Neal Burgess drove Ernie home in his car. Waylin vanished into his own office and I sat at my desk for an hour, waiting for the call from Doc. It didn’t come. Finally I called the hospital.
I learned exactly nothing. Doc Yerrgsted was not in the hospital Out Ward. He had disappeared more than an hour ago. The Greek was getting every attention, but had not yet regained consciousness.
I slapped the receiver back into its cradle, hating the whole world almost as much as I hated myself. I went out of the building, got into my car. I drove past the Greek’s bar on Lafayette. The bar was locked and dark, and I wondered where Doc Yerrgsted had holed in. Padlock the Greek’s and Doc might die of exposure.
I found a liquor store, bought two pints of bourbon, then I drove back to City Hall. I supposed Doc had a room somewhere, but I didn’t believe he would go there until there was no chance he would find himself alone with his thoughts.
There was a light in the window of the M.E.’s office. I parked and went up the marble steps, carrying the bourbon.
I knocked on the door marked Medical Examiner. Doc’s voice called, “It’s unlocked. Come in.”
I entered his office, closed the door behind me. “You mean you sit alone in this place at night without locking your door?” I said.
He shrugged. “You wouldn’t do it, Ballard, because you have something to live for.”
“I’m loaded with happy reasons for living, all right”
He shook his head again. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be afraid of death. I’m not afraid. Suppose somebody walked in here and filled my carcass with lead. I might leak bourbon all over this nice carpeting, but—what you got there?”
He had seen the bourbon. I set it on the desk before him. He reached out for a pint, his hands trembling. “You’re a good boy, Ballard.” He grinned up at me. “Why don’t you get out of this town?”
“I thought you were going to call me from the hospital.”
He was removing the cork with his teeth. “I’ll bet you did.”
“What’s the matter? Didn’t you have a dime? Couldn’t you con a hospital phone?”
He took a long drink. “I decided the hell with it.”
“Why?”
He shrugged and took a drink.
“Doc. How is he?”
“The Greek? What do you care?”
“Good God. Why wouldn’t I care?”
“I don’t think you care about the Greek, Ballard. It was good of you to bring me this bourbon. I’m sure there are gold stars beside your name in heaven. Why don’t you just leave this stuff here with me?”
“What’s eating you, Doc?”
“Nothing. The Greek is still alive. He was still alive when I left him at the hospital in the hands of the young butchers they employ there. He may survive. He comes from a hardy people—it may take more than our modern medical graduates to kill him off. I devoutly hope so.”
He took a long drink, glanced up after a moment. His thick brows wriggled as if he were surprised to see me still standing there.
“Good night, Ballard.”
“Doc. I don’t get this. What could I do? I did all I could at the Greek’s.”
He took a long drink. He got up, went to his window, stared down at the quiet streets. He shook his head.
“No. You barely did what you had to do. He was the Greek, a friend of ours. A close friend. You could not let him be killed. So you came to his place early and stayed to protect him. But you had done nothing about all this organized evil and murder in this town. Climonte, Flynn, Hogan. And the poor devil—whoever he is—who gets it in his gut tomorrow night? You didn’t do much for the Greek, Ballard—only what you had to do.”
I sat for a long time at the wheel of my car in the deserted parking area outside City Hall. Doc’s window continued to glow. The streets were dark caverns.
Suddenly I knew just what I needed. What I needed was a dame and a bottle. Nothing wrong with me that a dame and a bottle wouldn’t cure.
I started the car.
It was two AM. when I got to my apartment I had found a bottle, but I had not found a dame. I know plenty of them, but tonight none had suited.
When I saw the light in my apartment windows, I felt a surge of anger. If Lupe Valdez was hanging around again, I would kick her out. I didn’t take her to raise. If she wanted the truth, all my sympathy was with Morgan Carmichael. She had enough to tempt any man—and if she was going to give it away, she had to learn to take the consequences.
I was still angry when I pushed the key into the lock and pushed the door open. The sound of music, whispering and insistent, filled my living room and I caught a whiff of perfume—but a strange scent I didn’t recognize.
I closed the door behind me, leaned against it, staring at the couch.
