Читать книгу Killer in Silk - H. Vernor Dixon - Страница 4

MORGAN O’KEEFE used the few dollars he could borrow to buy a Greyhound bus ticket from Los Angeles to San Francisco. He had sent an airmail letter to his New York agent a few days before, telling him where he was going. When he arrived at the Riverton Hotel a Western Union money order for $360, his latest royalty, minus commission, was waiting for him. He checked into the hotel, enjoyed a steak dinner, and dropped into a bar on Sutter Street for a couple of cold beers. There he got into an argument with an ex-Infantry officer and switched to bourbon highballs. Within an hour he was drinking the whisky straight and was well on his way.

Five days later he was broke. He pawned his only possessions, a suitcaseful of clothes and personal effects and a portable typewriter. He had no difficulty locating San Francisco’s Skid Row on Howard Street and patronized the saloons there, drinking cheap sherry and muscatel. On the tenth night of his drunk he was picked up sleeping in a doorway and wound up in the drunk tank with a dozen derelicts. He had no record in San Francisco and it was also obvious to the judge, in court the following morning, that Morgan was neither a vagrant nor a derelict. The judge let him go with the admonition that he stay away from Howard Street. “Your kind doesn’t belong there.” Morgan felt like laughing, but he controlled the impulse.

He made his way outside and came to a halt in the thin fog blanketing Kearny Street, wondering what to do. A uniformed policeman who had been in the courtroom followed him outside and leaned against the stone wall to watch him. The cop was curious. He had seen all kinds picked up on Howard Street, but never anyone quite like Morgan. He puffed lazily at a cigarette and appraised the other man.

Morgan was a tall man with good shoulders, but the frame of his body was so thin and wiry that he seemed almost weightless, in spite of his height. His straight brown hair, cut short and parted to the left of center, appeared to be graying at the temples. The effect, however, was caused not by gray hairs but by light yellow streaks acquired in the sun on the blazing white beaches of Southern California. His blue eyes were set deeply in a bony, angular face; the prominent, eaglelike ridge of his nose was sharply thin and skin was stretched tightly about the slight suggestion of a cleft in his chin. There were a few freckles high on his cheekbones. He seemed to be in his late thirties, but his eyes and mouth were tired and the lines etched deeply in his face were those of a man far beyond his years.

He was wearing a lightweight sport shirt open at the throat, a suede jacket that had been obviously and expensively tailored for him, beige gabardine slacks and Weejun moccasins stained dark cordovan. The jacket now was ripped at one shoulder. There was a rip in the left knee of his slacks, and the buttons had been ripped from the back pockets. His clothes were so soiled and wrinkled that he looked and smelled as if he had been crawling through a sewer.

The cop flipped his cigarette into the street, approached Morgan and tapped him on the shoulder. “Got any place to go, Mac?”

Morgan looked at him out of bloodshot eyes. At first he thought it was another arrest, but then noticed the cop’s open, even friendly, expression. He shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”

“I figured that. How long you been in town?”

“Ten days.”

“How long you been drunk?”

“Ten days.”

“Uh-huh. No dough?”

“No.”

“No dough and no place to go. And right now you need a place to go real bad or you’re gonna wind up screaming your brains out in a psycho ward. Is that the picture?”

“I can feel it coming on.”

“You look it, too. I know. I had a brother like you.”

Morgan said in a low voice, “If you know of anything—”

The cop rubbed his chin and said slowly, “Well, now, maybe I do. There are a couple of clinics for drunks, but all they’ll give you is a sedative shot and shove you along. Maybe you could get into the county hospital, but all you’ll get there’re the same sedatives and in a couple days you’ll be outside facing the screaming meemies and maybe on your way back to the tank. If that judge sees you again so soon you’ll get the full treatment—ninety days.”

“If you know—”

“Yeah. I’m telling you. There’s a gal here in town named Irene Wilson. Every once in a while she takes in a stray drunk and puts him back on his feet.”

Morgan’s lips twisted into a sour grimace. “A Bible thumper?”

