Strip for Murder (12 page)

She squirmed briefly, laughing, then slid out of my clutches. “You got away,” I said dismally. “I guess I'm still not awake. Not enough. Come on. It was your idea, remember.”

“Oh, you're crazy! Look, there are a hundred people you've got to lead in calisthenics.”

“Say that again. I never heard of such a— A
hundred?
Hellfire, woman, I didn't even know it was possible with more than one or two. How am I—”

She had scooted off the foot of the bed and now she interrupted me. “Shell. Listen carefully. Every morning before breakfast the health director leads all members of Fairview in calisthenics. It gets the blood circulating, stimulates you, wakes you up, gives you an appetite.”

“Not me, it doesn't.”

“It's for health. Tones the body and blood, gets oxygen into the lungs. And you're the health director. Pretty soon the bell will ring. There it goes.”

She was right. There it went. It sounded like somebody beating on a metal triangle with a sledgehammer, and a horrible sound it was.

“Come on,” she cried, and spun around.

“Wait. Where you going?”

“We're going to the front of the Council Building. You're supposed to be there already. At the bell, everybody runs out there and lines up. Then you face them and tell them what to do.”

“I'll tell them what to do, all right,” I grumbled. “But as for facing a hundred crazy—”

“Come on!”

“Wait! Suppose I
should
get out there. What do I do?”

“Calisthenics!” she cried, then sped out the front door.

I ran out after her, but at that point I didn't really intend to lead those nudists in calisthenics, I was just running after Laurel. I honestly didn't know quite where I was yet, and Laurel looked like a rambling aphrodisiac that was rambling away from me. I could see her fairly well, flying ahead there, because the sun was just coming up, casting a cold light over everything. Cold. It was pretty cold. All over me it was cold.

I stopped. “Wait!” I shouted. “I forgot my pants!”

She stopped, too, ran back to me, and grabbed my hand. “I'll not stand for any more of this nonsense. You—”

“Nonsense, fooey. I'm serious. I forgot my—”

“Come along with me. Please, Shell, please, hurry, please.”

She was tugging me after her, and when she said please that way, a man would do almost anything. I went along with her, trotting just behind her, and then she let go of my hand and rambled ahead again. I will never know quite how it happened. I only know that I was intent on Laurel's fanny, which was about a yard ahead of me, and then suddenly it was gone. In its place was something I shall not even tell you about, much less describe.

I realized that Laurel and her gorgeous fanny had tricked me. They had lured me out here onto an open plain in front of a hundred naked people. They all looked at me. I looked at them. This went on for an eternity, and during all those years I kept trying, fruitlessly, to think of possible means of escape, ways I could get out of here without anybody being the wiser. I couldn't think of any.

I could see Laurel again now. She was a short distance to my right, in the center of a row of about a dozen people. And seven or eight more rows of people were lined up behind that front row. I backed away from them as the sun seemed to spring up over the horizon as if the fool thing thought it was high noon. When I was maybe twenty feet from the front row I overcame the impulse to wheel and run into the woods and got control of myself.

I was stuck with this. I had to lead these characters in calisthenics; I was the health director, even though there had probably never been a health director who felt more nauseated than I did, and by God I would show them a thing or two. Ha-ha, I thought sadly, as if I haven't.

I plunged into it. “Go-ood morning, everybody,” I said. Suddenly my voice was thin and fluting. Everybody chorused, “Good morning.” Those hundred voices boomed out over the hills.

“Here we go,” I shouted. “Fall out.”

Nobody moved. They didn't understand. Hell, that was nothing. I didn't understand, either. “Well, fall in,” I said. One guy clear over at the end of the last row, next to the pool, made a splash. There was a titter of laughter.

I couldn't fool around any longer. But then I noticed something strange. All hundred or SQ of them were standing scrunched over in a very damned peculiar position, with one leg lifted, bent at the knee, and held before them in a protectively coy gesture. I thought they had all gone nuts, but then I understood.

I let out a hollow laugh and straightened up. The hell with them. “All right now, men,” I shouted. “And women. Let's ah, allez oop. Here we go.” I sprang into the air clapping my hands, and I never felt sillier in my life.

