by John Roeburt
“I’m not a writer, you know,” she chirped mischieviously. She was jumping around subjects like a nut. Which figured. “I used that as a front, as Manny would say. I had to explain my apartment and car and clothes and things somehow. And I couldn’t let anyone know I was Manny’s wife, could I? The police don’t like Manny very much and they might have checked on me if they knew. Don’t you think I was smart, Cole?”
“Very smart,” I said. “Psychopaths usually are.”
The words came out before I could stop them. Her eyes got wide and she jumped out of the chair, furiously sticking her face up at me. She wasn’t beautiful at all. She was ugly.
“Shut up!” she screamed. “Shut your filthy mouth! I don’t like names. Don’t call me names!” Her breasts were heaving in emotion under the dress.
And then she stopped. She smiled suddenly and looked up at me and down at her breasts. She brought her hands up slowly and cupped them in her palms.
“You like them, don’t you, Cole?” she whispered. “I know you like them. Last night you loved them.”
I kept my eyes away from her hands and looked at her eyes. They were filmed over with passion.
“You—you must have been surprised when I walked back into the Pit this morning,” I croaked.
Her eyes wavered and cleared. My heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. Her kind of affection, I could do without.
“I was,” she said, breathing normally again. Apparently, her hormones had jumped back into their cages again. I stroked Toni’s cheek and sighed. She went back to the chair.
“Manny had just told me you were dead.” She glared over at Zato. “He was too busy with other things to check. Did you see the slut he left with, Cole? A lousy, little junkie tramp. And he left me for her.” Her eyes pinned him coldly. “He was the date I told you about.”
I looked over at Zato.
“And Blade?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“I told him to finish what Chico started. He picked you up at the dope drop and followed you when you copped for China.”
Toni had stopped crying now and was quiet in my arms. She raised her head up to look at me and her eyes looked like twin rivers of ink.
“Was she lying, Cole?” she whispered. “About last night?”
I gazed at her hurt face and marveled at the complete femaleness that made her think of that at a time like this.
“No, kitten,” I said, “she wasn’t lying. But she was only a body. That’s all.”
“Are we going to die, Cole?” she asked.
“I don’t know, honey. I don’t know.”
She lowered her head to my shoulder again and I tightened my arms around her. She was quiet.
“Very touching,” Valerie said, looking at us. “You make a sweet couple. It’s rather poetic that you’ll be dying together.”
She turned to Zato.
“Did you get the letter?” she asked.
Manny looked confused.
“What letter?” he asked.
“Louise sent him a letter with the clipping that’s just as bad.”
“I didn’t know anything about a letter. I only looked for the clipping. It was in his wallet.”
She sighed, disgustedly.
“Then the letter’s probably there, too. Give me the gun and I’ll cover them while you get it.”
Manny looked at her for a second and then at me. He walked over and handed her the gun.
“Break it up and climb the wall,” he said. He started toward us.
I turned Toni around gently and leaned her against the wall. I was expecting anything. Valerie knew as well as I did that there hadn’t been any letter.
Manny had almost reached us when she cleared it up.
“Forget the letter, Manny,” she said, pointing the gun at the back of his head. “There isn’t any.”
He whirled around and stared at her, surprised fury whitening his face.
“Why, you crazy—”
She cocked the .45, stopping him in midsentence. His mouth hung open incredulously.
“Be a good boy, darling.” She smiled. “You know how I detest names.” She waved the gun at Toni and me. “You two stay just as you are,” she said. “I want you over by the desk, Manny.”
Zato tried to smile but it came off weakly.
“Look, baby,” he said. “You don’t want to—”
“The desk, Manny.”
Her voice was brittle and hard. A determined voice.
Zato looked sick as he backed away from us. He stopped when the back of his legs hit the desk, and stood there staring at her with cold eyes.
She had us where her scrambled mind wanted us. It was like a play being enacted on a stage. Toni and I positioned against the wall to her right as supporting actors, and Zato, her co-star, directly across the stage from her.
I wished stupidly that the director would jump in suddenly, stop the whole thing, and tell us all to go home.
Valerie came out of the chair like a lazy cat, stretching herself. Every sensual, studied movement pulled at the tight silk, boldly outlining her lush body.
The gray fire in her eyes burned fiercely as she watched us. Her breathing was audible. She reached for her purse behind her with her free hand. She opened it and reached inside without taking her eyes off us for an instant. When her hand reappeared it was holding a small, snub-nosed revolver. It looked like a thirty-two.
She smiled across the room at Zato, and Ma Barker never looked deadlier than this beautiful psycho standing there with legs stiffly apart, holding a .45 automatic in her right hand and a little revolver in her left.
“Remember this, darling?” she asked, still looking at Zato. “You gave it to me when we were married. You were so thoughtful of your new bride.” She laughed weirdly. “It’s even registered in your name.”
Her eyes swung to me and I felt myself go rigid. The gray had deepened to a hot, hungry willfulness that challenged the world.
“You see, don’t you, Cole?” she said. She was very pleased with herself. “It’s so simple. I’m going to shoot Manny with the big gun,” she wiggled the .45 gaily, “and you and your girl friend with the little one. The police know by now that it was Manny’s men who tried to kill you, and they’ll come here eventually.”
She blinked excitedly and pointed both guns at us like a badman on a television western.
“They’ll find Manny over there by the desk and you and her right there by the wall. What happened will be obvious. Manny kidnapped the girl to get you here, and you shot it out with him. He killed the two of you—and you, Cole darling, killed him. Isn’t it perfect?”
I looked at her careless fingers on the separate triggers and blanched. What did she want, applause?
Manny stirred across the room.
