Two weeks had gone by since the discovery of Mercedes Alvarez in the Hug dead animal refrigerator, and the tide of news items in the newspapers and on TV and radio had begun to ebb in an informational vacuum. Not a whisper of incineration had leaked, which amazed the special task force. Apparently pressure from on high by all kinds of influential and political people had suppressed this as too sensitive, too nightmarishly disturbing. Of course the Caribbean factor had been harped on remorselessly. The number of victims had been set at eleven; no case prior to Rosita Esperanza in January of 1964 had come to light, including in any other state of the Union. Of course the killer had been given a nickname by the press: he was the Connecticut Monster.
Hug existence was no longer just a matter of a minor triumph in the behavior of potassium ions through the neuronal cell membrane, or a major triumph when Eustace had a focal temporal lobe seizure upon a tickling electrical stimulation of his ulnar nerve. Now Hug existence was fraught with tensions that exhibited themselves in sideways glances, statements cut off in mid-utterance, uneasy avoidance of the subject never far from any Hugger mind. One small comfort: the cops seemed to have given up visiting, even Lieutenant Delmonico, who for eight days had haunted every floor.
The cracks that were appearing in the Hug’s social structure mostly radiated from the figure of Dr. Kurt Schiller.
“Stay away from me, you Nazi cur!” Dr. Maurice Finch shouted at Schiller when he came enquiring about a tissue sample.
“Yes, you are allowed to call me names,” Schiller retorted, gasping, “but I dare not retaliate, here among American Jews!”
“If I had my way, you’d be deported!” Finch said, snarling.
“You cannot blame a whole nation for the crimes of a few,” Schiller persisted, face white, fists clenched.
“Who says I can’t? You were
Charles Ponsonby broke it up, took Schiller by the arm and escorted him to his own domain.
“I have done nothing –
“My dear Kurt, Maurie’s reaction is understandable,” Charles said. “He had cousins who went to the ovens at Auschwitz, so the very thought of incineration is – well, profoundly disturbing to him. I also understand that it isn’t easy to be on the receiving end of his emotions. The best thing you can do is keep out of his way until things die down. They will, they always do. For you’re quite correct – it’s just gossip. The police haven’t told us a thing. Keep your chin up, Kurt – be a
“Gossip,” said Ponsonby to himself as he returned to his lab, “is like garlic. A good servant, a bad master.”
Finch wasn’t the only one who used Schiller as his butt for frustrations. Sonia Liebman ostentatiously withdrew from his vicinity whenever she encountered him; Hilda Silverman suddenly mislaid his journals and articles; Marvin, Betty and Hank lost his samples and inked swastikas on the rats whose brains would go to pathology.
Finally Schiller went to the Prof to tender his resignation, only to have it refused.
“I can’t possibly accept it, Kurt,” said Smith, whose hair seemed to grow whiter every day. “We’re under police observation, we can’t change staff. Besides, if you left now, it would be in a cloud of suspicion. Grit your teeth and get through this, just like the rest of us.”
“But I’ve had it up to here with gritting my teeth,” he said to Tamara after the devastated Schiller had gone. “Oh, Tamara, why did it have to happen to us?”
“If I knew that, Bob, I’d try to fix it,” she said, settled him in his chair more comfortably and gave him a draft of Dr. Nur Chandra’s paper to read, the one that coolly and clinically went into the details of Eustace’s incredible seizure.
When she returned to her own office she found Desdemona Dupre there, but not waiting where anyone else would have. That English bitch was unashamedly scanning the contents of Tamara’s cluttered desk!
“Have you seen my wages sheet, Vilich?”
The corner of a highly confidential handwritten communication was poking out from under a sheaf of rough- draft dictation she had transcribed from the Prof; Tamara leaped to shove Desdemona away.
“Don’t you dare look through my papers, Dupre!”
“I was simply fascinated by the chaos you work in,” Desdemona drawled. “No wonder you couldn’t administer this place. You couldn’t organize a booze-up in a brewery.”
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself? One thing for sure, you’re too ugly to get a man to fuck you!”
Up went Desdemona’s rather invisible brows. “There are worse fates than to die wondering,” she said, smiling, “but luckily some men like scaling Mount Everest.” Her eyes followed Tamara’s red-varnished nails as their hands shuffled the papers, tucked the vital sheet out of sight. “A love letter?” she asked.
“Fuck off! Your wages aren’t here!”
Desdemona departed, still smiling; through the open door she could hear the distant ringing of her phone.
“Miss Dupre,” she said, sitting down.
“Oh, good, glad to know you’re in to work,” said the voice of her other bete noire.
“I am always in to work, Lieutenant Delmonico,” she said very curtly. “To what do I owe this honor?”
“How about having dinner with me one evening?”
The request came as a shock, but Desdemona didn’t make the mistake of thinking that he was paying her a compliment. So the Lord High Executioner was desperate, was he?
“That depends,” she said warily.
“On what?”
“How many strings are attached, Lieutenant.”
“Well, while you’re trying to count them, how about you call me Carmine and I call you Desdemona?”
“First names are for friends, and I regard your invitation more in the light of an inquisition.”
“Does that mean I can call you Desdemona?”
“May, not can.”
“Great! Uh – dinner, Desdemona?”
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, remembering his impressive air of calm authority. “Very well, dinner.”
“When?”
“Tonight if you’re free,
“Great. What kind of food do you like?”
“Ordinary old Shanghai Chinese.”
“Fine by me. I’ll pick you up at your house at seven.”
Of course the bastard knew everybody’s home address! “No, thank you. I prefer to meet you at the venue. Which is?”
“The Blue Pheasant on Cedar Street. Know it?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll meet you there at seven.”
He hung up without further ado, leaving Desdemona to deal with a query from Dr. Charles Ponsonby, standing in her doorway; only once she was rid of him could she plot and plan not a seduction but a fencing match. Oh, yes indeed, a little thrust and parry with the verbal rapier would be welcome! How she missed that aspect of life! Here in Holloman she was in exile, banking her lavish salary as fast as she could to get out of this vast and alien country, return to her homeland, pick up the threads of a stimulating social life. Money wasn’t everything, but until you had some, life of any sort was depressing. Desdemona wanted a small flat at Strand-on-the-Green overlooking the Thames, several consultancies at private health clinics, and all of London as her backyard. Admittedly London was as unknown to her as Holloman had been, but Holloman was an exile and London was the hub of the universe. Five years down, five more years to go; then it would be goodbye to the Hug and America. A super reference to get herself those consultancies, a plump bank account. That was all she wanted or needed from America. You can take the English out of England, she thought, but you can’t take England out of the English.
She always walked to and from work, a form of exercise that suited her hiking soul. Though this activity
