The Loo Sanction

The feet were long and bony, like the Christ of a Mexican crucifix, and their limp, toed-in dangle spoke death louder even than the sweet, thick stink. Needing to accept his share of the punishment, Jonathan pulled down the coat and looked at the face. It was contorted into a snarl that bared the teeth. He looked away.

There had been no bruises on her face. Apparently they had kept her conscious as long as possible. Two or three of them must have held her onto the table while Leonard raped her, before looking through the kitchen drawers to find things to...

Leonard! Jonathan said the name aloud to himself.

Yank was back on his feet by the time Jonathan returned to the sitting room, but he was unsteady. And he was weeping.

'I'm getting out of this,' Yank said to the wall.

'Sit down. Pull yourself together. You're not all that drunk.'

'How can people do this kind of thing? And not only The Cloisters people. How can something like the Feeding Station exist? I don't want any of this. I just want a ranch in Nebraska!'

'Sit down! I'm not impressed by your sudden delicacy in the face of violence. Just remember that I wouldn't be involved in this thing—and Vanessa wouldn't have been—if you people hadn't roped me in with that murder setup. So just shut up! Are the police in on this yet?'

'You're a cold-blooded bastard, aren't you? A real professional.'

'How hurt do you want to get?'

'Go ahead! Beat me up!'

Jonathan wanted to. He really wanted to.

But he took a breath and asked, 'Have the police been informed?'

Yank drooped his head and held it in his hands. 'No,' he said quietly. 'They'll receive an anonymous call later. After we're out of here.'

Jonathan looked around the room. He hadn't given her name to Strange, he had only confirmed it as a token of sincerity. So it wasn't really his fault. And immediately he felt contempt for himself for taking refuge in that thought.

Before leaving, he turned back to Yank. 'Don't forget your raincoat.'

Yank looked up at him with disbelief and disgust swimming in his bleary eyes. 'She was your friend.'

Jonathan left. For an hour he walked through the zinc-colored streets of Putney, through the gritty fog, past melancholy brick row houses, some of which had tarnished hydrangeas in their pitiful little front gardens.

Then he caught a cab for The Cloisters.

The Cloisters

'...Physical beauty is a worthy goal in its own—unh—right, of course. But there are fringe benefits. The rituals—unh—it entails are almost—unh—as valuable as the ends—unh!' Max Strange rested for a moment at the top of a sit-up. 'How many is that?' he asked his masseur.

'Sixty-eight, sir.'

Strange blew out a puff of air and began again. 'Sixty-nine—unh—seventy—unh. For instance, Dr. Hemlock, I do my best thinking—unh—when I am sunbathing or exercising, or taking steam.' He dropped back on the exercise table with a grunt. 'That's enough.'

As the masseur spread creamy lanolin on Strange's body, Jonathan looked around the exercise room, green and dim through the round glasses that protected his eyes from the ultraviolet rays of the bank of sun lamps surrounding Strange. Leonard and Two-mouths stood near him, and three other of Strange's enforcers leaned against the walls with studied, sassy languor, among them the scowling fellow with yellowish temporary caps on his front teeth. The bulging green glasses made the group look like those man/insect mutants so popular with makers of low budget science fiction films.

Jonathan checked his hate, blanking out the image of Vanessa, closing out Leonard. He had to appear casual and loose.

Strange's face and throat were being massaged with heated lanolin, and his voice was rather constricted as he said, 'While I've been taking a little sun and exercise, I've been thinking about you a great deal.'

'That's nice,' Jonathan said. 'I brought along some copies of newspapers. Evidence that I have been busy. After these writeups, no one will question the price the Horse will bring.'

'Yes, I've already seen the papers.'

'I suppose you're pleased.'

'To a degree. But all this about putting the Horse on display at the National Gallery. I don't recall our agreeing on that'

'It was an inspiration of the moment. I told you I would need a certain freedom of movement. After my first couple of contacts, I realized that the critics weren't going to buy my story wholeheartedly without some kind of special kudos. And the idea of lending the authority of the National occurred to me. It cost me most of the ten thousand to arrange it.'

'I see.' Strange stayed the masseur's hand. 'That's enough. You may turn off the lights.' He sat up on the edge of the table and took off his protective glasses. 'You have a subtle mind, Dr. Hemlock.'

'Thank you.'

Strange looked at him without expression. 'Yes... a subtle mind. Come along. We'll take a little steam together. Do you a world of good.'

'Not just now, thanks.'

Strange glanced to the floor. 'It's a pity, is it not, that most attempts to phrase politely run the risk of rhetorical ambiguity.'

They were an unlikely assortment of form and flesh, the four of them sitting in the billowing steam, towels about their waists. Raw material for Daumier. There was the rotisserie-tanned, classically muscled body of Strange—youngest and oldest of them all; Jonathan's lean, sinewy mountain climber's physique; the thin and brittle frame of the two-mouthed weasel—fish-belly white and hairless, a dried chicken carcass, a xylophone of ribs, one mouth grinning from social discomfort, the other pouting for the same reason; and the primate hulk of Leonard with its thick, short neck and stanchion legs—tufts of hair bristling from the sloping shoulders, his head tilted back, his heavy-lidded eyes ever upon Jonathan.

Until Strange spoke, the silence had been accented by the monotonous hiss of entering steam. 'I am displeased with you, Dr. Hemlock. You shouldn't have arranged to put the Horse on public display without my permission.'

'Well, there's not much we can do about that now.'

'True. Any change in your widely publicized plan would attract attention. I have no choice. And that is why I am displeased.'

'Don't worry. The security system in the National is among the best in the world.'

'That is not the point.'

'What the hell is the point?'

Strange turned to the thin-chested man with two mouths. 'Darling, go fetch that little leather box, there's a good man.'

The weaselly serf rose and left the chamber, swirling eddies of vapor in his wake.

'Darling?' Jonathan couldn't help asking.

'His name. Kenneth Darling. I know, I know. Fate delights in her little ironies. But at this moment I am less interested in the deviousness of Fate than I am in yours.'

'Any particular deviousness?' Might as well play it out.

Strange leaned his head back against the sweating tile wall and closed his eyes. 'Where have you been for the past two days?'

'Arranging for the auction. Contacting critics and reviewers. Setting up the National Gallery display. Earning my money, really.'

'Conscientious man.'

'Greedy man. What's troubling you, Max?'

'I had you followed from the time you left here.'

'Nu?'