The Lower Deep (31 page)

"No! Of course I don't!"

"You will, though. Just be patient."

"Did you bring the Cuban fellow, Mendoza, here as well? Is this where he came when he was missing?"

"Now, George—"

"You
did, didn't you? You and he disappeared the same night!"

"Well, all right, if you insist. I brought him here, yes."

"But he was too young and tough for you, wasn't he? You couldn't control him the way you did the others. He got away and made it back."

"If you say so, George." Her face wore a little frown as she turned her head to look at him. "You seem to know a good deal about all this. More than I thought you did. How do you know so much?"

George wondered whether he ought to tell her.

"Well?" she persisted.

He tried to put her off with a shrug. It was bad enough she had him in her hellish power. If he told her most of his information had come from Louis Clermont, she might go after the good doctor, too. "There's talk around," he said to satisfy her. "I've heard it in different places."

"Interesting." Alice narrowed her eyes at him. "I'll have to pass the word along. Perhaps the people of Dame Marie are sharper than I've been giving them credit for."

That was stupid of me, George thought. I should have kept my fool mouth shut.

Trudging beside her along the hard sand at the water's edge, he turned his head now to study the sea. Although empty of boats, it looked alive in the moonlight, as though a vast school of fish in its depths was causing a ripple effect at the surface.

"Fish slick," some Stateside fishermen called it. You would see pelicans diving on it, and while they could seldom dive deep enough to get the
meal they hoped for, the fish were there and could sometimes be circled with a net. He had seen a lot of fish caught that way.

Why did he have a sudden feeling there actually were things out there under this slick? Not fish, but other things. And that they knew Alice and he were here on the beach?

"Henninger got away from you, too, didn't he?" he said to the woman beside him. "Even though he's had these damned nightmares longer than any of us, and walked in his sleep as well."

"If you want to think so, George."

George halted. As he peered at the moonlit sea, the fear held him completely in its grip and he shivered as though the warm, humid night had become frigid. "I'm not as tough as Henninger and Mendoza, am I? You've lived with me, you know me better, so there's no way I can break away. Are you taking me out there?"

"Yes, George. I'm taking you out there."

"Why, for God's sake? To drown me?"

"Oh, no. Nothing as unexciting as that. You're going to have the time of your life out there."

Despite his admission of helplessness, George let his deep-down anger boil up again. There at the edge of the sea, certain he had nothing to lose, he wheeled to face her and even dared to seize her by the arms. "Who's with you in all this?" he demanded wildly. "You can't be doing it alone; you haven't the brains or the power. Who, damn it? Is it that St. Joe cook at the alcoholics' place? The one they've been suspecting all along? Are you into voodoo, for Christ's sake?"

She shrugged, and his hands fell away from her
arms. Then all she had to do was reach out, touch him on the chest, and say, "Come, George." With that she turned away, smiling, and went down the sandy slope to the forest of coral boulders in the gully.

In the moonlight, that eerie world of tunnels, fissures, and small caves was as frightening to George as everything else that was happening. Sensing this might be his last chance ever to escape, he did try to resist being led into it but could not, even though Alice walked a half dozen paces ahead of him and picked her way through the coral jungle without looking back.

When she stopped at last, he came up behind her like a sleepwalker and saw in front of them a circular patch of sand about ten feet across, sheltered by massive mounds of rock. In the circle was a coffin-shaped bench of coral, and on it, with her back to them, sat a woman. Rising, she turned to face them.

Tears filled George's eyes as he looked at her face. It was a mask void of all expression, a caricature that appeared to have been shaped out of clay. Those once-eloquent brown eyes returned his gaze with a glassy stare. She was trapped in the same way he was trapped, he realized.

He took a step toward her, lifting his arms. "Dannie—oh, God—"

"Be quiet, George," Alice commanded.

He froze.

"That's better." Alice turned to Dannie André. "I see you have been obedient. Of course, I expected you to be."

"You know I had to be," Dannie replied indifferently.

"Yes. Well, there's no need for us to waste any time here, is there? Get undressed, please."

Dannie took hold of her pale yellow dress, lifted it over her head, and dropped it onto the sand. She took off her bra and panties and stepped out of her sandals. She was not wearing stockings. Naked, she stood there like a golden statue in the moonlight, waiting to be told what to do next.

Alice took something from a pocket of her pantsuit. As she passed it to Dannie, George saw it was a pink plastic bottle that he had seen more than once in her bedroom. Presumably it held some kind of lotion.

"Dab some of this on, darling," Alice directed. "All over, please."

"What—is it?"

"To keep the sharks away. If Lawton Lindo had had some, he'd have been washed ashore intact instead of with some of his parts missing. Go on. A pretty tidbit like you should really attract the monsters." Her smile was ugly. "I'm sure you'll be attractive to others I'll introduce you to."

Obediently Dannie unstoppered the bottle and applied some of its contents to her body. It was a transparent liquid, George observed. Oily.

Why, oh, God, did Dannie have to be a part of this madness?

"Now you, George," Alice crooned.

He, too, removed his clothes and dropped them. When she took the bottle from Dannie and handed it to him, he smeared some of the repellent on himself. She reclaimed the bottle and gathered up the discarded clothing.

"All right, you two. I'll just put these things in a little hiding place we have here. Now don't go away, and don't get chummy, please. This isn't your bedroom, Dannie, and we're not here for pleasure—not even I. We have a lot to do tonight."

