He Done Her Wrong tp-8 Read online

  “I’m not moving.”

  “As I was saying,” he continued, “no one would suspect me.”

  “Who would they suspect?”

  He laughed.

  “You don’t trust each other. You fight. I’ve heard you at night when you think I’m sleeping. You have an enemy here, I’m sure. You all have. They’ll blame him. So you see you have no choice but to help me. You understand?” He waved the gun.

  “You’re making a-”

  “Do you understand?” he repeated in a quiet voice, raising the gun.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. First we will change clothes. You take yours off first.”

  “My clothes are wet,” I protested. “Beside they won’t fit you and what good would they do? They’re not much different from your own.”

  “Very clever,” said the man with sincere admiration. “Very clever indeed. For that I give you credit. I advise you not to move another step.”

  “I didn’t move.”

  “Very good. I should hate to have to shoot you before you’ve served my purpose. Now we must hurry.”

  “What the hell is this all about?”

  “You persist in this charade, do you?” he said. “I begin to think that you are not so smart. But perhaps you are simply stalling for time. Are you expecting someone?” He moved quickly to the door, looked out, closed it, and walked over to me.

  “Mr….”

  “Peters.”

  “Peters, or whatever your name is, you will walk out of this room in front of me and lead me out of here as if you were taking me someplace. You understand? My gun will not be visible, but it will be in my pocket trained on your abdomen. It has a hair trigger. Do you know anything about guns?”

  “I know about guns,” I said.

  “I hope you know enough to determine that this is a real gun.” He held it up cautiously and I could see it was a.45.

  “It’s real,” I said.

  “I’m glad you see that.”

  “You’re making a hell of a mistake. We’ll get halfway down the hall and they’ll grab both of us. You don’t seem to understand that I’m a patient too.”

  “You would like me to believe that. I know you have been planted here. I can always spot you. Now we have wasted enough time. Would you like a drink before we start to give you a little brace and tighten up your nerves? I knew when the shoe was on the other foot, you’d be cowards.”

  “I have no shoes.”

  “Pleading will accomplish nothing. Now if you will just do as you are told, you may get through this alive. We will walk slowly, speaking to no one. We will pass the nurse station near the elevators, step into the elevators, and go down to the basement.”

  “But you have no clothes.”

  He smiled shyly, reached under his bed, and pulled out a small, brown paper bag neatly tied with string.

  “My clothes are in here. Nothing fancy, but they will suffice. You think all this will help you to track me down later, but it won’t. I have friends. Now let’s go. Remember that I will not hesitate to use this gun. I have nothing to lose. If you stop me this time, I’m sure you will never give me another opportunity to escape, and I’ll be lucky to live through the day.”

  “But-”

  “One more word and I’m afraid I’ll have to shoot. I’m not sure how effective this silencer is, but if I have to try it, I will.”

  I walked to the door.

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Perhaps,” said the little man, who was now at the door. “It won’t be the first time, and let’s hope for both of our sakes that it will not be the last either. I regret we no longer have time for a last drink of Old Sweat Sox. Be good enough to step into the hall.”

  The man, gun carefully pointed at me, opened the door to reveal Sklodovich, hand raised to knock.

  “Got the corridors confused,” said Sklodovich, walking in and sitting on the chair. “Well, does he know anything?”

  I was not sure to whom the question was addressed, but it seemed senseless in either case and was answered with silence.

  “You know this man?” asked the short man, who accepted the new intruder without a blink or word. Again I was not sure who was being asked.

  “It’s Toby,” said Sklodovich. “Toby Peters.”

  Dealer put his gun in the dark silk packet, sat at the edge of his bed, and began to remove the string from his brown paper package as he chewed on his lower lip. Inside the package was a sandwich, which he began to eat. There was nothing else in the bag, which supposedly contained clothing.

  “What can I do for you?” he said through a mouthful of American cheese.

  “Toby wants out, the way you got Ressner out.”

