Gat Heat (16 page)

No, it was in I go, quick, while I've got the element of total surprise. I would tiptoe down the rest of the stairs in my stocking feet, which fortunately were connected to my head, and pause for only a moment before those draped velvets. Then I'd part the arches with a lightning movement and spring inside. And then …

Then …

Well, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

When I was on the fourth step from the bottom a little reddish arrow of dizziness zipped silently, like a quarrel shot from a crossbow, from the left side of my skull to the right side. The little radish must have gone straight through my brain. Then it ricocheted, quarreling west, north, south—all over the place. What I think happened then is, I tripped. Or stumbled. That is to say, I appeared not to have everything under control.

But I continued to think very fast. Like lightning.

Well, I thought, I'm tripping, all right. But at least I'm tripping in the right direction. That's where I wanted to go, isn't it? Down there? Well, that's where I'm going. Just going a little faster than I'd planned to. But, hell, you can't expect everything to go
precisely
according to plan.

That draped archway was only a few feet away. I knew if I fell down and hit the floor at the foot of the stairs it would make a hell of a noise, and thus alert anybody in there—where those buzzing buzzes were buzzing—and my element of surprise would be lessened. According to my position, however—I was way over at an angle in the air by this time, even though I was still thinking like lightning—it was going to be impossible for me to tiptoe down as I had planned and catch the assassins—or monster bumblebees—unaware.

It was clear to me that the only sensible course left was to give a great leap and burst through those velveted curtains into the room. It was either that, or keep considering alternatives until I fell flat on my face. So that's what I did. Well …

I did the great leap, all right. But, unfortunately, it was in a direction very nearly parallel to the floor. In fact, I think my head was about an inch below my feet when I did the great leap. But, hell, things can't
always
go as you plan them. I was aimed right at those curtained velvets, though. Sailing through the air at them. If
anybody
can burst through those veal cutlets, I thought, it has to be me right now.

I was wrong about that, too.

Perhaps it's because I didn't hit the things squarely in the middle, where they were supposed to open. Whatever the reason, they didn't open. I could feel them wrapping around me like velvet octopuses, all over and around me; but there's always a bright side and whatever it was softened the blow when I landed. I hit with a jarring thump, skidded, rolled, and then felt something crash against me. There was eerie plinking music. And there was a geat big bang. Like a gun going off.

Muffled in my curtain-clogged ears I could hear wild sounds. No more buzzing. There was a high-pitched scream, and a low-pitched scream. Sounded like a woman screaming, and a man screaming. “Eeeeeyorrk!” the woman screeched, and “BLLAAAHK!” the man bellowed. I was kicking, yanking, pulling, trying to get out from inside the curtains.

“Eeeeeyorrk!”

“BLLAAAHK!”

It occurred to me that if somebody was going to slaughter me they couldn't ask a better time for it. In fact there wouldn't be much left to do. But nobody had killed me yet. I thought about it. I thought like lightning.

Then I stopped struggling.

“Ah, shut up,” I said. “Shut up and get me out of here.”

I had to ask them a couple more times, but finally they pulled themselves together and got the job done. I sat silently on the floor for a few seconds, looking up at Mr. and Mrs. Spork.

Sybil put long red-nailed fingers over her lips and turned her head a bit, and looked at me with slanting eyes.

I looked up at Mr. Spork with crossed eyes. “Have you got any bees in here?”

“Bees?” he said. “Bees?”

“Well, if you don't know what they are, you must not have any.” I paused. “Mr. Spork, I suppose you're wondering …” I threw my hands up in the air.

“You've certainly ruined our blue velvet draperies,” Sybil said.

“Is that what they were? Yeah, I guess I have. Shot a hole in one, didn't I? Hmm, didn't do the carpet any good either, did it? Ah, there's a door I'd better tell you about, too.”

I got to my feet, feeling myself over. Nothing seemed to be broken. Nothing new. In fact, it appeared that when something had crashed into me—actually, I had rolled up against a piano—it had stopped some of that quarreling inside my skull. For example, I now
knew
thinking wouldn't cause athlete's foot. At least, it didn't seem likely.

