Over Her Dear Body (6 page)

Bunny Wade, there is no doubt, was a completely delightful little package of vital femininity. But even so, at several moments during the hour's drive into the city, I found myself thinking about Elaine Emerson. Not only because she'd hired me, spoken to me, and disappeared without another word—though that puzzled and worried me enough—but also because there was something about Elaine that stayed in me like warm wine. I'd see her as she'd looked to me from across the dance floor, tall and dark and graceful, and in the moment when she'd spoken to me in the
Srinagar's
alleyway—and I could see those big eyes, those deep Indian eyes, seeming to glow with a faint warm fire.

Bunny was smaller, more compact, but delightfully formed and full of fun and merriment. Elaine was more—more ample, more voluptuous in her appearance, with deeper breasts and even more flowing curves. Bunny was pep and sunshine; Elaine had more of the night about her, its velvety softness, more of darkness and mystery.

We both knew where Bunny lived, of course; but she didn't object when I drove past Clinton, her street, and on down Vine to Rossmore and the Spartan Apartment Hotel. The Spartan is where I live.

I parked at the curb before the green grounds of the Wilshire Country Club, which the Spartan faces, and turned to Bunny. “Want a nightcap?”

“Sure. Make me a big one that'll last till morning.” She paused. “You're nice, Shell. I feel ... like the sun's coming up.”

At that moment, so did I. Her sweet lips were parted, close to my face, and I leaned toward her. Those smooth white arms went around my neck again and her lips made love to mine. Her fingertips moved gently on my cheek, then one hand slipped down to my chest. She must have felt the pounding of my heart. After a while she pulled her mouth free, brushed my cheek with hers, and said almost inaudibly, “How about that drink now? That big drink.”

I put my fingers on the door handle and glanced toward the Spartan. “You shall have it in a vase ....” I stopped.

From where we were parked, across the street and a few feet short of the building's edge, I could see the bedroom window of my apartment, up on the second floor. As I'd glanced that way something had flashed faintly, glimmering behind the window.

“Either you ignited my eyebrows,” I told Bunny, “or something even stranger is happening.”

As I finished the sentence, the flash became visible again. It wasn't obvious, more of a sudden faint glow. I didn't know what it had been, but somebody lighting a match, or more probably snapping a lighter on briefly, might have caused that kind of quick, dim flare of light. But any kind of light meant people. And people in my darkened apartment, at this dim hour of morning, could mean only one thing.

Trouble.

Chapter Five

“What's the matter?” Bunny asked.

“I don't know. I ... saw something.” I thought about it for a moment, then turned to Bunny. “Look, you'll get that big drink. But right now, wait here. Stay in the car.”

“Shell, what's wrong?” Her voice was a little tight.

“I'm not sure. Look, don't get in a tizzy. I just want to check something.”

I eased past Bunny and got out on her side, pushing the door shut instead of slamming it. Then I walked in darkness up Rossmore until I was opposite the Spartan's entrance. Before crossing the street I looked around, but no other car was close, and I didn't see anybody else in the area.

I crossed the street and went into the Spartan's lobby. It was empty except for the night man on the desk, sitting before the switchboard. I stopped in front of him and said, “Anybody ask for me tonight?”

He glanced up. “Hi, Shell.” Then he pursed his lips and looked me up and down, eying the white tux and gaudy cummerbund. “You've been dancing in the streets.”

I grinned. “No, I've just been yachting again. Same old rut. Seriously, has anybody asked for me?” He shook his head. “You didn't let anybody into my apartment?”

“Of course not.” He frowned. “Why? Something wrong?”

“I'll let you know. You can douse the hall lights on my floor from here, can't you?”

“Sure.” He pointed to a switch box.

“Okay. Give me a minute, then douse them. Wait another half minute or so, then ring my room. Long rings, lean on the switch. All right?”

“Well ... sure.”

“If anybody answers the phone, pretend there's a long distance call coming in. By then it won't make any difference.”

He looked puzzled but said he'd do it and gave me my key. I went up to the second floor and down the hall to my apartment, feet silent on the carpet. I waited, key in hand, near the room. In a few seconds the hall lights went out and I stepped in front of the door.

