asked and laughed nervously.
"Why not?" She chuckled impishly. "Is there a law that says it has to be dark?"
"None that I know of." He took her hand and led her from the kitchen, through the living room and down the hall, thinking he would never understand women. A few minutes ago she had been deathly afraid of him. And now. ... Well, now was now! To hell with a few minutes ago!
There were two bedrooms in the apartment. He tensed as they reached the closed door to what had been Claire's bedroom. He hoped Lisa wouldn't steer him in there. But, as his step slowed, she tugged at his hand and led him down the hall to the second bedroom. Heavy drapes were drawn across the windows and the room was dark as a cave.
"You see, darling, it's dark, anyway. Unless you'd rather have a light on?"
He remembered the past few nights with Janis and straining passion sated in darkness; he had had enough of the dark. He said, "No, turn on a light. I want to see you."
"Me, too!" Her breath caught. "Oh, yes, me, too!"
She flicked a switch, and Wade blinked in the sudden dazzle of light. There were none of the frills of Claire's bedroom. The room was almost stark in its simplicity; he was sure that was Lisa's doing. And the bed was normal, not queen size.
He turned to Lisa just as she shucked the sweater over her head. She tossed it aside and bent both arms behind her back to get at the bra strap. The black bra confined firm, rather small breasts and was the only garment above her waist. Her flesh had once been a golden tan but was now fading out. When her breasts were freed, a narrow strip of white passed all the way around her.
Lisa saw the direction of his glance and she flushed slightly. "There's a pond on the ranch where I swim almost every day when the weather's nice. But it's close to the ranch house and I have to wear a suit." She smiled saucily, her brief shyness gone. "Or else give the hands a treat."
Wade placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. Her lips parted in invitation and he crushed his mouth to hers, probing deep with his tongue. She responded fully to him, reaching, seeking, demanding. He explored her mouth with his tongue, savoring the heated-honey sweetness.
His hands moved over her body, his fingers seeking the touch buds of her passion with a lover's Braille. But the rest of her clothes inhibited him. He tugged impatiently at the elastic band of the capris. He heard something snap. Lisa struggled free of his arms. "Wait, darling. Let me."
As she stepped back, the back of her hand inadvertently brushed across his loins. She shuddered visibly, her head falling back, her tousled hair falling attractively toward her shoulders. "Wade ... darling Wade, you make me feel like an utter wanton!"
She peeled off the capris, stepped out of peach-colored panties, then posed proudly for his inspection. Her pert breasts were firm, the nipples like brown thimbles with the faintest tint of rose. Her body flowed in smooth lines from sloping shoulders to long, tapering thighs. Her hips were broad for such a small woman, the brown triangle at her loins the symbol of her womanhood. Although she stood perfectly still under his gaze, there seemed to be a slight, suggestive roll to her hips.
His passion vaulted and he started across the room toward her, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste. He ripped and tore at his clothes, and by the time he reached her he was down to his trousers and shorts. When at last he stood fully revealed to her, a low moan came from Lisa and she swayed toward him. He caught her. Savagely he crushed her lissome body against his. The points where their bodies made contact seared him like licking flames.
"Wade! Darling, darling!"
He dug his fingers into her yielding buttocks, bending her far back so he could find one of the tumescent nipples with his mouth. The scent of her filled his nostrils as he lifted her off the floor, molding the soft flesh to his muscular leanness.
All the woman he had ever known, all the female bodies he had ever held in his arms, faded from memory as he picked her up and carried her to the bed. He placed her gently on it and gazed down at her. Her heavy-lidded eyes spoke an urgent invitation, as did her up-thrust breasts and trembling thighs.
He had to ask it. "Not afraid of me now?"
"Not afraid of you, no, darling." Then she laughed. "I'd say you could be dangerous in your condition. But I'm not what you would call afraid." She raised her arms to him, her lips parted, hips already in the motion of erotic anticipation.
Love rose up in Wade's throat as he knelt beside the bed and reached hungrily for the delectable body. He could feel the urgent heat of her as he placed his cheek on the smoothness of her belly and circled his tongue in the dark coil of her navel.
"Darling!" She buried her fingers deep in his hair, pressed his face firmly to her quivering flesh. "Oh, yes! Kiss!"
Tenderly, almost reverently, he trailed kisses from her navel to her left breast. There he mouthed the turgid nipple, worried it with lips, teeth and tongue. As he went back and forth from one nipple to the other, his desire spiraled higher and higher. He longed to take her then and there, drive himself to her again and again until he was utterly exhausted. With any other woman he knew he would have, but now, his lust was tempered by love. She wasn't a tramp, a pickup made in the cheap bars fringing rodeo grounds. She wasn't even a Janis ... wasn't even?
With a moan he rose up higher to reach her mouth. Lisa locked her hands behind his head and they kissed until red dots danced before Wade's eyes as he fought for breath.
Lisa broke the kiss and whispered hoarsely in his ear, "Now, Wade? Now, darling?"
It was time. He got upon the bed, moved around on his knees before her. She reached out, found him, and guided him. He plunged and she welcomed him, velvet thighs instantly clamping his hips and corralling his ferocity, and he was encased in ecstasy beyond imagining.
Lisa clung to him with every muscle at her command. Wildly she thrashed beneath him, lifting him clear of the bed repeatedly, meeting his onslaught with a vigor to match his own. Wade worked his hands under her, sank his fingers in the pulsing flesh, and held her against him as his passion raced out of control. "Wade!" His name burst from her throat in a scream, then she clamped her teeth onto his shoulder.
It grew wilder and wilder but ever more wonderful as the microseconds wheeled by. He had forgotten how marvelous it could be with a woman like this, with a woman he loved. With Janis, it was lust, nothing more, a frantic coupling of animals. Love made all the difference. They were one in passion, one in ecstasy. For the sensation was there as well, gathering in him now, a whirling vortex of sensation about to draw him down and down, ever down....
Lisa screamed, "Now, my darling! Now! I'm ... there! Don't wait!"
He let himself go. The vortex pulled him down, spun him into mindlessness, then tossed him high in a starburst of blazing rapture. A symphony of the planets thundered in his ears as he clung desperately to her writhing body.
"Oh! Ah!" Her head twisted back and forth on the pillow as she arched against him and a convulsive spasm ripped through her. Her nails raked the straining muscles of his back. "Wade, I love you ... love you ... love you ... love...."
He held her tightly as the final ripple of release shook her. Then his breath exploded with a great groan and he collapsed in exhaustion on her lax body. He placed his head on her breasts, his ear over her heart, and listened to its mighty thunder.
When he finally rolled off to stretch out beside her, Lisa feathered his lips with moist fingers. "I do love you, darling. I don't know how it happened so sudden, so fast, but it did. And I'm glad!"
"Amen to that," he said with heaving breath.
"You know now I'm not a virgin. Do you mind awfully much?"
He did mind, at least a little. He supposed all men wanted the woman they loved to be a virgin. He said stoutly, "Why should I mind? I'm not a virgin."
"But it's different with men." She tangled her fingers in the hairs on his chest and laughed softly. "I could have told you it happened riding a horse. It happens that way with many women, you know. And I do ride a lot of horses!" Then her voice grew solemn. "But it didn't happen that way. I was eighteen when I lost my virginity. I lost it to a randy cowhand who smelled of horse sweat ... it was messy and unpleasant. So naturally I had to try again to see what the shouting was all about. And a couple of more times." Her words spilled out in a rush, as though something compelled her to confess. "But none were so wonderful as ... this. How I wish I'd waited!" He felt a warm tear drop on his chest. "I'm sorry I didn't wait, darling!"
"Why is it women have to talk about the other men they've known?" he said gruffly. "I couldn't be less interested."
"Oh, but the way I understand it, it's the other way around!" She raised up until her face hovered over his. And, as suddenly as she had shed a tear, she was laughing. "Men are always bragging about their conquests!"
"You haven't heard me, have you?"
"No...." She peered at him shrewdly. "But I have a hunch there haven't been that many women with you."
He felt color mount to his face.
