Melodramine

My fingernails dug into concrete as I clung to the narrow ledge 30 stories above Fifth Avenue. It was a windless night, thank God, the slightest breeze off the river would have blown me into eternity. Somehow, I negotiated my way to the next window and managed to kick out the glass with my heel; the pane shattered in big, shiny pieces. I almost cried with relief once I was inside and saw that by some miracle I had crashed my own apartment. A second later, I knew there was no worse place to be that night. Questikian would be waiting for me.

"Welcome home." His too-familiar voice sounded sibilant no matter what the words. "Nice of you to drop in."

"Bad joke," I snarled. "Bad joke, Questikian, that's all you're capable of. But I've got a new punch line for you. The Broomstick Missile is off the launching pad. The guidance-system plans are in a fat envelope heading for the CIA in Washington. You're too late, my friend."

Questikian went slack-jawed and lost his sense of humor. I never expected him to fire that stubby Luger he carried, but he surprised both of us and pulled the trigger twice. The bullets slammed me back against the wall, but I bounced and hit him with my right hand and discovered I couldn't use my left. One blow was enough, however. His sparrow's body crumpled, and once I had him under my hands, I knew I owed the free world the favor of killing him: I went about the job with cold precision, putting my palm firmly over his mouth and pinching his nostrils with my fingers. He bucked a few times, like a dying fish, and then went speedily to Hell.

By the time I was through, my left shoulder was beating like a bass drum in a mummers' parade. I staggered to my study and with tears of pain in my eyes peeled off my blood-soaked jacket. No, that was wrong, there wasn't a drop of blood on my coat or shirt. I fell into the chair behind the desk, pulled my notebook toward me and wrote:

Frank--

Writing this as effect of the drug recedes, but if past experience repeats, myosergicin will take over again in approximately 15 minutes. Unlike most hallucinogens, myosergicin seems to have total hallucinatory effect; no trace of reality left during periods of involvement. For God's sake, Frank, don't wait too long to find antidote, am convinced these hallucinations leading to stoppage of heart action. Not five minutes ago took two hallucinatory bullets in chest from hallucinatory agent of Smersh or something, and while I have not yet made reading, am certain blood pressure dangerously high. Anyway, facts. Took 10 c.c.s of myosergicin--believe we should rename drug melodramine because of nature of hallucinations it inspires--on Saturday, April 4, 2:30 P.M. After ten minutes, severe nosebleed and headache warned me of extraordinary rise in blood pressure, receding quickly upon realization that I was armed. This part hard to explain. Found hallucinatory shoulder holster and service revolver on my person, and the realization that I had a weapon somehow succeeded in calming me down. Theory: Drug causes critical rise in pressure, and melodramatic fantasy created by mind reduces pressure until action leads to crisis point (viz.: the bullet wounds). Frank, if Questikian had aimed better I'd be dead now. But there is no Questikian, is there? Getting confused. Melodramine--I mean myosergicin--must be taking over again. Why did I ever fool around with this damned stuff? Frank, if you can't work out antidote I'm a dead man. See my notes on formulation, pages 83--95 of workbook. And for God's sake, don't move me, remember what happened to hamsters. General symptoms at present: weakness, sweating of palms, nervousness, headache, pounding, pounding. Someone at door, not sure if real or hallucinatory.Hal

"I trust you were expecting me."

She swept into the room with an imperious flourish of her fur-fringed coat. I judged her to be a woman in her 30s, much too artful to let you determine her exact years. She held onto the jeweled handle of her umbrella as delicately as if it were a porcelain teacup. However, a certain coarseness about her hands led me to say:

"Tell me something, Lady Ortinby. Did you meet your husband in a restaurant or in his own kitchen?"

Dragons are said to emit fire from their mouths, but beautiful angry women flash it from their eyes.

"Sir! Who has told you about me?"

"Beyond the fact that you called for this appointment, I know nothing," I said. "However, I recognize that ailment common to kitchen employees which might be called scullery knuckles."

