“The Chinook. The big lolly. The inn on a pin.” Werry paused to look affronted. “Buck thinks he can still get some of his old man’s money back out of it. He sees it as a luxury airport hotel, convention centre, billion dollar brothel, Olympic games stadium, the United Nations building, Disney planet, last filling station before Mars… You name it — Buck thinks he’s got it.”
Hasson gave a sympathetic smile, recognising the kind of bitter rhetoric used by men suffering from the age-old complaint of a thorn in the side. “He was worked up about it this afternoon.”
“What does he expect me to do?”
“From what I can gather, he’s coming over to tell you what he expects. I told him I’d pass the word on.”
“Thanks.” Werry furrowed the carpet with the toe of a glossy boot. “Sometimes I wish I’d …” He glanced at Hasson from under lowered brows and suddenly smiled, resuming the guise of the insouciant revolutionary colonel. His fingers traced the pencil line of his moustache as though making sure it was still in place.
“Listen, Rob, we’ve got better things to talk about,” he said. “You came here to forget about police work and I’m going to make sure you do. I want you to report downstairs in thirty minutes, spruced up for a party and thirsty as hell. Got it? Got it?”
“I probably could use a drink,” Hasson said. Too much had happened to him in one day and he knew from experience that it would take at least a quarter-litre of whisky to guarantee an easy descent into sleep and no dreams of flying.
“That’s more like my boy.” Werry slapped him on the shoulder and left the room in a flurry of air currents which were scented with a peculiar mixture of talc, leather and machine oil.
Hasson glanced regretfully at the bed and the comfortably glowing television set, then began to do some belated unpacking. Dreadful though the prospect of a party was, it offered him more leeway than an evening cooped up with Al Werry and the three other members of his household. It should be possible for him to get into a corner near the booze supply and sit tight until he could decently retire for the night. That way he would have won through to the next day, when he could think about regrouping his forces to withstand fresh onslaughts.
He gathered up his toiletries, opened the bedroom door a fraction and listened to make sure there was no chance of encountering May or Ginny Carpenter, then set out with stealthy tread towards the bathroom. Part way along the landing he reached another door which was slightly ajar, and was intrigued to see that the room beyond was being alternately lit up and plunged into total darkness every few seconds. Hasson hurried on by, went into the bathroom and spent fifteen minutes an having a shower and generally making himself presentable. He renewed an earlier finding that it is always a stranger who looks back at one from a strange minor. The only explanation he could think of was that people who are familiar with the positioning of their mirrors unconsciously pose, straining towards a desired image of themselves, before turning towards their reflections. In this case, Hasson was taken unawares by the sight of a dark-haired, unobtrusively muscular man whose face was marred by an apprehensive tautness around the mouth and eyes. He stood at the mirror consciously composing his features, trying to eliminate the traces of swain and self-pity he saw there, then left the bathroom and went back along the landing. The intermediate door was still ajar and the light was still flashing on and off behind it. Hasson passed by, but immediately was troubled by fears of some bizarre electrical fault which could ignite the dry timber of the house. He went back, eased the door open a little further and looked into the room. Theo Werry was sitting cross- legged on the bed, holding a table lamp directly in front of his eyes and steadily operating the switch. Hasson backed away as silently as possible and returned to his room, filled with the shameful realisation that there were worse injuries than ruptured spinal discs and broken bones.
Moving slowly and thoughtfully, he dressed in comfortable slacks and a soft maroon shirt, and by the time he had finished guests had begun to arrive for the party. Their voices came up through the floor in irregular waves. They were loud, relaxed and cheerful, as befitted members of the exclusive club for those who felt at home in Al Werry’s house — a club to which Hasson did not belong. He opened the bedroom door three times and turned back three times before mustering enough resolve to go downstairs.
The first person he saw on entering the front room was May Carpenter, now dressed in a few scraps of white diaphanous material, held together by fine gold chains. She turned towards him, smiling, almost swamping him with a composite projection of every screen sex goddess he could bring to mind. He blinked, trying to absorb the visual impact, then became aware of other women in similarly exotic attire and men in colourful braided jackets. It dawned on him that, contrary to the impression he had received from Werry, the occasion was one for dressing up. Everybody, a silent voice reprimanded, is looking at you. He hesitated in the doorway, wondering if there was any way in which he could withdraw.
“There he is,” Al Werry shouted. “Come in and meet the gang, Rob.” Werry came to him, glass in hand, incongruously dressed in his reeve’s uniform minus only the tunic and cap. He gripped Hasson’s elbow and led him towards the others.
Lost for something to say, Hasson glanced down at Werry’s uniform. “Are you on call tonight?”
Werry looked surprised. “Of course not”
“I just thought. . “Say hello to Frank and Carol,” Werry put in and then went on to perform a bewildering series of introductions from which Hasson failed to salvage even one name. Numbed by the succession of smiles, handshakes and amiable greetings, Hasson arrived like a piece of flotsam at a table of drinks presided over by Ginny Carpenter, who was wearing the same coppertex suit he had seen her in earlier. She gazed at him without moving, implacable as a suit of armour.
“Give the man a drink.” Werry said, chuckling. “That’s Rob’s special brand -the Lockhart’s. Give him a good belt,”
Ginny picked up the bottle, examined its label critically and poured out a small measure. “Anything with it?”
“Soda water, thanks.” Hasson accepted the glass and, under Werry’s benign scrutiny, swallowed most of its contents. He was unable to prevent himself flinching as he discovered the whisky had been diluted with tonic water.
“All right, is it?” Werry said. “It took me days to track down that bottle.”
Hasson nodded. “It’s just that I never tried it with tonic water before.”
Expressions of incredulity and delight appeared on Werry’s face. “Don’t tell me Ginny gave you the wrong mixer! What a woman!”
“He oughta to be drinking good rye and ginger ale, same as everybody else,” Ginny said unrepentantly, and Hasson knew she had ruined his drink on purpose. Baffled and depressed by her hostility, he turned away and stood without speaking until Werry had furnished him with a fresh glass, which this time was brimming with almost neat whisky. He moved into a quiet corner and began working on his drink, methodically and joylessly, hoping to anaesthetise himself down to a level at which the nearness of strangers would be unimportant.
The party went on all about him, forming and dissolving different centres of activity, gradually growing louder in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed. Al Werry, apparently feeling he had discharged all his obligations to Hasson, circulated continuously among his friends, never staying more than a few seconds with any one group, looking healthy, spruce and competent — and totally out of place — in his chocolate-brown uniform. May Carpenter spent most of the time surrounded by at least three men, seeming to be fully absorbed in responding to their attention and yet always managing to intercept his gaze when he looked in her direction. It came to him that Werry and May had one thing in common in that their characters were completely impenetrable as far as he was concerned. In each case the physical presence was so overwhelming as to obscure the inner being. May, for example, was behaving exactly as if she found Hasson interesting, in spite of the fact that he had virtually ceased to exist as far as women were concerned. Perhaps she had a strong maternal instinct: perhaps she met all men on the same terms — Hasson had no way to tell. He toyed with the problem at odd moments between bouts of conversation with men and women who took it in turns to relieve his solitude. The noise level in the room continued to increase. Hasson persevered with his drinking until he had finished the half-bottle of scotch and was obliged to try the rye, which he found bland but reasonably acceptable.