"Somebody is killing awfully casually."
"Little Tony comes from that kind of stock."
She put the beer bottle back.
"I have to tinkle," she said.
"As long as you put it so sweetly, you don't even have to leave a quarter on the porcelain."
Angela laughed at that, tipsy enough for my quip to seem funny. She snatched her purse off the nearby nightstand and scampered off. Always a kick to see a big, beautiful woman scamper.
I sat there thinking about a young woman who dreamed of a show biz break and had done a star a favor, maybe delivering a valuable pebble. Her reward had been a quick, nasty death. If Angela was right, Ginnie was doing Tony Tret's bidding, in a roundabout way.
What was Tretriano doing with Basil's diamond in the rough? And assuming Tony was using it as a small-size big payoff, whose palm was he greasing in such a magnanimous fashion?
The toilet had long since flushed and she wasn't back yet.
Then the door opened and she stepped out in the shaft of light, and all she had on was the silk blouse, buttoned up discreetly, but with the tail not quite hiding the dark tip of her pubic triangle. Her legs were long and with a little flesh around the thighs, which was fine with me because I hated these skinny kids. She was tiptoeing, like she was sneaking up on me, though I was right there staring.
She stood before me like a good soldier waiting for inspection. But I was standing at attention, too, even if I was still sitting down.
"Am I too forward?" she asked.
"Not forward enough," I said. "That blouse is ruining the view."
She made me crazy, working those buttons one at a time, taking several seconds each that made sweat bead on my forehead despite the cool spring breeze coming in the crack of the window under the closed blinds, which made a metallic rustling.
When she'd shrugged out of the silk blouse, she put her shoulders back and the full breasts jutted proudly, displaying large, round, puffy nipples whose erect tips pointed slightly right and left, as if a practical joke to turn me cockeyed. Her waist was narrow and her stomach firm and well defined without losing its womanliness, and the dark, dark tangle of pubic hair promised a jungle well worth exploring.
"Should we have some fun?" she asked.
"I'm gonna say yes," I said.
"Check my purse. See if anything interests you."
I stood up and she giggled at the tent I'd made, and grabbed it, pulled it down, and let go. "Boiiiing," she said, and laughed.
Maybe not just a little drunk.
I went over and got in her purse and found what she was talking about—handcuffs. Well, she was an officer of the court.
I stood by the bedside and dangled the shiny pair, which caught what little light was in the room. "I don't wear bracelets, honey—I'm a man."
"I can see you're a man. But I'm a woman."
She threw the sheets and blankets back, and crawled up on the bed, pointing a well-rounded, dimpled behind at me with a little teasing tuft sticking out from in between, where heaven met the earth, and she snapped her right wrist to the bedpost at left. Then she lay on her back, spread-eagled, pink peeking through the curly black, and looked over to where I stood getting out of my own clothes, and she said, "You'll never make me talk, officer."
I didn't make her talk, but I did make her holler, and laugh, and even cry a little. She was moist and tight and wild, a prisoner gyrating for freedom that she didn't really crave, and as I was buried in her dark hair with her moaning in sweet pain, I thought, So like Velda ... so like Velda....
"Velda," I whispered.
Out loud. Not meaning to.
"What did you say?" She stiffened under me. "What did you call me?"
"Old Celtic term of endearment, baby."
"What does it mean?"
"Love of my life."
"You're sweet..." Her hips began to grind under me again. "You're so sweet...."
Wasn't I?
She fell asleep almost immediately, despite her cuffed wrist. She was on her side, her back to me with the covers over her, snoring softly, when I slipped out of bed. I left my clothes on the floor, but got into my shorts. I went to her purse to find the handcuff key, though when I started to rustle in there, she stirred and made a protesting sound that made me shrug. If the cuff didn't bother her, it didn't bother me.
We'd turned all the lights off, but I'd been in this room for enough days to easily make my way to the john without any help. I didn't even turn the bathroom light on until I'd sealed myself in.
What a wonderful, smart woman this was. I'd thought Velda was one of a kind, but another had found me, and took me on my own terms, rough edges and all. It seemed a kind of miracle. I wouldn't say I loved her, not yet, but the sex had been great, hot and loving and crazy. The kind of memory you save up for your deathbed, when you can really use it.
I did a few things in the john that don't really move this story forward. What may be relevant is that the lovemaking had been spirited enough to make my side ache like hell, particularly that hot spot under my ribs. The pill bottles were lined up behind the sink like members of the jury.
The pill bottle for pain, which I knew to be a goddamn narcotic, I grabbed and held and sat staring at, like a kid in school with poor reading skills trying to make sense out of Dick, Jane, and Spot. My hand was shaking a little and my side was burning, like some sicko bastard with a red-hot poker was having a horse laugh at my expense, and I heard the door snick open out there.
I got onto my feet without a sound. I put the plastic vial carefully on the counter without a single rattle of pills.
Somebody was out there.
I did not believe it was Angela, up and dressed and slipping out on me. No, she'd been too drunk to accomplish that quietly, and anyway she couldn't reach her purse for the precious little key, not in that handcuff. Not without my help.
Somebody was out there.
I had no weapon. The .45 in the speed rig was on the shelf in the closet. Just across the way, but it might as well have been in New Jersey. I was in my shorts and the closest thing to a weapon in here was a toothbrush.
That room out there was dark. Pitch black. If I was someone's intended target, an intruder could easily take the slumbering Angela for me. The blinds were shut, I knew, no city light to speak of seeping in. Just enough to make out the vaguest shape, like that of a sleeper, primed to be an unwitting victim.
The only weapon I had going for me was surprise.
Leaving the bathroom light on, I opened the door, stepped into the shaft of brightness, and yelled, "Hey!"
He was big, stupid big for the role he'd taken on, wearing the white shirt and black bow tie and black trousers of a room-service waiter. The sudden light had him squinting, and his whole face seemed to be clenched, his hair dark and curly with muttonchops, his nose a blobby thing, his chipmunk cheeks acned and pockmarked.
And he was at the foot of the bed with his fist raised high, a long, wide, gleaming Bowie-knife blade reflecting the bathroom light back at me.
This registered in a fraction of a second, and in the next fraction I was on him. He had two inches on me, but I was able to grip his wrist with both hands and stop its downward swing. We did an awkward, grunting dance for a few seconds, and Angela had woken up at some point, because she said "Mike!" softly and then, rattling the handcuff against the brass bedpost, trying vainly to escape, shrieked, "Miiike!"
He was strong. Cords in his neck were standing out and veins made a nasty bas-relief on his forehead as he forced his knife-in-hand down, taking my gripped hands with him, edging that wide, pointed blade toward my throat even as his arm sent one forearm after another into me, making that hot spot under my ribs issue lightning bolts of pain all through my torso.