Puzzle for Fiends by Patrick Quentin Read Free Book Online

to have been smothered in kisses. “You’ll have funny little quirkish illusions, dear. Nate said you would. Things getting tied together in your mind, making patterns that seem real to you but aren’t. That’s all.”
    She patted my hand and rose, moving to the tray of medicine bottles on the bedside table.
    “Now, it’s time for your pill. A nice rest. That’s what you need. You’ve had a fearfully taxing first afternoon, haven’t you? Me, Marny, Selena. I’m afraid we are a trifle overwhelming.”
    She turned, a capsule in one hand, a glass of water in the other. She sat down, smiling.
    “Open your mouth, dear.”
    I felt an impulse to refuse the proffered capsule, but it was a feeble one, for I could think of no valid excuse for not taking it. There was something too about this woman that tempted me to invalidism. Her breadth, her quietness made me want to forget my problems—what were my problems?—and yield to the voluptuous lure of the pillows.
    I let her slip the capsule into my mouth and tilt some of the water after it. I swallowed.
    She patted my hand. “That’s a good boy, Gordy. Now, smile for Mother.”
    I smiled. Somehow she had made us conspirators together.
    “Darling boy.” She kissed me again. “Now, before you know it, you’ll be off to bye-byes.”
    And it happened almost exactly that way. One moment I was watching her idly rearranging the pink roses in the bowl. The next moment unconsciousness, heavy as an eiderdown quilt, engulfed me.
    When I awakened, I was alone. There was no more sunshine. A grey-green evening light from the windows gave the room a submarine quietness. My headache had gone. My thoughts seemed exceptionally clear. I remembered all the people who had come into the room that day. I remembered everything they said.
    I’m Gordy Friend, I said. I’ve had an accident and I’ve lost my memory.
    I lay still in the bed. Gradually I became conscious of the rigidity of the casts on my arm and my leg. For the first time, I thought of them not merely as props in my role as a patient. I thought of them as the restrictions they were.
    I’m here in this bed with a cast on my arm and a cast on my leg, I thought. I’m helpless. I couldn't get away.
    There was nothing to have to get away from, of course. I was Gordy Friend. I was in my own home. I was surrounded by love and care. But the realization of my helplessness seemed, perversely, to bring a sensation of impending danger.
    My gaze, moving uneasily around the room, settled on the side table. On it stood a vase of stock, white and sulky purple in the fading light. Before I went to sleep hadn’t there been a vase of irises there? Iris. I was gropingly aware that irises had some significance and that their absence had significance too. My sense of uneasiness grew, stretching almost to the borders of panic.
    What if I’m not Gordy Friend? I thought suddenly and with no conscious reason.
    I knew instantly that the thought was preposterous. My mother, my sister, my wife, my doctor had all told me I was Gordy Friend. Only a plot, too insane or too fiendish to imagine, could give all four of them motive to deceive me.
    But the thought, with all the force of commonsense marshalled against it, persisted, nagging like a boil almost come to a head.
    What if I'm not Gordy Friend?
    The door opened a crack and Marny peered around it. Her young face wore that hushed expression of someone looking at a sleeper.
    “Hello,” I said.
    “So you’re awake.”
    She pushed the door open and walked to the bed. As before, she carried a small shaker of Manhattans and a single glass. She tossed back her glossy black hair and sat down by the roses, watching me brightly.
    “Hello,” she said.
    Her young, oval face, with its cool eyes and splashed scarlet mouth, was both appraising and friendly. I found her brittleness reassuring... more reassuring than my mother’s lushness or Selena’s animal vitality would have