Corpus Delectable

by Talmage Powell

  “You can do this any way you like, McJunkin. The hard way. The reasonable way.”

  He gave me a hooded glance, walked to the bed, and sat on the edge of it. With the long years of experience behind him, he was cool and collected. He’d been in and out of too many tight spots to believe in the finality of defeat.

  “You’re not talking to a punk kid, Rivers.”

  “You convinced me of that at the very start,” I said.

  “I got rights.”

  “Have you? I remember seeing your rights carted off in the meat wagon, McJunkin.”

  He sat brooding. “I ought to castrate the sonofabitch who gave you this room number.”

  I put the gun barrel under his chin and tipped his head up.

  “Glom the truth, McJunkin. You’ve dealt with lenient or corrupt judges, charitable juries, do-gooders on parole boards for so long you feel the ultimate disaster can’t really happen to you. It can. It has.”

  “What will it get you? It won’t bring the dead chicks back.”

  “Then they’ll have company, McJunkin.” “And where will you be?” “Around,” I said.

  “Not for long. There are others like me, and plenty of money to hire them. You got icky ideas, Rivers, a cluckhead way of looking at things.”

  “Coming from you, thanks for the compliment.”

  “I’m thinking of the best thing for everybody.” He swallowed against the pressure of the gun barrel. “It’s not too late. You want your tail in a coffin or sitting on velvet? I can talk to my principal. I think I can swing it. Nobody wants to keep this thing stirred up. The quicker we close the book on it, the better.”

  “I’m hard of hearing, McJunkin.”

  “The ailment can be fixed.”

  “Are you the doctor?”

  “Why not?” he said. “Just repeat what Jean Putnam and Lura Thackery said to you. Mention how long Jean was able to talk before she died.”

  “How much do you think she talked?”

  “Not much,” he said. “She didn’t spell it out, or you’d have broken it by now. But the catch is, she reached you. She started you on the Claverys and the Sigmons. She got you into it, and as long as you’re in it, you’re dangerous. It’s a chance we can’t take.”

  “You’ve no choice left about taking chances, McJunkin.”

  “I think you got it twisted, friend. I’m offering you a brand-new, and very final chance. To step aside. To do nothing. How many people can set a price on doing nothing?”

  “I like to stay busy,” I said.

  “Be busy in style. Write your own ticket. Buy yourself a dozen chicks. Take a trip around the world.”

  Very gently, he lifted his hand, touched my wrist, eased the force of the gun barrel from his chin.

  “Think about it for a minute,” he said. “We’re professionals, you and me. We sell the same products, nerve and muscle and service.”

  “To a different clientele, McJunkin. For different reasons.”

  “Okay. I won’t argue the point. You work one side of the street; I work the other. We lock horns: it’s in the line of business. Nothing personal. You shoot at a guy one day; maybe you want to protect him the next. Depends on the setup. All a matter of business.”

  “Think I need your protection, McJunkin?”

  “Maybe we got a mutual need, mutual interests. There’s more money involved than you could count in half a dozen lifetimes, Rivers. A little of the small change will set you up for a long time to come.”

  “For doing nothing,” I said.

  “Just change teams, Rivers.”

  “You got worms in the wrinkles of your brain, McJunkin.”

  “Then I got the most plentiful parasites in the world. Only difference is, I don’t hide mine behind fancy words and a hypocritical front. I’m what I am, Rivers, and I never go back on a deal. You can trust me when it comes to business. Once you’re in, we’ll have to trust each other.”

  “No sale, McJunkin.”

  The hazel eyes clouded with confusion, the inability to comprehend that it all wasn’t as clear and reasonable to me as it was to him.

  “Maybe I didn’t make this clear,” he said.

  “Very.”

  “Then I don’t dig,” he said. “Right now, whatever you do to me, you got a one-way ticket to nowhere. You can trade it for plush. What’s holding you back?”

  “If you were capable of understanding, McJunkin, you wouldn’t need an explanation.”

