The Mouse in the Mountain by Norbert Davis (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📕

He leaned down and blew his breath at Carstairs.

Carstairs looked at him with a martyred air and then got up and walked over to Janet. He sat down beside her and put his head in her lap.

"Sissy," said Doan. He beat time in the air with his forefinger and sang hoarsely: "'Oh, it's a great day for the Irish!' "

Carstairs mumbled to himself in disgust.

"I'd like to hear you do better," Doan told him. "Janet, did you ever hear of a painter named Predilip?"

"Yes," Janet said. "I don't know much about art, but I've read about him. I believe he's a sort of a modernist, on the order of Van Gogh."

"Is he dead?"

"Oh, yes. I think he died about 1911. He used to live here in Los Altos, you know. His pictures are one of the reasons why the town is famous."

"Yeah. Are his pictures worth much?"

"In money? Yes, they are. I read in a newspaper a little while ago that one had been sold at auction in New York for nine thousand dollars, and that wasn't a good one. His best ones were painted here just before he died."

"Oh," said Doan, taking another drink.

"Mr. Doan," Janet said, worried, "are you sure you feel all right?"

"Marvelous," Doan answered.

"Well, I've never had much experience with intoxicants. I've never seen anyone just sit down and--and get drunk."

"Stick around, kid," Doan told her. "Stick around."

Chapter 10

 

JANET AWOKE AND FOUND SHE WAS sitting bolt upright in bed with terror like a cold hand clutching at her throat. For what seemed like eons her faculties fought to free themselves of numbing layers of sleep and exhaustion.

She couldn't remember where she was, and the bare room looked enormous and shadowy with the windows like heavy-lidded eyes in their deep niches in the opposite wall and the high, ugly head of the bed looming over her in silent menace.

And then the yell came again. It was choked and half muffled, but the unadorned terror in it was like an electric shock. Janet threw the covers aside and thrust herself to the edge of the bed, ready to flee somewhere, anywhere.

The bedroom door thundered under a series of heavy blows, and Captain Perona's voice said sharply:

"Open this! Open it at once!"

The door thundered again, jumping against its hinges.

"Wait!" Janet cried. "I'm coming!"

She stumbled against a chair and then felt the twist of the iron latch under her groping hand. She turned the big key, and the lock creaked. Instantly the door slammed back against her, knocking her into the corner, and then Captain Perona gripped her arm with fingers like metal hooks.

"Is there anyone in here with you?" he demanded.

"Wha--what?" Janet said dazedly.

Two soldiers thrust past them. One carried a big flashlight, and its brilliant round eye flicked questioningly through the darkness. The second soldier had a carbine, and the steel of its bayonet flashed savagely as he prodded under the bed and into the cubbyhole closet.

"Let go of me!" Janet cried. "What do you mean--coming in this way... Stop that!"

Captain Perona released her. "Senorita, is it your custom to greet visitors unclothed?"

Janet looked down at herself. "Oh! Oh, my!" She turned her back and then turned around again and crouched down protectively.

Captain Perona picked up her dress from a chair and dropped it on top of her as though it were something unclean. "Please put this on and stop offending my modesty."

Janet fought with the dress. "I can't... It's caught... Don't you touch me!"

Captain Perona yanked the dress down over her head. "Please, senorita! This is no time to be flirtatious!"

Janet's head emerged from the dress. "Oh! You--you--You know very well I had no nightclothes with me, and I had to wash out my underthings, and I didn't have anything--"

"No doubt," said Captain Perona.

He shoved her at the soldier with the carbine. The soldier took her arm and hustled her out into the hall. It was a flickering nightmare tunnel with flashlights reflecting from the cold blue of gun barrels, from gleaming brass buttons. There were more soldiers, crowded so close Janet had no chance to count them, their faces dark and tense, excitedly eager.

The one who had hold of her hurried her along, steered her down the stairs at a stumbling run. The big kerosene pressure lamp was lighted, swinging violently on its chain, and its shadows chased and jumped crazily over more soldiers. There were three of them at the door, peering in, and more at the window and the door into the kitchen. The one who was escorting Janet let go of her and ran upstairs again.

"Pardon me," said Doan, "while I put on my pants." He hopped industriously on one leg and then the other.

Carstairs sat on the floor looking rumpled and sleepily indignant. Lepicik was sitting at a table beside the staircase. He was fully dressed and as neat as ever. He was even carrying his green umbrella. He was not at all concerned by the uproar. His expression was one of vaguely polite interest.

"My dress!" Janet exclaimed, pulling at it frantically. "And--and I haven't got any shoes on!"

"Neither have I," said Doan cheerfully. He sat down and put his bare feet up on a chair. "The Captain seemed to be in a bit of a rush."

"What is it?" Janet demanded. "What's the matter?" She looked at the soldiers. "Querasa?"

One soldier shrugged. The others shook their heads at her.

"That clears everything up," Doan observed.

"Are you sober now?" Janet asked him suspiciously.

Doan nodded. "Just about."

"Well, do you feel--awfully bad?"

"No," said Doan.

"I thought people always felt bad after they got drunk."

"You have to have brains to get a hangover," Doan told her. "I'm never troubled."