"You're blushing!" She chortled. Then she aimed a kiss at his mouth and missed, her lips skidding across his cheek. "I'm sorry, darling, I shouldn't tease. You're sweet and I love you for it."
To cover his confusion, he groped around on the floor for his trousers and dug out a pack of cigarettes.
"Light me one, darling. Just like they do in the movies," she remarked romantically.
He lit two cigarettes and gave her one. He leaned back against the headboard and inhaled deeply. For the first time he had a direct look at the wall opposite the bed. And on the wall was a framed sketch done in pen and ink. It was of Lisa, a younger Lisa, a caricature of her as a cowgirl, with chaps, sixguns, et cetera. Memory jabbed at him, and a pulse began to pound in his forehead. He gestured toward the sketch with his cigarette. "Your sister did that sketch of you, didn't she?"
"Oh, yes! I didn't tell you that about her, did I? Claire was quite talented in that direction, even as a girl. Before she decided to become a movie star, she wanted to be an artist. She probably could have, too. I think she had the talent. She still played around with sketching things like that one, mostly when she was drinking."
"That just might do it," he muttered. "If it's still there."
"What might do what, darling, if it's still there?"
"There's something that slipped my mind when I told you about my day with Claire." He told her about the sketch Claire had drawn in lipstick on the mirror in the western saloon. "It might not do anything toward solving her murder but it would certainly prove to my satisfaction that I was with her that day, that it isn't something I read about and fastened onto with a sick mind."
Lisa came up on her knees, bare breasts bobbing. She said excitedly, "You think it might still be there?"
"It just might be. Claire said sometimes those sets aren't used for months, even years, and nobody comes near them in the meantime. I'm sure it hadn't been used for a long time when we were there. There was dust over everything like a heavy fall of snow."
She beat her hands together. "Then let's go!"
"Whoa now! Who said you're going."
"I say. From now on, cowhand, where you go, I go!"
"That could be downright embarrassing at times," he said dryly. "Besides ... if I remember correctly, Claire didn't sign the sketch . ... "
"That doesn't matter," she broke in impatiently. "I'd recognize her work anywhere."
He had to grin. "Meaning that I might not know for sure unless you're along?"
"Right! You're sharp, darling." Again she beat her hands together. "That's what I said to myself when I first saw you ... I said to myself, 'This is one sharp cowhand'. "
"Sure, I am! The sharpest," he said, suddenly glum. He stared ahead at nothing for a moment, then shook his head in anger at himself. "Be all that as it may be, we'll have to wait. I can just see us trying to get past the guards at the gate. We'll have to wait until after dark, after they're closed down for the night and sneak in somehow."
"Oh." She slumped, dejected. "And meanwhile?"
"Well...." He arched an eyebrow at her. "Do you have any suggestions?"
"Any suggestions? Hey...! " She brightened. "Do I ever!"
"Such as?"
"Such as ... such as this, cowhand!"
With a yelp she launched herself at him and Wade closed his mind to all thought and let his senses take charge of his body.
CHAPTER NINE
The Los Angeles River ran alongside the studio. Except for a few times during the winter rainy season, the river was a subject of much humor. In the dry months there was never more than a trickle of water, hardly more than a garden hose could supply. In the rainy season a torrent sometimes did race down the concrete channel toward the sea, the brown, turbulent water reaching near the top of the concrete banks.
Since it was now mid-July, there was only a ribbon of dirty water. A high wire fence ran along the top of the river bank, enclosing the studio. While working there as an extra, Wade had noticed the six-foot fence and the three strands of barbed wire along the top. He could only hope that the top strands weren't electrified. If they were, he was out of luck.
He'd made a trip to a hardware store that afternoon and purchased wire cutters, a rope ladder, a flashlight, and a pair of painter's coveralls. Lisa wore a dark sweater and a pair of dark slacks.
They waited until after dark before entering the river channel about a mile from the rear of the studio lot. The sloping side of the channel on which they walked was littered with debris: tin cans, boxes, automobile tires, fecal matter, et cetera. Although it was illegal to trespass there, children played in the river, dogs cavorted, and once Wade had seen a horse ridden there, shoes sending up sparks from the concrete.
Reflected light from nearby street lights gave enough illumination to walk by, although they occasionally stumbled over or stepped into something. Wade didn't want to use the flashlight yet, for fear they'd be seen from across the river.
Lisa clung to his arm, picking her way daintily since suffering a mishap right after they started out. She said, "The things a woman will do for a man!"
"Don't complain," Wade retorted. "Coming along was your idea. To keep you away I'm sure I'd have had to rope and tie you."
"That's right, cowhand. You would have. And I'm not complaining, just commenting on the condition of womanhood."
When he judged they were approximately opposite the sets he'd explored that day with Claire, he started up the bank. It was rough going. The concrete was dry but it was steeply slanted and slippery as pebbled glass. They progressed a few feet, slid back a couple, then toiled on.
They were both out of breath and had skinned knees and elbows when they finally reached the fence. And even there they found standing difficult. The fence was flush with the lip of the concrete, without any kind of a ledge to stand on. Wade guided Lisa's fingers into the steel webbing of the fence and told her to hold on.
Then, grasping the fence with one hand, he tossed the rope ladder over with the other. It took him several tries to get it over properly. When it was finally over he groped with his fingers through the octagonal gaps in the fence and tied the end of the ladder close to the ground inside. He tested it; it seemed firmly anchored.
"You stay down here until I go up and cut that barbed wire," he said. "If they're by chance electrified and I fry up there like a chicken, you'd better take off like a big bird."
She gasped and clutched at him. "Darling, maybe you shouldn't go up there."
He had intended it as a joke but he realized it had been a poor one. He said quickly, "I'm spoofing. It's not juiced up." I hope, he added silently.
He clambered up the swaying ladder. At the top he took the wire clippers from his pocket. He hadn't the least idea whether barbed wire even could be electrified. Into his mind came the memory of Dr. Hunter's electroshock treatments and his body thrashing wildly, then going rigid. He forced the image from his mind, held his breath, gingerly put the clippers in place, mouthed a prayer then clamped down. The wire parted with a strumming sound but no electricity jolted him. The two pieces of the cut wire curled away from him like iron filings. He cut the other two strands quickly, then called down softly, "It's okay, Lisa. I'm going over now. You wait until I reach the ground on the other side before you climb over."
He went over the fence and down to the ground on the other side. He landed opposite Lisa. He poked a finger through the fence and touched her lips. She laughed in relief and nipped at his finger.
"Okay, Lisa. Up and over!"
She clambered over the fence with the agility of a monkey. On the ground she caught his hand and whispered, "I feel just like a burglar!" She giggled at the thought.
"We get caught, we'll probably hang for one."
Using the flashlight sparingly, he led the way toward where he thought the western set should be. At first nothing looked at all familiar. The empty sets seemed eerie in the dim light, like half-completed cities on alien continents utterly deserted as though the inhabitants had fled before a plague.
He got lost several times before he finally stumbled onto the western street and the saloon with the batwing doors. He squeezed Lisa's hand and whispered, "Well, this is it, honey!"
"Why are we whispering?" she whispered back.
"I don't know. It just seems the thing to do."
He felt her shiver. "I know. It's so ... ghostly. I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting to see Tom Mix striding down the middle of the street with guns blazing!"
"Tom Mix? I didn't think you were that old."
"I'm not, smartie, but I can read, for heaven's sake! And the old Tom Mix silent movies are big on TV out our way."
Wade pushed the doors wide and stepped in first, shining the flashlight around. The dust was still thick on the floor. The few footprints he saw on the floor were old ones, layered with dust, and probably were the ones he and
Claire had left. He motioned with the flashlight and Lisa entered. She followed him as he moved down the room. Wade pointed the light at the table where they'd eaten lunch that day. The paper cups they'd used for the martinis were still there.
"Nobody has been here. There are the cups we used that day. ... Hey!" His voice soared jubilantly. "That alone proves I was here with Claire. How else would I know about the cups?"
He took Lisa's hand and hustled her around behind the long bar, deliberately refraining from pointing the flashlight at the mirror until they were in position. And there he was! Stetson, moustache, sneer, and guns blazing. Relief left him weak. The light wavered and he had to lean against the bar. "It's all true then. I didn't dream any of it up. Thank God! I'm not crazy!"