She smiled grudgingly. "Yes," she said, "I have heard you are clever. But it's not cleverness I need. It's nerve!"

"Ah." I showed her to a chair.

"As you have so neatly determined," Lady Ortinby expounded, "I was a poor kitchenmaid when Lord Ortinby flattered me with his attentions, and when I became his bride two months ago, there wasn't a happier woman in England. However, my happiness was doomed to be short-lived because of--certain communications I fervently wish had never been written."

"Love letters, Lady Ortinby?"

"Intimate letters," she said, coloring to the roots of her exquisite coiffure, "written with a passion long since spent. And some anonymous fiend has been using them to extort funds from me that I can ill afford to pay."

"You did not think of the police?"

"My husband, sir, is the police!" And, of course, I recollected then that Lord Ortinby had recently been appointed Deputy Commissioner of the Yard.

"A difficult and delicate situation," I said, "but surely one best faced by honesty. A blackmailer's pockets can never be filled, my good woman. Why not make a clean breast of the affair?"

"I cannot!" she cried. "My husband is insanely jealous, and I swore to him upon our betrothal that there had been no other loves before him. I cannot tell him the truth, nor can I continue to meet this blackmailer's exorbitant demands. There is only one solution. I must recover those damnable letters! Will you help me?"

"By what means?"

"I have never confronted my blackmailer in person; all my instructions have come by telephone. But I have refused to pay another penny unless he appears and shows me that he truly possesses these letters."

"Good heavens!" I said. "Have you been accepting him at his word?"

"No," she said, and fumbled within her purse. "He has sent me one sample." She thrust an envelope toward me. By its delicate weight and faint perfume I recognized its romantic errand. But in addition to the address, I recognized still another marking on the envelope, and caught my breath in surprise and sudden understanding.

"Lady Ortinby," I began--but the sentence was to remain unfinished. The door of my flat burst open and almost fell from its hinges. The hulking figure of a man in a checkered greatcoat exploded into the room, brandishing a silver lion-headed stick as if he meant to use it as a weapon.

"Hubert!" Lady Ortinby cried. "You followed me!"

"Yes!" he bellowed, and seemed about to bring that club of a walking stick down upon her fragile white brow. "So this is the ladyfriend you went to meet this afternoon!"

I stepped between them quickly.

"You misjudge your wife, Lord Ortinby; if she lied to you, it was only for fear of your displeasure. Her business with me is purely professional."

"Professional!" he roared, going purple about the jowls. "I'll give you professional business, you jackal! I'll have you locked up--"

"You will do nothing of the kind!"

The biting edge of my words brought him to his sanity, and his furor subsided.

"No, Lord Ortinby," I said icily. "You will not again misuse your office as Deputy Commissioner of the Yard; you have done damage enough."

"Misuse my office?" he said hoarsely. "Sir, you dare--"

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"It's elementary, my dear woman. One glance at this envelope revealed the sickening truth of this matter. It bears a date stamp commonly employed by the clerks at Scotland Yard upon receipt of evidence. This letter, madam, came to you by way of the police."

"But that's impossible!"

"Only too possible. Evidently, the Yard apprehended a felon who had these letters in his possession. In the course of the investigation they came to the desk of your husband; his maniacal jealousy drove him to torture you with them. Lady Ortinby, behold your blackmailer!"

"You devil!" Lord Ortinby roared. The lion-headed cane flashed in a silver arc, and I could not avoid the murderous blow that struck my collarbone and surely fractured it. I glimpsed the eyes of a man gone berserk as he lifted the stick again and brought it crashing down on my skull. Even as I lost consciousness, I knew that the madman would never be satisfied until he had bludgeoned every faint impulse of life from my body.

• • •

Saw the ceiling and knew that I was on the sofa. Both Lord and Lady Ortin-by were gone. I tried to deduce what had occurred from the condition of the room. I found myself utterly incapable (continued on page 150)Melodramine(continued from page 70) of making an intelligent surmise, and then remembered that I was 100-percent New Jersey--born American and why the hell was I thinking with an English accent? I pushed myself into sitting position and discovered that an anvil had been sewn inside my skull. But I went to the desk and found my notebook, opened, thank God, and covered with Frank's cramped, unpunctuated, lovely scrawl.

