Over Her Dear Body

by Richard S. Prather

  Free of shoes, trousers, and jacket, it was easy to swim. By the time I surfaced again I'd put several yards more between me and the Srinagar. I could see men at the rail, but nobody—including the guy in my motorboat—was yet coming after me. Probably they would let me go now, rather than having the hell raised that I'd for sure raise if they came after me. And I didn't think they could afford to use me for target practice, not at this point.

  Besides, they didn't have to come after me. They could try to pick me off later—or maybe just watch me drown.

  I didn't drown. Swimming, then dog-paddling for a few seconds while I caught my breath, I made good time toward the little beach fronting the Fun Zone. I even had time to think a little. And every thought made me madder. Before I'd covered half the distance to shore, I was boiling, and by the time I was ten yards from the beach I was about ready to pop. If I'd had a torpedo and had known how to use it, the Srinagar would have been the first ship ever blown up and sunk in Newport Harbor.

  It also wasn't until I'd reached a point ten yards from the beach that I noticed the people.

  On bright sunny afternoons, like this one, there is always a pretty good crowd at that little beach, and in the amusement centers, too. And it looked as if they had all come down here to watch something exciting or unusual that was happening out there in the bay. I wondered what it could be. When I twisted my head around to look, there wasn't anything out there except small boats and the Srinagar. Of course, then I got the idea.

  When I looked back at the beach, and the packed mass of people, I saw numerous expressions of amusement. A couple men were even laughing, and one of them was pointing. I made my mind as completely blank as possible. It was either that or swim back to the Srinagar. And I was pooped, too; I didn't think I could make it back.

  So I swam on ahead until I could feel the sandy bottom. My hand scraped it, and when I stood up, I was in about two feet of water. The crowd seemed pleased with me. I suppose I was a kind of different sight, standing there in a long white dress shirt and maroon tie, dripping, shoulder holster strapped over the shirt. Especially with no pants on. But I tried not to think about it.

  I walked toward them, and several of the people seemed to be having a swell time. One fat guy, sitting on the sand, was sort of whooping and beating his thigh with one hand. I suppose I asked him how he'd like for me to throw him in the ocean, or something like that; I don't exactly remember. But then I pulled myself together and strolled on through the crowd with as much dignity as I could muster.

  I made it to the Cad and reached into my pants for the car keys. That, it may be, was the least brilliant thing I'd done all day. If I wanted to feel in my pants for keys, I'd have to go back and dive for them.

  So there I stood, on Palm Street near the amusement zone, which seemed like the perfect place for it, sort of rubbing my thigh aimlessly, a stricken expression on my wet face. Actually, the situation wasn't as bad as it might have been. I don't think it could have gotten worse, even without a key, but the key part didn't worry me. I've locked my keys in the Cad a time or two, and had to take off the top to get in, so taped behind the rear bumper there's a spare set to avoid such difficulty. So there wouldn't be any trouble about getting into the car and driving away. Only that's not what I wanted to do. Not just yet, at least. There was one item more important than anything else at the moment.

  I walked to the rear of the Cad, got the keys from beneath the tape, and opened the luggage compartment. In the luggage space I keep no luggage, only the spare tire—and about four thousand dollars worth of equipment I've had occasion at times to use in my work. There's electronic equipment, a snooperscope, wire and rope, a small case containing a gun kit and extra .38 Colt Special cartridges, walkie-talkie, a great many different items. Everything except a spare pair of pants.

  But the gun kit was what I wanted.

  I grabbed it, closed the trunk, opened the car door and climbed in. While I dripped on the white-leather upholstery I dried the Colt, cleaned and oiled it. Then, with six bright, dry slugs, I loaded the gun.

  It took me over an hour to get back into Hollywood. And it was an hour during which I thought some dark thoughts. Instead of calming down as I drove, the fire seemed merely to burn hotter, barely under control. I'd had enough, more than enough. I was fed up to my tonsils. Navarro, the two mugs in my apartment last night, and now Goss and that miserable swim.... I put that part out of my mind.

