The Nude Wore Blaсk

Chapter Five

Had anybody been in the vicinity of George Rutherford's grave that day, they wouldn't have needed a seismograph to detect the churning earth. The restless churning was the result of George's turning over. Not surprising, for George had very good reason to turn over in his grave.

The reason was the use to which Llona was putting the insurance money bequeathed to her by George. She'd only received it a day or two before the call from Olivia Valentine cancelling the dinner invitation. Now, the day after the call, Llona was investing it in a project of which George could hardly have been expected to approve. She was writing out a check for a goodly portion of it to the Confidential Detective Agency.

Sammy Spayed, head of the organization (and also its total personnel, a fact he saw no reason to impart to Llona), sat across the desk from her. Llona had just finished telling him all the meager data she'd memorized about the man she knew only as "Archer." The only thing she'd omitted was what actually took place between her and Archer. She hadn't been able to bring herself to tell Spayed about that. Still, he might have guessed at some intimacy from the thoroughness of the physical description which Llona supplied him. But Spayed was too busy thanking his lucky stars for the sudden windfall Llona represented to bother with such conjectures. Why she wanted the man was her business; Sammy's business was only to find him for her.

"Give up!" Sammy Spayed's wife had whined for perhaps the hundredth time only the night before Llona's visit. "You're not cut out to be a detective," she'd told him. "You're too fat. You have bad feet. You don't have a muscle in your whole body. You couldn't hit the side of a barn with a gun if James Bond pointed it for you from three feet away. And besides all that, you're not smart enough."

"You're right," Sammy Spayed had sighed. "But-"

"Mama's right! Daddy's a lousy gumshoe!" the four youngest of his eight children had chanted.

"As a dick, you're a dud, Dad," the oldest of the eight had chimed in.

The other three kids had nodded agreement.

"Shut up!" he'd snarled, trying to twist his face up like Humphrey Bogart.

The children all giggled. "Daddy's imitating Liberace," the second oldest deduced. "Do it again, Daddy!"

"Do it again, Daddy!" all eight demanded.

"Leave Daddy alone," their mother commanded, and they subsided. "Give it up, Sammy." She resumed her attack. "Face it, the agency will never support eight kids. Give it up and go to work for a living like every other normal man."

"But what would I do? I'm not cut out for anything else. Being a detective is the only thing I know. If I wasn't a shamus, I'd be a bum."

"Maybe you could get into one of them government retraining programs. You know, where they teach you some new skill and relocate you and all."

"But I like being a detective," Sammy had protested.

"That don't put meat on the table."

"Maybe things'll pick up."

"I heard that before!"

"I know. But let's give it a chance."

"Why? Even if you do get some business, you're sure to foul it up."

"Behind every successful man there's a woman," Sammy had reflected. "A woman doing her damnedest to hold him back!"

"You'll foul it up!" his wife had repeated positively.

"Daddy will goof it!" the children had chanted. "Daddy's gonna snafu!"

Now, taking the check from Llona, Sammy Spayed was determined to prove to them that he wouldn't flub the job. At last opportunity had knocked on the door of the Confidential Detective Agency and he was determined to hold on to it. He firmly believed that a satisfied customer was the best advertisement. He was determined to see to it that Llona would be a satisfied customer.

In return, tacitly, Llona was pinning all her hopes on the Confidential Detective Agency. The more time that passed since George's demise, the more obsessed she became with finding Archer. As she left Sam Spayed's office, she felt as if she'd put all her future happiness, her life itself, in the hands of the mild, roly-poly little detective.

She went home and waited impatiently for results. Her impatience grew as the days passed with no word from Spayed. Finally, over a week later, she received a phone call from him.

"I was going to send you a progress report, Mrs. Rutherford," he told her. "But I uncovered something that made me delay sending it out. I wanted to check it out first, and now I think I can show you some really positive results."

"What do you mean? Have you found him?" Llona's heart was pounding.

"Not actually. But I have a very strong lead. See, I went down to the Bureau of Licenses and checked out all the marriage applications issued for the date you mentioned. I found that a man with the first name of Mortimer was married that day. I've been investigating this Mortimer. And he does have a cousin named Archer."

"That's wonderful. Where is he? Have you found out his address?"

"Not yet. But I'm working on it. We want to be absolutely positive he's our man. Another day or two should tell the tale. You'll be hearing from me."

"Ooh! I can't wait!" Llona told him. "Please hurry."