Talk about silly—you should have seen those nudists. They went up into the air like small fizzled rockets, and came down bouncing, and then popped into the air again. I was springing up and down like mad, clapping my hands like a 205-pound Nijinsky, and they were trying to keep up with me. I tried to think of something else to do, some other goddamn calisthenic, but it's pretty hard to think of anything sensible when you're leaping about clapping your hands, so I just kept on.

I had, until now, thought I knew something about calisthenics. I had known nothing about calisthenics. I was looking at the world through rose-colored people and I was, as they say, all shook up. Besides which, I was getting pooped.

So I stopped. Everybody stopped.

From there on everything happened in a kind of a daze. I ran in one spot for a while, then I spun about, and then I did numerous other things, and finally some deep knee bends with my hands on my hips, all of which those people did, and it was that last one that finished me. I knew I couldn't go on.

“That's it,” I said. “That's all. You're dismissed.
Go away!
”

The gathering broke up. People tottered off in all directions; others just sank to the ground where they were. Tired, huh? I'd sure fixed them. Healthy, hah, some healthy bunch. I began to feel faint.

I sat down on the grass, the landscape reeling. Somebody reeled toward me, then plopped at my feet. It was Laurel. She glared stonily at me, chest heaving, and when that chest heaved, it
heaved.
Finally she gasped, “What happened to you? You trying to kill everybody? Woo. You must have pranced around out there for an hour. Woo. I think everybody's going back to bed. Woo.”

“Woo, that's a fine idea. Let's go back to bed. Woo. Get it? We'll—”

“Oh, shut up.” Laurel was all out of sorts. “You'd think you were training us for the front lines. All we needed was guns and packs on our backs. You're not still in the Marines, you know.”

“I wish I was.”

“Well, if you did it on purpose, I hope you're satisfied. But I'm proud of everybody at Fairview. Nobody quit. Nobody fell out. Nobody had a stroke.”

“Honey, I didn't do anything on purpose. This is part of some dark fate that pursues me. But, by George, you're right.” I thought about it a minute, then looked around. Unbelievable as it was to what was left of me, there was already a game of volleyball in progress. Half a dozen people were splashing in the pool. And I lay here quaking in every limb. Even Laurel's breathing was almost back to normal, and I was snorting like a male ape downwind from Tarzan and Jane. “Hey,” I said, “maybe there's something to this health kick after all.”

“Of course there is,” she said.

“I could sure use a smoke,” I said, feeling for one. Naturally I had no goddamn smokes. I was sprawled there on the grass in the sunlight, in just my skin. “Guess I better not smoke, anyway,” I said. “Wind's bad enough as it is.”

I had thought I was in pretty good condition. But I felt no great pride in that thought at the moment. Of all those people who had been sprawled on the grass, only two besides Laurel and me were left. A man and a woman. Memory came slowly back to me. During a particularly strenuous conniption I had seen one of them reel, stagger about, and then fall like a stone. The other had gone into an almost identical routine shortly afterward. At the time I hadn't thought about it, but now that the frenzy had passed I began to worry about them.

I got up, and it was a long way up; then I walked over to them. They lay as if dead. I poked the man with my toe and he grunted. Then his eyes opened. He said, “You sonofa—”

“Ah, ah,” I said. Good, he was half alive. “You all right?” I asked him.

“You sonofa—”

“Hold it, my friend. A lady is present.”

He stirred himself. “Fran? Where's—” Then he got his head craned around and lamped her. “You've killed her!” he shouted. “You've killed Fran! You sonofa—”

But then the babe let out a long moan. He patted her face, then looked up at me and grinned, a slim-faced guy with brown hair and lots of teeth showing. “Sorry,” he said. His grin went away, then he put it on again. “I'd like to be excused from calisthenics tomorrow morning, dear director.” He was either grinning or snarling.

“Sure.” I grinned back at him. “You're both excused. All three of us are—”

The gal let out another moan and sat up, wobbling her head. She was a nice-looking babe about twenty-five or so, whose shape appeared to be in better shape than she was. She had long black hair and deep, dark unfocused eyes. “What happened?” she said.

