Authors: Lawrence Sanders
“A little one or a big one?” I asked.
“A big one, Nick.
Huge!”
“How big?”
She held her forefingers about 10 cm apart.
“A little one,” I said.
"Mus,
not
Rattus.
They won’t hurt you. ”
“They’ll bite me.”
“No, Millie. Not mice. They won’t.”
“They’ll run over me and, you know, get between my legs. And bite.”
I sighed.
“All right, Millie,” I said.“I’ll fix it so they can’t get up here.”
I got out of bed, naked, and went into her tiny kitchen. I found some rags under the rusted sink. Brought them back to the big room.
“I’ll stuff them around the pipe,” I told her. “Tomorrow you must buy some plastisteel wool, pull the rags out, and stuff the wool all around the pipe. They can’t gnaw through that. Do you understand, dear?”
“Plastisteel wool,” she repeated.
“Right. You stuff it around the pipe where I’m going to put the rags in for tonight.”
“Around the pipe,” she repeated.
“Right,” I said. “Then complain to the super or the owner. Tell them to set traps or scatter poison. Tell them you’ll complain to the Health Board.”
“The Health Board,” she repeated faintly.
I knew she’d never remember. But I’d do what I could. I got down on hands and knees, began to jam rags into a wide circular crack between a vertical steampipe and the old, wooden floor. There should have been a metal flange about the pipe; there was none.
I was stuffing the rags into the crevice when I glanced at the wooden baseboard. The pipe was in a corner; walls and baseboard came to a
V
behind the pipe. The baseboard had been nailed in place, then painted over. But two nailheads protruded. Not more than 1 cm each. I bent forward to examine them. I had seen similar electronic devices before: nailhead microphones. Topping spikes inserted in drilled holes in the wood.
I knelt there for several minutes. Staring at them. I remembered the night with Millie when I talked, talked, talked. About things she could have no interest in. About things ^should not have talked about. To anyone with less than a Red 2 security clearance. Poor Millie. She would never have
any
security clearance. Not even Red 10.
Millie’s apartment had been shared. I had told her things she could not—no way!—comprehend. But Maya Leighton’s apartment? Was that also shared? Had I told her things? Our last evening together, when she had worn that dreadful rubber suit, had I spoken of the botulism outbreak in GPA-11? That I might have told her didn’t depress me half as much as the fact that I could not remember if I had told her or not. And the safe house? My secret garden with Grace Wingate? Was that also shared? Was / being shared with new drugs, new technologies I had not been told about because I had no need to know? I was not without fear. What object is?
I grasped one of the protruding nailheads tightly and began to move it back and forth. I loosened the attached spike in the drilled hole. Finally I was able to withdraw it. Slowly. Carefully. There was a wire soldered to the end. It led into the wall.
That suddenly vacated porn shop below began to make sense.
“Come back to bed, Nick,” Millie called.
“In a minute, darling,” I said. “Millie, is there a back entrance to this building? A back staircase?”
“Nooo,” she said. Frowning. “Not exactly. There’s a fire escape. It’s all dirty.”
“How do you get to that?”
“Out in the hall. That window right next to the door to the nest. You have to climb out the window to get onto the fire escape. But it’s all dirty.”
“Do you have a flashlight?” I asked her.
“Flashlight?” she said. Worried. Trying to understand, to remember.
“I’ll look,” I told her. “You go to sleep. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I pulled on zipsuit and socmocs. I went back into her kitchen. Finally, in the back of a drawer filled with a miscellany of cheap household gadgets, I found a small, square plastic lantern.
Out to the hallway, down to the window next to the nest door. I unlocked it, but couldn’t raise it. It appeared to be painted shut. I leaned against the frame on all four sides. Then strained upward on the sash. The window didn’t move. Back to Millie’s kitchen, carving knife, back to window, point of knife inserted between sash and frame, run all the way around.
Finally, window open a few cm, I could get my fingertips into the crack and heave upward. Once the paint seal was broken, the window ran free. I got out onto the fire escape. Millie had been right; it was all dirty.
I rested a moment on the encrusted, slatted iron landing. But it was a warm, muggy night; I was never going to get any cooler. I stepped down cautiously onto the counterweighted stairway. As I proceeded, it swung slowly lower. Gripping the filthy handrail, I went down step by careful step. Finally the base touched the ground. I scampered down.
