Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 11 (15 page)

“What kind of writing?” I asked him. By now I had my own beer to sip.

“Not English. It reminded me of Egyptian hieroglyphics.”

“You ever talk to Major Marcel about what you saw?”

“No. Anyway, I just glanced in and kept goin’—I had this patient to deliver, and I took him to Receiving and did the paperwork. There was a lot of activity in that emergency room, I’ll tell ya, a real hubbub, not just doctors either, I knew all of them—big birds I never saw before.”

He meant high-ranking Army Air Force officers.

“Anyway, I wandered down toward the lounge, to get a Coke, kinda hopin’ I would run into Maria. We were dating then, you know.”

“Nobody stopped you?”

“Anybody who knew me would’ve made the natural assumption I’d been called out there. This one MP, who I didn’t know, stopped me in the hall and I told him the mortuary officer called me, which was true, and he let me pass. I went on to the lounge, and got my Coke and kinda stood where I could see what was goin’ on, out in the hall … and that’s when I spotted Maria, comin’ out of an examining room, holding a cloth over her mouth.”

The mortician had also caught a glimpse of two doctors, also covering their lower faces with towels standing by a couple of gurneys, but not of who was on those gurneys.

Nurse Selff had been shocked to see him.

“How did you get in here, Glenn?” she’d asked him, lowering the cloth, looking “woozy” to him.

“I just walked in,” the mortician had shrugged.

“Well, my God, you’ve got to leave! You could get shot!”

“Don’t be silly …”

“Listen to me—get out of here as fast you can.”

Then she’d slipped into another room, just as a captain was coming out; Dennis didn’t know this captain, who was in his mid-forties and prematurely gray.

“Who the hell are you?” the captain had demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m from the funeral home,” Dennis said. “I run the ambulance service—just delivered a guy at the emergency room, and now I’m havin’ a Coke. Hey, I can see you had an air crash, I saw some of the debris—can I help?”

The captain had glared at Dennis and pointed to the floor. “You just stay right where you are.”

“Sure.”

The next thing Dennis knew, two MPs were grabbing onto his arms and were in the process of hauling him bodily out of there, when another voice called, “We’re not through with that S.O.B.! Bring him back here—now!”

And the young mortician had been dragged back to a second captain, “a redhead with the meanest-looking eyes I ever saw,” who said, “You didn’t see a thing, understand? There was no crash here. You go into town, shooting off your big mouth about what you saw, or that there was any kind of crash, and your ass is gonna be in a major fucking sling. Do I make myself clear?”

“I’m a civilian, mister,” Dennis said. “Where do you get off, talkin’ to me like that? You can’t do a damn thing to me!”

The redheaded captain gave the mortician an “awful” smile, and said, “Don’t kid yourself, kid. Somebody’ll be picking your bones out of the sand.”

“Go to hell!”

The captain nodded to the MPs. “Get his scrawny ass outa here.”

Then the MPs had dragged Dennis out to his ambulance and followed him all the way back to the funeral home, in Roswell.

“About two or three hours later, at home, I got a phone call, just a voice … I think it was that redheaded bastard … sayin’ if I opened my mouth, I’d get thrown so far back in the jug they’d have to shoot pinto beans in my mouth with a pea shooter to feed me. It was a stupid threat and I just laughed at it, and hung up on him; but a couple days later, my pop heard from the sheriff—Sheriff Wilcox—that I was in some kind of hot water out at the base. The sheriff told my father to tell me to keep my mouth shut about what I saw out there.”

“Why would Sheriff Wilcox be the one to convey that message?”

“Maybe because he and my pop were old pals. The sheriff said military personnel came around asking about me and my whole family, including my brother, who’s an Army fighter pilot. The implication was, my whole goddamn family was in trouble ’cause of me.”

“Anything come of it?”

“No. I heard about people getting threatened, and even hauled out to the base and questioned; but me? Nothing. I’d have probably forgot about it—except for being called an S.O.B., which I don’t think anybody much likes—if Maria hadn’t told me what she told me, the next morning.”

“Did she call you, or did you call her?”

“She called me. She said, ‘We need to talk.’ Urgent, upset. We decided on the officers’ club, and we met out there around eleven Sunday morning, had the place pretty near to ourselves. She was crying, very distraught. She looked … different, like if you said ‘boo,’ she’d go into shock. I asked what had happened out at that base last night, and she said she’d seen something no one else on this earth ever had.”

“Tell me what she said she saw.”