Hal--

Arrived 9:20 and found you in study chair in what appeared to be coma Upon reading your notes tried to bring you around with injection meprobamate recalling its efficacy as antidote for other hallucinogens but results negative. Hal this was crazy stunt you must have known danger of drug after hamsters death how could you be so stupid Have gone to lab to try and work out something If you can manage call me thereFrank

The fingers of my right hand felt like five lead cylinders, but I succeeded in dialing the number. It was some time before Frank answered, and I knew he must be absorbed with retorts and microscope. Then he spoke, but instead of the relief I expected to hear in his voice, there was anxiety and even hysteria.

"Hal!" he said. "Thank God--I was hoping--" He made a gasping noise.

"Hal, you've got to get over here right away. The yellow fungus--"

"The what? Frank, what's going on there?"

"The fungus we scraped from the meteorite! Hal, it's spreading. Clinging--to everything! On my legs now--my arm--spreading--"

There was a clatter, and a succession of meaningless--no, God help me, meaningful sounds! Quiet, gentle Frank, who never raised his voice above a murmur, was screaming. Screaming!

I slammed the phone into its cradle and grabbed my coat. On an impulse, I found the bulky Army automatic I had kept untouched in a bureau drawer, and shoved the muzzle under my belt. Then I went out.

As I headed into the street, the shadow of the saucer which had been hovering over the city for the past 11 days made a pool of darkness that added to my gloom and the sense of impending disaster. Now it seemed odd to me that Frank and I had never connected the meteorite with that menacing shadow. When it appeared in the heavens, to instill unreasoning panic in the populace and start wild speculations about Russian attack and outer-space invasion, we had joined the scientific skeptics in the argument that it was only a meteorological phenomenon, some kind of atmospheric mirage. Telescopes had failed to penetrate its secret, and high-altitude planes had failed to reach it. Then the peculiar diamond-shaped meteorite had been discovered, and Frank was determined to probe its yellow fungus. Had he succeeded--only too well?

I hailed a taxi and snapped the address to the driver. We had gone only half-a-dozen blocks when he made an unexpected turn down a street darkened into the semblance of night by the saucer's shadow.

"Hey!" I said. "This isn't the way to Fourth Street--"

"Mister, I--" He turned an agonized face toward me, his fingers white on the wheel. "I can't help myself! I can't control this buggy!"

I heard the cabby's yowl as he tried to stop his plunging vehicle and I braced myself for a crash; I never anticipated the sensation that followed. The taxi was leaving the ground. It was being lifted into the air as if by a giant's fingers, and careless fingers at that. I was hurled against the side of the car as was the driver, but my door held and his didn't. I heard his shriek of terror as he clung to the door handle, but the giant that had us in its grip shook him loose into nothing, and at the same time battered me into unconsciousness.

When I opened my eyes, I wished I hadn't. Before me was a floating balloon of flesh that made my gorge rise and almost unhinged my sanity. It swayed hypnotically, its single red-veined orb fixing me with an unblinking, lidless stare, the stringy, liver-colored appendages dangling from the thing, swaying as if in a breeze. I turned my head away from the sight and glimpsed a gleaming complexity of machinery; I tried to move, and realized that I was imprisoned by a "chair" of some spongy substance that left only my hands free. Without reasoning, I knew where I was and what I faced. I was inside the spaceship that was darkening the Earth, and I was confronting the spokesman of the alien race which had brought it there.

"Speak," said a voice inside my head. "I will understand you. I am Jushru, the Overseer. Your mind is filled with questions, and it is my will to answer."

"My friend!" I gasped, somehow certain that this creature would know Frank's fate. "What has become of him?"

"The Flikkari has covered him," said the voice, "as the Flikkari will soon cover all. Our estimate is two lunar periods. I anticipate your next question. What is the Flikkari?"

