The moment was understood by both. Without thinking further, he did what he had not yet done. He drew her to him, and as she shut her eyes and parted her lips, his mouth found her lips. The kiss was long and electric. For a moment, he released her, both breathless, and when he sought to bring her to him again, closer, his arm went fully around her back and his hand came to rest on her breast, cupping it fully. Before he could withdraw it, for it had been accidental, she stiffened in his arm and wrenched free. The moment was ended.

  “Kathleen, I didn’t mean it.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “—I was—I wanted you as close to me as possible.”

  How dreadful, she thought, to force such an apology. Her swift anger had turned away from him and inward. Here she was, an adult female of twenty-eight, married once, inviting tenderness, love, desiring it from a man she had imagined in every high-school dream, and yet reacting, behaving, as no juvenile teenager, no gauche or frightened adolescent, would behave. But then, as a female, she was a fraud, and now he would know it, at last. There could be no recovery. She, not Naomi, she more, needed the analyst. What had Ted Dyson called her?

  His troubled face. She was so ashamed. “Paul,” she said with difficulty, “I didn’t mean—”

  The vestibule lights went on, and in the glare, they both started. She swerved in the seat. The front door was open, and Albertine stood behind the screen, craning her neck, peering toward them.

  “Mrs. Ballard?” she called.

  Kathleen hastily rolled down the window. “Is anything wrong?”

  “There’s been two urgent calls for your gentleman friend. One not five minutes ago.”

  Paul leaned across Kathleen toward the open window. “Who was it Albertine?”

  Albertine consulted the pad in her hand. “Mr. Van Dooten.”

  “Horace,” said Paul.

  “He said to watch for you and have you call the motel.” Paul frowned. “Must be something wrong.”

  He jerked the handle of Kathleen’s car door and shoved it open. She stepped out, and he followed her. They hurried into the house.

  In the study, Paul dialed the motel and asked for Mr. Van Duesen He waited, and at last Horace came on. “Hello?”

  “It’s Paul.”

  “Thank God! Listen—Naomi’s gone off; we don’t know what the hell’s happened to her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Naomi—she ran away. The nurse went to the bathroom around nine, she says—and when she got out, Naomi was gone. Her car, too. The nurse didn’t know where to turn.” were you there?”

  “That’s just it, I wasn’t. I was stuck with Chapman until about nine-thirty. When we broke up, I phoned to ask Naomi if she wanted anything before I came over. That’s when I found out. The most I could get straight was that she blew her cork, because I wasn’t there with her when she woke up. I guess she figured I was letting her down.”

  “Forget it. You know she’s not very rational right now.”

  “That’s what worries me. I’m worried sick. I don’t even know where to start looking. Maybe she went to some friend’s place. That’s what I’m hoping. Ask Kathleen about her friends.”

  “All right.” But something else had occurred to Paul. “There’s another possibility—”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll tell you when I see you. Look, Horace, sit tight. I’ll be right over. We’ll hunt for her together.”

  After hanging up, Paul explained to Kathleen exactly what had taken place. Kathleen knew none of Naomi’s close friends, except Mary McManus, if Mary was a close friend. Immediately, Kathleen telephoned the Ewing residence. Harry Ewing answered the call. He sounded distant and cotton-mouthed. He said Mary couldn’t come to the phone because she was asleep, and he had seen nothing of Naomi Shields. Undiscouraged, after she had finished with Ewing, Kathleen remembered that Naomi had once mentioned her father in Burbank. She tried information, learned there were several Shieldses in Burbank, and took all their numbers. The second proved to be Naomi’s parent. He was gruff, unpleasant, and said he had not seen his daughter in months.

  After this rebuff, Kathleen had one more idea. She telephoned the agitated, defensive Miss Wheatley and ordered her to search Naomi’s kitchen and bedroom for an address book or list of personal phone numbers. After five silent minutes, Miss Wheatley returned to the mouthpiece empty-handed. She had been unable to produce an address book of any kind. Firmly, Kathleen told her to remain where she was, in case Naomi returned, and, if Naomi did return, to contact Horace Van Duesen at the Villa Neapolis at once.

