Abel Baker Charley (12 page)

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Authors: John R. Maxim

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BOOK: Abel Baker Charley

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”I know, I know.” Biaggi produced a quarter from his
pocket and reached for the door latch. “What about the wal
lets?”

“Let me think about that,” he said, reaming out his
pipe.''Let me think about a lot of things.”

Biaggi hesitated, just for a beat, his eyes on the billfolds. There was fear in his expression and Harrigan saw it.

Her breath was coming soft and deep. Baker reached for her
glass before it could slip from her fingers.

Tanner had changed her clothes. The torn and soiled gar
ments from the park lay in a wastebasket. She wore instead a full-length robe of Oriental silk. It was green with muted gold embroidery and it buttoned almost to her chin. She'd
wanted to shower. She'd wanted to scrub and soak for hours
to wipe away even the memory of those two men touching, but this other man would be gone if she had. The robe was
enough for now. It was clean and warm. And the white wine
from room service was making her even warmer.

From a long way off, she heard the man . . . What did
she decide to call him? Peter. Peter was whispering to her. Now his hands were on her shoulders and he was steering
her gently through her bedroom door. She let her body fall
across the deep quilt, all but one hand, which held fast to
the hem of Peter's jacket. Stay, she asked him in her mind.
She was too deeply tired to find the words that might
make him stay close to her. Her fingers tightened on his
jacket.

After a long moment, Baker eased himself onto the three
feet she'd left for him at the edge of the bed. He smiled, and
lightly ran his fingers over her back and shoulders until her
sleep was sound.

Now Baker sat against the two pillows in a darkened
room, fully dressed but for his shoes. Feeling her warmth
rising toward him, he reached across her body and folded the
quilt over her. She twitched and was still.

Baker felt strangely at peace. Almost happy. The men
outside seemed far away. It seemed as though there were
more than before. There was a policeman. There was some
thing about him. He thought of asking Charley, but he
quickly put that thought aside. He did not want Charley
here. Anyway, the men outside would keep. Until morning.

Tomorrow he would ask Charley why that one in the park
seemed to know him. And how Tanner Burke just happened
to turn up here. These questions bothered him, but they too
could wait. For now he was warm and safe. And he wasn't
lonely.

Baker yawned and looked down at the softly snoring shape beneath the quilt and shook his head in a kind of
amused wonder. It seemed so unreal. A fantasy. Every
man’
s
fantasy. Rescue the beautiful lady and she takes you grate
fully to her bed. Sort of.

He made a face. He wondered how much Everyman
would envy Jared Baker tonight if they also had to be Jared
Baker tomorrow. Not many, he thought. Most might wish
they could be like Abel from time to time. Sometimes even
like Charley. But not like Jared Baker. Being Jared Baker was just too damned empty.

Tanner's body twitched and tightened. He could hear
her fingernails scraping against the sheets. She was
dreaming, he knew. And it was an action dream. A tense
dream. Baker hoped it was not about the park and won
dered whether he should wake her. Maybe stir her just
enough that she could switch to another channel. He saw
one hand rise and push from beneath the quilt. It was a
motion of fending off. Better give her a nudge. He placed
one hand on her shoulder and shook it gently. It seemed to work. The fending hand relaxed, then reached back and
rested along his hip. Baker wanted to move it but he waited. It was too close to the puncture wound from
Sumo's knife, the wound he deserved for interfering with
Abel. The cut had closed, but it was not quite healed and was still tender to the touch. He had not been Abel long
enough for it to heal.

Her fingers stiffened and her body followed, as if she
knew suddenly that the body she was touching was not her
own. Baker seized the hand too late. Her nails dug deep,
tearing at the soft scab. She spun upright and lashed wildly at his face. Her lungs sucked in air.

‘Tanner, it's all right.” Baker struggled to keep his voice
even. It didn't help. She was not yet awake, and Baker's voice
was muffled by her own gasps and by the squeaking and
knocking of the bed. She didn't know him yet. He brushed
aside her biting fingers and grabbed her by the forearm. She
drew in a new breath that he knew would come out a scream.

“Tanner!” He slapped her.
The blow, reluctant and with little force, had an effect of
less than a second. Again her free hand lunged at him and
again another intake of breath. He seized her by the neck
and threw her down on the pillow, knowing that he was Jace
or Sumo in her mind and detesting the picture that must
have been there. His body dropped across her heaving
chest, and his hand clamped over her mouth as her finger
nails tore at his scalp and neck. The nail of one thumb
found the soft flesh above his collarbone and it hurt him.
Abel sprung into his mind and he fought to send him away,
lest the pain make him slip and say Abel's name. He lay
there enduring it. Think of Charley. Charley would be bet
ter. Charley would accept the hurt and he wouldn't hurt her back. Baker winced and shook Charley away too. Charley
would make her sick.

“Oh, my God!” she cried suddenly, going rigid. The
clawing hand relaxed and flew to his cheek. “Peter . . . Oh,
my God, I thought. . .”

“It's all right.” He tried to keep the pain from his voice.
“Give yourself a minute. It was just a dream.” He eased her
hand away and reached for the light on the nightstand.

