Chapter 15

He stood in the bathroom and peeled the towels away from his neck. Then he leaned over the sink and poured the bottle of merthiolate into the open wound. There was no bandage in the cabinet but he found a roll of tape. Then he got a clean pillow case and tore it into strips, plastering them to his neck with the adhesive. A vortex of silence surrounded him. The bell had rung at the end of round one. He would take a breather and begin again.

With a bottle of whiskey he sat down on the reading chair, not forcing himself to do anything except drink the stuff. He wondered what Cee-Zee would think if she knew all that had happened. Her wall of defense had begun to crumble when she'd made her speech. He felt convinced that she wasn't a no-man's land anymore. He had managed to touch her by not giving in to her whims. This puny satisfaction was all he had of her now. He continued to drink, feeling the alcohol burn new life into his body. He felt tired, dead tired, but not knocked out for the count.

The telephone began to ring. But he sat with the bottle. There was nothing he wanted to hear from anybody.

It didn't stop ringing. He turned himself away from the sound and lifted the bottle again to his lips. The persistent ringing made him think of Hilda. She could ring till the Resurrection. After awhile he began to think that maybe it was Robin. He remembered Robin with a start. Poor Robin, stranded out in the sticks. He had promised to get in touch with her.

His responsibilities to the girl made him feel lethargic. She didn't seem important to him at all. Very distant, the recollection, as though he were looking at her through the wrong end of a telescope.

He got out of the chair and went slowly to the phone, in case it might be Robin. He had nothing else to do anyway. But even as his hand dropped to the receiver, he wished it would stop ringing.

"Yeah?" he said listlessly.

"G'damn jerk of a fool!"

The words made him grin with new life. It couldn't be, yet it was. The thunderbolt. Personally delivered.

"Cee-Zee, are you okay?" he shouted.

"I don't know. I don't know anything." Her voice was serious, intense. "Get over here quick. I need you."

He believed her. "Where are you?"

"Donald Millardson. Hurry. It's Hilda."

She hung up.

He dropped the receiver, his mind refusing to imagine what catastrophe awaited. His sizzling brain released a second wind into his muscles. His hand remembered the pistol. He shoved it into his pocket and zipped the Zelan jacket on over his naked chest.

There was nothing he could piece together that would make sense out of Cee-Zee's words. All he knew was that he had to keep going. Had to get there. Had to see Cee-Zee with his own eyes.

When he came into the Millardson apartment, he realized with a shock that it was all inevitable. Insane, but inevitable. The missing links began to fall into place without anyone explaining them.

Donald was lying on the pool table, naked in the darkness except for one slipper dangling from a skinny foot. His head moved groggily on the felt. Occasionally I he hiccoughed. A giggle punctuated his drunken silence.

Both Cee-Zee and Hilda were naked too. Hilda balanced! on the window sill, half of her hanging out of the open window, while Cee-Zee stood warily at the doorway.

"Don't you come near me," Hilda said in the savage low voice he had heard only once from her. He knew; she was drunk, drunk beyond reason, drunk into the need for self-destruction.

Cee-Zee's hand reached out to restrain Eric. "She means it," she whispered.

She didn't have to tell him.

"The things I've done for you," Hilda said. "I deserve! to be dead."

Donald giggled again and shrugged his shoulders, the: prisoner of some weird, inebriated dream.

"What are you doing here?" Eric said, because he wanted to keep Hilda talking.

"Not one step closer," her voice was barely audible across the room. "You won't touch me ever again. I'd rather die than have you touch me." Her voice cracked with horror at herself.

"She's been standing like that for hours," Cee-Zee murmured. "I kept trying to coax her inside."

"I can hear you," Hilda said. "Go ahead. Tell him everything. See if he appreciates it. He never appreciated me. Never."

Eric knew the truth of her words.

"He didn't even try," Hilda moaned.

But she had tried. To the point where she would come here to seduce Donald for him, thinking to gain favor by helping Eric to make some money. He felt sorry for her with a wealth of sorrow that clogged in his throat, j There was nothing that Hilda could do to win him. And she knew this at last

"But I keep telling you," Cee-Zee implored. "There are so many men in this world."

She seemed almost pathetic herself, in the semi-dark, her body shivering with fear for Hilda.

"For a slut like you," Hilda's words seared with contempt.

"Maybe." There was no fight in Cee-Zee's words. Her hand reached and found Eric's fingers and touched them.

"She thought that seeing you would make me change my mind," Hilda said, teetering dangerously over the open window. She laughed hollowly.

He had to chance it. In a sudden dash across the room, he grabbed Hilda's legs. She struggled and kicked, trying to wrest herself free, straining out the window, moaning.

He braced his feet against the woodwork and hung on, feeling her wet skin slipping through his grasp. The cut in his neck knifed fierce pain through him. His strength felt child-like, inadequate to Hilda's tearing desire to free herself.

