Lizard World (35 page)

      
And so, in fine, it was that she and one of her little, ill-complexioned serving-women did tire me with their insufferable discourse throughout the remainder of my journey to the brothel -- whither (some hours later) I was no sooner come, than I did quit my coach and fire off my pistol, my intention being to augment the effect of my arrival. Indeed, I did, moreover, draw my sword and halloo and kick upon the door -- in such wise that, in plain view of these females in the coach, I did presently seem with much righteous ire to enforce my entry into the bordello.

      
The harlots, to be sure, did nowise hinder my advancement -- but did straightways direct me to my charmer’s chamber. And there -- asleep without her door, a-stinking of their drink -- were the brace of shitten rogues whom I had hired to snatch away and entrap her person. These knaves I did no sooner see, but I did most vigorously commence to kick at them. Of a certainty, ere they were full awake, they did betray some drowsie rudeness. But full soon they did perceive my presence well enough. Whereupon (thinking, no doubt, that I had come at the long last to take my pleasure of the wench) they did forthwith open me the door.

      
The maid now shrieking and I perceiving that her angelic face did betray some fearful misdoubt of my purpose which I must needs instantly dispel, I did presently take these raskalls unawares -- stab the one and, ere the other could blab out his surprise, right smartly slit his throat. That being done, I did assure her (whilst her snow-white bosom heaved in piteous affright) that she was now altogether safe and that I had brought along her dear Aunt Chommeley who was -- this very instant -- awaiting without this infamous establishment in my coach. Had I not, I said, encountered her dear Aunt in church (whilst praying for the repose of my late dear father’s soul), I doubtless never would have taken the true measure of her Uncle Chommeley’s knavery. Indeed, I said, until then -- hearing that these dogs had stolen her away -- I had always thought that her Uncle’s oft-repeated wish to seize upon and debauch her was nothing more than foul and empty bluster. But assoon as I had learned far otherwise, I had come -- wherefore now my sword, my coach and my very life were from henceforth at her service.

      
This discourse, set off by my bloodied sword, did work to admiration. So entirely, forsooth, did she melt and tremble, that I had a great mind to ravish her at once. But then I did bethink me that I would become master of one hundred thousand pounds if we were wed -- which moneys, of a certainty, I would never get if ever her dried-up old Aunt found out that I had violated her niece’s honour. Natheless, I must confess that somewhat more than this did prompt my present hesitancy. For now (as when I very nearly swived her in the garden) I did find myself once again quite damnably unmanned by an inebriating glut of sweetful smell. And yet I know not whether this unnerving aromatick surfeit was some manner of perfume upon her person -- or perhaps her very breath, as if she, herself a blossom, did exhale supernal fragrance.

      
But in any event, the short of the matter is that -- o’erstepping these dead dogs -- I did now lead my charmer from her chamber, down-stairs and past a bare bevy of enchantments in the parlour, out the hall-door of this bawdy-house and to the fond arms of her blubbering aunt. Indeed, I could not have wished for this business to go more to my full content. Of course Potter’s wonted surliness -- as he helped me into coach -- did some-deale ruffle my enjoyment. But elsewise, in all my life, I think I never did feel myself to be more supremely happy. Even her aunt’s infinite tiresome talk (which I make some doubt whether I could otherwise have borne) did not mar the singular complacence of this journey. Indeed, the old jade’s prattle did once quite entertain me: for she most expresssly took occasion to say how exceeding well-opinioned of me she was and that she did only desire that she could likewise estimate her husband -- whom she now did rate but as an arrant churl and whoremonger. At which I could not chuse but smile -- all the more for that my charmer’s eyes did now, meseem’d, to look on me with love. And for this one moment I did bask in her regard. But too soon the pillar’d front of Chommeley Hall did come in view -- and Lenore did notice to me the primroses growing next the steps and how the very snows were a-melting and the sweet air gentled with the warmth of early Spring.

      
And thereupon we uncoach’d and my charmer pluck’d a yellow primrose and gave it me -- by reason whereof I was (I do confess) much pleased . . . and in good hopes that full soon I would get both her maidenhead and her money. Then it was, standing there next my coach and quite glutting myself with looking upon the over-sweet deliciousness of her person, that I did find myself strangely discomposed, as tho’ I had been dizzied by a surfeiting on comfits. Indeed I could scarce now stand for the weakness of my legs and all the sweetmeats of her beauty did swim before me -- her grey eyes, her lips, her cheek, and the sarsenet softness of her bosom . . . yet no longer warm and quick but suffused by a brave stillness -- so that she did seem, on a sudden, no more than a portrait in miniature of a woman looking back at Smedlow from the locket in his hand.

Chapter XXII.

Containing a two-car garage, a coach-and-four, a Widow’s tears, Mr. Potter’s smile and several other matters too surprizing to divulge.

“Well, now,
look at that,” said Lemuel Lee, turnin’ into the driveway and pointin’ at the windshield with his finger: “just exactly like you asked . . . I brung you back to yer little goddamn home.”

      
Smedlow, looking up from his locket and still finding himself much dizzied and disordered in his mind, did not at the very first quite recognize what he was seeing. But then -- yes, oh, oh yes, here they were again: his own disheveled boxwood beside his own split-level ranch house, his own plastic garbage pail outside his own two-car garage, his own Adirondack chairs and barbecue and bug-zapper on his own red cedar deck.

      
“Now don’t I treat you good?”

      
Smedlow watched his chauffeur pull up to the garage, turn off the ignition, and then reach his paw across the passenger seat to open up the door:

      
“Come on now, fella, wake up: we’re here.”