"I never did think you were, darling. Not for very long, at any rate."
Her voice sounded strange. He flicked the light at her. She was weeping, great tears welling out of her eyes and running down her cheeks, as she stared straight ahead at the sketch.
"What's wrong, sweetheart? What is it?"
"That sketch ... It brings it all back, when we were girls together on the ranch. You know a funny thing?" She turned a weeping face to him. "This is the first time I've really cried for
Claire since her death. I know I cried last night but that was more for me than anything. I was feeling sorry for myself. But now ... she's gone! Claire's gone!" She fell into his arms, shaking with violent sobs, and for a second time he held her while she cried it out. He placed the flashlight on the bar without switching it off and patted and soothed and comforted her.
Holding Lisa, he found his thoughts moving back to Claire. Here on this set, where he'd been with her that day, Claire was more real to him than at any time since he had awakened in the sanitarium. Closing his eyes, he recalled the time of pleasure in her bedroom. He remembered her coming to him in a frenzy, crying, "God, sweetie! Dear God!" He remembered her strident plea, "Please, sweetie, do it!" He remembered her eyes flaring wide in surprise, remembered her saying, "Hey!", when he had entered her. Most of all, he remembered the savage way her nails had ripped and tore at his back, the way she had screamed obscenities into his ear as they had broke through to a mutual climax.
Wade's thoughts came back to the present as Lisa drew away from him, took some pieces of tissue from the pocket of her slacks and mopped at her face. Then she squared her shoulders and gave her head a shake. "There! No more tears, I promise!" She laughed shakily.
He picked up the flashlight. "We'd better get out of this place before a guard stumbles onto us. They must have someone around here at night." Then he froze, head cocked. "Did you hear something?"
"No ... yes, I do!"
It was a furtive sound, coming from somewhere toward the door. A rat? A stray dog?
Lisa crowded against him. "What is it?"
"I don't know. A guard would announce..." He swung the beam of the light toward the door. The batwing doors were swinging gently as though someone had just passed through. Wade swung the light beam left. Nothing. He reversed it to the right and saw just a shadow darting out of sight around the edge of a stack of scenery. Or was he imagining it?
Lisa said, "I saw somebody. Or something. I'm sure I did, Wade!"
"Yeah. Me, too." He raised his voice to a shout. "Who is it? Who's there?"
There was no answer, of course, but he was certain he could hear running footsteps. And suddenly he knew. Rage engulfed him. "It's that bastard who's been tailing me! It has to be. I'm going to settle this right now! You stay right here, Lisa, so I can find you again."
"Darling, do you think you...? " Her voice, which had risen in alarm, dropped to a murmur. "Just be careful, darling, whatever you do."
He merely grunted, placed one hand on the bar, vaulted over, and hit the floor running. He was through being careful. He knew now that he wasn't whacky but was instead the focal point of some involved, bizarre plot; and the man running away had the answer to the riddle, at least part of the answer. If he could get his hands on whoever it was, he'd beat it out of him if necessary!
But the prospect of catching him didn't look very promising. When he rounded the corner of the first stack of scenery flats, he saw nobody. And the scenery, standing on edge in racks, went far back, row after row. He ran down the line, shining the light between each rack for a quick look. And saw nothing. He reached the last rack and wheeled around it. Still nothing. And there was nothing back there but a weed-grown lot and the next set thirty yards or so away.
He hesitated, undecided. Had his quarry scurried across the vacant lot and onto the next set? All of a sudden he laughed. His quarry? So now he was the hunter! That was indeed good for a laugh, and yet it gave him a good feeling to know that he had finally seized the initiative. Then he heard a crash behind him, followed by a scream from Lisa. "Wade!" His quarry had doubled back to Lisa! Cursing under his breath, Wade ran back at full speed.
Skidding around the first scenery rack, he stabbed the light beam toward the bar. Lisa stood where he'd left her, apparently unharmed. Her face was tilted up as she stared up into the darkness. As the light hit her, she shielded her face and pointed up. "He's up there, Wade! Somewhere up there!"
He turned the light off her and shouted, "All right, Lisa! You stay right there!"
He pointed the light up into a maze of beams and catwalks and arc lights. The flashlight beam was too weak to reach all the way up. He lowered the beam and swept it back and forth across the second level, then the first, and he saw a shadowy figure climbing a ladder.
Wade felt the familiar lurch of vertigo at the thought of climbing up there. He could collect Lisa and run; they should be able to get away now. But he knew he couldn't. He had to face this now or he'd never be able to face himself in the future.
He hurried back behind the set where he knew the ladders were. He found one directly behind the wall backing the bar. The ladder was nothing more than two two-by-fours with one-by-twos nailed in between. He directed the light up briefly, gritted his teeth and started to climb. For the first few feet, he had his eyes clenched shut. Halfway up, he forced them open. He climbed with the flashlight, switched off, clutched in one hand. As his hands encountered the last rung, then the catwalk, he raised himself up until just his elbows rested on the catwalk and switched on the flashlight.
An orange flower blossomed in the night off to his right and a bullet clanged into the flashlight. It was wrenched from Wade's hand; seconds later, he heard it clatter to the floor below.
Of course, the man would have a gun. He should have known that. So now what should he do? He no longer thought of retreat. Resting his weight gingerly so the ancient boards wouldn't creak, he eased his body up the last few rungs until he lay flat on the catwalk. At least they were even in one respect. He couldn't see his adversary, but neither could the man see him. The man could only fire at any sound Wade inadvertently made, while Wade could judge the other's approximate location by the flash of the gun. On second thought, that might not be such an advantage. By simply firing blindly the other just might hit the target. The thought was far from comforting. He'd better move. He began worming along the narrow catwalk.
And from below Lisa called up, her voice edged with panic, "Wade? Are you all right?"
He longed to reassure her, but he couldn't risk it. He clamped his lips together and kept crawling. The planks were thick with dust. It invaded his nostrils and he had to fight back a sneeze. He'd progressed about six feet, approximately the length of his body, when the gun fired again. The bullet thudded into the planks where he'd been only moments ago. The fire-blossom located the other on the ladder halfway up to the second level.
Wade again fought back vertigo. Was he going to have to climb all the way to the third level? He kept crawling, now and then groping along the edge of the planks for the other ladder. Despite all his caution, the ancient boards creaked under his weight. Each time they did, he held his breath, steeling himself for the impact of a bullet. Yet it worked both ways. Directly overhead, he heard the boards groan in protest and he knew the other had reached the third catwalk.
Then his sweeping hand encountered the two-by-four siding of the ladder. He eased himself around and started up slowly. This was the last catwalk. Soon they would be down to the nitty-gritty. If he only had a weapon! The man waiting for him up there had a gun and he had his bare hands.
His reaching hand found the planks of the catwalk. He eased his body onto the catwalk, crouching on all fours. At least he knew which way the man had gone. The catwalk ended in a blank wall; his shadow would finally be cornered. Wade choked off a laugh. How in the hell could he corner a man with a gun ? It would be something like reaching into a pit to pick up an angry rattlesnake with his bare hands!
He gathered himself to get to his feet and his hand brushed against something. He felt it with his fingers. It was a length of two-by-four about three feet long. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. If he could get in close enough without being sieved by bullets first. ... He stood up. And the lights came on. He staggered back against the wooden rail, blinking at the floor below. The arc lights were all below him, pointing directly down on the saloon set, but their reflected glare threw light up here. A wave of dizziness swept over him as he looked down and he had to hold onto the railing to keep from falling. He saw Lisa standing in the middle of the floor staring up. She must have found the switchboard controlling the bank of lights. ...
Almost too late, he remembered the man on the catwalk with him. He spun half around and threw himself awkwardly. He was just in time. The gun boomed and a bullet whistled past his head. The figure at the endof the catwalk was only a shadow; the light wasn't good enough to reveal his features.
