Read Online Puzzle for Fiends by Patrick Quentin - Free Book Online Page B

altar,
    Ragtime drums like a plague in their blood.
    Oh, come and rend off its lewd halter,
    Our Lady of Good.’ ”
     
    I learned that verse too. Selena made me repeat both verses together. But nothing happened. Discouraged, Selena gave up and soon she was lying in the other bed.
    “Night, baby.”
    She leaned toward me, turning out the light between the beds. Her hand came through the moonlight, touching my cheek and caressing it. I kissed the soft, blue-white fingers.
    “Night, Selena.”
    “Won’t be long, will it?”
    “What won’t be long?”
    “The cast, baby.”
    “I hope not, Selena.”
    As I lay alone, drowsy but not really tired, the magic Selena cast began to fade and my old disquiet returned. I didn’t remember my father’s poems. I didn’t really remember Selena. I didn’t remember anything. A vision of Netti’s pink, red-veined gums swam in front of me. Somehow that peroxide maid with her weakness for gin-nipping and her giggled hints seemed the only normal, real person in the house. All the servants had been fired on the day my father died. Suddenly that one fact seemed to be the focus of everything that was wrong. “Selena?” I called.
    Her voice, thickened by sleepiness, murmured: “Yes, baby?”
    “Why did you fire all the servants when father died?”
    “What?” Her voice was alert now.
    “Why did you fire all the servants when father died?”
    “My dear, what weird questions you ask.”
    I had an absurd sensation that she was stalling.
    “Please, baby. I want to know. It’s one of those things that stick in your mind,” I lied. “Maybe, if you tell it’ll help me remember.”
    She laughed softly and her hand, stretched across again, rested on my pillow. I didn’t touch it. Somehow I didn’t want to.
    “Baby, that’s frightfully simple. In the old days Father hired all the servants. My dear, you can’t imagine how spectral and dismal they were, creaking around in elastic boots and sniffing in drawers for contraband cigarettes. Your father paid them to spy on us. Firing them was our first act of emancipation. Mimsey did it. She was wonderful. She just swept them out like dead leaves.”
    It was a soothing explanation. It fitted so well with the setup. I reached for her hand and squeezed it.
    “Thanks, Selena.”
    “Help you remember anything?”
    “ ’Fraid not.”
    “Damn. “Selena drew her hand back. “Night, baby.” After a moment she gave a little chuckle.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “I was just picturing how you’d look swinging lascivious hips in that plaster cast.”
    Now that Selena had told me there was nothing sinister about the firing of the servants, the last lingering fumes of my suspicions were dispersed. For the first time that evening I felt an unqualified sense of well-being. There was no pain in my leg or my arm. My head didn’t ache. Sleep stole deliciously through me. My last conscious thought was:
    I’m Gordy Friend. Selena’s my wife.
    My last conscious act was to turn my head and look at her. She was lying with her back to me, the long line of her hip visible under the humped bedclothes. Her hair gleamed metallic on the pillow.
    I dreamed of her hair. It should have been a wonderful dream but it wasn’t. The cream hair was tumbling over me, curling around my throat, smothering me.
    I was awake suddenly. I knew I was awake because a hand was touching my cheek. My mind was quite clear. Selena, I thought. The touch was light, just the tips of the fingers moving gently across my skin. There was a faint perfume too. What was it? Lavender.
    I didn’t open my eyes. Contentedly I raised my arm and imprisoned the hand in mine. The fingers weren’t smooth and soft like Selena’s. It was an old, old hand, bony, coarse and wrinkled like a lizard’s skin.
    With a chill of disgust and horror, I dropped it. I opened my eyes wide. I stared up.
    A figure was bending over me. The bright moonlight made its reality