So isn't it a pity, when we common people chatter of those mysteries to which I
have referred,
That we use for such a delicate and
complicated matter
Such a very short and ordinary word?—Anonymous
Cool wetness occurred, somewhere downtown of my nose.
I remembered something you could do with wetness, and tried it. It worked: the wetness went from where it was to someplace else, just as expected. I was proud of myself.
Swallowing. That was what it was called.
I recognized the wetness. I had known some of it before, back when I lived on Earth—
That reminded me of my former life as a human being, and I opened my eyes. Major mistake. The moment I did, twin spears of light were thrust through the sockets and into my skull. They rooted around amid the weeds and mangrove roots at the back, located the football of pain I had been ignoring, and dragged it between them up to the forefront of my attention. I tried to scream, and mewed like a dreaming kitten.
"Easy, now," a familiar voice said. "Have another sip; you'll feel better."
The wetness came again, and I took another swallow.
"Painapple gripefruit," I said weakly, and forced my eyes to focus. Arethusa was looking at me with pity and compassion on her lovely face. In a universe of awfulness, it was something to hang on to. Even though I was seeing double.
"What did you say?" another voice asked urgently.
"The juice," I said. "It's fineapple greatpoop."
That didn't sound just right, so I tried again. Grainapple pipefruit?" Still not right. "Dammit, I mean 'poonapple grapefright.' You know damn well what I mean."
A warm hand took my pulse. From the angle of approach it was not Arethusa's, so I turned my head to identify the owner, and my head fell off and bounced. I squeaked in embarrassment.
When it stabilized, it seemed to be back on my shoulders again, and its right eyelid was being peeled way open, apparently by the same hand that had taken my pulse. I focused again—have to do everything twice around here—and saw a beautiful redhead. She wore a blue silk kimono loosely tied at the waist, a white lace teddy underneath it, and a stethoscope. "Tell me the name of the juice one more time," she said.
"Pry . . . pie nah pull grapefruit," I said, and smiled. I could tell I was rallying fast: the double vision was gone now. "See? I can ray it sight if I twos chew," I said confidently. Then I frowned.
So did she.
"What's the matter with him, Kate?" Arethusa asked.
"He's spooning in Speakerisms," the redhead said. "I think that means he's got a concussion. We ought to get him to a hospital."
"No!" I screamed, so loud they actually heard me. "No hospital."
"Why not?" Lady Sally's voice asked reasonably. Crowded in here.
"I've been in hospitals," I said. "They take away your pants. Then they hurt you and starve you and expose you to disease. Then they bill you for it. A lot."
"You're not wrong," the Lady agreed. "And you're not spooking in Speanerisms any more, either."
"Your Ladyship," Kate the redhead insisted, "he really ought to be—"
"What can a hospital give him that we can't, Doctor?" Lady Sally interrupted.
So Kate was an MD, huh? Well, it figured there'd be one on staff. I'd just never realized the doc might double as an artist.
"Well, constant monitoring, for one thing—"
"That's no problem," Atethusa said positively. I turned to look at her, and realized I was still seeing double—but only when I looked at Arethusa. Maybe I really was in trouble.
"Look, Arie, the Lady has a business to run—"
"But Kate—I always have spare time. As you know."
Strange as it may sound, that made a weird kind of sense. Because the Arethusa on the left said everything up to "spare time," and the one on the right added the "As you know."
She wasn't a teleport! Nothing so exotic as that atall. Just a pair of garden-variety telepathic twins. How silly of me to have thought she was remarkable.
And since she was both . . . that is, since both twins were named Arethusa, that meant they thought of herself as one person. If you follow. I was willing to bet they only took a single salary from Lady Sally; I mean, how could they have separate bank accounts? Arethusa—as any telepathic set of twins naturally would—thought of herself as a single person who happened to have two bodies available. So from her point of view she could spend all her time taking care of me, and still earn her paycheck.
I don't think I can take much credit for being able to believe stuff this weird without boggling. I'd sort of been prepared. After a talking dog, or an invisible man with an impossible two-by-four, what's a bicorporal harlot? No big deal. Maybe being hit on the head even helped.
