She had no coat on now and her skin had an unholy whiteness about it, splotched with deeper colors. She was sprawled in the chair, her mouth making uncontrollable mewing sounds. The hand with the pliers did something horrible to her and the mouth opened without screaming.
A voice said, “Enough. That’s enough.”
“She can still talk,” the other one answered.
“No, she’s past it. I’ve seen it happen before. We were silly to go this far, but we had no choice.”
“Listen ...”
“I’ll give the orders. You listen.”
The feet moved back a little. “All right, go ahead. But so far we don’t know any more than we did before.”
“That’s satisfactory. What we do know is still more than anyone else. There are other ways and at least she won’t be talking to the wrong ones. She’ll have to go now. Everything is ready?”
“Yeah.” It was a disgusted acknowledgment “The guy too?”
“Naturally. Take them out to the road.”
“It’s a shame to dress her.”
“You pig. Do what you’re told. You two, help carry them out. We’ve spent enough time on this operation.”
I could feel my mouth working to get some words out. Every filthy name I could think of for them was stuck in my throat. I couldn’t even raise my eyes above their knees to see their faces and all I could do was hear them, hear everything they said and keep the sound of their voices spilling over in my ears so that when I heard them again I wouldn’t need to look at their faces to know I was killing the right ones. The bastards, the dirty lousy bastards!
Hands went under my knees and shoulders and for a second I thought I would see what I wanted to see, but the hate inside me sent the blood beating to my head bringing back the pain and it was like a black curtain being pulled closed across my mind. Once it drew back hesitatingly and I saw my car on the side of the road, the rear end lifted with a jack and red flares set in front and in back of it.
Clever, I thought. Very clever of them. If anybody passed they’d see a car in trouble with warning signals properly placed and the driver obviously gone into town for help. Nobody would stop to investigate. Then the thought passed into the darkness as quickly as it came.
It was like a sleep that you awaken from because you had been sleeping cramped up. It was a forced awakening that hurts and you hear yourself groan as you try to straighten out. Then suddenly there’s an immediate sharpness to the awakening as you realize that it hadn’t been a bad dream after all, but something alive and terrifying instead.
She was there beside me in the car, the open coat framing her nakedness Her head lolled against the window, the eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. She jerked and fell against me.
But not because she was alive! The car was moving ahead as something rammed into the rear of it!
Somehow I got myself up, looked over the wheel into the splash of light ahead of me and saw the edge of the cliff short feet away and even as I reached for the door the wheels went over the edge through the ready-made gap in the retaining wall and the nose dipped down into an incredible void.
Chapter Two
“MIKE ...”
I turned my head toward the sound. The motion brought a wave of silent thunder with it like the surf crashing on a beach. I heard my name again, a little clearer this time.
“Mike ...”
My eyes opened. The light hurt, but I kept them open. For a minute she was just a dark blur, then the fuzzy edges went away and the blue became beautiful. “Hello, kitten,” I said.
Velda’s mouth parted in a slow smile that had all the happiness in the world wrapped up in it. “Glad to see you back, Mike.”
“It’s ... good to be back. I’m surprised ... I got here.”
“So are a lot of people.”
“I ...”
“Don’t talk. The doctor said to keep you quiet if you woke up. Otherwise he’d chase me away.”
I tried to grin at her and she dropped her hand over mine. It was warm and soft with a gentle pressure that said everything was okay. I held it for a long time and if she took it away I never knew about it because when I awoke again it was still there.
The doctor was an efficient little man who poked and prodded with stiff fingers while he watched the expression on my face. He seemed to reel off yards of tape and gauze to dress me in and went away looking satisfied as though he had made me to start with.
Before he closed the door he turned around, glanced at his watch and said, “Thirty minutes, miss. I want him to sleep again.”
Velda nodded and squeezed my hand. “Feel better?”
“Somewhat.”
“Pat’s outside. Shall I ask him to come in?”
“... Yeah.”
She got up and went to the door. I heard her speak to somebody, then there he was grinning at me foolishly, shaking his head while he looked me over.
“Like my outfit?” I said.
“Great. On you white looks good. Three days ago I was figuring I’d have to finance a new tux to bury the corpse in.”
Nice guy, Pat. A swell cop, but he was getting one hell of a sense of humor. When his words sunk in I felt my forehead wrinkling under the turban. “Three days?”
He nodded and draped himself in the big chair beside the bed. “You got it Monday. This is Thursday.”
“Brother!”
“I know what you mean.”
He glanced at Velda. A quick look that had something behind it I didn’t get. She bit her lip, her teeth glistening against the magenta ripeness of her mouth, then nodded in assent.