  But I also had time on the drive to go over everything that had happened so far. Goss’ actions had eliminated any possibility that he was merely an innocent bystander. Navarro, too, was splashed with the blood somehow. Of the three men who'd been in that stateroom with Craig Belden shortly before his murder, that left only the white-haired, tall and smooth one about whom I knew nothing. Obviously I had to find out more about him—specifically, who he was. And what he was. As well as everything else I could get about Goss and Navarro.

  Maybe there was more to it than that, and other persons involved in whatever was going on, but I felt sure much of the answer was centered in that small group. Of course, someone else was in my mind, along with the rest of it. More, actually, than the others. Elaine, the lovely Elaine.

  I parked directly across from the Spartan's entrance and sat there a moment. I was fairly dry by this time, but still pantsless, so I was going to make a run for it. If another gang of cretinous citizens gathered and began pointing at me, I might become unhinged and leap upon them. No, I was going to run like the wind and pray that nobody would see me.

  I pushed the Cad's door open, leaped out and sprinted toward the Spartan. And then, when I wanted only silence and the absence of people, it seemed as if the gates of hell clanged open and sounds rushed at me from the pit.

  I heard a shot; and then a shrill, piercing scream that started about high M and went on up wailing through N-O-P to Q or some place where sounds chill blood.

  Everything happened so fast that I couldn't be sure what came first, the scream or the shot, and at first I thought the screamer must be some old bat who'd spotted me, in my state of extremely casual dress rushing across the street at her, and had jumped to a horrid conclusion.

  But then the shot registered. The slug didn't hit me, but I heard it snap past—behind me, very damned close behind me—and I heard it smack solidly into something far down the street. At almost the same moment I saw the woman who was screaming, saw her face and extended arm with its pointing finger. She was pointing down the street and to my left, but that wasn't what jarred me so at first. It was the face. The woman was Elaine.

  It all registered, slammed into me and sent a bolt of saw-toothed electricity raking through my nerves, but it was just sensation. And I didn't take time to wonder about anything. When I hear a shot, I move in a hell of a hurry. I was already moving in a hurry, so I just let go and dropped to the street. As I fell, I jerked my head around to my left, where Elaine had been pointing, and saw my car maybe twenty yards away. If it hadn't been for the peculiarly irritating events of this afternoon, I would probably have noticed the car sooner. But to balance that error, if I hadn't leaped from the Cad sprinting, that first slug would have done the job.

  As it was, the bullet missed, but as I fell to the hard, bone-bruising solidity of the asphalt, the gun cracked again. I saw it this time. The car was in the shade of trees on the opposite side of Rossmore from where I'd parked. The gun, some kind of rifle, was thrust through the left rear window of a dark sedan facing away from me. That second bullet hit the asphalt inches from me, whined off down the street.

  Then the Colt was in my right hand and I was aiming toward the car. It started to pull away from the curb as I fired. I was still moving, too, not steadied yet from my sudden dive, and I didn't even hit close to the man. I heard the slug smack the rear of the sedan, then I steadied myself and let three more shots go, with about a second to aim between each shot.

  I could barely see the man holding the gun, but I aimed at what I could see, and
knew my slugs went through the open window. The rifle cracked again, but the bullet was well away from me—and I could see the bore of the rifle dip, see the barrel sag. I fired once more, but the car was moving fast by then. That barrel sagged almost straight down the side of the car. I thought it was going to fall to the street, but at the last moment it was pulled back into the sedan.

  So I'd hit him. I didn't know where or how badly I'd gotten the creep, but I hoped I'd killed him.

  Elaine had screamed more than once since that first loud high one, but she was silent now. I heard her shoes on the sidewalk, then on the street, as she ran toward me. And that was about when the pain started, too. I'd raked flesh off one knee, and from the other thigh and ankle, when I'd hit the street hard, sprawling flat and rolling. Fire burned the raw spots, and my head throbbed painfully. But there weren't any bullets in me. I was just raw, not loaded with rifle slugs.