  During all of this, Paul had hovered restlessly nearby. Now Kathleen set down the telephone and confronted him. “Well,” she said, “I guess I have struck out.”

  Paul nodded grimly. “There’s one more longshot.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The nightclub where she got herself picked up last night. It’s out on Sunset Boulevard. Horace knows the name.”

  “Why on earth would she go back there?”

  “If she wanted to kill those men, that would be logical. But maybe she wants to have them again, and kill herself. That would be abnormal, but for her, in her present state, perfectly logical. Don’t you see? Perverse logic. Indulging the self-destroying death wish.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “She despises herself, Kathleen,” he insisted. “This would be the ultimate flagellation. Anyway, we’ll know soon enough.” Kathleen trailed him to the living-room door.

  “Paul—”

  Hand on the knob, he waited.

  She hoped to explain about that moment in the car, that she hadn’t meant it, that she cared for him, but now it seemed too callous and trivial in the light of Naomi’s disappearance. Still, she supposed, it must always be like this with everyone: you set the human brain on a track marked sorrow, but it does not always stay there. What did people really think during a funeral? She recalled the rites around Boynton’s grave, before the coffin was lowered.

  “Paul…I…I hope you find her. And look out for yourself.”

  He nodded solemnly.

  Suddenly, blindly, she ran to him, finding his cheeks with her hands, then standing on tiptoe to kiss him. This was wrong, too, she supposed, staying the Minute Man from his emergency, but, dammit, dammit, she was as lost as Naomi. For a moment, as their lips met, her instinct was to lift his hands from her hips and place them on her breasts. She wanted to do it, boldly, to show him that she had not meant her earlier prudery, to assure him that she was as warm as any woman alive. But what surprised her most was her dominating emotion: she wanted to do it because the flesh of her breasts strained for his touch. She held the desire and held it, but a cold paralysis gripped her, and then the kiss was ended and it was too late.

  At last, she was sorry to have delayed him. “You’d better hurry. Let me know if you have any luck.”

  “I’ll call you in the morning.” For another moment, he stared down at her. “You know what? You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.”

  And he was gone.

  She leaned against the closed door and thought the cliche: But beauty’s only skin deep, and my hidden ugliness is deeper, much, much deeper, the greater part you cannot see, below the surface like an iceberg, like a lump of dough in a buried coffin.

  * * *

  Sitting at the ringside table in the noisy, smoky nightclub, only half aware of the gliding shadows of dancers before her eyes, Naomi Shields wondered why she was not drunk.

  She had consumed six, seven, eight gin somethings, and her head was clear; she was sure it was clear. True, the knifing pain of the stitches had dulled, and the hurt of Horace’s absence had numbed. But the clarity of her original desire had not blurred: to be impaled on a cross, on a bed, until she bled to death and found peace, at last.

  The music had ceased, and now there remained overhead the shrill cacophony of human voices. A tall presence loomed, then lowered itself to eye-level in the chair across. The beloved, pocked death head. The lipless smile. Here, the Reaper, beloved Reaper, to wrap her in a shroud.

  “How’s my honey child?” Wash was asking.

  “I’m tired of waiting,” Naomi said.

  “You don’t want to wait?”

  “No. Now.”

  He shook his head with admiration. “You’re something, honey.”

  “Now,” she repeated.

  “You know, you’re getting me excited. Maybe it can be arranged. You really want ol’ Wash, don’t you?”

  She wanted calvary, the purge of pain, and the final nothingness. She nodded.

  “Okay, honey, you got me.” He rose to his feet. “Not jus’ you,” she said. “All.”

  Wash whistled under his breath. “Christ.”

  “All—” she insisted.

  “Okay, honey, okay. Come on. Let’s get the show on the road.” He helped her from the chair and led her across the slippery dance floor. As they passed the bandstand where several of the boys were relaxing, smoking, he held up his hand, joining forefinger and thumb in a circle. He opened the side exit and started her along the edge of the parking lot beside the kitchen.

  “My car’s behind there,” he said, “all by itself.”

  “Where you taking me?”

