Someone was pounding on the door, noisily working at the lock. It opened suddenly, and the nurse came in, almost at a run. It was the nurse I had seen earlier, the bright-faced young woman. None too gently she brushed Manny aside and seated me comfortably in a chair. She felt my pulse and forehead, gave me a few fussy little pats. Then she turned on Manny, who was casually adjusting her clothes.
“Just what happened here, miss? Why was that door locked?”
Manny grinned at her impudently. “A broken-down bed and a locked door, and you ask me what happened? How long have you been a woman, dear?”
The nurse turned brick red. Her arm shot out, the finger at its end pointing sternly toward the door. “I want you out of here, Miss! Right this minute!”
“Oh, all right,” Manny said. “Unless I can do something else for Britt...”
“No,” I said. “Please do as the nurse says, Manny.”
She did so, lushly compact hips swinging provocatively. The nurse looked after her, a little downcast, I thought, as though doing some comparative weighing and finding herself sadly wanting.
An orderly removed the collapsed bed and wheeled in another. I was put into it, and a doctor examined me and pronounced me indestructible.
“Just the same,” he said, winking at me lewdly, “you lay off the double sacking with types like that pocket Venus that was in here. I’d say she could spot you a tail wind and still beat you into port.”
“Oh, she could not,” the nurse said, reddening gloriously the moment the words were out of her mouth. “How would you know, anyway?”
“We-ll...” He gave her a wisely laconic grin. “How would you?”
He slapped unsuccessfully at her bottom on the way out. She jerked away, greatly flustered, and darted a glance at me. And, of course, she found nothing in my expression but earnest goodwill.
She was much prettier than I had thought at first glance. She had superb bone structure, and her hair, too austerely coiffed beneath her nurse’s cap, was deep auburn.
“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before today,” I said. “Are you new on this floor?”
“Well...” She hesitated. “I guess I’m new on all of them. I mean, I’m a substitute nurse.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, I think you’re a fine nurse, and I’m sure you’ll have regular duty before long.”
She twitched pleasurably, like a petted puppy. Then her scrubbed-clean face fell, and she sighed heavily.
“I thought I was going to have steady work starting tomorrow,” she said. “Steady for a while, anyway. But after what happened today — well, I’ll be held responsible. The bed wouldn’t have been broken down if I hadn’t allowed the door to be locked. You could have been seriously injured, and it’s all my fault, and—”
“Wait!” I held up a hand. “Hold it a minute. It wasn’t your fault, it was mine, and I won’t allow the hospital to blame you for it. You just have your supervisor talk to me, and I’ll straighten her out fast.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rainstar, but the supervisor has already reported the matter to Sergeant Claggett. She had to, you know. Her orders were to report anything unusual that happened to you. So...”
I was the regular duty the nurse had hoped to have. The doctors felt that for a time at least, when I returned home, I should have a full-time nurse available. And she had seemed a likely candidate for the job. But Jeff Claggett would never approve of her now.
“I really blew it,” she said, with unconscious humor. “I’ll bet the sergeant is really disgusted with me.”
I said loftily that she was to forget the sergeant. After all, I was the one who had to be satisfied, and she satisfied me in every respect, so she could consider herself hired.
“Oh, that’s wonderful, just wonderful!” She wriggled delightedly. “You’re sure Sergeant Claggett will approve?”
“If he doesn’t, he’ll have me to deal with,” I said. “But I’m sure it’ll be fine with him.”
But I wasn’t sure, of course. And, of course, it wasn’t fine with him.
16
He returned to the hospital shortly after I had finished my dinner that evening. He had been busy since leaving me, checking at the cocktail lounge where I had gotten a drink in my face and with the mulatto woman who managed the quiet little hotel. In neither case had his investigation come to aught but naught.
The bartender had quit his job and departed town for parts unknown to the lounge owner. Or so, at least, the latter said. The hotel had the same owners it had always had — a large eastern realty company, which was the absentee landlord for literally hundreds of properties. The manageress owned no dog, denied any knowledge of one, and also denied that she had done anything but rent me and my “wife” a room.
“So that’s that,” Claggett said. “If you like, I can put out a John Doe warrant on the bartender, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble. Assuming we could run him down, which I doubt, throwing a drink on you wouldn’t add up to more than a misdemeanor.”
“By itself,” I said with a nod. “But when you add it on to the business with the dog, and—”
“How are you going to add it on? You’re a married man, but you register into this hotel with another woman as Mr. and Mrs. Phoneyname. And you tied your hands right there. The manageress was lying, sure. But try to prove it and you’ll look like a jerk.”
He seemed rather cross and out of sorts. I suggested as much, adding that I hoped I wasn’t the cause of same.
He gave me a look, seemed on the point of saying something intemperate. Then he sighed wearily and shook his head.
“I guess you just can’t help it,” he said tiredly. “You seem incapable of learning from experience. You know, or should know, that Miss Aloe is out to harm you. You don’t know how far she intends to go, which makes her all the more dangerous to you. But you let her get rid of Pat, you let her lock the door, you let her come back to the bed and make certain adjustments to it—”
“Look,” I protested. “She didn’t do all those things separately with a time lapse between them. She’s a very quick-moving little girl, and she did everything in a matter of seconds. Before I knew what was happening, she—” I broke off. “Uh, what do you mean, certain adjustments?” I said.
“The bed goes up and down, right? Depending on whether you want to sit up or sleep or whatever. And here, right here where I’m pointing—” He pointed. “Do you see it, that little lever?”
“I see it,” I said.
“Well, that’s the safety. It locks the bed into the position you put it in.”
“I know,” I said. “They explained that to me the first day I was here.”
“That’s good,” Claggett said grimly. “That’s real good. Well, if Miss Aloe was out to fracture your skull, she couldn’t have had a more cooperative subject. You let her flip the safety and use her weight to give you an extra-hard bang against the floor. You didn’t let her tie a rocket to you, but I imagine you would if she’d asked you.”
My mouth was suddenly very dry. I took a sip or two of water, then raised the glass and drained it.
“I thought it was just a silly accident,” I said. “It never occurred to me that she’d try anything here in the hospital.”
“Well, watch yourself from now on,” Claggett said. “You’re going to be thrown together a lot, I understand, in the course of doing these pamphlets. Or am I correct about that?”
“Well...” I shrugged. “That depends largely on Manny. She’s calling the turns. The amount of time we spend together depends on her.”