  I managed to get up as Elaine reached me. She had on a dark skirt and white blouse, and her face was pale and twisted, looking torn with fright. Fright—and something else.

  She reached me, threw her arms around me, and at first I couldn't make out the words spilling from her mouth. Then she said, “Did they ... are you all right? Shell, what—”

  I pulled her tight. “Easy. It's all over. Whatever it was.” I grabbed her shoulders, pushed her away from me and looked into her face. “How'd you get here? What happened to you this morning?”

  “I—” She paused, ran her tongue over her lips. More color was coming back into her face.

  But then, beyond her, I noticed a couple of faces at hotel windows, saw an old gal standing in the Spartan's entrance—and I remembered a few other items. “Come on, let's get inside,” I said to Elaine. “We can't talk here, and—”

  I broke it off. She was looking me up and down, with an astonished look replacing the previous fright. “How—how did it happen?” she asked in a strange tone.

  She was looking at my lower extremities, which seemed awfully extreme at the moment.

  “Never mind that now. Let's go.” I took her arm, and pulled her toward the Spartan.

  Inside the lobby, the old gal who'd been eyeballing the action from the door moments earlier was sitting on a lounge against the far wall, talking excitedly to another gal approximately her own age, which was about a hundred and ten, I guessed. We have quite a wide variety of types at the Spartan.

  Nobody else was in sight except the desk man. Jimmy. He said to me, “It sounded like the end of the world.”

  “It almost was. Give me my key. Quick.”

  He scooted behind the desk, saying, “What happened?”

  “Somebody shot at me.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah, again.” It has happened before.

  He looked me over as he handed me the key, and started to snicker for the first time, but swallowed it fast. I raced up the stairs with Elaine and to my apartment. Nobody was waiting for me this time. We went inside, I shut and locked the door, then leaned back against it and closed my eyes for a moment. There was a kind of quivering sensation all over my skin, as if the cells itched and were scratching each other. I took a couple of deep breaths and opened my eyes.

  And then everything was all right again. Elaine stood about a foot from me, looking at me soberly. She was now as she'd been on the Srinagar, and for a few moments here in my apartment in the early morning. At this moment she had never looked more beautiful; at this moment, no one had ever looked more beautiful.

  She spoke slowly, and her voice was again the throbbingly lovely, warmly whispering sound it had been when I'd first heard her speak. “Something happened to me out there, Shell. When—they shot at you. For a moment I thought you were going to be killed. And I...”

  She paused, looking up at me. Her big soft eyes, those dark Indian eyes, looked deep into my own eyes, then fell to my lips. “...I thought my heart would stop.”

  “Elaine—”

  She raised her hand, pressed one finger against my lips. Perhaps she meant to speak, and changed her mind. I don't know. But I know her finger slid from my lips and her hand caressed my cheek, and then my arms went around her and she was pressed against me. She raised her face, eyes closing and lips parting as I caught her mouth with mine.

  We stood there, as if our bodies had fused together, mouths clinging, my hands tight against her back, her fingers curling behind my head. It was a moment like the one we'd shared this morning when I'd held her to me, feeling the surge of warmth, of fire in her, feeling the dark hair brush my face and knowing the sweet perfume of her—but more this time, much more.

  When our mouths parted she rubbed my face with hers and spoke in a rushing whisper, her eyes still closed, spoke with lips like honey and words like wine. More than the closeness of our bodies, more than caresses of our lips, there was an extreme tension and excitement between us that must have been part of what had happened minutes ago in the street, the shots and violence and nearness of death. Perhaps at no other time would our being together like this have been so violent, so supercharged with emotion and a kind of savagery. But whatever the reason, that's the way it was.

  When our lips parted I lifted her in my arms and carried her through the apartment into the bedroom. I lowered her gently to the bed, and her mouth found mine before I let her go. When she pushed me away, her lids were heavy and her eyes seemed almost dull, but burning from something inside her. She reached for the top button on her white blouse, fumbled with it and moved her fingers to the next. In a moment she pulled the blouse from her shoulders, pulled it completely free, then raised her body slightly, hands going to her back and freeing the clasp of her brassiere.

