Part 9 (1/2)

If I knew this much, he certainly knew it, too, and there was no doubt in my mind that he would try to kill me. And that is exactly what he would do, unless I killed him first.

So starting right this moment, Mr. Wright, I thought, I am going to be looking for you, and we shall see who will be the first one shot--you, or me.

I unlocked the front door, went to the trash chute down the hallway, and picked up a stack of discarded newspapers. Alter relocking my door and testing the chain, I crumpled up big b.a.l.l.s of newspaper, scattered them on the floor, and went to bed. For a while, I lay on my back, watching the electric numbers flash on the ceiling from my electric clock projector, and I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep all night. But soon I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open...

CHAPTER TWELVE.

I have always been a strong swimmer, but my forte has been endurance, not speed. And yet, here I was, flailing my arms in a loose Australian crawl, with minimum kicking, and I was ploughing through the water at three times my normal swimming speed. My head was high and out of the water, and most of my back was high out of the water as well.

The light was gray, misty, and swirling with patches of fog. I could only see about three or four feet ahead. A huge amorphous shape loomed in front of me, but I neither gained on it nor lost water. Whatever it was, we were apparently making the same speed. If I didn't know where I was going, or where I was, what was the hurry? I stopped swimming altogether. Strange. I didn't sink, and my steady pace continued. I sailed through the murky, pleasantly warm water, as if I were being towed. It was at this point that I felt the wide band around my middle. The band wasn't uncomfortably tight, but it was snug. I was tied somehow, and the band around my wrist, attached to something or other (a submarine periscope?), was propelling me at top speed behind the shapeless gray form ahead.

The gray shape swerved sharply to the right, and a moment later I did, too, into absolute blackness. I wasn't frightened, although I was vaguely uneasy and more than a little puzzled. My pace didn't slacken as my chest parted the water. I clasped my hands, and rested my chin on my knuckles, peering ahead into nothing. Then, beyond the blacker shape ahead of me, the darkness began to lighten slightly, and I saw a half-circle of white in the distance. As the white circle became larger, I realized that I was in a tunnel, a curving tunnel, and a moment later I was bathed in hot pink light as I shot out of the blackness. The gray shape ahead of me metamorphosized immediately into a garishly painted wooden duck, much larger than me, and there were sudden splashes of dirty water between the duck's fanning tail and my head. I heard the sound of the shots then, craned my head and neck to the left, and saw the upper body of a man leaning across a wooden plank, perhaps a hundred yards away, aiming a rifle in my direction. For G.o.d's sake, I thought, as my arms flailed the water in an effort to increase my speed, he's shooting at me! I recognized, or thought I did, a patch of vitiligo on the man's forehead. -It's Mr. Wright, and he's shooting at me!- I awoke then. The top black satin sheet was wrapped twice around my body, and the bed was soaked with perspiration. Thunder shook the skies, and torrents of rain sluiced down my bedroom windows. The electricity was off, which usually happens during these heavy Miami thunderstorms, and with it my airconditioning and clocks. It must have been at least 85 degrees in my apartment, although I didn't know at the moment how long the electricity had been off. My heart was still thumping in my chest from the nightmare as I disentangled myself from the sheet and staggered into the bathroom and took a shower.

Roasting in my bed, I thought, must have brought on the nightmare. Except that it wasn't a bad dream, Mr. Wright was real; he was looking for me with his gun, and I was indeed a captive duck in a shooting gallery--unless I did something about it-- and soon.

At three a.m. the airconditioning kicked in. The lights were on again, so I fixed a cup of coffee. While the water was boiling I reset my electric clocks from my wrist.w.a.tch. The power had been off for almost two hours.

In another three hours it would be light outside. The rain had slackened to a drizzle, and the coffee cheered me up some. I put an LP of the Stones on the stereo, and listened to them sing about the horrors of England, which were, if anything, much worse over there than they were in Miami. I started to cry something I hadn't done in at least fifteen years.

Why in the h.e.l.l was I crying? Perhaps I cried because it was three in the morning, but most of all, I felt that I had lost something, something valuable and irreplaceable, even though I didn't know what it could be.

But I didn't go back to bed.

Somehow, the dream had frightened me more, much more, than Mr. Wright's promise to kill me.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

The sun and my spirits rose but I was still tired and in need of sleep. I thought about taking a dexie or a bennie, or a half of one or the other now, and the second half at noon. One half of a dexie would wake me fully, give me a feeling of alertness, and provide me with the surge of mental energy I needed.

”I can handle it,” I thought.

