Brightness shone through my eyelids. My chin was on my chest. I tried to swallow the gravel packed into my throat but I couldn’t budge it. I opened my eyes and tried to sit higher in the chair and saw at once why I could not. It was a tubular aluminum lawn chair, the kind with a double bar for the armrests. My forearms were fastened with wide white surgical tape from wrist to elbow to the chair arms, wrapped around arm and armrest, tight and overlapping, so that my hands had darkened and puffed. My legs were straight out, heels resting on terrazzo, pants cuffs hiked up by the same kind of tape which had also been used to fast en my ankles together.
I lifted my head. I was on the sort of jalousied porch locally called a Florida room. Anna sat ten feet away and a little off to my left. Behind her was a picture window from ceiling to floor and ten feet wide, framing the swimming pool beyond. There was a row of little white seahorses on the glass to keep the unwary from trying to walk through it. I could see a dense hedge of punk trees, tailored grass, concrete pool apron, redwood picnic furniture, a stone barbecue, a wall of pierced concrete block painted white. A blow-up duck, big enough to ride, floated high on the pool water, being drifted in random turning patterns by the light breeze.
On the table beside Anna was my undersized.38 special. She was using yellow needles and knitting something out of bright blue yarn.
She gave me a merry little glance and said, “You’re very heavy, Mr. McGee. It took both of us to drag you.”
I started to speak, but it was a rusty whisper. I cleared my throat and managed a guttural rasp. “Was the code word sweetheart?”
“Hoping we’d never have to use it. You certainly had good luck. But when you add stupidity, what good is the luck?”
“Where is sweetheart?”
“Taking a little stroll. He wants to know how you got here and if you brought anyone along.”
“Nobody important. Some state cops.”
“I hardly think so.”
“Not a trace of accent. You’re very good.”
“Thousands and thousands of hours, Mr. McGee, in my room, listening to your damned dreary radio programs, practicing into a tape recorder, playing it over and over and over, correcting it each time. Discipline. Endless self-discipline. Endless patience. And now, you see, we are quite safe. You are an annoyance only.”
“You dosed Gloria, didn’t you?”
“I knew where it was and what it was, and knew it would not change the taste of her morning orange juice. It was interesting, but it was just a little bit careless. I indulged myself. When she asked me what I was mailing to Marco Bay, I should have made quite sure, don’t you think? Perry is very annoyed. The silly sentimental little bitch was quite amusing, gasping and panting and slapping at her clothes to put out imaginary fires.”
“Anna, wouldn’t it have been a lot easier to live the lush life by marrying your daughter off to the Doctor?”
The needles stopped clicking and she stared at me. “My daughter! If I’d ever had children, my dear man, I can assure you they would have had considerably more intelligence than Gretchen. But then again, had she been brighter, perhaps she couldn’t have been persuaded to believe I was her mother. I had her on my hands only seven years, thank God. A tiresome child. Oh, you asked about the marriage. If the man in that untidy situation had been very rich and very obscure, it might have been an acceptable solution. But Fortner Geis was somewhat of a celebrity, and it would have been a treat for your dirty-minded newspapers, and I could not risk their prying into my personal history, of course.”
“What are you wanted for?”
She saw me start and look beyond her. She turned and saw the bald man bringing Heidi around the house. He had her hand in his and she walked quite rigidly, with a twist of pain on her lips.
“Heavens!” said Anna Ottlo. “What a small world it is after all.”
The man opened a jalousied door and pushed Heidi in and followed her. Heidi massaged the hand he had been holding and she stared at me and then at Anna and then back at me. “Tray, what are they… He walked me and said such terrible things to me. Anna, my God, what are you trying to…”
“I asked her name and she told -me,” Perry said. He stood beaming. His bald head was sunburned and peeling. He wore a sport shirt of pillow ticking, dark blue walking shorts, white canvas boat shoes. He wore his stomach high. It looked solid. He had meaty and muscular forearms, and spindly, hairy, pipestem legs. He had little brown eyes, a broad flattened nose, and a heavy sensuous mouth. “She made it too easy. I see you’re breathing again, sonny,” he said, turning toward me and giving me a quick little wink.
Anna shook her head. “How perfectly delicious, Perry. Dear Heidi. The arrogant bitch of all time. Why make her bed when old Anna could do it? Drop the clothes where you take them off. Never carry a plate to the kitchen. The cool, golden, superior princess.”
“Anna! You don’t have any accent at all.”
“What a marvel! What a miracle! Stupid housekeeper. What a treat to have you here, Miss Heidi.” Heidi lifted her chin. “Stop this nonsense at once and take that tape off Mr. McGee.”
Anna faked vast astonishment. “Is that an order?”
“I think I made it quite clear.”
“Perry, if you could teach this child to sing us a little song, I think her manners would be better.”
“My pleasure,” Perry said, with a little bow. He moved over in front of Heidi, his pudgy back toward me. He hooked one arm around her and yanked her close and busied the other hand between them. I could see the elbow turning and working.
Heidi gave a harsh gasp of shock and outrage, then her eyes and mouth opened wide and she flapped her arms weakly at the plump shoulders of the man and gave a squalling sound of pain and fright.
He let her go. She staggered, going so pale her tan looked gray-green. Her face was shiny with sweat: She took two weak steps to an aluminum and plastic chaise and half fell onto it and bowed her head all the way to her knees, flax hair aspill.
“A pretty little song, dear,” Anna said. “Now mind your mouth.” She ‘spoke to Perry in a fast guttural rattle of German. He answered and seemed to ask her a question. She thought, shrugged, gave a longer speech and he nodded, gave a short answer, gestured toward Heidi. Anna responded and he went beaming to her and picked up one hand and hauled her to her feet.
He put an arm around her and led her into the house proper. She gave me a gray, lost, hopeless look as he led her by me. In a cooing little voice he said, “Tender little dearie. Dainty little dearie.”
“Hardly little,” Anna said. “She’s a half-head taller than he is. You couldn’t have made him happier.”
“Look. She got a case of the hots and I made the mistake of letting her come back to Florida with me. She doesn’t know anything about anything. She’s a clumsy lay, and she’s a bore.”
“Perry won’t be bored.”
I heard a sharp thin high scream from somewhere inside the house. Anna looked irritated and yelled some kind of an order in German. He answered in a placating tone.