by Jack Kline
Women blew in and out of my life, which was just the way I wanted it. No strings, none of that tangled lovey-dovey stuff, but plenty of fringe benefits. Girls seemed drawn to me like June bugs to a street lamp, and I could switch the lamp off whenever I wished without having to set up house with any of the Junes. I wasn’t rich, but I did all right. Like that broad Ethel Merman sang, life was just a bowl of cherries.
Now my dog was dead, buried with my own hands in the woods five miles south of here. I was being paid a lot of dough to look for a spoiled rich kid whose time must be running out. Or maybe he’d played us all for suckers and took off with some girl on a lark to L.A. or New York City.
I’d already killed one man and plugged another. My best friend lay in a hospital while they pumped him full of someone else’s blood. And this case might end with me in a bed next to Rusty, or planted in Union Hill Cemetery. I’d never thought those thoughts before—it wasn’t healthy for a guy in my trade to ponder those things.
Now a dame slept on the davenport not eight feet away, a dame I couldn’t shake, and wasn’t sure I wanted to. She made me itch like poison ivy when she was around, and moon like a lovesick schoolboy when she wasn’t. God, I felt tired.
I sipped my drink, and Sally scaled my chest to lick my face—ah, the taste of bourbon and puppy breath. I pushed her back into my lap where she curled into a tiny ball, her bloated puppy-belly rising and falling.
Eyes still closed, Colleen reached for the puppy but found only fabric. Then they opened.
At first, her eyes and the brain couldn’t get together. Her eyes opened wide, consternation and panic in them. She looked ready to scream until she latched onto me and the pup in the chair across the room. My pup’s tail mercilessly beat my crotch. Instead of the scream, her brain selected words.
“Oh, God, Phil, Tommy’s alive!” She struggled off the davenport, stumbled across the room, and collapsed on the floor in front of me, her head next to the pup in my lap. Sally didn’t seem to mind the crowd. Her tail-banging ramped up a notch. I licked fresh-splashed bourbon off my hand while Colleen sobbed theatrically on my thighs.
I had questions but waited for the waterworks to subside. Her eyes soaked my already rain-dampened trousers, so I slid my left hand to her bare shoulder and gave her some there-there pats. My right hand brought the drink up and I drained it before setting it on the floor. Then the right joined the left, patting away. I felt Sally wriggle between us so I transferred a hand to her, patting female pulchritude with one hand, petting it with the other.
The sobs began to abate. The way she cried, the authenticness of it, made me question my original belief that I witnessed crocodile tears. Maybe she was that upset, or that happy. But inside every soda fountain on Hollywood Boulevard sat would-be actresses who could cry on cue.
I slipped Colleen my handkerchief. She lifted her head, wiped her eyes, and cleared the snot from her nose with a loud, unladylike honk. She gazed up at me with makeup-smeared eyes.
“Calm down and tell me what’s happened. But first tell me how you got in here.”
“That odd, older lady downstairs let me in. I guess I woke her, and when I told her that I was looking for you she gushed on and on about you.” Colleen’s voice quavered at first but grew stronger. “She said that you needed a good woman, Phil. She asked if I was one.”
“And?”
“I lied.”
Colleen offered a seductive smile. “She handed me your puppy, brought me up and let me in. She told me your pup’s name but I’ve forgotten it.”
“Sally.”
“Yeah, Sally.”
My trousers were still a little damp from the gunplay on Vine. Colleen’s hands, resting on my knees, heated the wool to the point that it felt like steam should be rising.
“So tell me about Tommy,” I asked. And then she noticed my blood-spattered shirt and suit coat.
“You’re hurt. You’ve been shot?” She grabbed Sally and tossed her on the floor, spread my legs, and slid forward, still on her knees. Colleen opened my suit-coat and lifted my tie looking for the wound.
“Whoa, doll.” I grabbed her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “It’s not my blood.”
“What happened? Tell me what happened.”
“Hold your horses. First, tell me about Tommy.”
