By this time Dr. Romadka was far enough into the light so that the four streaks of dried blood on his cheek showed up plainly. Mary said mischievously, “Anton, I never did believe in that wild woman patient of yours who was always threatening mayhem, but now I guess I’m going to have to. Somebody clawed you real good.”
Dr. Romadka’s smile thinned a trifle. “Quite a few illusions turn out to be very real, Mary,” he said lightly, “although it’s usually my job to prove the opposite. Eh, Phil? Such as that there really aren’t any young women with hoofs and black fur who forget to turn off the window when they undress?”
“Or any green cats?” Phil asked quietly.
“Yes, anything like that,” Dr. Romadka agreed curtly.
“Why don’t you admit, doctor,” Phil went on coolly, “that the green cat is another of those illusions that turn out to be very real? And that you’re after it? You wouldn’t startle these people a bit. They’ve all seen the green cat.”
Dr. Romadka’s eyes blazed with sudden suspicion, which didn’t altogether abate when Cookie said in scandalized tones, “We did not,” and Jack insisted, “Doc, we don’t know what the guy’s talking about. But we do know he’s a nut. That’s why I sent him to you in the first place.”
Phil watched with amusement as the psychoanalyst sharply scanned Juno, Sacheverell and Mary. Then Phil chuckled and said to them, cryptically, “It might be worse for you if I go off with the doctor instead of up against Brimstine.”
New suspicions flared in Dr. Romadka’s eyes, but Jack said swiftly, “Look, doc, are you going to take this guy in charge and put him away somewhere so that he won’t be able to cause any trouble?”
“That’s one thing you can be sure of,” Dr. Romadka snapped, shedding his smiles and subtlety. “Get this straight, Phil, you’re coming with me whether you want to or not. In case you’re thinking about running away again, I have several friends outside.”
“Then that’s swell,” Jack said, “I’m all for it. We’ll be glad to get rid of him.”
Juno, who had been frowning for a long while, now rocked her head like a puzzled bull. “Gee, Jack, I dunno,” she said. “I don’t like it at all.”
“Juno -” Jack began threateningly.
“I don’t like the idea of tossing the little guy to the wolves,” she finished defiantly.
“To the wolves, Mrs. Jones?” Dr. Romadka asked dangerously. “That’s done to save others. Please explain -”
But at that moment Sacheverell came hustling forward with great determination. There were no longer any traces of sympathy in the stern glance he fixed on Phil. “I think that Anton and Jack are quite right,” he announced, seizing Phil by shoulder and elbow and marching him toward the door. “I’m tired of your deceptions, Mr. Gish. You go right along with Anton and his friends, and no nonsense.”
Phil heard a grunt of satisfaction from Dr. Romadka. He tried to twist away from Sacheverell, but the latter pressed even more closely to his side, so that his face was next to Phil’s ear, and suddenly whispered, “Up the stairs, two flights.”
The next moment, Phil felt himself pushed away, while Sacheverell reeled with a yelp into Dr. Romadka, who was stooping for his black bag, and at the same time managed to upset the antique floor lamp that dimly lit the hall.
Then Phil was racing up the creaking stairs in the sudden darkness, helping himself along by yanks at the rickety balustrade, while behind him he heard shouts and racing footsteps. Nearest were those of Sacheverell, who was crying manfully, “There he goes! After him, everyone!”
Phil raced along the backstretch of corridor and up the second flight, Sacheverell flapping at his heels like a green bat. At the top he grabbed Phil and shoved him through a door. For a moment their faces were close.
“Out the window and over the beam,” Sacheverell whispered. “Dare anything forhim. ”
The door was swiftly shut and he heard Sacheverell yell, “He’s gone up in the attic. Follow me.” Phil was in darkness, facing a tall window dimly aglow from outside, while about his feet rats who had taken refuge in the room scurried frantically.
He walked over to the double-paned thing of wavy, ancient glass. He had read more than one comedy scene involving the impossibility of opening such primitive windows, but this one came up easily enough and all the way. He ducked through and crouched on the sill outside, steadying himself with one hand.
Around him was nineteenth-century, musty smelling wood and slate. Opposite him, about twenty feet away, was the top-level street, busy with speeding electrics. Joining the two was a metal beam about eight inches wide, faintly outlined in the glow from the car’s headlights. The beam was grimy with dirt. It based itself in the brick chimney that rose just beside the window. In fact, one of Phil’s feet was on it. Below were two stories of mostly darkness.
What happened next may very well have been made possible by the fear-abolishing, nerve-steadying drug Juno had put in his whiskey, though Phil laid it to the influence of Lucky and to Sacheverell’s grotesque yet strangely thrilling injunction. Certainly Phil was no athlete and had, if anything, a touch of acrophobia.
At any rate, he slowly got to his feet, let go the window, poised himself for a moment, and then ran lightly across the beam. He rolled clumsily over the railing at the other end and sprawled on the sidewalk.
At the same instant a needle of glaring blue lanced up through the dark behind him. It cut through the beam at an angle, spat redly for a moment against the black “roof” a few feet above the Akeleys’ house, and winked out.
The beam held for a moment, then slowly slid past itself at the cut. The chimney fell lazily. There were yells and one scream came from below. The roof of the Akeley place slid forward a foot – and stopped. Dust mushroomed up.
Then Phil was racing down the street to a cab parked a quarter of a block away. He was thinking that, whatever those orthos of Moe Brimstine’s boys were, apparently Dr. Romadka’s friends had them too. He couldn’t help sparing a thought for the plight of the group in the reeling attic. He could almost hear Juno’s titanic curses.
Then he was piling into the cab.
“The Tan Jet,” he told the driver. “It’s a kind of night club.”
“Yeah, I know,” the latter said in a voice heavy with knowledge, fixing on Phil the sad, resigned gaze one reserves for those who insist, against all good advice, on running to their dooms.
IX
SOMEONE singing, “Turn of the Century Blues” in a sultry, melancholy voice was all that Phil could hear as he walked down the dark ramp and into the hardly brighter Tan Jet. No live or robot doorman was on guard, at least no obvious one, and no hostess came hurrying up. Apparently customers were supposed to know their way around.
There were a lot of them. They sat in small parties with a truculent quietness that sneered at and challenged the frantic hustle of the times and the belief that the hustle was leading anywhere. There were no juke box theatres in the corners, no TV screens visible, and the booths didn’t seem to be equipped with handies. Four live musicians softly blew and strummed old jazz instruments, while a single amber spotlight shone on the coffee colored, deceivingly languid songstress, whose sequined dress went all the way to her wrists and chin.
I’m sad-crazy, sweetheart, tonight,