Wade did the only thing possible, did it without thinking. He ran straight at the man, covering the distance between them in lunging strides. The gun bearing on him looked as large as a cannon, and he wondered, almost idly, if a bullet would knock him off the walk. He remembered the two-by-four in his hand and he hurled it with a sidewise twist of his body. The gun sounded again and splinters flew from the railing inches in front of Wade. The piece of wood spun through the air end over end. By some minor miracle, his aim had been good. The two-by-four clunked into the other man, knocking the gun out of his hand. The man grunted with pain and Wade heard the gun hit the floor far below just as he slammed into the man, his head down, feet driving. The momentum of his attack swept them crashing into the wall at the end of the catwalk. Wade knew that the wall was fragile, probably only plywood. If it gave way, they would plunge together to the ground three floors below. It shivered and seemed to bulge outward, but it held.
The man was small but wiry and had a terrifying strength. Wade wrapped his arms around the man's waist and tried to wrestle him down onto the planks. It was like trying to bulldog a wild range steer. The man used elbows and knees as very effective weapons. Twice a knee in Wade's groin just missed doing painful damage. Elbows thumped into Wade's ribs until he was positive they were all cracked. And the man wore built-up heels, heels he kept smashing down on Wade's toes.
It was a wordless struggle. The only sounds were the creaking of the planks under them, grunts of pain, and whistling breaths. Suddenly the other broke free and went reeling back against the frail wall. He rebounded and came at Wade who met him with flailing fists. Wade had never been expert at physical combat. Except for a few childhood tangles, he'd had very few fist fights. The other man was skilled at it. His elbows weren't powerful but he knew just where to land his fists for the maximum damage.
Wade's breath grew short, rasping through his lungs like fire, and his arms grew weary, his fists feeling as heavy as sledgehammers but not nearly so lethal. He knew his only chance was in close where his superior strength would give him the advantage. He closed with the other again, wrapping his arms around him in a bear-like hug.
The man snarled foul obscenities. His face was buried in Wade's neck; his breath scorched. Then Wade felt the fingers of the other's hand creeping up his face and he knew he was going for the eyes. Wade tried to twist his face aside but he'd made a slight error in judgment. The man wasn't going for the eyes. By the time Wade realized his mistake, it was too late. Two fingers were inserted into his nostrils like iron bars. The fingers twisted. The pain was excruciating. Wade screamed, screamed again, and his muscles turned to water. His hold loosened, and he began to sag to the planks. A part of his mind prepared him for the final, lethal blow. Then he realized that he was lying with one ear on the planks and he heard a drumming sound, like the hoofs of a racing horse. He was getting away!
Disregarding the pain, Wade rolled over and came to his feet. He ran after the fleeing shadow. A short distance before the other man reached the ladder, Wade left his feet in a flying tackle. He came up short and skidded along on the planks on his belly. With a last effort, he stretched one arm as far as it would go. He closed it around an ankle and twisted. The ankle slipped out of his grasp. But it was enough. He flipped over on his back in time to see the other flying through the air. The man struck the railing; it burst with a splintering sound. A shrill scream rent the air, rapidly dying away, and Wade held his breath until he heard a sickening thump far below. And then silence.
Aching all over, nostrils on fire, he crawled on his hands and knees to the edge of the catwalk and looked over the edge. A still figure was spread-eagled on the floor of the saloon. Lisa stood a few feet away, her hands plastered over her mouth. After what seemed a long time she looked up, her face a white blur. "Wade? Darling ... are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Just fine," he said weakly. He raised his voice. "Yes, Lisa, I'm all right." He got to his feet with care. His stomach lurched. He leaned over a piece of unbroken railing and retched dryly. But he knew it wasn't from the height. After this experience, he doubted he would ever be fearful of high places again. It was the sudden, violent death and his part, however small, in it. After a while he moved, felt for the ladder rungs with his feet, and shakily made his way down to the floor.
Lisa ran to meet him as he came around the end of the bar. She clutched at his hand, great eyes searching his face. "Wade, I was about out of my mind down here! I thought sure something happened to you up there!"
"Something almost did. And you didn't...." He scrubbed his hand across his mouth. He'd been about to scold her for shouting at him and for turning on the lights, but he thought better of it. It was even possible that her turning on the lights had helped save his life.
He walked over to the inert figure. The man was on his stomach, face hidden in the dust on the floor. Wade knelt and gingerly touched the back of the man's head with one finger. It rolled loosely. His neck had been broken by the fall. Wade jumped back, a shuddery sensation going through him as he recalled the almost identical circumstances with Claire. Then he steeled himself and moved in close again. He took the dead man by the shoulders and turned him over. Unsurprised, Wade saw the narrow, fox-like features of the man he knew as Lieutenant Brewer.
CHAPTER TEN
"It figures," Wade muttered, staring down at the still face.
Lisa tugged at his elbow. "Darling ... what figures?"
"This guy ... he's the one who barged in and caught me right after I found Claire dead. He's the one who said he was Lieutenant Brewer of Homicide."
"But that's the man who came to the apartment this morning! The private detective. Barnes, he said his name was."
"Brewer, Barnes, it still figures. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he had other names as well."
"What does it all mean, Wade? I'm more confused than ever!"
"I'm not sure," he said musingly. But it was fitting together piece by piece, like a picture puzzle with random pieces still missing. He could see the vague shape of it, yet the reason behind his being a part of it still baffled him. He came to himself with a glance around. "We'd better get the hell out of here. With those gunshots and these lights blazing, somebody's bound to come charging in here any second. You know where the light switchboard is. Go turn them off and let's go."
She gestured toward the dead man. "Do we just leave him there?"
"What would you suggest?" he asked savagely. "Tote him on my back over the fence?"
"It seems so ... callous, just leaving him here like that," she said in a small voice.
"I need a little time, Lisa," he said in a calmer voice. "I think this will be wrapped up tonight, one way or another. If we call the police in now, which is what I suppose you have in mind, we'll be tied up all night. And I'll probably wind up in jail. I promise you I'll call them before the night is over."
"You're right, of course. I'll go turn off the lights."
She trotted off. Waiting, Wade lit a cigarette and stared somberly down at the dead man. He knew now why he had escaped so easily from
Claire's apartment that night; Brewer, or Barnes, had made it easy for him. Had the man been a real policeman, it would have been much more difficult. But Wade couldn't see why he had been allowed to escape. And he couldn't see where Janis figured in it. But she did. Of that he was sure. Any answers now would have to come from her.
The lights went out and Lisa came hurrying toward him in Stygian darkness. He called her name, guiding her to him with the sound of his voice. They hurried outside and up the street. They had just started around the first corner when headlights came bouncing down the rough street from the other direction. Wade shoved Lisa around the corner out of sight and ran back to peer around. A Jeep screeched to a halt before the saloon and two men in the gray uniform of studio guards leaped out and ran inside.
Evidently, they had not been seen. Wade went back to Lisa. "That takes care of your worries. Our Mr. Barnes/Brewer is no longer alone. And neither will we be if we hang around for long, This whole area will be swarming with police within minutes."
Holding Lisa's hand in a tight grip, he towed her along after him to the fence. He boosted her onto the rope ladder, waited until she reached the ground on the other side, and hustled after her. A hundred yards along the river channel he dropped the ladder and wire cutters into the few inches of water.
The flashlight was back there on the saloon floor somewhere and had his prints all over it. Now the police would have fingerprints to match those found in Claire's apartment, if they compared them and he was sure they would. Not only that but they also had a sketch of the man they were looking for. Of course they might not connect the sketch with Claire at all. But the net was drawing tighter, the police getting closer all the time. Tonight would see the end of it one way or another.
As if to underscore this awareness, sirens screamed on the lot and he could see red lights blinking. If someone had the wit to throw a net around the entire area...! He didn't breathe freely until they were out of the river channel and in a brightly lighted business section a half mile from the studio lot. Wade glanced at his watch. He was astonished to see it wasn't yet ten o'clock. It seemed as though they'd been there half the night!
Lisa said, "You're going back there, aren't you? To that woman's place, I mean?"
He nodded. "I have to. I'm left with no choice."
Her chin jutted at him. "Then I'm going with you!"