"Yes," I said, trying not to think, not of Frank, not of Earth, not of anything.

"The Flikkari in an enzyme," Jushru the Overseer said. "It is the detergent with which we shall scour and cleanse your planet of its undesirable life and foliation. When the process is completed to our standards, we will bring our vessels and our people to your planet. Thus do we populate the galaxies. We are the Stushuri, inheritors of the Universe."

"And I?"

"For my collection," Jushru said delicately. "You are a prize specimen, you know. In all my travels through the cosmos I have never met your physiological equal, with your loose skin flapping about and the strange metallic appendage on your hip ..."

I realized then that Jushru, for all his intelligence, had not yet recognized that my "skin" was clothing and that the metal appendage was my Army automatic. The knowledge that my weapon was still with me filled me with sudden hope--not that I could be saved, but that at least the Overseer of the Stushuri might the with me. Carefully, I took the gun into my hand and pointed it at the thing that bobbed before me.

"Would you like to know the purpose of the appendage?" I asked.

"Yes, specimen," Jushru replied heartily, and I fired. The bullet hit the balloon of flesh and it splattered with an ugly sound. Splattered, exploded and was no more, and simultaneously, deprived of its captain, the ship gave a sickening lurch and started to descend. If the spongy arms of the chair hadn't held me, I would have been dashed to pieces against the bulkhead of the vessel, but I knew it would not be long before Mother Earth herself would welcome me in thunder and death, and I prayed that my act hadn't come too late to save the human race ...

• • •

Raised myself from the soft ground and looked about for signs of wreckage. There wasn't a thing on the carpet. Could I have crashed through the roof of my own apartment house? I shook my head to rid it of this ludicrous notion, and stumbled to the desk, hoping that there would be further word from the laboratory. There was.

Hal--

Found your notes and have developed antidote along lines you suggested Will return as soon as experiments on lab animals completed. Hal am greatly concerned whether antidote merely intensifies or alters nature of myosergicin's effects but if animals survive tests will return within few hours and make the attemptFrank

My nose was bleeding. I knew it was the result of my heightened blood pressure, and I quickly pressed my handkerchief to my face. I didn't like the way the count was staring at me across the room. "Perhaps it's the altitude," I said gaily. "Your mountainous country doesn't suit a lowlander like myself, Count."

His lips parted in a smile, and once again I remarked his unusual long white canines with their gleaming points. I refused to give credence to the superstitious tales of the villagers, and yet ...

"Your blood is very red," the count said with a disarming chuckle. "It is a shame to lose so much of it for a mere nosebleed."

"And just how," said the Oriental leaning against the carved mantelpiece, "do you suggest blood should be lost, Count? In what service besides bestial appetite?"

The count snarled audibly at this, but the Celestial, tugging at his long mustache, merely smiled. His other hand lightly stroked the dark hair of the lovely sloe-eyed woman who sat beside him, and I cringed at the sight of his talon-like nails on her white skin. I knew, of course, how determined he was to eradicate the Caucasian race in its entirety, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see that hand signal to his dacoits to garrote the lot of us. Mata, however, seemed fearless.

"There is only one honorable way to shed one's blood," she said coolly, "and that, of course, is in the service of one's country. Don't you agree with that, Monsieur Egypt?"

