Gascoyne Read online

  “Yes I know,” he says. “I mean it’s not my fault. But I shouldn’t talk about it like this. Well fine weather we’ve had today and say Mr. GASCOYNE Nadine’s told me a lot about you but I’m afraid I never did catch your profession. What—”

  Well at this moment the tentacle chooses to curl up and go to sleep leaving Armstrong high and dry, and his eyes roll up and his knees go soft and he crumples down on the floor. Nadine runs over to the door and shouts for somebody and in a second a real bitchy-looking nurse marches in and grabs Armstrong by the foot and drags him out. Good riddance because I can’t spend any more time worrying about the poor bastard, I’ve got enough problems of my own.

  Nadine goes and sits back down on her little chair.

  “All right,” she says, “I’m going to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Talk, sing, spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag, ’fess up.”

  “You don’t say,” I say.

  “Yes,” she says.

  “Why at this particular moment?” I ask.

  “Well GASCOYNE I’ve got to do it sooner or later.”

  “That’s true.”

  There’s a pretty awkward silence and then I ask, “Well why did you swipe my nameplate?”

  “I can tell you anything but that,” she says going stiff and hysterical. “But let me confess now.”

  “Well wait a minute Nade, let’s not be in such a big hurry. We’ve got to be sensible about this sort of thing.”

  “I guess you’re right GASCOYNE but sometimes it’s so hard.”

  “You’ve got to try.”

  “I know,” she says softly.

  She pulls out a handkerchief but doesn’t do anything with it and then she gets up and starts pacing back and forth on the pitch-black carpet.

  “I was born—” she moans but I put a stop to that.

  “Oh stop it Nade, you can’t do it like that and you know it.”

  “But I can’t help it.”

  “Just answer my questions.”

  “But the trouble is GASCOYNE when you do it that way you ask all the important ones first and those are the ones I don’t want to answer until last.”

  “Damn, all right,” I say, “but I’m in a hurry, I’ve got an appointment. Where were you born?”

  “Damn you cruel beast,” she says bursting into tears and stomping her feet, “all you want to do is dig out dirty underwear and wave it around, monster!”

  “That’s right Nade, I’m just a good old-fashioned villain who straps helpless girls to the railroad tracks.”

  “That’s exactly what you are you filthy slob!”

  She grabs a Chinese vase and heaves it at my head but I duck and it goes through a mirror. Then I get up and give her a couple of slaps across the face and twist her arm and throw her down on the couch where she whines deep behind her cat’s teeth and tries to bite and kick me.

  “Sit still or I’ll start breaking things,” I say.

  She lets out with a sort of convulsion and then goes limp, sweating.

  “All right that’s better. Where were you born?”

  “In America.”

  She spits in my eye. I soften her up with a few more slaps.

  “Where in America?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  I twist her arm.

  “Ohio!” she gasps.

  “Where in Ohio?” I ask with more twisting.

  “San—”

  “Yes?”

  “Eee! Sandusky.”

  I relax the pressure.

  “Jesus you’re good GASCOYNE,” she sighs.

  “Not so bad yourself Nade.”

  “Mmm. That feels good.”

  “We must get on. What was O’Mallollolly doing here the afternoon of the murder before the murder or during it as the case may be?”

  “I won’t tell,” she says and holds her breath and turns red and then a little bluish.

  I give her a tap on the stomach.

  “Pou-ak!” she explodes. “How dare you touch me there you dirty old man!”

  She gets her teeth in my hand and chomps down real hard. With no little pain I free my hand and look at the row of fresh tooth marks with the feeling that I’ve seen somewhere else an identical row of fresh tooth marks on someone else’s hand very recently but I can’t remember who or where.

  I slap her a couple of times and her nose starts bleeding.

  “Talk goddamn you or I’ll ring your neck!”

  “All right,” she says with a swallow, her eyes gone glassy. “Would you mind repeating the question?”

  “Ah, something about O’Mallollolly being here the afternoon of the murder.”