The cop was amused. He chuckled and said, “Far from it, Mac. Don’t ask me why she does it. I don’t know. The main thing is, she does it and if you’re real lucky maybe she’ll take you in. It’s worth trying. Now, you go up here a couple blocks and catch the forty-one bus going west. Get off at Fillmore and Union and transfer to the twenty-two. That’ll take you to the top of the hill. That whole section in there is called Pacific Heights. Very ritzy. So you walk east down Pacific Street a block and a half. Her place is between Green and Buchanan. I don’t know the number, but it’s a big stone place set back from the sidewalk with a curved driveway in front and fancy white pillars at the entrance. Think you can find it?”

Morgan nodded. “I can try. Irene Wilson?”

“That’s right. You got bus fare?” Morgan shook his head. The cop sighed and handed him fifteen cents. “Okay. Better be on your way before you go to pieces. And good luck.”

The cop slapped him on the shoulder and walked away. Morgan stood indecisively a moment longer; then he started walking toward the bus line. There was a great scream within him, bubbling to burst forth into maniacal howls of despair. He kept the scream contained by walking stiffly, his elbows pressed tightly against his ribs. If he relaxed even the slightest degree he knew he would wind up in a strait-jacket.

He found the bus stop and boarded the first forty-one that came along. He sat far in the rear. Other passengers wrinkled their noses, stared at him with distaste and moved forward. He had the rear of the bus to himself. He missed the transfer point and had to walk back three blocks to Fillmore. It was then he realized that he had also forgotten to get a transfer. He looked up at the towering ridge of Pacific Heights. Some of the steepest streets in San Francisco climbed to its crest. The sidewalks angled up so sharply that they were made of concrete steps. Morgan’s heart sank. He doubted that he had the strength to make the climb. But it had to be attempted. His will to keep going was hanging by a last shred. Anything could snap it.

He started up the Fillmore Street hill, pacing himself by looking down and counting steps, afraid to look up, afraid that if he did he would never make it. He walked slowly, holding himself in tightly, perspiration heavy on his forehead and upper lip. His mouth and throat were so dry that his breath rattled in his lungs.

When he reached the top finally he had to lean against a telephone pole to keep from collapsing. Even that was dangerous. Too much rest and his eyes would close and he would sink down. He shoved himself away from the pole, staggered, caught his balance and shuffled down Pacific Street.

He found the house the cop had described and he bared his teeth in sudden rage. It was a trap, a goddam trap. The cop was a lousy sadist having a little sport with a helpless drunk. No one living in a house like that would even speak to a drunk. It was a broad, gray mansion of granite that looked as if it had grown on the side of the hill. It looked more like a public library than anyone’s home. He looked around and saw only other mansions and expensive new apartment buildings. Pacific Heights was undoubtedly one of the wealthiest districts in the city, obviously because of the spectacular view embracing the Golden Gate, San Francisco Bay, the Marin hills to the north and most of the East Bay shore.

Morgan’s shoulders sagged. If he could make it back downtown—walking—he might get a collect call through to his agent in New York for enough money to buy his way into a private sanitarium. It was the only alternative, but two things were vitally wrong with it. He was too exhausted to walk another block. And even if he did make it to a telephone, he knew it would be hopeless. Earl was a good man and even sympathetic, but he had had enough of Morgan’s binges and would no longer advance him a dollar unless drawn against definite royalties. There were no more royalties due at the moment, or in the near future.

He looked again at the mansion, teetering back and forth on his heels. It was a trap, he knew that, he was positive of it. But maybe— Anyway, there was nothing else to try, and he could go no farther. The boys in the white jackets could pick him up here as well as elsewhere. What difference would it make?

He shuffled up the half-dozen granite steps of the square portico and punched the bell by the side of a huge oak door edged with bronze. Perhaps half a minute passed and then the door swung ponderously, smoothly, silently open. A butler in dark trousers, black bow tie and white linen jacket, faced him without expression. He was a short, stocky, rather powerful looking man with iron-gray hair, mild blue eyes and the smooth skin of a Scandinavian. He was not at all surprised by Morgan’s appearance.

He said simply, “It is Mrs. Wilson you want?”

A faint hope crept back into Morgan’s weary mind. He nodded. “Yes. A cop downtown—he told me—if I came up here—maybe—”

“Come in, please. And wait.”

The door closed behind him as Morgan stepped into a long hallway. The butler disappeared through an open doorway straight ahead. Morgan was not especially conscious of his surroundings. He was only just aware of an atmosphere of wealth and good taste. He told himself over and over again that he had to hold on—just a little longer.

