“What is it?” he said, kneeling down.
“I cut myself,” she whispered.
By her was a kitchen knife. She had cut almost through the flesh of her hand, to the bone itself. A handkerchief, soaked with blood, was tied around her wrist. At the cut the blood was thick and drying; the bleeding had slowed to an ooze. She gazed at him piteously, her lips apart; she wanted to say something.
“When did it happen?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does it hurt?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. Her face was stained with tears that had caked and dried. “It hurts a lot.”
“Did you do it on purpose?”
“I—don’t know.”
On the drainboard of the sink were melted ice cubes, a lemon, the remains of the gin. He said, “I should have come back sooner.”
“What’ll I do?” she said.
“You’ll recover,” he said, stroking her hair back from her face. Blood and paint sparkled in her hair; red drops stuck to the hair. Paint streaked her face and neck, her arms; she had paint on her shirt and jeans, on her feet. And on her forehead was a dark bruise.
“I fell,” she said.
“Is that when you cut yourself?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You were carrying the knife?”
“I was taking it into the living room.”
“I’ll drive you over to some doctor’s,” he said.
“No,” she said, “please.”
“You want me to get him to come here?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just stay here.”
“I’ll have to bandage it,” he said.
“Okay.”
From the medicine cabinet in the bathroom he got gauze and tape and Mercurochrome. The cut was clean; it had bled enough, certainly. As he washed her hand and put on the Mercurochrome, she did not seem to feel pain; she seemed numbed.
“You’re damn lucky,” he said.
Pat said, “It hurt a lot.”
“Be careful. Don’t carry knives around.”
“Are you back for good?”
“Yes,” he said. He helped her up, and with his arm around her led her into the living room. She clung to him.
“I thought I was going to die,” she said. “It kept on bleeding.”
“You couldn’t have died.”
“Really?”
“Not from that. Kids do that all the time. Kids fall out of trees and cut their hands and skin their knees.” When she was stretched out on the couch, he dipped a handkerchief in turpentine and started cleaning the paint from her hair.
“I thought I was going to bleed to death,” she said.
When he had finished with her hair, he found her a clean shirt and helped her put it on. “Here,” he said when she was finished. “Here’s a present.” He gave her the package with its wrappings and gladiola and leaves and curled ribbon.
“For me?” Pat said, unwrapping it. He had to help her. “Who from?”
“Rachael,” he said.
She lay with the cake turner on her lap, the wrappings in a wad beside the couch. “It’s nice of her.”
“You sure got paint everywhere.”
“Will it come off?”
“Probably so,” he said.
“I guess you’re mad.”
“I’m just glad you’re alive,” he said, gathering up the wrappings from the package.
“I’ll never do it again.”
He put his arms around her and held her against him. She smelled of paint and turpentine; her hair was damp and her throat, close to his face, was mottled with blue and orange paint, a stain from her ear to her collarbone. He held her tightly, but she was solid and her body did not give. Fastening the top button of her blouse, he said, “The next time I’ll stay here.”
“Will you? You promise?”
“Yes,” he said. He sat on the couch, holding her, until the room became dim. The warmth of the room dissipated, but he remained where he was. At last the room was totally dark. Beyond the window the traffic sounds diminished. Streetlights came on. A neon sign flashed.
In his arms she was asleep.
20
Sunday was the final day of the optometrists’ convention at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California. By ten o’clock that night many of the optometrists were beginning to say goodbye and trickle out of town by car, bus, train, however they had arrived at the start of the week. Their hall in the hotel was littered with paper and cigarette butts and along the wall were empty bottles. Here and there small groups of optometrists shook hands and exchanged addresses.
The inner circle that had gathered around Hugh Collins met for their secret and expensive last fling of entertainment, at Ed Guffy’s hotel room in a less publicized and less strict hotel in the Negro slum business section near Fillmore and Eddy Streets. In all there were eleven men in the inner circle, and every one of them was damp with eagerness.
