And that was when Petey Salvo was shaking me. He was twenty minutes late. I was half naked and he was slopping off the blood and holding a wet towel to the cut on my head making noises like the second in the corner of a losing fighter.
I said, "Hi, Petey."
"What the hell happened to you? The door was open so I came in thinkin' you was sacked out and you're all over blood. You have a party going?"
I sat up, got to my feet and squatted on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, I had a surprise party from a couple of goons."
"Then come on, man, we'll nail 'em. You know who they were?"
"I know."
"So where do we go?"
"No place, pal."
He took the towel away and looked at me, his face puzzled. "You just gonna take it like that?"
I shook my head and it hurt. "No."
"So let's go then."
I pushed his hand away. "Let it be, buddy. I've had the treatment before. It proves a point right now and when the time comes I'll lay those pigs out all the way."
"How come you got took?"
"I thought it was you."
"Shit." He seemed embarrassed. "If I didn't get inna argument with the old lady I coulda been here."
"Forget it. In a way I'm glad it happened. The guys who took me should have knocked me off. Only now they hand me walking papers and expect me to move out." I looked up at the huge hulk of the guy and grinned. "They got the wrong Bannerman. I'm the bastard, remember?"
"Hell, I know you ain't chicken. I just don't like that stuff. Why you take it anyway?"
"Because it ties in with Maloney's murder, kid. I want the one who did it and why. So stop sweating. This Cat got nine lives."
"Sure. How many did you use up already?"
"About seven," I said.
It took another scalding-hot shower and a bruising rubdown by Petey to get me back in shape, but when it was over all I had was a small headache and a bunch of bruises. Then we got in the two cars and he did what I asked him to do.
He took me over to see Irish Maloney to introduce me as an old buddy who heard his friend was dead and came by to pay his respects to the widow.
It was a small house with a small garden and a two-year-old car in the garage halfway down Center Drive. It wasn't much, but all the signs were there of a guy who tried to make the best of what he had in every way and I knew what Chuck Maloney really felt about his wife.
On the stage she was sensational, but meeting her stretched out on a chaise under a sun lamp was another thing. Oh, she had the lumps in the right places, the hippy curves and the full breasts that modern culture demands, the sensuous look that comes from Max Factor tins, but there were other things that took her down all the way. Clever lighting could take years off her, but up close you could see the years closing in, the tiny wrinkles around the eyes and the beginning of the flesh getting slack and the striations on the upper parts of her thighs where the skin had stretched sometime when she ate her way out of the burlecue circuit.
Yet inside her mind she was still twenty years old and all men were at her feet and she was able to prove it nightly at the Cherokee and forget that sheer professionalism and the help of electricians could put her across.
Petey said, "This here's my friend, Cat." He looked at me and conveniently forgot my last name. "Cat Cay. He was Chuck's friend too. He just wanted to talk, so I'll leave you guys alone. I got to get to the club. You got another hour yet, Irish."
I got the full treatment when Petey left; the way she sat up, took off the sunglasses and doubled her legs under her to make sure I got the full benefit of everything she had to show. The shorts were tight and showed the voluptuous V of her belly and deliberately low enough to show where she had shaved to fit into her costume. She leaned over to make me a drink from the decanter on the table, curving herself so I would be impressed by the way the halter held her breasts high and firm, pushing out over the top so the nipples were almost exposed.
Too many times I had gone the route before and knew the action so I could afford to ignore the invitation and when I took the drink and sat down opposite her I let her see my eyes and read my face until she knew I was what I was, but couldn't quite understand it.
I said, "Sorry about Chuck. He was a good friend. We were in the Marines together."
She lifted her glass, toasted me with a silent kiss. "That's how it goes."
"No remorse?"
"He was a little man."
"I don't know."
"He got himself killed, didn't he? This guy Sanders . . ."
She didn't let me finish. "Sanders was a nothing too. He couldn't kill a fly. All he was scared of was being put back in the pen." Irish Maloney downed the drink in three fast gulps and set the glass down.
"He wasn't a Rudy Bannerman?"
"Who?"
"Rudy."
"Him?" she said, "A nothing. Strictly nothing. A boy in long pants. He's good for a goose when nobody's watching and nothing more." She smiled at me, loose and wanting. "What kind of man are you, Mr. Cay?"
"Big," I said.
"Not if you were Chuck's friend. He never had big friends."
"In the Marines he had."
"Then come here and show me."
She reached her hand down and a zipper made that funny sound and the shorts were suddenly hanging loose down one side. She smiled again, her mouth wet and waiting and she leaned back watching me.
I stood up. "Thanks for the offer, honey, but like I said, Chuck was my friend. There should be a period of mourning."
I thought she'd get mad. They usually do, but not her. She giggled, blinked her eyes and made a mouth at me. "Ohoo, you got to be a big man to say no."
"Not necessarily."
The giggle again. Then she hooked her thumbs in the hem of the shorts, stripped them off in one swift motion, held them high overhead and let them fall to the floor. She let herself fall back into the chaise longue in a classic position, still smiling, knowing damn well what was happening to me. "Now say no." Her voice was husky with the beat in it.
"No," I said.
I walked to the door, opened it and turned around. She hadn't changed position or stopped smiling. Before I could find the right words Irish Maloney said, "I'm coming to get you, big man."
"I'm not hard to find," I told her.
When I was in the Ford and on the way back to town I knew one thing. I had found a good motive for murder. The thing was, how did it tie in with Gage and Matteau being involved with the Bannermans? There was one way to find out.
CHAPTER FIVE
I walked around the house and went in the back way where Annie was cleaning up in the kitchen. When I tapped on the door her head jerked up, birdlike, and she put the tray of dirty glasses in the sink and minced to the porch, flicked the light on and peered out into the dark. "Yes . . . who is it?"
"Cat, honey. Open up."
She smiled happily, pulled the latch and I stepped inside. "My word, boy, what are you doing coming in the back way? You are a Bannerman."
"Hell, Annie, it's the only way I was ever allowed in the house anyway. You forget?"
"Well you don't have to do that now."
"This time I did," I said. "I want to talk to you before I see them."
Her mouth seemed to tighten up and she half turned away. "If you don't mind . . . I'm . . . only an employee. Please . . ."
"In the pig's neck. You were the only old lady I ever had. If it hadn't been for you and Anita they would have starved me out long before I left. The Bannermans don't have room for a bastard in their great halls of luxury." I put my arm around her and led the way to the breakfast niche and sat down opposite her.
"Look, honey. Nothing goes on around here that you don't know. You have eyes like an eagle and ears like a rabbit and there isn't a keyhole or pinprick in a wall you haven't peeked through. Any secrets this family have, you have too, even if you do keep them locked behind sealed lips. That's well appreciated if it's for the good, but right now something is wrong and there's big trouble going on . . ."