I trod water and swung a fist at the skylight. Without intending to I pulled the punch; if my fist went through I knew I’d mangle my hand. The blow cracked the reinforced glass but rebounded ineffectually.
I took some deep breaths and dove for one of my shoes. The water was clear and still except where the incoming streams bubbled and tumbled from the nozzles in the wall. A shaft of sun angled down from the skylight and turned the liquid mass to a cube of pale green light. I stroked along the floor and got my hands on the extra shoe. My ears were aching from the pressure of tons of water above me.
There was a sudden movement in the water, tremor and vibration that turned my stomach over. Something I hadn’t counted on was happening to my plan; it looked as if I’d cleverly arranged to die like a rat in a well. I started for the taps to turn them off. But first my lungs needed air and there wasn’t much left at the top. With the shoe in my hand I gathered my legs for the upward push.
Another tremor shook the water and me. A metallic crackling sounded from the direction of the door. It had been built to hold water, but not an entire roomful of the stuff. As I turned in swimmer’s slow-motion the white door bellied out like a sail and disappeared in a churning rush and welter. The released weight of the water pushed me after it. My free hand reached for something to hold on to, and closed on liquid nothing.
I was swept through the empty doorway, banged against the opposite wall of the corridor, somersaulted along it. I caught a door-frame with one hand and held on while the water tore at me. The current slowed almost as suddenly as it had begun, and the level of the water subsided. I found the floor and braced myself in the doorway.
Melliotes was in the room with the woman. She was struggling in the water, splashing with arms and legs. He bent over her and lifted her in his arms. She clambered on him, a hairless pink monkey gibbering piteously. My shoe was still in my hand; it was a Scotch walking shoe with an iron-shod heel, and I used it on the back of Melliotes’ head. He fell in the shallow water with the woman clinging to him. Father chimpanzee and child.
I looked around the room. The woman’s white uniform, an up-ended wastebasket, a scattered bunch of flowers, papers and oddments of clothing, floated in the ebbing tide. There was a white oak desk, a leather armchair and couch, all marked by the water. A piece of office stationary on the desk bore the letterhead: ANGEL OF MERCY NURSING HOME. HYDROTHERAPY AND COLONIC IRRIGATION. PRIVATE ROOMS FOR PATIENTS. DR. G.M. MELLIOTES, PROPRIETOR. A Venice address and phone number.
The heavy red drapes at the window dragged suddenly. Through the slats of the Venetian blind I could see a sunlit lawn bright with flowerbeds and deckchairs. A thin old man in tropical cotton was walking from one chair to another, if you could call it walking. He moved erratically, in several directions at once, as if the terminals of his nervous system had been cut. Fortunately he was in good hands. The Angel of Mercy Nursing Home could give him a permanent cure.
Something small and clammy and furious scratched at my legs. I moved away from her. I didn’t like to touch her.
“He’s drowning,” she cried. “I can’t turn him over.”
Melliotes was spreadeagled on the wet-dark carpet, his face in a puddle of water. I looked at the bloody back of his head and felt no pain. I took him by an arm and leg and flipped him over. The whites of his eyes were showing, threaded with red. His chest was heaving like a tired dog’s.
The woman minced around the desk and opened a drawer. She came back toward me holding Melliotes’ gun in both her hands. I didn’t intend to die in that company, and I slapped it down. She growled in the back of her throat and hugged her meager breast with pipestem arms.
“I want my clothes,” I said. “And put something on yourself. I can’t stand the sight of you.”
Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed like a fish’s. I picked up the gun and she did as she was told. She opened a closet door and pulled a cotton dress on over her head. My clothes were scrambled on the floor of the closet.
I waved the gun at the woman. “Now go away.”
She went, with a backward look at the man on the floor. The pathos of their parting plucked at my heartstrings. I put on my clothes.
Chapter 23
The gun was a .38 calibre S. and W. revolver with a six-inch blue steel barrel, serial number 58237. I shoved it into the pocket of my jacket. Melliotes’ striped linen coat was draped over a hanger in the closet. In its inside pocket, I found both my automatic and my wallet. I put them where they belonged and made for the door. Melliotes’ breathing had slowed down, but he was still sleeping the sleep of the sapped.
My shoes squished on the floor of the corridor. There were heavy doors on either side, all of them closed and locked. The hallway was as dim and ugly as the one in my dream. The only light came from a curtained door at the far end. I had it open and one foot on the porch when someone cried out behind me. It was a woman’s cry, muffled by thick soundproof walls. I went back into the building.
“Let me out.” The consonants were blurred and only the vowels came through: “Lemmeow,” like a hurt cat’s yowling. “Pleaslemmeow.”
The cry was louder at one door than at the others. When I shook that door, the woman said: “Who is it? Let me out.” Mavis again. My heart sank into my boots and bounced back into my throat. The burnt child can’t stay away from the fire.
I said under my breath, “To hell with you, Mavis,” but these were only words.
What I did was go back to Melliotes and take his keys and try them on the door till I found the one that opened it. Mavis stood back and looked at me, then moved into my arms with a little tearing sigh. “Archer. You came.”
“I’ve been here for some time. I seem to be fairy-godfather-in-residence.”
“Anyway, you’re here.”
She walked backward into the room and sat down weakly on the cot. It was a cell much the same as the one that I had occupied, complete with wire-screened window and padded walls. The angels of mercy took good care of their patients.
“What kind of a clientele does Melliotes have? The wet-sheet set?”
Pale and distraught, she looked a little mental herself. She moved her head back and forth, and her eyes swung back and forth as if by their own great weight. “I’ve never been here before.” And in the same tone, quiet and forlorn: “I’m going to kill him.” There were flakes of dried blood on her lower lip where she had bitten it.
“There’s been too much killing already. Buck up, Mavis. This time you’re going to Mexico for sure.”
She leaned forward blindly, her small head against my thigh. Her hair parted at the nape and fell forward around her face like two bright wings. From that hiding place she whispered: “If you’ll go with me.”
We were back where we had left off. The yacht and the water-chamber, Kilbourne and Melliotes, were characters and scenes in a morphine dream. I remembered the fire-blunted features of Pat Reavis, and backed away from her. “I’ll go as far as the airport with you. I’ll even buy you a ticket, one-way.”
“I’m afraid to go by myself.” Her voice was a wisp, but her eyes were bright behind the web of hair.
I said that I was afraid to go along. She stood up suddenly and stamped one high-arched foot on the hard composition floor. “What’s the matter, Archer, have you got a girl somewhere?”
She was a very bad actress, and I was embarrassed. “I wish I had.”
She stood in front of me with her arms akimbo and accused me of
I said: “Men have been spoiling you since grade school, haven’t they? But there’s no percentage in standing here calling names. In just two minutes I’m walking out of here. You can come along if you like. As far as the airport.”
“As far as the airport,” she mimicked me. “I thought you liked me.”
“I like you. But I have two good reasons for staying clear. One, what happened to Reavis. Two, the case on my hands.”
“I thought you were working for me?”
“I work for myself.”