Her hands slid from my coat to my lap causing concern to parts of my anatomy. “He’s alive. Somebody has him and they want Daddy to pay a ransom, a big one.”
“How big?”
“Hannerty says six hundred thousand.”
That brought a whistle from me. Sally, sitting to the side, started yapping, apparently also impressed at the tidy sum. Colleen picked the puppy up and cooed at her, and I felt some relief that Colleen’s hands were no longer in my lap. She seemed distracted, one moment frantic about her brother and the next spouting baby talk to the pup.
“That’s a lot of cabbage,” I said.
“Daddy can pay it. Now, what about all of this blood?”
“How did they contact your father?”
“They phoned him.”
“When?”
“Just before supper tonight—well, last night now.”
“You there when they called?”
“Yes, but Daddy took the call in his study.” She looked back and forth between the pup and me. “All Daddy told Mother and me was that someone had Tommy and wanted a ransom. But Hannerty filled me in.” She fixed her gaze on the pup and cuddled it as if it were her newborn babe.
“Hannerty told me about the money and how Daddy told them the banks were closed and there was no way he could get that kind of cash before Monday.”
“What’d they say to that?”
Sally lapped Colleen’s face, makeup and all. “They told him a big man like him can roust bankers out of bed if need be. They told him to be home with the money by one Sunday afternoon. They would contact him at some point with instructions,” she said, her nose wrinkled at the non-stop licking.
“How do we know he’s even alive?”
“Daddy got to hear his voice, and he asked him a question that only Tommy could answer. Hannerty says that Daddy was sure it was Tommy.”
Without warning, fatigue set in. I’d been running on adrenaline and Jim Beam, and the tank was almost empty. “Okay, listen, doll, I got to get some sleep. I’ll swing by your place mid-morning. I want to talk to your father. Will you be there?”
“Wait, Phil, you didn’t tell me about the blood.”
“Oh, yeah, someone tried to kill my partner Rusty and me outside the Chesterfield Club around midnight. Rusty’s in the hospital now.”
Her brows scrunched with what looked like concern. “You’re not hurt?”
“No, but my car is dead.”
I tried to hurry her out the door but she went lame on me. She was too tired and too distraught, and the roads were wet and slick, and a half-dozen other excuses.
“Okay, okay; you can sleep on the couch.”
Colleen smiled. “Can Sally stay with me?”
“If she wants.”
I went into the bedroom, sat on the armchair and removed my shoes and wet socks, then stood and went to the window. A light pre-dawn drizzle floated down through the arc of the street light. I draped my blood-stained suit coat over the chair. The Paseo was empty of cars this time of night. I heard Sally pad into my room. Smart dog, she already knew who would be buttering her bread. I bent over and scratched her ears, then stood and started to loosen my tie. The scent of perfume preceded Colleen.
“Here, let me get that,” she said.
From behind me she expertly removed the tie and then unbuttoned the bloody shirt. She had undressed a man before. Her body pressed against my back and my breathing slowed and deepened. She removed the cuff links and slid the shirt off my arms. Gently, she coaxed me to raise my arms as she pulled the wet undershirt over my head. Her warm hands trailed down my cold, clammy chest to my belt buckle.
I grabbed her wrists.
This wasn’t right. Sure I wanted her, but she was my client’s daughter. And maybe she was tied up in this case more than I yet knew. Plus ninety-five percent of me felt haggard and sleepy, even though the other five percent was upright and alert.
“No, Colleen, I have to get some sleep.”
“You will. You’ll sleep like a baby. Soon.”
My hands and her wrists battled for a moment more. She won. My wet, blood-spattered trousers dropped to the floor. She turned me around and we kissed, at first the taste of lipstick and then of tongue. Her arms were around my neck while our tongues played hide and seek. As if on some Hollywood director’s cue, the rain started again, hard. It tapped a rhythm on the window; its sound spoke more of lust than love. From her neck, I traced my fingertips along her pale shoulders, a terrain of bone and soft flesh. I slid the straps of her gown and slip across those shoulders and they joined my trousers on the floor.