Hugh Collins cornered Tony Vacuhhi, who was already in Guffy’s hotel room when the group arrived.
“Where is she?”
Vacuhhi said, “She’s coming. Keep your pants on.”
All week he had been nosing near Thisbe, but this night, this concluding interlude, promised to be the one. Louise, to his relief and delight, had obligingly remained in Los Angeles. Everything was set. He could scarcely contain himself.
“All set?” Guffy said, smoking on his cigar.
“She’s supposed to be coming,” Collins said, rubbing his upper lip with the back of his hand. This beat anything, the gewgaws from Mexico that he had distributed among the boys, the art films he and Guffy had got from the amusement park people, his own scrapbooks of models and sun-worshipping nudists.
“Is it going to be worth all the loot?” Guffy demanded.
“It sure is,” he said. “You bet your bottom dollar.” He began to pace restlessly, wishing she would show up; the optometrists were murmuring, exchanging wisecracks and jokes, punching one another. Some of them had their gewgaws with them and were putting the plastic figures through their paces. But the boys were tiring, seeking the genuine article. One of them cupped his hands and catcalled at Collins, “What say, fella? About ready?”
“About,” he said, perspiring.
Another yelled, “Where is this pig?”
“Hey, hey,” they chanted, “bring on the greased pig.”
“Keep it down,” Guffy warned.
The optometrists, squatted in a circle on the floor of the hotel room, chanted in unison: “Bring it on—bring it on.” One of them got up and began to shimmy in his nylon shirt and pinstripe trousers; his tie flopped foolishly as he placed his hands behind his head and wiggled his fleshy hips.
And then they were silent. The optometrists ceased their horseplay. The jokes stopped. Nobody moved.
Thisbe Holt, in her transparent plastic bubble, rolled into the room. An audible gasp went up from the optometrists. Vacuhhi, in the hall, had booted her in through the open door. He now shut the door and locked it. The bubble came to a stop in the middle of the room. Thisbe filled the bubble completely. Her knees were drawn up, hugged to her stomach; her arms were wrapped around them, clutching them tight. Her head was bent forward. Below her chin and above her knees, her bloated breasts jutted up and were flattened at the inner surface of the bubble.
The bubble rolled a little more. Thisbe was now face-down, her buttocks visible, the two bare, divided hemispheres. A distortion of the plastic made them seem to spread out against the bubble surface. Again the audible gasp went up. One of the optometrists pushed the bubble with his shoe; it rolled and the forward side of Thisbe returned. Her nipples, enlarged by the transparent surface, were blood-red splotches, smeared and caught.
She was smiling.
Oh god in Heaven, Hugh Collins thought, and his avidity made him shiver. All of them, all in the circle, were twitching and grimacing; a St
. Vitus dance moved through the room.
“Look at those tits,” an optometrist said.
“Wow.”
“Get the size of them.”
“Turn her,” an optometrist said, “so her ass is up.”
The bubble was shoved. It revolved, and again the underside of Thisbe was visible.
“Look at that flesh,” a voice said.
“Can you get the bottom up?” one of the optometrists said. “You know, from down under. So we can look up.”
Several of them delicately tapped the bubble. It rolled too far and again they were staring at Thisbe’s knees and breasts.
“Try again,” Guffy said, down on his hands and knees.
They tried again. This time they were able to get the bubble just right.
“Wowie,” an optometrist breathed.
“Look at that.”
It was unbelievable. They nudged the bubble from one side of the ring to the other. Thisbe, magnified and distorted, rolled toward them and away from them; as the bubble turned, her leering face, breasts, knees, feet, buttocks came and went, a procession of steaming pale yellow flesh. The waxy surface rotated, and the inside of the bubble became translucent with her perspiration. Now her mouth was pressed to the breathing holes of the bubble’s surface; she was taking in deep gasps of air.
“Say,” an optometrist said, “can we get her around in that different, so the hole is—you know, at a different place.”