"You are like hell! There I'm putting my foot down. Besides ... how would your presence help ? The only way I'll learn anything is to go back as Bart Evans. Your being along would blow that, for sure." He hadn't told her of the conversation he'd overheard last night. He was now convinced it hadn't been a dream. But he hadn't told Lisa and didn't intend to.
He turned Lisa into a service station and told her to wait outside the public phone booth while he called a cab. As they waited, Lisa asked, "You're going back right now?"
"I've been thinking about that," he said slowly. "She was drinking last night, lushed up enough to talk too much. Only I didn't know the right questions. Now I have a few new ones. Maybe if I wait until midnight or after, she might be smashed enough, worried enough about my whereabouts to let some of the truth out."
Again he was not telling Lisa all the truth. The man last night had said something about waiting until after midnight. If he could wait until the man, whoever he was, was with Janis, if he could surprise them together, he might unravel the whole ball of yarn. At least he would know who the hell the other man was!
Their cab pulled into the station. Inside the cab Lisa turned to him to speak. Wade placed a finger over her lips and jerked his head at the driver. Lisa subsided and they rode the rest of the way in silence. Wade had a quarter left after he'd paid the fare and tipped the driver.
He bounced the quarter in his palm and said ruefully, "That's it. Either you loan me some money or I'm going to be walking it from here."
Without a word, she took a small purse from the pocket of her slacks and rummaged in it. She produced two tens. "That enough?"
"Enough. And now I know what it's like to be a kept man."
She caught his arm and hugged it to her as they entered the building. "If you'll come to Arizona, I'll deduct it from your first month's salary."
"I thought we'd already agreed on my coming?"
"We did no such thing! You said to wait...." She turned a glowing face. "Darling, do you mean it?"
"I mean it." He held up his right hand. "Scout's honor."
In the apartment, he crossed to the phone. "I want to try something." He dialed Janis' number. She answered on the second ring. He could visualize her pacing the floor, drink in her hand, and pouncing on the phone at the first ring.
Her voice was slurred. "Hello?"
Wade said nothing.
"Who is this? Garth? Is that you, Garth?" Wade still didn't speak. "Carl? I've been expecting you to call ... Carl, this is you?" When Wade still remained silent, her control snapped. "Damn it, who is this?"
Gently he hung up the receiver. "That should shake her up a little. And it's just as I thought. She's on her way to getting stoned."
He went across the room and dropped down onto the couch with a sigh. He was weary to the bone. His nose throbbed, his ribs ached, and skinned knees and elbows burned like fresh blisters.
Lisa stood before him. "Would you like something to eat?" He shook his head. "Not hungry."
"A drink then?"
"I'd sure as hell would like one, but I don't think I'd better. I'll be needing all my wits, what few I have."
"Well...." She tilted her head to one side, the tiny dimple showing. "I only have one other thing to offer." So saying, she plopped down across his lap, looping her arms around his neck.
"Hey now! Cut that out, damn it!"
She closed his mouth with warm lips. He definitely wasn't in the mood. There was, after all, a time and a place. Her lips were soft and sweet, her breasts firm against his chest. The light touch of her fingers stroking the back of his neck sent a shiver over him. Her mouth never leaving his, she tugged the zipper of the coveralls partway down and ran her hand inside, her nails scratching at his skin. Now her mouth moved, leaving a trail of nipping kisses up his cheek to his ear. She blew heated breath in the ear, then circled the wet tip of her tongue inside, and Wade jumped. And just like that his mood changed. He decided this was the time and place after all. He began to cooperate with her. His desire mounted lazily but steadily as he caressed her squirming body. His blood ran thick and hot, and his heart took on a trip hammer beat.
Somewhere in there Lisa said dreamily, "I think this is much, much better than having something to eat or drink. Don't you, darling?"
"Why don't you just shut the hell up?" he said roughly.
"Whatever you say, darling," she said meekly, then laughed softly, mockingly.
With a snarl of impatience, he stood up with her in his arms and strode toward the hall. She squealed with delight and squirmed closer to him. "You're carrying me over the threshold! Just like this is my wedding day! And I love it, darling, but what'll you do when the real day comes?"
"I'll think of something," he growled.
By the time they reached the bedroom, she had the coveralls' zipper worked farther down. Her fingers ran through the hairs on his chest like the scurrying of many mice.
Wade set her down, helped her pull the sweater over her head. She turned her back and he unhooked the black bra. He traced his finger tenderly along the red welts the straps had left, then dipped his face to kiss each shoulder blade. Her skin felt like heated silk to his lips. She faced him, her breasts up-thrust, the nipples proudly erect. Her eyes never leaving his face, she stepped out of the slacks, then black panties, and once more her slender loveliness was revealed to his gaze.
His desire spiraled dizzily, and he fumbled with the coveralls. Lisa lay on the bed, her head propped against the headboard, watching with slitted eyes while he finished undressing. He hurried to the bed and came down on one knee beside her, the bed groaning with his weight. She sighed gustily as he took a tumescent nipple in his mouth. She dug her fingers into his hair and forced his face deep into the scented valley between her breasts. This was an entirely different Lisa from the one earlier in the day. She caressed him with all the skill of a courtesan, her fingers and lips all over him, coaxing and demanding.
Their caresses grew more heated, more frantic. Lisa began to plead with him in a low, stuttering voice, her words almost unintelligible. He finally responded to her need. Lisa uttered a single, piercing cry as he took her roughly. He knew instinctively that this was no time for tenderness. Their mutual need was too great, too overpowering. Their bodies meshed perfectly, the bed creaking lustily with their thrashings. Lisa's supple body rose and fell in a frenzy of coital rhythm. She crooned in his ear, urging him on to greater and greater effort. Wade responded to her goading with a bull-like vigor. The world blanked out for him. His range of consciousness narrowed down to the sensations coursing through him and the moaning woman in his arms.
Lisa's heels beat a tattoo on the bed and she combed his hair with her fingers. Then she doubled her fists and beat on his shoulders in counterpoint to the lashing of her hips. She yelled in his ear, "Now, damn you! Now! I ... can't ... wait!"
At their mutual peak Lisa's body contracted in convulsing spasms and she bit into the soft flesh of his shoulder to stifle her cries. A final searing wave of ecstasy gripped Wade and he collapsed against her. After a little he started to roll away. Lisa said sharply, "No, darling, not yet. Please, not yet." She tightened her arms and legs around him, holding him to her.
In time she loosened her hold with a soft, contented sigh, and Wade rolled over onto his back. Lisa raised her head and gazed down the length of her body, unconscious female pride in her look. She scratched at her cheek with a finger and said musingly, "My God, like a bitch in heat. I could hardly wait to get you to bed again." She couldn't believe her behavior.
He said solemnly, "It was my pleasure."
She looked over at him, scowling. Then her great eyes bubbled with sudden mirth. "I'll just bet it was, cowhand. I'll just bet it was."
She rolled against him, her head in the hollow of his shoulder. Wade winced and she jerked her head up. She touched his shoulder with the tip of her finger. Her eyes widened at the sight of his blood. She said guilelessly, "Did I do that?"
"You know damned well you did."
She said solemnly, "It was my pleasure."
And they fell into each other's arms, shouting with laughter.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When he started to leave, Lisa clutched at him. "No! Not yet, darling!" At his look a tide of color swept her face. Her glance fell away. "I know, I'm awful."
He settled back down. "I guess a few minutes more won't make all that much difference."
She gave him a shy, yet bawdy smile. "Time for a ... quickie?"
He grinned. "A quickie."
But it wasn't a quickie. He made slow, languorous love to her. They lay side by side, face to face. Familiar with her responses now, Wade knew just what to do to arouse her to a feverish pitch. And Lisa, growing steadily bolder, returned his caresses eagerly. A beatific smile lighted her face when a particular caress caused him to cry out.
When it was finally time, when both were ready, he lifted her leg over his hip and went into her like that. Lisa gasped, sighed softly, and matched his rhythm. Her eyes closed, she blindly sought his mouth and drove her tongue inside. The love play of their tongues was a heated counterpoint to the clashing of their bodies. It built slowly to an excruciating climax.