And he did. I would be hearing this firsthand, from her lips; but it might be helpful to compare the story she had told Dennis to the one she would tell me. Too many inconsistencies could indicate she was “remembering” a delusion, possibly unconsciously enlarging and enhancing it; no inconsistencies at all could mean her story had been learned by rote, government misinformation being fed, first to the mortician and then to me, a cover-up of some other incident and/or an effort to discredit Drew Pearson by planting a false, ridiculous story.

So I took it all down in my spiral notebook, and Dennis concluded with, “You think she really saw that, Nate? Or is she insane?”

“What do you think, Glenn?”

His frown drew the two thick dark streaks of eyebrow into one. “It was real weird out at that base hospital, that night; something big happened that afternoon, no question about it. And Maria saw something strange, no question about that, either. You know, bodies that been exposed to the elements for days on end, to predators and everything else out in the desert, they could look pretty darn weird.”

“Yeah,” I said, putting my pen down, “but could they grow suction cups on their fingertips?”

As cooperative as Roswell’s friendly neighborhood mortician had been, I felt almost guilty, giving him the bum’s rush with a side of baloney.

“Pity about Maria,” Glenn Dennis said, as I walked him out into the Lodge’s moonswept parking lot, the cool night air pungently tinged by the surrounding pines, whose silhouettes made a decorative pattern against the deep blue sky. “If she don’t feel good, she can stretch out in my backseat and I’ll get her back to Roswell, lickety-split.”

I figured getting stretched out in the mortician’s backseat—lickety-split or otherwise—was exactly what Maria wanted to avoid; but I didn’t tell him that.

“She’s feeling nauseous,” I said. “Having all these unpleasant memories stirred has really upset her. And the idea of a long car ride is something she just can’t handle.”

He nodded, chin crinkling. “Maria
is
kind of delicate … sensitive. You know, she was raised in a very religious family. She told me she’s going to become a nun, when her tour of duty’s up.”

That was disappointing news, but then again, maybe that had been her way of trying fend off the mortician’s advances.

“Well, Glenn,” I said, “I’ll get her a room, and then drive her back to her car, at that lake, first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I’d stay and help you out,” Dennis said, as we reached his car, a blue Buick, “but I gotta be into Ballard’s by nine. We got two big funerals tomorrow.”

“It’s a living,” I said.

He laughed gently. “That’s one thing about my trade—you never run out of customers.”

We shook hands. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and I had a hunch Maria had misread his natural friendliness for lechery. On the other hand, who knew what any man might be tempted to do, at night, in the desert, with Maria?

He drove off, kicking up gravel dust, and I headed back inside, stopping at the front desk for a word with my pal the assistant manager.

“You have any little complimentary toiletry kits,” I asked him, “for guests who got separated from their luggage?”

He raised the shrapnel-scarred eyebrow. “Male or female?”

“Female.”

He smiled just a little, said, “I’ll have housekeeping stop by with what you need.”

“Thanks.”

“Uh, it doesn’t include Trojans.”

“It’s not like that. Really. Anyway, I’m a Sheik man.”

I knocked at Suite 101, and her musical alto said, “Mr. Heller?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Maria. I’m alone.”

She cracked the door open, sneaking a peek at me—she didn’t know me well enough to recognize my voice, I guess—and then let me in.

“He’s gone?” she asked eagerly, hands clasped to the lucky white embroidery decorating her bosom.

I nodded, taking off my hat, holding it over my heart briefly. “To another, better place.” I tossed the straw fedora onto a coffee table as I took in the joint.

The Governor’s Suite was really something—even more steeped in Victorian ambiance than the lobby, with just as high a ceiling, and an open stairway leading to a balcony off which the bedroom could be glimpsed; tucked under the stairway was a wet bar and the bathroom. The rest of the downstairs was a sitting room, or a living room, really, with a cozy scattering of mahogany and satinwood antiques; the lighting was subdued—she’d turned on a single amber-shaded table lamp—and a golden hue suffused the handsomely appointed suite, with its yellow-and-white brocade wallpaper, white marble fireplace overhung with gilt-framed desert landscape, and green-and-yellow-and-gold floral carpet.

Maria noticed me taking in this opulence—the clue may have been my mouth hanging open—and, glancing up, she said, “There’s even a chandelier.”

There was; a crystal one.

“Not very big,” I said. “Still, it’s one of the larger chandeliers I’ve run into in a hotel room.”

She laughed at that, just a little, enough to show me that her laughter was as musical as her voice.

“Thank you for … getting rid of him.”

