So Nude, So Dead (23 page)

“He deserved everything you gave him,” she said. “He deserved the beating.”

“Thanks. The police didn’t quite see it your way.”

“You shouldn’t have used the end of a forty-five. You should have…”

“Little girl,” I said, “blow. I don’t like rehashing dead cases.”

“
You
died with the case, brave man,” she said. “You died when they snatched your license.”

“Listen…”

“What’d you expect? A gold star?” She was standing close to the bed now, her lips skinned back. “What makes a private eye think he’s got rights an ordinary citizen hasn’t? Assault with a deadly weapon, wasn’t it?”

“She was a tramp,” I blurted, “and he was a punk. I should have killed him. I should have killed the louse. I should have…”

She was taunting me now, her hands on her hips, her chest thrust out. “You couldn’t kill a corpse,” she said. “You couldn’t…”

I lashed out with the open palm of my right hand, catching her on the side of her jaw. The blow knocked her halfway across the room, but she came back like a wildcat, leaping onto the bed, her fingernails raking the length of my arm.

I was sore. I was good and sore. She was something to smash, and she had started it all. She was wriggling and squirming under my grip. She kicked out and her skirt rode up over her thighs, exposing a cool white expanse of flesh. The sheet slid down over my knees and I threw her flat on her back and rammed my lips against hers, hard. My hands fumbled with her blouse and then gradually her lips came alive under mine and she stopped struggling.

She’d brought it all back, every bit of it. She’d brought back the picture of Toni with her blonde hair cascading down her back, her laughing mouth, her deep eyes, green like a jungle glade. Four months of marriage, and then Parker. I should have used the business end on him. I should have squeezed the trigger and kept squeezing until he was just a dirty smear on the rug.

I was trembling with fury now, and I took it out on her. She moaned softly, her arms tight around my neck, yielding to me, her eyes smoky, her lips swollen. She screamed, and the scream was loud in the sun-filtered room. She screamed again and again, and I wanted to scream with her.

And then it was quiet, and she lay back against the pillows, her face flushed, her skirt crumpled around her thighs.

“Will you find Jerry?” she said at last.

“I’ll think about it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just what it sounded like. I’ll think about it.”

“All right.” She pulled her skirt down and then stood up, smoothing out her hair. “I’ll go. I’ll go while you think.”

“Sure.”

She walked toward the door and turned with her hand on the knob. “Think hard, Cordell,” she said.

Then she was gone.

I thought of her and of the fury that had been her body, and she got all mixed up with Toni in my mind. I began to tremble again, the way I always did when I thought of Toni and that night long ago. In my own goddam bedroom, like a two-bit floozie with some bum she’d picked up, his hands roaming over her skin, his mouth buried in her throat, his…

I slammed my fist into the open palm of my other hand.

This was no good. It was over and done with. They’d dropped charges, but the police felt I wasn’t worthy of keeping a license.

Where were they now? Mexico for the divorce, and then where? Who cares, I told myself, who cares about it?

I knew who cared.

The guy who bathed every night in enough alcohol to float the
Missouri.
Straight down the gullet, eating a hole in my stomach, but never eating away the scar on my heart.

I rubbed my face with my hand, trying to blot out the memories. The girl hadn’t helped. She hadn’t helped at all. She’d made it only worse, the way they all did, all of them after Toni. I found a half-dead soldier in the drawer of the nightstand and I poured a stiff one.

I wondered what D’Allessio was addicted to.

Forget it, I said to myself. Who cares?

I took another drink, and I thought of the kid again, and then I took another. And another. Things were getting nice and fuzzy, and a little bit warm. The pain was going away, and I felt a big-brother feeling for a kid I’d never met, a kid who bore a cross just like mine. Except his cross had thorns, and they probably stuck into his arms at four-hour intervals.

I got up and put on my jacket, and I headed for the address that had been on Peter D’Allessio’s driver’s license.

* * *

The address I’d memorized belonged to a gray building that poked at the sky like a blackened finger. A blonde sat on the front stoop, rocking a baby carriage. She looked me over when I started up the steps, her face showing disappointment.