Instantly Cee-Zee was with him, fighting to get one of Hilda's hands. She caught a wrist. Between them, they fell with Hilda onto the floor. She continued to twist, arching her back, straining away. Cee-Zee fell on top of her, constraining Hilda in a desperate grip that squeezed their breasts together as though in the fight of ecstasy.

Donald turned over on the table with a thud.

Eric sighed and shut the window. He pulled the drapes closed and flicked on the light.

Beneath the bright chandelier, Hilda's eyes bulged wildly. She clawed at Cee-Zee's face. Eric knelt and yanked her arms above her head to the floor. Sweat trickled into the hollow of her arm pits.

"You did me some favor," he said. "Both of you."

Cee-Zee opened her mouth to explain, but changed her mind. "We'll talk about that later," she said. "What happens now?" Her words came in jerky syllables as she tried to keep Hilda flattened to the floor.

"We've got to get her presentable," Eric said. "Where's the old man? Where's the maid?"

"Donald was so eager, he gave her the rest of the week off. I don't know why you thought he'd be such a problem."

"Circumstantial evidence," Eric replied. "I figured without all the facts." He felt disgusted with himself for seeing only half of the picture concerning Donald.

"Don't let him fool you," Hilda panted. "He's a selfish, mean, lying...." She couldn't find words adequate to describe her feeling.

"You could be right," Eric said. "But what about Millardson? Millardson, Sr.?"

Cee-Zee's eyebrows went up in amazement. "Who ever thought about him?"

"You mean, he can walk in any time and find us all like this?" Eric groaned.

"What more have I to lose?" Hilda said. She had given up struggling and lay defeated.

"Both of you better get some clothes on. And quick."

"You gonna trust her?" Cee-Zee said. "No. I'll hold her while you get her things." Cee-Zee disappeared, then returned with a bundle of stockings and girdles mixed with dresses and panties. She dropped them on the floor beside Hilda. She extracted Hilda's bra. Eric braced her while Cee-Zee put it on and hooked it. Then she slid Hilda's silk panties over her spare hips and yanked on the girdle after them. With a weak movement, Hilda tried to push Cee-Zee away, but Eric hung onto her and she finally subsided.

Between them, they got her stockings up and fastened, the seams crooked. Then they slid the dress over her head and straightened it out on her body.

"You went to her instead of Lilio," Eric accused Cee-Zee.

"No. I came over," Hilda interrupted. "Needing you for a change. Always needing you."

"I was so damn mad at you for trying to lock me in," Cee-Zee said, "I told her everything. Just for spite."

This sounded like Cee-Zee. But Eric wasn't mad. He was so dizzy glad to find her alive, he didn't care about anything else.

The collar of his jacket was turned up and Cee-Zee was too occupied to notice the bandage on his neck. He felt grateful for that. He didn't want her to know what he had done with Lilio. None of her business. All the time he'd been going crazy to find her, she was here with Donald and Hilda.

"Well, I hope you're enjoying yourself," he said.

"Quiet or I'll spit," Cee-Zee replied.

They made Hilda tolerable. At least she was decently covered. Eric didn't dare let go of her.

Cee-Zee pulled her clothes on, hurriedly tucking her I breasts into the cups of her bra.

"Stop staring, glutton," Cee-Zee said.

Hilda winced. "Why couldn't you want me instead?" i Her voice sounded like a prayer.

"You take that guy too seriously," Cee-Zee answered with forced casualness. "He grabs anything he can get. A real good for nothing bum."

Eric listened to her, noting that she spoke with a perverse kind of satisfaction. He sighed to himself. Yes, she was indestructible.

"Hurry it up," he said, recalling their circumstances. "I'm surprised the old bird isn't in already."

"Maybe he doesn't come home," Cee-Zee suggested.

"Not on your life," Eric said with conviction. "He likes to keep an eye on the kiddies."

He began to muse about Martin Millardson, under standing him with a new clarity. For sure he would be home tonight. And every night.

"How about Junior, there?" Cee-Zee motioned toward Donald as she wiggled her toes into a shoe.

"No," Eric said flatly. "We leave him just as he is." He smiled up at Cee-Zee's questioning expression. "And now we wait for the master of the house."

"We do?"

"Absolutely." He felt very sure of himself. "You'll see how to tie up the loose strings of a very messy package."

While they waited for Millardson, Cee-Zee made coffee and tried to pump it into Hilda. She let them move her to a wing chair, becoming very submissive in a guarded way that Eric didn't trust. She ignored her crooked stockings and rumpled dress as though her body were so abhorrent to her that she couldn't admit it existed. Her eyes stared fixedly and her mouth hung limp. She seemed to be staring fascinated at the horror of what she had done with Donald, condemning herself beyond forgiveness.

Cee-Zee held the cup to Hilda's lips, but she made no movement to drink.

Eric watched them, still preoccupied with his rumination about Millardson.

"You said Donald was willing?" he repeated.

"And how," Cee-Zee laughed.

