Росс Макдональд - Trouble Follows Me

I raised my head from the rug and the blood beat at the base of my skull like an iron fist. What I could see of the room was bare, pleasant and strange. The only furniture I could see was the end of a chaise longue upholstered in bright rich silk, and a fragile table holding a slender vase of flowers. On the wall there was a wash-drawing of birds, with a conical white mountain in the background, done in faint and delicate colors. The rest of the wall was naked, except for a long curved sword in a gold-embossed scabbard which hung horizontally above my head.

A woman’s voice was saying in a sibilant birdlike chirp: “It would not be wise to kill him here. I forbid it.”

“I agree, Baroness,” Anderson said. “I absolutely agree. We’ll take him out to the ranch.”

I craned my neck and saw at the foot of the chaise longue a small black slipper which flipped up and down impatiently on the tip of a silk-clad toe. “It will be necessary to transfer him with great discretion,” the voice chirped. “Attention must not be attracted to this house. It is safe now because we have been very careful. We will continue to be careful.”

“We’ll put him to sleep again before we take him down,” Miss Green said. “I’ll go down and get Jake’s blackjack.”

“No you won’t,” Anderson said. “I don’t want him to be sapped again. I don’t want his skull damaged. I’ve got a use for his skull.”

“You are quite clever, Lorenz,” the bird-voice said.

“I try to find a use for everything,” Anderson said complacently. “I’m glad Drake dropped in, as a matter of fact. Hector is too big.”

“I am sorry you came here,” the bird-voice said. “At all costs we must avoid the serious attention of the police.”

“It’s my business that’ll be ruined if they come here,” Miss Green said. “But I had to bring him. Jensen wasn’t safe in San Diego.”

“You can say that again,” Anderson said. “I even spotted a plain clothes man at the border, but they don’t pay much attention to chauffeurs.”

“It is not only your business that will be ruined if the police come seriously, Miss Toulouse,” the bird-voice said. “More intimate values than the financial are at stake.”

“Don’t I know it,” Miss Green said. “Let’s get him out of here. And I still say sap him.”

“We won’t sap him again,” Anderson said firmly. “It might leave a dent on his skull. We’ll put him to sleep with ether.”

“Not my ether you won’t. I have a hard time getting that stuff. I damn near went nuts those last two days on the train.”

“Get your ether,” Anderson said.

“Like hell I will. You can gag him, can’t you?”

“Get your ether,” Anderson said. There was the sound of a blow on flesh and a low female sigh. A woman’s footsteps crossed the rug behind me and left the room.

“I don’t like to see you mistreat women,” the bird-voice said. “It is destructive of harmony. Perhaps one day you will be punished, Lorenz.” The speech left flat tinny echoes of menace in the room.

I thought it was time I entered the conversation. “You’re damn right he will.”

“Why, Ensign, it’s nice to have you with us again,” Anderson said. “Say, turn around and let me look at you. There’s nothing I like better than the face of an old friend.”

He took me by the hair and pulled me around so that I faced into the room.

“Don’t forget,” the bird-voice said. “You do not wish to damage his skull.”

“Hell, the hair and scalp don’t matter.” By way of illustration he took hold of my hair again, lifted my head and shoulder a foot or so from the floor, and let me drop. “It’s just the skull I’m worried about.”

The woman on the chaise longue whose voice was like a flat chirp had a tiny ivory-tinted face above which balanced carefully coiffed masses of dull black hair held in place by a tortoiseshell comb. There was something dainty and old-world about her, an air which was enhanced by her dress. This was a flowing robe of blue silk, full in the sleeve and skirt, gathered at the waist under a broad silk waistband. The ivory throat on which her head was poised was small and delicate. My attention was occupied by that pure throat. I was intensely interested in whether the Samurai sword on the wall could sever it in one stroke.

I said: “Before long you’ll be out of a job, Baroness. We’ll tell you ahead of time where our ships are going to strike, and you won’t be able to do anything about it. Shall I tell you more?”

The small woman on the chaise longue did not smile. From where I lay I could not tell whether she was a young girl or an old woman. “Be careful not to injure his bones, Lorenz,” she said. “His other tissues are more or less beside the point.”

Anderson kicked me carefully below the ribs and below the pelvis. For a minute nothing was important to me but the fingers of pain which searched my body. Then I said, very carefully so as not to shout: “You will not be able to do anything about it because there will be no Japanese warships left. There will be no Japanese airforce left. Perhaps there will be no Japanese cities left. The Japanese islands will be a sad place.”

“Are you tired, Lorenz?” the little woman said. He kicked me carefully in the lower part of the abdomen.

I said: “How did you ever get into the big time, Jensen? I thought you were a small-time crook. You still have all the mannerisms of a pimp.”

He kicked me again, but without enthusiasm. I decided that I had contributed my share to the conversation, and fell silent. My stomach muscles were moving like injured worms.

Miss Green came into the room with a colorless glass bottle in her hand. There was a blue mark on her cheek under the red mark of the rouge, but she looked warm and excited. The hand which held the bottle trembled and the junk jewelry on her arm clinked merrily. Her step was quick and elastic.

“My God,” Anderson said. “She’s been at the ether again.”

“I just thought if you throw away this bottle like you did the last one,” said Miss Green. She executed several steps of an original pas seul. “Well, I just thought.”

“Give me that bottle,” Anderson said.

“Here it is, you fat stoat.” She tossed it to him. He caught it, took a single threatening step towards her, met the impassive gaze of the Baroness, and turned to me.

He poured some of the ether on a handkerchief and applied it to my face. It scalded my mouth like fire or ice. I moved my head quickly and bit his wrist. He tore it from my teeth but I tasted blood. Then he held my head by the ears while the Baroness held the cloth to my face. I retired again into a universe of turning wheels.

When I came to I was lying on the floor in the back of a car which was moving quickly over an uneven road. At least that was the hypothesis which fitted the facts that dirty fabric vibrated steadily under my face and bounced intermittently against my skull with explosive pain. I could hear the hum of the powerful motor. I could see no lights.

I tried to flex my arms and felt the strain on my legs. My wrists and ankles were still tied together behind me. I began to rotate my right wrist in a quarter-circle within the loop of rope which held it. The rope was tight and rough and wore away the skin. I continued to rotate my wrist, working the rope down past the base of my thumb. I could feel warm blood on my hand. Perhaps it helped to lubricate the rope, which slipped gradually down towards my knuckles, wearing away the skin as it went. My hand felt as if it had been thrust in boiling water. I continued to work it back and forth within the loop. The rope slid over the thickest part of my thumb, and I jerked my hand free.