If there was supposed to be a reaction it was a flop. Murray drew his brow into a puzzled frown and tapped his fingers on the desk. "I don't quite understand. You said... girls?"
"Uh-huh."
"But how can I... ?"
I let him have a grin that was half-leer. "Look, Mr. Candid, I'm a cop. The boys come back home from a big time in the city and tell us all about it; they said you were the one to see about getting some girls."
Murray's face seemed genuinely amazed. "Me? I admit I cater to the tourist crowd, but I can't see the connection. How could I supply you with girls. I'm certainly not a--a----"
"I'm just doing like the boys said, Mr. Candid. They told me to come to you."
He smiled again. "Well, I'm afraid they were mistaken, Mr. Martin. I'm sorry I can't help you." He stood up, indicating that the conversation was over. Only this time he didn't offer to shake hands. I told him so-long and put on my hat, letting the goon open the doors for me.
The boy gave me a polite nod when I went out and let the door hiss shut behind me. I didn't know what to think, so I went to the bar and ordered a drink. When I had it in my hand, cold and wet, I watched the bubbles fizz to the top and break.
Cold and wet. That was me all over. There wasn't a floor or wall safe in the office, nothing, for that matter, where my nice Mr. Candid could hide any books if he kept any. But at least it was an elimination, supposing there were some books. If they weren't here they were somewhere else. Good enough... it was an angle worth playing.
When I finished the drink I got my hat and got clear of the joint. The air above ground wasn't very clean, but it smelled like a million bucks after the fog in the Zero Zero. Directly across the street was the Clam Hut, a tiny place that specialized in seafood and had a bar where a guy could keep one eye on his beer and the other on the street. I went in and ordered a dozen of the things and a brew and started the wait.
I had it figured for a long one, but it wasn't. Before I had half the clams down Murray Candid came out of his place alone and started walking west. His pace was more businesslike than leisurely, a cocky strut that took him up the street at a good clip. I stayed on the other side and maybe fifty feet behind him. Twice he stopped to gas with some character and I made like I was interested in a menu pasted on the window of a joint. Not that I was worried about being seen... there were too many people making the rounds for me to be singled out.
By the time we had walked half-way across town and cut up a few streets I figured where Murray was heading. There was a parking lot down the street on my side and he jay-walked across, angling towards it, and I had to grin. Even if he did spot me I had the best excuse in the world. My heap was parked in the same lot, too.
I let him go in, then trailed him by twenty feet. The attendant took my ticket and handed me my car keys, trying to keep his eyes open long enough to take his tip.
My car was down in the corner and I hugged the shadows going to it. There was no sound except that of my feet in the gravel. Somewhere a door should be slamming or a car starting, but there was nothing. There was just the jungle noise of the city hanging in the air, and the stillness you would find when the tiger crouches ready to spring.
Then I heard it, a weak cry from between a row of cars. I froze, then heard it again and in a second I was pounding towards the spot.
And I ran up a dark alley of chrome and metal into the butt end of a gun that sent me flat on my face with a yell choked off in my throat. There was no time to move, no room to move before I was being smashed across the head and shoulders. Feet were plowing into my ribs with terrible force and the gun butt came down again and again.
I heard the sounds that got past my lips, low sounds of pain that bubbled and came out in jerks. I tried to reach up to grab something, anything at all, then a hard toe lashed out and into my cheek and my head slammed against metal and I couldn't move any more at all.
It was almost nice lying there. No pain now. Just pressures and the feeling of tearing flesh. There was no sight, no feeling. Somewhere a monotonous-sounding voice said, "Enough this time."
Then another voice argued a little quietly that it wasn't enough at all, but the first voice won and the pounding ceased, then even the hearing stopped. I lay there, knowing that I was asleep, yet awake, dreaming a real dream but not caring at all, enjoying a consciousness that was almost like being dead.
Chapter Six
It was the first slanting rays of the sun that wakened me. They streaked across the rooftops and were reflected from the rows of plate-glass windows in the cars, bringing a warmth that took away the blessed numbness and replaced it with a thousand sharp pains.
My face was in the gravel, my hands stretched out in front of me, the fingers curled into stiff talons that took excruciating effort to straighten. By the time I had dragged myself out from under the car the sweat that bathed my face brought down rivulets of dried blood, mixing with the flesh as cuts reopened under the strain.
I sat there, swaying to the beat of thunder in my head, trying to bring my eyes into focus. Perception returned slowly, increasing proportionately with the ache that started all over and ended nowhere. I could think now, and I could remember, but remembering brought a curse that split my swollen lips again so I just sat there and thought.
The weight that was dragging me down was my gun. It was still there under my arm. A hell of a note. I never had a chance to get to it. What a damn fool I was, running into a trap like that! A plain, stupid jerk who deserved to get his head knocked off.
Somehow my watch survived with nothing more than a scratched crystal, and the hands were standing at 6:15 a.m.; I had been there the whole night. Only then did it occur to me that the cars parked there were all-nighters. Those boys had picked their spot well, damn well!
I tried to get up, but my feet didn't move well enough yet, so I slumped back to the gravel and leaned against the car gasping for breath. It hurt like hell to move even so much as an inch. My clothes were a mess, torn by their feet and the gun. One whole side of my face had been scraped raw and I couldn't touch the back of my head without wincing. My chest was on fire from the pounding my ribs had taken. I couldn't tell if any were broken... they felt as if there wasn't a whole one left.
I don't know how long I sat there sifting the gravel through my fingers and thinking. It might have been a minute, maybe an hour. I had a little pile of stones built up at my side, then I picked them off the pile and flicked them at the chrome wheel hub of the car opposite me. They made ping sounds when they hit.
Then one of them didn't make a ping sound and I reached out and picked it up to try again. But it wasn't a stone. It was a ring. A ring with a peculiar fleur-de-lis design, scratched and battered where it had been ground into the gravel and trampled on.
Suddenly I wasn't tired anymore. I was on my feet and my lips were split into a wide-mouthed grin because the ring I was holding was the redhead's ring and somebody was going to die when they tried to get it away from me. They were going to die slower and harder than any son of a bitch had ever died before, and when they died I'd laugh my goddamn head off!
My car was where I had left it, against the back wall. I opened the door and climbed in, easing myself into a comfortable position where it wouldn't hurt so much to drive. I jerked it out of the slot and turned around, then when I went past the gate I threw two bucks into the window to pay for the overtime. The guy took the dough and never even looked up.
I thought I could make it home. I was wrong. Long before I had reached the Stem the knifing pains in my side started again and my legs could barely work the pedals. Somehow, I worked the heap across town without killing anybody, and cut up Fifty-sixth Street. There was a parking space outside Lola's place and I swung into it and killed the motor. When a couple of early risers got past me I squirmed out of the seat, slammed the door and clawed my way into the building.