“Baby, this is stupid,” he said. He had regained some of his former aplomb. Not much, but some. “You don’t want to kill me. What for? I can’t hurt you. Not with that hammer you’ve got over my head. Be reasonable and let’s talk this thing over. I’ll help you take care of these two and then we’ll have a long talk, okay?”
He was coaxing her like you would a child. Somebody had probably told him that was how a nut was supposed to be handled.
Valerie didn’t handle.
“It’s no use, darling,” she said. “I’m going to kill you, and you can talk up to the second the bullet tears into your skin, and it still won’t change anything.”
“Val, we—”
“That’s enough! Don’t talk any more, Manny.”
She was rigid with emotion, staring at him. The naked hate and insanity poisoned her white face, marring it with a cruel, ugly lust.
“You’re not a man!” she yelled. “You’re less than a man! Manny Zato; the cool, calm ladies man.” She spat contemptuously on the rug. “You’re just like my first husband. He called me names, too. He said I was sick. He said I was obscene and vile and perverted. Well, he doesn’t say those things any more, Manny. He isn’t ab
le to any more—and you won’t be, either.”
The revolver in her left hand drooped a little as she strained all her attention on the big .45 pointed at Zato’s head. I watched the long, blue barrel and waited. Manny Zato’s death wouldn’t bother my sleep any, but it might just help to avoid Toni’s and mine.
I stared and I waited. And I thanked whatever gimmick it was in Valerie’s twisted mind that leaned her toward a passion and adeptness for knives instead of guns.
Her red lips were drawn tightly now, into a thin slit of hatred. Her eyes smouldered insanely as she approached the point of action.
“Without you, there won’t be anyone left who knows who I really am,” she said. She was almost chanting now, her voice a singsong softness. “I can start again somewhere. Maybe out west or down in Florida. It doesn’t matter.” Her fingers tightened around the blue steel butt. “You’re no good, Manny. You sell dope and you sleep with your customers and you never loved me at all. Not at all, Manny. Or you would’ve made love like I wanted.”
She implored him suddenly, with pleading, hurt eyes.
“I have to do it, Manny. You see that, don’t you? Don’t you see, Manny?”
She squeezed the trigger and sent a .45 slug tearing through his throat.
The loud report filled the office as I leaped for her. The recoil of the .45 jerked her arm straight up for an instant, as I knew it would, pointing the smoking barrel of the gun at the ceiling.
I left my feet and dived straight at her.
A surprised scream came from her throat as she twisted away from me, trying to bring up the revolver. Two hundred pounds of scared manhood got there first.
I piled into her with my arms outstretched, grabbing desperately for the forty-five. My weight knocked her back to the chair, toppling it over. My left hand closed over the .45 as she fell, knocking it from her grasp. I grabbed at her with my right but got a handful of silk instead.
I landed on my chin with the .45 thudding to the rug under me. Rolling, I snatched it up and threw myself to the right, bringing the gun up in line with Valerie.
She was a twisting, writhing jumble of bare thighs, panties, and breasts as she fought to regain her balance and sit up. She was still clutching the revolver in her left hand, trying to straighten up and bring it around.
“Let it go, Valerie!” I yelled. “Drop the gun!”
She hissed murderously, her eyes bugging with insane fury as she struggled.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” she screamed, scrambling out of the cushions and leveling the gun.
The low report of the .32 was drowned out by the .45 bucking in my hand.
I felt the hot punch of the bullet as it hit my shoulder, staggering me off balance into the wall. I grabbed my arm instinctively. Blood appeared on my fingers.
The office was suddenly silent except for the low sobs coming from across the room where Toni stood watching in horror. The air was filled with the pungent odor of gunpowder. I looked up at Toni from the floor and she cried out and ran to me, falling into my arms.
I kissed her temple softly and let her cry. Looking up at an angle, I looked at Valerie’s sprawled figure in the chair. Slowly, and with a drained feeling of finality, I ran my eyes over her body.
Up past the bent, dimpled knees, the lush relaxed thighs, the brief silk, to the jagged hole between her breasts.
Her head was lying back against the cushions with a peaceful look of serenity erasing the twisted mask that had marred her face a moment before.
Valerie was beautiful again…
* * * *
Toni kneaded the muscles in my back gently, her fingers sending sleepy, little spiders through my whole body. I felt good; real good for the first time in days.
It was 10:00 P.M., over five hours since the fracas in Zato’s office, and I was stretching out on my stomach, beneath the crossed spears in my bedroom. The wound in my shoulder throbbed a little, but the police interne had bandaged up most of the pain. Toni’s fingers were softening what was left of it.
I mumbled a sigh into the pillow and yawned sleepily.
“Did the police release Bradley?” Toni asked, missing a stroke.
I nodded, rubbing my nose into the soft feathers. “Shh. Don’t talk, kitten. It spoils your rhythm.”
Her fingers stroked into a delicious circle again.
“Yeah, they released him. Daddy Warbucks picked him up at the jail.” I yawned, luxuriously. “Maybe they’ll kiss and make up now. I hope so. They deserve each other.”
“What happened to China?”
Another missed stroke.
“She asked Javitts to take her in when he came for Blade. She’s going to try the cure.” I rolled over, favoring my shoulder, stiffly. “Any more loose ends, Miss Dahl?” I asked. “You’re a gabby masseuse.”
She settled back on the bed next to me and smiled.
“I guess not. How’s the shoulder?”
“It’s got a hole in it.” I reached up and with my fingers touched her cheek softly.
“How’s your bruise?”
She grinned impishly.
“Black and blue. I wonder if it’s going to hurt when I kiss.”
I dropped my hand to her waist and pulled her down on top of me.
“Cole!” she cried. “Your shoulder!”
I smothered her words with my lips and she stopped struggling. Her eyes closed and her arms crept up around my neck.
I guess it didn’t hurt very much.