I put my gun back in its holster—after I found it in the blue velvet draperies—took a deep breath, and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Spork, no matter what any of us has done, let's not criticize eath other, hey? Let's … live and let live. Let's not ask me why I came in here in this, ah, this, uh, this fashion. I had my reasons. Truly I did. But I should prefer not to go into them right now. Or ever. Each of us does things different ways, right? O.K.? Well, that's settled, so what was it—”

“But why,” Sybil asked me wonderingly, “did you jump into the draperies?”

“Mrs. Spork,” I said, “how would you like to play Russian roulette? All by yourself.”

“I'm still all a-flutter,” she said. “All a-twang.”

“
You're
all a-twang. Huh. You don't know what all a-twang is.” I paused. “Matter of fact, neither do I.”

“Where are your shoes?” she asked me.

“You're full of marvelous questions, aren't you? I left them halfway up the stairway, if you've really got to know. After I bored a big hole in your door. Yeah. Bored a hole right through it. Why didn't I use my set of picklocks? Why didn't I use a five-cent key? It is possible none of us will ever know. I will say only this, boring a hole in your door seemed a keen idea at the time. I took my shoes off so my head, in which I recently got shot—see the bandage? See the big hole? Ah, maybe
that
explains the hole in your door—wouldn't make so much noise. I didn't want my head to make any noise because I was afraid the bumblebees would hear it and eat me. There, that should cover most of it. Any more questions?”

She didn't have any more questions.

A couple of minutes later we were all seated in the room—the living room it was—and I told them I knew everything there was to know, so they could speak freely.

“You don't know everything,” Sybil said. “I called you because we're being blackmailed.”

“Oh? By whom?”

“We don't know—I mean, a man came here this afternoon, but we'd never seen him before.”

“Blackmailed how?”

“He had a picture.”

“Ah. So? Chinese say, one picture—” I shook my head. “What kind of picture?” I asked her, suddenly recalling that Angelica Bersudian had asked me the same question—suspiciously—not long ago.

“A photograph of me and Hugh in bed. Hugh Pryer and me.”

“Ah. In bed.”

“Well … Not in it, on it.”

“I presume you were not having a pillow fight.”

“Not exactly.” She reached into a handbag on the couch between her and her husband, took out a small snapshot and handed it to me. “This is what I wanted to show you,” she said. “The man left this copy with us. Now do you understand?” I examined the photo—and told her, yes, I understood.

They'd been warned not to contact the police or anybody else—which was why she hadn't given Hazel her full name, and also why she'd asked me to sneak in the back way, so nobody would see me and deduce that the Sporks had called me.

“Hum,” I said, handing the photo back. “Erum. I see. So, on one of the recent evenings of, ah … someone, without your knowledge, snapped a—”

“Oh, we knew about it. All of us did. But we thought the whole album had been burned up. The picture this greasy man had today
was
burned. But only around the edges. Not … in the middle.”

“Slow down a shake.” I was starting to ger the picture.
The
picture. “You
all
knew about this?” I went on. “That there was an album? And it was supposed to have been burned? In a fire, you mean, of course.”

“Yes, of course.”

“In this album who—that is, the photographs of what individuals were included?”

Mr. Spork joined in for the first time. “All of us.”

I nodded. “You mean not merely you and Mrs. Spork, but the Halsteads, Whists, Rileys, Kents, Nelsons, Bersudians, Smiths, Warrens, and Pryers.”

“That's right.” He thought a minute. “In fact, you've named every one.”

“Uh-huh. Why this album? Just for fun?”

“No, for our protection. That is, the protection of the group,” he said. “Do you understand?”

“Not completely.”

“We aren't the first group to utilize this method of insuring the—well, the discretion of each individual member. It's been done many times before. You might be surprised to know how many times.”