Naomi Hyers, Morgan Carmichael’s redhead, got up slowly, stretching, yawning, looking deliciously warm and sleepy—and completely naked. The doll who had stared along her nose at me beside Flynn’s pool. I had to admit the absence of a bathing suit made her even lovelier tonight than she had been then.
Morgan Carmichael’s fiancée— Morgan’s women seemed to have developed quite a penchant for my couch.
“Hello, Mike,” she said. Her voice had a breathless quality.
I managed to pull my gaze away from her for a moment to glance around the rest of the room. Her clothes were nowhere in sight—she must have undressed in the bedroom. Her eyes followed mine to the bedroom door.
“I didn’t know if you were a subtle man, Mike, and decided not to take a chance. There’s nothing subtle about the way I feel about you.”
“What do you want here?” I gave myself an Oscar for the stupidest line of dialogue of the year.
“I’ve been thinking about you, Mike.” Her voice trembled slightly. “You haven’t been out of my mind—since that day you taught Jerry Marlowe a lesson at the pool. Have you remembered me at all?”
“I guess any man would remember you, having seen you.”
She smiled languidly. “No other man has ever seen me like this, Mike.”
The heat was building up inside me. My clothes felt tight, constricting. I wanted to be free of them, to be with this redhead and let the ache and frustration in my body that had been plaguing me for days go up in fire. Fire? A conflagration. We’d singe City Hall.
I knew now why just any doll would not have done for tonight. I needed something special—and there was nothing more special than Morgan’s redheaded chick. I wanted to bury my face in her flaming curls, suck at her throat with my mouth. She was part of the nightmare that had enmeshed me—but the only part that had wanted to be on my side. Doc was against me—I had killed Jerry Marlowe, and Carolyn was never going to forgive me. Grab this, Mike, I thought. Grab it, take it, use it—for tomorrow she may hate you, too.
She was turning slowly before me, her face flushed and expectant, lips smiling slightly. She kept her arms at her sides. She was lovely and wanted me to know how lovely—and she was as artful in her movements as any nightclub stripper. Perhaps more artful than most, because she meant it.
“Mike,” she whispered. “I’ve been waiting so long.”
“I’m sorry. I’d have come running.”
“I don’t mean tonight, Mike. I mean all my life.”
She was close to me now I could feel the heat from her body—the faint scent she wore began to drug my senses. There was a sick throbbing behind my eyes.
She raised her hands to my coat lapels. I looked from them into her eyes. They were limpid and wet, but suddenly I saw only ugliness. She was part of the nightmare still. She was lovely and might be as untouched as she claimed. Perhaps I was seeing something no other man ever had. But I saw it against the backdrop of Climonte, bleeding out his life on the floor of his dingy store; Tom Flynn, Clemmons and Hogan dying unavenged; the Greek unconscious in a hospital and Jerry in the morgue; Doc dying slowly of sickness in others—and I knew I couldn’t add to the blackness and deceit around me. No matter what sort of heel Morgan Carmichael had proven himself.
I took her wrists and disengaged her fingers from my lapels. “No,” I said. “Get in the other room and get dressed.”
“Why, Mike? You want me. You know you want me.”
“Not like this.” I walked away from her to the door of the bedroom, threw it open. “Come back again some time,” I said, “when you’ve got less on.”
At first she gave me a twisted half-smile, thinking I was joking. She looked down at her flushed, nude body.
“How much less could I have?”
I caught her icy hand in mine, held it up, pointed to the brilliant engagement ring Morgan Carmichael had given her.
“You’re still wearing too much for me,” I told her. “Now get dressed. Get out of here.”
She began to cry, emptily, dressing automatically, leaving the bedroom door open. The hurt in the sound made her younger than her years. I didn’t believe it.
She came out dressed at last and went to the door. She hesitated, with her hand on the knob, not crying any more. “I thought you were a man,” she said. “You’re not a man at all.”
I did not look at her. “Be glad you found it out in time.”
I heard the door close, and knew she was gone. The room was suddenly cold. After a while the phone began ringing. The sound was without warmth, curiously forlorn.
I let it ring. The hell with it. Who would I want to talk to now? And who would really want to talk to me?