I followed her eyes to the pudgy little man on the sofa. He wore a red fez and appeared to be asleep, and I realized with a start how closely he resembled the late Peter Lorre. I was almost ready to comment on the resemblance when Bogart entered the room brandishing the hand grenade. I tried to tell him whose side I was on, but when I glanced down and saw the Nazi uniform I wore, I was no longer certain myself. In the distance I could hear the pounding of Japanese cannon and the ugly buzz of the Zeros overhead. When the tear-gas bomb exploded in the room, I tried to find my way to the cupboard where the artillery was stored, but that dirty fink Nitti had hidden the key and all I could find was one stinking tommy gun. I spit out all its bullets at the cops in the street until they blinded me with their spotlight. I had to get out of there, because I knew Maria would be waiting for me on the bridge, and I had promised to bring the dynamite before nightfall. The roof was my only avenue of escape, and I would have gained my freedom easily if that damned music-hall mentalist hadn't reached it before me and brought a hundred Viennese policemen into the chase. Luckily, I caught a dangling vine and swung over the precipice to the next cliff, but found myself surrounded by a pack of lions intent upon making me their midday meal. I cried out to Simba, and my old friend responded and led them away. It wasn't hard to pick up the trail of Denham and the rest; all I had to do was listen for their cries of terror as they fled from the path of Kong. Suddenly my foot became entangled with a monstrous root and I went crashing to the jungle floor, my ankle twisting underneath me. Crippled, I watched the fearsome Brontosaurus lumber toward me, and even the sight of my rescuers didn't succeed in calming my fears, for I recognized their ragged uniforms and the tricolor sashes at their waists, and wondered what kind of death I would make at the foot of the guillotine; but no, even that quick end was to be denied me, for when I looked up and saw the blade, it was swinging, swinging like a gigantic pendulum, drawing ever closer, closer, until finally its razor-sharp edge slit through my clothing and I could bear the suspense no longer and opted for the Pit ...

• • •

Climbed out and of course saw that my shirt was gone, no doubt slashed to pieces. There was, however, a strip of adhesive on my left biceps. I lifted myself from the study chair and found myself too weak to move. It was an effort even to bring the notebook in front of my eyes. There was a third scrawl from Frank, but my vision was so blurred by whatever substance he had injected into my blood stream that it took me a full five minutes to decipher the message.

Hal--

The lab animals responded positively to the antidote but am still not sure of its efficacy However feel obliged to try as myosergicin seems to be having increased deleterious effect on your system Gave you 20 c.c.s Will return shortly Pray this is the answerFrank

When I heard the knock at the door, I knew at once that Frank wasn't my middle-of-the-night caller. Frank owned a rude set of knuckles, and this was a gentle tapping, so discreet that I knew a woman would respond to my "Come in!"

It was, indeed, a woman, the beautiful Lady Isobel whose husband, Lord Drago, ruled this principality with an iron hand. Evidently that hand was lacking in human warmth; with white bosom heaving, Lady Isobel pulled me into her boudoir and locked the door. I laughed as I unbuckled my sword and said: "Ods blood, milady, this is a turn for the better! When I arrived with the Queen's party, you seemed disdainful of a mere member of the Royal Escorts."

"Your reputation had preceded you," she said coyly, "and I could do nothing to make my husband suspicious."

"And now?"

"And now," the lady said, "with his Lordship safely in consultation with the Queen's deputies, you may proceed to live up to that reputation."

Live up to it I did, and would have perhaps exceeded her expectations if Lord Drago had not thoughtlessly returned from his conference and entered the bedroom. With an oath, he lunged at me with his sword and, having time for neither dressing nor defending, I wisely chose the open window and the trailing ladders of ivy. "Guards! Guards!" he shouted, and the clatter of their boots sounded all about me. Fortunately, a helping hand, belonging to a shapely ladies' maid named Françoise, came to my rescue.

"In here!" she whispered, showing me into her darkened bedchamber. I breathed a sigh of relief, which she plainly interpreted as one of passion. She flung herself into my arms, and I soon learned that her lowly station diminished neither her charms nor her ardor. Yet even as we sported I sensed an alien presence in the room, and lifted myself from her arms to see the glowering face of a young servingman, who held a candle aloft that cast moving shadows of our dalliance on the wall.

"Rudolpho!" she screamed. "My husband!"

Rudolpho's oath was earthier than his Lordship's, and his weapon was a wicked knife which he drew from his shirtwaist. I met his attack with an upraised pillow, but knowing I would be no match for his brawn in my weakened state, made my escape through fleetness of foot. By this time, the alarum was general throughout the palace and, outnumbered, unarmed and undressed, I chuckled at the turning of fate that had brought me to this pass, and when I heard the upstairs door creak open and saw the Queen herself beckon me toward her, I vaulted the stairs and prepared once more to do battle in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity.

