City of Dragons (21 page)

She took off her shoes, the left one, the one with the broken heel, hanging grotesquely by a strap around her swollen ankle. The right foot seemed OK, but the knee was painful. Pain was all right. It could all hurt like hell, but it still had to look good if she was going to earn a living. Living. That was the whole goddamn point.

She stood up, the silk a thin sheath between her feet and the coarse, cold sidewalk. Picked up her purse, bending over, off balance, precarious, but managing not to fall. One step. Two steps. The left foot dragged, couldn’t hold her weight, not up a hill. The .22 in her purse was heavy, and inside she laughed at how useless it was. There were so many easier ways of killing somebody.

Eleven steps, twelve. Halfway there. Street still empty. Stupid, stupid Miranda. If it works once, they’ll do it again. Keep doing it. Easier to change cars than a fingerprint. Next time it would be blue, or brown, or maybe black.

Eighteeen, nineteen. “Nice legs.” They meant to kill her with them. Aiming for them, with all the force of a revved motor and a slope they’d love at Sun Valley. Nice fucking legs to kill you with.

Twenty-three, twenty four. Almost there.

She dragged herself up the few steps in front of the Drake Hopkins, leaned against the door. She couldn’t sit again, not if she wanted to get back up. With a shaking finger, she punched the buzzer for the night doorman.

Shoes made a soft whisking sound on the carpet. Then dull thumps, as they sped up.

“Miss Corbie? My God, what happened? Are you all right?”

Leo was an old man, sixty-five and showing it. He liked the night duty because he couldn’t sleep. Claimed he hadn’t slept since ’06. His eyes were awake now, staring at her.

“I’m OK. Need to get upstairs. Elevator work?”

“Sure, it’s working. Here, let me help you—”

He put his arm behind Miranda’s back and underneath her arm, helping her to stand, gently guiding her to the small, automatic elevator.

“What happened? Should I call a doctor? Or the police?”

“No.” She was breathing hard. The adrenaline was catching up to her. “But you can make a call for me. Once we get upstairs.”

Leo had seen too many things in sixty-five years to ask questions. He knew Miranda came home late; knew she was a private detective. And he knew to keep his mouth shut and his arm behind her back.

Leo placed her on the small stool, still in the elevator from when the building owners hired a colored man to run it. He died last year, and since they converted it to automatic, Miranda relied on the stairs.

She leaned against the wooden wall, listening to the hum of the motor, felt the cables lift them. Leo stood with his back to her, facing the door, ready to shoo away any other late-night resident of 640 Mason Street until he could deliver his charge.

A small jump before it settled. Two seconds.
Clang.

The door hesitated, opened. Leo turned quickly to Miranda, scooping her up easily for an old man, his arm strong and secure behind her. She leaned on him, pushing herself toward the safety of her apartment.

She tried to stand up, winced and nearly buckled, but Leo caught her. He fished in his pocket for a passkey.

“At the table, please, Leo.”

He turned on the light and walked her to the kitchen, gently lowering her on one of the wooden chairs. Without a word, he opened two cupboards until he found the coffee, and started filling the pot, still on the stove.

Miranda opened her purse, her fingers thick and clumsy. Her left palm was bleeding, left some blood on the cloth. She found a five, dropped it on the table.

“Thanks, Leo. I wouldn’t have made it up here without you.”

He flicked the burner, waited for it to catch, adjusted the flame. Then he turned, saw the money, shook his head.

“You know better than that, Miss Corbie. You sure you don’t need a doctor?”

His face said she did. She must look like shit. “Maybe later. Can you phone someone for me?”

“ ’Course. What’s the number?”

“MArket 7237. Rick Sanders. Ask him to come as soon as he can.”

“Will do, Miss Corbie. Are you sure you’ll be all right? You want me to come back after I call Mr. Sanders?”

She tried to crack a smile, but it was too painful. The left side of her face felt swollen. She must have kissed the sidewalk with it. Just like Eddie.

“No thanks. Thanks for helping me. And making the coffee.”

He gave her shoulder a gentle, fatherly pat and left the kitchen. She heard the door close softly behind him.

She sat for a few seconds, watching the coffee bubble to the top of the glass ball, trying to get her breathing under control.