This didn't jibe with the pact Robin had told him about. He couldn't believe that Robin had lied to him. He knew damned well she hadn't. Something was still out of whack. And he had a hunch that Millardson could straighten it out.

So they waited.

He didn't expect it to be a tea party when Millardson came home. He transferred the gun to the more convenient pocket of his jacket.

Donald struggled to sit up, then fell back again.

"He's really gone," Cee-Zee said. "Mixed everything in the house. Gin, rum, Scotch. I'd hate to have his hangover."

They continued to wait.

Hilda pulled her knees up close to her chest, trying to make herself invisible in the large chair. She wouldn't speak to either of them. Eric had the uneasy feeling she would never be the same again. He hoped that when she finally sobered up, she would seek mental care.

At last they heard the door bell, then Millardson's key in the lock and his quick footsteps across the marble, coming toward them.

He reached the doorway and stood there like a tightly strung bow, bracing himself against the sight of Donald. All the years of executive command came to his aid.

"You have fulfilled our agreement," he said briskly to Eric. "I'll sign that agreement." He took a pen out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap.

"Not so quickly, Martin. We have a few things to settle yet." He kept his place beside Hilda, conscious that at any moment she could take advantage of this new distraction to do something rash.

"It looks settled to me," Millardson replied. His mouth was a firm line in the sagging face.

"You tried to con me. I want the truth out of you," Eric said.

"You get my signature. That's what you bargained for."

Cee-Zee remained on the other side of Hilda's chair. "He didn't bargain on lousing up a woman's life."

"That is none of my concern," Millardson said.

"Yes it is, if we're talking about Robin," Eric said.

"I don't know what you mean." He came further into the room. "But I'm losing my patience with you and your interferring nonsense."

"You tell me why Robin is driving herself nuts believing something about her brother that isn't true. And why you wanted me to believe the same thing. I told you, I don't like being conned."

"You don't have to like anything," Millardson said, the edge in his voice getting sharper.

Eric felt a tug at his pocket.

Two shots rang wildly. A picture shattered and fell as something ripped through Eric's bicep, paralyzing his arm.

Millardson lunged to tear the gun out of Hilda's hand. But her fingers were limp as her head fell back, a gushing hole oozing blood from between her eyebrows.

Eric and Cee-Zee bent over Hilda. Eric shook his head. "No use," he said and pulled Cee-Zee away.

She nodded, biting her lip. Then, gathering her strength, she tore off a piece of her slip and pressed it against the blood trickling from Eric's arm.

"Now then, you vice-ridden, interfering fool," Millardson spoke just the slightest out of breath, holding the gun pointed at Eric. "You have tried every possible way to upset my plans. I could kill you both and go Scot free."

"That would be just fine, wouldn't it, Martin? And send Donald to jail on a morals charge."

"Shut up."

"No. I won't shut up. I've got you all figured now. You wanted someone you could trust to inherit the business. And you're a lonely man, Martin. You need company. The company of someone who wouldn't make you feel that you were cheating on your dead wife. Robin fills the bill nicely, doesn't she? Intelligent, attractive and respectful of you. But you had no way of forcing her. You had to do it through someone else so you would look like the innocent by-stander. That's where Donald came in. Weak little Donald. He would do your bidding willingly for the protection of his own financial interests. So you cooked up this pact for him to make with Robin.

And it worked very nicely. Until now. Until Robin got old enough to begin thinking for herself. And that's where I came in. To help you blackmail your own son on a morals charge, trusting that Robin would feel the burden of Donald's shame and stick by you from guilt and responsibility. But it wasn't my interference that loused you up, Martin. It was Robin's own sense of individuality which you can't squash as you did Donald's. Too bad, isn't it?"

"You're very calm, Eric Spokane. But all the forces are on my side. I shall do as I wish with you. Your shrewd analysis will avail you nothing."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Eric said. "But you can't lay a finger on me. Not if you want your daughter."

Millardson hesitated for an instant, taken off guard.

"You see, Robin is not in Cuba as you think. And I am the only one who knows where she is. In fact, she's waiting for me now. And if I don't show up, she'll know what to think. All your excuses won't sway her." Mixing a bluff in with the truth, Eric figured he could chance getting away with it.

"I don't believe you," Millardson said flatly.

"All right then," Eric said. "Let me use your phone. I'll prove it."

Millardson motioned him to the phone, which sat on its long extension on the coffee table.

Eric took out the slip of paper, dialled Robin's number, then burned the paper while he waited for an answer.

When he got Robin's voice, he motioned Millardson to the phone and let him listen.

"I just wanted to tell you I'm on my way over now," Eric said into the receiver.

He hung up.

"Are you satisfied?" he said to Millardson. Millardson put down the gun.

"We're going to get her," Eric said. "The three of us. I want to stand there and hear you square with her."

"What about...." Cee-Zee said, motioning to Hilda's body.

"Martin can fix that up," Eric said bitterly. "He's got connections."