The Detonators (10 page)

“No raincoat,” she said reproachfully. “I’m hurt. You didn’t bring me a raincoat. No conshideration… consideration!”

She was over her moment of shame, I saw, and it was all just a great big happy joke once more.

“It isn’t raining,” I said.

“In the movies, the hero always wraps the poor beat-up heroine modestly in a big raincoat, or coat, or blanket, or something.”

“You’re not beat-up, you’re just soused,” I said.

She gave me the giggle again. “You can say that twice, Mister!” Oooh, am I shoused… soused! And I ushed to be shush a pure, shober little shing… thing. Oops!” Entering the elevator, she caught a high heel and almost fell, but I caught her in time and leaned her against the wall. She said, “It’s all your fault, you know.”

“It always is,” I said.

“No, I mean it! You’re the one who told me I’d killed him.”

“Killed whom?”

“My father, of course.”

I should have expected this, but it hit me hard anyway; and gave me a painful sense of guilt, reminding me of what I knew about Doug Barnett that she didn’t. She might be playing ugly games, but I had a pretty mean line of deception going, too.

I said rather stiffly, “I don’t recall saying anything like that.”

“But you did!” she protested. “Don’t you remember, you said that if I’d acted right and made friends with him, made a real effort to know him instead of quarreling with him, he wouldn’t have been out there making his… what was that horrible thing you called it? Death run. Like an elephant going to the elephants’ graveyard or something.”

It was no time to argue about exactly what I had or hadn’t said. To ease her away from the subject, I asked, “Is that why you decided to slip away from the airport and tie one on?”

She nodded several times with drunken emphasis. “Well, at first I just had to get away from all those people. Someplace where I could break down and cry for him, the daddy I’d deserted all those years ago; and now I’d murdered him… Is this where we get out?”

“I hope so,” I said. “If it isn’t, we’ll have to come back and try again, won’t we?”

She thought that was very funny and giggled some more, forgetting that she was a murderess. Then we were in my room with the door closed. She wanted to admire her beautifully bedraggled self in the dresser mirror, but I set her back against a wall, hoping it would enable her to remain upright without my assistance. While she leaned there, I unbuttoned her jacket and the cuffs of her blouse, untied the ascot, and unfastened the blouse down the front and pulled it out at the waist all around, while she watched me gravely.

“Are you going to rape me?” she asked. “Is that why you’re undressing me?”

“Do you want me to rape you?”

“Of course,” she said with utmost seriousness. “And do all kinds of nasty and degrading things to me.”

The trouble was, she wasn’t kidding. I remembered the peculiar bedroom habits attributed to Alfred Minister. It was disturbing to think that this small, intoxicated girl, who still managed to cling to a look of disheveled innocence, probably knew considerably more about certain kinds of oddball sex than I did. Or maybe I was just envious.

I said, “Stand up straight so I can slip this blouse and jacket off you.”

“Why don’t you just rip them off? Be macho.”

“It’s tempting, but you’ve got to have something to wear; and I’m not much good at shopping for ladies’ clothes. I’ll see about having your suit cleaned in the morning.” I worked the stuff off her, sorted it out, and draped it over a nearby chair. “Why do you want to be ripped and raped, Miss Barnett?”

She licked her lips and answered very carefully: “Because that’s the way I am. I like to be hurt. I want to be hurt. When I’m hurt it’s as if I’ve paid a little for all the horrible things I’ve done.”

“What horrible things?”

“Leaving my father like that. And hating my mother all those years, for making me leave him, and wishing she were dead so I could go back to him and tell him how much I really loved him; and now she
is
dead and I did it, didn’t I? And now I’ve even k-killed him, too! Don’t you understand atonement, Mr. Helm?”

It was do-it-yourself psychology/psychiatry in the handy zip-lock plastic bag: the poor, distressed, guilt-ridden girl who’d turned her tidy and pretty self into an instant bag lady because she was really trying to destroy herself. Who could suspect this poor, disturbed, semisuicidal young woman of any ulterior motives? Well, Doug had predicted that his daughter would produce an emotional crisis to make her actions seem plausible to me. For a long-distance daddy, he was calling the shots very well.

I asked, “Is that why you got so drunk, for atonement?”

