Truly, I felt sorry for him. I went out of my way to shake his hand. "Sorry to see you go, Fred. I'm sure we'll meet again under better circumstances."
"Never trust women," Fred told me darkly. He paused on the running board to belt his trenchcoat, then stepped in and slammed the vacuum-sealed door. Off he went with a whir of wings. A fine man and a pleasure to know, MacLuhan. I shall have to give some thought to making things up to him.
I then hurried back to my room. With so many gone, it would now be easier for Leona and me to carry on our assignation. Unfortunately I had not had time to arrange the final details with her. And I had a lover's anxiety that she might not even arrive. The day had been a trying one, after all, and carezza is not a practice for harried nerves.
Still, I waited, knowing it would be a lover's crime should she arrive and find me sleeping.
At half past one I was rewarded by a dim flicker of lamplight under the door. But it passed me.
I eased the door open silently. A figure in a white nightgown was creeping barefoot around the dome's circular hall. She was too short and squat for the willowy Leona, and her trailing, loosened hair was not blonde, but an unremarkable brown. It was Claire Berger.
I tied my pajamas and shuffled after her with the stealth of a medieval assassin.
She stopped, and scratched at a door with one coy forefinger. I did not need my ward to tell me this was the room of Dr. Somps. The door opened at once, and I ducked back just in time to avoid Claire's quick glance up and down the hall.
I gave the poor devils fifteen minutes. I retired to my room, wrote a note, and returned to Somps's door. It was locked, of course, but I scratched lightly and slid my note under it.
The door opened after a hurried conclave of whispers. I slipped inside. Claire was glowering, her face flushed. Somps's fists were clenched. "All right," he grated. "You have us. What is it you want?"
"What does any man want?" I said gently. "A little companionship, some open sympathy, the support of a soul mate. I want Leona."
"I thought that was it," Somps said, trembling. "She's been so different since Seattle. She never liked me, but she didn't hate me, before. I knew there was someone after her. Well, I have a surprise for you, Mr. de Kooning. Leona doesn't know this, but I've talked to Hillis and I know. He's almost bankrupt! His firm is riddled with debts!"
"Oh?" I said, interested. "So?"
"He's thrown it all away, trying to bring back the past," Somps said, the words tumbling out of him. "He's paid huge salaries to his old hangers-on and backed a hundred dud ideas. He was depending on my success to restore his fortunes. So without me, without the Dragonfly, his whole empire falls apart!" He glared at me defiantly.
"Really?" I said. "That's terrific! I always said Leona was enslaved by this nonsense. Empire indeed; why, the whole thing's a paper tiger. Why, the old fraud!" I laughed aloud. "Very well, Marvin. We're going to have it out with him right now!"
"What?" Somps said, paling.
I gave him a bracing whack on the shoulder. "Why carry on the pretense? You don't want Leona; I do. So there's a few shreds of money involved. We're talking about love, man! Our very happiness! You want some old fool to come between you and Claire?"
Somps flushed. "We were only talking."
"I know Claire better than that," I said gallantly. "She's Mari Kuniyoshi's friend. She wouldn't have stayed here just to trade technical notes."
Claire looked up, her eyes reddened. "You think that's funny? Don't ruin it for us. Please," she begged. "Don't ruin Marvin's hopes. We have enough against us as it is."
I dragged Somps out the door by main force and closed it behind me. He wrenched free and looked ready to hit me. "Listen," I hissed. "That woman is devoted to you. How dare you trample her finer feelings? Have you no sympathy, no intuition? She puts your plans above her own happiness."
Somps looked torn. He stared at the door behind him with the aspect of a man poleaxed by infatuation. "I never had time for this. I... I never knew it could be like this."
"Damn it, Somps, be a man!" I said. "We're having it out with the old dragon right now."
We hustled downstairs to Hillis's suite. I tried the double doors; they were open.
Groaning came from the bedroom.
My dear MacLuhan. You are my oldest and closest friend. Often we have been one another's confessors. You remember the ancient pact we swore, as mere schoolchildren, never to tell each other's mischiefs, and to hold each other's secrets silent to the grave. The pact has served us well, and many times it has eased us both. In twenty years of friendship we have never given each other cause to doubt. However, we are now adults, men steeped in life and its complications; and I'm afraid that you must bear the silent burden of my larger mischiefs with me.
I know you will not fail me, for the happiness of many people rests on your discretion. But someone must be told.
The bedroom door was locked. Somps, with an engineer's directness, knocked out its hinge pins. We rushed inside.
Dr. Hillis had fallen off the bed. A deadly litter on the bedside table told the awful truth at once. Hillis, who had been treating himself with the aid of the servile human doctor, had access to the dangerous drugs normally safely stored in machines. Using an old hand-powered hypodermic, he had injected himself with a fatally large dose of painkiller.
We tugged his frail body back into the bed. "Let me die," the old man croaked. "Nothing to live for."
"Where's his doctor?" I said.
Somps was sweating freely in his striped cotton pajamas. "I saw him leave earlier. The old man threw him out, I think."
"All bloodsuckers," Hillis said, his eyes glazed. "You can't help me. I saw to that. Let me die, I deserve to."
"We can keep him moving, maybe," Somps said. "I saw it in an old film once." It seemed a good suggestion, with our limited knowledge of medicine.
"Ignorant," Hillis muttered, as the two of us pulled his limp arms over our shoulders. "Slaves to machines! Those wards-handcuffs! I invented all that... I killed the scientific tradition." He began weeping freely "Twenty-six hundred years since Socrates and then, me. He glared and his head rolled like a flower on a stalk. "Take your hands off me, you decadent weasels!"
"We're trying to help you, Doctor," Somps said, frightened and exasperated.
"Not a cent out of me, Somps," the old man raved weakly. "It's all in the book."
I then remembered what Leona had told me about the old man's book, to be published on his suicide. "Oh, no," I said. "He's going to disgrace us all and disgrace himself."
"Not a penny, Somps. You failed me. You and your stupid toys."
We dropped him back onto the bed. "It's horrible," Somps said, trembling. "We're ruined."
It was typical of Somps that he should think of himself at a moment like that. Anyone of spirit would have considered the greater interests of society. It was unthinkable that this titan of the age should die in such squalid circumstances. It would give no one happiness, and would cause pain and disillusion to uncounted millions I pride myself that I rose to the challenge. My brain roared with sudden inspiration. It was the most sublime moment of my life.
Somps and I had a brief, fierce argument. Perhaps logic was not on my side, but I ground him down with the sheer passion of my conscience. By the time I had returned with our clothes and shoes, Somps had fixed the door and disposed of the evidence of drugs. We dressed with frantic haste.
By now the old man's lips were bluish and his limbs were like wax. We hustled him into his wheelchair, wedging him in with his buffalo robe. I ran ahead, checking that we were not seen, while Somps wheeled the dying man along behind me. Luckily there was a moon out. It helped us on the trail to the Throne of Adonis. It was a long exhausting climb, but Somps and I were men possessed.