She disappeared from the sandy amphitheater, and George turned to Dannie. It took him a long time to put his thoughts into words; there was a definite struggle involved. "My God, darling," he finally managed, "did you have to come here tonight?"

She, too, seemed to have trouble speaking. Perhaps Alice had created some kind of barrier between them with her power over their minds. But Dannie finally whispered a reply. "Yes, George, I had—to—come."

"But—"

"After you—left me—this afternoon—something happened." Dannie voiced each syllable as though even shaping her lips to it required great concentration. "Happened to—my mind, I mean. Then I remembered, George. She—she came to me in the schoolyard when I was leaving for home. She took hold—she took hold of my hands, and looked at me so—so strangely." The voice became almost inaudible, but then, with an effort, Dannie succeeded in putting new strength into it. "I should have told you about it when you were at the house, but it didn't seem important then. I should—I should have told you long ago that she—she and I often had lunch together and . . . Oh, George, I'm so sorry! Now I know she was gaining some terrible power over me. Over my mind. I've been so stupid about her . . ."

George stared at her and felt his heart weeping. This was the Dannie André he so much admired? The free spirit who had moved out of the nuns' school and rented a house from Louis Clermont because she had to shed the shackles and be independent? The woman he was so fiercely, gently, wholly in love with? What in the name of all things holy had Alice done to her?

But then, what had Alice done to him?

Dannie took in a shuddering breath and continued. "George—where is she taking us? What's happening?"

Suddenly reappearing, Alice answered that. "Don't be impatient, darling. You'll find out soon enough, both of you. Are we ready?"

She, too, was naked now.

"Come, then!" No longer mocking, her voice cracked like a whip, and with a commanding jerk of her head she strode from the amphitheater. Back through the forest of coral and out of the gully to the beach, Dannie followed her in zombie-like obedience, with George stumbling along in the rear.

Their guide stopped at the sea's edge and waited for them to come up to her, Dannie on her left, George on her right. "Just remember all the things you have learned about swimming and breathing, and you will have no trouble," she said matter-of-factly. "Even if you're not quite aware of it, I've been teaching you for weeks and you know all you need to know to be very good at this. Ready, are you?"

"Yes," Dannie said mechanically.

"I'm ready," George muttered.

"Then come!"

Like figures in a water ballet they advanced slowly into the moonlit sea to the level of the leader's bare breasts—those precious breasts that must never be touched, George thought with unexpected clarity. Then, at a signal from Alice that was purely mental, they dived in unison and began their journey.

A
t quarter to six that morning the phone rang i
n Steve Spence's bedroom. The instrument there was an extension of the one in his office, installed a week before, at his request, because of the many strange happenings at the retreat.

"Steve? Louis Clermont." The voice of the Dame Marie doctor sounded weary and gravelly. "I'm sorry to have to call you at this hour, but I've got to talk to Henninger. It's an absolute must."

"Hang on. I'll get him."

Steve hurried down the stairs and along the lower hall to the manager's room. When his knock went unanswered, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. "Paul, Dr. Clermont wants you on the phone. You can take the call in my of—"

He found himself talking to an empty bed. Slept in this time, from the looks of it, but empty now.

He went loping down the hall to the bathroom. Henninger's toilet still needed a plumber—but found that empty, too, and for a few seconds stood undecided in the corridor. Then he hurried to the phone in his downstairs office.

"Louis, he isn't in his room. I'll have to find him and have him call you."

"Damn," Clermont said. Then, "Well, all right, but give me time to get back to Dame Marie. I'm in Le Cap at the hospital. Have him try me at home in an hour or so, eh?"

"How is the girl, Louis?"

"Tell you when I see you. No time now." The phone clicked. It really must be an urgent matter, Steve thought, for the usually laid-back Louis Clermont to have been so abrupt.

He began a hasty search of the Azagon for the missing man and half an hour later, still in his pajamas, angrily returned to his office with Robert Morrison in tow.

Aware that the doctor had reason to be annoyed with him, the Boston stockbroker was reluctant to follow him in, and hesitated in the doorway. He, too, was in pajamas and needed a shave. A small man, tight-lipped now, he fidgeted while waiting to be told what to do.

Motioning the man in, Steve sank onto the chair at his desk and folded his hands under his chin as both he and Clermont so often did when deep in thought. At last he said, "All right, Mr. Morrison. Let's have it once more, please. First, what time
did you see them go out, as near as you can remember it?"

Morrison came to the desk and stood there, looking distressed. "It was just after four-thirty, Doctor."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. As I've told you, I wasn't sleeping. From as early as eleven o'clock last night I had this uncomfortable—this really scary feeling that something was happening to me. Something mental, as if I were losing my ability to think. To think for myself, I mean. I kept feeling that something or someone was trying to get into my mind and think for me."

"You've had this notion before, you know, Robert. We've discussed it at some of our counseling sessions." '

"Yes, but not to such an extent. Last night it was really strong. It frightened me. I was actually afraid to sleep—just lay there praying daylight would come before what was happening got really out of hand and caused me to do something I shouldn't. Do you know what I really thought, Dr. Spence?"

Steve glanced at his watch, remembering his promise to have Paul Henninger phone Louis Clermont. "What did you really think, Robert?" After all, Morrison was fairly young—thirty-eight, was it?—and had been seriously ill when sent here for rehabilitation. A classic alcoholic with all the problems, physical, mental, and emotional.