  “Yes of course he was, I told you that.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  She sobs. “To conceal evidence.”

  “What evidence?”

  “The murder weapon.”

  “Yes, go on, try to speak in complete sentences if you possibly can.”

  “The murder weapon. He gave it to me to hide.”

  “Where did you hide it?”

  “Well,” she says, “now that’s a little personal.”

  “All right skip that. Where is it now?”

  “In that desk drawer.”

  “That one?” I say, pointing at a desk in the corner.

  She bites her lip and says, “Yes!”

  I spring up and go over to the desk and pull open the drawer and sure enough there’s the murder weapon but sure enough too there’s something traveling fast toward the back of my head and I duck just in time to miss a genuine meat cleaver, wherever she pulled that one from, which sinks three inches into the wall back of where my head was.

  “Did you throw that?” I ask.

  But she’s about ready to launch a magazine stand at me so I pick up the desk chair and knock her out cold. Then I pick her up and toss her back down on the couch and pat her cheeks to make her come to.

  “Oh where am I?”

  “Right where you started from, only now with a little sense knocked into you.”

  “Crummy bastard you’d strike your own mother.”

  “Have already on more than one occasion.”

  She starts screaming and whimpering so I have to put my hand over her mouth and she tries to bite my fingers so I’ve got to soften her up a little more.

  “All right, I’ll talk!” she gasps, tears springing from her eyes.

  “What was the question?”

  “I haven’t asked it yet.”

  “Perverted sadist for beating me up for nothing.”

  “All wrong. Hand over that insurance policy!”

  “Over my dead body!”

  “Is that a request?”

  She slips a long-fingernailed hand free and jabs me right there which has the effect of causing much pain and throwing me off balance and off the couch and down on the floor flat on my back. She stands up on the couch and jumps off with her three-inch spikes aimed squarely at my exposed belly.

  “Die you nasty old fart!” she shrieks as she plummets downward.

  Fortunately I make an agile twist away and upwards only an instant before her spikes would have speared me and she hits the floor with a tremendous crash and her spikes sink into the carpet and into the floor and she stands there uncertainly with her arms waving when all of a sudden the floor under her gives way and the carpet rips and she vanishes from sight, leaving only her rumpled black slinky gown behind, peeled off by the narrowness of the aperture.

  Gingerly I test the floor and edge my way toward the hole and look down in, dark as hell it is.

  “Hey Nade!” I call down. “You all right?”

  No answer.

  “Psst!” I call again. “Come on Nade cut out the horseplay. I’m in a hurry damn it.”

  Still no answer. This is pretty annoying so I edge away from the hole and go over to the desk and take out the murder weapon. Underneath is of all things an insurance policy and a quick peek at the large print reveals it�
�s just the one we want. I take down the policy number and the name of the company which I can read and put the thing back in the drawer.

  I pussyfoot it back to the hole and call down, “Hey Nade, I’ve got to go, really.” No sound. “Well I’ll see you later Nade. Give Chester a ring if you need anything.”

  I work my way back from the hole and then go out the door and notice as I pass through the living room I’m already ten minutes late according to the clock there and this could end up with a real mess.

  Tired as I am from all that exertion I can’t afford to slow down so I hotfoot it out the front door and into the Kaiser which fortunately starts right off though there’s a knock in the engine at first I’ve never heard before and I wonder if maybe this one’s had it. A new or reconditioned engine lasts me on the average of two months and sometimes three and I’m going on the third month now and the odometer’s hitting the high ninety thousands, so at least from now on I’m getting my money’s worth.

  I back her up and throw her down the gravel driveway and shoot out the main gate and right off pick up the two police T-birds and the blue Porsche I scraped off coming in and we all parade down Mirindaranda Road. All three of them are not bad at the signal game which is something usually no more than two can play and I begin to think that maybe they’ve got a gadget in their cars to trigger the signals which is something I’ve been trying to get for a long time. If they do, O’Mallollolly’s been putting in the overtime for a long time all right because something like this doesn’t get fixed up overnight and if there’s one thing I’d like to know right now it’s just how long he’s been playing games. Not much longer anyway, though I’ve got to make up my mind about the Scandal of ’65, it’s got to be something strong and forceful to capture the public imagination.