  Dealer grinned and walked to the window, where he pulled down the shade. Out of the unfurled shade drifted a large sheet of paper. We moved to the bed, where Dealer spread out the paper and Sklodovich assumed an air of rapt attention.

  “Our main problem,” said Dealer, earnestly pointing to something on the complex chart before us, “is the moat.”

  “Moat?” I asked.

  “The drawbridge is down during the day, but is well guarded,” he went on. “At night it is up, but the guard is small because they don’t fear an attack from the rear, a move from within the bowels of their own vile creation of terror. I know the mechanism of the bridge, for I’ve worked on the greasing detail under heavy guard. That mechanism, gentlemen, is the only way. The moat, as you noticed when they brought you in, is not too deep, long, or wide to swim, but it is filled with deadly little fish that can pick a man clean to the bone before he takes three strokes. Therefore one man, you, Ivan, will overpower the drawbridge guard, and you, Toby, will put on the guard’s uniform and answer any calls to the guard station while Ivan and I work on the bridge. You can speak their language, can’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Good. Any questions? Excellent,” beamed the man, rolling up the sheet of paper. “Now, as long as they do not put the iron mask back on my head this afternoon, and I doubt if they will, since it caused a strawberry rash last time and they had to work on me for days so I could be viewed without consequence by the Swiss legation and the Red Cross. Gentlemen, until midnight.”

  The little man removed the robe and climbed into bed after puffing up the pillow. He began to snore before Sklodovich reached the door. We left quietly, closing the door behind us.

  “Is that.45 of his loaded?” I asked.

  “No mechanism,” said Sklodovich, looking down the hall.

  “Does he really expect us to come back tonight to escape?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter since he wouldn’t leave anyway. Besides, I don’t want to go. I like it here.”

  “What do you mean ‘he wouldn’t leave here anyway?’”

  “Dealer can leave whenever he wants to. His door is open. He just won’t go out unless a doctor or nurse actually holds his hand and leads him out. He thinks the floor will give way and he’ll shoot four floors to the ground. That’s his problem.”

  Leaning against the wall, Sklodovich pulled a key from his pocket.

  “A passkey,” he said. “Might come in very handy. Dealer slipped it to me.”

  “I thought you were both idiots,” I sighed.

  “There’s a difference between being insane and being stupid. We aren’t stupid.”

  “I didn’t mean …”

  “No offense taken,” said Sklodovich, smiling.

  The fluorescent corridor was empty and quiet except for a distant muffle of voices. Sklodovich turned toward the door leading to the roof and I had a sinking, tired feeling down to my knees which were ready to give way.

  “I don’t think I can make it over the roof,” I whispered, grabbing his arm.

  Sklodovich winked and, with a nod of his head, indicated that I should follow him. In a quick-paced follow-the-leader, we by-passed the roof door and make a quick turn to the left down a short corridor with
a door at the end. My guide turned the handle with a hairy hand. We walked through the door after he peeped on the other side and found ourselves standing no more than twenty steps from our room, which I had assumed was a gruesome odyssey away.

  “Why didn’t we just come through there in the first place?” I shouted as I plodded barefoot behind him into the room. “I was almost killed crawling up shafts and onto ledges.” He placed the key in the closet on a shelf and covered it with a sheet. I fell exhausted on my bed. I was almost dry by now and wanted to sleep for at least a day, but I was angry enough to glare at the man who had led me on again.

  “Many ways of doing things,” he said. “Always an easy way, and most people go through life doing things the easy way because it’s the only sensible way, but the easy way doesn’t always mean anything. To have meaning, things have to be done the hard way, physically, emotionally. If not, you go through life like a vegetable, cooked carrots. Mentally,” he said, pointing to his head, “there is no hard way for me anymore, so I do it physically. And hell, I didn’t even take you the hardest way. I could have made you slide down a wire in nurse’s disguise, but I didn’t think you’d make it. Next time, we’ll try something a little different. You’ll remember that trip for the rest of your life.”