I shrugged. “Glenn doesn’t strike me as such a bad egg. Seemed genuinely concerned that you weren’t feeling well.”

Now she seemed mildly embarrassed. “I probably overreacted … but the way he looks at me, things he says, I know he’s holding out hope for something that’s …”

“Hopeless?”

She nodded, shivered, and sat in the middle of a floral-upholstered love seat angled toward the fireplace, smoothing the skirt of the powder-blue dress, both feet on the ground, knees together, prim, proper … provocative. I moved to an easy chair opposite her, similarly angled. She sat hugging her bare arms.

I nodded toward the fresh wood in a brass bin. “Want me to make a fire?”

“I do feel a chill.”

As I built the fire, we made casual conversation. I asked her if she’d gotten herself a room.

“No. You don’t think there’ll be a problem …?”

“Not as underbooked as they are. I stopped by the desk, to get you some complimentary toiletries. Somebody ought to be around with ’em, soon.”

Her expression was warmer than the fire I was lighting. “Are you always so thoughtful, Mr. Heller?”

“Unfailingly … except around Christmas, when I get distracted—you know, all that stopping by orphanages handing out toys, and hitting hospitals, caroling.”

She didn’t laugh this time, but she did smile, and it was a surprising smile, one that made her little-girl vulnerability disappear; she had rather large teeth, very white, a smile almost too big for her face, an overpowering smile, not unattractive exactly, but turning her into someone else, momentarily.

“It’s a defense mechanism, you know,” she said, as her smile dissipated and the big blue eyes again became her dominant feature.

The fire was going now; I sat in the easy chair across from her. “What do you mean?”

“The jokes, the wisecracks. You hide behind them.”

“Everybody hides behind something.”

“Why is that, d’you suppose?”

“Well, the alternative is being seen as we really are—and nothing frightens us more than that, does it?”

The fire, cracking and snapping to life, was casting its dancing shadows on us, throwing warmth and color, tinting her a burnished amber. “You’re surprisingly deep, Mr. Heller.”

“I was trying for refreshingly shallow.”

“I’m surprised. I didn’t expect to like you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know … Mr. Pearson is kind of … smarmy.”

“Ever meet him?”

“No. Just talked to him on the telephone.”

“Well, it’s worse in person. So, you figured anybody working for him had to be a jerk?”

“I guess.”

“Then why cooperate with him?”

“I can’t say.”

“Why not?”

Her expression darkened. “… I gave my solemn oath to Mr. Pearson.”

That meant he was paying her—a journalistic taboo that probably got violated about as often as your average parking meter. Judging by this girl’s apparent conservative nature, I figured she probably had some family problem, a mother with a bad heart, father in an iron lung, brother in a wheelchair, that only money could cure. Even a prospective nun can fall into the end-justifies-the-means trap.

“We should probably get started,” I said. “You mind if I take notes?”

“No …” Her brow furrowed. “… but Mr. Heller, let’s get something straight between us, right now.”

That had already happened, a couple of times; she just didn’t notice.

She was saying, “I’m not going to tell you anything unless
you
take a sacred oath, too.”

“About what?”

“That my name will never be mentioned.”

“That’s fine with me,” I shrugged. “Have you broached this subject with Mr. Pearson?”

“He’s given me that assurance. Can I trust him?”

“On this score, yes. One person he won’t betray is a source; I believe he’d go to jail for contempt first.”

“Well, I could get into a lot of trouble … I was warned to forget everything I saw. There’s still pressure—talk of a transfer, and I
like
it at the base. Anyway … think how I’d look.”

“Look?”

She folded her hands in her lap. “Mr. Heller, I’m going to tell you my story, and before this evening is out, you’ll wonder if I’m a liar, or a lunatic. And those may seem to you the only reasonable choices … and there’s not a thing I can do about it.”

This was setting a ponderous, even foreboding tone that would not be conducive to a good interview; something had to be done.

I leaned forward, gave her my most ingratiating, unthreatening smile. “Mrs. Selff … would it be all right if I called you ‘Maria’? And you maybe call me ‘Nate,’ or ‘Nathan’? I feel like we’re hitting it off pretty well, and this ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ stuff is for the birds.”

“That would be nice … Nathan.”

“Before we get started, would you like something to drink? I can call room service.”

She perked up. “Don’t bother—there are soft drinks in the little refrigerator behind the bar; I’m afraid I snooped a little, before you got here.”

“For shame.”

“Shall I get us something? To drink?”

“Please.”

Then she was back behind there, calling out, “Coca-Cola or 7 UP?”