I was about to step off the fire escape ladder onto the paved rear courtyard when, suddenly, mercifully, it occurred to me that the moment I stepped off, the counterweighted section of ladder would rise again. I would be marooned in that fetid courtyard forever. Archaeologists would find my dried bones in a million years and contrive elegant theories to account for my presence there.
I looked about frantically. Still standing on the bottom step of that cantilevered staircase. No weight within easy reach. Nothing but a barred window. Bars on the outside. There was no alternative. Still standing on the swinging escape ladder, my weight keeping it down, I skinned out of my zipsuit. Twisted it into a tough rope. Tied arms about one of the window bars, legs about a vertical handrail support on the rusty ladder. Naked, except for socmocs, I stepped onto the paved courtyard. Still gripping the handrail of the counter-weighted ladder. Relieved of my weight, the end began to rise. I let it swing up slowly. Then the knotted zipsuit snugged taut. The end of the ladder was only about a meter above the ground. I could pull it down easily.
Third problem: an unbarred but locked rear door to the deserted porn shop. But there were six small panes of glass. I broke the one nearest the lock with the heel of a socmoc. Reached in cautiously through shards still in the sash. Turned a swivel latch. The door opened creakingly. I was in.
Used the weak flashlight then. Down a musty corridor. Into what had apparently been the main salesroom. Shading the light carefully with my fingers so that it could not illuminate the dusty front window, possibly alert a prowling bobcar. I moved it about slowly. Slowly. Inspecting. Fascinated dread. I thought again of Maya Leighton lying motionless in her earth-colored rubber suit. Painted lips. Glittering eyes. And—and all. . . .
Detritus of a lost civilization. Broken phalli. Ripped vaginas. Melted dildos. Vibrators long stilled. Torn photos. Dried condoms. Cracked leather masks. Rotted artificial tongues. False breasts puddled. All the technologized sex run down and stopped.
A sexual necropolis. Dust everywhere. And mouse droppings.
Finally, in a small inner room—office? stockroom?—I found the wires leading down from Millie’s apartment. The bare ends dangled over a wooden table relatively free of dust. The recorders had been placed there, of course. The operators had sat there, on that rickety three-legged stool. They had been emplaced for some time; the floor was littered with empty and stained plastic coftea containers, sandwich wrappings, dried bread crusts, fruit rinds, old newspapers. I shuffled through the last. They scanned a time period of almost five months. Long enough.
I went back the way I had come. Closed the door. Locked it. Pulled the escape ladder down. Unknotted and retrieved my zipsuit. Mounted to Millie’s floor. Climbed in through the window. Closed it and locked it. Took a tepid shower in Millie’s nest, with a thin sliver of petrosoap that raised no lather at all. Dried on a ragged square of thin petrocot. Then went back to the big room. Switched off the bedlamp. Climbed into bed.
“Everything all right?” Millie asked sleepily.
I turned her gently onto her stomach. I squirmed down until my face was at her tail, burrowing. I parted, probed, then pressed her buttocks tight to my fevered face.
“Everything’s fine,” I said to her anus.
Millie had to serve the next day, and awoke early. I was vaguely aware of her moving about. Dressing slowly. Doing something in the kitchen. Talking nonsense to the French doll that she carried about with her for a while. Then propped carefully in the corner of the couch. I wanted, desperately, just another hour or two of sleep. But I awoke, wide, when I heard her unlock the door.
“Millie,” I called.
She turned back.
“Nick,” she said, “I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep. Stay as long as you like. Just click the door when you leave.”
I got out of bed. Padded across the room to her. Took her tightly into my arms.
“You are a dear, sweet ef,” I told her. “And I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She flushed with profit. Hugged me tightly.
“We
do
have fun, don’t we?” she said.
“We do indeed,” I agreed. “Remember me, Millie?”
“Remember you?” she said. Puzzled. “Of course I remember you. You’re Nick.”
“I mean tomorrow.” I laughed. “Will you remember me tomorrow?”
I knew she wouldn’t, but I kissed her on the lips and thanked her again. She was happy because I was happy.
“I’ll remember you tomorrow,” she assured me. “Tomorrow’s Friday. Right?”
“Right,” I said. And watched her go.