When the woman came into the hallway he noticed first the cobwebby sandals she was wearing. Then his eyes raised slowly to take in the white linen dress, the black bolero jacket draped over her shoulders, and the tiny white straw hat on the back of her head. Apparently she had just come in, or was just going out. She was not at all what he had imagined. She had good, slim legs with long thighs, a narrow waist and breasts that were either naturally full or well padded—it was always difficult to be sure—narrow hands with long, tapered fingers, a smooth throat and a face that gave the impression of being full and round and yet, oddly enough, was not. There was a certain hollowness about her cheeks and a thinness along the line of her jaws that seemed not to belong there. He noticed, too, the faint shadows under her eyes, that were either dark brown or black, and the tiny, bitter lines at her mouth.

Her thick, glossy hair was coal-black and caught loosely in a bun at the nape of her neck, and either she was deeply tanned or her complexion was naturally olive, or perhaps both. Somewhere in her early thirties, he guessed, and probably lousy in bed. Too reserved, too cool, too much the lady to be the giving kind.

She glanced at the butler standing a few paces behind and to her side, then swung her eyes levelly to Morgan. “A policeman told you to come here?” she asked.

He swallowed and nodded. “Downtown. I was in the tank last night. The judge let me go this morning. This cop told me you might be willing to help.”

“How long—”

“Ten days. I’d just come up from Lotus Land, Los Angeles. I had some money, but after a ten-day binge I’m clean and I have no place to go.”

“Do you know what shape you’re in?”

“I’m afraid I know only too well. It’s bad.”

She chewed at her lower lip for a moment, staring at him, appraising him. Then she said, “I could give you a little money—”

He sucked in air sharply, let it out and shook his head. “That wouldn’t do any good. I’d just use it to get drunk. Right now I’m sick, damned sick. I know what I’m facing. Tonight I’ll have the d.t.’s. I’ve had them before, you see. I know what I can take and what I can’t take. I need someone to help me get through it.” He paused. “Maybe if you’re so goddam big-hearted you could send me to a sanitarium.”

She ignored the sarcasm and again appraised him silently. He was certainly different from any other alcoholic she had ever known. He was also better dressed, in spite of the wear and tear of his binge. And his language was not that of Skid Row.

She hesitated a moment longer, then sighed and said, “I’ll help you get through it. There is an apartment you can occupy here on the ground floor. Carl will take care of you and you’ll also get the best medical attention.”

He tilted his head on one side, squinted at her and said bluntly, “Why?”

She ignored him again and told the butler, “Show him to the apartment, Carl. See that he has a bath and gets shaved and put him to bed. I’ll call Dr. Rigsby.”

She glanced at Morgan as if to say something, thought better of it, and walked away. But at the door leading into what Morgan guessed was the study, she paused and looked back at him. Morgan thought he must be wrong, but her expression was obviously one of resentment. A do-gooder resenting the helpless target of her goodness? What goes on here? he wondered.

Carl jerked his head and Morgan turned to the right to follow the butler to the end of the hallway. Carl opened a door and led the way inside. The apartment was a large corner room that at one time must have been the library. The walls were paneled and covered with shelves stacked with books. There was a large fireplace at one side, an enormous flat desk and a deep leather sofa and chair. In one corner, by the tall windows, was an oversize studio couch. There were other chairs and hassocks and small end tables and a wide variety of lamps, good paintings on the walls, current magazines in a rack and an enormous Oriental rug on the parquet floor. A small but complete Pullman-type kitchen had been built into the end wall and alongside was a door leading into a large dressing room and a bathroom with walls and floor of Italian tiles. Morgan managed a smile, in spite of his condition. It was the sort of apartment he had dreamed of designing for himself one day.

Carl helped him off with his clothes and assisted him into the bathroom. Morgan was able to take a shower. He was beginning to realize that he was safe, and relaxation crept in, and along with it the shakes. He was not able to hold a razor in his hand, let alone use it. Carl sat him on the edge of the tub, steadied him with a hand on his bare shoulder and shaved him. Carl also found and helped him into a pair of pajamas, turned back the sheets of the studio couch and tucked Morgan in.

Morgan was now beginning to shake violently and said to Carl through chattering teeth, “I need—a drink. Stiff one. Plenty stiff.”

