Puzzle for Fiends Read online

  “My name is...” I began, then panic wormed through me. Since my return to consciousness, I had never actually thought about my name. You don’t think about your name. I knew I was me, that my personal identity was inviolable. But what was my name? I stared at her as if her big, curving body would act as an anchor, steadying me.

  “You don’t remember even that, do you?” she said.

  I shook my head. “It’s crazy. When I try to think there’s nothing. There’s...”

  “Don’t worry, my baby. “Her voice was rich, soothing. “It’s just the hit on the head. That often happens. I know it does. You’ll soon be well again, Gordy.”

  “Gordy?”

  “Yes, dear. That’s your name. Gordy Friend. Gordon Renton Friend the Third.”

  There was a gentle tap on the door. The woman called: “Who is it?” The door opened a crack and the head of a uniformed maid peered around it. I noticed that her eyes, greedy with curiosity, flashed instantly to my bed.

  “What is it, Netti?”

  “Dr. Croft, Mrs. Friend. He’s just arrived. Shall I send him up?”

  “Thank heavens. No, Netti. I’ll come down.” The woman rose. She stared down at me and then bent over me, kissing me on the forehead. Loose strands of the auburn hair tickled my cheek. The perfume wreathed into my nostrils. “Just lie there calmly while I’m away, dear. Don’t be frightened. Don’t try to force yourself. Just say it over and over again. Say “I’m Gordy Friend’. Do that—for me.”

  She moved out of the room, large and majestically voluptuous in spite of the drab widow’s weeds. After she had gone, I did what she said, I lay in that luxurious bed in that great sunsplashed room, marshalling my pathetically small array of facts. I had been in an accident; I had broken my left leg and my right arm. I had been hit on the head. I was home in my own room in my own house in Lona Beach, South California. My name was Gordy Friend. I said that over and over:

  I am Gordy Friend. I am Gordy Friend. I am Gordon Renton Friend the Third.

  But the words just remained words. I presumed that was my name. After all, my mother had told me it was.

  My mother? My name?

  The propellers started to whir again. And, although I hated them and feared them, somehow they had more reality than everything that had happened or been said in this room.

  If only I could remember what the propellers meant.

  Propellers—a plane... seeing someone off on a plane...

  Was that it?

  Had I seen someone off on a plane?

  Chapter 2

  Seeing someone off on a plane. Those few words, linked together, seemed to have terrific significance. For a moment I felt I was teetering on the brink of an ultimate revelation. Then the words and the image they almost conjured up blurred and dissipated in my mind. I felt spent from the effort of concentration. Like a torpedoed sailor clinging to a floating board, I clung for security to the one established fact of my life.

  I am Gordy Friend.

  Curiosity, without much motive behind it, made me raise my bandaged head so that I could survey the whole room. It was as luxurious as I had imagined it to be from the part of it that had already come into my field of vision. Beyond the fantastic, rococo vanity, stood a chaise longue upholstered in pale green satin. On it, thrown in a careless tumble, was a shimmering white negligée. There was sunlight everywhere and the colors of the room brought their own sunlight too. The pink roses by the bed were only partly responsible for the perfume. There were vases of flowers everywhere—more roses, massed yellow tulips, tall irises and spikes of white stock.

  Slowly my gaze moved from object to object and returned to the white negligée on the chaise longue. I stared at it as if it had some secret which had to be puzzled out. A woman’s negligée. The whole feeling of the room was feminine too—frivolous, vivid, individual. Was that the secret? That my room was disguised as a woman’s room?

  I couldn’t make much headway with this thought. The harder I struggled with it the more elusive it became.

  “Gordy Friend,” I said out loud. “Gordon Renton Friend the Third.”

  The door opened. My mother came in. I could feel her without even turning my head—feel that presence, mellow as ripened wheat, intrude upon the spring freshness of the room.

  She was at my bed. Her tranquil hand was on my forehead.

  “I’ve brought Dr. Croft, dear. He says we’re not to worry. It’s the result of the concussion. It’s something he expected.”

