Dreamless, like an amoeba, he, too, slept.
CHAPTER 12
Sunlight streamed through the bedroom, warm and pleasant. Beside Allen in the bed lay his wife, also warm and pleasant. Her hair had tumbled against his face and now he turned to kiss her.
“Uh,” Janet murmured, blinking.
“It’s morning. Time to get up.” But he, himself, remained inert. He felt lazy. Contentment spread through him; instead of getting up he put his arm around Janet and hugged her.
“Did the—tape go off?” she asked drowsily.
“This is Saturday. We’re in charge, today.” Caressing Janet’s shoulder he said: “The pulsing fullness of firm flesh.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, yawning and stretching. Then she became serious. “Allen, were you sick last night?” Sitting up quickly, she said: “Around three o’clock you got out of bed and went to the bathroom. You were gone a long time.”
“How long?” He had no memory of it.
“I fell asleep. So I can’t say. But a long time.”
In any case he felt fine, now. “You’re thinking of earlier this week. You’ve got everything confused.”
“No, it was last night. Early this morning.” Wide-awake, she slid from the bed and onto her feet. “You didn’t go out, did you?”
He thought about it. There was some vague phantasmagoria in his mind, a confusion of dreamlike events. The taste of brackish water, the wet presence of plants. “I was on a distant jungle planet,” he decided. “With torrid jungle priestesses whose breasts were like two cones of white marble.” He tried to recall how the passage had read. “Bulging within the flimsy covering of her dress. Peeking through. Panting with hot need.”
Exasperated, she caught hold of his arm and tugged. “Get up. I’m ashamed of you. You—adolescent.”
Allen got to his feet and began searching for his towel. His arms, he discovered, were stiff. He flexed and unflexed his muscles, rubbed his wrists, inspected a scratch.
“Did you cut yourself?” Janet asked, alarmed.
He had. And, he noticed, the suit he had left on a hanger the night before now lay in a chaotic tumble on the floor. Lifting it up he spread it out on the bed and smoothed it. The suit was muddy and one trouser leg was torn.
Outside in the hall, doors opened and tenants wandered out to form the bathroom line. Sleepy voices muttered.
“Shall I go first?” Janet asked.
Still examining his suit he nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you.” She opened the closet and reached for a slip and dress. “You’re always so sweet to let me—” Her voice trailed off.
“What is it?”
“Allen!”
He bounded to the closet and lifted her aside.
On the floor of the closet was a bronzed thermoplastic head. The head stared nobly past him at a fixed point beyond. The head was huge, larger than life, a great solemn Dutch gargoyle head resting between pairs of shoes and the laundry bag. It was the head of Major Streiter.
“Oh God,” Janet whispered, her hands to her face.
“Take it easy.” He had never heard her blaspheme, and it added the final stamp of menace and collapse. “Go make sure the door’s locked.”
“It is.” She returned. “That’s part of the statue, isn’t it?” Her voice shrilled. “Last night—you went and got it. That’s where you were.”
The jungle hadn’t been a dream. He had stumbled through the dark, deserted Park, falling among the flowers and grass. Getting up and going on until he came to the boarded-up statue.
“How—did you get it home?” she asked. “In the Getabout.” The same Getabout, ironically, that he had rented to visit Sue Frost.
“What’ll we do?” Janet said monotonously, her face stricken, caved in by the calamity. “Allen, what’ll happen?”
“You get dressed and go wash.” He began stripping off his pajamas. “And don’t speak to anybody. Not one d–n word.”
She gave a muffled yip, then turned, caught up her robe and towel, and left. Alone, Allen selected an undamaged suit and dressed. By the time he was tying his necktie he had remembered the night’s sequence pretty much intact.
“Then it’s going to go on,” Janet said, returning.
“Lock the door.”
“You’re still doing it.” Her voice was thick, suppressed. In the bathroom she had swallowed a handful of sedatives and anti-anxiety pills. “It’s not over.”
“No,” he admitted. “Apparently it’s not.”
“What comes next?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m as mystified as you.”
“You’ll have to get rid of it.” She came toward him accusingly. “You can’t leave it lying around like part of a—corpse.”