Carl nodded, still without expression. “I know.”

“Good. You know everything. A stiff one, then.”

The butler gathered Morgan’s clothes from the floor and left the room. He returned with a double shot of straight bourbon, which he poured carefully down Morgan’s throat. He got some logs and kindling and built a fire in the fireplace. It was just starting to blaze when the door opened and Irene Wilson came into the room followed by a middle-aged, amiable looking man with a small paunch, thin hair graying at the temples, a healthy flush, and piercing eyes that missed nothing.

“So,” he said, “another of your pet patients. I don’t know why you do this, Irene. You just ask for trouble and you don’t do them any good, anyway. Give them a month or two to forget the last one and they’re right back at it again.”

Mrs. Wilson seemed angry and snapped at him, “If you’ll kindly dispense with the lecture, Dr. Rigsby—”

“Okay,” he laughed. “Let’s see if this one has something besides alcohol in his system.”

The doctor placed his bag on the floor and sat on the bed at Morgan’s side. He examined his eyes and tongue, listened to his heart, checked his pulse and took a reading of his blood pressure. He sat back and looked down at Morgan, shaking his head.

“You’re in very bad shape, young man. You’re suffering from malnutrition, among other things. If you had been deliberately trying to commit suicide I’d say the job is about ninety per cent accomplished.”

The double shot he had consumed had slowed Morgan’s shaking, so that he was able to speak lucidly. “Isn’t that what all drunks are after?” he asked. “The death wish is at the bottom of alcoholism.”

Dr. Rigsby’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “That’s an interesting idea. But I suppose now you would rather live. Well, we’ll see what we can do about that. I’ll give you some vitamin shots, sedatives—”

Morgan interrupted with a shake of his head. “Vitamin shots, yes, but not sedatives. I’d rather fight this out on my own.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m serious. All I need is rest, vitamins and food.” He looked in Carl’s direction and said, “Bring me another shot of whisky in an hour, another in two hours, another in three and so on until I’m off completely. Don’t leave a bottle in here and each time you leave the room lock the door.” His eyes swung back to the doctor’s astonished expression. “I’ve done it this way before, Doc. Maybe I like to torture myself. Maybe I like to pay myself back for being such a jackass. Whatever it is, this is the way I prefer doing it.”

“But you can’t do it, man. You must have sedatives. You’re not too far from delirium tremens right now.”

“I know. I’ll sweat it out.”

“But with the help of a mild sedative—”

Morgan lost his patience and shouted, “Look, I know more about myself than you do! Do it my way, or get the hell out of here!”

The doctor shrugged. He gave Morgan two vitamin shots, then wrote out a prescription for Carl and a diet list for the next few days. “Not that he’ll be able to hold much of it down,” he said, “but some of it will stay with him. Give him a few days and he can tackle solid foods. Meanwhile, occasional vitamin shots will be his greatest help.”

He walked out to the hallway with Irene Wilson, closed the door and stood there for a moment lost in thought. At last he sighed and said, “That’s quite an unusual man in there. The first demand of any alcoholic is a sedative to slow him down and quiet his nerves. But this man prefers doing it the hard way.”

“Do you think he can manage to sweat it out, as he says?”

“Well, if he does he’s the damnedest alcoholic I’ve ever run into. Sweating it out will take almost fantastic will power, which poses a peculiar question. If he has will that strong, why is he an alcoholic? Or maybe we have another question to face. Is he really an alcoholic?”

“He claims he is.”

“Well, time will tell just what he is, if anything. But there’s one statement I can make right now. I have never been in agreement with your urge to help alcoholics. All you are doing is feeding fuel to the fires of your own guilt complex. It isn’t good for you and you really do little or no good for the drunks. But this one time I think is an exception. I have a hunch that that man is worth all the help you can give him.”

She turned and looked at the closed door and the odd resentment that had been in her eyes gave way to curiosity. During the ten long years she had been helping occasional drunks, she had never thought of any one of them as a human being. But this man had impressed her at first sight, which, she now realized, was why she had been reluctant to help him. Now, because of the doctor’s words, he had also acquired human stature and even a personality. A slight, rueful smile tugged at her lips. She didn’t even know his name.

The doctor left, saying as he went, “Give me a ring when the d.t.’s hit him. Regardless of what he thinks of his own powers, he’ll need my help.”