  “I’ll remember every minute here for the rest of my life,” I mumbled, placing my arm over my eyes. “Right now I’ve got a headache and I want some sleep. How much time till midnight?”

  “About two hours.”

  Maybe I fell asleep. Maybe not. It makes little difference because it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later that I removed my arm from my face and saw M.C. next to my bed.

  “Checking on you,” he said. “Just stay put.”

  “Five dollars says I can beat you arm-wrestling,” said Sklodovich. M.C. watched me ease off the bed and said nothing.

  “Five dollars if I lose,” Sklodovich went on, going for the money in the closet where he had placed the key. “You don’t have to put up a thing.”

  M.C. glanced casually at the five bills that Sklodovich placed on the night table.

  “Five dollars cash,” said Sklodovich.

  M.C. looked at his watch, walked to the door, and locked it from the inside. A wild, eager flash came into Sklodovich’s eyes as he rushed to the closet and searched for something while I watched with curiosity and M.C. paid no attention, but moved the night table out between the two beds.

  Sklodovich found what he was looking for and moved to the table, whistling “Beseme Mucho” and grinning. He had two candles in his hand, the kind you use when a fuse blows, and he quickly lighted them and let a little wax drip from each one so they could be placed firmly at two ends of the table.

  Whatever he was doing, it didn’t surprise M.C., who watched the procedure as if it were a ritual viewed daily.

  Sklodovich got into position. Seated on his bed, he placed his right elbow on the table between the two burning candles. M.C. did the same, and their hands clapped together and held. Arm perpendicular between the candles, Sklodovich stopped whistling.

  “Say ‘go,’ Toby,” he said, shifting his weight slightly.

  Protest would have been useless, and besides, I was fascinated.

  “Go.”

  The smooth, black arm and the orangish-white and hairy arm bulged into taut knots, but neither moved. Sklodovich continued to smile happily while M.C. looked neither bored nor interested. If it weren’t for the expanding cords of muscle under the tight skin, it would have looked like two men exchanging a strange fraternal grip.

  The candles flickered, and one seemed about to go out. I felt that if the flame died, I would roll helplessly onto the floor and under the bed. Whatever they had filled me with was hard to shake.

  Time passed, maybe a minute, and a few tiny drops of perspiration appeared on Sklodovich’s still happy face, flickering with light from the candles. More time passed, and I thought I heard a sound, a grunt, a sigh from M.C. Still the arms pointed upward. At first I wasn’t sure, so I concentrated intently on a point in space a fraction of an inch behind M.C.’s jagged knuckles. A few seconds later I was sure. M.C.’s hand was moving very slowly toward the candle, giving way a fraction of space each second. I saw the flame shine brightly against the black back of his hand only an inch away from the dancing heat. M.C. closed his eyes, the only facial movement he had made. Then, suddenly, the struggle turned and it was Sklodovich who was giving way. When the quivering arms were again pointing toward the ceiling, Sklodovich closed his eyes for another effort. But he still smiled. The table vibrated as the back of Sklodovich’s hand slowly approached the flame of the second candle. When the hand was no more than paper thickness from the flame, I could see the dark hairs singeing. Sklodovich said nothing, made no sound as he watched the back of his hand dip into the flame.

  M.C. released his hand, snuffed out the two candles with his palm, and stood up.

  “We’ll have to try that again soon,” said Sklodovich, examining his burnt hand. “I’ll practice. Don’t forget your five dollars.”

  M.C. turned to Sklodovich and for the first time since I had met him, M.C. smiled.

  Sklodovich returned the smile and put the five dollars in the night table.

  CHAPTER 13

  I don’t know how much time passed before the door began to open and the hall light cast the shadow of a man on the floor at the foot of our beds. The shadow’s body whispered from the door in Sklodovich’s familiar voice.

  “Toby, get up. It’s time.”

  He pulled open a package and handed crumpled clothing to me. Sklodovich turned the beam toward me so I could put on the white uniform. When I was dressed, he handed me a stethoscope, which I put around my neck, a pair of shoes, which fit fairly well, and a thin, wrinkled raincoat.