"Now, we don't want to sacrifice thoroughness to undue haste," Spayed said firmly. "You'll just have to be patient a bit longer, Mrs. Rutherford. You'll be hearing from me. I have to go now. I'm following through on this Mortimer, tailing him, hoping he'll lead me to the man we want. Goodbye now." Spayed hung up abruptly.

The reason for his abruptness was that the man sitting at the drug store counter had finished his Alka-Seltzer and was paying the cashier. Casually, Spayed fell in behind the man as he left the store. Keeping to the shadows, he tailed him down the street.

The man turned in his tracks once, abruptly, and stared straight at Sammy. Thinking fast, Sammy kept walking right past him and turned into a darkened store entrance. When the man passed the entrance, Sammy Spayed was hidden behind a newspaper.

He folded the paper and followed cautiously as the man crossed the street. Looking over his shoulder, the man spotted Sammy and broke into a half-run. Sammy trotted after him wheezing heavily, his round belly jiggling uncomfortably under the houndstooth check of his vest.

The man pulled open the door of a car parked at the curb. He got in and started the motor. Sammy Spayed was just able to hail a cab as the car started away.

"Follow that car!" he instructed the driver.

The cabbie gunned his motor and broke into tears.

"What's the matter?" Sammy asked.

'.'Thirty years I been hackin'," the cab driver sobbed. "Tomorrow starts my retirement. This is my last night behind the wheel. I was just heading back to the garage. You're my last call. And what do you say? You say 'Follow that car!' " The cabbie's sniffles grew louder.

"I'm sorry." Sammy was confused and he didn't know what else to say.

"Sorry! Sorry! Oh, no! Don't be sorry! You don't understand, sir! I'm grateful to you. Eternally grateful! Thirty years I waited to hear those words. 'Follow that car!' I hoped and I prayed, but they never came. Thirty years of hackin'. It was like life passed me by. Know what I mean? It's the one high point in a cabbie's career. It's a dull job. Pickin' 'em up, lettin' 'em off. One trip just like another. But all the time, in the back of your mind, you figure it's got to happen. You figure someone's gonna jump in your cab and say 'Follow that car.' It's like a raison d'etre, know what I mean? You see it happening. First the words: 'Follow that car!' Then you shove her into gear and take off with your tires squealing. You keep your eye on that little red tail-light like a hawk. It swerves around corners trying to shake you. But you stay right behind it. Sixty, seventy, eighty per-trying to lose you, but they're no match for a professional hackie. They take the turns on two wheels, go the wrong way on one-way streets, but you stay with them. Maybe they even shoot at you, but you just duck your head and keep on their tail. It's a cabbie's finest moment, his moment of truth, the moment he's been training for during thirty years of pushing a hack. I thought I'd missed them, but now- Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

"Uh, excuse me," Sammy Spayed said meekly. "But you're following the wrong car."

"What? What do you mean?"

"The car we were following turned off two blocks back. You're following the one in front of it."

"Oh, no!" The cab driver braked to a halt and leaned over the steering wheel, burying his face in his hands. "Oh, no!" His sobs were louder than before now and truly heartrending.

Sam Spayed's nature inclined him to empathy rather than criticism. "There, there," he comforted the driver. "Don't take it so hard. Maybe if you just turn around and go back and make the turn he did, we can pick up the trail."

"Even if we did it wouldn't be any good now. It's spoiled. It would be like a bullfighter tripping over his shoelace and killing the bull by accident."

"Well, let's give it a try anyway," Sammy urged. "What have we got to lose?"

"Oh, all right." The cab driver sniffled and dried his eyes. He pulled the cab away from the curb, made a U-turn, went two blocks, and turned where Sammy indicated he should.

"Hold it." Sammy tapped him on the shoulder. "There's the car." He pointed out a driveway a little farther down the block. "You can let me out here." He paid the driver and added a large tip. "See? All's well that ends well," he told him.

"It's just not the same," the driver insisted. "It's just not the same," he repeated sadly, muttering to himself as he drove away.

Staying close to the hedges, in the shadows, Sammy Spayed made his way to the driveway where his quarry's car was parked. Once there, he darted to the side of the house. Here he made his way from window to window, skipping a little to avoid trampling the blossoms in the flowerbed underfoot. Finally he paused outside one lighted window at the rear of the house and raised his head carefully until his nose rested on the outside of the sill and he could see inside.

He found himself looking into a kitchen. A petite, attractive young woman in a housecoat was seated at a table facing him. Opposite her sat a man with his back to Sammy. Trained to observe and memorize details, Sammy recognized the man he'd been following from the pronounced way his ears stuck out from the sides of his head. The window was half-opened from the bottom and Sammy could hear their conversation clearly.