Morgan came down with delirium tremens late that afternoon, sooner than he had expected. It started with a chill, was followed by fever and an itching, prickling sensation and then by one feeling that he was covered with slime. An hour later he could feel thousands of caterpillars and centipedes squirming and wriggling all over his body. He began to scream. The violence of his delirium became so great that the butler was forced to tie him to the bed to prevent him from digging his nails into his own flesh.

The doctor returned that night and grimly prepared a sedative. Morgan fought wildly against the needle, cursing the doctor with every breath with the most loathesome expressions he could find, but the doctor jabbed him with the needle, anyway. Morgan subsided.

Later he dreamed of the great books he was going to write and the great murals he was going to paint and the giant statues he was going to carve from cold marble. He dreamed of women, their nude bodies pressing upon him, hundreds of women of every shape and color, and he could smell their perfumes and scents and could feel the softness of their flesh. He dreamed of cities floating in the clouds and of roaring jets and ships at sea and then he dreamed of dank, dark alleys and garbage cans and rotting humanity and of snakes and weird animals and of sewer rats chewing on his knuckles and he awoke screaming, the sheets soaked, his body bathed with perspiration and spume at his lips.

For two days and three nights he fought the damage that had been visited upon his mind and wasted body, and eventually the poison wore off. The twice-daily injections of vitamins took hold and the soups and Jello and gruel that Carl spooned between his lips began to stay down. The bindings were removed from his wrists and ankles and for the first time he slept the deep sleep of exhaustion.

He awoke in midafternoon and lay quietly on his back staring up at the paneled ceiling. After a long while he realized where he was and disgust was deep in his bloodshot eyes. So he had done it again. An intelligent man, even talented, once more a beggar and an object of charity. And this time it had been a woman who had helped him. A damned eunuch, he thought. Reduced finally to a eunuch.

He turned his head and saw her seated alongside the couch. She had been reading a book, but she lowered it to her lap and watched him. Dr. Rigsby had told her the night before that their patient would probably snap out of it that day, so she was not surprised by the look of reason in his eyes. She handed him a glass of milk from a table at her elbow. He sat up weakly and drank it, savoring every drop of the delicious coolness as it trickled down his throat. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his shoulders hunched forward and his head bent, but tilted to one side so that he could watch her from the corners of his eyes.

“Thanks,” he said weakly. “You’ve been very kind.”

She said primly, “I feel that people in my position have a duty—”

He interrupted with a grunt and said sourly, “Oh, stuff it, for God’s sake. Duty is always a cover-up for something else. People like you appall me. They’re always asking to be shot or stabbed by less friendly souls.”

“Are you the less friendly type?”

“Not exactly. I haven’t shot anyone yet.”

She caught her breath sharply, color ebbed from her face and her lips thinned out. Morgan wondered what he had said that had inspired such a reaction in her. Before he could ask, her expression was again coolly passive. She touched a lighter to two cigarettes and handed one to him. He inhaled deeply, feeling a little dizzy as he blew out the smoke.

He asked her curiously, “Do you make a practice of taking in drunken bums this way?”

“You don’t impress me as—as—”

“A bum?” He smiled. “We come in all shapes and sizes. Bums don’t go around any more in cast-off clothes and patched pockets. There’s my kind, you see. When we’re in the chips we patronize the most exclusive shops, live in apartments built around kidney-shaped swimming pools, drive foreign sports cars, lunch at Romanoff’s and dine at the Beverly-Hilton. But we’re still bums. Because there’s always that black day of reckoning when a check doesn’t arrive when you think it should and your credit runs out and you try to ignore it all and hide in a bottle and you always wind up in the same place, the drunk tank. That’s when the tramp that is always in our nature comes out and I find myself precisely right here.”

Irene Wilson looked at him with interest. “You’re unusually frank about your level in life. But are you sure you aren’t ribbing me about yourself?”

“God, no! I only needle stupid, helpless people. You look as if you could fight back.”

She smiled and said, “Perhaps.” She poured him another glass of milk from a chilled pitcher on the table. “But this level of yours—I don’t quite understand it. You must have some sort of skill, or trade?”

