Flash and Filigree (17 page)

It was then that Treevly, in executing some sort of fantastic dervish, stumbled over the Doctor and, half rising in a pique, recognized him. His reaction was very much like that of a cat.

“Eeechh!” he hissed through his teeth, leaping backward and cringing against the sofa.

“J’accuse!”
he cried, looking wild-eyed, pointing from his half crouch.
“Voyeur! Voyeur!”

Dr. Eichner, whose eyes were half open and shot with a comatose glaze, remained immobile, and seemed to hear only as one hears through a dream.

Treevly, in his turn, grew bolder and, coming forward from the couch, pointing again, turned to the girls and said: “See here a man
obsessed
! It is a man . . .
obsessed
!”

His friend meanwhile had joined him and, standing over the Doctor, was making little incoherent sounds of derision and snapping his finger at the inert body in repetitive gestures of curt dismissal. Suddenly Treevly took his arm for support. “I feel faint,” he said, putting his hand to his head. “Oh, how I
detest intense
people!” he cried in real anguish. “Oh, how I
loathe
them!” But as though the wave had passed, he drew himself up and spoke with menacing calm:

“Perhaps he hasn’t had the last laugh,
after all
!”

And so saying, with a toss of his head, he was away again, he and his friend, lost in the dance, marking the measure with an imperious step.

“O
H WHAT ARE
we going to
do
?” Babs asked hopelessly, as though now they must surely be in for a good spanking, whereupon Ralph kissed her anew.

Because of the extraordinary events of the evening, the couple had put off their plans for Monsieur Croque’s, and half-past midnight found them still in the back seat of the convertible, having glanced at the screen scarcely a dozen times.

During the three presentations of
Wuthering Heights,
Babs had cried a lot, sometimes as in shame and need of reassurance, but mostly in soft bewilderment, and later in a kind of pitiful happiness. Now and again, however, she would sit up, quite suddenly, and turn her face away. “You think I’m terrible,” she would say. This happened usually at the times when Ralph had moved over slightly to light a cigarette, or mix a drink.

“Don’t be silly,” Ralph would say, kissing her affectionately, whereupon the girl would implore, “Oh, Ralph, do you really . . . do you really
love
me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Do
what
?” she would want to be told.

“Do
love
you,” he would say.

And the girl would sigh and snuggle in his arms, as if she wanted nothing more than their being together like that always.

But the screen finally went dark, and while the national anthem resounded over the vast lot coming alive with crawling lights, Ralph suggested they go to a motel. And this seemed so scandalous to Babs that she burst into tears.

“Oh, you do think I’m terrible!” she sobbed. “Oh, why did I do it?
Why?
You know I didn’t want to, you know I
didn’t
! You made me do it—you made me do it and now you
hate
me! Oh, I wish I were dead!” And she tried to bundle herself in the far corner of the seat, face hidden away, as Ralph stroked her hair and reassured her, bringing her face to his and carefully kissing the tears away.

On the porch of the boarding-house where Babs lived, she said they should not talk or kiss much there because of Mrs. McBurney. But she made Ralph promise to call her next day at the Clinic, where she had Sunday duty, and she whispered finally, “Ralph, you do believe me, don’t you, that I had never . . . I mean, you do know that you’re the only one who has ever . . .”

“Yes, I know,” said the boy, very pleased.

F
RED
E
ICHNER HAD
no memory of how he had reached his bed the previous evening. He awoke, feeling very cross, with the taste of gall and waste in his mouth; it was almost noon.

“Put me on to Martin Frost,” he said, after snatching up the phone at bedside and dialing the latter’s number.

“Mr. Frost? Well, Mr. Frost has discontinued this service. This is an answering service.”

There was something in the girl’s voice that gave the Doctor pause and flashes of doubt.

“Is . . . is this
Jean
?”

“Pardon?”

“Jean,
Jean-baby.
” The last words passed the Doctor’s throat with the grotesque uncertainty there of a reversed fish-hook.

“This is an answering service. I understand that Mr. Frost left the country. I understand, from one of the girls here, that—”

“Never mind,” snapped Eichner, recovering, “this is F. L. Eichner, a client of Mr. Frost. Please tell Mr. Frost that I have no further need of his services. You may tell him to bill me, as of this date, and to consider his interest in the case closed. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well then. Thank you, and good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

The Doctor replaced the receiver momentarily, then dialed the Clinic. It was Eleanor Thorne answered the phone.

