Halfway down the mountain, their determination was undermined. The careening house hit a bump. Windows were shattered. Doors flew open. Cohabitating couples were strewn over the countryside like so many autumn leaves dropped by the wind. For an instant, the air was thick with nudity and lust. And then the scenery was enlivened by bodies writhing half in pain and half in the last clutch of passion. The scene was out of Dante, produced by DeMille, with incidental orgy by De Sade and Fellini.
Here a couple crashed through a neighbor’s bedroom window, landing in bed with the man and his wife, merging, so to speak, to make a thrashing foursome of fear and excitement and inextricably entwined erotica. There a naked cinema sex queen flew through the air like a Valkyrie, breasts floating in the breeze, and then landed in a bed of roses and immediately belly-whopped to one side and began picking thorns out of her million-dollar derriere. Over there a prominent producer, big-bellied and pompous, bounced down the mountain, betraying his greatest concern by holding onto himself as if he were a sports car driver who, by handling his stick-shift properly, might avert disaster. Other spot-shots-cameo? no, briefer, more subliminal images, to be accurate—-revealed a man landing in the upper fronds of a palm tree, clutching at the trunk with one hand, his other hand still entangled in the bra of the lady from whom he’d been wrenched; a lady with her ankles tangled in her panties, trying desperately to pull them up as she tumbled head over heels into the headlights of the oncoming traffic on the Freeway at the foot of the mountain, her safe journey across the four-lane highway a tribute to the reflexes of Los Angeles drivers who are used to coping with the most unexpected situations; and the couple behind her, still glued together-by fear? or uncontrollable passion?—who bounced into the rear seat of a passing convertible and were almost to Pasadena before they came to their senses or the driver discovered them; and others, many, many others. . .
Miraculously, the plate-glass window behind which Misty and I had been engaged did not break during the descent of the house. Equally miraculous was the fact that we emerged pretty much unscathed. If the house had landed on either its front or bottom portion, we would undoubtedly have been crushed to death. But it came to rest on its back wall, and so, while we were shaken up, we weren’t hurt.
The impact, however, did put an end to our love-making. We were wrenched apart and ricocheted off the walls for a moment until the last grinding motion ceased. Then, as if by instinct, we scrambled around picking up our clothes and pulling them on. As I was struggling with my pants, I happened to glance out the window. A cop was standing out there. He shot a flashlight beam into the area. His jaw dropped open. He stood there gawking. It was a moment before I realized he wasn’t ogling me, but Misty, in her hurry, she’d twisted her brassiere, and now she was trying in vain to invert one of her luscious breasts into the inverted cup. Finally she realized it was no use, took off the bra and started from scratch. When she’d clasped the bra, the cop turned his attention and his flashlight beam elsewhere. A moment later, dressed, the two of us left the house by the same side exit Rank had taken just before the house took off down the mountain.
As we emerged, I spotted the cop again. He was at the side of the highway, attempting to wave down cars with MD license plates. We drifted over to his vicinity and watched.
A Caddy convertible braked to a halt in answer to his flashlight signal. “What is it, officer?” A dapper, gray-haired man stuck his head out the window and inquired.
“There’s been an accident. Are you a doctor?” the cop asked.
“I am.”
“Some people may be hurt. Will you have a look at them?”
“All right. Where are they?”
“In the house there.” The cop pointed.
“In the house?”
“That’s right.”
“Sony. I don’t make house calls.”
“But this is an emergency,” the cop protested.
“I can't help that. It’s an agreement of our local medical society not to make house calls after dark. I have an obligation to my fellow doctors, after all. I will not be a fink!”
“Look,” the cop pleaded, “this is a drastic situation. Couldn’t you make an exception in the name of humanity? Please, Doctor - What’s your name?”
“Fink. Doctor Leonard Kildare Fink.”
“Well, don’t you think you owe it to these folks to help, Doctor Fink?”
“Mine is a higher obligation, an obligation to my fellow members of a noble profession. Sorry.” His head went back inside the car window and he quickly drove away.
The cop resumed trying to flush a doctor from the ayem traffic.
“Steve! Misty!” Our attention was distracted by Winthrop Van Ardsdale calling us. “Over here.” He was standing off to the side of the road with a small group of people. Misty and I joined them.
“You sure arranged a slam-bang finish for my home-coming party,” I told him.
“Have to maintain my reputation.“ He grinned. “But the party isn’t over, Steve, We're just shifting to a new location. A select group of your old friends, that is.”
“Oh? And just where are we going? And why? Don’t you think it's time to get home and catch some sleep?"
“Steve!” Misty was petulant. “You haven't turned into a square, have you?”
“Perish the thought. Just give me a pair of toothpicks to prop up my eyelids, and on to the festivities-—-wherever and whatever they may be.”
“We’re going to Voluptua’s place,” Winthrop told me. “Dwight's got some acid, and we’re going to take a trip.”
That brought me up short. “Acid” is the hip term for LSD, and “a trip” is what the acid-heads call the process of getting high on hallucinatory drugs. Like most people, I’d heard and read a lot of conflicting things about LSD, but I’d never tried it. Like some, I’d been intrigued at the idea of being able to release the creative forces inside me. I'd never been quite intrigued enough to do anything about it, but now it looked like I was going to be given the chance.
Holding onto Misty, I followed along with Winthrop and his group and we all piled into a car. I found myself in the back seat with Misty on my lap. Dwight Floyd Rank was wedged in beside me.
“You sure got out in the nick of time,” I observed to him. “I'd call that good architectural judgment."
“Just luck.” Rank sloughed it off.
“What made you leave?” I was pressing and having a hard time not sounding too suspicious.
“Well, I was girl-less,” he said easily. “And it was no party to hang around in that condition.”
“You sure picked a swinging exit,” I told him. “Just happened to spot you going down that ladder.”
“Well, I didn't want to have to go back through the house stumbling all over those pretzel bodies making out. It was simpler to leave that way.” There was silence for a moment, and when Rank spoke again he changed the subject. “You know, I sure was surprised to hear you were in town, Steve.”‘ There was something a little peculiar in the way he spoke, as if he was choosing his words very carefully.
“Oh? Why?" I answered.
“There was a rumor around that you’d died in Washington.” His voice was casual, but still with that undertone of caution.
“No kidding?” I laughed and tossed him the old Mark Twain line. “Well, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
“I guess they must have buried the wrong fellow.” Rank said it like a return quip, but I wondered.
My brain was whirling, making out a case. If Rank was one of the Russian agents I was seeking, then could it be possible that they’d discovered the truth about who was really dead and tipped him off? The thought opened a Pandora box. Rank was an architect. He’d built the house which had tumbled down the mountain. He knew all about the stresses and strains which might bring about such an accident. I remembered the flushing toilet. Was that the straw that broke the house’s camel-hump and sent it rolling? Had Rank known it and applied the toilet as a secret weapon to flush me down the drain? Or had it merely been coincidence? And was his quick exit just as the flush was building up to disaster also coincidence? Only a plumber might know for sure; I hadn’t the know-how, myself, to plumb these particular depths.