MacDonald, John D – Travis McGee 18 – The Green Ripper

I went all the way over to the University Drive intersection and turned north past the new plazas and shopping centers, the caramel-colored condommiums, the undeveloped flatlands where the pal

The Green Ripper motto still grew, the clusters of wooden town houses with roofs cut into steep new architectural cliches to shed some unimaginable snow load. Bonnie Brae had marled their entrance with squat fat brick pil- lars on either side of their divided-lane driveway. It curved off to the right to the big parking area near the renovated Cattrell place now used as clubhouse, fat farm, and administration building. When the gusty wind slowed, there was heat in the sun. I could see people bobbing and trotting about over on the tennis courts.

I went into the foyer of the building, hoping to find somebody who would direct me to Ladwigg’s new house. A man came out of a room at my right and walked up to me, hand out.

“Mr. McGee?” He was a boyish thirty-something, with apple cheeks, a bushy blond mustache, thinning blond hair carefully adjusted to hide the thinning, bow tie, gray tweed jacket with leather elbows. When I nodded he shook my hand heartily and said, ‘Tm Morse Slater. Maybe Gretel has mentioned me.”

“The manager, yes.” He had a bumbling kind of effusiveness about him, a shoe-clerk willingness to please, which was given the lie by the ice-blue eyes, intent, aware, measuring I said, “What I want to know is how I find the ~

“Gretel told me to look out for you. I just took her up the Drive to the hospital. Got back minutes ago.”

“What happened?”

“Some sort of bug, I thinlr.She seemed to be in a half faint, and she felt so hot to the touch it frightened me. So I took her right to Emergency and signed her in. They took her temperature and checked her into the hospital and began tests. A Dr. Tower seemed to be the one giving the orders. We accepted financial responsibility, of course. All our people have insurance which… but you’re not interested in that. Room one thirty-three.”

I think he tried to say something else, but I was already on my way. The hospital was on the same side of University Drive, and a little more than a half mile away.

I managed to talk my way to the nurses’ station and then down the corridor to the room where Gretel was. It was a two-bed room with an old woman asleep and snoring by the windows, with a curtain drawn between the two beds. I pulled a straight chair close beside Gretel and took her hand. It felt dry and hot.

“What’s going on?” I asked her.

Her lips were swollen and cracked, and her brown hair was damp and matted. She moistened her lips and gave me a small wry smile. Yt’s one of those days,” she said. “Oh, boy. I got up and busted my favorite coffee mug that you gave me. Herm Ladwigg died in the street. A bug gave me a hell of a sting in the back of the neck. Later on, when I

The Green Ripper began to feel dizzy, I fainted and fell and brolce one of the big lamps in the Ladwigg house. And here I am. It’s one of those days.”

“What do they say is wrong?”

‘.They don’t say. Fever of unknown origin. My ears are ringing so loud you should be able to hear them. I really feel weird.”

“They’re running tests, aren’t they? They’ll find out what you’ve got.”

A little bit of a sallow blond nurse came hur~ying in. She had a fifty-year-old face and a twenty- five-year-old body. She gave me a disapproving glance, took a temperature reading with an elect Ironic gadget, then took blood pressure on the left arm, pursed her lips, came around and displaced me, and took the pressure on the other arm. She trotted out. I moved close. Gretel found my wrist with her hot dry hand and held tight. array, I feel so hot. [m burning up. I feel terrible, Trav. Terrible.”

When I spoke to her again, she didn’t answer. She seemed to be asleep, her eyes about one third open, breathing so rapidly and shallowly through her mouth, it scared me.

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