Abruptly Lisa ripped her mouth away. "Now, darling! Ah-h! Heaven. Heaven!"
They welded together as one, bodies shuddering in sweet rapture. Lisa held him to her for a long time, her fingers stroking his hair, her voice an unintelligible murmur. Finally her arms loosened and fell away. She rolled over on her back. "How marvelous! How marvelous!"
It was a few minutes past midnight when Wade finally got out of bed and began dressing.
"I still don't see why I can't go along," Lisa said plaintively. "If nothing else, I could wait outside."
"No. You're involved enough as it is and there's absolutely nothing you can do to help. I have to do it alone from here on in."
She stamped her bare foot. "But I can't just sit here and wait! I'm not the waiting kind. I'll go out of my mind!"
"I want you here. By the phone. If I don't call you in two hours, phone the police and tell them everything you know."
Alarm showed in her eyes. "If you don't call?"
"Lisa..." He took her by the elbows. "I don't know what's going to happen. You're not a child, so I won't lie to you. I'm going to be in some danger. But if you were along, you'd be in danger, too. And that would only make it harder on me. Surely you can see that?"
"Well, yes, I guess so." She drew a deep breath. "But you don't have to do it this way. You can bring the police in."
"Now you know better than that. Anything I have to tell them at this stage would only draw the net tighter around me."
"I suppose you're right," she said with a discouraged droop of her shoulders.
"You know I am." He tipped her face up and brushed her .mouth lightly with his lips. He could feel her body trembling. "Two hours. Or less."
"Two hours." She tried to smile. "Or less. And you be real careful, cowhand."
"I'll be careful."
He left then, quickly, without so much as a glance back over his shoulders. He used one of the tens for cab fare to Janis' apartment. He was tense and on edge, not at all sure what waited him, but he was no longer apprehensive. His main fear, the fear of madness, was gone now. Any danger he faced now was purely physical, and he would face that as best he could.
He stood for a moment before the apartment house, his glance ranging up. Even as late as it was, many of the apartments were still showing light, and he couldn't pick out the apartment belonging to Janis. He lit a cigarette and, from force of habit, shot a glance at the palm tree up the street. There was nobody there, of course. Wade was sure that his shadow sprawled dead on the movie set. Or, what was more-likely by this time, lay obscenely naked in the cold blue light of the city morgue.
Janis was up when he let himself in quietly. She wasn't pacing the floor. She stood by the view window, staring westward, a drink in her hand. She didn't move to the attack, simply stood quietly, waiting for him to cross the room to her.
She didn't turn around until he reached her. The robe she was wearing looked like the same one she'd had on when she'd passed out on the couch that morning. Her hair was as untidy as a fouled bird's nest. Her eyes were glazed, her mouth slack. A sour odor came from her. She had a beautiful shiner.
"I'm sorry I'm late again, Janis," he said warily. "I got hung up. You saw my note?"
She nodded dully. "Yeah, I saw it."
Her words were thick; she was very drunk. But she seemed sunk in apathy and that puzzled him. A mouse of worry began to nibble at the edges of his mind. Something was drastically wrong. He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "I got hung up by a friend of yours. Brewer. Or maybe you know him as Barnes. Carl Barnes. He's dead, Janis."
She blinked slowly and seemed to draw back into herself. "Carl's dead? How...? "
"He tried to kill me. We fought and he ended up dead. The police will probably be along soon to ask you a few questions about him."
Even that got very little reaction from her. She shrugged, tipped her head back and drained her glass.
"They'll also have some questions about Claire Duncan. You killed her, Janis. Or had her killed."
"I didn't kill anyone," she said sullenly. She walked around him and made her way unsteadily to the bar. She dropped two ice cubes in her glass and poured it full of straight gin.
"Maybe you didn't actually kill anyone, but you know who did. And you're involved up to your pretty little neck. You've been in it from the start, working overtime to make me the fall guy."
"You're the fall guy, all right." She laughed harshly. "You are indeed, cowboy!"
A rustling sound behind him brought Wade around. Russell Sylvester was just stepping out from behind the drapes by the big window. Wade wasn't at all surprised; somehow he had suspected all along that the man was involved. He held a gun in his left hand. It didn't seem to be pointing anywhere in particular, yet Wade knew instinctively that the man was good with it and could shoot him down before he could take a step.
"That'll do, Janis. Put a zipper on it," Sylvester said in his hoarse voice. "You've said enough already."
"Sure, sure," she mumbled in defiance. Wade heard her glass thump on the bar. "It's always me. Nobody else does anything wrong around here. Now it's Carl. He's bungled, too. Did you hear about Carl?"
"I heard. We only have the cowboy's word for that. And lay off the sauce!" His voice took on a drillmaster's snap, and a whimper came from Janis as though he'd struck her.
Sylvester transferred his melancholy gaze to Wade. "Hello, cowboy." His doleful clown's smile flickered. "Long time no see."
"You can take my word for Barnes. He's dead, Sylvester. Or is it Sylvester?"
The man shrugged thin shoulders. "The name's Garth Holmes. No reason you shouldn't know now." He took the inhaler from his coat pocket and sniffed twice. "Damn sinuses."
Wade restrained an absurd impulse toward laughter. "Any relation to Sherlock?"
"Eh?" Holmes looked puzzled for a moment, then chuckled. "I see. I'm afraid not, Wade. I like to see a man retain his sense of humor no matter how hairy things get."
"It's a good thing or I really would be whacky by this time."
The man nodded. "Yes, I'm sorry about all that but it was necessary. I hope you believe that."
"Oh, I do, I do," Wade said dryly. "So I'm no longer Bart Evans?"
"Oh, you're still Bart Evans. That's what this is all about."
"Garth..., " Janis cried. "Are you going to stand there and talk all night? He said the police...."
"You just shut the hell up, you stupid bitch," Holmes said casually, "or I'll give you another shiner to match the one you've got."
Wade half turned so he could see Janis. Her alcohol-induced apathy was cracking. She glared at Holmes briefly, then defiantly splashed gin into her glass, weaved around the bar and to the couch, where she sat down with her back to them.
Holmes said, "I'd offer you a drink, cowboy, but I can't risk it. You might get some kooky idea of tossing liquor in my face, like the hero does in the movies when the bad guy has him under the gun. Then I'd have to shoot you and that would spoil the plan."
"Just what is the plan? Or am I never supposed to know?"
"No reason why you shouldn't know," Holmes drawled. "We've got some time to kill before I can tie it all up." He gestured toward the couch. "Why don't we get comfortable?"
Holmes pulled out a wing chair, placed it before the couch, motioned Wade into it, then sat down on the couch with the gun always pointing in Wade's direction. Holmes talked with evident relish. Janis didn't listen, or didn't seem to. She drank in sulking silence, getting up twice to replenish her drink.
Wade realized that he still knew almost nothing about Holmes, what he did for a living, et cetera, and he doubted he ever would. Even now, the man said nothing about his personal life. He had a monstrous ego, a pride in his Machiavellian deviousness, and evinced not the slightest remorse.
"Janis and I have had a thing going for quite a while, starting back in New York," Holmes began. "She's good in bed when she's not on the sauce." He flicked a glance at Janis with a curl of his lip. She gave no indication she had heard. "Be that as it may, we'd been planning a job on Bart, her ever-lovin', for quite some time. You see, he was very healthy in the long green department and Janis stood to inherit a bundle, should he demise prematurely. I had it all worked out so he'd die in an accident. But first I thought it best to get him out of New York, get him out here where he wasn't known. He didn't have a single relative, you see, which made it very nice. It was Janis' job to get him out here. She handled that rather well, I'll give her that. Then we got careless ... damn these sinuses!" He paused to use the inhaler. "When this is over, I'm getting the hell out of all this smog.
"Like I said, we got careless," he resumed. "It's funny what a strong libido can do to a man. Bart was still spending a great deal of time in New York on business. He came back unexpectedly one night and caught us with our pants down, so to speak. like all the corny iceman jokes you've ever heard." He snorted laughter.
