The Corpse Without a Country (8 page)

I said, “I constantly surprise myself. I seem to lose my inhibitions when I’m with you.”

She mocked me with a grin. “When I did have a crush on you,” she said, “you couldn’t see me at all.”

“You weren’t a very pleasant character as a kid,” I said. “Greedy, stubborn, spoiled …”

“I still am,” she said. “I like to have a lot, and when I make up my mind, I’m hard to change.”

Soft light touched her features and stroked down her figure. She looked deceptively small and helpless. I said, “Maybe you just wear your sins better now.”

Jodi got up. “I’m going to make you some coffee,” she said in a positive voice, “and take the rye far away.”

I leaned my head against the end of the divan and closed my eyes. I must have dozed off. The next thing I recalled was Jodi saying, “Here, drink this.”

She had a cup of black coffee for me. I sat up and took it from her. She said, “I’ve been thinking—Do you really believe that Emily is involved?”

“I do,” I said. “I think Ridley smiled at her and she rolled over and barked for him.”

“Ridley?”

“Why not? Can’t a poet get mixed up in a racket? Emily isn’t bright enough to have got into trouble on her own. I think he told her to keep him posted as to what went on in our office. And I think the blonde hooked Ridley the same way Ridley hooked Emily—by smiling.”

“A regular chain,” Jodi said with a faint smile.

“Sure,” I agreed. “And with Emily as the weak link….”

I stopped, suddenly aware of the meaning of what I’d said. I thought, Durham, the smart character! I had tipped my hand there at the Pad. Now it was known that I had the finger on Emily.

I saw a telephone at the end of the divan and grabbed for it. I called Maslin. When I got him, he sounded almost too pleased to hear from me.

He said with ghoulish pleasure, “Just where are you, Durham?”

I looked at Jodi. “Where am I?” She gave me the address and I relayed it to Maslin.

He said, “Just say there.” Then, as an afterthought, “What were you calling about?”

I told him what I’d just realized. I said, “I’d go to the Pad and get her while you can.”

“The Pad, huh,” Maslin said. “Well, well,” and he hung up. I dropped the phone back. What he said made no sense at all.

When I told Jodi, she could only shrug. We sat and worked over the problem. We were still at it when the doorbell rang.

“That’ll be him now,” she said. “Maybe we can find out what he meant.” She trotted down a hall and out of sight.

Two minutes of silence later, I realized that Maslin wouldn’t have had time to get here from his office. I turned toward the hall door, my mouth open to call a warning to Jodi.

I was too late. She was coming back into the living room. Her complexion had lost a lot of its color and her eyes were wide. She looked genuinely afraid. Behind her was the blonde, her dart gun aimed at Jodi’s back. And behind the blonde was the mustard-colored character she had called Mr. Ghatt. He moved with a lot of speed for a man with a crutch and a leg brace.

I said, “Good evening. Have a cup of coffee.”

“I prefer to have that report, Mr. Durham.”

I said, “Madame X, I don’t got no report. I’m sorry as hell, but there it is—the truth at last.”

She wasn’t amused. She said. “My name is Ilona, please. And I wish the report at once.”

She pronounced her name European fashion—Ee-loh-nah. It was very pretty. So was her accent, what little she had. So was she, and there was a good deal of her.

I said, “Didn’t you take the report when you killed Mike Fenney?”

Ilona stopped. Mr. Ghatt stopped. Jodi came on around the divan and sat beside me. I took her hand. Her palm was moist. I could feel her muscles trembling.

“I did not come here to joke,” she said.

“A dead man is no joke,” I assured her.

Mr. Ghatt swung himself beside Ilona. He spoke to her in a low voice. She said, “The report … now, please. I cannot waste more time.”

I said, “I haven’t got it. But from what I heard, there isn’t anything important in it anyway. So if I had it, I’d give it to you.”

That puzzled her. She and Mr. Ghatt whispered at each other some more. Then she said, “I shall have to ask you to come into another room, Mr. Durham.”

I said, “Just me … alone?”

She ignored my attempt to be coy. She said, “I wish to examine your clothing, please.”

Jodi giggled. Mr. Ghatt said in precise, Oxford English, “Do as she says, Mr. Durham, or we shall have to hurt Miss Rasmussen.”