But these fatal words, flas.h.i.+ng into my mind, changed it. This was the familiar rationalization we were all warned against during indoctrination, together with other grave dangers that specious learning and unlimited access to drugs faced detail men in the field. Studying, as we did, the symptoms of diseases, the clinical properties of the drugs we touted to doctors--what they could and couldn't do-- contraindications and side effects-- the danger of self-prescription was always present. And because doctors as a group are not the sharpest body of men one will ever meet, especially if one ever talks to them about subjects other than their work, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing-- of -knowing--- that you know as much, or even more, than doctors do.

Doctors work much too hard. They rarely have an opportunity to read anything, including newspapers. They are, as a whole, naive politically, and unworldly concerning money, economics, or even interpersonal relations.h.i.+ps. They make a lot of money, but they never have any because they invariably lose it through poor investments, and they spend it--or their families spend it-- as if it came from a magic source. Many doctors, including those with the average $75,000 per annum incomes, who own two or three cars and carry a huge mortgage, have little or nothing in reserve. Bankruptcy is a frequent hazard for doctors, and they are then bewildered men, wondering where all the money went. There are exceptions, of course, but I had talked to hundreds of doctors in the last five years, and the overwhelming majority was poorly informed. They knew very little outside of their trade. It becomes easy, then, to fall into the trap and decide that you, who know so much more about the world than doctors, and have the same access to medical books, medical journals and drugs, can prescribe for yourself when you become sick instead of seeing a doctor.

The company had warned us about that, reminding us, at the same time, that the greatest number of drug addicts in the U.S., as an occupational group, were M.D.s. Doctors, of course, used the same kind of reasoning that a detail man could fall heir to; they had a practically unlimited access to drugs, and because they knew, or thought they knew, as much as any other doctor, they also had a tendency to prescribe drugs for themselves.

”I can handle it,” they thought, and they would pop a bennie to get through a six a.m. operation, and then another bennie at ten a.m., to get through their hospital rounds, and then, because they were bone-tired, and beginning to get sleepy by one or two p.m., and they had an office full of waiting patients to get through, they would take a couple of more bennies that afternoon. And so it would go, with emergency calls at night, and the first thing they knew they would be hooked--on bennies, or dexies, or nose candy, and eventually, on horse.

When you get sick, the company told us, see a doctor. Never, never take a self-prescribed drug of any kind. The rule was a good one, because no one can handle it. No one.

With a shrug, I skipped the bennie, and settled for a close shave and a long cold shower. I put on a pair of gray seersucker slacks and a sports.h.i.+rt, brewed fresh coffee, and sat down to decide my next move.

Luckily, my reports were made out and ready to mail to Atlanta. It wasn't essential to call on my doctors during the week. I could fake another set of calls on the following Sat.u.r.day or Sunday when I made my next report, and it made no difference. The sales in my territory were the highest in the Southeastern District. I could devote fulltime to protecting myself, or better, I could reverse the role. I could hunt down Mr. Wright, and put -him- on the defensive. I didn't want to shoot him, or hurt him in any way, but I had to get him alone somewhere and talk to him. I was positive, if I could only talk to him for a while, and explain how Jannaire had pa.s.sed herself off as a single, unattached woman, and that there had never been anything physical between us, he would see how foolish it was to come after me with a gun.

Jannaire, in all probability, had told him the same thing by now-- that there had been no s.e.x between us-- and maybe he had cooled off already, during the night. On the other hand, he might not believe Jannaire. She might have had, for all I knew, a long record of clandestine lovers, and if so, Mr. Wrightwould discount anything she said.

I had to get a gun. What was the best way to go about getting one, and obtaining a license to carry it? Larry Dolman would know, but so would Alton Thead. I couldn't go to Larry. I didn't want Larry to find out about my predicament. He would help me, of course, but if he did, the nature of our relations.h.i.+p would be altered. He believed that I was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Jannaire. Without actually saying so, I had implied as much a few days before when I ran into him at the mailboxes in the lobby. If Larry knew that I had been running around with her for six weeks without getting any, and without even learning that she was married, he would be contemptuous. It was bad enough to be contemptuous of myself, but I couldn't stand it from Larry. In his opinion, and in Don's and Eddie's as well, I was purported to be the greatest c.o.c.ksman in Miami, and I valued the good opinion of my three friends. If Larry helped me, and I know how eagerly he would volunteer if I asked him for help, it would all come out-- the entire story--and he, in turn, would tell Don and Eddie...

