I fingered the hand-tooled buckle anyway and tugged it loose. The belt was a beautiful piece of work, every bit of the leather touched by the artisan's hand. Even the silver was embossed with intricate design work in delicate patterns.
All but two pieces. They weren't silver. They were a dull-finish alloy and I opened the catches and took the .22-caliber shots out of the midget chambers, two little slugs that could rip far into your guts up close, enough to ring your bell for keeps.
"Cute," I said. "You are strong-arm after all."
"Well, I couldn't really wear a piece the size of yours, could I?"
"Why the snakey stuff, Edwina?"
"Regulations. We have to be armed at all times. The choice of weapons is at our discretion in situations like this."
"And that's what I asked you to start with. What is your assignment here?"
Her arms came from around my neck and she laced the fingers of her hand around mine. With her other hand she took the belt from me and dropped it on top of her jacket. "Would you believe me if I told you?"
The blue eyes were yearning, trying to say something. She wet her lips gently, and I had to stare at the slickness of her mouth. Her lips parted and I could see the pinkness of her tongue. "R and R," she said.
Rest and recreation.
"This is a hell of a place for that."
"I needed the rest. They made me take three months of it."
"But why?" I insisted.
She took her hand away, ran the zipper down on the side of her skirt and it dropped to the floor. The flimsy silken bikini bottom only enhanced what it tried to hide and when she pulled her blouse open, I saw what had happened. Her belly had been ripped by three bullets that went in the front at an angle and exited the sides through the soft flesh, and the healed pucker marks were still red and angry-looking.
"Who did that, Edwina?"
"It doesn't matter."
I nailed those blue eyes with my own. I knew my teeth were showing in a nasty grin.
"I was in the field," she said. "I wasn't careful enough."
"Anybody drop the guy?"
"No. He got away." She was looking at me carefully now. "Does it disgust you?"
I shook my head. "I got a couple myself. They're medals, kid. Treat them like medals." I put my hands on her naked waist and pulled her in close to me. "You are one special woman, Edwina. The air seems to shimmer around you. I can feel your body heat and watch you pulse with whatever's going on inside that body of yours. Those scars on you aren't ugly. They tell the world all about you. Hell, on you they even look good."
Sparkling blue. The eyes went sparkling blue and grew sleepy-lidded. I saw her mouth come close, soft and damp, and I leaned forward to meet it, and tasted the deep essence of her. For that short interval I was completely absorbed into a strange wonder, locked tightly with a naked woman on a huge windowed veranda, far away from all the wild thoughts of the past days.
Very slowly I came back to the real day and held her away from me just to look at. "All this in a few hours," I said,
"You told me something earlier, Mike. Now let me tell you. What you saw in me, I see in you."
"A crazy world, kid," I said softly.
A softly muted bell hummed behind me. Edwina turned, picked up the phone, waited a moment, then put it down again. "That was your contact."
My breath hung in my chest.
"He said yes."
I just looked at her and a little sadness came into her eyes. "R and R," she told me again. "I've had the rest, but I think the recreation is going to have to wait."
This time I hauled her into me. Not gently. She didn't need gently any more. I handled her like she needed to be handled and her mouth on mine was a firebox that moved all over me. She felt my hands on her and knew what they were saying, that there would be another time and another place because it had to happen, maybe just once, but it had to happen.
Our mouths were bruised, but it had been a happy war, and she gave me the address I wanted, got back into her clothes and led me to the huge front doors. She gave me my .45 back, closed the doors as I was going down the stairs, and I got in the car and headed back to New York.
There was no way I could make a quick pass around my block to see if I was being singled out. If somebody wanted me, they would know my car, the approaches to the apartment, and stay out of sight. Two blocks away I parked in a public area under an office building, and started walking back. The stop at the newspaper kiosk on the corner was more an excuse to take a look around than buy a copy of the News, but when I picked it up, I saw one of the four-color tabloids that turned a goodnight kiss into a Roman orgy, and my face and Velda's were spread right across the front of it under the masthead: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR TO AVENGE LOVER'S ATTACK.
Until now Velda had just been an innocent victim when the intruder came into my office. Now she was hot copy. Her name was only mentioned in the initial reports of the event, then forgotten.
I remembered the way that reporter had looked at me when I casually said what I'd like to do to DiCica's killer. He suddenly had a sex angle bigger than the murder itself and got into national circulation damn near overnight. One day I was going to meet that little sucker again, and we were going to have a nice talk in a quiet place.
When the light on the corner changed, I buried myself in a group of people, stayed with them to the garage entry of my building and turned in with a car going down the ramp to park. I knew the area down here and it was easy to make sure I was clear. I took the elevator up all alone, got out with the .45 in my hand, then put it back in the holster when I saw no one in the corridor.
10
I was sweaty from the drive and had to change clothes, pissed off at the time I'd had to waste making sure the area was clear. I took a fast shower, got dressed and called Pat. He was still at the office and barked a hello into the phone.
"It's me, buddy," I said. "I got an address for Fells and Bern. They still use an active safe house in Brooklyn."
"Mike, damn it, there's nothing we can do on that end of it."
"Then call Bradley and let him straighten it out. If the other agencies can't get close on this, they'll have to go along with us."
"This address a positive?"
"You got it."
"Where are you?"
"Home."
"Stay there. I'll buzz Bradley and call you back."
I looked at the clock. It was a quarter to nine. I walked to the desk, got the bottle of Canadian Club out and made myself a normal-size drink, splashing in the ginger ale over the ice. I turned the TV on, watched CNN for ten minutes, switched to the sports channel and finished the drink.
The phone went off. I grabbed it and Pat said, "Bradley okayed the deal. We're all meeting in my office in an hour."
"I'll be there."
"Give me that address first. No telling what can happen to you on the way over."
"Thanks," I said, and gave him the street and number.
My car I left sitting in the garage. It was easier to have the attendant flag me a cab down on the street, then hop in, covered by the parked cars on the street. Twenty minutes later I was walking into Pat's office. He had already contacted a precinct in Brooklyn and was organizing a layup for the raid.
I caught him between calls and asked, "Any problems with Bradley?"
"He sounded glad something positive was happening. He's picking up Ferguson and Frank Carmody."
"Carmody? The FBI is still holding an interest?"
"They're observers on this deal. NYPD makes the collar and they head up the interrogation, which is okay with me. You're along on this out of the goodness of our hearts and because there's no way of keeping you out of it. Keep your nose clean, will you?"