Sweet Little Hands (A Story From the Dark Side)

by Lawrence Block

  “The place where I left—”

  “Just a joke, my dear. Halfway between his navel and his dick, that’s where I shot the son of a bitch. It put him down and shut him up and I guess it hurt. Abdominal wounds are supposed to be the most painful.”

  “And then it was ages before the second shot.”

  “I doubt it was more than thirty seconds. Say a minute at the outside.”

  “Was that all? It seemed longer.”

  “For him as well, I’m sure. But I wanted a moment or so to tell him.”

  “To tell him.”

  “I didn’t want him to die thinking something had gone horribly wrong. I wanted him to know everything was working out just the way it was supposed to, that he’d been set up and played for a sap. He didn’t want to believe it.”

  “But you convinced him.”

  “‘A few hours ago,’ I told him, ‘she had two fingers up your ass. I hope you enjoyed it.’”

  “You told him that?”

  “It was a convincer.”

  “And then what? You shot him?”

  “In the heart. To put him out of his misery, although he didn’t look miserable so much as he looked embarrassed. You should have seen the look on his face.”

  “I wish I had. That was the one thing wrong.”

  “That you weren’t there for it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you could have been waiting in the living room. You could have popped in when you heard the first shot. But I don’t suppose it was a total loss, was it? Being stuck upstairs?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had your hands full, didn’t you?”

  “Well,” she said.

  “Excited, were you?”

  “You know I was.”

  “Yes, I know you were. My goodness, now that I think about it, those pretty little fingers have been a lot of places today, haven’t they? I hope you washed them before you shook hands with the detective.”

  “Did I shake hands with him? I don’t remember shaking hands with him.”

  “Maybe you didn’t. But if you did, I bet he remembers.”

  “You think he liked me?”

  “I’ll bet he calls you.”

  “You really think so?”

  “Oh, he’ll have a pretext. He’s not fool enough to call without a pretext. He’ll have something to report on the disposition of the case, or he’ll want to check on your state of mind. And if he doesn’t get any encouragement from you he’ll have the sense to let it drop.”

  “But if he does?” She nibbled her lower lip. “He’s kind of cute,” she said.

  “I had a feeling you liked him.”

  “I just wanted him to go home. But he is kind of cute. You think...”

  “What?”

  “Well, we couldn’t do things the same way we did with Jimmy, could we?”

  “What, get him to crawl in the window and then blow him away? I don’t think so.”

  “When he calls,” she said, “if he calls—”

  “He’ll call.”

  “—I don’t think I’ll encourage him.”

  “Even if he is cute.”

  “There are lots of cute guys,” she said, “and there ought to be a way to surprise them the way we surprised Jimmy.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “And next time I’ll be in the room when it happens.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it,. I want to be there.”

  “You could even do it,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Look at you,” he said. “You’re something, aren’t you?”

  “Am I?”

  “I’ll say. But yes, you can be there, and maybe you can do it. We’ll see.”

  “You’re good to me, George. Good to me and good for me.”

  “I am, and don’t you forget it.”

  “I won’t. You know the one thing I regret?”

  “That you weren’t in the room to see it happen.”

  “Besides that.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s silly,” she said. “But I wish we’d put it off a day or two longer.”

  “To stretch out the anticipation?”

  “That, but something else. Remember what I told him today? That next time I’d get my whole hand inside of him?”

  “You’re saying you would have liked to try.”

  “Well, yeah. It would have been interesting.”

  “Sweet little hands. Maybe you could do that to me.”

  “You’d let me?”

  “And maybe I could do it to you.”

  “God,” she said. “You’ve got such big hands.”

  “Yes, I do, don’t I?”

  “God,” she said. “Can we go upstairs now? Can we?”

  I hope you enjoyed

  ● Sweet Little Hands ●

  A Story From The Dark Side, by Lawrence Block

  Lawrence Block is a Grandmaster of the Mystery Writers of America, and winner of multiple awards, including the Edgar and the Shamus awards for his novels.

  I hope you enjoyed this story. If so, I’d love to hear from you.

