Hound Dog Blues (31 page)

It was spooky back here in the dark. Nothing but cheap Oriental rugs stacked in fat rolls like tamales, and a few strange-looking statues that looked like they’d come out of an old Tarzan movie. Chewing on the end of her finger, an old habit she hadn’t quite broken yet, she eased forward and stuck her head around another corner. Something moved at the far end. She saw a silhouette, a shadow.

Heart pounding even harder, she crouched down behind one of the statues. It was about four or five feet high, made of some kind of aromatic wood, and holding a sword straight out. Or a club. She squinted. What the hell—that was no club. This statue had a humongous erection. And looked quite happy about it. The face was grinning, one carved hand resting atop its most prominent feature in a very suggestive pose. People would
buy
this? Some wooden guy whacking his willy? Pornographic Pinocchio?

Caught up in amazed admiration by the wooden proportions, the spat of a bullet caught her by surprise and made her yelp. Something struck her arm, and for a moment, she thought she’d been shot. Shaking in terror, she grabbed at her arm, looked down, and saw that she’d been hit by a piece of the statue. Neil had shot it instead of her. And of all things to hit, he’d shot off the phallus. A fertility god without his goods. What irony. Another bullet spat, whizzing over her head.

Scrambling to her feet, she grabbed up the hefty wooden penis and darted around the end of the shelves to backtrack. He’d expect her to go forward, but if she could come up behind him and whack him with the pecker, she might just gain enough time to get away. It was worth a try.

Dust got up her nose and she swallowed a sneeze, but her eyes started to water. Then she made a
snfftt!
sound as she muffled another sneeze. Uh oh. This coming up behind him thing had backfired. She’d hit a wall. A concrete block wall, to be exact. The shelves ended here, leaving her no place to go but up. Feeling a little lightheaded, she craned her neck back. Shelves reached up what looked like a hundred feet in the air but was probably only thirty. Heights again. God, she hated heights. There had to be some other way around this . . . .

Something hard clattered on concrete. It sounded close—way too close. Time to conquer one of her fears.

Still holding the wooden penis, she caught hold of the thick metal framework and hoisted herself to the second shelf, feet flailing for footing. Footsteps sounded closer this time, and she shoved hard at the shelf and propelled herself up onto a fat, musty-smelling roll of carpet. Fringe tickled her nose as she wedged her body between two of them, trying not to think about what else might be nesting close by. It would be a Mecca for mice, a Disneyland for roving rodents. Fortunately, mice were not on her list of Greatest Fears. Spiders, however, were. She shuddered at the thought.

When she looked up, she saw in the distance the faint red sheen of an Exit sign. It glowed cheerily, promising escape. Visions of freedom beckoned. She’d find Cami, and then get as far away as she could before calling the cops. She tried to calm her panic, thought of other things besides the danger that pursued her so doggedly.

It’d be okay. She’d get out of this. Something would save her. Then she’d claim the Crime Stoppers reward for catching the jewel thieves and replenish her bank account. Financial security was at hand, if she could just get past Neil. That’s all she had to do. Escape a homicidal maniac. Piece of cake.

Breathing hard, she hunkered down and waited.

“I know you’re here, bitch.”

Harley held her breath. Neil stood at the far end of the aisle, light behind him putting him into silhouette. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest. She’d have bruises there if she survived. She’d have bruises everywhere. All her muscles ached. She’d banged her knee somehow and it throbbed. Her boobs were squashed flat against carpet backing that was rough and abrasive, and her head hurt.

Most of all, she was scared shitless. She’d been brave right up until she saw Neil again, the gun in his hand catching the light from behind him. That had taken the wind right out of her.

Shivering so badly she had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering, she clung to the edges of the carpet and waited. She held the heavy wooden penis in her right hand like a club. Tension contracted her muscles, made her palms sweat, and throbbed in her ears. It was like being on a roller coaster, the hollow feeling that she got in the pit of her stomach going down the hills. Like the world had dropped right out from under her.

Neil came closer. He moved cautiously, a step at a time, holding the pistol in front of him like he was at a shooting range and she was the little metal duck. It wasn’t a nice feeling. She’d never been a target before. Trapped like a rat, a fish in a barrel.

Neil’s breathing sounded asthmatic. Loud. Wheezy. Wet. He was midway down the aisle now, and paused right beside a stack of big porcelain vases. They were the fake Oriental kind, separated by some kind of industrial paper that made a rustling sound when he brushed against it. Neil went still, turning to see what had made the sound. What an idiot. A scary idiot, but an idiot just the same. Archie had felt bad for nothing. He paled in comparison to his brother.

Her heart beat so loud it was like thunder in her ears. Maybe that’s what he heard. It’d be amazing if he couldn’t.

Outlined against the light behind him, Neil stood peering into the shadows and waiting for her to make a mistake. She had to distract him somehow, get him away from where she hid. Then she could go the other way if she got him headed in the opposite direction. Clenching and unclenching her hand like it’d help her think, her fingers grazed against something small, hard, and round. A possible missile. A distraction provided free and easy. It didn’t matter what it was. She palmed it, edged out a little, afraid to go too far and reveal her position, and got ready to try what had worked on a recent episode of Law & Order. And on all the old cop shows. Maybe Neil wasn’t into cop shows. She could only hope.

As a kid, she’d played softball. If she could lob this metal thingy far enough, he’d head in that direction to investigate and she could jump down and make for the exit. She didn’t want to think about the possibility the door was locked. That would be too cruel. If Neil found her, that would be the end. There’d be three bodies—no, four once he went for Cami—left for the police or janitors to find.