I didn’t smile. I knew what I looked like, but I didn’t give a damn. She took me in for another minute, her gaze shifting from my bloodshot eyes to the stubble on my chin. Her eyes passed over my rumpled suit, and then she turned back to rocking the carriage with a vengeance.

I lit a match in the hallway and found D’Allessio on a mailbox whose front had been pushed in.
3-B
, the box said. I started up the steps, holding my breath against the stale odors that crawled out of the woodwork.

On the third floor, I stopped in front of 3-B and knocked on the door.

I listened as a pair of bare feet shuffled to the doorway. The door swung wide, and a thin girl in a faded wrapper stood silhouetted against the sunlight that streamed through the window at the other end of the kitchen.

“Well,” she said, “who are
you
?”

“Matt Cordell. Who are you?”

She smiled the oldest smile in the world and said, “What difference does it make? Who sent you up?”

“Where’s Jerry D’Allessio?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Hopped to the ears, probably. Who cares?”

“I care. Who
are
you, baby?”

“Let’s say I’m his cousin Marie. Why do you want him?”

“Does he live here?”

“Yeah, him and the old man. ’Cept the old man is dead, and Jerry never comes home. You ain’t a cop, are you?” She looked at me hard. “No, you couldn’t be a cop.”

“No, I couldn’t. Where does Jerry usually hang out?”

“Wherever there’s H, you’ll find Jerry. Sniff out the hoss, and you’ll find Jerry standing there with his spoon. You could use a shave, you know.”

“I know.”

She looked at me again and said, “You might look for Claire Blaney. Later. She knows Jerry.”

“A small, dark girl?”

“Small? Dark? Oh, you’re thinking of Edith Rossi. No, I mean Claire. She’s something else.”

“How do you mean?”

“Edith and Jerry were engaged.”

“Were?”

“Yeah, no more.”

“Why not?”

“Were you ever engaged to a junkie, mister? It’s no picnic. Maybe Edith got tired of the things she had to do to get money for him. Maybe she had it right up to here.”

“Why does she want to help him, then?”

For a moment, the hard mask dropped from the girl’s face, and there was almost a tenderness about her tired eyes. “She remembers, I guess. She remembers sometimes what Jerry used to be like. I guess that’s it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for the information.”

“Hey, you leaving?”

“Yep.”

“Ain’t you stayin’ for the ball?”

“What ball?”

“We could build a real ball, mister. Just shave, that’s all.”

I looked at her, my face expressionless. “Thanks,” I said. “The beard keeps me warm.”

I left her standing in the doorway, a puzzled look on her face. When I reached the street, I glanced down at the blonde. She didn’t look up this time. I walked past her and headed for the nearest candy store. I squeezed up to the counter and ordered an egg cream.

A pimply faced clerk nodded and began mixing it, going very light on the milk. He shoved it across the counter at me and I tasted it. I wasn’t used to egg creams.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “No good?”

“Fine,” I said. I looked at him hard and added, “The monkey don’t like it, that’s all.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Weighs fifteen pounds, that goddam monkey, and he’s scratching away at my shoulder.”

“Yeah?”

“I’d sure like to get rid of it,” I said, watching his eyes.

“Try the Bronx Zoo,” he answered.

“I tried them. They feed their monkey bananas.”

The clerk didn’t bat an eye. He kept staring at me, and then he said, “There’s another zoo in Central Park, mister.”

“This monkey, chum, he’s scratching hell out of…”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, mister,” the clerk said.

“Where’s the right tree?”

He blinked once. “Ask your monkey,” he said.

He turned his back and walked down to the other end of the counter. When he came back, he had a match stuck between his teeth and he chewed on it as if it were a licorice stick. I tried a new question.

“Where do I find Claire Blaney?”

He looked at me hard, the matchstick unwavering. “You a bull?”

“Don’t make me sick.”

“The red building on the corner.” He studied me again. “You can’t miss it. She’s on the sixth floor. Blaney. Claire Blaney.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He nodded. “She ain’t gonna help your monkey none, mister.”

“No?”

“No.” He grinned, exposing yellowed teeth. “She’s got one of her own.”

I paid him and left. The red building was easy to find.