“It’s safe enough.” Presumably no one had seen him. Or, as before, he would already have been arrested.
“And you took that job. You’re this way, doing insane things like this, and you accepted that job. You weren’t drunk last night, were you?”
“No.”
“So that isn’t it. What is it, then?”
“Ask Doctor Malparto.” He went to the phone and picked up the receiver. “Or maybe I will. If he’s there.” He dialed.
“Mental Health Resort,” the friendly, bureaucratic voice answered.
“Is Doctor Malparto there today? This is a patient of his.”
“Doctor Malparto will be in at eight. Shall I have him call you? Who is calling, please?”
“This is Mr.—Coates,” Allen said. “Tell Doctor Malparto I’d like an emergency appointment. Tell him I’ll be in at eight. I’ll wait there until he can see me.”
In his office at the Mental Health Resort, Doctor Malparto said with agitation: “What do you suppose happened?”
“Let him in and ask him.” Gretchen stood by the window drinking a cup of coffee. “Don’t keep him out there in the lounge; he’s pacing like an animal. You’re both so—”
“I don’t have all my testing apparatus. Some of it’s loaned to Heely’s staff.”
“He probably set fire to the Committee building.”
“Don’t be funny!”
“Maybe he did. Ask him; I’m curious.”
“That night you bumped into him at the statue.” He eyed his sister hostilely. “Did you know he had japed the statue?”
“I knew somebody had. No, I didn’t know—what’s the name you give him here?” She snatched up the dossier and leafed through it. “I was unaware that Mr. Coates was the japer. I went because I was interested. Nothing like that ever happened before.”
“Boring world, isn’t it?” Malparto strode down the corridor to the lounge and opened the door. “Mr. Coates, you may come in now.”
Mr. Coates followed him rapidly. His face was strained and set, and he glared straight ahead. “I’m glad you could see me.”
“You told the receptionist that it’s urgent.” Malparto ushered him into his office. “This is my sister, Gretchen. But you’ve already met.”
“Hello,” Gretchen said, sipping her coffee. “What have you done this time?”
Malparto saw his patient flinch.
“Sit down,” Malparto said, showing him to a chair. Mr. Coates went obediently, and Malparto seated himself facing him. Gretchen remained at the window with her coffee cup. She obviously intended to stay.
“Coffee?” she asked, to Malparto’s annoyance. “Black and hot. Real coffee, too. From vacuum tins, an old U.S. Army supply depot. Here.” She filled a cup and passed it to Mr. Coates, who accepted it. “Almost the last.”
“Very good,” Mr. Coates murmured.
“Now,” Malparto said, “I don’t as a rule hold sessions this early. But in view of your extreme—”
“I stole the statue’s head,” Mr. Coates interrupted. “Last night, about three a.m.”
Extraordinary, Malparto thought.
“I took it home, hid it in the closet. This morning Janet found it. And I called you.”
“Do you—” Malparto hesitated, “have any plans for it?”
“None that I’m aware of.”
Gretchen said: “I wonder what the market value would be.”
“To help you,” Malparto said, glancing irritably at his sister, “I must first gather information about your mind; I must learn its potentialities. Therefore I ask you to submit to a series of tests, the purpose of which is to determine your various psychic capacities.”
His patient looked dubious. “Is that necessary?”
“The cause of your complex may lie outside the ordinary human range. It’s my personal belief that you contain a unique psychological element.” He dimmed the office lights. “You’re familiar with the ESP deck?”
Mr. Coates made a faint motion.
“I am going to examine five cards,” Malparto said. “You will not see their faces, only the backs. As I study them one by one I want you to tell me what each is. Are you ready to start?”
Mr. Coates made an even fainter motion.
“Good.” Malparto drew a star card. He concentrated. “Do you receive an impression?”
Mr. Coates said: “Circle.”
That was wrong, and Malparto went onto the next. “What is this one?”
“Square.”
The telepathy test was a failure, and Malparto indicated so on his check-sheet. “Now,” he stated, “we’ll try a different test. This will not involve the reading of my mind.” He shuffled the deck and laid five cards face-down on the desk. “Study their backs and tell me each one in order.”