Morgan debated whether or not to tell her the truth. He saw his suitcase and portable typewriter on the floor near the dressing room. He assumed that the pawn tickets had been found in his pockets. Probably the butler had redeemed his stuff. Apparently, though, the suitcase had not been opened and his hostess had no inkling of his identity. Maybe it would be better to leave it that way. Quite often, with strangers, he would create entirely new lives for himself, lives with exotic backgrounds—test pilot, deep sea-diver, smuggler, bookie, or, one of his favorites, long-term criminal just out of prison and now determined to go straight. He dominated his audience, he played upon their sympathies, he stretched credulity to the breaking point. He had a wonderful time doing it and he always learned something that added grist to his mill. He had such a tremendous fund of spotty knowledge in so many fields that he never failed to make himself convincing. But he decided, on this occasion, to tell the truth. He was too weak and exhausted to play games for any length of time.

So he said, “My name is Morgan O’Keefe. Does that mean anything to you?”

She frowned and thought for a moment “No-o-o, I can’t say that it does. I saw M. J. O’Keefe on your pawn tickets, but it didn’t mean anything to me. Should it?”

“Not necessarily. If it meant something to everybody I asked I’d be famous and I wouldn’t be here accepting your charity. I’m a writer, you see. I write dreary little books about dreary little people that sell in the dreary hundreds instead of the thousands. My publishers should have stopped printing my stuff years ago—God knows they barely break even—but they keep on with me in the wildly insane hope that some day I may click.”

“If you could mention a few titles—”

“Forget it. You wouldn’t know my stuff. You belong to some book-of-the-month club and a local rental library and whenever you buy anything else you consult the bestseller lists. You won’t find Morgan O’Keefe in that company.”

She was slightly annoyed, principally because he was right. “Well, after all, I do try to read the best.”

“Of course you do. So, naturally, you haven’t read anything of mine.”

She stared at him and then burst out laughing. She stopped suddenly, obviously startled by her own outburst. Morgan wondered about it. Mrs. Wilson was evidently a woman who did not laugh easily, or often.

“Is that what you were doing down south, writing?”

“How did you know where I came from?”

“You told me when I first met you.”

“Oh.” He thought of what he had been doing down south and looked as if he might be sick. “Well,” he said, “the answer to that is yes and no. I wasn’t writing for the movies, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wanted to. I beat my brains out trying to get in, but they didn’t want me. I had exactly one chance all the years I was there. My Hollywood agent got me a deal with MGM at seven-fifty a week and an office in writers’ row. I thought I was set. Then the powers-that-be gave me some other author’s book to adapt for the screen. That was okay, too, except for one thing. The story was about the war and the main character was an officer who was a goddam lily-white hero.” He shook his head, clenched his fists until the knuckles were white, and closed his eyes.

Mrs. Wilson said curiously, “What was wrong with that?”

He kept his eyes closed. “It was the worst thing they could have handed me. I wound up in fifty-two in an army psycho ward, where I damned well belonged. I despise anyone in uniform and anything even remotely suggesting Army makes me deathly ill. I tried, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even force myself to read halfway through the book. So, naturally, I got drunk and I stayed that way. That ended my association with MGM, or any other studio.”

She said simply, “I’m sorry.”

He clasped his thin arms about his knees and looked away from her toward the sun streaming in through the windows. Mrs. Wilson was watching him closely. Her curiosity had given way to enthralled attention and she wanted something more of the man than simply a fragmentary picture. She wanted something she could use at the cocktail party that night.

“I don’t really mean to pry,” she said, “but is that why you left the south, when you lost that job? If I’m getting too personal—”

He looked back at her with a twisted smile. “Of course you’re prying and you’re getting too personal, but I have to repay you somehow or other. Don’t I? No, that is not why I left the south. Would you really like to know why I left?”

“Well—”

“I’ll tell you. I suppose you’ve guessed, or the doctor must have told you, that I’m an alcoholic. When something bothers me too much I go for the bottle. But I don’t drink like ordinary people. I drink to drown myself. I go on and on, day after day. I start with the best and when I run out of money I pawn everything the hock shops will take and switch to cheap sherry and muscatel and keep going until I finally drop from sheer exhaustion and wind up in a drunk tank and sometimes the county hospital. In Los Angeles I made the tank nine times. Nine times in three years.”