As the sun came up, the golden peak of the minaret flashed into my eyes and I sat up quickly, remembering to praise Allah that I had lived to see another dawn. I gathered my rags about me and prepared to venture forth once more into the crowded streets of Baghdad, in the hope that some nobleman would pity my hunger. The morning was almost gone when I saw eunuchs with staves marching before the harem of some great sultan, and as I moved my worthless self from their path I heard a woman's voice cry:

"Seize him! Seize that beggar!"

And lo, the eunuchs placed their hands upon me and bound me with ropes and, despite my cries, bore me to the magnificence of the sultan's palace. I trembled with fear for my young life, even as the slave girls stripped me of my rags, scrubbed and cleansed and perfumed me with rose water and gave me the splendid clothes of a prince to wear. I was then brought into a great hall, where singing women beat upon taborets and dancing women undulated their bodies like flowers, the petals of their clothing offering tantalizing glimpses of their naked loveliness; and seated upon the cushions, drawing my eyes like the rising of the full moon, was a beautiful lady of the sultan's harem. She held out her jeweled hand and spoke:

"Welcome, welcome, O mighty one," she said. "Welcome to us, Chosen of Allah."

I fell upon my knees and begged for explanation, and heard these words:

"Mighty one, thou art the lost son of the Sultan Haroun-el-Akbar, stolen from your inheritance by a wicked sorcerer. But now we have found you again, and all the wonders of your domain and your palace are yours again, for--alas!--your father, the Sultan Haroun-el-Akbar, is dead. For thirty moons we have been without our beloved lord and have yearned for the day when we might find his son, our master."

And thus saying, the beautiful woman drew me toward her, and I knew delights such as no mortal man, Haroun-el-Akbar excepted, had ever known. And even as the long night ended, I knew that she was only one of the harem's many treasures, and that I was the most blessed of men. Not because I was the son of a sultan--for, indeed, I was only the son of Abu Kir, a lowly dealer in carpets--but because Allah, in his compassion, had placed me in a harem that had grown tired of waiting ...

Once again the sun was in my eyes, but I opened them and saw Scarlett at the vanity, plaiting her auburn hair, and I chuckled and pulled at her dressing gown, and while she made soft, cooing Southern sounds of protest, she let the silken robe slip and slide down over her shoulders and across her legs and I picked her up in my arms and carried her up the winding stairway. By the time I was ready to come downstairs again, the party was in full sway, the drums pounding and the strings throbbing, and I tightened the sash about my waist, lit a cigarette and snapped my finger on the brim of my hat before moving out onto the dance floor where Carlotta gyrated sensuously to the rhythm of the tango. At my touch she shivered, and then yielded to me as a partner of the dance, and her eyes promised that later she would be my partner in love ... But other eyes were seeking mine--the contessa, stripping off her clothes in the middle of a bored circle of spectators, a sight that the damned photographers of Rome would have given their eyeteeth to witness. Very well, I thought wearily, I will make the vita a little more dolce for you, Contessa, and nodded my head. She ran toward me eagerly, but I snarled and stuck the cold muzzle of the .38 against her soft white belly and then kissed her hard on the mouth. Her kiss was like Candy. "Goodness gracious," she said, "I'm only a little girl child, and I don't think Daddy would like this at all." I didn't care what her daddy-o thought, man. I mean, like, I didn't give a damn. I mean, like, her and me, we had this date a long time, and even if dames were like streetcars, tonight was the night, dig? And so I ordered the Nubians to depart, and drew the curtains, and slowly removed the splendor of her garments, except for the Egyptian crown that topped her imperious queenly head. "Are you really Playmate of the Year?" I whispered. "Call me Sophia," she said, and held me close. When she finally let me go, I made my way to the study desk and wrote:

Frank--

Stuff you gave me no antidote at all, merely changed hallucinatory point of view. For God's sake, keep a record of the formula, it's worth a million bucks. And don't worry about finding antidote. If this damned stuff is going to kill me it's not a bad way to die.Hal