The phone rang, a single ring, and stopped. I waited, counting. A minute later, it rang again. This was my private signal. During daylight hours, from eight to five, I never answered the phone unless I was called in this special way. I didn't want anyone from the company to call me from New Jersey and find me at home, particularly if that was the day I was supposed to be in Palm Beach or Key West. My immediate supervisor, Julie Westphal, the district manager in Atlanta, knew about my special ring, but we were close friends. I was his best detail man in the field, and we always had a good time together when he came to see me in Miami. A few women, perhaps a dozen, had been told about the two rings, and also Larry Don, and Eddie, of course-- but no one else. I picked up the phone.

”Hi,” I said.

”Tom Davies.” The solemn voice paused, and then Tom laughed.

”Tom, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” I said, ”how did you get onto my secret ring?”

”I called Julie, in Atlanta. You know I don't give a s.h.i.+t anyway, Hank, whatever you do, but this is an emergency and I had to get a hold of you. I was afraid you might get away this morning and go to Lauderdale or Palm Beach, and it's important that I see you.”

”You mean you want me to fly up to New Jersey, Tom?”

”No.” He laughed. ”I'm flying down to Miami this afternoon, and I'm going to have a six-hour stopover on my way to San Juan. I'm going to spend a week, maybe ten days, with Gonzales in Puerto Rico. But I want to talk to you, and catch a little sleep at the Airport Hotel before I grab the midnight flight to San Juan...”

”Do you want some action, Tom? It's short notice but I...”

”No, but thanks, Hank. I'm really tired-- I'll tell you about it when I see you. And I imagine Gonzales has got a few things planned for me anyway in San Juan. So what I'd like you to do is book me a room at the Airport Hotel--I'll be in about five-thirty--and we'll get together for awhile at six, in my room.” He lowered his deep voice a full octave. ”It's important, Hank. Very important.”

”Sure, Tom. No sweat. And if you decide you want some action I can probably take care of that, too. I know a couple of girls in Hialeah who like to play sandwich, and if you say the word, I'll...”

”Not this time, Hank It's business. I haven't slept for twentyfour hours now, and I just want to get a little sack time before midnight, that's all.”

”Okay, Tom. I'll see you at the hotel--in the lobby--it's at the end of Concourse Four-- at six o'clock”

”Good! We'll have a drink, and talk...”

I called the Airport Hotel and made a reservation for Tom Davies.

My throat was dry, and I was a little irritated at Julie for giving out the information about my special ring. But Julie and I were good friends, and if it hadn't been important, very important, Julie sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't have given the Vice-President of Sales this privileged information. Tom Davies, of course, was a d.a.m.ned nice guy, and he had been in the field himself, long before he became a district manager and then a vice-president, so he knew what the score was, and how we operated. Perhaps they all knew, the entire executive group in New Jersey, including old Ned Lee, who had founded the company. But we played the game, and we pretended to be working our a.s.ses off in the field. And some of us, at least some of the time, actually did work like h.e.l.l. I certainly had, during my first year, but when your sales are up you are can slack off. If they go down, as they will eventually if you quit pus.h.i.+ng your product to doctors for several months and they learn about new ones from other companies they want to try, then you've got to get out there and hustle again. All the same, I wondered what it was that was so important that Tom Davies, the Vice-President of Sales, would take a layover in Miami to talk to me about in person instead of telling me on the phone.

I hadn't seen Tom Davies in about eight months, not since the last Atlanta meeting, when we had had a h.e.l.lova good time. We had picked up two showgirl types, big Southern broads six feet tall, and we had stayed over in Atlanta an extra day with these giantesses. When he was working Tom was a serious man, but he also knew how to unwind when the time came. We had had a lot of fun with those enormous women. But whatever it was Tom wanted to talk to me about, it would have to wait until six p.m.

Right now, I needed to do something about getting a pistol, and my best bet was Alton Thead,J.S.D.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

My adjustment year in Miami, after getting out of the army, had been a grim and confusing period. I had hated Pittsburgh, a cold and miserable city, and I had made no friends among its residents. I drank and ran around with some of the other officers from the Recruiting Station, and our conversations were usually centered on what we were going to do and where we were going to go after we got out of the service. It had never entered my mind to go home to Michigan. Dearborn, if anything, was a colder and more miserable city than Pittsburgh, and with fewer opportunities.

When a man is finally discharged he is ent.i.tled to travel pay to the home of his choice, and when my time came I selected Miami. I had never been here before, but I knew that it was subtropically warm, and I figured that a city of a more than one million people was large enough for me to find a place for myself.

I had saved very little money, and I took the first halfway decent job I could find, working as an insurance claims adjuster, which gave me $9,000 a year and a free use of a car. Eight years ago, it was still possible to live on nine thousand a year-- if not very well.