“Coke.”

“You know, I think I noticed an ice machine down the hall …”

Soon I’d returned, handing Maria a brimming bucket of ice and a small plastic bag of toiletries.

Accepting them like awards, she asked brightly, “What, are you a magician, Nathan?”

Out in the hall, I’d intercepted the maid delivering the complimentary toiletries.

“Yes,” I said.

The ice was broken, or anyway cubes of it were floating in our respective glasses of Coke, and we returned to our seats in the warm orange glow of the fire, and I got out my spiral notepad and pen.

“I’m not going to be shocked by what you tell me, Maria, and I promise I won’t be judgmental, either. I’ve already heard our mortician friend’s account, including what you told him at that officers’ club, over lunch, the morning after.”

She smirked, humorlessly.
“Over
lunch is right … I couldn’t eat a bite. You know … it’s funny. I don’t think I’ve eaten right, or had a decent night’s sleep, since it happened.”

“I need you to tell me about it, Maria. Tell me what happened at the hospital—on the evening of Saturday … July fifth, is it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Day after Independence Day. But the Fourth of July couldn’t compare to those fireworks….”

Maria Selff said that she had been performing perfunctory duties in the emergency room when she entered an examination room, to get some supplies from a cabinet, only to stumble onto a bizarre tableau. Two doctors were performing preliminary autopsies under rather makeshift conditions; she didn’t recognize either of the medics, and she certainly didn’t recognize the three bodies they were working on, “foreign bodies,” laid out on gurneys. But even before the strangeness of the corpses could fully register, the first thing that hit Maria was the overwhelmingly foul odor.

“Such a horrible stench … you just immediately gagged. It was hot in there, because the air-conditioning had been turned off—the smell was so terrible, the doctors were afraid it might spread throughout the hospital. It was almost impossible to stay in that room and work … I didn’t last long, and some of the doctors staggered out of there, too—at least one passed out in the hall.”

“You called them ‘foreign’ bodies, Maria … but you don’t mean they were foreigners, do you?”

She frowned. “You know I don’t. Glenn told you.”

“Please. Don’t think about Glenn’s story; give me your account of the events, as you remember them.”

“I tried to turn around and run out of there—I don’t know what kept me from screaming, unless that stench immobilized me…. Then one of the doctors told me to stay and assist them, and take notes … but I didn’t take many notes. About all the doctors were saying were things like, ‘This isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen,’ and ‘There’s nothing in the textbooks like this.’”

“What did the ‘foreign’ bodies look like, Maria?”

“I never saw anything so gruesome in my life. Two were badly mutilated, mangled, dismembered, probably by predators … one was mostly intact; I think he may have survived the crash, but died of exposure—all three bodies were black, but it wasn’t pigmentation, I’d say prolonged exposure to the sun.”

“What did they look like, Maria?”

“I worked as long as I could, but finally it got the best of me, the nausea, that all-pervasive odor. The doctors were having as much trouble as I was; finally they put the bodies in body bags and packed them in dry ice for shipment to Wright Field. And that’s … that’s all I know.”

“Maria—what did they look like?”

Her eyes narrowed as she stared into her memory. “… Three and a half feet, four feet tall. Small, fragile, no hair. If they looked like anything human, it’d be an ancient Chinaman. Their heads were large for their bodies, larger than ours … noses didn’t protrude, more concave, with two little slits. Where the ears should be, just slight indentations, with little flaps, like lobes. Deep, sunken eyes—concave eyes. Slit for a mouth, no lips at all … one thing the doctors said, something I do remember writing down, was that there was heavy cartilage instead of teeth, like a … like a piece of rawhide. Their bones were like cartilage, too, pliable, the head like a newborn baby’s, nothing like the bone structure of a human being. Could I … could I please have some water?”

“Sure.” I got up and went to the wet bar and poured her a glass of water over ice, brought it back to her, returned to my seat as she drank it as greedily as if she had been lost out in the desert.

“Go on, Maria.”

“There were some basic anatomy differences…. For example, the distance between wrist and elbow was longer than the distance between elbow and shoulder. Oh, and they didn’t have thumbs, but four fingers that were long and slender, almost like tentacles … and on the fingertips—they had no fingernails, by the way—on the fingertips were little hollowed pads, like suction cups.”

“Did they have any sex organs? Were they men, or women, or something else?”

“I think probably something else. There were no signs of sex organs, or secondary sexual characteristics, either. But then that’s the sort of tissue predators go after, first, and also the first thing that decomposes, so how can we be sure?”