"In the hospital?" the man was saying. "What's he doing in the hospital?"

"He must have had an accident," the young woman replied. "He wasn't specific. He just said he couldn't make it to dinner."

"Sounds like an excuse to me. Just like Arch. No consideration for anybody else. Well, the hell with him. I've got my own worries."

"What worries?"

"I don't want to worry you, my dear, but I'm being followed."

"What do you mean being followed? Who's following you?"

"I'm not sure. Some member of the Italo-Oriental-Zionist conspiracy, I imagine. I've been too outspoken in my opposition. They're probably after me. But as long as I have breath left in my body, they'll never silence me. I'll tell the world what those Jew-Jap wops are up to! I'll-'"

"Now, just a minute," she said wearily. "Now you're going too far. You're getting paranoid. Being bigoted is one thing, but when you start seeing people following you, that's really sick. You're getting a real persecution complex!"

"I tell you I was followed! By a little fat man. Looked like a bohunk. You know, round face and thick glasses and an evil nose like out of one of those old Orson Welles spy movies. Yep, definitely Balkan! Not Jewish, but the kind the Jews love to use to do their dirty work. All those bohunks are born killers!"

"What do you mean 'an evil nose'? How can a nose be evil?"

"Genetics!" His voice was firm and triumphant. "That's the whole secret. Haven't you ever noticed how Orientals have slanty eyes? And kikes talk with two hands while wops talk with only one! What about that?"

"What about it?"

"Genetics, that's what. All bohunks are born assassins. And their noses give them away. I tell you this fat little man who was following me is out to kill me!"

"You're flipping!"

"You think so? I'll bet he's watching this house at this very moment. Lousy tool of the Asiatic Mafia yids! Maybe he can even hear what we're saying! Well, I'll give him something to listen to!" He raised his head and shouted. "Lester Maddox for Governor! George Wallace for President! Rockwell for-"

"God's sake!" she hushed him. "Do you want to wake up the whole neighborhood? The window's open!" She hurried over to close it. "You're flipping, I tell you," she informed him over her shoulder. "Men following you! Watching the house! Evil noses-" She turned to lower the window.

Her eyes fell and looked straight at Sammy Spayed's nose. It looked back at her-evilly. The scene stayed frozen that way for a long moment, and then-

She screamed!

Sammy Spayed bolted. From the back he looked like a barrel bouncing over the sod. When he reached the street, he kept on running. He didn't stop until he was safe at home, secure in the bosom of his large family. It took him a while to get over the trauma of the incident.

By the next day, however, he'd calmed down and was back on the job. That meant following up on the leads he'd already gathered. He spent two days doing that with such success that finally he was ready to call his client again. ^

"Good news, Mrs. Rutherford," he announced to Llona when he had her on the phone. "I think I've located your man. He's at home recuperating from some kind of accident, and I have his address right here."

"Archer? You've found Archer?"

"Archer D. Phelps, cousin of Mortimer Valentine who was married on the third day of-"

"Did you say cousin of Mortimer Valentine?" The beginnings of anguished disappointment were in Llona's voice.

"That's right. Mortimer Valentine, who married-"

"Is his wife's name Olivia?"

"Yes. The very same. Now this Archer D. Phelps resides at-"

"Forget it," Llona said dully. "He's not the man."

"He's not the man?" It was Sammy Spayed's turn to be stunned. "But how can you be sure?"

"I know Olivia Valentine. She described her husband's cousin to me. He's not the man."

"Perhaps a check on the description-"

"Have you seen him?" Llona asked.

"Well no, but- I think I could manage some pretext to get a look at him."

"At your prices, don't bother. Olivia Valentine told me what he looked like. He's not my Archer."

"But his cousin is the only Mortimer married in Birchville on the date you specified."

"It might not have been in Birchville. The Archer I told you about was somewhat drunk and very confused. He might have come to the wrong town. His cousin

Mortimer might have been married in some other town nearby."

"Well, back to the old drawing board," Sammy Spayed told her philosophically. "You'll be hearing from me."

"I hope so," Llona said. But her tone was despondent. It said her hopes of finding Archer were waning.

They continued to wane for more than another week. They had reached a very low ebb indeed when Sammy Spayed called again and revived them. "I think I've got something," he told Llona. "I've located an Archibald Ogilvie, called Arch, Archie, and sometimes Archer by his friends. He's the right age, and he has a cousin named Mortimer Ogilvie who was married in a town about fifty miles from here named Branchville on the date you specified."

