Read Online Elsinore by Jerome Charyn - Free Book Online

apart, then hit him again. He had to leave the suitcases for a moment. Three million plus riding above the spray. He sat Paul down in a deck chair and hooked him to the chair with Paul’s old belt. It was a trick he’d learnt from a bumper in the fur market. Paul would sit like that until he woke.
    He discovered two linen handkerchiefs in the old boy’s pockets, wrapped them around his own hands, and carried the suitcases down to the car. Minot still sat with the gun in his mouth.
    â€œPhippsy, let him go.”
    â€œYou’re crazy.”
    â€œHe can’t hurt us. Let him go.”
    The ferry was about to dock.
    â€œYou don’t give the orders,” Phipps said.
    Holden took the gun out of Minot’s mouth.
    â€œMinot, you’re too fucking old for this.”
    â€œWhere’s my brother?”
    â€œTaking a little sun. Get out of the car.”
    Minot got out. He stood there like a lost child while Holden drove out of the barn.

The Pinkerton
Man

6
    Holden went out to Elsinore.
    Dr. Garden wasn’t there.
    Garden’s sanitarium had one attendant, a fat man who wasn’t unfriendly. He wore a guard’s uniform with a dress tie. He didn’t have a nightstick or a gun. He had a pencil holder clipped to his pants.
    â€œI’d like to see my fiancée.”
    â€œI wish I could help you,” the guard said. “But I can’t.”
    â€œWhere is everybody?”
    â€œOut on a picnic.”
    â€œWhen will they be back?”
    â€œThe doctor has his own bus. He drives them to a lot of places.”
    â€œHe took the whole caboodle? Nurses and …”
    â€œIt ain’t a regular nuthouse. He don’t do shock therapy and all that shit. He tells his patients to swim.”
    â€œWhere’s the pool?” Holden asked.
    â€œIt’s somewhere, but I’ve never seen it.”
    The guard didn’t prevent him from wandering through Elsinore. Holden went into Garden’s office. The furniture was gone. There wasn’t a diploma on the wall, not a single scroll that would suggest an institution, not a stitch of paper with the word “Elsinore” on it.
    He returned to the guard.
    â€œYou never met Dr. Garden.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWho hired you?”
    â€œI’m not sure.”
    â€œThat’s convenient,” Holden said. “You work for an agency?”
    â€œIt’s my own getup. I’m an actor, currently unemployed.”
    â€œAnd you just wandered into this gig, huh?”
    â€œA woman called me. Left three hundred dollars in my mailbox. She gave me the address and told me to sit.”
    â€œFor how long?”
    â€œDidn’t say.”
    â€œDid she tell you I would come?”
    â€œYeah. You’re Sidney Holden. But she said you wouldn’t hurt me if I was nice.”
    â€œWhat did she sound like, this woman on the phone? Young? Old?”
    â€œYoung,” the guard said.
    â€œCultured?”
    â€œI couldn’t tell.”
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    â€œLavender Hall.”
    â€œNo one’s named Lavender Hall,” Holden said.
    â€œThat’s my stage name … Lavender Hall.”
    â€œGive me your wallet.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYour wallet.”
    The fat man had a driver’s license, a social security number, and a swimming pass under the name of Lavender Hall.
    â€œAll right. I believe you … That woman calls again, you get in touch with me, understand? Night or day, you call.”
    Holden scribbled his name and number on the back of Lavender Hall’s swimming pass and handed him two hundred dollars.
    â€œYou’re in my stable now.”
    â€œI don’t get you,” the fat man said.
    â€œSonny, you belong to me.”
    Holden’s natural juices had come back. He was gathering spies again. He could provide the lightning for a lot of storms. He went to his encyclopedist, Tosh. He handed Toshie the