While I worked all this out, the argument finished without me: Kate said a hospital had equipment for sudden emergencies standing by, and Lady Sally said Kate knew damn well the crash cart always takes at least five minutes to arrive, and Pris could have me in Kate's OR in under two, or the nearest Emergency Room in five flat. So finally Doctor Kate settled for inflicting all the indignities she had handy on me, lasers through the pupils, blood-pressure cuff, blood samples, injections of this and that, you know the kind of stuff they do. Give her credit, the end of that stethoscope was warm. First time that ever happened. And even a doctor's routine loses a little bit of the sting if the doctor is a beautiful redhead dressed in a lace teddy and a silk kimono. Somebody ought to tell the AMA about that. All in all I'd have to say Kate was as nice about everything as a doctor can be and still annoy you enough to make you get well.
I know you probably won't believe it, but the words "bedside manner" never once went through my head. That night, anyway. Maybe the place was refining my wisecrack generator a little. Most people, I think, left Lady Sally's House a little more sophisticated, with a little more class, than when they went in.
When Kate was done, and reluctantly pronounced me worth keeping, Lady Sally thanked her and sent her back to her other work. She asked Arethusa if they would step outside for a few minutes, and they did, apologizing to me first for snapping at me out in the hall. I told them to forget it.
When the door closed behind them, the Lady sat by my bedside and took my hand. Hers was warm and soft and strong. I noticed for the first time that I was in a bunk bed—that I was in the Teenager's Bedroom where I had first met her. No wonder I felt so relaxed. "Joe, I'm very sorry," Lady Sally said. "What happened to you was my fault."
"Hey," I said, "I knew the job was dangerous when I took it," I made a sound like a chicken. It's a classical reference; let it go if you don't know it. Sally got it, fortunately. "Besides," I added, "you can't hurt an Irishman by hitting him on the head. That was your Little Man Who Wasn't There, wasn't it?"
"Yes, from what Arethusa says I'm afraid it must have been. I intended to brief you more fully at dawn, but I needed to be sure you could cope with this place first."
"Hey, Lady, I'm not sure John Carter the Warlord of Barsoom could cope with this place. The guy you want me to catch is a little more than a garden-variety sneak thief, isn't he? I should have known the . . . the man that sent me wouldn't get all this upset about a . . . a lousy stickyfinger. I guess a guy that can hit you through a closed door would qualify. But you know what really puzzles me?"
"What's that, Joe?"
"Well, look, you're, no offense but you're a madam. You run the greatest bordello I ever saw or heard of. So how come I can't bring myself to say f—" I couldn't bring myself to say it. "—in front of you?" I finished lamely.
Her smile was a beautiful thing to see. "Because you know that word has only one meaning for me, and you're not strong enough to use it in a sentence to me yet. Don't worry: when the time comes, it will roll trippingly off your tongue. And so, shortly thereafter, will I. Now, are you feeling strong enough to continue your briefing, since we seem to have begun it?"
"You mean that's all you have to do to pass your audition for this joint? Drink the berry juice, spot the pun, get socked on the skull, and you're in? I can be one of your artists now?"
"Not necessarily, no. But I am confident now that you can pass for one, for a few days at least, with help. And I feel I owe you the chance to follow through on this case, seeing that you've taken fire on my behalf already."
"What makes you so confident now?" I asked, genuinely curious. The more I'd seen of this place, the less sure I'd felt that I could live up to its eccentric standards.
"Two things: Arethusa gave you a good report . . . and you treated my good friend Ralph Von Wan Wau with kindness at the staircase. Ralph's larynx and mouth were surgically modified in his infancy by a mad behaviorist, who hoped he could train Ralph to parrot human speech. To his dismay, his subject turned out to be a mutant, with human intelligence. They had a long talk one day. Ralph's life has been a rather lonely one since. How many are willing to converse with a German shepherd? 'Anyone who says "Excuse me" is a human being,' you said. Precisely the attitude I try to cultivate in my artists."
Huh. I could see how it would come in handy around here. "Arethusa didn't get much of a chance to do much research."
Lady Sally chuckled. "My dear boy, she held you in her arms and looked you in the eye and kissed you. She now probably knows more about your sex life than you do."