"Wonderful," Llona enthused. "That sure sounds like him. When can I see him?"

"Well, there's a slight hitch about that, Mrs. Rutherford."

"Hitch? What kind of hitch?"

"At the present time, Archibald Ogilvie isn't allowed any visitors."

"'No visitors? What do you mean?"

"For the time being he's receiving maximum security care."

"I don't understand. Where is he?"

"At the Happy Acres Mental Health Institute. Just outside of Branchville."

"You mean he's in an insane asylum?" Llona was upset.

"Not at all. It's really only a sort of sanitarium for the mentally disturbed."

"But what's the matter with him?"

"As far as I've been able to find out, he's suffering from a sort of nervous breakdown brought on by an Oedipal coniict and its inevitable projections." "Huh?"

• "He doesn't get along with his mother and has had trouble with other females."

"Is he locked up?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Is he violent?"

"That's hard to say."

"It can't be my Archer," Llona said positively. "He wasn't nuts. He may have had a tendency to drink too much, but he wouldn't have flipped."

"Are you sure?" Sammy Spayed asked gently. "After all, that was weeks back. Things might have happened to him."

"What kind of things?"

"I guess only he'd know that. And maybe his mother."

"Why his mother?"

"She's the one had him committed."

"But for what reason?" Llona wanted to know.

"I'm not sure. The Institute doesn't give out that kind of information."

"If they did, I wouldn't need you," Llona reminded him. "If I can't see him, as you said, then I want you to find out everything you can about what's wrong with him."

"That could be costly," Sammy pointed out cautiously.

"I don't care. I'll pay. You just do your job."

"Check," Sammy said happily. "You'll be hearing from me." He hung up on Llona.

He was as good as his word, but it took almost another entire week. This time when he called, he was unusually abrupt. He gave Llona no further information, only made an appointment for her to come in and see him.

When she got to Sammy Spayed's office, Llona found herself in the middle of a scene resembling a cross between Grand Central Station on the day the kids leave for

summer camp and the climax of an old Miriam Hopkins movie where she confronts her husband with the evidence of his infidelity. The evidence was a large white handkerchief heavily crimson with lipstick. Mrs. Sammy Spayed was waving it like a battle flag and playing the Hopkins role for all it was worth. The eight kids were bouncing up and down and screaming their support of her.

"Daddy's a lecher!" they chanted. "Daddy's a dirty old man who can't be trusted!"

"You lecher!" their mother bayed. "You dirty old man! You can't be trusted!"

"Now wait a minute!" Sammy was cringing behind his desk. "Don't get so upset, dearest. It was all in the line of duty."

"Duty! I'll give you duty! The minute my back is turned-"

"Oh, Daddy!" the children wailed. "How could you?"

"I had to do it! It's part of my job. Can't you understand? Do you think his family bugs James Bond the way you're-"

"James Bond! James Bond!" Mrs. Spayed sputtered. "Look who thinks he's James Bond! You fat little adulterer, you!" She turned for support to Llona, who was hovering in the doorway. "What would you think if you found lipstick all over your husband's hanky?" she demanded. "How would you feel?"

"Sort of surprised," Llona admitted. "My husband's dead."

Mrs. Spayed ignored her answer as irrelevant. "What would you tell your children?" she wailed.

"I wouldn't tell them anything. I don't have any children. Still, how did they find out?" Llona wondered.

"The two youngest was helping me sort the wash from the hamper," Mrs. Spayed explained. "They ran to tell the others. I was too busy crying to stop them."

"Oh." Llona didn't know what else to say.

"Mama was crying 'cause Daddy's got a girlfriend he kisses," the children screeched. "Daddy doesn't love Mama. Daddy doesn't love us. He's going to leave us for -" They paused en masse to heighten the drama of the last two words: "another woman!"

"Oh, no!" Sammy Spayed protested. "I'd never leave you!"

"Why not?" Llona wondered, murmuring.

"Why not?" Sammy picked it up.

"Yes. Why not?"

"Hmm." He thought about it.

"Sammy!" His wife's voice exploded him out of his reverie. "You have an obligation! Remember, I'm pregnant again!"

"Again," Sammy sighed.

"Mama's got a bun in the oven," the children chorused.

"That's no way to talk," Sammy censured them.

'"Who is she?" his wife demanded. "Who is this other woman?"

"There is no other woman!" Sammy insisted wearily.

"Who is this homewrecker?" Mrs. Spayed persisted.

