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Authors: Timothy C. Phillips
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here.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ve got an escape plan for you. This has happened before. It’s my asshole neighbors, the Harcourts. They’re an old couple with Mesozoic values and even older money, who don’t approve of my little casual dress get-togethers. When old money talks, the police do whatever their masters bid them. Now, if you wish to escape imprisonment, kindly come with me. The Metropolitan Police have been spotted coming up the hill by one of my young associates. No doubt they plan an assault on my compound.”
I followed him into the old house. He looked slyly over his shoulder at me, as he went to a closet in the rear of the house and pushed aside a row of overcoats that hung inside.
“Camouflage,” Britton said triumphantly, and winked at me. I shook my head. Behind the hanging clothes was a concealed, steep, homemade staircase.
“You have to be kidding me,” I said.
“Up here,” Britton said, his speech a little slurred. “There’s little time.”
I followed the writer up the stairs and we came to a narrow door which he opened. It led out onto a balcony at the rear of the big house. There was a knotted rope tied to the thick cast iron railing. Britton set his huge drink down, picked up the ladder and cast it over the side.
“Go now, my good man. The moon is down.” He burped loudly, and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.
I really didn’t want to waste time answering questions, or maybe even getting myself bailed out of jail, but I didn’t clearly understand why Britton thought it so imperative that I slip the dragnet. Maybe he didn’t either, I suspected.
“Why not.” I gave a chuckle and swung my foot over the railing and started down to the ground.
Carter Britton took a big gulp of his drink as I started to descend, and held his glass high as if in a grand toast.
“The milk of paradise,” he said, and belched loudly again. I climbed down and jumped the last couple of feet onto the wet grass. Police lights were cascading up around the house. I beat a circular retreat around a small grove of trees and waited until the police had moved up, around and into the house, where I heard shouted arguments being raised by Carter Britton against the fascist methods of the police state.
I moved downhill to my Buick, started it up and drove away. I wondered if the girl who called herself Nookie Uberalles would deliver my message to Connie. Despite her profession and her casual dress code, I had a feeling she was honest. With any luck, then, I might be able to wrap the whole thing up tomorrow.
* * *
I checked into “The Mariner’s Rest” hotel, just outside the Atlanta beltway. It was a long way to the sea from here, I thought, as I lay down like a man stricken, and succumbed to a fitful sleep. My dreams were full of laughing madmen and naked girls that I could not touch. I dreamed then of the dead girl in the river, and she was beckoning to me, and somehow she was naked and she was both the dead girl and the nubile nymph named Nookie, and she came from the dead cold water of the Cahaba with her body glistening, and with a hand extended and fingers flailing like those of a sorceress. She whispered to me to come down and join her in the black depths of the river, where all memory is erased, and every fact about you that made you who you are, is forgotten.
Chapter 9
I awoke the next morning feeling none too rested, and was moving out onto the highway of a city that was already hopping with activity, when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and checked the incoming number. It wasn’t one that I recognized.
“Longville.”
“Yes, hello. Is this Mr. Roland Longville?”
“That’s right.”
“A friend tells me that you are trying to locate Miss Constance Patrick.”
“That’s correct, I am. Who is this?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Randy Cross.”
“Mr. Cross, do you know
“Where are we going?”
“I’ve got an escape plan for you. This has happened before. It’s my asshole neighbors, the Harcourts. They’re an old couple with Mesozoic values and even older money, who don’t approve of my little casual dress get-togethers. When old money talks, the police do whatever their masters bid them. Now, if you wish to escape imprisonment, kindly come with me. The Metropolitan Police have been spotted coming up the hill by one of my young associates. No doubt they plan an assault on my compound.”
I followed him into the old house. He looked slyly over his shoulder at me, as he went to a closet in the rear of the house and pushed aside a row of overcoats that hung inside.
“Camouflage,” Britton said triumphantly, and winked at me. I shook my head. Behind the hanging clothes was a concealed, steep, homemade staircase.
“You have to be kidding me,” I said.
“Up here,” Britton said, his speech a little slurred. “There’s little time.”
I followed the writer up the stairs and we came to a narrow door which he opened. It led out onto a balcony at the rear of the big house. There was a knotted rope tied to the thick cast iron railing. Britton set his huge drink down, picked up the ladder and cast it over the side.
“Go now, my good man. The moon is down.” He burped loudly, and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.
I really didn’t want to waste time answering questions, or maybe even getting myself bailed out of jail, but I didn’t clearly understand why Britton thought it so imperative that I slip the dragnet. Maybe he didn’t either, I suspected.
“Why not.” I gave a chuckle and swung my foot over the railing and started down to the ground.
Carter Britton took a big gulp of his drink as I started to descend, and held his glass high as if in a grand toast.
“The milk of paradise,” he said, and belched loudly again. I climbed down and jumped the last couple of feet onto the wet grass. Police lights were cascading up around the house. I beat a circular retreat around a small grove of trees and waited until the police had moved up, around and into the house, where I heard shouted arguments being raised by Carter Britton against the fascist methods of the police state.
I moved downhill to my Buick, started it up and drove away. I wondered if the girl who called herself Nookie Uberalles would deliver my message to Connie. Despite her profession and her casual dress code, I had a feeling she was honest. With any luck, then, I might be able to wrap the whole thing up tomorrow.
* * *
I checked into “The Mariner’s Rest” hotel, just outside the Atlanta beltway. It was a long way to the sea from here, I thought, as I lay down like a man stricken, and succumbed to a fitful sleep. My dreams were full of laughing madmen and naked girls that I could not touch. I dreamed then of the dead girl in the river, and she was beckoning to me, and somehow she was naked and she was both the dead girl and the nubile nymph named Nookie, and she came from the dead cold water of the Cahaba with her body glistening, and with a hand extended and fingers flailing like those of a sorceress. She whispered to me to come down and join her in the black depths of the river, where all memory is erased, and every fact about you that made you who you are, is forgotten.
Chapter 9
I awoke the next morning feeling none too rested, and was moving out onto the highway of a city that was already hopping with activity, when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and checked the incoming number. It wasn’t one that I recognized.
“Longville.”
“Yes, hello. Is this Mr. Roland Longville?”
“That’s right.”
“A friend tells me that you are trying to locate Miss Constance Patrick.”
“That’s correct, I am. Who is this?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Randy Cross.”
“Mr. Cross, do you know
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