  A man moved into my field of vision. He was in the early thirties, very dark. He was dressed in tweeds that were expensive and casual. He was standing casually too, his hands in his pockets. My sensibilities, as unnaturally sharpened in some particulars as they were dulled in others felt that it was more important to him than anything else in the world to look like any one of a hundred impeccable young members of the most exclusive country club of his neighborhood.

  I’ve just dropped in after a round of golf, his stance said. Quite a good workout today.

  But in spite of the conforming camouflage, he didn’t look average at all. His dusky face was far too handsome to be unobtrusive, and his black eyes, beautiful and long-lashed as a Turkish dancing girl’s, gave the lie to the successful-broker tweeds.

  “Hi, Gordy,” he said. “How d’you feel?”

  I looked up into his white smile, feeling faintly hostile.

  I said: “Are you someone I’m supposed to know too?”

  His hands still in his pockets, he rocked gently back and forth on his heels, studying me. “You honestly don’t recognize your mother?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, well. What a state of affairs. We must fix this up.”

  “He thought I was a barmaid.” My mother smiled a shy, girl’s smile that brought rose pink to her cheeks. “I never realized it before but that’s always been my secret desire. A pint o’ bitter,” she called in a hoarse, cockney voice. “’Urry up with that ’alf and ’alf.”

  A certain rigidity in the young man indicated that this vulgar pleasantry made him uncomfortable. A new personality was forming in him. He was the serious young doctor getting down to business.

  “Well, let’s see what we can do, shall we?” He turned a professional brisk look on my mother. “Perhaps I should be left alone with the patient for a while, Mrs. Friend.”

  “Why, of course.” My mother threw me a coaxing smile. “Do try to be good and helpful, Gordy. Dr. Croft’s such a sweet man and I know you’ll be remembering everything if you just do what he says.”

  She started for the door, turned, came back for the be-ribboned box of candy and, rather guiltily, carried it away with her.

  As soon as we were alone, the young man became affable efficiency personified. He brought a chair to the bedside, swung it around and sat on it back to front. I was feeling clearer in the head now and something in me, without conscious identity, was putting me on my guard.

  “Okay, Gordy.” I got a head-on smile. “In the first place, I’m Nate Croft. You’ll remember that soon. You’ll also remember that I’m quite a pal of yours and Selena’s and Marny’s.”

  Adrift as I was, I was stubbornly sure that I could never have been ‘quite a pal’ of this man with the soft, dusky skin and the vamping, dancing girl eyes. I didn’t tell him that, though, I just lay there, waiting.

  He lit a cigarette from an expensive case with a “Sorry I can’t offer you one, old man.” Then, watching me brightly through smoke, he asked: “Tell me, Gordy, just how much can you remember?”

  “I can remember whirring propellers,” I said. “I think I can remember an airfield, and a plane, and seeing someone off on a plane.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  I strained to recapture some vanished half image. “No. Not exactly. Except that it seems terribly important.”

  “The propellers come first?”

  “Yes. They always seem to be almost there, if you see what I mean. Even if I can’t hear t
hem, I...”

  “Yes, yes,” he broke in, very much the professional interpreter of amateur information. “I’m afraid that isn’t going to be very helpful to us.”

  I felt inexplicably depressed. “You mean there wasn’t anyone going away on a plane?”

  “A common ether reaction.” Dr. Nate Croft held his cigarette poised between us. “The loss of consciousness visualizing itself as a whirring propeller. This person you imagine you were seeing off, was it a man or a woman?”

  Suddenly I knew, and I felt a rush of excitement. “A woman.”

  Dr. Croft nodded. “The nurse in the operating room. We get that frequently. A patient clings to the nurse’s image in exact proportion to his reluctance to lose consciousness. She is the image of reality that the patient feels he is saying goodbye to before the journey into unconsciousness.”

  I couldn’t understand why that rather pompous medical explanation brought a strange despair. He went on:

  “Forget the propellers, Gordy. Anything else?”

  I said listlessly: “There’s a hospital, various snatches of things in a hospital.”