  “Nowhere, honey. I got a nice private backseat.”

  She heard a motor behind, and stopped, and looked off toward the bright area nearer the street. The car was an MG. An attendant was holding a door open, and a girl stepped out. Her face was indistinct at the distance, but she was young, patting down her taffeta and petticoats, and holding her corsage of camellias, and her escort was young and straight. Later, at her door, they would kiss, and tomorrow she would build a dream house, a dream life, a dream universe of happiness.

  “Come on, honey. I got it bad now.”

  Naomi stared at the hideous death head, and suddenly, the revulsion filled her throat. She was alive, a living entity, and all around, all around, were the living, the fresh, clean, alive living, and they were the race to whom she belonged, they and not this gruesome skeleton.

  “No,” she said.

  “Come on.”

  “No, not in the car. What do you think I am?”

  She pivoted uncertainly and tried to move away. Wash’s hand was on her arm and she winced. The lipless smile was gone. “You’re my girl, an’ you’re coming with me—so let’s not have any trouble.”

  Dignity, dignity. “Let go of me,” she said archly.

  “Look, honey, no little bitch is getting me hepped up, and taking a powder. This is the big leagues, honey. We deliver. You’re going with ol’ Wash—and the boys, the boys, too. I’m not letting them down for nothing.”

  “I’m sick,” she said suddenly. “You can’t hurt somebody who’s sick.”

  “You’ll be sicker if you give me any more trouble.”

  He wrenched her violently after him and hastily dragged her toward the corner of the kitchen and the shape of the vehicle in the blackness beyond. Off balance, she stumbled after him, choking, trying to find her voice. She fell to her knees on the gravel. As he pulled her upright, she tore free. She tried to scream but felt his hand smashing across her face.

  She sobbed. “No, Wash, no—”

  He had her about the waist, off her feet. She tried to tear at him, tried to kick, but he continued with her toward the blackness. There was no sound but their breathing and his feet biting the gravel, and then there was a shaft of light behind, a door slamming, other feet.

  Wash dropped her and whirled about, too late to lift his hands, as Horace’s fist exploded in his vision. The blow sent Wash reeling backward, crashing into the side of the car. Grotesquely, he hung there, then slipped down to the ground. Horace was over him again. Groggily, Wash pawed for his legs, missed, and received the full impact of Horace’s shoe on his jaw.

  By the time Wash had brought himself to a sitting position, the pair of them were beyond the bright area and out of sight. Wash touched his mouth, a meaty mass, then considered the palm of his hand that now held his blood and a broken tooth. He blinked incredulously. All this, and she wasn’t even a good lay.

  When Horace reached the car, Naomi’s hysteria had subsided. Until then, she had clutched him desperately, and wept, to the bewilderment of the parking attendant and a passing couple, and not once had she spoken a coherent word.

  Paul was waiting with the car door open.

  “Is she all right, Horace?”

  “I think so. I caught up with them in the parking lot. I really slugged him.”

  Horace worked her into the front seat, then pushed in beside her.

  “We’d better move,” said Paul. “We’ll have the whole gang on our necks.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Horace. “One of the men in the orchestra told me where she was. For twenty bucks.”

  Later, as they were driving alongside the bridle path through Beverly Hills, after she had wiped her eyes with Horace’s handkerchief, and blown her nose, Naomi spoke at last.

  She pointed to the torn knees of her stockings. “Look at me,” she said.

  “You’re all right. That’s all that counts,” said Horace. “Never leave me, Horace—never, never leave me.”

  “Never, I promise.”

  “I’ll do what you say—whatever you say. Get me an analyst, put me in a place, a sanitarium—have them help me, Horace. I want to be well, that’s all I want.”

  He brought her close to him. “Everything’s going to be all right, darling. From now on. Just leave it to me.”

  Her voice was muffled. “You won’t think of the other?” Horace’s eyes were full. But he tried to smile. “What other?” he asked.

  * * *

  After leaving Horace and Naomi at her house, Paul returned to the Villa Neapolis.

