Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [35]
There were sudden startled yelps; the nearest girls fled, squealing. Others bobbed into view, saw O'Leary, hastily hitched up towels and dashed away, adding to the outcry.
"Oh, no," Lafayette muttered. "Not again . . ." He moved off quickly to his left, encountered a corner and the sound of running water. He tried the other direction, spotted the darker rectangle of a doorless arch, made for it—and collided with a vast bulk in bundlesome tweeds hurtling through from the room beyond. There was a bleat like the cry of an outraged cow hippo defending her young; a rolled umbrella whistled past O'Leary's ear. He ducked; the shadowy giantess charged again, emitting piercing shrieks against the background of lesser yelps. Lafayette backed away, warding off a rain of blows from the flailing implement.
"Madam, you don't understand!" he shouted over the din. "I just wandered in by mistake, and—" his foot slipped. He had a momentary impression of a square red face like a worn-out typist's cushion closing in, the mouth gaping, tiny eyes glaring. Then a bomb exploded and sent him hurtling into a bottomless darkness.
"The way I see it, chief," a meaty voice was saying, "this character hides out over on the men's side last night, see? Then after the joint's locked up, he goes up a rope, out the skylight, across the roof, in the other skylight, down another rope, and hides out in the shower room until Mrs. Prudlock's early-morning modern dance class gets there—"
"Yeah?" a voice like soft mud came back. "So what'd he do with them ropes? Eat 'em?"
"Huh? How could a guy eat forty feet o' rope, chief?"
"The same way he done all that other stuff you said, lamebrain!"
"Huh?"
"Look, I think I got it, chief," an eager voice announced. "He dresses up like a janitor—"
"Only one janitor at the Y. Ninety years old. Checks out clean. Turned in a complaint last year he seen a nood dame. Then: You boys sure you checked that side door?"
"She was locked up tighter'n a card-sharp's money belt, chief."
"Now, my theory is," another voice put in, "he's come in dressed as a broad, like. And after he's inside—"
"—he puts on tight britches and a cape, and jumps out at old lady Prudlock. Yah!"
The discussion continued. O'Leary sat up, winced at a throb from the back of his head and others from various parts of his body representing blows from Alain's sword, jabs from the pikemen and a few assorted kicks, cuffs and falls. He looked around; he was in a small room with walls of white-washed cement, a bare concrete floor, a no-nonsense toilet minus a lid, a tiny washbowl with one water tap and a mirror above. Two bunks were bolted to the wall, on the lower of which he was sitting. Beyond a wide, steel-grilled door he could see a short stretch of two-tone brown-painted hallway, another barred door and beyond it a group of men in baggy dark blue suits with shiny seats and fat leather holsters strapped to wide hips.
O'Leary got to his feet, made it to the small barred window. Outside, early morning sunshine gleamed down on the drowsy view of the courthouse lawn, the park with the Civil War cannon and the second-best shopping street of Colby Corners. He stumbled back and sank down on the bunk. He was home—that much was clear—but how in the name of Goop had he gotten into the county jail? He had been in a dungeon under the palace—the present quarters were a marked improvement over their Artesian equivalent—and then . . .
Oh, yes. The houris and all that steam, and the big woman with the umbrella . . .
"Look, chief," a rubbery-voice cop was saying, "What's the rap we're hanging on this joker?"
"Whatta ya mean, what's the rap? Peeping Tom, trespasser, breaking and entering, larceny—"
"We didn't find no busted locks, chief. Illegal entry, maybe, but the Y is open to the public."
"Not the YW! Not to the male public, it ain't! Besides he probably swiped something!"
"Naw, he just come fer the scenery." Guffaws rewarded this sally. The eager one cleared his