But when they tried to turn the bubble, Thisbe turned with it.
Hugh Collins, sitting on the floor, stuck out his foot as the bubble rolled toward him. He had taken off his shoes—most of the optometrists had—and now he booted the bubble with his bare foot. The bubble was warm, heated up by the woman inside. It was like kicking her bare flesh. He giggled.
On the far side Ed Guffy kicked the bubble back.
“Over, here!” an optometrist yelled, his feet up and ready. The bubble started in his direction.
“Mine,” another yelled, sticking his hand in the path; the bubble rolled over it, and he squawked.
Faster and faster rolled the bubble. Thisbe, her mouth to the holes, wheezed and struggled for air. The mists, rising from her flesh, rose up and obscured her. A glimpse now and then: they saw the blood-red nipples, the spheres of her behind, the soles of her feet pressed to the inner surface.
“Oh boy!” an optometrist shouted, lying full-length on the floor. “Roll it over me! Go ahead!”
The orgy mounted. It came to an end abruptly when one of the optometrists conceived the idea of pouring a Dixie cup of water through Thisbe’s breathing holes.
“Okay,” Tony Vacuhhi said, stepping forward to take charge. “That’s enough. It’s over.”
Spluttering, flushed, Thisbe climbed from the bubble. “Goddamn beasts,” she said, standing up and flexing her legs. Tony threw her a robe, which she buttoned around her.
“Is that all?” Guffy demanded, chewing angrily on his cigar.
“For two hundred bucks,” another optometrist said, “we ought to at least get to goose her.”
Tony herded the girl out of the room, keeping the optometrists off with his shoulders. The door to the hall slammed, he and Thisbe were gone.
“What a robbery,” Guffy said.
In the center of the room the empty bubble remained.
Hugh Collins scrambled out into the hall and after Thisbe and Vacuhhi. “Wait a minute,” he panted, catching up with them.
“What is it?” Tony said unsympathetically. Thisbe, beside him, was muttering an uninterrupted flow of abuse. “You had your fun; you got what you paid for.”
“Wait,” Collins said. “I mean—let me talk to her alone for a second.”
“What do you want to say?” Vacuhhi said. “You can say it in front of me; come on, we don’t have all night. I gotta rub her down.”
“I had the impression,” Collins said, glancing at her prayerfully. “You know, the motel room. This is the last night.”
“Get him,” Thisbe grated, and she and Vacuhhi disappeared out onto the street.
Collins, humiliated, slunk back to Guffy’s room.
When he entered, the optometrists were in an uproar. Some wanted to go out on the streets looking for fun; others wanted to give up and go home. One was on the phone calling for a cab. He had a cab company which he claimed would transport them en masse to a halfway decent house of prostitution.
Guffy was examining the empty bubble.
“Look at the size of this thing,” he said to Collins. “You could get a couple hundred pounds of stuff into this.”
“Like what?” Collins said, uninterested.
“Anything. Say, I think I’ve got an idea for some fun—” He drew Collins over to the bubble. “Look, you can seal it up; maybe it’ll leak a little, but not much.” He fitted the section back into place, closing the slot through which Thisbe had entered and left.
The optometrists gathered to see what was up.
“Like the old water bomb,” Guffy said, making a pow motion with his fist in his palm. “Smack, right off the roof, and then we get the hell out of there.”
“By god,” Collins said, struggling to salvage something from the collapse of his schemes.
“Right—one big grand slam. Something they’ll all sit up and notice. Hell, we’ll be out of here in a couple of hours or tomorrow at the latest. What do you say, for old times’ sake!”
They experienced the sentimental tug; they were bound together in this parting hour of their comradely union. Not for another year, not until 1957. Who knew the changes in a year? Ah, the bonds of the old pals.
“Go out with a bang,” Guffy said. “Right? So they’ll know us. ‘That was back in ’56 when the boys dropped the bubble from the roof—remember that night in 1956?’ That’s tonight, boys; we’re having that great old night right now.”