  Now, trudging between the stately royal palms to the motel entrance, Paul thought once more of Kathleen. The incident in the car had been curious. As curious as her temper the first night he had met her. As curious, in fact, as the spontaneous kiss she had favored him with as he left her several hours before. And then, so long ago it seemed, the sex history she had recited at him through the screen. No truer woman on all the earth existed, of that he was certain, yet her history had been incredibly false. Or credibly false? It depended on the point of view. She seemed to care for him, that was evident, and he knew the churning excitement he felt this moment, thinking of her. Yet, between them, stood an unidentifiable barrier, as real as the cane and walnut folding screen that had separated them the day of the interview. Perhaps between every woman and man, there rose this screen, defying total intimacy. Perhaps between every woman and the entire world, there was a screen, always. …

  At the reception desk, the night clerk, who resembled a retired jockey, gave him his key and a sealed envelope. Puzzled, Paul opened the envelope and extracted a penciled note.

  “Paul,” it read, “Ackerman just called and is coming over. I’m anxious that you be present during this meeting. Whenever you return, come to my room. Urgent. G.G.C.”

  The wall clock above the desk showed the small hand between the twelve and the one, nearer the one, and the big hand on the ten. Twelve-fifty. Could Dr. Chapman possibly want to see him at this hour?

  Paul went outside, past the placid pool, then mounted the wooden staircase. At the door to Dr. Chapman’s suite, he paused and listened. There were voices behind the door. He knocked.

  The door was opened by Dr. Chapman, whose casual blue smoking jacket did nothing to offset the tension at the corners of his mouth.

  “Ah, Paul,” said Dr. Chapman. “I’m glad you made it before we broke up. You know Emil Ackerman—” he indicated the portly Ackerman, and then waved his hand at a small, slender young man, of college age, with a high head of hair combed back, bulging eyes, and a sallow face, slumped in the chair across the living room— “and his nephew, Mr. Sidney Ackerman.”

  Paul crossed to shake Ackerman’s genial hand, and then went to the nephew, who tentatively made an effort to rise, and Paul shook his hand, too.

  “Have a seat, Paul,” said Dr. Chapman. “We’re almost finished.”

  Paul took a straight chair from the wall, carried it closer to the group, and sat down.

  “I like to have Paul in on everything I do,” Dr. Chapman was telling Ackerman. “He has good judgment.”

  “Maybe you better bring him up to date, George,” said Emil Ackerman.

  Dr. Chapman bobbed his head. “Yes, I intend to.” He shifted on the big chair toward Paul. “You know, of course, how deeply interested Emil is in our work.”

  “Yes,” said Paul, “I do.”

  Ackerman beamed. The nephew, Sidney, scratched his scalp and worked his upper lip over his yellow buck teeth.

  “I think, in a way, he’s appointed himself my West Coast representative,” said Dr. Chapman.

  Ackerman chuckled, pleased.

  “At any rate, Paul, to make a long story short, Emil has been looking out for our interests and keeping an eye on the activities of his nephew Sidney.”

  “I’ve guided him every step of the way,” said Ackerman.

  “I’m sure you have, Emil,” Dr. Chapman agreed, projecting admiration. He sought Paul’s attention once more. “Sidney’s a sociology major at the university here. He graduates in two weeks. The young man’s ambition is to be associated with our project. Emil feels he can be most useful to us.”

  “I’m positive of it,” said Ackerman.

  “I’ve tried to explain,” Dr. Chapman continued to Paul, “that our roster is temporarily filled, but, of course, we’ll be expanding very soon. He knows we have an impressive waiting list, many eminent scientists with excellent records—still, as Emil has pointed out, we dare not shut our eyes to fresh young minds, eager young newcomers.”

  “Plenty of rookies have helped make pennant winners,” said Ackerman.

  “Indeed they have,” agreed Dr. Chapman. Then to Paul: “I’ve been briefing Sidney on our operation, and I’ve been inquiring into his background. And that’s where we stand now.” He looked across the room at Sidney. “Perhaps you’d like to ask some questions of us?”

  Sidney hoisted himself erect, crossed his legs, and then uncrossed them. He picked at his scalp nervously. “I read your books,” he said.

 

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