  I turn left at Wahahneeot and hit the on-ramp to the Urban Circle Uptown Turnpike Tollroad and shoot up it and merge in between a couple of those house trailers that are so big you wonder where they ever come from and where the hell they’re going and then I crank the Kaiser up to seventy and slip her into the fast lane and in a second the Thunderbirds settle down in a flight pattern in lanes three and four creating a dangerous traffic situation but that’s the sort of thing they like. The Porsche seems to be hopping around the two slow lanes which means that if he can do it without piling into the back of a slow-moving truck he’s pretty damn good and I’m wondering who he’s working for if it isn’t O’Mallollolly. Things are not running too well I must admit if somebody’s following you you don’t know on your own territory and you can’t do much about it, but I’m learning my lesson from this sort of thing and the Police Tower battle and trouble is with the way I’ve got things set up now I only know about twenty of my guys by sight, more like fifteen, and most of them aren’t any good during the showdown hour and so what I’ve got to do is set up a little private army of fifty to a hundred under some private police patrol front or something like Pinkertons. You don’t need this sort of thing very often but when you do you need it bad.

  About then Marge calls.

  “Hi Marge. Get up to Condor’s Crag yet?”

  “No,” she says pretty coldly.

  “Well where are you then?”

  “Just sitting,” she says.

  “Well where dear?”

  “Oh I’m still at the FAT PHEASANT AND OLD GREYHOUNDE.”

  “What?”

  “I said I’m still at the FAT PHEASANT AND OLD—”

  “I heard you,” I say, “and I just want to know what the hell you’re still doing there and how much this is costing me.”

  “Well I’m still here because eating takes time, I mean we’re not all like you dear. I mean sometimes we have to stop and eat and sometimes that takes a couple of hours and sometimes we have to sleep and that cuts out a whole eight hours of each day, really awfully inefficient I admit dear, but that’s the way the rest of us are made.”

  “Hell I don’t care how you’re made just as long as you don’t use it as an excuse to throw money all over the landscape. If you can stay in bed eight hours every night fine and dandy, though I do think you sleep too much Marge and I sure don’t see the point of spending three dollars an hour of my hard-earned money for the purpose of passing out on a flat level space with a couple of sheets and blankets and pillows around and I see the point even less of sitting in the FAT PHEASANT and paying the joint ten bucks an hour to shovel food into your mouth, you get just as much nutritional value out of a big chocolate bar that costs half a buck and takes two minutes to eat nuts and all.”

  “And I suppose—” she says and sort of chokes.

  “What?”

  “And I suppose you’re going to tell me I ought to eat two chocolate bars a day and cut my sleep down to a half hour and then what do you want me to do stay up all night—”

  “Calm down Marge. Look at Chester now, he’s been up for three nights in a row now and he’s doing just fine, even a little better than usual.”

  “How nice—”

  “Stop screaming Marge.”

  “I’m not screaming, I’m raving,” she says and boy she’s doing both for my money. “I mean there are just so many wonderful exciting things I could do if I stayed up all night on two chocolate bars. I just love to knit. Knit! Just think with all that time on my hands I could knit you a car cover or me a wall-to-wall knitted carpet or a circus tent. Do you suppose I could buy a chocolate bar at the FAT PHEASANT?”

  “NO. STEVIE’S SENSATIONAL SANDWICHES has them.”

  “Whoopie!”

  “Marge there’s something wrong with your attitude and I wish you’d stop it.”

  “All right!” she shrieks.

  “All right. Now what the hell did you call for?”

  She doesn’t say a damn thing but she hasn’t hung up yet either, I’m getting pretty pissed off.

  “Come off it Marge, what did you call for?”

  “Oh,” she says, “oh just to chew the fat. Not much else to do around all this scenery except chew the fat.”