She nodded again. “
Somebody
had to punish me for being such an awful person, even if I had to do it myself! Anyway, after watching him kill himself like that… It’s supposed to make you forget, isn’t it? Isn’t that what liquor is for?”

“Well, that’s one of its functions,” I said. “But didn’t it make you feel a little good at first?”

“Oh, I did feel quite… quite cheerful for a while, that was in the cheap room I’d rented, and I’d bought a bottle, one of those flat ones, not the round ones. One of the bigger flat ones…”

“A pint.”

“Yes. Whiskey. Some kind of whiskey. It made me feel quite sinful, buying it. I’d never bought any liquor before. Daddy used to have a drink in the evening when he was home between assignments; it was one of the things Mother associated with him, so afterward she wouldn’t have it in the house. I forced myself to drink the whole bottle, quite slowly, sitting there in my room watching TV. Well, trying to watch TV, trying not to think about
anything
, just feeling it working in me so warm and nice. I felt so lovely and wicked, and everything got so funny and I kept on giggling even when I couldn’t get across the room anymore without knocking things down. And in the morning I found myself sprawled on the bed still fully dressed even to my shoes. Well, one of my shoes. I had to hunt and hunt before I found the other under the bed. I didn’t have enough money to stay another day, so I got out of there feeling sick and headachy, and very self-conscious about my slept-in clothes. But I found a bar that was open and after a couple of drinks I felt almost human again and it all got very funny again, and I stopped caring about being a little wrinkled and grubby. I left that place and wandered around in a happy daze and had something to eat and another drink, and another… I don’t have any idea what happened to the rest of the day; maybe I finally passed out again somewhere. Then it was dark again and I found myself stumbling down that grimy little street with my stockings all torn and my suit all dirty and my purse missing. I remember vaguely somebody grabbing it and knocking me down when I wouldn’t let go…

She stopped to listen to a man and woman moving down the hall outside, arguing bitterly in loud voices. She giggled.

“They’re drunk, too,” she said happily. Then she sighed and went on with her story: “Suddenly it wasn’t a bit funny anymore. It was a crazy, hazy nightmare, feeling so awful and being such an awful, embarrassing mess in my good clothes with my hair all straggly right there on the public street. You know, like when you dream of being stark naked at a glamorous formal ball. And not being able to walk very well and terrified that I’d fall down and have to crawl and ruin my nylons on the concrete sidewalk, except they were already ruined, weren’t they? And people staring and laughing at the staggering slob girl… And not even knowing where I was. Finally I fumbled my way into that place and was very sick in the john, and the woman let me make that phone call—thank heaven I remembered the name of this hotel—and she gave me coffee to sober me up even though I told her I’d lost my purse and couldn’t pay.”

It was quite a gripping story. “The Amateur Lush’s Progress, Or the Alcoholic Adventures of Amy Barnett.” I tried to look properly impressed and sympathetic as I figured out the combination lock of her skirt and zipped the garment open along the side. I worked it down her hips, let it fall to the floor, and made her step out of it so I could drape it over the chair, although the way it already was, a few more creases hardly mattered. She watched me, standing there in her white slip, hugging herself in the classic “September Mom” pose of any lady caught without her shirt, although the room was not cold.

I asked, “Do you want to sleep like that or can you manage a shower first? You might feel better after a shower.”

She looked down at herself and giggled. “Heavens, even my underwear is dirty! I’m really quite revolting, aren’t I?”

“That should cheer you up,” I said. “Revolting is what you want, isn’t it… My God, what did you do to your arms?”

I hadn’t really looked at her directly since I’d started peeling her, not wanting to remind her that she was alone in a hotel room with a strange man who was taking her clothes off. Now I saw that her bared upper arms were faintly striped, mostly behind, with fine pink lines that had obviously once been considerably redder and angrier; in another few days they’d be healed to the point of invisibility.

Amy Barnett regarded me for a long moment; an unreadable look. She bent down and caught the hem of her slip and pulled the garment off over her head and let it fall. She wasn’t wearing a brassiere. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panty hose—it occurred to me that I’d finally got the answer to that question, at least. She looked down proudly.