Jodi stopped giggling.

She said, “There’s a guest room through that door.” She pointed to the west end of the living room.

I got up and walked docilely in the direction she pointed.

I
LONA MANEUVERED ME
into the bedroom, turned on the light, and shut the door so smoothly that I knew she was no amateur at this kind of game.

The room was bright and cheerful, the upholstery and walls in matching pastels, the rug a soft, pale green. It was the kind of room I could have enjoyed being a guest in.

But not the kind of guest I was right now.

Ilona sat on the edge of the bed, the gun resting casually on her thigh. She was wearing a pale green dress with classical lines that showed off her striking figure. She was a very beautiful woman.

I said, “Just what is this all about.”

Her deep blue eyes were filled with speculation as she studied me. Then she smiled. “Please do not try to fool me with your pretense of innocence, Mr. Durham.”

I gave up. She had me pegged as something I wasn’t, that was obvious. It was also obvious that nothing I could say would change her mind.

She said thoughtfully, “You must think a great deal of Miss Rasmussen.”

“Because I didn’t want your friend hurting her? She’s just an acquaintance. I’d do the same for you or any woman.”

She mocked me. “How gallant, Peter. May I call you Peter now?”

I said, “Sure,” wondering just what she was leading up to now.

She said, “But you know her well.”

“I knew her father well,” I said. “And I knew her when she was a kid. I haven’t seen her for years until recently.”

She stood up, leaving the gun on the bed. “If that is so, then perhaps we can be friends.”

She was within a few feet of me. I could smell her perfume. It wasn’t like Jodi’s, but it was nice and expensive. I started to wonder what she had in mind, then I realized I had no need to wonder. What she was thinking was plain on her face and in her eyes.

I said, “Do you use a gun to get all the men you want to be friends with?”

“I have no men friends.”

“What about Mr. Ghatt?”

“He is a business colleague.”

She took a final step that brought her very close to me. I could feel myself sweating a little. The ear Willie had banged began to throb.

I wondered where Maslin had got to. Right now, I was actually anxious to see him.

She ran her fingers along my cheek and then rested them just under my eyes. “I can see here that you are a very suspicious man, Peter.”

I said, “My friend is in the hospital with a broken head. You were out on the Sound near where he got hurt. Shouldn’t I be suspicious?”

A brief, momentary flicker of hesitation came into those beautiful eyes. Then it was gone and she was all warmth. Not the soppy kind of warmth Emily had displayed in the elevator, but real heat, generated by a very efficient furnace.

She oozed so closed to me that I could feel the rise and fall of her breathing against my chest. It was quite a sensation. Her fingers stopped stroking my cheek and slipped toward the side of my neck.

“I like men with big chests,” she said.

Whatever she was after, she might have got—had I been able to give it to her. She might have got it because I was very susceptible to beautiful women. Only when she ran her fingers up the side of my head to draw my mouth down to hers—waiting warm and inviting—her fingers found the ear Willie had nearly torn off with her sap.

I yelled, “Jesus!”

And that broke up the party.

Ilona bounced away from me as if I’d blown garlic breath in her face. I said, “Sorry, but you grabbed my sore ear.”

I doubt if she even heard me. She was going for the gun on the bed, apparently on the premise that if she couldn’t get what she wanted one way, she’d get it another.

When she reached for the gun I reached for her. I got a handful of slim, silk-covered leg and pulled. She jerked to get free and landed in a sprawl on the bed. I reached for the gun. She rolled over, lowered her head, and sank her teeth into the fleshy part of my palm.

I forgot she was a lady and therefore possibly fragile. I twisted around and came down on top of her. She kept her teeth in me like a determined bulldog. I tried getting a grip on her hair but my fingers kept slipping through its soft, silky texture. I made a try at gripping a few other places. She didn’t seem to mind. She had her teeth in me and she was going to keep them there.

I finally clamped my fingers on her lovely nose. She had to let loose to get air. I rolled free, taking my chewed hand with me. She made a dive for me and we went to the floor in a complete tangle.

Ilona was oblivious to the fact that she was supposed to be a lady and so handicapped for a rough and tumble. She had her legs wrapped in a scissors grip around my waist and she was punching at me with both fists. I finally caught her wrists and held her hands away from me. We lay quietly with her on top, spitting down into my face.