  “Elaine,” I said. My voice was tight in my throat. “I—”

  She stopped me, speaking almost calmly, but with a thread of urgency in her tone. “No, don't say anything, Shell. No ... promises, no avowals. Don't say a word.”

  While I stood silently at the edge of the bed, looking down at her, she undressed. She pulled the brassiere from the firm globes of her breasts, slid the dark skirt free of her hips and whitely gleaming thighs and rounded calves, dropped it in a crumpled heap to the floor.

  In a moment, her wonderful body bare, she rested her head against the pillow, lips parted, breathing heavily through her mouth. She dropped her arms to her sides and closed the heavy lids over her dark eyes, motionless except for the deep rise and fall of her breasts.

  Then she was in my arms, and it was again as though our flesh fused into one flesh, our mouths into one, as if our hearts were pressed together and pounding, pounding, like one great bursting heart.

  I passed a lighted cigarette to Elaine and she sucked smoke into her lungs, expelled it and dragged deeply upon it again, without speaking.

  We had been talking for a while, and the ashtray was nearly filled with ashes and the stubs of cigarettes. She raised her head and placed it on one white, smooth arm, looking at me in the dim light from the small lamp. It was dark now, and quiet.

  She said smiling, “I made the remark once before, Shell. I thought my heart would stop.”

  I grinned at her, pushed the tangled hair up from her forehead, but didn't say anything. Elaine had already told me why she'd been away from her apartment all day, after dropping Bunny off at her duplex. She'd turned the car radio on and heard what must have been the first or second news flash to reach the air about Belden's murder. And, as I'd known it would be, the one witness’ story about seeing the “girl in white” run from the murder scene had been part of the news. After my remarks to Elaine about what the killers would do if they learned she might be able to identify them, she'd been afraid to stay in her apartment. After packing a small bag, she had checked into another apartment building, The Stuyvesant, under an assumed name, and tried to call me.

  I'd been thinking about that, and now I asked her, “When did you come to the Spartan?”

  “A little after noon. I couldn't stand it, waiting, phoning and phoning you. So I
drove here. I knew you'd come here eventually. For hours I just sat in the car, then I went into the lobby and waited.” She stretched lazily and went on, “While I was there, watching, I saw that other car arrive. There were two men in the car, I noticed, but I didn't think anything of it then, even though they just sat there and waited. When I saw you drive up, I started down the steps, I don't know why I looked toward that other car, but I did, and saw the gun. So—I screamed.”

  “Yeah, that one woke the birds in Beverly Hills. It's a good thing you did let out that blast, though. If you hadn't, I'd probably have looked in the wrong direction, or looked too late.”

  “Shell.”

  “Yeah?”

  “What happened to your—your pants?”

  That one caught me off guard. Somehow I hadn't gotten around to telling her about that. I said, “Honey, you might not believe it. I, uh, was swimming, see, and with—”

  “Swimming? With your clothes on?”

  “Yeah. But not as a lark. In fact, I'd just as soon not discuss it. Not ever.”

  She was insistent, so I told her some of the story, hitting the high points. When I finished she merely said, “Well, if that's all it was, then all right,” and rather surprisingly let the matter drop.

  At eight-thirty p.m., showered and dressed, we sat in the front room having drinks, a bourbon highball for me and a Scotch for Elaine. She'd told me all she could think of about her brother, but none of it seemed any help to me. Whatever Belden might have been up to, he hadn't told her about it.

  I said, “Well, honey, I've got to leave.”

  “For where?”

  “The Red Rooster. I want to talk to Bunny—and her partner. I'm curious to know how he'll react when he sees me.”

  “I'll get ready.”

  “No, ma'am. You're not going; just me. There might be some fireworks, and—”

  “Let's not argue about it. I'll just get ready, and we'll go.”

  “No, it might be dangerous—”

  “Shell, we've already discussed the broadcast about the woman seen running from the house where it happened this morning. We've no real reason to suspect that anybody knows I was the woman. So we won't worry about that.”