The door opened and a bright-faced young nurse came in. She gave me a quick smile, then said something to Jeff that was too low for me to hear.
He nodded, dismissing her, and turned back to me. “Have to run, I guess,” he said. “Okay? Everything all right?”
“Absolutely perfect,” I said bitterly. “How else could it be for a guy with a schizoid wife and a paranoid girlfriend? If one of them can’t send me to prison or the electric chair, the other will put me in the nut-house or the morgue! Well, screw it.” I plopped back on the pillows. “What are you chatting with the Aloes about?”
“Oh, this and that,” he said with a shrug. “About you mainly, I suppose. They’re very concerned about you and anxious to see you, of course...”
“Of course!”
“So, if it’s all right with you, I’ll have them drop in around five.”
15
There is something utterly unnerving about an absolutely honest man, a man like Sergeant Jeff Claggett. You rationalize and lie to him until your supply of deceit is exhausted; and his questions and comments are never brutal or blunt. He simply persists, when you have already had your say, looking at you when you can no longer look at him. And, finally, though nothing has been admitted, you know you have been in the fight of your life.
So I don’t know what Jeff said that afternoon to Manuela and Patrick Xavier Aloe. It is likely that he was quite offhand and casual, that he said nothing at all of intrinsic significance. But they came into my room, a tinge of strain to their expressions, and Manny’s lips seemed a little stiff as she stooped to kiss me.
I shook hands with Pat and stated that I was fine, just fine. They stated that that was fine, just fine, and that I was looking fine, just fine.
There was an awkward moment of silence after that, while I smiled at them and was smiled back at. Manny shattered the tension by bursting into giggles. They made her very nice to look at, shaking and shivering her in all her shakable, shivery parts.
Pulse pounding, I tentatively joined in her laughter. But Pat saw no cause for amusement.
“What’s with you?” He glared at her. “We got a sick man here. He gets a damned stupid joke pulled on him, and it puts him in the hospital. You think that’s funny?”
“Now, Uncle Pat...” Manny gestured placatingly.
“Britt lands in the hospital, and we get cops nosing all around! Maybe you like that, huh? You think cops are funny?”
“There was only one, Pat. Just Sergeant Claggett, and he’s a family friend, isn’t he, Britt?”
“A very old friend,” I said. “Jeff — Sergeant Claggett, that is — would be concerned regardless of why I was in the hospital.”
“Well...” Pat Aloe was somewhat reassured. “Anything else happen to you recently, Britt? I mean, any little jokes like this last one?”
I hesitated, feeling Manny’s eyes on me. Wondering what Jeff would consider the best answer. Pat’s gaze moved from me to Manny, and she smiled at him sunnily.
“Of course nothing else has happened to him, Pat. This is his first time in the hospital, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” I said, and then gave him the qualified truth. “There’s been nothing like this before.”
He relaxed at that, his map-of-Ireland face creasing in a grin. He said he was damned glad to hear it, because they’d been getting A-OK reactions to the pamphlets, and he’d hate to see them loused up.
“And we’d hate to lose the tax write-off,” Manny said. “Don’t forget that. Uncle Pat.”
“Shut up,” Pat said, and to me, “Then everything’s copacetic, right, Britt? You’re gonna go right on working for us?”
“I’d like to,” I said. “I understand that I’ll be under medical supervision for a while, have to take things kind of easy. But if that’s all right with you...”
He boomed that, of course, it was all right. “And don’t you worry about the hospital and doctor bills. We got kind of a private insurance plan that takes care of everything in the medical line.”
“That’s great,” I said. “I’m obliged to you.”
“Forget it. Whatever makes you happy, makes us happy, right, Manny? Anything that’s jake with Britt — Britt and his friend, Sergeant Claggett—”
“Is jake with us,” Manny said emphatically. “Right, Uncle Pat! Right on!”
And Pat shot her a warning look. “One more thing, Britt, baby. I was way out of line saying anything about you and Manny getting married. What the hell? That’s your business, not mine.”
“Right!” said Manny.
“You want a bat in the chops?” He half raised his hand. “Keep askin’, and you’re gonna get it.”
I broke in to say quite truthfully that I would have been glad to marry Manny if I had been free to do so. Pat said, sure, sure, so who was kicking? “It’s okay with me, and it’s okay with her. She don’t like it, she can shove it up her ass.”
“Right back at you, you sawed-off son of a bitch,” said Manny, and she made an upward jabbing motion with one finger.
Pat leaped. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her so vigorously that her head seemed to oscillate, her hair flying out from it in a golden blur. He released her with a shove that slammed her into the wall. And the noise of his angry breathing almost filled the room.
I felt a little sick. Savagery like this was something I had never seen before. As for Manny...
Something indefinable happened to her face — a flickering of expressions that wiped it free of expression, then caused it to crinkle joyously, to wreathe itself in a cherubic smile.
Pat looked away, gruffly abashed. “Let’s go.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Get out of here, and let Britt get some rest.”
“You go ahead,” she said. “I want to kiss Britt goodnight.”
“Who’s stopping you? You kissed him in front of me before.”
“Huh-uh. Not this way I didn’t.”
He gave me an embarrassed glance, then shrugged and said he could stand it if I could. He told me to take it easy and left. And Manny crossed to the door, locked it, and come back to the bed. She looked down, then bent down so close that her breasts brushed against me.
“Go ahead,” she whispered. “Grab a handful.”
“Now, dammit, Manny!...” I tried to sit up. “Listen to me, Manny!”
“Look,” edging her blouse down, “look how nice they are.”
“I said listen to me!”
“Oh, all right,” she said poutingly. “I’m listening.”
“You’ve got to stop it,” I said. “We’ll forget what’s already happened. Just say I had it coming and call it quits. But there can’t be any more, understand? And don’t ask me any more what!”
“Any more what?”
“Please,” I said. “I’m trying to help you. If you’ll just stop now...”
“But I really don’t know what you mean, darling. If you’ll just tell me what you want me to stop, what else I shouldn’t do...”
“All right,” I said. “I’ve done my best.”
She studied me a moment, the tip of her finger in her mouth. Then she nodded, became pseudo-businesslike, declared that she knew just what I needed, and it so happened that she had brought a supply with her.
As I have noted previously, she moved very, very quickly when she chose. So she was on the bed, on top of me, before I knew what was happening, smothering me with softness, moving against me sensuously.
There was an abrupt metallic squeal from the bed, then a grating and a scraping and a crash. Instinctively, I jerked my head up, so it did not smash against the hard hospital floor. But my neck snapped, painfully, and Manny helped me to my feet, murmuring apologies.