“Wow, I really fixed my hose, didn’t I?” She laughed at the startling appearance of her legs. “You can see I’m not a movie heroine. Their stockings never even get little runs, and here I’m positively in rags… Ooops.”

I had to steady her as she swayed and support her as she worked the nylon wreckage downward and stepped clear. She freed herself from my grasp and, straightening up quite nude, looked at me soberly for a moment. Then she turned away without speaking to display her back, and buttocks and thighs, all crisscrossed with the same fine, fading lines. I found myself remembering being very sarcastic about her healthy and unblemished appearance, earlier—and all the time she’d been carrying these marks under her clothes.

I cleared my throat. “You seem to know some nice people, Barnett. Unfortunately, I can’t do a thing for you. I forgot my little whip, and S-M isn’t exactly in my line, anyway.”

“S-M? Oh, sado-masochism. But sarcasm is still very much in your line, isn’t it, Mr. Helm?” Amy licked her pale lips. “Do you think I’m crazy, to let somebody do that to me?”

I was aware of a disturbing, change in her. Naked, she was no longer the almost sexless object of pity—or contempt, if you felt that way about drunks—that she’d been in her soiled and crumpled suit and disintegrating stockings. I couldn’t help noticing that she had very lovely breasts. Not that I’m a bosom freak. Slim ankles and pretty faces do a lot more for me. Anyway, I told myself disparagingly, she’d never make it in the big-boob sweepstakes. However, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I’d put my money on her in the tender-tits division anytime—and I knew that I was being crude about it in my mind simply to keep from admitting to myself that I was affected. Well, all right, attracted.

I cleared my throat again. “What’s crazy?” I asked. “Let’s discuss your psyche tomorrow, Barnett. We can take up the subject of sex and rape at the same time. Right now it’s time for a little pure shut-eye, unless you want to take that shower first.”

She’d picked up the fallen slip and the blouse I’d laid aside. “I’m too filthy to get into a clean bed,” she said quite steadily. “I seem to be sobering up a little. Maybe it’s the coffee. I really would like to shower and wash out some things, if you don’t mind. I think I can manage without falling on my face.” A little malice came into her voice: “Do you think I’m pretty like this, Helm?”

“Go take your damn shower,” I said.

She laughed softly. “I guess that’s an answer. Do you have something clean I can use to sleep in, please?”

“I’m all out of satin nighties, but one of my T-shirts might serve.”

It did.

It was close to noon when I got back to the hotel room next morning. She’d been sleeping heavily when I left, but she was up now, sitting in one of the big chairs in front of the television set, which wasn’t on.

She was just sitting there. Well, she probably had a lot to think about, including a massive hangover, which, I reflected, served her right for putting on such a convincing intoxication act.

“I had to chase all over town to find a quickie cleaner,” I said as I hung her suit on the rod in the little dressing alcove off the bathroom. Emerging, I said, “I hope you didn’t feel deserted when you woke up. I thought you needed your sleep. Here.” I tossed a small paper bag into her lap. “They didn’t have anything very close to what you were wearing; apparently black isn’t in, here in Miami. There was nude, beige, suntan, and brown; and petite, medium, and tall. I got you nude medium. Hope I didn’t misjudge your taste or size too badly. How do you feel?”

She was curled up in the chair, wearing only her white slip, quite clean now—I’d seen it hanging over the shower rod when I shaved, earlier, along with her freshly washed blouse. The slip wasn’t as fancy as some lingerie, but it did have a little lacy stuff top and bottom, rather pretty in a discreet way. Her bare shoulders were very nice, but they still showed the fading marks of the whip. I found that the sight made me feel surprisingly sick and angry. I’d seen people who’d been interrogated for real—I’d even participated in a few fairly brutal sessions myself, on both the delivering and receiving ends—so why should I care what this erratic, screwball girl did to herself for fun or let somebody do to her? Hell, she probably had an orgasm with every lash and loved it.

Her hair was pinned up very tidily this morning. She’d obviously shampooed it meticulously with the stuff provided by the hotel management and brushed it carefully. It was soft and shining again; and I’d, probably be finding long, light-brown hairs in my comb and brush for weeks to come. Souvenirs. It occurred to me, belatedly, that she hadn’t spoken a word since I came in. I’d done all the talking.