Perchance to Dream

    To the left a long corridor ran down the back side of the long house. I went down that way. The left-hand wall was punctuated with doors and each door led into a patient's room. The first one was empty. In the second room was a wispy old lady wearing a flowered nightdress with a lace collar. Her gray hair framed her face in soft permanent waves. There was the hint of a beautiful youth about her. It whispered in the way she held her head and the repose of her small body in the chair. She had a large picture book open on her lap and she was looking at it intently through gold-rimmed wire glasses. I stepped quietly into the room. On the half-open door was a small plate that said MRS. NORMAN SWAYZE.

    "Good morning, Mrs. Swayze," I said.

    She looked up from her book and smiled at me.

    "Hi," she said.

    "I'm Dr. Marlowe," I said. "How are you feeling this morning?"

    I closed the door quietly behind me as I spoke.

    "Oh, I'm perfectly fine, doctor," she said. "This morning I was looking out the window trying to see my house, but I don't think I can see it. Can you?"

    "Where do you live, Mrs. Swayze?"

    She pointed toward the window.

    "Over there," she said brightly, "somewhere."

    I nodded and glanced out the window.

    "No," I said. "I don't see your house either."

    "I look," she said. "I look all the time, but I never seem able to find it."

    As I got closer I could see that her book was a high-class, well-printed four-color collection of some of the filthiest pornographic photographs I had ever seen. It was the kind of expensive smut that Arthur Gwynne Geiger had peddled out of his shop on Hollywood Boulevard near Las Palmas. But that was a while ago now, before I killed Lash Canino.

    The old lady had lost interest in me and was studying her book again, licking her thumb periodically to turn a page. Hunched over the big book in her small lap, she looked like a gentle sparrow. On the bureau against the wall, and piled on the nightstand beside her bed, were other books just like the one she had, well bound, well produced, and filthier than a Tijuana latrine.

    She looked up and saw me looking at the books.

    "Would you like to read one of my books?" she said. "I love books like this. Do you?"

    I shook my head. "No, ma'am," I said. "Not exactly."

    "Well, I do," she said firmly. "And the doctor gets them for me anytime I want them."

    "Dr. Bonsentir?" I said.

    "Yes-well, not himself always, sometimes one of the young men gets them for me."

    "Mrs. Swayze," I said, "do you know Carmen Sternwood?"

    She let the book rest open in her lap. There were two women and a man in a double-truck full-color spread. I tried not to notice.

    "Carmen?" she said. She had straightened and her forehead wrinkled slightly as she tried to pull the raveled threads of her aging mind together.

    "Carmen Sternwood," I said. "Young woman, smallish, nice figure, light brown hair. Her thumbs were sort of odd-looking."

    Mrs. Swayze smiled. It was the thumbs.

    "Of course. Carmen. She lives here too. Yes. She often comes in to read my books. Sometimes we read them together."

    "Have you seen her lately?" I said.

    Mrs. Swayze's face tightened a little. It made her cheeks pinch and redden.

    "I think she went off with Mr. Simpson. I think she's visiting him."

    "Really?" I said. "Do you know Mr. Simpson's full name?"

    Mrs. Swayze's eyes got very wide and she looked a little frightened.

    "Me? I don't know. I don't know anyone's first name. I don't remember very much anymore. I can't even remember where my house is. I look and I look and I can't see it."

    "Do you know where Mr. Simpson's house is?"

    She shook her head vigorously, and pointed again, vaguely, toward the window.

    "Over there," she said, "I imagine."

    "Do you know why she went to visit Mr. Simpson?" I said.

    Mrs. Swayze smiled secretively and winked at me.

    "A lot of the young girls here go to visit Mr. Simpson."

    "Do they usually come back?"

    "I don't know," she said. Her tone suggested that the question was idiotic.

    Then her eyes shifted past me and she said, "Hi, sweetie."

    I turned. Sweetie was the Mexican, on crepe-soled shoes, who had opened the door behind me. I should have smelled him. He was rank as a goat. His small eyes fixed on me and never left.

    "I've been talking with Dr. Marlowe," Mrs. Swayze said. "He tried to see my house for me but he says he can't."

    The Mexican's eyes never wavered.

    "Si, Seriora Swayze," he said. Then he raised a forefinger and curled it toward him and gestured me toward the hall. I turned to Mrs. Swayze and bowed slightly.

    "If I see your house," I said, "I'll let you know."

    As I said it I slipped my gun out from under my arm and held it down against my leg, where the Mexican couldn't see it. Then I straightened and turned to leave.

    "Thank you, doctor," Mrs. Swayze said. She was bent back over her book, fully engrossed again, wetting her thumb to turn the next page.