Pat said, “Can you remember what happened, Mike?”
I knew the tone. He tried to cover it but he didn’t make out. It was the soft trouble tone, falsely light yet direct and insistent. He knew I had caught it and his eyes dropped while he fiddled with his coat. “I remember.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“Why?”
This time he tried to look surprised. That didn’t work either. “No reason.”
“I had an accident, that’s all.”
“That’s all?”
I got the grin out again and turned it on Velda. She was worried, but not too worried to smile back. “Maybe you can tell me what’s cooking, kid. He won’t.”
“I’ll let Pat tell you. He’s been pretty obscure with me too.”
“It’s your ball, Pat,” I said.
He stared at me a minute, then: “Right now I wish you weren’t so sick. I’m the cop and you’re the one who’s supposed to answer questions.”
“Sure, but I’m standing on my constitutional rights. It’s very legal. Go ahead.”
“All right, just keep your voice down or that medic will be hustling me out of here. If we weren’t buddies I couldn’t get within a mile of you with that watchdog around.”
“What’s the pitch?”
“You’re not to be questioned ... yet.”
“Who wants to question me?”
“Among other law enforcement agencies, some government men. That accident of yours occurred in New York State, but right now you happen to be just over the state line in a Jersey hospital. The New York State Troopers will be looking forward to seeing you, plus some county cops from upstate a ways.”
“I think I’ll stay in Jersey a while.”
“Those government men don’t care what state you’re in.”
And there was that tone again.
“Suppose you explain,” I said.
I watched the play of expression across his face to see what he was trying to hide. He looked down at his fingers and pared his nails absently. “You were lucky to get out of the car alive. The door sprung when it hit the side of the drop and you were thrown clear. They found you wrapped around some bushes. If the car hadn’t sprayed the place with burning gas you might still be there. Fortunately, it attracted some motorists who went down to see what happened. Not much was left of the car at all.”
“There was a dame in there,” I told him.
“I’m coming to that.” His head came up and his eyes searched my face. “She was dead. She’s been identified.”
“As an escapee from a sanitarium,” I finished.
It didn’t catch him a bit off base. “Those county cops were pretty sore about it when they found out. Why did you pass them up?”
“I didn’t like their attitude.”
He nodded as if that explained it. Hell, it did.
“You better start thinking before you pull stunts like that, Mike.”
“Why?”
“The woman didn’t die in the crash.”
“I figured as much.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so calm about it. His lips got tight all of a sudden and the fingernails he had been tending disappeared into balled-up fists. “Damn it, Mike, what are you into? Do you realize what kind of a mess you’ve been fooling around with?”
“No. I’m waiting for you to tell me.”
“That woman was under surveillance by the feds. She was part of something big that I don’t know about myself and she was committed to the institution to recover so she could do some tall talking to a closed session of Congress. There was a police guard outside her door and on the grounds of the place. Right now the Washington boys are hopping and it looks like the finger is pointed at you. As far as they’re concerned you got her out of there and knocked her off.”
I lay there and looked at the ceiling. A crack in the plaster zigzagged across the room and disappeared under the molding. “What do you think, Pat?”
“I’m waiting to hear you say it.”
“I already said it.”
“An accident?” His smile was too damn sarcastic. “It was an accident to have a practically naked woman in your car? It was an accident to lie your way through a police roadblock? It was an accident to have her dead before your car went through the wall? You’ll have to do better than that, pal. I know you too well. If accidents happen they go the way you want them to.”
“It was an accident.”
“Mike, look ... you can call it what you like. I’m a cop and I’m in a position to help you out if there’s trouble, but if you don’t square away with me I’m not going to do a thing. When those Federal boys move in you’re going to have to do better than that accident story.”
Velda moved her hand up to my chin and turned my head so she could look at me. “It’s big, Mike,” she said. “Can you fill in the details?” She was so completely serious it was almost funny. I felt like kissing the tip of her nose and sending her out to play, but her eyes were pleading with me.
I said, “It was an accident. I picked her up on the way down from Albany. I don’t know a thing about her, but she seemed like a nervy kid in a jam and I didn’t like the snotty way that cop acted when he stopped the car. So I went on through. We got down maybe ten miles when a sedan pulled out from the side of the road and nudged me to a stop. Now here’s the part you won’t believe. I got out sore as hell and somebody took a shot at me. It missed, but I got sapped and sapped so beautifully I never came completely out of it. I don’t know where the hell they took us, but wherever it was they tried to force something out of the dame. She never came across. Those lads were anxious to get rid of her and me too so they piled us in the car and gave it a shove over the cliff.”