      
The detestable German shepherd stretched himself and yawned. Smedlow watched it jump down from the seat, stroll across his driveway, across his tulip bed, look back at him and then squat in defecation on his lawn. Why yes, of course, it had begun -- the desecration of his household gods.

      
The Sunday paper, cocooned in its green plastic bag, still lay waiting to be picked up off the blacktop. Ordinarily, Agnes would have eviscerated it by now, cut out all its recipes and coupons and crossword puzzles and then gone on to scour it for bargains, celebrity gossip, and death notices of relatives and friends. Smedlow also noticed, as his captor retrieved the collapsible wheelchair from the trunk, that Agnes also hadn’t yet cleaned up the usual mess of milk cartons, egg shells, coffee grounds and toilet-paper rolls which some garbage-plundering raccoon had scattered beside the mailbox.

      
“You won’t be needin’ this no more,” said Lemuel Lee, grabbin’ the definitely pawnable antique silver locket and shovin’ it into his ass pocket. “Okay now, pal,” he said, reachin’ out for a bear hug: “upsy-daisy.”
  

      
In another instant Smedlow found himself being wheeled down the brick path to the cellar door. Why, it looked like the lawn hadn’t been cut in over a week. Agnes was probably in Trenton visiting her sister -- or maybe off in some motel giving head to that shyster.

      
Smedlow was now obliged to wait in front of the storm door while the little ape brought up a wad of phlegm -- and then spat it out into the foundation planting. But otherwise he hardly heard a sound -- neither an air conditioner nor a dog’s bark: only the distant whirr of a weed-whacker coming from the far side of the cypress hedge.

      
Agnes had obviously replaced the broken glass in the storm door. Of course this pathological vandal couldn’t resist breaking it again -- kicking out the glass and opening the door . . . before getting down to the more important business of violating the inner door by jimmying the lock. It was only another moment before Smedlow found himself once again being wheeled into his own mildewed basement, his own private storeroom of memories and junk and gloom.

      
Now -- just exactly as Smedlow had expected -- his captor plucked a sledgehammer off the wall and began wheeling him toward the back of the cellar -- evidently with the thought of forcing him to watch the destruction of his x-ray machine and plaster dental casts and drill. But -- by a stroke of amazing good luck -- the wheelchair abruptly stopped right beside the furnace, the brute’s lust suddenly inflamed by the sight of one of Agnes’ less dowdy brassieres dangling on the clothesline above the washer. This, too, it seemed, was much more than the abominable little deviant could resist. For suddenly he walked away from the wheelchair, leaving Smedlow within easy reach of the filing cabinet, while he himself went off to palpate the silken cups, before turning his attention to a dusty cardboard box of
National Geographic
s -- no doubt in hopes of coming upon some Kodachrome photos of half-clad female aborigines.

      
There was no saying how long the little creep would keep on doing this. With his moronically short attention span he would probably soon tire of pornographic pleasures and crave the more immediate stimulus of violence. So, thought Smedlow (staring ahead of him at the tantalizingly close black metal box), if he was ever going to get his own precious dental x-rays from this filing cabinet, it would have to be now. There wasn’t a single second to lose.

      
He tried to lift up his obscene right hand -- a plague of wrinkles and warts and bulging veins -- to reach out with his mind into the foulness of this alien body. Yes, it was true that his captors had subjected him to their ghastly surgery. Yes, yes, they had had their little fun with him. But what they didn’t know was that ever since then he had been preparing for just such a chance as this -- acquiring ever greater and more formidable physical mastery. Not only had he long ago learned how to blink and move the eyes: he had also taken even the most fleeting opportunity to lift this arm and assume command of these repulsive fingers. He now focused the full force of his attention on the brown-nailed thumb and forefinger . . . and then -- like the claw of a surprised lobster -- they suddenly began to move.

      
A quick glance aside assured him that the little pervert was still safely engaged in flipping through magazines, prowling for filth. With difficulty Smedlow now managed to bring together the crustacean thumb and forefinger -- an action which, however, became easier as he repeated it, over and over again, while at the same time he located and activated the muscles which made the arm extend -- propelling the hand all the way forward to the black metal drawer. Quite easily, now, he made the two fingers clasp the handle -- and then made the arm pull back. It was now only a matter of making the pincers release the handle, and then of getting the arm to lift slightly up and then reach forward again.

      
And now, finally, he lowered the hand down into the twilight of the open drawer. He always kept his own file in the front. Unable to see more than a shadowy blur of folders, he made the thumb and forefinger grab the first file . . . and then made the arm pull back.

      
The sight of his own name -- Max Nathan Smedlow, D.D.S. F.A.C.D. -- on the manilla folder was almost more earthly happiness than he could bear: for without solid scientific proof like this Agnes would never be able to identify his butchered carcass and prove that he was dead. Yes, this is what he -- Max Nathan Smedlow -- could accomplish -- even after they had made a mockery and a freak of him and consigned him to the terrible, intimate hell of Siamese twins.

      
“Freeze!” yelled a voice.

      
“You have the right to remain silent!” said another.

      
The policeman who now emerged from the impenetrable gloom behind the stainless steel instrument table and high-speed drill was holding -- with both hands, stretched at arms-length in front of him -- a large, black, ugly-looking revolver. In the sudden confusion Smedlow’s first impression (aside from the extreme shock and unpleasantness of seeing this gun) was that this policeman was young, too young, and that he had just exactly the kind of meaty, flat-topped head and piggy nose which he remembered from Scooter Hessenbacher -- the single most repugnant of the brainless rowdies who had delighted in jeering at his fat and dunking him when he was at camp.