She must’ve fallen asleep despite the pain and half-empty cup of coffee in front of her. She woke with a jump, hurting from the sudden movement, her hand automatically reaching for the gun on the table.

Rick was pounding on the door. “Miranda? Miranda, are you all right? Can you get to the door?”

She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Ten after three. She stood up, not putting any weight on her left ankle. It looked like a ruby red grapefruit. Funny the things that go through your head in the middle of the night when someone tries to run you over.

By the time she hobbled out of the kitchen, the door was swinging open. Leo held the passkey in his hands, and Rick stood there, Rick with a blotched face, puffy eyes, and a shirt misbuttoned and hanging out of a pair of dirty trousers.

Both men stood and stared at her.

She said: “Come in and shut the door. Thanks, Leo.”

Leo had at least fifty years of practice in taking a hint. Rick stepped across the threshold, hurried to Miranda. The door closed softly.

“My God, Miranda—you look like shit. I’ll call a doctor—”

He had his arm around her, and she leaned against him, her body grateful to not have to carry itself. “Deadbolt and chain the door. And help me to the bed.”

He made sure she could stand before leaving her, and she watched him while he manipulated the locks. Rick lived near Civic Center, by the Hotel Empire. He must’ve taken a taxi to make it in fifteen minutes.

He guided her through an open doorway to the small bedroom, sitting her carefully on the bed. It was stuffy, and he opened a window. The sound of foghorns drifted up from Mason Street.

“You need a doctor, goddamn it—”

“Sanders, don’t fight with me. If I get a doctor, I have to explain what happened. I’ll lie, he’ll get suspicious—you know the routine. I don’t want the cops around.”

He sat beside her, gently moved a lock of hair away from her face with one finger. “You need to be cleaned up. You might even have a concussion.”

She turned her head away. “I still remember my middle name.”

Rick stared at her for a few seconds. “I’m going to get a cloth, some soap and warm water.”

She heard him in the bathroom, gathering towels, probably looking for bandages. Probably making a mess. She wanted to yell at him, tell him she didn’t need his goddamn Irish charity, tell him to get some fucking self-respect and leave her alone when she called him in the middle of the night.

She felt her cheek again. It was swollen. She wouldn’t be working the clubs for a month.

Rick walked in slowly, carrying a pot of water in his hands. He managed to set it down on the rug without spilling any. Steam rose from the water, and Miranda stared at it, seeing bright lights through fog.

He knelt on the floor and wrung out the washcloth.

“Lift up your skirt, Miranda.” She almost laughed. Rick was watching her. “You’re still in shock, even if you don’t have a concussion.”

“Turn on the radio.”

“What? Why do you—”

“Please, Rick, just turn on the radio.”

He shrugged, hauled himself up with a groan, and twisted the knob. He waited a minute or two for the tubes to heat up, not looking back at Miranda. Static broke the silence, and he quickly adjusted the tuning until the sounds of a band broadcast drifted from the speaker, from somewhere overseas where it was already tomorrow, another day in another war.

By the time he turned toward her, she’d unsnapped her garters and taken off her silk stockings, and lifted her dress hem about four inches above her knees. The pain made her a little more awake.

Rick knelt down in front of her again. “The cloth isn’t so warm anymore.”

“It’s still wet.”

He placed a large hand around her left thigh, lifting her leg and straightening it, resting it on his right shoulder.

“Ouch! What the hell are you—”

“I’m testing your motion, trying to see if you pulled something.”

“I didn’t, Dr. Kildare. I’m scraped and bruised from hitting the ground hard—concrete steps.”

He grunted, and applied the cloth to the side of her thigh. A bruise was starting to form. Then he rinsed the cloth again, leaving more water in it, and draped it on her knee, squeezing it so that some drips ran down the sides of her leg. He didn’t look at her. She flinched from the pain.

“You’ve got a bad scrape and a hell of a bruise.”

“Will it scar?”

“I don’t think so.”

He washed it three times. Miranda closed her eyes. Then he carefully moved her leg from his shoulder, supporting it with his left hand, feeling the bones of her ankle with his right.

“It’s sprained.”