Huh! And I passed . . .
Well, I had been paying close attention.
My attitudes toward hookers and their customers—excuse me, artists and their clients—had evolved a great deal in the last few hours. I had started out just a little brighter than the average Joe. That is, I had been prepared to be polite to any whore who was polite to me . . . but deep down inside, I had believed that there was something somehow wrong about paying another person to pretend to care about you. Don't ask me how, but I'd learned better. I understood now that if you don't believe it's moral to pay someone to pretend to care about you, you have no business flying first-class. Or going to a bar, or a hairdresser, or a psychiatrist. Or a private eye . . .
"Do you want that briefing now, or after you've had some rest?" Lady Sally asked.
You're on duty, Quigley! I took inventory, the way I had when her berry juice had started to come on, and computed that I had about ten minutes of good attention in me, before I'd start speening in Spookerisms again. "As they say in Hollywood, why don't you give me a synopsis of the treatment?"
"Quite. Well, the first incident took place four nights ago. That would have been a Wednesday night, a little before eight. One of my artists, Sherry, was about to go on duty. She had just placed some items which she knew her first client would appreciate in the Studio she uses regularly. In the middle of changing into her working clothes, she decided to do some limbering-up exercises in the nude. As she was executing jumping jacks, something happened.
"Several things all at once, actually. She reported that she experienced sudden extreme dizziness, felt warm all over, heard a sort of high distant shriek in her ears, and experienced a sudden sharp burning sensation in her breasts and vagina. The combination caused her to cry out and fall to the carpet. Priscilla arrived quickly, and took her to Kate's examining room, which fortunately was not yet in other use. Kate diagnosed rape.
"Sherry maintained this was impossible, but Kate insisted the symptoms were unmistakable. Bruising on Sherry's arms, legs and breasts. Chafing consistent with unlubricated penetration. And a subsequent discharge which Kate positively identified as semen. The only problem being that Sherry was quite positive she had been alone and that whatever happened had literally been over in an instant. She stated further that she had not been intimate with any male, artist or client, for over sixteen hours.
"One other small detail: examination of that Studio disclosed that its bed did appear to have been worked in."
I located my jacket hanging by the bedside and got out my Luckies. "This Sherry is a stable, reliable witness in your opinion," I suggested, lighting up.
Lady Sally placed an ashtray nearby. "I have known her to experience extraordinary and stressful events, and observe them accurately. I believed her account then, and believe it now."
The cigarette made my head throb worse. I took another puff. "Go on."
"We mutually agreed that while we were not superstitious, others in the House are: we agreed not to publicize the incident. The next evening about midnight . . ." Lady Sally broke off. "This one will require some explanation. One of my artists, Ellen, is tattooed rather unusually. She . . . collects autographs, of celebrities, done on various portions of her skin with a fountain pen . . . and then has them made permanent by a tatooist later. She bills herself as the Living Autograph Book. I imagine the psychological significance of the pen must be fairly obvious. You can please her a great deal by asking her—politely, of course—to show you where John Lennon signed. Although for my money it was Ringo who was the most creative of the four . . . at any rate, people's fascination with celebrities is so great, Ellen's unique adornments are a perennial draw. Perhaps you're familiar with the phenomenon of the groupie-groupie?
"That Sunday night, Ellen was performing for a client, an old friend, when suddenly they both experienced extreme vertigo, felt a breeze, and heard a sort of chalk-on-a-blackboard sound. They both said their first thought was of earthquake. They are both absolutely certain that when it happened, Ellen climaxed, and the client did not. They offer as proof the fact that he did, extravaginally, about thirty seconds later. But Ellen subsequently experienced the same inexplicable discharge Sherry had. And the client found some odd new bruises on him here and there.
"They puzzled together over these two things, and after a while the client shrugged and said, 'Maybe he did it,' and pointed to an autograph. This puzzled Ellen, as he appeared to be pointing at Rock Hudson's autograph—but when she followed his finger she saw that she had somehow acquired a new signature. It read, 'The Phantom.' It was in ink, and still fresh enough to smear.
