Donald Westlake - The New Black Mask ( No 3 )

“Yes?” I frowned. “How do you mean?”

“She’s in the hospital, Britt. Saint Christopher’s. She’s been there since just before midnight last night. Two highly reputable doctors in attendance, and they’re not giving out any information nor allowing any visitors.”

I gulped, blinked at him stupidly. I moved my nose out of the way, and had a small drink of water.

“Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say, Britt?” He winked at me narrowly. “Kind of an unusual alibi, but she’s kind of an unusual girl.”

“Maybe she really is sick,” I said. “She could be.”

“So she could.” Claggett shrugged. “It’s practically a cinch that she is, in that hospital with those doctors. But that doesn’t keep it from being a very convenient time to be sick. She could’ve set the deal up, then put herself well out of the way of it with a nice, legitimate sickness.”

“Oh, well, yeah.” I nodded slowly. “A fake attempt at suicide. Or an appendicitis attack — acute but simulated.”

“Possibly, but not necessarily,” Claggett said, and then pointed out that Manny had been under a great deal of nervous stress. She had concealed it, but this itself had added to the tension. Finally, after doing that which only she could do, she had collapsed with exhaustion.

“It’s my guess that she did pretty much the same thing, after her husband’s death. About the only difference is that she needed more time to recuperate then, and she went into seclusion.”

I said that killing her husband would certainly have put a lot of strain on her. But where was the evidence that she had killed him? He was only one of many who had died during the hurricane.

“Right,” said Claggett, “but the other deaths were all from drowning or being buried under the wreckage. Her husband apparently was killed by flying timbers; in other words, he was out in the open at the time the hurricane struck. Of course, he could have been, and might have been. But…”

He broke off and spread his hands expressively. I wet my lips nervously, then brushed a hand against them.

“I see what you mean,” I said. “She could have battered the hell out of him, beaten him to death. Then dragged his body outside.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Claggett.

From the hallway, there came the muted clatter of dishes, the faint aromas of the noon meals. They were not exactly appetite-stimulating; and I had to swallow down nausea as Claggett and I continued our conversation.

“Jeff,” I said at last. “I just don’t see how I can go through with this. How the hell can I, under the circumstances?”

“You mean, seeing Miss Aloe?”

“Of course, that’s what I mean! I can’t do the pamphlets without seeing her. I’ll have to confer with her more or less regularly.”

“Well…” Claggett sighed, then shrugged. “If you can’t, you can’t.”

“Oh, hell,” I said miserably. “Naturally, I’ll go through with it. I’ve got no choice.”

“Good! Good!” he said. “Let’s hope you can get out of here within the next few days. The doctors tell me that aside from your nose, and your nerves, and—”

“There’s nothing they can do for me here that can’t be done at home,” I said. “And I want to get out of here. No later than tomorrow morning. This place is dangerous. It makes me nervous. A lot of people die in hospitals.”

Claggett chuckled knowingly. “Here we go again, hmm? You just take it easy, my friend. Calm down, and pull yourself together.”

I said I wasn’t being nutty, dammit. The hospital was dangerous, which had damn well been proved in my case. There were too many people around, and it was simply impossible to ward them off or to check on all of them.

“At home, I won’t have more than two visitors at most. Manny and, possibly, Pat Aloe. Only those two — only one of them, actually — will be all that have to be watched. I say that’s a hell of a lot better than the way it is here.”

Claggett deliberated briefly, and agreed with me. “If it’s all right with the doctors, it’s all right with me,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll be going now, but I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What about the nurse?”

“What? Oh, yes, she almost slipped my mind. Hadn’t decided about her yet, had I?”

“No, you hadn’t. You were going to talk to her when she came back from lunch.”

“Uh-huh. Well” — he glanced at his watch — “I’m going to have to go now. I’ll talk to her on the way out.”

He left before I could ask what he was going to say to her. But when she came in a few minutes later, I learned that he had okayed her for the job — but not very pleasantly.

“The very idea!” she said indignantly. “Saying he’d go after my hide if anything happened to you! I’d just like to see him try, dam him!”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “Bite your tongue, Kay.”

She looked blank, then caught my meaning and laughed. “I didn’t think how that sounded, Britt. Naturally, he isn’t going to try because nothing is going to happen to you.”

My lunch tray was brought in. Consommé with toast, vanilla custard, and tea. It looked reasonably good to me, but I ate almost none of it. I couldn’t. After a couple of sips of tea, I suddenly went to sleep.

Claggett called me that night to say that I would be checking out of the hospital in the morning. He told me the conditions under which I would be checking out and going from the hospital to my home. I listened, stunned, then sputtered profane objections.

He laughed uproariously. “But you just think about it, Britt. Think it over, and it doesn’t sound so crazy, does it? Sure, it’s his own idea, and I say it’s a good one. You couldn’t be any safer in your mother’s arms.”

I said that wasn’t very safe. My mother, the first woman judge of the State Circuit Court, had taken to the sauce harder than Dad.

“Thе poor old biddy dropped me on my head more times than she was overturned, and, believe me, they didn’t call her Reverse-Decision Rainstar for nothing.”

“Aaah, she wasn’t that bad.” Claggett chuckled.

But what do you think about this other? It’s the safest way, right?”

“Right,” I said.

Kay Nolton and I left the hospital next morning in the company of Pat Aloe and two very tough-looking guards. I don’t know whether Pat was armed or not, but the guards carried shotguns.

A very large black limousine with a uniformed chauffeur was waiting at the side entrance for us. I got into the backseat between the two guards. Kay rode in front between Pat and the chauffeur. Pat jabbed a finger at him, and nodded to me.

“This is the character that was supposed to have picked you up at the restaurant that night two, three months ago, Britt. Too damned stupid to do what he’s told, but who the hell ain’t these days?”

The man grinned sheepishly. Pat scowled at him for a moment, then turned his gaze on Kay. Looked at her long and thoughtfully.

She jerked her head around suddenly, and looked at him.

“Yes?” she said. “Something wrong?”

“I’ve seen you before,” he said. “Where was it?”

“Nowhere. You’re mistaken.”

“You guys back there! Where have I seen her?”

The guards leaned forward, examined Kay meticulously. They made a big business out of squinting at her, stroking their chins with pseudo-shrewdness, and the like — a pantomime of great minds at work. Pat put an end to the charade with a rude order to knock it off, for Nellie’s sake.

“What about you, Johnnie?” — to the chauffeur; and then, disgustedly, “Ahh, why do I ask? You’re as stupid as these guys.”

“Mister Aloe!” Kay heaved a sigh of exaggerated exasperation. “We have not met before! I would certainly remember it if we had!”