Shifting, she transferred the metal thing to her right hand, gauging how far she’d have to throw it to get him to leave this aisle. Twenty feet. Piece of cake. She could do that in her sleep.

She drew back her arm to let fly with the metal, but her hand snagged carpet fringe that flew up and slapped her in the face. Her hand hit the shelf overhead, and the heavy metal dropped from her fingers to plummet to the floor right beneath her hiding place. It made a sound like a pistol shot in the thick silence of the warehouse when it landed, and then rolled with a
clinka clinka clinka
noise.

Oh God.

Panic set in again. Neil moved forward, with purpose this time, bearing down on her as if he knew exactly where she was hiding. He got close enough that she saw the bluish tint of his glasses, and the faint gleam of bald head. A line from some movie popped into her head: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”

Good advice for someone with a gun. All she had was a wooden dick. She switched it to her right hand. It was better than nothing.

“Might as well come out, bitch,” Neil said, “you’ve got no place you can go. Save me some trouble and I’ll make it quick. Make me keep hunting, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

He was almost right under her. Blood pounded through her veins, but her hand was pretty steady, oddly enough. She scooted closer to the edge of the rolled up carpets, held up the penis club and waited as he came another step closer, then another one. Then she saw the whites of his eyes gleaming behind the lens of his glasses and heard him wheezing. It was time.

Whap!

She smacked him right on top of his head as hard as she could. He went down like a felled moose, grunting and kicking. His gun clattered to the concrete floor and spun into the dark shadows.

She gathered her courage and her legs beneath her and leaped down from the shelf to the aisle, landing hard. Neil was making funny little sounds in the back of his throat, but not moving much. She did a quick search but there was no sign of the gun. No time to waste looking for it. If he came to and had another gun . . . she took off.

Getting traction was hard. Sliding in her socks, she rounded a corner and saw freedom ahead. Beyond that next line of high shelves, the red Exit sign at the front of the warehouse was a promising lure. Too bad she hadn’t taken track. Her side hurt, her throat hurt, her lungs struggled. Some kind of ominous noise made her run even faster. She should have looked longer for the gun. Arms and legs moving like pistons, up and down, pumping as hard as she could, she half-slid around another corner and saw too late a dark-clad form leap in front of her. All she could think was that Neil had outmaneuvered her. Slamming into him, she reacted on instinct when he grabbed her, whacking him hard on the side of the head with the wooden phallus.

“
Shit!
” came the yelp, and she pulled free, her momentum taking her a few steps past before she realized she recognized that yelp. Skidding to a halt, she turned.

Staggering back against the metal shelving, Mike Morgan had a hand to his head and was glaring at her. “What the hell? Why are you half-naked? And what did you hit me with?”

Relief made her almost giddy. She glanced down at her hand, then grinned. “My dick.”

“Christ, Harley Jean.”
Mike looked disgusted. “You’re a walking catastrophe.”

They stood at the front of the warehouse, while a crime scene unit took photos of the two bodies in the office, and uniforms pursued Neil. Apparently, Neil knew where the exits were.

“Is that any way to talk to a woman who narrowly escaped death?” She didn’t feel so bad right now. Not even Mike could take the red off her apple at this moment. She was alive. And it looked as if she’d stay that way a while longer. It didn’t even matter that he was staring at her in obvious disapproval.

“You look like you rolled in a cotton field. Is that lint in your hair along with the dirt?”

“Probably.” She smiled. “You really shouldn’t be so mean to me. I almost died. If I’d depended on you to save me, I’d probably be toast about now.”

He gave her a wry look. “While you’re patting yourself on the back, mind telling me how you lost your shirt? Playing strip poker?”

“I told you it was a narrow escape.” A shiver went through her, even though Mike had given her his black tee shirt. He was bare-chested again, a state that seemed to be frequent. And appealing. Oh yeah, it was really good to be alive.

“So when is Cami getting here?” she asked to distract herself from pecs and abs. “She is okay, right?”

“Just cramped. A few hours in the trunk of a car can do that.” Mike leaned back against a stack of pallets and rubbed at his biceps like he was cold. “An officer is taking her statement. She oughta be in here soon. I figured you’d want to see her since you got her kidnapped.”

“That was all Archie. He seemed addicted to kidnapping. He was apparently a two-stroke kind of criminal, couldn’t really get too far from a central theme. Sad, really.”

She thought about Archie and shuddered again. Death had made him more likable, more pathetic, somehow. She hopped up on a stack of pallets to sit, and looked at Morgan.

“What about Bates? I saw him with you at Peabody Place that day. Was he undercover?”

“I can’t discuss the details of a case.”

“Bull dust. He’s dead. I thought he’d killed Mrs. Trumble, but it wasn’t him. It was Neil.”

Morgan nodded slowly. “Bates flipped once we made him on fencing stolen jewels. He made a deal to wear a wire. I still thought Archie might have killed the old lady.”

“Neil did it because she was going to call the cops on Yogi and tell them about the stolen necklace. Neil shot Bates. And I think Bates shot Archie.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “You know now that Yogi didn’t do it, right? That he’s innocent?”

Bobby walked up then, and he shook his head. “Yogi didn’t kill anybody, but I’d still like to know what the hell he was doing with stolen property.”

“Making copies,” she said before Morgan could say anything, and then something he’d said a moment before rang a bell. “Wait a minute—you said Bates was wearing a wire? Tonight?”