"The identity of the woman in question is strictly a matter between me and my client," Sammy said loftily. "Such confidences are not to be shared even with my family."

"That sounds reasonable," Llona told Mrs. Spayed. "After all, a private detective should be as sworn to secrecy as one's family doctor."

"Our doctor's a blabbermouth." Mrs. Spayed disposed of that reasoning. "I'm one month gone and already the whole neighborhood knows."

"We know what you've been doing!" the children chanted. "Shame-shame on Mama!"

"Don't knock it until you've tried it," Llona counseled them. "Look," she continued, "I'm sorry you're having family troubles, but I came up here on business." "That's right," Sammy agreed. "You'll all have to get out of here now while I consult with my client."

"Client! Hah!" Mrs. Spayed peered closely at Llona's mouth. "No, it doesn't match," she admitted reluctantly.

"What doesn't match?" Llona asked.

"Your lipstick with this." She waved the handkerchief.

"Well, I should hope not!" Llona was indignant. "Your husband's relationship with me is strictly professional!"

"But whose profession?" Mrs. Spayed wondered maliciously. "

"I don't have to stand here and-"

"Quite right, Mrs. Rutherford," Sammy soothed her. "Now take the children and get out of here," he told his wife. "You're interfering with business."

"All right," she sniffled. "But just wait until I get you home! Just wait!"

"Just wait!" the children echoed. "Daddy's gonna catch it from Mama! Just wait!"

They tramped out of the office, and Sammy followed to close the door behind them. Then he returned to his desk, mopping his brow. He waved Llona to a chair and shuffled through some papers. "Sorry about that," he apologized.

"It's all right. But you really should be more careful. I imagine that if I were your wife, I wouldn't look kindly on finding lipstick on your handkerchief."

"Mrs. Rutherford, please," Sammy said in an injured tone. "You're the last one who should pick on me for that. Believe me, it was in your interests that the lipstick got there."

"What do you mean?"

"The information that you requested about Archibald Ogilvie is kept under lock and key at the Happy Acres Institute. Outside of the doctor who heads the Institute, only one person has access to those locked files. That person is Miss Hannah Urbach, the doctor's secretary. It is her lipstick which my wife found on my handkerchief." "You mean you seduced some girl to get into the files?" Llona looked at the fat little man unbelievingly.

"In a manner of speaking." Sammy Spayed puffed up a little.

"Gosh," Llona said. "I never thought you'd have to go to such an extreme."

"All in a day's work," Sammy said cheerfully.

"Was she attractive?" Llona was curious.

"Umm-well, sort of."

"Sort of? How do you mean?"

"The eye of the beholder. You know."

"Young?" Llona persisted.

"Not exactly."

"Middle-aged?"

"In the prime of life, you might say."

"I see. Thin? Fat?"

"Plumpish," Sammy admitted reluctantly.

"What color are her eyes?"

"Beige."

"Beige? That's very unusual."

"Yes. She wears very thick spectacles, and that makes them seem very large. Very compelling. Large, compelling, beige eyes. Slightly crossed," Sammy admitted in all honesty.

"It sounds to me like you went beyond the call of duty," Llona observed.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Hannah may not be without flaws, but she has her positive points too."

"Such as?"

"Well, for one thing, it's the first time in a long time that I wasn't a target for interruption by eight kids. Although I was a little anxious that the doctor might come in before we finished."

"'You mean you did it in his office, where she works?"

"Well, yes. You see, it was there that the opportunity presented itself."

"How did it present itself?"

"I was hiding under Hannah's desk. You see, I'd waited outside until I thought she'd gone out to lunch. Then I went in to try to jimmy the lock on the files. Only she came right back, and I had to hide under her desk. See, she brings her lunch with her and puts it in the refrigerator in one of the labs. She'd just gone to get it."

"Then what happened?"

"She dropped a piece of baloney, and when she bent to pick it up, she saw me under the desk."

"Did she scream?"

"No. On the contrary, she seemed more pleased than alarmed. I guess she's been hoping to find a man under her desk for years. It was like a dream come true to her. Anyway, when I tried to get out from under there, I got all tangled up under her skirt. After that, one thing followed another sort of naturally."

"You didn't mind her being fat?"

"Who am I to mind?" Sammy patted his belly meaningfully. "Erotically speaking, I believe in equal rights for fat people," he told Llona.

"Of course. I'm sorry. So after you were through, she let you into the files."

"That's right."

"And what have you found out?"

