Too Sweet to Die Read Online Free PDF

all,” he said. Patting both the large men on the shoulder, Easy backed off. He pivoted, went walking across the sand.
    When he retrieved his Volkswagen, he ran a finger across the hood. “You’re not unkempt,” he said, getting behind the wheel. He drove off.
    After he was certain he wasn’t being tailed, Easy headed the car inland toward the Carmel Valley where the private hospital of Dr. James Duncan Ingraham was located.

CHAPTER 6
    N AKED PEOPLE. T HEY WERE everywhere in the fog, two dozen of them, jumping up and down and howling. Easy stood with his back to the raw adobe wall he’d just climbed over. When he had heard the first scream he threw his big right hand up toward his shoulder holster. Now he relaxed, watching the naked people bounding on the wide side lawn of Dr. Ingraham’s sanitarium. There were more nude women than men and they were screaming and yowling with more enthusiasm and abandon. One naked man was rolling on the grass, pounding his fists on the wet lawn. Another was skipping through the mist and fondling anyone he could catch.
    “Hagopian would enjoy this,” Easy said to himself. He crossed the patch of dry grass he’d landed in.
    He was fifteen feet along a curving white gravel path when a small naked blonde stepped from behind a gnarled cypress tree, smiling. “There’s no need to be timid and standoffish,” she said in her small vaguely southern voice. “Just get down to your skin and start howling.” On tiptoe, she grabbed Easy’s wide ten-dollar necktie and tried to undo it. Her hands were much warmer than the night.
    “Wrong direction,” cautioned Easy. “You’re tightening it.”
    “I’m not too adept at undressing men yet. This is only my third Howl Therapy session and I don’t think I’ve shaken off every single one of my inhibitions.”
    “You’ve made a good start.” Easy took her hands in his, lifted them off his tie. “Is Dr. Ingraham here?”
    “He never disrobes,” said the naked girl. “It would spoil his authority as a patriarchal symbol. Besides, he’s already screamed away all his childish hangups and deep-seated traumas. Wouldn’t you like to howl, even if you keep your clothes on?” They were moving closed to the long low sanitarium buildings and one of the colored floodlights planted around the lawn hit the girl and turned the nipple of her uptilted right breast a soft purple.
    “I’m here on business,” said Easy. “I don’t think I’ll have to take my clothes off to talk to Dr. Ingraham.”
    “We don’t have to do anything,” said the small naked girl. “That’s what you learn from Howl Therapy. Having to do things is a construct imposed on our absolutely free wills by patriarchal and parental reinforcements, which are …”
    “Who are you?”
    Directly in front of them in the fog was a pretty brunet, fully clothed, down to a white smock, and carrying a clipboard. “My name is John Easy,” Easy told the brunet. “I’d like to talk to Dr. Ingraham.”
    The brunet frowned at the small naked blonde. “I think you’d benefit more from this session if you howled on the grass with the others.”
    Squeezing Easy’s arm, the small girl retreated, saying, “Let me know if you decide to join.”
    “I’m afraid, Mr. Easy, Dr. Ingraham couldn’t see you until tomorrow,” said the brunet. “By the way, how did you get in? We always keep the gates locked during night outdoor therapy sessions.”
    “Over the wall.”
    “Very unorthodox.”
    “I seem to be lacking in deep-seated inhibitions,” said Easy, “which may explain it. I want to talk to Dr. Ingraham about a girl named Jill Nordlin. I’m a private investigator from Los Angeles.”
    The brunet touched the middle of her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. She tapped her felt-tip pen on the edge of her clipboard. “Who was that?”
    “The doctor should know her as Jillian Nordlin, though she’s now Jill Jeffers. She’s a former patient of his.”
    “Oh, yes, of