"You were very drunk, you know. You sang questionable songs and beat on the table and told jokes that had no point and spilled three drinks."

"That's me," Doan agreed. "That's your old pal, Drunken Doan, when he gets curled."

"Carstairs was very angry with you."

"He's an evil-tempered brute," Doan said. "He's always mad at something."

The Henshaws, all three of them, came rumbling down the stairs like a group of frightened sheep with a soldier herding them along with judicious thrusts of his carbine butt.

"Say!" Henshaw said, struggling with his suspenders. "What gives here, anyway? Are we invaded?"

Mrs. Henshaw screamed: "I'll tell the President! I'll write him a letter! He'll send a battleship right down here and blow you all up!"

"Yeow!" Mortimer screeched. "Maw!"

Mrs. Henshaw enveloped him in a stranglehold. "Don't cry, baby! I won't let the beasts shoot you!"

Henshaw was tucking in his shirttail. "This is sure a fine way to treat tourists and allies. Just wait until I talk before the Rotary Club. I'll sure put the blister on these birds."

"What were you yelling about a minute ago?" Doan asked him.

Henshaw looked sheepish. "You hear me? Well, I was havin' a nightmare. A lulu, too. You know this mountain range is supposed to be a sleeping woman. I dreamed she was lying there all peaceful when a big mouse that looked like Carstairs came sneaking along, and she jumped up and let out a screech and shook her skirts, and the whole damned town fell into the canyon. And then six soldiers started to shake my bed to wake me up! I woke up, all right! Out loud!"

Heels made a quick, crisp clatter on the stairs, and Captain Perona came down and looked at them. His eyes were narrowed, gleaming slits.

"Quiet!" he barked. "Quiet, all of you! Where is the man, Greg?"

No one answered until Janet snapped suddenly: "Was that who you thought was in my room? Why, I'll--"

Captain Perona took a step toward her. "Will you be quiet?"

"Yes," said Janet, scared.

There was a sudden uproar of voices in the kitchen and the metallic clangor of a pan rolling on the floor. Timpkins was thrust headlong into the room. He was wearing a long white nightshirt, and his nutcracker face was contorted and red with rage above it.

"Here now! What's all this? I'm a British subject, I'll have you know! I'll protest--"

"Silence!" Captain Perona ordered. "Where is the man, Greg?"

"Arr?" said Timpkins blankly. "Greg? In his bed, I suppose."

"No! His bed has not been slept in!"

"Why all the sudden interest in Greg?" Doan asked.

Captain Perona watched him narrowly. "Tonight the maid of Patricia Van Osdel--the woman, Maria--was stabbed and killed in her hospital bed. The soldier guarding her was also killed. Three hand grenades were stolen from the armory."

"Don't blame me," said Doan. "I didn't have any grudge against Maria, and besides I was so drunk I wouldn't have known a hand grenade from a howitzer. Ask anybody. Those hand grenades sound like our old pal, Bautiste Bonofile, is out and about again."

"No," said Captain Perona. "He would not need to steal explosives. He has plenty of his own."

"That's nice to know, too," Doan commented. "Looks like, what with this and that, we're going to have a quiet weekend among the peaceful peasants."

"As I may have mentioned before," said Captain Perona, "I do not appreciate your humor. Kindly be quiet. I do not believe that the absence of the man, Greg, at the time of the murderous attack on Maria can be a coincidence."

"Pardon me," said Lepicik. "Please. But it might be."

"Why?" Captain Perona demanded.

"I'm so sorry, but I think perhaps I frightened him."

"How?"

"I believe he recognized me."

"Why would that frighten him?" Captain Perona asked skeptically.

Lepicik smiled. "He would know, of course, that I came here to kill him."

"So?" said Captain Perona. "You came here to kill him. Did you?"

Lepicik shook his head regretfully. "No. I haven't as yet had a good opportunity. Now I'm afraid he has eluded me again. He is so very clever. I had no idea that he knew what I looked like, and he gave no sign that he recognized me. But perhaps he had a description or a picture of me. I have, after all, been hunting him for quite some time."

"This is very interesting," said Captain Perona icily. "Tell me why you have been hunting him."

"Greg is not a refugee from anything except the law in a dozen countries and his own conscience, if he has one. He was a member of a Balkan terrorist group that specialized in political assassination for pay. My brother was a government official before the invasion. A minor official. He had a wife and a very beautiful daughter. One Sunday morning when they were all on their way to church, Greg or one of five other men--I was never able to narrow it down more closely than that--tossed a hand grenade into their small automobile."

There was a heavy little silence.

"And your relatives?" Captain Perona inquired softly.

"My brother and his wife were killed instantly. Both of my niece's legs were blown off. She was seventeen."

"Oh," said Janet, sickened.

"Fortunately," said Lepicik in his mild way, "she did not live. She died three weeks later. I sat beside her hospital bed all that time. She was in great pain."

"The other five men," said Captain Perona. "The ones, besides Greg, who were involved. What happened to them?"

"They died," said Lepicik. "Now, if you will excuse me, I will go find Adolfo Morales and his burro, Carmencita."

"And then what do you propose to do?" asked Captain Perona.

Lepicik looked faintly surprised. "Continue to hunt for Greg, of course."

"He