Anybody inside might notice the sudden disappearance of illumination slipping under the door, but now at least they wouldn't notice any shadow from my big feet. I waited, listening. In a moment I heard a man with a high-pitched voice say softly, “What in hell was that?”

“What was what?” The second voice was deeper, slurred, the kind that usually comes from the side of a man's mouth.

I let out my breath easily, heart starting to pound. Well, now I knew for sure—at least two men were in there, waiting in darkness. And that didn't stack up like a welcoming party.

The one with the high-pitched voice was saying, “Didn't a light go out somewhere? Outside in the hall, huh?”

“Oh, shut up.” That was the voice with authority, the bigger voice, the tough one.

I put my left hand on the doorknob, placed the key gently against the lock but didn't insert it. In a few more seconds the phone rang stridently inside the apartment. While it rang, I turned the knob easily. The door was locked, and I used my key, turned it, cracked the door.

In sudden silence the guy with the high-pitched voice swore audibly, adding, “Geez, I liked to jumped out of my skin.”

“Shut up, I told you.”

I dropped the key into my pocket, reached under my coat, took out the Colt and held it tight in my right hand. Inside, the high-pitched voice said, almost whining, “But what if that bastard don't come home at all? This bugs me—”

The deep voice was angry this time. “Shut that damn mouth of yours or I'll carve it up with this chiv.”

Judging from the sounds, they were sitting on the long divan in my front room. It wasn't far from the entrance, only a few feet. Closer than I'd have liked, but I had to take a chance now anyway. The phone rang again, another long ring. I pushed the door open far enough so I could step inside and barely had the door shut when the ringing stopped. I froze, held my breath, pulse hammering in my ears.

There wasn't any sudden outcry or movement. At first I couldn't see a thing. And I thought I'd made it. I thought I'd managed, in the darkness and with my sounds covered by the ringing of the phone, to get inside unseen and unheard.

But as I turned to reach for the light switch in the wall, a flicker of movement caught my eye. And I heard a whispering sound, soft, as if someone were silently moving over the carpet. The movement had been on my left. The bedroom is farther back in the apartment, and dim illumination filtering in from outside fell through its window and faintly outlined the bedroom door. The movement I'd seen had been something, someone, moving between that door and me, momentarily blocking the light.

My fingers were on the light switch and I flipped it up. The sudden light was almost blinding for a moment. In that first flash I saw the room, one man half off the big divan on my right—but on my left a bigger man, a heavy, husky guy. He'd gotten to within four or five feet of me, and as light blazed he jumped toward me. A long knife—the “chiv” he'd mentioned to the other man—glittered in his fist. His hand was low, out from his body, and as he leaped forward he started to drive it up at me, slicing at my belly.

I swung my body to the left, keeping my feet planted, bending my left knee as I straightened the right one and shoving myself out of the path of the blade, turning slightly in toward the man. I know the technique, I long ago learned what a man is “supposed” to do when a knife is sliced up at his belly, and I just did it without thinking—forgetting the gun in my hand.

There probably wouldn't have been time to pull the trigger anyway; but even if there had been, the only thought in my mind was to stop the knife. I saw the knife, not the man, saw the thick wrist and burly arm behind the blade, and I reacted to it automatically.

As the steel arced up through the air where my middle had been I kept swinging in toward him and slammed the little-finger edge of my left arm down hard on his wrist. As his thick arm slowed, my right hand slapped the fist holding the knife, wrapped around it with my thumb on the back of his hand. My Colt landed on the carpet, skidded across the room. I put every bit of strength I had into twisting his hand and wrist to my left, sliding my other hand down to join the right one. I got my fingers into his palm, thumbs crossed on the back of his hand, and snapped his wrist over hard.

I heard the bone crack. The knife fell through the air but he yelled in anguish before it hit the floor. There hadn't been a sound until now except for the scuffle and the big guy's yell, no words, no voices. But now the other guy, a small pinched-faced mug, shouted and lunged at me.