  “Of course.” Dr. Nate Croft studied his clean hands. “You recovered consciousness several times in the hospital. Is that all?”

  I nodded: “All except what happened after I woke up here.”

  “Well, well, we won’t let it worry us, will we?” The teeth flashed again. “How about I bring you up to date a bit, Gordy. Your mother’s told you about the accident?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It happened down the Coast Boulevard. In the evening. You know, that deserted stretch on the way to San Diego.”

  “San Diego?” I tried to sit up.

  “Yes. Why? Does San Diego mean anything to you?”

  “San Diego. “I added uncertainly: “Am I in the Navy?”

  “The Navy?” Nate Croft laughed. “What strange little things cling on in the mind. A couple of months ago, you went to San Diego, tried to enlist. They turned you down. Remember?”

  The bed was very comfortable and the effort to remain suspicious was becoming too taxing. Dr. Croft seemed quite a nice guy now, kind, considerate. Too pretty but quite a nice guy.

  “Funny,” I said, wanting to confide in him. “I don’t remember it that way. But San Diego means something. And the Navy. I feel as if I’d been in the Navy a long time. Isn’t that dopey?”

  “No, it’s perfectly natural. A wish-fulfilment changed into a false memory by the concussion. You wanted to get into the Navy badly, you know. Now your mind’s trying to pretend that you did. But enough of this flossy medico talk.”

  He patted my shoulder. His hand was brown and warm. “Okay. Let’s get on with the story. I guess you don’t remember, but I run a small private sanatorium up in the mountains. Some people passing in another car found you. They asked for the nearest hospital and brought you up to me. A lucky coincidence—with me being something of a pal.”

  “I was conscious?” I asked, listening as if it was a tale about someone else.

  “You came to pretty soon after they brought you in. You were in quite bad shape. They had to operate right away on the arm and the leg. We got you in time, however, to prevent any compound fractures.”

  He went on: “It was always the blow on the head that had me the most worried about you, Gordy. Your arm and leg are fine. You won’t have any pain from them. But, after we’d got the casts on and you came to from the ether, you were pretty vague, hadn’t much idea about what anything was. I kept you under sedatives. I was giving your mind a rest. After you’d come to a couple more times and still weren’t clicking, I was sure you had a temporary amnesia. I kept up the sedative treatment for two weeks. Then I thought our best bet might be to bring you home. I was hoping the familiar associations would help you.” His smile was self-deprecatory. “Seems like I was too optimistic.”

  Once again the brown hand, intimate as a woman’s, caressed my shoulder. “But don’t you worry yourself about anything, Gordy, old man. You never can tell with these concussion cases. There’s no gauging the duration of the amnesia. Things will come back gradually. Maybe in a couple of days, a couple of hours even...”

  “Or a couple of years? ’ I asked gloomily.

  “Now, don’t let’s get depressed about it, Gordy.” Behind the silky lashes, his harem eyes were watching me. “Frankly, I’m optimistic. We’ve nothing to worry about with the arm and the leg. In fact, tomorrow I think I’ll let you play around in a wheel chair. You’ll be meeting people you know, pushing yourself around places you know. Yes, I’m optimistic all right.”

  Although I knew all this was bedside manner, it soothed me. I was beginning to feel a delightful sense of passivity. Here was my mother and this friendly doctor. They were both doing all they could for me. After all, what was there to worry about? I was in a beautiful room. I was cared for. People were nice to me. I was Gordy Friend. Gordon Renton Friend the Third. Soon I would remember just what being Gordy Friend entailed and take up my old life.

  I glanced around the sunswept gold and grey room. If this was any indication, being Gordy Friend was pretty painless.

  I said, pleased: “I own this place?”

  “Of course, Gordy. The house has been yours since your father died.”

  “My father?”

  “You don’t remember your father?” Dr. Croft looked amused. “It seems impossible that anyone could ever forget Gordon Renton Friend the Second.”

  “He was famous?”

  “Famous? In a way, yes. He’d moved here from St. Paul only a couple of years before he died. But he certainly managed to make himself felt in that time.”

  “By what?”