“I suppose I would. You mean that if somebody felt like blabbing—say to a newspaperman, the law—knowledge of the existence of his, or her, compromising photograph would insure silence?”

“Not merely silence, but also very conscious discretion. Should someone feel remorse, or become angry with one or another in the group, estranged—a divorce, for example, or a couple leaving the group—the photographs would very likely prevent … retaliation.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mr. Spork pursed his lips. “Understand,” he went on seriously, “we—none of us—feel we're doing anything heinous or even reprehensible. Certainly Sybil and I don't. We feel that sex, the act of sex, is much more than merely some kind of carnal acrobatics intrinsically cursed and degrading—”

“It's about the
friendliest
thing you can do,” Sybil broke in.

“Well,” I said, “you certainly have some kind of point there—”

“—though it is undeniably true,” Mr Spork was continuing lyrically, “that sex, or rather the false aura of evil and shame and guilt which has been imposed upon the word and act, is the foundation on which has been erected uncountable neuroses—”

“That's certainly true,” Sybil said, “there's certainly truth in
that
—”

“—and psychoses. This monumental hypocrisy has led millions, perhaps billions, to hospitals, mental wards, the psychiatrist's couch, and to the divorce court. Yet once stripped of illusion and hypocrisy, if we can ignore the vocal victims of sexual starvation denying their own hungers—”

“There certainly aren't many things that are more
fun
—”

“—sex stands revealed in a newer and purer light—”

“I could tell you a thing or two—”

“Sybil, shut up, please.”

Wonder of wonders, she smiled at him and shut up.

Mr. Spork continued, “As I was saying—”

“Hey,” I said. “What about this blackmailer?”

“Yes, I was getting to that. The point I'm making is this, Mr. Scott. We members of the group feel neither shame nor guilt, but we are excruciatingly aware that our mores and attitudes, our conception of morality, is greatly at variance with that of many other members of our society—others who have it in their power to cause us, individually and collectively, great harm, frustration, and loss. Exposure of the group's—ours or any other group's—activities could bring upon us censure. Contempt. Financial and social retribution. And more, much more. There is no wrath more horrible than the wrath of the righteous—even when they're wrong.” He smiled. “They conducted the Inquisition, made Galileo kneel. They crucified Christ. They burned Bruno.”

I think he was about to give me a history lesson. And I'm not so hot on history. “This blackmailer,” I said.

“He came here this afternoon, showed us this photograph—a copy of the original, he said. His demand is for twenty thousand dollars to be delivered to him tomorrow night. Or—well, I'm sure you understand the or else.”

“Uh-huh. Also, the twenty G's—should you fork it over—would undoubtedly be only the first installment. Tell me, adding up the net worth—of all the members of your group, Mr. Spork, what would you say the total would come to?”

“I'd have to guess. I really don't know. I'm worth over a million. Bersudian's worth at least four or five. I'd guess the total at perhaps fifteen million. Might be thirty, for that matter.”

“What time did this guy come by today?”

“Fortunately I noted that. He was here at twenty minutes past two this afternoon.”

“What did he look like?”

“About five-six and thin. Narrow face. Rather washed-out blue eyes.”

Sybil broke in, “I don't think he was more than thirty or thirty-five, but somehow he looked a lot older.”

“Little pits all over his face,” Mr Spork added. “Little scars.”

“Bingo,” I said.

14

“What?”

“That's his name. Bingo—Lester Kestel.”

“You know him?” Mr. Spork leaned forward. “You mean you recognize him from our description?”

“From that and a couple of other things. I think. I'm reasonably sure it was Bingo.”

“If you know who he is, I suppose we could have him arrested.” Mr. Spork shook his head. “But, frankly, we can't take the chance he'd make good his threat to expose—”

I smiled. “This should interest you. If I'm right about the little slob, we had him in the can already today. Him and two other hoods. Not for long, of course—not long enough. One of those boys has since tried to kill me. Bingo apparently came out to see you. I wonder what Little Phil's been up to?” I added, largely to myself.