This was optometrist history. This was a milestone in convention roguery.
“How are you going to fill it?” Collins demanded. “Where’re we going to get two hundred pounds of crap this time of night?”
Guffy laughed. “Let’s get started; It’s a cinch. That’s the trouble with you guys, no imagination.”
They collected ashtrays, a couple of small table lamps, toilet paper from the bathroom, a pair of old shoes, beer cans, and bottles, and dropped them into the bubble. It was only a beginning.
“Here’s what we do,” Guffy said. “You fellows get outside and pick up stuff, whatever’ll fit in. Tin cans, anything you see. Get back here in twenty minutes.” He set his watch. “Right?”
In twenty minutes the optometrists straggled in, some with nothing, some more soused than when they had left, a few with armloads.
At a supermarket, still open, they had bought dozens of eggs, aging vegetables, quarts of milk. At a drugstore they had picked up tin wastebaskets, a set of cheap dishes, some empty cardboard cartons. One optometrist had picked up a trash dispenser from a street corner. Another had lugged back in his car a garbage pail from the doorway of a locked-up restaurant.
They dumped everything into the bubble. Space remained.
“Water,” Guffy said, “from the bathroom.”
They rolled the bubble to the bathroom and managed to get it near enough to a faucet to fill the remaining space with water. Gushing and dribbling, the bubble rolled about the bathroom; water spurted from Thisbe’s breathing holes.
“Hurry!” Guffy ordered.
The optometrists, perspiring and grunting, rolled the bubble from the room, to the stairs. There they hoisted it up and lugged it, step by step, to the top floor of the hotel. The door to the roof was unlocked and they rolled the bubble out onto the asphalt surface and to the edge.
Below them was the street, the cars and neon signs and pedestrians.
His hands slippery with water and egg and milk, Guffy said, “Here we go, boys!”
They lifted the ponderous, rubbish-filled bubble over the railing and let it go.
“Scat
ter!” Guffy shouted, and the optometrists, without waiting for the results, ran back down the stairs. In a moment they were scrambling from the back door of the hotel, to the parking lot and their cars.
Ludwig Grimmelman, within his third-floor loft, felt the stir of the night and knew that he could not evade the elements around him. He could not escape reality.
In his heart he knew that they got everyone sooner or later and they would get him; they would have him and there was nothing he could do to save himself. He put his eye to the slot and saw out onto the dark evening street; he saw the shapes and shadows, the objects in motion. He saw the figure across the street, and he knew that Mr. Brown of the FBI had him; Mr. Brown was there, in the obscurity, waiting. Mr. Brown had caught him and he was going to destroy him. There was no mercy for the Ludwig Grimmelman.
He thought to himself that his mistake had been to believe that by putting it off a short while, by delaying and protracting, he had got away with something. But he had got away with nothing, because now they had him even more completely than ever. They would not settle for anything less than the disposition of Grimmelman and his hopes and fears. And he was not prepared to give that; he had withheld himself, and he would not now give up; he would not surrender merely because his situation was hopeless.
The people who had met him and watched him thought that he was a kind of nut, but he was not a nut and Mr. Brown knew that. Mr. Brown had looked for him and found him, and he had spent a great deal of time in this job. There was not that much time to waste on nuts. But, he thought, Mr. Brown was not going to tell anyone, and that was part of the situation.
He put on his black wool overcoat and his paratrooper’s boots, and then he activated the emergency alarm hidden under the corner of his work desk. An Army Signal Corps transmitter, bought from a surplus supply store, put out a coded message in response to his act; Joe Mantila, in his room at the back of his family’s house, received the message and knew that the time had arrived.
Now nothing remained but the escape itself. He had already destroyed the vital papers, documents, maps, and clippings. Leaving the loft light on—so as not to tip off Mr. Brown—he opened a side window and tossed out a descent cable. A moment later he was going down hand over hand. His feet touched the ground and he released the cable; it was drawn back up into the loft by a spring.