“Oh, dear Lord!” She sat upright when she saw the row
of bleeding welts that curved across his neck. The tears
welled again. “Here,” she said, tugging at the arm that sup
ported him. “Roll over onto your stomach. Let me see what I have to put on those.”

“I'd better get up,” he said, resisting her. “There's
...
Don't get upset, but there's an old cut on my hip that opened
up. I'll get blood on your quilt.”

Startled, Tanner pushed aside the quilt and saw the smear
of blood between his fingers. She looked stricken.

“You didn't do it. It's a few days old. I knocked the scab off, that's all.”

“Let me get something.” She sprang from the bed and half-ran to the bathroom.

Baker watched her. He raised himself
on both elbows
and watched her reflection in the mirrored bathroom door
as she rummaged through a leather kit. He knew that he was
staring. Her body, what he could see of it beneath the robe,
was smoothly muscled. An athlete's body. But there was
more to Tanner Burke than that, he thought. She had a way
of carrying her head high even while looking down. Grace
ful. Strong without being mannish. Like a dancer. Baker's
eyes fell upon a breast that was partly bared. Buttons, those
little looping kind, must have torn away as she struggled.
He tried to look away but could not. And as he watched her,
his admiration began to slide into an ache of longing. God,
she was lovely. And so very nice. Oh, Baker, how do you
know what she's like? You want her to be nice. You want
her to like you a little. Then what? Baker shrugged, and his
mouth relaxed into a tiny smile. It was only Baker talking to Baker. Sometimes he had to stop and think to be sure.
But what's the matter with wanting her to be like me? And
not just a little. It doesn't mean I'll do anything stupid.
Charley? What does she think about all this? What does she
think about me?

“Charley?”

“nothing.”

“How can she be thinking nothing? Look at her”

“nothing about you. she doesn't care about you.”

“Charley, why did you say that?
Anyone can see that she's
feeling something. Even if it's only pity or fear or maybe
gratitude. Why would you say she doesn't care about me?”

Tanner's image ripped from the mirror as she appeared in
the bathroom doorway. A dampened towel was in one hand
and her travel kit in the other. She drew up, startled, at the
sight of Baker's face now curiously slack and flaccid.
Glazed eyes that seemed to be looking through her . . . She blinked and it was gone. There was only the gentle face she
knew, shaking jerkily as one would clear away a daydream.

“Take off your pants,” she said, tugging at his pocket.
“I'll run some cold water on the blood so it doesn't set. The
shirt too.”

When Baker hesitated, she set her kit on the bed and
reached for the buttons of his shirt. He closed his hand over
hers and looked at her. Her hand tensed.

“Peter, I don't think . . .,” she stammered. “Tonight. . .
all that's happened
...
I just can't. . .”

Baker pushed to his feet, embarrassed. ”I didn't mean
anything like that.” He blanched. ”I just meant I could do it
myself.” He walked to the bathroom, stripping his shirt as he
went, leaving Tanner Burke furious with herself for misun
derstanding his touch, for making him say that he didn't
want her.

Baker was at the sink. The lighter stains of his shirt
washed out quickly. Next, he removed his trousers and, fin
gering the knife cut he didn't want Tanner to see, held the
bloodstain beneath the running tap. The thinned blood
flowed as if a vein had opened. But it went away. From the
cloth and from his fingers, it mixed with the swirling water
and rushed to the drain. Baker turned his head and shut his eyes. It was not the blood. It was the drain. Sometimes look
ing at a drain could make the iron door dissolve. Think of
something else, Baker. Think of Tanner Burke. Think of how
she could be here. Think of how, of all the people that might
have been in the park, Abel led you to Tanner Burke. How
could he have found her? She couldn't have been thinking your name. She doesn't know you. So, it was the other one.
The one, Jace, who spoke your name. That's how Abel
found him. But why? And still, why would Tanner Burke have been there? Abel? What's going on, Abel? And why is
Charley lying to me all of a
...

“Peter?” She was standing at his side, her fingers button
ing the Oriental robe. If anything, the act made her more al
luring as the green silk tightened like a sheath over her body.
“Peter, I'm sorry.” She let her eyes say the rest. “Come on.”
She took his arm. “Let me clean you up a little.”

Soon it was Baker who drowsed under a light cool touch.
Tanner had cleaned the wound that was just below his hip joint, and she soothed it with a layer of zinc oxide. This she
covered with a fold of gauze bandage. Turning to the
scratch marks, she softened them first with a hot, moist
towel and then touched a styptic pencil to the places where
the skin had been broken. The ridge of welts had already re
duced, and those nerve endings too were drifting off to
sleep.

“Peter?” She whispered the name she had chosen for him.

“Ummmm?”

“Isn't there anything you can tell me about yourself?”

Baker opened one eye. “You'd have trouble understand
ing, Tanner. We're both better off if you don't know much.”

“Would you be in danger if I knew more?”

”I think so. Yes.”

“Well, how about just personal things? You're not mar
ried, are you?”

”. . . No.”

“You hesitated just then.”

I
'm not married, I promise.”

“Divorced?”