"Only it wasn't very damn funny at the time. He was raving like a maniac. I had to shoot him and with his own gun, no less. And that blew it. There was no way in the world I could see to explain his death to the police and have a prayer of getting away with it. Oh, I got rid of his body, buried it where it'll never be found.
"But there was bound to be an investigation and I knew we wouldn't come out very clean. And even if we did, if it was finally put down as an unexplained disappearance, Janis would have to wait seven years for him to be declared legally dead so she could get her hands on all the loot. So we decided to scrape together what money we could and blow. There was quite a bit. He had a large bank account, both checking and savings, both available to Janis. But we didn't quite make it. It seems hubby had been suspicious for some time that we were playing fun and games and had hired a private snooper. That's where dear Carl came into the picture. Bart had hired him. That's how Bart knew I was bedded down with Janis on that particular night. Carl had given him the word. So, when Bart turned up missing, Carl smelled foul play, so to speak, and paid us a little visit. But that turned out all right. All he wanted was his cut. And he'd worked out a scheme that he figured entitled him to it. We'd simply find another Bart Evans. Since there was nobody out here that knew Bart at all well and since he had no relatives...."
"And that's where I came into the picture," Wade broke in.
"That's where you came into the picture, cowboy," Holmes said lazily. "It was my chore to find someone who resembled Bart. And you do, you know. You could have been brothers. Of course, you had to be unknown in Hollywood and have no close relations. You'll have to admit you fit the role as though type cast for it.
"The rest of the plan was a little more complicated but workable. As soon as it was time, you were to go into Dr. Hunter's nut farm as Bart Evans suffering from a mental breakdown. As soon as you were released you would have a fatal automobile accident. Dr. Hunter's identification, as a disinterested third party, plus the bereaved widow's, would have been enough to swing it. The casket would have been closed at the funeral, you being cut up pretty bad in the accident, and the few people who might have known either of you wouldn't get a gander at the corpse. Carl, a man of many talents, was an expert forger. He forged all the papers and documents we needed...."
"And then Claire Duncan came into the picture," Wade said.
Holmes' face contorted in a grimace of pure rage. "Claire Duncan! That nympho, junkie bitch! Naturally, you had to get hot pants for her. I followed you home with her that night. I thought if you didn't get too hung up on her, maybe I could still put the snatch on you when you came out and still go on with the plan. But you stayed in there so damn long I started stewing. I saw all the work I'd put in going up in smoke. So I went in. The front door wasn't even locked, for hell's sake! Duncan's death was something of an accident. She stumbled onto me in the living room and started yowling at the top of her lungs. I had no choice but to shut her up before she brought the whole building in on me...."
Janis stirred. "You panicked, you mean. You lost your head." Her voice was surprisingly clear. "Just like you did with Bart. You loused that up, too."
Holmes turned to her and hit her, almost casually, across the mouth, knocking her off the couch and onto the floor.
Taking advantage of the man's brief inattention, Wade came up out of the chair like a scalded cat. He launched himself at Holmes, his hands going for the throat. But Holmes' reflexes were too quick. He leaped aside in time, just far enough, and Wade sprawled ignom-iniously across the couch, his knees on the floor, his arms on the couch, as though in an attitude of. prayer.
Then the gun smashed down on his head. Bright light burst inside his skull. He spiraled down and down into darkness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He was dreaming again. As in all the nightmares, he seemed bound and helpless. There was a woman in the dream. No, three women. But this time he wasn't a participant; he was a watcher. He was in the living room of Claire's apartment, bound and gagged on the couch, forced to watch the naked figures copulating on the carpet. The man was hauntingly familiar, yet he was faceless, and Wade couldn't quite recognize him. And the woman ... The woman was Claire, on her back with the man between her legs. Her feet waved in lewd abandon, and she spurred the man on to greater effort with a tattoo of her heels on the backs of his thighs. She was laughing, taunting the man, as wanton as a mink.
Then the man was underneath and the woman astride him was Janis. She had a knee planted on each side of the man's hips and she bobbed up and down like a cork riding a rough sea. She leaned down, her breasts swinging wildly, and the man with no face seized a nipple between his teeth, holding her torso still. Her hips continued to rise and fall in a silken, oiled rhythm.
Suddenly the pumping buttocks belonged to the faceless man, and the woman underneath was Lisa. She lay unmoving, as still as death, while the male figure drove at her, entering and re-entering her as relentlessly as a pile-driver.
Wade struggled wildly, uselessly, against the confinement of the strait jacket. He tried to cry out, but no sound came from his lips. He watched in sick horror as the man went rigid, his buttocks clenching in sudden release. His horror mounted as he saw the man fumble on the floor for a piece of sculpture, raise it high, and bring it crashing down again and again. Finally the man rolled away, and the woman was Claire, not Lisa. Her head was crushed and bloody.
Then the figures were gone, only a smear of blood left on the carpet, and Wade was alone. For the first time noise penetrated his nightmare. Voices. A man and a woman. He strained to hear.
"...stupid broad ... blow the whole caper...."
"...sorry, Garth ... too much...."
"...only thing you've had too much of is the booze ... surprised it's not running out your ears...."
The voices ceased and Wade opened his eyes. He was on his back on the couch. His head was splitting. Then Holmes' doleful face loomed over him. "Well, cowboy, you're with us again, I see."
"Thanks for laying me out so nice and pretty." Wade's voice came out a croak.
"You're welcome, I'm sure. Couldn't shoot you, you see."
Wade struggled up to a sitting position. His head threatened to fall off and roll across the floor. He touched the sore spot gingerly; it felt mushy and wet. Holmes had taken the chair Wade had so recently vacated, the gun resting on his leg pointing at Wade. Wade growled, "I don't need any damned favors from you."
"Oh, it wasn't a favor, my not shooting you. No bullet holes. You see, I'm going ahead as originally planned. It's even better now. With Carl out of the picture, the pie will only have to be sliced two ways."
Wade glanced around for Janis. She stood at the window, her back to the room, huddled up as though cold. He wondered what her face looked like now, after the belting around Holmes had given her.
Holmes was going on with his story as though nothing had happened, starting with the moment he'd killed Claire. Wade fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with trembling fingers. He marveled at the man's aplomb, colossal ego, or whatever. Fury boiled up in him, hot and galling, threatening to spill over. He knew that he wouldn't hesitate to kill Holmes now, if given the opportunity. But it didn't look as though he'd ever get that opportunity.
"I'll admit I did have a few seconds of ... dismay," Holmes was saying. "I thought I'd blown it for sure. Then I found you passed out in her bedroom and I started to click on all cylinders again. I called Carl and told him what had happened. And he agreed that Duncan's death could be turned to our advantage, if handled right. If you thought you were either crazy or wanted for murder, you'd be one hell of a lot easier to handle . ... "
A sound of strangled laughter came from Janis at the window. Holmes batted a hand at her without once removing his gaze from Wade. "All right, all right, I'll admit that we underestimated you a little there. You are a stubborn ginzo, cowboy. But all's well that ends well."
He stretched his legs out into a more comfortable position, the melancholy eyes glinting with a pleasure that had to be sadistic. "Anyway, Carl sailed in on you with that salami about being a bull, sent you screaming out into the night. I was waiting at your apartment and laid a bookend alongside your skull. And the rest you know, of course. Except for the future, what little's left of it for you." He glanced at his watch. "It's after one now. People should be all bedded down in the building now, the streets about empty, so we can take you out of here...."
One o'clock, Wade thought. He'd been gone from Lisa over an hour now. Would Holmes wait out the second hour, past the deadline he'd given Lisa for calling the police? They had agreed on two hours. Or less. Maybe she would fudge a little, say a half hour ? He began straining his ears for the sound of a siren, only half listening to Holmes' hoarse voice.
"...another tap on the head. Your poor head." Holmes clucked with false sympathy. "But we can't risk a needle or sleeping pills. You see, cowboy, you're going for a little ride in Janis' little Volks. The way the story will go is this ... you've had a severe relapse and she's taking you back to the sanitarium. On the way, you'll suddenly go berserk, screaming you'd rather die than go back to that horrible place. You'll push poor Janis out of the car and drive the Volks over a cliff. I know just the place. It's not really a cliff. But it's up in the Hollywood Hills above Coldwater Canyon. A hairpin curve and a long, long way to the bottom. That poor head of yours will be crushed like an eggshell by the time you reach the bottom of the canyon, cowboy. Janis and Dr. Hunter will identify you as Bart Evans and that .will be that!"