  “Man, what else can I say?”

  “One word,” I said.

  He shook his head. A quiet sadness came to his husky face. “You know I can’t.” “His name, McJunkin. Or hers.” “I made a deal, Rivers.”

  “I’m unmaking it,” I said. “My only out is to reach your principal before a parade of McJunkins stops me from being a danger.”

  “I offered you the smart way out. You’re too dumb to like money.”

  “I like it very much,” I said, “but not as much as my own life. You offered me a sure way to set myself up. The choice isn’t mine — but yours. Which will it be? Me? Or your principal?”

  He seemed to pull down inside of himself, becoming a dumb animal prepared to endure suffering. His answer was in his silence.

  Seventeen

  I reached toward him to grab his collar. In reaching, I leaned forward. In leaning, I saved my life.

  The gun winked on the roof of the building across the alley. Shards of glass from the window of McJunkin’s room spilled to the floor like dimes from an up-ended pocket. The sound was immediately followed by the spilling of glass from the bureau mirror as the slug crossed the spot where I had been standing.

  I dropped, hit the floor, and rolled away. McJunkin crossed the room and struck the light switch. The return of intense gloom blinded me for a moment.

  I fired the .38, realizing almost instantly that the shot was high. His body was a shadow that had dropped into a crouch in anticipation of the shot.

  He’d grabbed the end of the dresser. Shoving with all his power, he fired it straight at me, its small metal casters rolling with a quick, angry, hollow sound.

  I threw up my arm to keep the end of the rushing bureau from knocking my brains out. Twisting, I took most of the force against my shoulder. Off balance, I was slammed against the wall by the impact.

  I kicked the piece of furniture aside as McJunkin threw the latch and eeled through the door. The hallway light caught him. I had time to fire once as he was slamming the door behind him.

  I knew I had hit him. The slug knocked him halfway around. Then the door had boomed closed between us.

  I started to rise, ducked again as the gun across the alley fired three times, the bullets searching the room at random. The nature of the volley indicated to me that it would be the last. Whoever was over there would get off the roof quickly and out of an unhealthy neighborhood.

  I scrambled to my feet, lunged across the room, and yanked McJunkin’s door open. I glanced toward the elevator, saw the stairwell beside it.

  As I headed for the stairs, I glanced up to check the elevator pointer. It told me the cage was at ground level. McJunkin hadn’t been able to use it.

  I plunged into the stairwell and started down. I was carrying the .38 openly. Marked by knife and gun, McJunkin was proving that he had the durability of a razor-back tusker. I didn’t want to kill him. I wanted him to talk. If I had to maim him seriously to keep him in speaking distance, I was prepared to do so.

  I passed the third-floor landing without seeing any sign of him. I continued down with my feet knocking puffs of dust from the ancient stair runner.

  Second-floor level. The stairs remained empty before me.

  First floor.

  It was impossible. He could not have come down any faster than I had.

  The old deskman was stricken to a state of semi-paralysis as he watched my rush across the lobby.

  His eyes were hard on the gun when I stopped at the desk.

  “I … I �
�� I …” he said.

  “Take it easy, Pop. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He clutched the edge of the desk. Under wispy white brows his eyes rolled upward until the irises were half hidden.

  I reached across the desk, gripped his arm gently to support him. “Don’t faint on me, Pop. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Which way did McJunkin go?”

  “Muh … muh … muh … Muhjunkin?”

  “You must have noticed him hightailing it across the lobby,” I said. “When he hit the street, which way did he turn?”

  The old man’s senses had pulled back from the brink. The reaction of it brought high color to his white, sunken cheeks and broke sweat across his lined forehead.

  I gave his arm a little shake. “Come on, Pop. I need every second. The man’s a murderer.”

  “Murderer?”

  “McJunkin, damn it!”

  “McJunkin?”

  “The big man from four-o-four,” I said. “That’s Rogers.”

  “I don’t care what name he registered under. Which direction did he pick?” “I didn’t see him.”