"The whole thing was so inexplicable, they both decided the scotch in the bar was getting better, and Ellen didn't report it to me. But Mary heard, and did."
It's always annoying when the theory you've been developing stubs its toe on new facts. Reluctantly I abandoned my nice, simple teleport theory. Now that I thought about it, even if you could teleport a blunt instrument through a closed door, part of that instrument would have to be in the door as the leading edge was striking my skull. It came to me all of a sudden that a PI should try to avoid cases where teleportation is too simple an answer. "You folks couldn't just turn up a corpse in a locked room or something easy like that? Transfixed by a mysterious dagger of Oriental design?"
She came near to smiling. "Fortunately, none of the odd occurrences have been that drastic—until tonight, that is. The attack on you constituted a kind of escalation."
"How flattering. Do go on."
"Well, another kind of escalation happened on Friday evening: there were two incidents, virtually simultaneous and related in theme. An artist and a client were artistically involved in one of the Function Rooms about ten o'clock, and all of sudden they had swapped costumes somehow. As they differed greatly in weight, physique and gender, the effect was striking, and ludicrous in the extreme. They reported no other symptoms, no dizziness or squeaking sounds or bruising or inexplicable ejaculations, and were merely much puzzled rather than upset. At about the same time, two couples in the Bower—do you know about the Bower?"
"In theory," I said. "Go on."
"Two couples there, all clients, suddenly found that they had swapped partners, in midstream as it were. Again they were not terribly upset—it turned that three of them had just been thinking about proposing just such an exchange and the fourth would have enthusiastically agreed—but they were all somewhat unnerved. Though not enough to prevent them finishing what they'd started. Two of them spoke of dizziness, and discovered bruises which might have been quite natural given the circumstances, but none mentioned any squeaking sounds. It chanced that there were no other witnesses present, and so again it was mutually decided that I must be selling some very potent liquor out in the bar."
"Any unexplainable 'discharges' that time?" I asked.
"Indeterminate. The floor of the Bower not only feels like sponge, it's highly absorbent and stainproof. Any such evidence would have disappeared almost on contact."
"That brings us to last night."
"Again there was a kind of escalation, in both quantity and quality. Three strange incidents at two different times, and all with a certain aspect of nastiness to them. Not that all of the incidents haven't been nasty enough, but last night—" She frowned. "Well, judge for yourself. At about eleven, Mistress Cynthia was performing with a client in her Dungeon, and all at once they swapped places. They are of such different builds that considerable adjusting of straps had to have been done—apparently instantly. Cynthia bore three vivid welts in painful locations. She became so enraged that she broke free—which I would have warranteed impossible—and began chasing the client around the Dungeon, under the impression that he had somehow drugged her and effected the switch himself . . . though how he was supposed to have freed himself I cannot imagine. Priscilla had to come and rescue the poor man. He and Cynthia were both bruised, but that may have been perfectly natural.
"At roughly the same time, Juicy Lucy and a client blinked and found themselves outside in the street together. As if that weren't frightening enough, a taxiful of sailors on leave was just passing—and both ladies were naked. They reentered the House at high speed, and there was some unpleasantness when the sailors attempted to come in after them. Fortunately my receptionists are well trained, and managed not to hurt any of the sailors enough to require medical attention. I questioned both ladies afterward about dizziness, odd noises, any other strange phenomena, but they were so highly traumatized they remembered nothing. As both are female, I did not inquire about discharges. They were both bruised across the shoulder blades and the backs of their thighs."
"I see what you mean," I said. "This guy's sense of humor gets nastier and nastier."
"You haven't heard the third event yet. At about one-thirty that morning, the . . . the client who sent you to me was in a studio down in the Discreet Wing. He was just leaving the bathroom. Mark that: he had just finished examining himself with some care in the mirror, naked."
I shuddered. "No one ever said he didn't have guts."
She frowned. "Joe, I know it is necessary for you to be disrespectful of him, and I understand that. But I must ask you to remember that worse men than he have held his job—and that he is an old and dear friend of mine."
"Sorry. Continue."