  “By his personality and... oh, well, I think you’d better let the family explain about your father.”

  “But he’s dead?”

  “Yes. He died about a month ago.”

  “So that’s why my mother’s in mourning.”

  I lay still considering these bare outlines. I tried to stir up a memory picture of Gordon Renton Friend the Second who had certainly made himself felt. Nothing came. My glow of contentment increasing I asked: “Then I suppose I’m rich?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Dr. Croft. “I’d say you were very rich—very rich indeed.”

  My mother came in then. She patted Dr. Croft’s shoulder as she passed him and sat down by my bed next to the pink roses.

  “Well, Doctor?”

  Nate Croft shrugged the tweed shoulders. “Nothing very much yet, Mrs. Friend.”

  “Darling boy. “My mother took my hand and placed it on her large lap. “Feel better?”

  “At least I know now who my father was,” I said.

  “I told him a little,” said Dr. Croft.

  “Only a little, I hope. Poor Gordy, I’m sure he’s not strong enough yet to have to start remembering his father.”

  I said: “What was wrong with him? Was he a skeleton in our closet?”

  My mother laughed her rich, syrup laugh. “Good heavens, no. We, darling, were the skeletons. But don’t fuss yourself. You just lie quiet while I ask the doctor intelligent questions about what should be done with you.”

  “I’ve nothing much new to say, Mrs. Friend.” Dr. Croft was glancing very discreetly at his wrist watch. “Keep on with the same treatment for the time being. As for this miserable temporary amnesia, the best therapy’s to keep him in constant contact with familiar objects. That’s how we’re going to bring him back to normal.”

  My mother looked at me and then looked at the doctor and blinked. “Talking about familiar objects, shouldn’t we try Selena on him now?”

  Dr. Croft shot a swift look down at the hump in the bedspread made by my cast. “I was just going to suggest it.”

  “Selena,” I said. “You keep talking about Selena. Who is Selena?”

  My mother still had my hand in her lap. She squeezed it.

  “Darling, you really are sweet. Perhaps I even prefer you without your memory.” She p
ointed at the second bed. “Selena is the person who sleeps in that bed. Selena’s your wife.”

  The white negligée. The feminine room. My wife.

  Dr. Croft was saying: “Is she somewhere around, Mrs. Friend?”

  “I think she’s in the patio with Jan.”

  “Then I’ll send her up. Have to be running, I’m afraid.” Doctor Croft patted my shoulder again. “I’ll be in tomorrow and I’ll try to bring you a wheel chair. Chin up, Gordy, old boy. We’ll have you back with us before you know. So long, Mrs. Friend.”

  He left. My mother rose.

  “Well, darling, with Selena coming, I think I should beat a tactful retreat.” She scooped up untidy strands of hair. “If anything’s going to bring your memory back, it’ll be Selena.”

  She moved towards the door and then paused.

  “Really, all these flowers. I told Selena she was crazy to bring so many. This room smells like a tomb.”

  She crossed to a corner table and picked up two vases. One was full of red roses. The other held a large bunch of white and blue iris.

  “I’ll take these roses and the iris to Marny’s room.”

  Carrying the flowers, she looked splendid as an Earth Fertility goddess of some ancient cult. I watched her admiringly as she went to the door. Then a sudden sensation of inconsolable loss swept over me and I called:

  “Don’t take the iris. Leave the iris.”

  She turned, staring at me through the bright flowers. “Why-ever not, Gordy, dear? They’re depressing flowers. You know you’ve never liked iris.”

  “I want them,” I said with a vehemence out of all proportion. “Please leave the iris.”

  “Very well, dear. Since you’re so passionate about them.”

  She put the vase of iris back on the table and went out with the roses.

  I lay staring at the slender blue and white flowers. The propellers had started up again in my brain. I told myself that my wife was coming. I had a wife. Her name was Selena. I tried to remember what Selena was going to look like. Nothing came. Always the image of the flowers rose up blotting out the vague image of a wife. I had no control over my thoughts. There were the propellers, and that one word reiterating itself pointlessly.