  Email: lawbloc@gmail.com

  Twitter: @LawrenceBlock

  Blog:

  http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/

  Facebook:

  http://www.facebook.com/lawrence.block

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  www.lawrenceblock.com

  If you did in fact like this story, you might enjoy more of my short fiction. Three collections of my short fiction are available as ebooks:

  Enough Rope

  One Night Stands & Lost Weekends

  Ehrengraf for the Defense

  Also available as special edition ebooks are Single Short Stories, Novellas, and a play. Subscribe to LB’s blog and sign up for the newsletter to get the latest updates on sales, new releases and special offers.

  Stories From the Dark Side

  “Catch & Release” (a fisherman)

  “A Chance to Get Even” (a poker game)

  “Dolly’s Trash & Treasures” (a hoarder)

  “Headaches and Bad Dreams” (a psychic)

  “In For a Penny” (New York noir)

  “Like a Bone in the Throat” (revenge)

  “Scenarios” (a man with imagination)

  “Sweet Little Hands” (a cheating wife)

  “Three In The Side Pocket” (a failed scam)

  “Welcome to the Real World” (a golfer)

  “Who Knows Where It Goes” (a job hunter)

  “You Don’t Even Feel It” (a boxer’s wife)

  Bernie Rhodenbarr

  “The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke”

  “Like a Thief in the Night”

  Chip Harrison

  “As Dark As Christmas Gets”

  Ehrengraf For The Defense

  “The Ehrengraf Defense”

  “The Ehrengraf Presumption”

  “The Ehrengraf Experience”

  “The Ehrengraf Apointment”

  “The Ehrengraf Riposte”

  “The Ehrengraf Obligation”

  “The Ehrengraf Alternative”

  “The Ehrengraf Nostrum”

  “The Ehrengraf Affirmation”

  “The Ehrengraf Reverse”

  “The Ehrengraf Settlement

  Keller

  “Keller in Dallas”

  Four-Part Novellas

  “Speaking of Greed”

  “Speaking of Lust”

  A One-Act Stage Play

  “How Far”

  Short Stories

  “Almost Perfect” (baseball and adultery)

  “A Bad Night for Burglars” (a bad-luck burglar)

  “Terrible Tommy Terhune” (a tennis player)

  “A Vision in White” (another tennis player)

  For a list of all my available fiction, with my series novels listed in chronological order, go to About LB’s Fiction. And if you LOVE any of these stories, I’d r
eally appreciate it if you’d tell your friends—including the friends you haven’t met, by blogging, posting an online review, or otherwise spreading the word.

  Thanks!

  Lawrence Block

  Available Now! The complete collection of Martin H. Ehrengraf stories.

  Includes the newest story, The Ehrengraf Settlement.

  You've never met a lawyer like Martin Ehrengraf. He never loses a case, and rarely sees the inside of a courtroom. Nor does he pass his hours poring over dusty legal volumes, or searching the Lexis database. Ehrengraf is a criminal lawyer who takes cases on a contingency basis; he collects a fee only when his client goes free. And that somehow never fails to happen happens, because his clients always turn out to be innocent.

  Ehrengraf's debut came in 1978, in Ellery Queen. Ten stories appeared between then and 2003, and now, after almost a decade, the dapper little lawyer is back (only in eBook form, and only for Kindle) in "The Ehrengraf Settlement." All eleven Ehrengraf stories, exclusively eVailable as Kindle Select titles, have now been gathered up into this full-length eBook.

  In 1994, when there were only eight stories about the fellow, a small press collected them in a limited edition of Ehrengraf for the Defense. (That little volume commands $250 to $1250 on the collector market—if you can find it.) Edward D. Hoch, acknowledged master of short mystery fiction, wrote an appreciative introduction, and Lawrence Block added an afterword. Hoch's introduction is reprinted in our new enlarged eDition of the stories, and Block has updated his afterword.

  Lawrence Block has peopled his fictional universe with a host of memorable characters. If you want a walk through the dark and gritty streets of Manhattan and the outer boroughs, Matt Scudder's your man. If you need a lighthearted and lightfingered companion to lift something from a safe in a triple-locked apartment, you want Bernie Rhodenbarr. If you have to get someone out of your hair once and for all, you'd better get Keller on the case.

  But if you're facing a murder charge, and if the evidence is overwhelming, you want the one man who's not only prepared to believe in your innocence but able to demonstrate it to the world. You want Ehrengraf.

  Just make sure you pay his fee...

  Available now on Amazon

  Ehrengraf For The Defense

  The Complete Short Story Collection