I jerked hard on the arm I was holding, pulled the big man even farther off balance and around toward me enough so the little guy bumped into him. As he stumbled, falling, I let go of the arm, stepped toward the second man and hooked a left into his face. He spun away and I grabbed him, jerked him around, set myself and brought a right up from below my knee. My fist landed on his chin like a lead hammer. I could hear his jaws slam together, hear his teeth breaking. He reeled backward, arms flailing, and fell to the carpet. He lay awkwardly, silently, unmoving.

The big man was on one knee. He started up, putting his weight on his right hand, gasped in agony as splintered bones ground together, and fell. Before he landed I stepped toward him, right foot swinging. My big shoe caught him at the back of his jaw. When he landed, he didn't try to get up. I started to step on his ear a time or two, but stopped myself.

For a few seconds I stood in the middle of the room, both hands still held before me, muscles tight. Then I let out my breath in a gust, dropped my arms, felt some of the tension drain out of me. I looked at the two men, starting to think again.

I was sure as hell deep in something that could soon be fatal. I began feeling a little weak, shaky, the reaction from sudden effort and danger, the overstimulation of glands and heart, all the body's defenses working overtime.

I got my Colt off the floor, put the gun back into its holster. Then I picked up the knife and looked the thing over. It was a lethal blade I'd seen before during my years as a Marine. It was a Sykes-Fairbairn Commando knife, with a shaped handle narrowing at its base and a long doubled-edged sharply pointed steel blade. Slim, graceful, deadly—yet an almost beautiful instrument for killing. It was not a hunting knife, unless you were hunting men. That's what it had been made for—killing men.

I put the knife on the long, low, cigarette-scarred coffee table before my chocolate brown divan, then searched the men, took everything from their pockets. When I got through, arrayed on the coffee table were two automatic pistols—a .45 caliber Colt Commander and a smaller Browning 380—two wallets, a ring of keys and the knife. I still had in my pocket the sap I'd earlier taken from Joe Navarro. I added it to the pile, then went into the kitchenette and grabbed a bottle of bourbon, poured an inch into the bottom of a water glass. I seldom drink bourbon straight. I drank it straight. In the living room again I sat on the divan and looked through the wallets. They didn't tell me much. The wallets contained a total of two hundred and twenty-three dollars. There was no identification at all, no driver's licenses, nothing to finger these boys. It told me they were probably pros, hoods hired to take care of me.

I lit a cigarette, almost back to normal. The bourbon flickered pleasantly in my stomach. The only thing that hurt was my right hand. The knuckles were skinned and raw, but not nearly so painful as the little guy's chin and the inside of his mouth were going to be when he came to.

I started to get to my feet when I heard something in the hallway outside my room. There was the sound of feet on the carpet, then a soft knock at the door.

I stood up, pulled out the Colt again. There'd been two men here waiting for me; but that didn't mean there wouldn't have been another down below somewhere, maybe in a car, or just waiting. I walked toward the door, thinking. There was another possibility, too—little Bunny might have seen the lights go on and wondered why I hadn't come back for her. Maybe she'd decided to check for herself.

But I didn't take any chances. I held the gun in my left hand and with my right grabbed the doorknob and yanked it open fast.

As it opened I moved to one side, gun thrust forward before me, finger tight on the trigger.

It wasn't a man. It wasn't even Bunny.

It was Elaine Emerson.

Chapter Six

Elaine's face was pale, those big eyes looking even larger in her face, enormous dark eyes seeming somehow smeared, even darker now.

She started to step forward, then saw the gun in my hand. Her mouth stretched wide, and her face got the color of clay. She let out a tight, strangled gasp and stood motionless, staring at the gun.

I dropped my arm, put the gun away. “Elaine,” I said. “What the—what are you doing here?”

She swallowed, not answering, her face regaining a little of its composure, a lot of its beauty. I took her arm. “Come on in. Sorry about the gun—I thought you were somebody else.”

Finally she managed to speak, even mustered a faint smile. “I ...
hope
so.” She stepped inside and suddenly let out a wailing noise. Her face started going through those motions again. She raised a finger and pointed.