"No!" The word came from Janis as a sound of agony.
Holmes jumped as though jabbed by a needle, but he didn't make the same mistake twice. He didn't take his gaze from Wade. He snarled, "I thought I told you to put a zipper on that mouth, you silly bitch!"
Janis was across the room by this time. Her face was a mess; other eye swollen, lip cut and smeared with dried blood and a smear of blood on one cheek like a birthmark. Yet she was sober now and had herself under control. "No, I will not be a part of any more killing," she said in a low voice. "I don't care what you do to me."
"You're in too deep to climb out, Janis. You're in it with me for Bart's death. They can only drop the pellet once."
"I don't care. I'm sick of you, of the whole dirty mess!"
"Are you now?" Holmes said mockingly. "And the money, Bart's good green money. You're sick of that, too?"
"If I have to kill again to get it, yes, I am."
Holmes' face was an ugly mask, his eyes like blue fire. "How come you picked up religion all of a damn sudden? Is it the cowboy here? Are you hooked on him? Is he better in bed? Does he have a bigger doodle? You'd blow a half-million bucks for a good bang artist? For that kind of money you could hire enough studs to break your back. Is this rodeo ass the reason you're balking me?"
Janis didn't answer. She stood very still, with her hands clenched at her sides, staring straight ahead, battered face expressionless.
"Answer me, you rutting bitch!" Holmes sprang to his feet and swung to face her.
Wade jumped him. He went for the gun first. He seized the man's arm in both hands and brought the wrist down across his knee like a stick of wood. Holmes yelled in pain and the gun flew out of his hand, hitting the carpet somewhere nearby with a thud. With his other hand Holmes clubbed Wade across the side of the head.
Half stunned, Wade staggered back, his arms wind milling, until the backs of his legs struck the couch and brought him up short. Regaining his balance, he moved toward Holmes cautiously. Despite his fragile appearance, his fist held the power of a mule's kick. And no longer was he shambling, charming. He looked as tense as a snake coiled to strike and his face wore a lethal look. Now he stalked Wade. He came in a half crouch. Hurriedly, Wade got out of the way of the couch. For a moment they circled each other warily, searching for an opening.
Holmes sneered contemptuously. "You good with the pinkies, cowboy? I am. I even fought professionally once, in the days before I wised up to the ways of the world. See this face? Not a mark on it. That means I was pretty goddamned good...."
His right hand flicked out with deceptive speed and tears spurted from Wade's eyes as the blow caught him flush on the wounded nose. Pain and rage made Wade incautious. He rushed the man. And Holmes pelted his ribs and belly with a hailstorm of stinging blows while Wade was lucky to land one in three. When the punches to the midsection began to really hurt, when Wade dropped his hands, Holmes drove a quick right and a left to the face, again one right to the nose. Wade grunted and staggered back a few steps, hands going up to protect his face.
Holmes glided in close. A knee came up and white-hot pain exploded in Wade's groin. And then, as he started to bend double, Holmes nailed him with a powerful right to the chin that seemed to loosen every tooth in his head. He was sent reeling backward. He hit the end of the couch and slid slowly down to the floor. He ended up half sitting, his back against the couch. He wasn't out, not quite, but he was one solid mass of pain, and he had never felt so defeated, so futile. He had failed Lisa. Most of all, he had failed himself.
Holmes dry washed his hands together. "You see, you were out of your class. 'Way out. And now, let's get on with it." He turned toward where the gun had fallen and froze in his tracks.
Janis had the gun. She held it in both hands, squeezed so tightly her knuckles shone white.
"All right, Janis, I'll take the gun." Holmes held out his hand.
She shook her head violently, blonde hair whipping across her face. "No, Garth. No more killing."
"Now don't be more of an idiot than you've already been, Janis! Give me the damned gun!" He took a step toward her.
"Don't come any closer, Garth!"
"You won't shoot. You don't have the guts for it. The gun, bitch!" He took two more quick steps, and she shot him. Twice. The gun boomed thunderously in the room. A look of immense surprise flooded Holmes' face and he flew back, out of Wade's line of sight, and fell with a thud that shook the apartment.
Wade scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand, shook his head to clear it, and got painfully to his feet. Walking, stooped over like an old man, he crossed to where Holmes lay on his back with one arm flung out. Wade dropped to one knee beside him. He searched for a pulse, avoiding Holmes' staring eyes. Wade wondered if he would repeat the pattern endlessly-this kneeling beside bodies, searching for signs of life. Finally he got to his feet, wiping his hand on his trousers. "He's dead, Janis."
She nodded as though she'd known it all along. Her eyes were dull, unseeing. Then she raised one hand to push her hair back and saw the gun still in it. Her eyes came alive, her mouth worked with revulsion, and she threw the gun from her, using both hands. It landed on the couch.
Casually, Wade edged over and picked it up. He felt ill at ease. Nothing had turned out as he had anticipated. He knew he should thank her; certainly she had saved his life. But he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Then she spoke, her voice husky and throbbing. It was her bedroom voice. "Wade ... baby, look at me!"
Baby? So it was baby again!
He wheeled in astonishment. Her eyes glittered feverishly; her fingers plucked nervously at the front of her robe. She was smiling, but her battered face made it a grotesque grimace. "They're all dead now ... Bart, Carl, Garth. There's one thing Garth didn't know. I've been scared to death something would go wrong so...." She ran the tip of her tongue around her lips. "With Carl helping me, forging Bart's name, I've been cashing in some things. I've got close to a hundred thousand dollars in a safety deposit box...."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Us, Wade. You and me, baby. With that money, we can go away somewhere, someplace where we'll never be found."
Without his really being aware of it, Wade was shaking his head. "No, Janis. No."
"But I shot Garth for ... I did it for you, baby!"
"And I'd never know, if I went off with you, when you'd take it into your head to shoot me for somebody else." He hadn't intended saying it in just that way, but, now that the words were out, he knew they were true.
Her face hardened and she took a step toward him. Then she stopped and did something to the robe. It fell open. She wasn't wearing a stitch underneath. She smiled loosely. "Take a good look, baby, and then tell me you don't remember."
He swallowed dryly. "Oh, I remember all right." He remembered all those nights of furtive, straining passion very well, but now he could gaze on the offered delights of her body without a flicker of desire. "But I was playing a game, you see," he said, deliberately cruel. "I was trying to get the truth from you. Now that I've got it, looking at you in the raw doesn't do a single thing for me."
"Liar! Liar!" she screamed at him. She broke then, coming at him, mouthing obscenities and clawing for his eyes.
Wade didn't use the gun. He simply slapped her, twice, with his open hand. She collapsed on the couch, sobbing hysterically. He gazed down at her for a moment, trying to dredge up a little compassion for her. But he could find none in him. He was fairly sure of one thing: she would be no problem now. When the time came, she would tell everything she knew.
With a light step, he crossed to the telephone and dialed Lisa's number. She answered on the first ring, her voice breathless. "Hello?"
"Lisa?"
"Wade! Oh, darling!" Her breath caught. "I was so worried. ... Are you all right."
"I'm fine, sweetheart. The nightmare's over."
"What happened?"
"It's a long story. I'll tell you about it later."
"Do you want me to come to you?"
"No, you stay put. When I hang up, I'm calling the police. It may take awhile to straighten it all out."
"I'll be waiting, no matter how long it takes. And while I'm waiting, I'll call the airlines for reservations to Arizona."
"For two?"
"Of course, darling. What did you think?"
"When the price of an airline ticket is deducted from my first month's salary I won't have much left, will I?"
"But darling, there are other ... things than money. Didn't you know that?"
"I'll hold that thought."
"You just do that, cowhand."
Still smiling, he broke the connection, glanced over at the sobbing Janis, then dialed the police.