I rapped on the door twice with my knuckles, peering at the numerals in the dimness of the hallway. The door opened quickly, and the girl standing there almost fell out into the hall.

“Oh,” she said. She put her hand to her mouth. “What is it?”

“Miss Blaney?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m Miss Blaney.” Her voice was hurried, and she kept looking past me down the hallway.

“May I come in?”

“What for? I mean, what do you want?”

“I want to talk about Jerry.”

“Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth again, and then brushed a wisp of red hair off her forehead. “Jerry. Yes, come in. Come in.”

The apartment was a shambles. Dishes were piled in the sink, and empty beer bottles cluttered the floor. The shades were drawn against the sun, and the bed at the far end of the room was unmade.

Claire Blaney glanced at the mess, and then pulled her faded silk robe tighter around her waist. She was a tall girl, with fiery red hair crowning her head, and arching eyebrows against a high forehead. Her deep-set green eyes were darting nervously, the way an addict’s eyes will, never focusing on anything. Her slim shoulders dropped down to full, rounded breasts that moved gently when she walked, nudging the thin fabric of her robe. She had wide hips and long tapering legs. The robe was an old one, a little too short, ending just above the knee. It was tied at the waist with a dirty cord. Nothing else held it closed.

She took a cigarette from a crumpled package on the table, smoothed it out with her fingers and then thrust it between her lips. She wore no make-up, and her lips were pale and full, dry after a night’s sleep. Her fingers trembled when she lit the cigarette.

“What about Jerry?” she asked.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Listen, are you going to ask me questions? If you’re going to ask me questions, you can leave right now. I’m expecting someone.”

“Jerry?”

“No.”

“Who?”

“Someone.”

“The Man?” I asked.

Her eyes opened wide. “What?”

“Honey, I’ve seen enough to know someone who’s waiting for The Man. You haven’t had your shot yet, have you?”

“Nobody asked you.”

“When’s he coming?”

She glanced at the clock on the wall. “He should have been here already. Damn it, where is he?”

She began to pace the room, her shoulders straight, her breasts moving rhythmically from side to side with each step she took.

“Why was Peter D’Allessio rubbed?” I asked.

“How the hell should I know?…Are you a cop?”

“No.”

“How the hell should I know?” she repeated.

“What’s Jerry got himself into?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody rubs a junkie’s father just because he’s going to the police. One junkie more or less doesn’t mean beans to a pusher.”

“So?”

“So why? Why kill the old man? I keep asking myself that.”

“Go find out if you’re so damned interested.” She looked up at the clock again. “Where the hell is he?”

“He’ll be here. Relax.”

“He’d better be here. He’d better be here damn soon. Man, I’m overdue.”

She crossed to the table and leaned over to put out her cigarette. Then she began pacing again. It was beginning to eat at her. It was beginning to get under her skin and crawl in her blood. I could see a fine film of sweat on her forehead. Her hands were really shaking now, and she kept pulling at the robe. She scratched at her head, then raked her long nails over the skin on her arms. She bit her lips, glanced at the clock again.

“Jeez, what’s keeping him? What’s keeping him?”

She walked to the bed and sat down. She got up almost instantly and began walking again. I watched her shivering violently, her teeth chattering now, her face looking as if it were ready to fall apart.

“Easy,” I said. “Easy.”

“Get out of here,” she shrieked. “I won’t have you watching me.”

“Easy,” I told her.

She walked to the table and reached into the crumpled pack for another cigarette. The pack was empty and she threw it away. I took out a cigarette and offered it to her. Greedily, she snatched at it, and I lit it for her while she continued to shiver.

She turned away suddenly and said, “I’m itchy. I’m itchy all over. Like bugs were on me. All over, crawling all over me.”

She unloosened the cord at her waist and threw the robe open, exposing her hard, flat stomach, and the curving whiteness of her hips and thighs. She didn’t care about me now. She only cared about the monkey who was tearing her shoulder to shreds. She ran to the bed and yelled, “God, God!”, throwing herself forward onto the mattress. She wriggled frantically and her back arched high into the air, her leg muscles straining. She subsided in a sobbing heap and shouted, “Where
is
he? Where
is
he?”