“We’ve been trying to reach you, Doctor—at your home. There was no answer there.”

“I’ve been indisposed,” said Dr. Eichner curtly. “Why were you calling?”

“A police representative was here to see you.”

“What do you mean? An officer of the police?”

“Yes, Doctor, a policeman. An ordinary policeman, in a car. There were two of them. One remained in the car.”

“I see.”

“They wanted to see you.”

“They?”

“What?”

“All right, where are they now? They’re no longer there I take it.”

“No, he said they would be back. I hope nothing is wrong, Doctor, I told him that you were
not
to be—”

“All right, now, I want you to go to my office. In the upper left drawer of the main desk you will find a list of the names and telephone numbers of certain agencies. When you have this list, call me here and give me those names and numbers. You may phone from my office. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Very well. Please do this as soon as possible. Let this case take priority over anything else you may have to do at the moment.”

“Yes, I will, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Nurse. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Doctor.”

Fred Eichner was out of bed in a bound. He put paper and pencil by the telephone, and had just entered the bathroom to begin his toilet when the phone rang. The Doctor was back to the bed and had the receiver up at once, pencil in readiness above the paper. “Yes, go ahead.”

“I’d like to speak to Dr. Eichner, please. This is Sergeant Fiske of the Los Angeles County Police.”

“I see,” said the Doctor, lowering his pencil.

“Is this Dr. Eichner here?”

“Yes.”

“Oh well, Doctor, this is Sergeant Fiske. You remember me . . . we rode down to the station together, after that accident of yours. We’ve been looking for you at the hospital.”

“Yes, I remember you, Sergeant.”

“Yeah, well, they got those guys, Doc. You were right about that all right. The Chief said we ought to tell you as soon as we could get hold of you.”

“
What?
What’s that you’re saying?”

“It was a gang, trying to knock off somebody. ‘Good-Time’ Gimp Spomini. He’s got a car like yours. You see, they thought it was
you.
”

“You mean they thought I was
him
?
he
?”

“The Chief said to tell you it was a case of
mistaken identity.
They mistook you for him—because of the car, and because he was around there—he was supposed to be coming down that road then. His girl lives out there, you see.”

“I see! Good! Excellent! So the case is closed, is that it?”

“This case is closed, yes. They got him last night. He had a car like yours.”

“They got him? The rival gang got him? Killed him?”

“No, he’s in the hospital. They say he’ll be all right. But he identified them, you see, identified the rival gang. We got the whole bunch.”

“Well, I’m glad he wasn’t seriously hurt!”

“No, he wasn’t seriously hurt. He’s a cripple . . . that’s why they call him Gimp. ‘Good-Time’ Gimp Spomini, he’s called. Wanted, They’re all wanted.”

“I see.”

“Well, this case is closed then, Doc; I mean, as far as you’re concerned. The Chief said you ought to know about it. The Chief will probably call you about it himself.”

“Yes, of course. Well, I’m very glad you called, Sergeant. Meanwhile, convey my best wishes to your Chief—for a job well done.”

“All right, Doctor, I will.”

“Is there anything else?”

“What? No, they just said you would want to know.”

“Yes, it’s a great relief, of course. Thanks again.”

“That’s okay. Well, good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Sergeant.”

The Doctor had no sooner put down the receiver than the phone rang again.

“F. L. Eichner here.”

“Doctor,” it was Eleanor Thorne calling, “I’ve been trying to get you—”

“Nurse Thorne, you have that list: dispose of it. Into the wastebasket beside the desk with it! The case is closed, you see.”

“W
ELL,
M
ISS
S
MART,”
Dr. Eichner was speaking brightly into his inter-office phone, “what’s on the agenda for today?”

“You have Miss Stapleton at two, Doctor . . . Mrs. F. L. Richmond-White at three . . . and a Mrs. Hugo Gross at four-thirty this afternoon. Miss Stapleton is here now, Doctor.”

“Good. Have her come in.”