  “You couldn’t have missed him, Pop.”

  “I saw him come in — but not out. Rogers … McJunkin, you say? He came in and gave me that very nice smile of his, like always. Not many do, you know. It’s like I’m a piece of furniture, but he always spoke and asked me how I was feeling. He rode the elevator up, several minutes ago, and I haven’t seen him since.” The old man raised a finger and thoughtfully picked his nose. “If you’re a cop, better show me some credentials and start explaining. Rogers don’t seem to be like no killer. He’s a cut above what we usually …”

  I let the old man deliver the remainder of the character reference to my backside as I hurried out of the lobby. On the street, Gasparilla merriment was being expressed in a torchlight parade complete with hobgoblins, skeletons, mobs of pirates. Squawkers and noisemakers created a chaotic tide of sound. Against the riotous din, the popping of a pistol four stories away would have been as noticeable as the crunch of a peanut shell.

  With the .38 out of sight under my shirt, I used my hands and elbows to push my way through the swarms of people. Reaching the alley, I was free of the entangling mass.

  I slid my hand under my shirt to touch the gun and ran toward the hotel fire escape.

  I paused close to the building, saw no movement in the alley.

  Sliding the miniature flashlight from my pocket, I pointed the beam upward. Close to the side of the building, the counterweight was still swaying on its rusty cable below the pulley. McJunkin, I knew, had reached the bottom of the fire escape mere minutes ago, imparting force to the counterweight when he’d stepped to the ground, the departure of his weight permitting the bottom section of the escape to swing back up to its usual position when not in use.

  A feeling of wild rage came over me. I looked toward the mouth of the alley, at the carefree swirl of humanity in which McJunkin had lost himself. I had the reasonless urge to smash something.

  Then I dragged in a deep, deliberate breath and scanned the area around my feet with the flashlight beam. I found the first glistening red glob of blood near the base of the fire escape. A trail of crimson droplets, spaced a few yards apart, pointed toward the street.

  I jostled my way through the sidewalk throngs, returning to the lobby of the hotel. The old man was standing in the doorway. He looked at me uncertainly. I brushed past him, crossed to the phone booth, and shut myself in.

  With the phone in my hand, I hesitated. Then I shrugged and dropped a coin in the slot. I dialed Lieutenant Steve Ivey’s home number. He answered on the third ring.

  I cleared my throat. “Ed Rivers, Steve.” “What’s up?”

  “Plenty. I had a face-to-face chat with Ben McJunkin at the San Salvador Hotel.”

  “Have you got him? What does he say?”

  “I had him,” I said, “but a friend of his fire-escaped to the top of the neighboring building and started taking pot shots. I didn’t have a chance to finish talking with McJunkin.”

  I sensed the build-up of an explosion as Ivey hunted words.

  “Don’t light into me, Steve,” I cautioned. “My own fuse has burned damn short. I suggest you blanket this area and alert all local doctors. McJunkin will have to have medical attention. He’s hurt badly this time. Not a flesh wound from a knife, either. He’s carrying a bullet.”

  I hung up before Ivey started tongue-lashing me for being a bad boy. I saw no sense in the waste of time.

  Myrtle Higgins had waited with my apartment door open. When she heard my footsteps coming up, she rushed to the top of the stairs. She stood looking down at me, a lush Valkyrie swaying slightly and reaching for the newel post to steady herself.

  I hurried up the remaining steps and caught her around the waist. She leaned against me, resting her face on my shoulder. I felt the beating of her heart.

  “You … you made it,” she said.

  “Did you expect me not to?”

  “I didn’t know,” she said. “This waiting has been hell, Ed.”

  “You need a drink.”

  “No, not now.” She eased away from me, brushed the tangle of heavy, dark-blond hair from the side of her face. “I can manage under my own steam.”

  She moved into the apartment ahead of me. “Did you find Ben McJunkin?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?” “I shot him.”