"As he approached his artist of the evening, he heard what he could only describe as a 'chipmunk noise'—and suddenly she burst out laughing." I started to speak . . . and she glared so ferociously I stilled myself. Then suddenly her expression softened. "Damn it . . . I don't want you giving yourself a hernia, so you may laugh during this next part. But one wisecrack and I'll smite you on the mazzard. Looking down," she went on grimly, "the client discovered that he had been redecorated."
I began to grin. In spite of herself, and without losing her thunderous frown, she joined me. Nonetheless her voice was flat, clinical. "Most of his pubic hair had been shaved off. A rude slogan had been written across his abdomen, apparently with Ellen's pen."
I was giggling by now. "What did it say?" I asked, trying to keep my voice as sober as hers and failing.
She sighed. "Do you really need to know?"
"It might be a clue to the psychology of the individual," I wheedled.
She pursed her lips. "Let's just say it involved a crude pun on his last name." I was laughing outright now. "His testicles had been painted bright green—" My head began to hurt from laughing. "—and his penis as well—" My sides began to ache. "And a small bell, of the sort one finds affixed to the collars of cats—" At this point Sally lost it too, giggled helplessly is she finished, "was dangling from the end of it," and we howled together for a short while.
But shortly she got control of herself, and kept it. "As you can see, even a friend cannot help laughing. That is precisely why he is so upset—and rightly so. Such things should not happen in my House."
Her voice held such controlled anger that I managed to sober up myself. "Let me get something straight. Obviously he hasn't broadcast what happened to him—and I assume his artist can keep her mouth shut or she wouldn't be performing in the Discreet Wing. I bet Cynthia and her client haven't told anybody what happened either. But what do the staff and clients think happened to the two ladies you mentioned?"
She nodded grimly. "That one has been causing talk. The most popular theory is that they were engaged in something exotic involving a window ledge and slipped, and are both properly too embarrassed to admit it. That story may hold for a little while. But if this sort of shit goes on, it won't be too long before I'll have a panic that empties my place. That's why you were hired."
It was the first time I'd ever heard her use a word you can't say on television. I got the point: she was pissed. And it was clear that she had every right to be. If your whole business is getting people relaxed, the last thing you want around the House is gremlins. "Have any other weird things happened tonight? I asked. "Compared to a talking dog or telepathic twins, I mean? Assaults like the others?"
She hesitated. "Aren't you getting tired by now, Joe? You should rest—"
Now I was pissed. Very pissed. "Arethusa felt a burning sensation," I stated.
She sighed again and nodded. "In mid-air," she agreed, "as she was falling to the floor. In a split second. And down the hall, a man of the cloth discovered that . . . never mind; there was another incident and the details are not important."
"No, they're not," I said. My head still hurt, I was still exhausted and weak. But I was all business. "All right, first of all, you keep records of who goes in and out of this place?"
"Computerized." she agreed.
"I'll need printouts. Including Discreet Wing clients. Second, I hear there are tape recorders hooked up to Mary's bugs: do you still have tapes for all the days in question?"
"Yes. You'll have to go upstairs to the Snoop Room to hear them, when you're well enough. Removing them from the room erases them."
"First thing tomorrow. With luck I should have this son of a bitch in a bag by tomorrow night."
I had at last succeeded in favorably impressing her. Her eyebrows went up, and she beamed involuntarily. "You really think you can catch the bastard?"
"With some planning, cooperation, coordination, and luck, yeah, we've got a good shot," I said. "At the very least I think I can guarantee he won't trouble you any more. Unless I'm completely mistaken, and what we're dealing with here is a poltergeist."
"I do not believe in either poltergeists or the straightforward ghosts presented in the film inexplicably titled Poltergeist," she said.
"Neither do I," I agreed. "So I think I've got it right."
"Joe, you're a marvel!" she exclaimed. "You pull this off and you're comped here for life."
It was about the most breathtaking offer anyone had ever made me, but I was so stoked I let it go by almost unnoticed. "The in-out roster probably won't do more than narrow it down a little," I said. "I imagine you get a lot of every-night regulars here."
"We do," she agreed with some pride.
"But once I have a chance to go through those tapes I think I can tell you who he is. I already know what he is."
"Fantastic! And what is that?"
"A guy with a time machine," I said.