“You are no gentleman! Release me!”

It was said with such honest indignation, I laughed. “So you can maul me some more? No thanks.”

She dipped her head, snapping at the tip of my nose with her teeth. I pulled back just in time or I might have lost a fair-sized piece of my anatomy. And when she did that, something left me. Whatever inhibitions I might have had regarding Ilona went off into limbo. There was just nothing fragile about this lady.

I said, “When you’re angry like this, you’re more beautiful than ever.”

I released her right wrist, got my hand on the back of her neck and pulled. Her entire weight came down on me and her face was pressed to mine. This time I was the one who started a kiss. And I finished it.

She got her hand in my hair and started to pull herself free. But I was stronger. After a minute I could feel her starting to relax. Her lips softened up. The rigidity of resistance left her body. Then she stopped relaxing, but there was a different kind of tension in her now. Her breath quickened, catching up with mine.

She put her whole self into the matter at hand.

The gun lay forgotten. When Ilona lifted her lips off mine, her eyes were soft and dreamy, showing nothing but interest in our present procedures.

She rolled to a sitting position. She murmured, “Help me up, Peter. The floor is much too hard.”

What it was too hard for, I didn’t ask. I got to my feet and held out my hands. She took them, lifted both feet and planted them in my middle, pulled on my hands, and rolled.

I did a beautiful imitation of a broken-winged swan ballet and landed on my back on the bed. The frame gave way, dropping me with the springs. By the time I was on my feet, Ilona had the gun again.

She said, “You will now give me your clothing, please.”

“I was about to when you got rough,” I said.

“I am no longer in the mood for play,” she informed me.

I agreed. The gun looked ugly and it was aimed at me in very definite fashion. I looked around for the bath, found it, went in, and peeled. I tossed my clothes out to her. She kept them all except for my shorts and socks which came back almost at once.

I sat on the edge of the tub and waited for her next move. Then minutes later, it occurred to me to wonder just what she might be doing. I listened. No sound from the room. I opened the door carefully. Not only was there no sound, there was no Ilona.

But there were my clothes. They lay in a pile on the bed. A pile of strips and tatters. Every seam had been slit away. My shoes had been literally taken apart. My wallet and silver lay on the bed, but my keys were gone.

About all I had left to wear outside my shorts and socks was Ilona’s lipstick. That she had left, generously smeared over my mouth.

S
OMEONE WAS LAUGHING AT ME
. I turned toward the door to the living room and there was Maslin staring in.

I said, “Did you get them?”

“I just got here,” Maslin said. “Miss Rasmussen said they left about five minutes ago.”

“Then go get them,” I yelled. “Go down to the Pad. I’ll bet you’ll find them there with Trillian.”

“I just came from the Pad,” Maslin said. He sucked noisily on an empty pipe. “And Trillian isn’t there. Neither is this Emily Calvin dame.” He had stopped laughing and now he was giving me a fishy eye.

“In fact, the dame that runs the place said they haven’t been there for some time.” He blew through the pipe. It gurgled. “But she said you’ve been there.”

“Jodi and I were there earlier this evening,” I said. “And Emily and Trillian were sitting at the next table.

“The one you busted up?” Maslin asked innocently.

“I didn’t break up any table. What is this?”

“That Willie dame says you did. She says you came in looking for Emily and when you couldn’t find her, you tried to take the place apart.”

“She’s crazy!” I yelled. I wasn’t in any condition or I would have expected what came next.

I was caught flat-footed when he said, “And she’s preferred charges against you.”

I said, “Come off it, Maslin.”

He said, “You’ll be able to post bail tomorrow and get out.”

I yelled, “Did you ask Jodi? She’ll tell you we didn’t wreck anything. And she’ll tell you Emily and Trillian were there.”

He said, “Take that lipstick off your face and let’s go ask her.”

I scrubbed it off and started after Maslin into the living room. I was so sore I forgot how I was dressed. Jodi was wheeling a tray of coffee and cookies in from the kitchen and she stopped when she saw me.

“Peter, not again!”

I bolted back into the bedroom. Jodi called out, “There’s a robe in the closet, Peter.” I could hear Maslin guffawing.