She wanted to make a sarcastic retort, ridicule him for his ridiculous doctor act, his mother-hen attention. Instead, she just said: “Yeah.”

He set her leg back down on the floor, stood up. “I’m getting more water and some iodine. I found a couple of bandages and tape in your bathroom.”

She closed her eyes again. Murmured, “Thanks, Sanders.”

When he came back, he put some iodine on her knee, tore off a bandage, and taped it on. The iodine stung like a bastard, and she cried out. Rick ignored her. He used the other part of the bandage and wrapped it around her ankle.

The band ran through a series of tunes from the Great War, recalled from retirement to serve again. Now the singer was emoting all over the microphone on “Hurry Home.”

Miranda had forgotten about her skirt, and Rick turned toward her other leg, running his fingers along the side of it. She felt herself shiver slightly.

“What the hell are you doing, Sanders? It’s my knee that’s banged up.” She moved to pull her skirt back down.

“You might have strained something there, too, torn a ligament. You know that, so kindly shut up.” He glared at her, while he tested the extension of her leg, feeling the ankle again.

“You’ll still get a couple of bruises on this leg. You can thank your calf muscles it wasn’t worse.”

“They saved my life.”

He replaced her leg on the floor, rinsed out the cloth again, and washed her right knee. He met her eyes.

“Time for your face.”

She pulled her skirt down, while from the floor he leaned in toward her, against her legs, his face close to hers.

She closed her eyes, not wanting to look into his. She felt them, though, felt them poring over her, and then the sweet relief of the warm water on her cheek, where it stung and dripped down toward her lips. She felt his finger brush the water away, and move up to feel her cheekbone.

Hurry home, hurry home. Now I know just what lonely really means …

Her eyelids opened, involuntarily. Rick’s mouth was only a few inches away from hers. She jerked her head back from the cloth he was holding against her cheek.

“Would you shut that sentimental bullshit off, please? I can’t stand these singers that warble like goddamn Jeanette MacDonald.”

He turned off the radio, mid-applause. Miranda was leaning back, trying to brace herself with her arms. He sat down beside her.

“I don’t think you’ll have a scar on your face, but you’ll be wearing a black eye for a while. Your cheek is very swollen. I’d feel better if you saw a doctor, maybe got an X-ray, but I know you won’t, so you need to keep ice on it. You got any?”

“Some. Ice bag is under the bathroom sink.”

She used it for hangovers. Some fucking hangover she had for a Monday night.

When Rick left, she tried to stand up. She made it on the third try.

He walked into the bedroom, carrying the ice compress and a glass of water. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I need to use the bathroom.”

“Then fucking well say so, Miranda, for Chrissakes.”

The lilt came back when he was angry. He set the water on her nightstand, the ice bag next to it. Then without warning, he picked her up, making sure her right side was closest to him, so she could stand the contact.

“I’m not an invalid, I can fucking walk.”

“Not tonight. And shut up. If you call me in the middle of the goddamn night, then fucking listen to me.”

He kicked at the bathroom door to swing it open, deposited her on the tile, closed the door again.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Started to cry, choked it back down, deep breaths. Then she peed and flushed, halfway expecting Rick to barge in as soon as he heard the noise. Every movement was agony, and it was probably four or four-thirty, and she looked like hell, like something worse than hell, and …

She started to cry. She leaned against the counter, the tears stinging her cheek, her left arm still dirty from the cement.

Rick tapped on the door. When there was no answer, he walked in.

Without a word, he grabbed a towel, wet it in the shower, and cleaned off her left arm. He said nothing. When he was done, he used the tail end of the wet cloth to pat around her eyes. Then he threw it on the towel rack, and picked her up again, carried her to the bedroom.

He deposited her in a chair, walked to the dresser, found a nightgown.

“Can you undress yourself?”

She nodded, feeling worse than when the car came at her. He handed her the nightgown.

“If you’ve got a zipper, you’d better let me do it.”

He unhooked the safety at her back, unzipped the dress quickly. Then stood away, his back toward her.

She slipped out of the evening dress, lifting her legs, her swollen ankle around the bunched black and white fabric on the floor. Then she pulled off her slip, and finally unsnapped her bra. Felt the cool silk of the blue nightgown fall on skin.