  “Hell you’re supposed to be on your way to Condor’s Crag. What the hell’s got into you woman?”

  “Look mister I called to tell you that as I was walking out to that stupid car some man comes up to me and asks me to call you and ask you if you’re interested in a deal of I don’t know what sort but he wouldn’t say anything else so I called you and what do I get but a lecture on how to live life for a dollar a day, gas and automobile repairs not included.”

  Then the bitch hangs up just like that.

  Well I’ve got my own problems to worry about and one of them is the Tollroad Tollgate which is coming into view and I check the rearview again and see that nothing’s changed back there with my following friends so just to give them a little jolt I snap on the supercharger and whiz her up to eighty-five and then dial the tollgate central phone.

  “It’s GASCOYNE here and I’m coming through number one as per usual.”

  “Hold on,” some wise one answers, “you’ve got to stop and pay a toll like anybody else now GASCOYNE.”

  “Sorry buster too late.”

  The light stays red on number one and a couple of cops rush out and throw up one of those wooden sawhorses, the optimists, and they see me still coming and they start running away in all directions. I snap on the headlights and put on the air horn and touch off a pair of tracer bazookas I’ve got slung under the front of the car which go shooting through the tollgate with red and orange tracer flames though they won’t blow anything up, a pretty display. Then in the last instant I catch the scene in the rearview and one of the T-birds is still on my tail while the other is pulling right to pay his toll and I can’t see where the Porsche’s gone, and I zoom through the gate at about ninety and blast the wooden sawhorse into splinters up in the sky to make rain with, and then when I’m clear I watch behind the T-bird shooting in toward the gate but in the last second it veers just a bit left and plows square into the little glass house where the guys stand to take the tol
ls. The whole affair just flies to pieces up into the air and I can see shooting up and coming down little shiny glistening specks which are the nickels and dimes and quarters Mr. Average Motorist has been shelling out all day long, high into the air like a cross between fireworks and a fountain display, but I can’t see a thing of the T-bird unless it’s up there floating around too.

  The other one which stopped to pay its toll must not have the exact change or something because I see no sign of it, but the blue Porsche somehow made it through and it is catching up with me pretty fast, damn, and I won’t be able to shake him here so I swing across the four lanes to Beethoven Boulevard off-ramp and just barely am able to make the stop at the bottom, tires screaming and brakes smoking and my foot numb from pounding on the brake pedal. I turn left onto Beethoven and hit the supercharger and get her back up to forty-five with the Porsche still hot behind and then the phone rings and it’s Chester.

  “Hi Chester, what’s up?”

  “Nothing boss.”

  “Well what the hell did you call for?”

  “I just called to tell you I’m going to go take a crap.”

  “Take a what?”

  “A crap.”

  “Well for Christsake go take a crap, you don’t have to ask me every time you go take a crap,” and I hang up wondering what the hell’s got into Chester all of a sudden.

  I make a quick right at BEETHOVEN’S FIFTH ALL-NITE LIQUOR MART and wind down Gauguin Court at the legal twenty-five past all the houses and apartments I built last year and then come to the big motel-style apartment which dead-ends the street and which is a three-story pastel pink job with replanted palms and a swimming pool in the central patio. I get more money out of the TAHITI-DELICE PLEASURE APARTMENTS than any other single investment I’ve got because I’ve got the thing sewed up nice with that all-night liquor store on the corner which is the stuff that feeds the divorce cases we get out of the TAHITI-DELICE, bugged the way a place can only be bugged when you build it yourself, and boy are some of the cases humdingers.

  I slow down real slow and bounce into the TAHITI-DELICE driveway ramp and cruise through like I didn’t have a care in the world and as I turn the corner at the parking spaces I notice the Porsche has stopped out on the street and that leaves me free to go on past the parking spaces and hit the driveway of another place I own backing it and in ten seconds I’m out on Hemingway Way and I can just see the Porsche boys running into the TAHITI-DELICE pushing doorbells and wondering where I’ve gone to.