The kiss lasted. The five percent held firm control. Without releasing my lips, Colleen’s hands wandered down to swirl my chest hair. My own hands explored the firmness of her breasts, her bullet-hard nipples. Colleen pushed me backward onto the bed and then climbed on top.
The scent of coffee and frying bacon woke me. I was alone in bed. Naked. I donned a bathrobe and followed the smell. Colleen was in the kitchen archway in her slip, feeding the pup a slice of bacon. Sally wagged her appreciation.
In the bathroom, my bloodstained clothes hung from the shower rod. I took care of business there and then joined the dog and the girl in the kitchen. She smiled and placed another cup of coffee on the table next to her own. I nodded my thanks and sat down.
“About last night,” I said. “I don’t remember much. Was it good?”
“What?”
“You know, it?”
“It wasn’t,” she said.
“It wasn’t?”
“No, Phil.”
“Wasn’t good, huh?”
“Wasn’t anything,” she said. “You fell asleep.”
Colleen loaded scrambled eggs, crisp bacon and two slices of buttered toast on a plate and placed it in front of me. I commenced to gobble. She leaned against the sink watching.
“You not eating?”
“I never eat breakfast. Gotta watch my girlish figure.”
“Listen, doll, there’s nothing girlish about your figure.”
She laughed from deep down. “Apparently it’s not woman enough to keep you awake.”
I swallowed a mouthful of eggs. “If this chow is any indication, at least you’ll always be able to get a man through his stomach.”
She flashed a quick smile, then pretended to pout.
“So how’d a rich girl like you learn to cook like this?”
She straightened up, hard nipples poking against her silk slip. “Mother didn’t grow up rich. And she still cooks most of our meals even though Daddy says she should let the help do it. Mother says every girl should know how to cook, and she made sure I did.”
I rounded up the last of the eggs and shoveled them in. Colleen brought the coffee pot and topped off my cup. But instead of letting me drink it, she set the pot down, pushed my chair back and straddled me face-to-face.
Her nose brushed mine and the scent of last night’s perfume was gone, replaced by the real smell of her, just as intoxicating. I inhaled a deep breath of it. Colleen wore nothing under the slip. Once she loosened the tie of my bathrobe, bare skin met bare skin. She kissed me hard, and I returned the favor, my hand firm on the small of her neck. We let our hands roam, and I discovered skin as soft as puppy fur. She slipped me inside and began to ride slowly, slowly across bluestem valleys and up the ridge. Once she reached the plateau, Colleen dug in her spurs and bucked and bounded as if she rode the meanest bronc. I came along for the ride.
We showered together and made love again. The pup sat outside the tub, watching and offering an occasional whine.
In some strange way we fit together, Colleen and I, not just physically, although that was certainly the case. We anticipated and reciprocated and intuited. I had made love to experienced women before, but this was more. It would sound sappy to say Colleen and I were made for each other. I don’t know how else to put it.
As we toweled each other dry, that five percent once again became upright and alert. This time we made love on the bed.
We lay sated, my arm under Colleen’s head, her hand on my thigh. Suddenly she sat up and looked at the clock.
“I have to go. Daddy mustn’t know I’m gone. It might already be too late.” She gathered her clothes and began to dress.
I told her that I’d visit Rusty in the hospital and give her an hour or so, then swing by. Her father and I had a lot to talk about. I walked her to the door.
At the door, we kissed and she started for the stairs.
“Phil?”
“Yeah?”
“I suppose he will tell you this when you see him, but the man on the phone told Daddy to call off his lapdog detective or Tommy dies.” She turned and trotted down the stairs.
“Hey, wait,” I said.
She stopped near the bottom. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Colleen tilted her head, showed a perplexed expression that may or may not have been genuine. “You do funny things to me. My mind swirls and jumbles things when I’m around you. I really must go now.” She gave me a quick wave and hustled down the second set of stairs and out the door.
The rain had ended, leaving the morning windy and crisp. After walking Sally I dropped her off at Mrs. Pot … Lucille’s. She wore a big grin. “Your young lady didn’t leave until this morning.”
