Puzzle for Fiends Read Online Free PDF Page A

couldn’t remember any especial interest in liquor and I didn’t have any particular desire for her drink. I’d only asked to be sociable.
    I said: “Tell me more about myself. What am I except a drunk?”
    “I guess the police word for you’s playboy. But to me, darling, you’re just a lush. A sweet one for those who like lushes. Selena likes lushes.”
    “Selena? Oh yes, my wife.” I paused. “Do you like me?”
    Marny swallowed half her drink. “I’ve always thought you were quite a louse.”
    “Why?”
    She grinned a sudden, spontaneous grin. “Wait till your memory comes back, dear. Then you won’t have to be told.”
    Her hand moved to tug her skirt down. It made me conscious of her knees. I said:
    “If you’re my sister, I wish you’d go sit somewhere else. You—you unnerve me.”
    “Really, Gordy.” Marny twisted back onto the chair by the roses. “Nate says I’m to try to refresh your memory. Shall I tell your tales from your childhood?”
    “Tell me anything you like.”
    “Check if I strike a chord.” She paused, reflecting. “Remember the time when...? No, we’d better not go into that. Remember the Winter Ball at Miss Churchill’s dancing school in St. Paul when you spiked the fruit punch with gin and started an orgy in the men’s cloak room?”
    I grinned. “What an enterprising lad I was. No. I’m afraid I don’t remember.”
    Marny wrinkled her nose. “How about the time when Father took us to the Aurora Clean Living League Summer Camp up in the Lakes? You bet me you could stir up an unclean thought in Mr. Heber and switched clothes with me and had him proposition you in the canoe?”
    “I see what you mean about the advantages of amnesia,” I said uneasily. “No. I don’t remember a thing. What the hell is the Aurora Clean Living League?”
    She put her glass down. “Gordy, you can’t have forgotten the Aurora Clean Living League. It’s the most important thing in our lives.”
    “What is it?”
    Marny shook her head. “Skip it. Have a few more easy moments, while you may, darling.” She leaned forward. “We’re not getting anywhere with this system. Tell me. What do you remember?”
    I’d almost forgotten that I was not myself. Somehow Marny had made my forgetfulness seem like an amusing, frivolous game. That question brought back the old disturbing sensation of something being hidden behind something, of everything being wrong and faintly menacing.
    “I remember iris,” I said.
    “Iris?” Marny’s alert eyes moved to the vase on the table. “What sort of an iris?”
    “I don’t know. “My disquiet was almost fear now. “Just the word. Iris. I know it’s important if only I could pin it down.”
    “Iris. “Marny’s lashes flickered over the candid eyes and for a moment they did not seem quite so candid. “Probably some hideous Freudian image. There’s nothing else?”
    I shook my head. “A plane, maybe. Someone... Oh, what’s the use?”
    “Gordy, don’t get depressed, darling.” She was back on the bed again, holding my hand. “Think what a sna z zy life you’ve got. All the money in the world. No worries. No work. All of Southern California to play around in. Us—and Selena.”
    “Selena?” My doubts about Selena started to stir again. “Tell me about Selena. What’s she like?”
    “If you’ve forgotten Selena,” said Marny, finishing her cocktail and pouring another, “you’re in for a shock.”
    I asked anxiously: “Thin and sharp nosed with steel rimmed spectacles?”
    “Selena?” Marny wiped a smudge of lipstick off her glass. “My dear, Selena’s probably the most gorgeous thing in California.”
    I was feeling contented again, and smug. “A nice temperament too?”
    “Angelic. She just adores everything and everyone.”
    “And a fine, sterling character?” I asked enthusiastically. “Would the Aurora Clean Living League endorse her?”
    Marny gave me that straight, uninhibited stare. “The