"A few interesting things." Sammy consulted his notes. "First of all, there's some interesting data concerning this Archibald Ogilvie and his draft board. He was due to be inducted, but he was rejected on psychiatric grounds. Two factors influenced this rejection. The first was a letter from his mother, a carbon of which was in his file at the Institute. It detailed a whole history of failure to make a masculine identification. It told how he continued to play with dolls well into his teens. It indicated a fixation on his mother as a love object. In a psychiatric way it backed up the homosexuality for which the draft board rejected him."

"Homosexuality!" Llona was indignant. "Not my Archer!"

"That was his mother's attitude, too, of course. In an interview with the head of the Institute, she gave a completely different picture than she'd given the draft board. She'd told the board that his homosexuality was a reaction against too much heterosexuality. She made him appear something of a satyr until he reached a sort of turning point where all women tended to disgust him. All women except his mother, of course. But there was a variance in the picture she gave the Institute. From what she confided to them, it would appear that Archibald was nowhere near as effeminate as the draft board was led to believe. On the contrary, he would seem to have been a compulsive heterosexual to a marked degree. Evidently there was some hanky-panky in convincing the draft board otherwise. At this point, the mother's account seems a little blurred. But there seems to have been a violent argument between mother and son which resulted in her having him committed to Happy Acres."

"What was the argument about?"

"Evidently he wanted to be drafted. Indeed, his mother used this as evidence of his having lost touch with reality."

"The way things are today, I'd be inclined to agree with that," Llona mused.

"Perhaps. Anyway, it's one of the reasons why he's being held under maximum security conditions. The one time he escaped, they apprehended him right outside a Marine Corps enlistment booth. The other reason is that he keeps trying to prove he's not homosexual by attacking the female nurses at Happy Acres. Why, he even tried to rape Hannah Urbach."

"Did he succeed?"

"No. According to her, he kept rolling off. There's a knack, you know? If you're obese, it comes naturally. Anyway, before he mastered it, one of the attendants came in and Hannah had to scream. It was quite a struggle then, from what she said. Ogilvie kept screaming about how he wanted to get into the thick of it and kill all those Red bastards and how his mother was a latent sissie-maker trying to keep him home. He was still yelling about how she was over-protective when they got him under sedation."

"Maybe she is over-protective," Llona ventured.

"Probably. From what she confided to Archibald's doctor, she seems obsessed with her son becoming the victim of an accident."

"You mean she's afraid of his being killed in action if he goes in the service?"

"Not exactly. She's really more afraid of what I just said. Accidents. Even if he was sent to Viet Nam, she isn't so afraid that the Reds would knock him off as that he'd catch it in one of those mistakes that are always happening there."

"Is he accident-prone?" Llona wondered.

"No. But she feels that our military establishment in Viet Nam is. She's not such a fool, Archibald's mother. She expounded on it all very logically to Archibald's doctor. She feels that the average American fighting man in Viet Nam stands a better than average chance of survival at the hands of the enemy. But she claims that he's on the short end of the odds where our own logistics are concerned. The Viet Cong, she says, can't do anything like the damage our own artillery can wreak on our own infantry. She's worried he might not get through strafing and bombing our own planes. The way she sees it, the brass running the war-both American and South Vietnamese-are the real danger. According to her, the South Vietnamese men of draft age are well aware of this. She cites figures proving that seventy-five percent of them manage to avoid the draft. She looks on this as a sign of sanity. And she seems honestly convinced that her son's gung-ho attitude is really a symptom of his madness."

"I wouldn't know about that," Llona said. "But I wonder if he really is my Archer. How can I see him and find out?"

"Well, officially, he's not allowed any visitors. Not even his mother. Or maybe particularly not his mother. But I have reason to think it might be arranged for you to see him."

"Your friend Hannah?" Llona guessed.

"Yes. She's become quite enamored of me," Sammy Spayed said modestly.

"I see. Well, how soon can you arrange it?"

"I thought you'd want to see him. So I got the ball rolling for day after tomorrow. I just have to straighten the details out with Hannah tonight."

"Well, don't get any of the details on your shirt collar or your handkerchief," Llona advised. "I'll hear from you, then?" she said as she got up to leave.

"Yes."

"Good." Llona nodded and left. Her heart was singing. At last she would be seeing Archer again. She'd be seeing him, that is, if Archibald Ogilvie really was her Archer. But Spayed was so positive that she felt encouraged.

Only two days and she'd know for sure. Only two days and she'd see for herself. Only two days and she'd be inside the asylum.

Would it be any nuttier than the outside world?