“That’s right, Lucille. It was late and raining hard.”
“Uh huh.” Her smile got bigger, and I stifled one. Any further explanation was fruitless.
An hour later I walked into the hospital and asked at the front desk for Riordan—yeah, that was the poor sap’s given name—Callahan’s room number. “Room 404,” the lady told me. But she added that visiting hours don’t begin until eleven. I asked for the cafeteria, and she pointed down the hall. I headed that way a bit, then slipped into the stairwell and hoofed it up to the fourth floor. The door to Rusty’s room stood open. He slept. The old man in the bed next to him looked like he had been dead for some time, except that his chest rose and fell. Rusty had a unit of blood hung up next to him. His skin was wedding-dress white, which made his freckles stand out like ticks on typing paper. His cadaverous neighbor, on the other hand, was more piss-complected.
I touched Rusty gently on his good arm. His eyes flickered open, and instinctively he reached for where he kept his Colt. Rusty’s face grew taut with pain.
“Hold on partner; everything’s square. You’re in the hospital.”
“If everything’s square, how come it feels like somebody sawed off my arm,” Rusty whispered.
“Because you’re not as quick as you used to be.”
“Chesterfield?”
“Yep, you dodged all but one, though.”
“You?”
“I’m fine. We plugged the shooter, but their car got away.”
Rusty tried to reposition himself, then clenched his teeth and sucked air with a hiss.
“What do you need?”
“Can you slide the pillow down some and prop me up?”
I told him to lie as still as possible and let me do the work. I told him not to cry out because I wasn’t supposed to be there.
“Got a bullet for me to bite?”
“I do.”
“Never mind,” he said. “Just be careful.”
I was careful. Even so, he turned two shades whiter and looked as if he had bitten his tongue off.
“Damn!” was all he said. Once Rusty’s grimace subsided, I told him the pertinent parts of Colleen’s visit, including her parting shot about calling off the dogs.
He closed his eyes and for a moment I thought he had slipped into a morphine snooze. His eyes snapped open. �
�Find time to play any footsie?” He squeezed a half-smile.
“Maybe.”
“So I know you’ll call off this old dog,” he said, pointing a finger at himself with his good arm. “But what about you? You gonna take your fee and your peashooter and go home?”
“Well, Russ, right now I’m a little pissed off. I’m not inclined to turn the other cheek.” I lit up a Lucky. “Want one?”
His eyebrows rose. “I doubt I’m supposed to have one.” I took a drag and blew it his way. “Yeah, let me have it. Might as well go out smoking.” He opened his lips and I slid it in and lit another.
“What’s next then?” he asked, clenching the Lucky in his teeth.
“First I’m gonna have a confab with Holloway.” There was no ashtray, so I flicked my ashes on the tile floor and spread them around with my shoe. I did the same with Rusty’s and slid it back between his lips. “But if Holloway calls me off the case, I’m not so sure I won’t have a serious hearing problem. The bastards killed my dog and shot my pal. I’m not exactly in a forgive-and-forget mood.”
“You figure it’s Palmisano?”
“Maybe. One of his brunos left the club last night not long before we did. Might have set up the ambush.”
Rusty waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, he almost whispered, “It sounded like you were about to give me a ‘but.’” He was fading.
“Can’t fool you,” I said. “But why would Palmisano want to risk making an enemy of Holloway for a few hundred grand?”
Rusty’s eyes were closed. “Yeah, why?”
“What’s going on in here?” A nurse from hell stood in the doorway. A bleached-blonde bowling ball with tree-stump legs, she looked as if she could heft me off the ground twirl me like a baton.
“Just visiting my pal, here,” I offered, with the innocence of a child.
“Give me those cigarettes.” She stepped toward us and held out her hand. Using the discretion part of valor, I handed mine over. She plucked Rusty’s from his lips in mid-inhale, causing Rusty to cough and wince. Oblivious to her patient’s distress, she opened the window and tossed the cigarettes out. I worried I would be next.