Laurel came up alongside me then and after a few more words the two revived characters got up and walked away. “No casualties after all,” I said to Laurel. “They must be new here. Like me.”

“Not quite. That's Mr. and Mrs. Brown. They've only been here a few weeks. I think it was mean of you—”

“Hey, get it through your head I was
out
of my head. Brown, huh? Everybody's Brown here.”

“There are only four sets of Browns, and I don't like your insinuation. Shell, you don't seem to understand that almost everybody here stays at Fairview because they like the life—and I don't mean that in any smutty or cheap way at all. Bob and Mary are wonderful people, and so are all the rest. It's a healthful way of living here, healthful physically and mentally, and—”

“Whoa, sweetheart. Don't get me wrong. And I believe you. Give me a little time to adjust. Why, I even know some voodoo experts, and yogis, and Democrats, and I like ‘most all of them. But I had to get used to them. OK?”

She shook her head. “I suppose.”

“Incidentally, who are Bob and Mary?”

I suppose I should have tumbled, but Laurel was saying, “Sometimes you make me want to strangle you,” and I, remembering, said, “You darn near did, Laurel,” and then the conversation went in other directions.

She stared at me, smiled slowly. “So I did. I had my chance, didn't I? You're impossible, Shell. Let's go get breakfast.”

“No, thanks—and don't flip again. It's just that I never feel like breakfast till lunch. You go ahead. I want to make a call, anyway.”

“At this hour?”

That was right. It was only about an hour after dawn. I wanted to phone Mrs. Redstone, but it could wait for a little while longer. I'd meant to phone her from here last night, and ask her if she knew anything about Poupelle's gambling, or had heard any mention of Castle Norman, and a few other things, but last night I had been sidetracked.

Laurel said, “You'd better eat something. You might have a big day ahead of you.”

“I've got a big day behind me. But maybe you're right. I'll toy with a strip of bacon.”

“Come on, I'll give you something that'll make you feel good.”

“You already have. But I'm game. After this morning, I can stomach anything.”

She said impishly, “Even me?”

In mock shock I said, “Laurel!” but she had turned to go.

I followed her to the right of the Council Building, past the pool, in which three women stood in four feet of water, appearing to hang there on marvelous water wings, and into the building, which turned out to be the dining room—cafeteria-style.

I looked at the line of people getting their trays filled with food, all of them with their backs to me, and I said, “Laurel, I'm not sure I can go through with this.”

There were a number of square tables filling the room, and she led me to one, told me to sit down, and said, “I'll bring you some good nourishing food. You just wait there.”

I waited. I had the urge to get up and go about my business, but what does a detective do on a case at this time of morning? Besides, I was still weak. There were a number of things I meant to do today, and several places I meant to go, and maybe Laurel had been right about my needing some nourishment. I was pretty hungry, at that; ravenous for me. Come to think of it, I hadn't eaten any dinner last night, and during the night I'd used up all the calories from lunch.

Laurel moved down the line, glancing over her shoulder at me every once in a while, and every time she did I was staring straight at her. In a group of fifty well-dressed people at a party, she would have stood out like a nudist; here, among nudists, there were not words to describe the sensation that was Laurel.

She came back to the table balancing two trays, unloaded them, and then sat down across from me. She slid a bowl of some cereal in front of me. I shrugged, picked up a spoon, and had at it—for one bite.

“What kind of slop is this?”

“That's wheat germ.”

“Germs?”

“Wheat germ. The germ of wheat. It's what they take out of white bread so it won't spoil or keep you alive. Eat it. It's good for you.”

“Haven't you got some white bread without germs? Or maybe some old typhoid bacillus?”

“One's about as bad as the other. Eat it. It's got the whole B complex in it.”

“Baby, I've got enough complexes already. Especially in this madhouse. I'll soon start foaming—”

“I mean vitamins. Eat it.”

She was stern. I looked at her, then grinned. “Yes, Mother.” But I ate it. Thought a lot of that girl.