The early afternoon passed pleasantly enough for the Doctor. Miss Stapleton and Mrs. Richmond-White were two of several women who checked with him each Sunday to see if any new complexion-aids had been discovered during the past week.

Both their skins were perfect, a condition they attributed to proper diet and to the Doctor’s prescribed methods of care—which had become, more or less, the focus of their lives.

As for Dr. Eichner, he had, over the years, developed such an esoteric intimacy with their skins, that, through various tests and analyses he was able now to appreciate that, quite aside from their being perfect in the ordinary, unblemished sense, they were also
theoretically
perfect. This pleased his taste for the abstract, and, of course, his acute sensitiveness to points of dermatic structure.

Actually, these women were not very pretty. They were, for the most part, wealthy and well educated; and their collective
gestalt
was a strict fascism, drawn solely on lines of skin-condition. Two vast hulks of society had been simply written off as “starchy” and “oily.” To describe what remained, a slang with quasi-humorous ramifications—that hallmark of organization—had evolved to include such expressions as “ducking” (for “duct-flow”), “vel” (from “velvet”) for skin, “salting the vel,” meaning a form of perspiration; and, in current usage among the more vulgar young were the obvious derisions “grease-ball,” “potato-face,” “leather-tummy,” “a real
imp
” (from “impetigo”), “a stupid
ex
” (from “eczema”), “a scroffy,” and so on.

In light conversation among themselves, for want of a more practical frame of reference they usually spoke of public figures, and in so otherwise an unbiased way as to frequently link persons like Madame Nehru and Jane Withers. More seriously, however, as in their visits with Dr. Eichner, they spoke of “stability,” and “
level-
problems.”

Dr. Eichner would say: “Yes, the endo is steady now, very steady.” Or, “I want to try something, Miss Trumbel. Oh, we’re on safe ground all right, but I’ve been toying with the idea of cutting down that ecto-lymph potential . . .”

About three-thirty Fred Eichner took tea alone in his office, followed by a quarter-hour’s nap. He spent the next half-hour with his automotive correspondence, checking the run-down, point by point, on the latest performance sheets of a supercharged Pegaso and the Ferrari 375. After this comparative study, he perused the sheets more casually, making an occasional notation, however, on the margin of the sheet at hand. Finally, he paused and took up the inter-office phone: “Miss Smart. For tomorrow, first opportunity: get the Alfa Romeo people, have them send their representative around with the 3-Liter Disco Volante—
after
confirming these figures: ‘Displacement—145.24. One, forty-five point, two-four.’ That is the figure I want checked specifically. Motor Sheets lists a two-hundred b.h.p. at 6,000 r.p.m. for that displacement. Now, check on this; there may be some discrepancy. I know this model, you see, and—however, is that clear?”

“Yes, Doctor. Mrs. Gross is here now. Mrs. Hugo Gross.”

“Mrs. Hugo Gross. Have her come in, please.”

In appearance, Mrs. Gross was a strange woman, one of those large-boned, ageless women, carefully dressed, but fantastically made-up, and wearing a close-fitting, beret style hat. A heavy layer of pan-stick covered her face and lips, so that there was no difference in color between them, both being the same dull-glossed ochre; the periphery of the lips, however, was sharply etched by a thin crimson line.

“Mrs. Gross?” said Dr. Eichner, rising and extending his hand.

“How do you do, Doctor,” said Mrs. Gross with a penetrating smile.

“Please sit down, Mrs. Gross.” The Doctor regarded her studiously. He took her to be an actress almost at once. “You were referred to me—”

“Yes, Doctor, by Mrs. Winthrop-Garde.”

“Mrs. Winthrop-Garde,” Dr. Eichner repeated, striking an attitude of reflection.

“Of Washington, Doctor.”

Mrs. Gross’s eyes were not large, but brilliant blue they were set to advantage in a wide swirl of dark up-swept lashes beneath pearl-shadowed lids, which were faintly iridescent. The lashes were almost theatrically false, while the brows above were drawn in a black arch of permanent surprise.

“But what can I be thinking of?” demanded Mrs. Hugo Gross, bringing a black-gloved hand to her cheek in slight chagrin. “I doubt that Mrs.
Winthrop-Garde
was married at that time! Now what
was
her maiden name? We only met a short time ago, you see, and—”