I did sleep another two hours and got back to Grosse Pointe before 1100. Mrs. McPherson told me Paul Bumford had flashed twice from Washington, D. C., and I was to contact him the moment I returned. I went into the library and used the flasher there. After two wrong numbers, I got through to Paul in the DCS office at the EOB. He came on screen.
“Nick,” he said, “where have you been?”
“Sleeping,” I said.
“Millie,” he said. “Well, listen Nick, are we still set for July twenty-sixth? For Operation Lewisohn?”
“As far as I’m concerned. I’m leaving in a few hours. Be down there tonight.”
“I had this idea. . . .”
“So?” I asked. “What idea?”
"We should make an official record. On videotape. Can I effect a communications team? To get it all. For history. I’ll borrow objects and equipment from Joe Wellington’s PR staff.”
I computed a moment.
“The basic idea is go,” I told him, “but Joe is not to be involved. He has no need to know. Besides, this is a very specialized type of production. Contact Ed Nolan at GPA-1 and requisition the objects who photographed that intravaginal documentary. Remember it? With the microminiaturized IBM TV camera?”
“Of course I remember it. Fine. I’ll get them down here instanter.”
“No interference with performing objects. Maybe they can set up platforms out of the way. And some effective commentator. Ron Nexler. That’s his name. He did the voice-over on the chimera short. Remember that?”
“Nick, will you stop saying, ‘Remember that?’ I don’t forget; you know that.”
“If you say so. Bring the objects and equipment in. We’ll have them set up, then have more walkthroughs to make certain they won’t interfere with the actual surgery.”
“Got it. With Ron Nexler giving a running commentary?” “Yes. He’s scientifically conditioned. No brain, but very glib. He’s just right for the service.”
“I’ll get on it. It should be solidified by the time you get back tonight. I thought you’d want a permanent record, Nick.” “Yes,” I said. “I do. Thanks, Paul. By the way, my father is going to flash you a go signal on the UP field test.”
“Great,” he enthused. “I’ll start putting it together. Everything’s percolating. Right, Nick?”
“Right,” I said.
There was time before my father’s copter would pick me up for the trip to the airport. I went to my third-floor aerie. The glued thread, door to jamb, was undisturbed. I sat down with the works of Egon Schiele. I lighted a cannabis. Alone.
As I turned those familiar pages once again, staring at that strong, baleful sexuality, I slowly became aware that I was never going to solve the mystery of Egon Schiele. What was the meaning behind those stopped eyes? What significance in the helpless, tormented nudes? The dread in the sight of exposed, pitilessly detailed genitalia? I could penetrate so far, but no farther. Then my descent was blocked. I was left with a horrified fascination I could not analyze.
Curiously, my failure to comprehend the work of Egon Schiele did not depress me. In fact, it led me to a realization I found oddly comforting:
There are questions to which there are no answers. There are problems for which there are no solutions.
Six hours later I was in the Lewisohn Building, Hospice No. 4, Alexandria, Virginia. Operation Lewisohn was scheduled to start at 0800, July 26, 1999. The staff spent the remaining hours in rehearsals, practice, drills. The Operation Directors devoted their time to running game-plans through Phoebe Huntzinger’s computers in GPA-1. Testing our scenario for possible flaws. We programmed for every possible combination of disasters: power failures, linkage breakdowns, sudden stopping of the subject, terrorist attack, and so forth.
Difficulties were encountered, and overcome. For instance, the computer warned of incapacitation of key personnel. So we established an intraproject medical group, to minister to disabled staff members. We took extraordinary precautions to guard against food poisoning on the evening of July 25. We had already structured a fail-safe Table of Organization: Each object was numbered in relation to the importance of the assigned task. Thus, if Chief Surgeon Dr. George Berk, Green One, was unable to perform, his place would be taken by Green Two. And so on; everyone moving up a rank. Standby objects were present to fill in the lowest echelons.
At midnight, July 25, all operating staff were ordered to use a six-hour Somnorific. At the same time, the Command Staff was administered low-power, time-controlled energizers. The final countdown began. The last checkout of equipment, power supply, electronic linkages, and so forth. Phoebe Huntzinger’s computers were gradually brought on line. Operating Theater D illuminated. Emergency supplies opened. Instrument sterilizers wheeled into position. Laser scanners put on warm-up. Amplifiers tested. Readout screens and printout machines switched to On.