The Loo Sanction

'You say the hostesses aren't hookers?' Jonathan asked.

'Do I detect a tone of carnal interest?' Strange said.

'Yes, you do. Tired though I am, I feel a bit like celebrating our agreement.'

'Which one turns you on?' Grace asked.

'Looks like there's only two to pick from. I really don't care. You're the licensed meat inspector here. Which one would you suggest? The blonde?'

Grace sat up and looked over the choices. 'I wouldn't say so. That other one—she's got the right muscle arrangement for it. She's an Irish girl. Our model agency sent her over this morning and I interviewed her. She's not really cute, with that ragamuffin face of hers, but there's something about those big green eyes and that hair that I felt was perfect for the flapper look.' Grace's professional eye scanned the girl's legs and buttocks. 'Yeah,' she said sitting back, 'she'll give you the better ride.'

'If she is willing,' Jonathan said.

'Don't worry about that,' Strange said. 'I'll arrange it for you—a gift to seal our bargain in the Arabic way. A little shot of dream juice, and she will be yours—moist and panting. But you're sure you wouldn't prefer something a bit more—occult?'

'No. She'll do fine. But no cantharis.'

'Why not?'

'I'm tired. If I can't make it, I don't want her groaning about and groping at me all night.'

Strange laughed. 'As you wish. We have a little something that will render her perfectly pliable. She will know what is going on, but she will be without will. But I'm afraid she may babble a bit.'

'Better a babbler than a groper.'

'Pity the options are so limited.' Strange rose. 'I'll bid you good night, if I may. It's already seventeen minutes after my bedtime, and, as you may have noted, I am a man of routine. I'll attend to the Irish bit on my way. We'll take breakfast together and discuss details. Is noon too early for you?'

He left without awaiting an answer to this rhetorical question.

Amazing Grace poured herself another drink and sat again in the deep chair, her knees drawn up and her feet on the seat, her furry ecu revealed between her heels. 'Well, what do you think of Max? Isn't he a beautiful person?'

'I suppose,' he said, pressing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger in an effort to relax the tension in his temples. 'But there's something hokey and childish in the way he plays it for Mephistopheles. A kind of campish eviler-than-thou.'

Out in the salon, Jonathan saw Two-mouths approach Maggie and speak to her. She frowned and followed him toward a back door. Jonathan hoped she wouldn't put up too much of a fight when they put the needle in her.

'You're not trying to tell me that Max didn't impress you, are you, honey bun?'

'Oh, no. He impressed me all right. In fact, he scares the shit out of me.'

She laughed. 'I really like you, Hemlock. You must have been some kind of bad actor in your day. Only really tough men admit to being scared. Cheers.' She emptied her glass, and he could not help swallowing twice sympathetically in a vicarious effort to help her get it down. 'But,' she continued, 'he's a rare and beautiful animal. He's really evil, you know. Black mass sort of thing. Not just nasty or naughty or crotch-happy, like most men who think they're bad. But really evil. And there's nothing sexier than that. You have to get past sin, past sacrilege before things get really delicious.'

'What does P'tit Noel think about all this?'

'He doesn't even know about The Cloisters. And if he did, it wouldn't matter. He'd do anything in the world for me. Like a puppy dog—like a real big, real fierce puppy dog, that is.'

'Hey, would you mind not pointing that thing at me? It makes me nervous.'

She laughed and pulled down her peignoir.

'And you don't feel sorry for P'tit Noel?'

'Hell no. I know his type. He likes getting hurt. Big gesture; romantic crash. Like winos who drink because it's so goddamn tragic and attractive to be a wino. You know what I mean?'

'Yes, madam, I do.' He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the back of it to suppress his fatigue. 'May I ask you something, Grace?'

'Shoot.'

'I can't understand how Van Dyke got mixed up with you people. I've known her for years, and I can't imagine what Strange could have paid her that would bring her into this.'

'He didn't pay her,' she said, tickling her lips with the rim of her empty glass and smiling at him. 'I did.'

Jonathan looked down. 'I see.'

Two-mouths conducted him through the exercise room into the now empty salon, its Art Deco sconces still ablaze. Jonathan looked toward the wall of mirrors behind which he assumed Amazing Grace was sitting, finishing a last Everclear. He waved good night to her, feeling a little foolish as he saw only his reflection wave back.

Up the wide staircase with its aluminum walls buffed in patterns of swirls, and down the long corridor, Two-mouths kept up a patter of talk to which Jonathan attended only vaguely.

'You could of knocked me over with a feather, you could, sir, when Mr. Strange told me to fix up that hostess for you. I thought you'd be done for sure, what with how you give such a beating to Lolly—he's the one what's teeth you cracked off, Lolly is. She didn't half put up a fight, that little Mick. Took two of us to get the needle in. Good thing for her Leonard wasn't there. He'd have done it right enough, and no fuss either. She wouldn't of been able to walk for a week, if Leonard had done it. He doesn't half rip 'em when he gets a chance. Well, here we are, sir. Pleasant dreams.'

Jonathan entered the dark bedroom, and the door clicked locked behind him. The city glow beyond the window gave dim illumination, and he could see a bundled figure on the bed. She turned in her delirium and moaned softly, then she laughed to herself.

It was in rooms like this that the compromising films of government officials had been taken, and possibly some of them had been taken in the dark. Jonathan removed his jacket and checked his shirt sleeve. The starch gave off none of the phosphorescent glow that would indicate infrared light, so at least this room was not equipped with cameras and sniper scope lenses. But it was doubtless bugged and, under the drugs, she might say something that would give him away. He had to keep that in mind.

He undressed quickly and approached the bed. Maggie had been tossed onto it, still dressed in her flapper frock. One shoe was off and the other dangled from a toe, and a rope of beads had fallen across her face. In the dim light she opened her eyes and stared up at him, frowning. She was confused, trying hard to understand what was happening to her. As the needle had entered her, she had reminded herself that she must do nothing to endanger Jonathan's cover, and that thought had gone swirling down with her into the churn and chaos of distorted reality. She had clung to it for a time, then she had forgotten what it was she was clinging to. But it was important. She remembered that much.

'What?... What...' She looked at him, her eyes pleading for help. Then she laughed again.

'My name is Jonathan Hemlock,' he told her immediately, really speaking for the microphones. It would not do for her to name him out of the blue.

'Jonathan? Jonathan?'

'That's right. But you can call me 'honey.' Come on, let's get your clothes off.'

'Are my clothes still on?' She spoke with the clumsy diction of someone whose lip is rubbery from dentist's Novocain. 'Isn't that funny?'

'A knee-slapper. Come on. Turn over.'

He undressed her as quickly as possible, but with her limp and uncooperative body, it was not easy. Indeed, some bits would have been comic under less dangerous circumstances. She, at least, found it funny.

'Say,' she said with the sudden seriousness of a drunk. 'Do you really think we should be doing this?'

'Why not? We live in a permissive society.'

'But... here? Isn't it... isn't it dangerous?'

'I'll be careful.'