  She gasped, looked at me, shivered slightly. “Did you kill him?” “No.”

  “Then … it isn’t over?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “He got away. But we’ll get him this time. From signs I saw in the alley where he escaped, McJunkin will either have to reach a doctor or bleed to death.”

  She touched my cheek, let her hand fall. “I think I will go home, Ed. I feel … limp.”

  “I’m a little dishraggish myself,” I admitted, “but a beer should be of some very slight help. Sure you won’t join me?”

  She shook her head. “The pirates can have the city tonight. For me, a long, hot bath, a good book. When the book gets tiresome I’ll have a sleeping pill. I hope I don’t have bad dreams. You’ve put me through a lot this evening.” “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be, Ed. Ben McJunkin was to blame.” She picked up her small handbag and crossed the room to the wall mirror. I watched her run a comb through her hair and touch a lipstick to her mouth.

  “I intend to crash a party,” I said. “It may be interesting. Sure you won’t reconsider and join me?”

  “Nope. The party mood has been wrung out of me. Cold water seems to have been dashed over the lovely fire.”

  “Too bad.”

  Our gazes met in the mirror. “There’s always the prospect of another evening, Ed. The future holds a lot of nights.”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “Well, if this is the way it’s got to be, I’ll take you home.”

  “Go ahead and crash your party. I can get a taxi.”

  As I started to protest, she reached and pinched my cheek. “Haven’t you discovered yet that I’m not one of those porcelain dolls? I don’t like for people to hover anxiously over me. I prefer to run my own errands, do my own chores. I like to take care of myself.”

  She walked to the door. “Anyway,” she added with a touch of a smile, “if you take me home, you might want to come up. And I might relent, right when I’m trying to be sore at you.”

  “Why be sore?”

  “Because you are what you are,” she said quietly. “No one or no force will ever change you until the day you die.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Sometimes. It was bad this evening. Some men would have felt they had a choice. But when you got the phone call, nothing or nobody could have kept you in this apartment.”

  “There wasn’t really a choice, Myrtle. I had to go.” She tilted her head and studied me deeply. “You’ve made my point precisely, Ed.”

  “You’re sounding a bit final, Myrtle.” “Am I? Ch
alk it up to my mood.” “Are you judging me?”

  “Judging … ? Oh, no, Ed! No one has the right to judge another person. Seeing a human being clearly doesn’t mean you’re judging him. You’re simply left alone in a place like this with the truth. You know that when next you hear of him, he will be dead — or he will have killed another man.”

  “Neither happened, Myrtle.”

  “A technicality,” she said. “A twist of circumstance. All the forces and factors were there. The fullness of the truth and knowledge was driven home to me, you might say.”

  “You impressed me as a person big enough to face it.”

  “I don’t know, Ed. I’m not sure of too many things right now. I need to sit in a taxi alone and later read a book with half of my mind while the half that really counts does some thinking. I need to get out of this aura of relentlessness that you somehow carry around with you. I … Good night, Ed. Call me in a couple of days.”

  She moved quickly, crossing the hallway, reaching the stair well, and sliding from view.

  Eighteen

  I closed the door slowly and leaned against it a moment. She had left a feeling of emptiness in the apartment, a shadowy stillness that was too conducive to unsettling thoughts.

  I pushed away from the door and crossed to the telephone. I opened the book at the yellow pages. On the fourth call I made contact with a novelty shop that was open and that stocked what I was after. The place was in Ybor City, a few blocks from the apartment.

  “Yes,” a man’s voice said, “we have a few pirate costumes left. What size do you need?”

  “I’m a forty-two regular.”

  “I believe we can fix you up. Did you want the outfit tonight?” “Yes.”

  “We were getting ready to close,” he said. I gave him my name and address. “I can come right over.”

  “Why don’t I just drop it off? You’re near by. I can go ahead and close and bring the costume on my way home.”

  “Fine,” I said. “The apartment is on the second floor. I’ll watch for you. One thing …” “Yes?”