  “You look just like a doctor,” Sklodovich said.

  “A pass.”

  “You know the way you’re supposed to go?” Sklodovich asked. I gave an affirmative nod of my head and repeated the instructions he had given me. “The window will be open. I checked it before I came up.”

  “I’m ready,” I said, taking a deep breath and thinking that my freedom was in the hands of an assortment of lunatics.

  “Quiet,” Sklodovich whispered, putting finger to lips. “Someone’s in the hall.”

  He dived for his bed. The flashlight went out as I crawled quickly under my blanket and closed my eyes. The door opened.

  “I know you’re still awake.” It was M.C.’s voice. “Don’t get no ideas. I’m locking this door and I’m going to be right outside of it for the rest of the night.”

  Sklodovich got up, pat-patted across the floor, and pulled the obviously startled M.C. into the room. Then darkness. Someone had closed the door. I sat listening to the struggle. There was nothing to hear but the panting of two men. It was like earlier arm-wrestling between the candles without the candlelight, and I strained my eyes in the darkness.

  “Light,” Sklodovich whispered seconds later.

  I jumped from my bed, searched Sklodovich’s blankets for the flashlight, and turned it on. M.C. and Sklodovich were locked together, teeth clenched, hands clasped overhead, stalemated.

  “Go on,” Sklodovich said. “I’ll hold him. But hurry.”

  Pride, I assumed, kept M.C. from shouting for help. Given time he would probably overcome the hairy madman, but he wanted to do it himself. How much time would it take? Five minutes, I decided. No longer. Maybe much less.

  I wrapped the raincoat tightly around me, got the passkey from the closet, and turned to the door.

  “Thanks Ivan,” I said, turning out the flashlight.

  “My pleasure,” he grunted. “Now go.”

  I stepped into the empty hall and closed the door behind me.

  The lights in the hall were dim, and I moved as quickly as I could in the shadow of the walls.

  I inched along the wall as I’d seen Lloyd Nolan do in a Mike Shayne movie and looked around the corner where I
saw a tired, young nurse at the desk looking at herself in a pocket mirror. It was impossible to get to the room at the end of the hall without being seen by her, and seconds were passing. Then the buzzer rang. In the reflection from the alcove window, I could see her get up and turn her back. With a short gulp, I tiptoed across the open space as fast as I could. The stethoscope almost slipped off my neck. In the safety of the other side of the corridor, I heard the buzzer stop. She had obviously not seen me, but she might now turn to my direction to answer the buzzer call. I ran down the hall to room 421. It had twin, reinforced glass doors, and in the near-total darkness I could make out a long ward room with beds on either side. There was an aisle between the beds, and at the far end I could see another set of double doors. A man was seated at a desk behind those far doors, and behind him was an elevator.

  The source of the dim yellow light, which cast a slight and eerie shadow of beds on the wall, came from a desk lamp to the left of the double doors through which I walked. At the desk sat a stocky tree trunk of a man with a flat head, made more flat by his close-cut hair. The white-clad man squinted over his glasses at me as I walked toward him and began to rise, but sat down again.

  “Hello, doc,” he whispered.

  “Hello,” I whispered and tried to smile. He looked suspiciously at my mashed face, but the white uniform and stethoscope, which I made sure he could see underneath my open coat, seemed to satisfy him.

  “Is there a patient named Barton on this ward?” I asked.

  He pushed his glasses back on his large nose and looked at a clipboard before him, running his finger quickly down a list of names on it.

  “No, but there is a Bartnik.”

  “Must have the wrong ward. I could swear they said two.”

  “This is four, doc. You want two floors below.”

  “I didn’t pay much attention when I got on the elevator. Must have pressed the wrong button. First time I’ve been here, you know.”

  “I didn’t think I recognized you. You sure it’s two you want?”

  “You know, now I’m not sure. I’ll go down and check it out.”

  “I’ll call records for you, doc, and find out what room this Barton is in.”