She dropped a solicitous hand to his arm, her dark eyes brimming with compassion. “Please. If you don’t care—”

“Hell,” he laughed, “I don’t mind. Maybe I even get some sort of perverse pleasure out of my little purges. Anyway, the last time I was in the L.A. tank was once too much. I was brought into night court. The judge remembered me and looked up my record. He gave me a long lecture and in the end he let me go, but he also gave me a warning. He said that if I was picked up once more I would get the full ninety-day treatment behind bars, which is par for the habitual. Ninety days behind bars, or even nine, would be the end of me. But I knew the threat wouldn’t stop me from another binge the next time I blew my stack. So I did the only thing possible. I ran. I figured I’d be safe here in San Francisco, where the police don’t know me.” He paused, and then added tiredly, “Now I’m on record already.”

Mrs. Wilson looked away from him. His words had evoked an image in her mind of Jay Wilson on one of his little binges. But Jay, even at his worst, had never been like this man. Sometimes, when he had gone out drinking, he had failed to come home until dawn, and then in a pretty sodden condition. But, still, he had always come home and for at least a day even the sight of a bottle of whisky could make him ill. Jay had been a heavy drinker, but not an alcoholic. Once again, as had happened so often during the past ten years, she was proven wrong. Oh, God, she wondered, how many more times must I be faced with my own stupidity?

She glanced slyly and curiously at Morgan, who had dropped to his back on the bed and was again staring at the ceiling. He didn’t look like an alcoholic, nor was he her idea of what a writer should look like. If he had said that he was in the advertising business, or sold used automobiles, or was perhaps a clerk in a department store, she would have believed him without question. But a writer—that seemed hardly to fit his highly strung nature and the glib way he talked about himself. He was probably lying to pass the time and because they were strangers. But then she noticed the sensitive mouth and the sharp alertness of his penetrating eyes, even in a weakened condition, and she had a feeling that, regardless of what his background might be, he was a man of unusual—and provocative—intelligence.

The discovery bothered her. For ten years she had been carefully avoiding unusual people, ruling out anyone who might be able to crash through the many barriers she had erected. Her days were planned, her life was serene, and she wanted nothing to alter the condition she had chosen. But give this man a little more time to get well and strong and he would probably enjoy punching holes in her defenses.

She got quickly to her feet and told him, “I must go and help Anna.”

“Anna?”

“Carl’s wife. She’s the housekeeper. I’m having a few friends in tonight for cocktails.”

He stretched his arms and rubbed his eyes and asked, “Incidentally, is there a Mr. Wilson somewhere in this establishment?”

“Not any more. I am a widow.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right. It happened ten years ago.”

He swung his head on the pillow and watched her as she left the room and closed the door. Ten years? But she couldn’t be over thirty-two. That would mean her husband had died when she was only twenty-two. But a woman that young and that attractive and obviously possessing considerable wealth would certainly have married again. What the devil was the matter with her?

His imagination was titillated and he forgot his own problems and lay there thinking about her. When the door opened again he thought she was returning, but it was a stranger, a dark, little man with frog eyes who was carrying Morgan’s jacket and slacks. He grinned at Morgan and held up the clothes for him to see.

“These belong to you?”

Morgan nodded. Whoever had worked them over had done a very good job.

The cleaner noticed his look of approval and his smile deepened. “Fortunate for you,” he said, “we got a good tailor in the joint and there’s a guy here in the city that specializes in suede. When I first seen the stuff I threw up my hands. I told Mrs. Wilson to chuck ’em in the garbage can. But now look at ’em. It’s a miracle, believe me.”

“And cost plenty?”

The cleaner chuckled slyly and winked at him. “No worry for you. Mrs. Wilson paid. I know what goes on here, chum. You’re the third guy I seen in this apartment the past couple years.” He walked to the other end of the room, put the clothes in the dressing room, and started toward the door.

Morgan called after him, “Wait a minute. Have you been doing business here very long?”

“Twelve years.”

“Good. Then maybe you can satisfy my curiosity. Was the man Mrs. Wilson was married to a very old man?”

“Naw. Jay Wilson was a young squirt, maybe three-four years older’n his wife.”

“Really? But to die so young—”

“He didn’t die, chum. He was killed, right here in this house.” The little man paused, enjoying the moment to the utmost. Then he said, “It was Mrs. Wilson who shot him to death.”