Джеймс Чейз - The Flesh of the Orchid

Somewhere in the building, above the roar of the wind that rattled doors and windows, a woman’s scream filtered through padded walls. It was an eerie sound of idiot degeneracy rather than of pain or fear, and it swelled to a muffled crescendo before dying away in a whimper of lunatic self-pity.

A young and attractive-looking nurse, carrying a supper-tray, walked down the broad corridor that ran the length of the building. She paused outside a door, set the tray on a white enamelled table against the wall.

As she did so a squat dark man with two gold teeth came round the bend in the corridor. He grinned cynically when he saw the nurse, but another scream from the woman upstairs twisted the grin into a wry grimace.

‘That yelling sets my teeth on edge,’ he said as he came to a slouching halt by the nurse. ‘I’d like to give her something to yell about.’

‘Oh, that’s number ten,’ the nurse returned, patted the corn-coloured curls that framed her pretty face under the edge of the stiff white cap she wore. ‘She’s always like this in a storm. It’s time they put her in a sound-proof room.’

‘They ought to give her a shot,’ the squat man said. ‘She gets on my nerves. If I’d known it was going to be like this I’d’ve never taken the job.’

‘Don’t be so fussy, Joe,’ the nurse said, and laughed unfeelingly. ‘What do you expect, working in a mental sanatorium?’

‘Not this,’ Joe said, shaking his head. ‘It gets on my nerves. That screw in number fifteen tried to hook my eyes out this morning. Did you hear about it?’

‘Who didn’t?’ the nurse said, and laughed again. ‘They said you shook like a leaf.’

‘Couldn’t think of any other way to get a nip of brandy out of Doc Travers,’ Joe said with a grin. ‘And the punk fed me salvolatile.’ He brooded for a moment, went on: ‘And listen to that wind. It’s creepy enough here without the wind moaning like a lost soul.’

‘You got that out of a book,’ the nurse said. ‘I like the sound of the wind.’

‘Then you can have it,’ Joe said shortly.

The woman’s screams changed suddenly to clear, high-pitched peals of mirthless laughter, unhysterical and unhurried: a weird, frightening sound against the background of the storm raging outside.

‘Maybe you like that giggle too?’ Joe said, his mouth tight, his eyes uneasy.

‘You get used to it,’ the nurse said callously. ‘Lunatics are like children: they want to express themselves.’

‘She’s doing fine, then,’ Joe said. ‘She ought to be proud of herself.’

There was a pause, then the nurse asked, ‘Are you going off duty now?’

Joe eyed her thoughtfully, a half jeering, half friendly expression on his face.

‘Is that an invitation?’ he asked, sidled closer.

The nurse laughed.

‘I’m afraid it isn’t, Joe,’ she said regretfully. ‘I’ve eight more suppers to serve. I won’t be through for another hour.’

‘Oh, the hell with that!’ Joe said. ‘I’m going to bed. Sam’s turned in already. We’ve gotta be up at four. Besides, I don’t want to listen to that nut sounding off. I’ve had enough of her.’

‘All right, go to bed,’ the nurse said, tossing her head. ‘I’m not hard up for company. Dr. Travers wants me to play gin-rummy with him.’

Joe sneered.

‘That’s about his top ambition. You won’t learn anything fresh from Doc Travers.’

‘I know that... Dr. Travers isn’t fresh — like you, Joe.’

Joe sniffed, eyed the supper-tray on the table.

‘They feed ’em good, don’t they?’ he said, took a stick of celery from the glass holder on the tray. ‘Before I came here I thought they shovelled raw meat at ’em through iron bars.’ He bit into the celery, chewed.

‘You leave my patient’s supper alone,’ the nurse said indignantly. ‘Where are your manners? You can’t do that sort of thing here.’

‘I’ve already done it,’ Joe said with simple truth, ‘and it cats swell. Besides, she won’t miss a bite of celery with all that dough to keep her warm.’

‘Oh, so you’ve heard about that, have you?’

Joe leered.

‘I don’t miss much. I had my ear clamped to the keyhole when Doc Travers was shooting his mouth off on the ’phone. Six million bucks. That’s what Blandish left her, ain’t it?’ He pursed his lips into a soundless whistle. ‘Think of it! Six million bucks!’

The nurse sighed. She’d been thinking about it all day.

‘Well, some people have all the luck,’ she said, leaned against the wall and studied Joe with an appreciative eye. She thought he had attractive ways.

‘What’s she like?’ Joe asked, waving the celery stalk at the door. ‘I’ve heard things about her. Sam says she’s juicy. Is she?’

‘I’ve seen worse,’ the nurse said noncommittally. ‘But she’s not your style, Joe.’

‘That’s what you think,’ Joe said, grinning. ‘With six million bucks as a sweetener Mrs. Astor’s horse would be my style. I’d marry that dame tomorrow if she’d let me dip into her purse. Maybe you could talk her into the idea.’

‘You wouldn’t like her for a wife, Joe,’ the nurse said, and giggled. ‘You’d be scared to close your eyes. She has homicidal tendencies.’

‘If she’s as good as Sam says I wouldn’t want to close my eyes,’ Joe returned. ‘Besides, I’d take my chance for all that dough. I guess I could handle her at that. I gotta hypnotic eye.’ He patted the nurse’s flank. ‘I’ll hypnotize you one of these days.’

‘I don’t have to be hypnotized,’ the nurse said, laughing. ‘You know that, Joe.’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Joe said.

The nurse picked up the tray.

‘I’ll have to get on. Shan’t I see you tonight?’ She looked archly at him. ‘Are you really going to waste time in bed?’

Joe eyed her over.

‘O.K. Eight o’clock, then,’ he said. ‘But don’t keep me waiting. We can go to the garage and sit in a car. If we don’t do anything else, I can learn you to drive.’ He closed a jeering eye. ‘More useful than playing gin-rummy.’ He went off along the corridor, a shambling, squat figure, wrapped up in himself, indifferent to his conquest.

The nurse looked after him, sighed, as she fumbled for the key that hung from a thin chain at her waist. The woman on the second floor began to scream again. She seemed to have found a new source of inspiration, for her screams rang out high above the noise of the rain as it lashed against the stucco walls of the asylum. The wind, dying before a fresh blast, moaned in the chimney-stacks. A door slammed violently somewhere at the back of the building.

Unlocking the door, the nurse entered a plainly furnished room. There was a steel table by the window, an armchair facing the door. Both pieces of furniture were bolted to the floor. High up in the ceiling was an unshaded lamp, guarded by a wire basket. The walls of the room, a soft shade of blue, were quilted; padded and thick. By the wall, away from the door, was a bed, and in the bed was the outline of a woman, apparently asleep.

The nurse, a little absent-minded, her thoughts on Joe, set the tray on the table and crossed over to the bed.

‘Wake up,’ she said briskly. ‘You shouldn’t be asleep at this time. Come along, I’ve brought your supper.’

There was no movement from the form under the blanket, and the nurse frowned, uneasy suddenly for no reason at all.

‘Wake up!’ she repeated sharply, prodded the form. As her fingers sank into the pillowy softness she realized that this was no human form she was touching. She felt a prickle of alarm run through her as she snatched back the blanket. Her eyes had scarcely time to register the pillow and the rolled blanket where her patient should have been when steel fingers coming from under the bed closed round her ankles, wrenched them up and forward.