Puzzle for Fiends by Patrick Quentin Read Free Book Online Page A

been.
    “Still drinking?” I asked.
    “Don’t be silly! That was lunch. This is dinner. They’re just going to bring you yours.” She poured a Manhattan into the glass. “I thought you might like a cocktail so I sneaked one up.”
    My half-lulled suspicions grew alert again. “I thought you said I wasn’t supposed to drink?”
    “Of course you’re not, darling.” She laughed, showing small white teeth and the glimpse of a pink tongue. She leaned towards me almost wantonly, stretching the glass out. “But what’s a little veto between sister and brother?”
    “The woman tempted me,” I said, and took the drink. Its stinging taste on the roof of my mouth was good.
    Marny, her legs crossed, was still watching me carefully. “Selena,” she said suddenly. “Like her?”
    The false stimulant of the liquor made me even more alert. I was definitely on my guard now—on my guard against something I didn’t know for a motive I did not understand. “Do you?” I parried.
    Marny shrugged. “What difference does it make what I feel? Selena’s not my wife. She’s yours.”
    “Is she?” Something made me ask that question quickly.
    “What do you mean—is she?” Marny’s thick, curled lashes batted, and she snatched the half-full glass from me. “Really, Gordy, has half a Manhattan made you pie-eyed?”
    The door opened and my mother came in. Her gaze settled on Marny.
    “Marny, I hope you haven’t been giving Gordy a drink.”
    Marny stared back blandly. “Of course not, Mimsey.”
    “I’m sure Nate wouldn’t like that at all.” My mother crossed to my side and smiled. “Hungry, dear? They’re bringing your dinner up.”
    “I guess I can eat,” I said.
    “Good. Have a nice rest?”
    “Fine. I feel fine.”
    I kept my mother under unobtrusive observation, trying to catch some trace of falseness in her expression. She was smiling at me, half humorously as if she had guessed my vague suspicions and was trying to emphasize their absurdity. “No more troubles, I’ll be bound,” she said. “No more foolish fancies.”
    “That I’m not Gordy Friend, you mean?”
    Marny’s lashes flickered again. She half turned to glance at her mother and then seemed to change her mind. My mother patted the girl’s head. “Run along, dear. Dinner’s ready downstairs.” As Marny left, she turned back to me. “Don’t you remember anything at all yet? Not even me?”
    “Not yet,” I said.
    The maid, who had looked in before to announce the doctor, entered carrying a tray. “Ah, here’s your dinner, dear,” said my mother. “When you’re through I’ll send Jan up. He can take care of all those unfeminine bedroom things.” Almost as if relieved at the arrival of dinner as an excuse for going, she murmured one of her “darling boys” and departed.
    The maid slid an invalid bed-table from a corner and arranged the tray on it in front of me. She was in uniform and obviously trying to maintain the colorless discretion of a well-trained domestic. She wasn’t very successful. She was too plump and her hair, peroxide blonde and tightly waved, suggested hot-dogs and dates in bars with sailors. I remembered my mother had called her Netti.
    “Thanks, Netti,” I said. “That looks fine.”
    She giggled. “It’s nice having you eating again, Mr. Friend.” Dinner, on beautiful blue and white Spode, looking inviting. Here, I thought, was an easy way for dispelling my foolish doubts once and for all. If there was some crazy conspiracy, surely the maid would not be party to it.
    Casually I asked: “Well, Netti, has my accident improved my looks?”
    She giggled again, patting at the prim cap on the far from prim hair. “Oh, Mr. Friend, don’t ask me. I wouldn’t know.”
    “‘Wouldn’t know?”
    “You have lost your memory, haven’t you?” Her refinement was slipping by the second. “Cook told me about it in the kitchen. My, that’s too bad.”
    “What’s losing my memory got