“Who are they?” Pat asked.
“Damned if I know. Five or six guys.”
“Can you identify them?”
“Not by their faces. Maybe if I heard them speak.”
I didn’t mean maybe at all. I could still hear every syllable they spoke and those voices would talk in my mind until I died. Or they did.
The silence was pretty deep. The puzzle was on Velda’s face. “Is that all?” she asked me.
Pat spoke out of the stillness, his voice soft again. “That’s all he’s going to tell anybody.” He got up and stood by the bed. “If that’s the way you want it, I’ll play along. I hope like hell you’re telling me the truth.”
“But you’re afraid I’m not, is that it?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll check on it. I can still see some holes in it.”
“For instance?”
“The gap in the guard rail. No slow-moving car did that. It was a fresh break, too.”
“Then they did it with their car purposely.”
“Maybe. Where was your heap while they were working the woman over?”
“Nicely parked off the road with a jack under it and flares set out.”
“Clever thought.”
“I thought so too,” I said.
“Who could ever find anybody who noticed the flares? They’d just breeze right on by.”
“That’s right.”
Pat hesitated, glanced at Velda, then back to me again. “You’re going to stick with that story?”
“What else?”
“Okay, I’ll check on it. I hope you aren’t making any mistakes. Good night now. Take it easy.” He started to the door.
I said, “I’ll do my own checking when I’m up, Pat.”
He stopped with his hand on the knob. “Don’t keep asking for trouble, kid. You have enough right now.”
“I don’t like to get sapped and tossed over a cliff.”
“Mike ...”
“See you around, Pat.” He shot me a wry grin and left.
I picked up Velda’s hand and looked at her watch. “You have five minutes left out of the thirty. How do you want to spend it?”
The seriousness washed away all at once. She was a big, luscious woman smiling at me with a mouth that was only inches away and coming closer each second. Velda. Tall, with hair like midnight. Beautiful, so it hurt to look at her.
Her hands were soft on my face and her mouth a hot, hungry thing that tried to drink me down. Even through the covers I could feel the firm pressure of her breasts, live things that caressed me of their own accord. She took her mouth away reluctantly so I could kiss her neck and run my lips across her shoulders.
“I love you, Mike,” she said. “I love everything about you even when you’re all fouled up with trouble.” She traced a path down my cheek with her finger. “Now what do you want me to do?”
“Get your nose to the ground, kitten,” I told her. “Find out what the hell this is all about. Take a check on that sanitarium and get a line into Washington if you can.”
“That won’t be easy.”
“They can’t keep secrets in the Capitol, baby. There will be rumors.”
“And what will you do?”
“Try to make those feds believe that accident yarn.” Her eyes widened a little. “You mean ... it didn’t happen that way?”
“Uh-uh. I mean it did. It’s just that nobody’s going to believe it.”
I patted her hand and she straightened up from the bed. I watched her walk toward the door, taking in every feline motion of her body. There was something lithe and animal-like in the way she swung her hips, a jungle tautness to her shoulders. Cleopatra might have had it. Josephine might have had it. But they never had it like she had it.
I said, “Velda ...” and she turned around, knowing damn well what I was going to say. “Show me your legs.”
She grinned impishly, her eyes dancing, standing in a pose no calendar artist could duplicate. She was a Circe, a lusty temptress, a piece of living staturary on display, that only one guy would be able to see. The hem of the dress came up quickly, letting the roundness under the nylon evolve into a magical symmetry, then the nylon ended in the quick whiteness of her thigh and I said, “Enough, kitten. Quit it.”
Before I could say anything else she laughed down deep, threw me a kiss and grinned, “Now you know how Ulysses felt.”
Now I knew. The guy was a sucker. He should have jumped ship.
Chapter Three
IT WAS MONDAY AGAIN, a rainy, dreary Monday that was a huge wet muffler draped over the land. I watched it through the window and felt the taste of it in my mouth. The
door opened and the doctor said, “Ready?”
I turned away from the window and squashed out the cigarette. “Yeah. Are they waiting for me downstairs?”
His tongue showed pink through his lips for a moment and he nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
I picked my hat up from the chair and walked across the room. “Thanks for keeping them off my back so long, doc.”
“It was a necessary thing. You had quite a blow, young man. There still may be complications.” He held the door open for me, waved toward the elevator down the hall and waited silently beside me for it to crawl up to the floor. He took his place beside me on the way down, once letting his eyes edge over so he could watch me.
We got out in the lobby, shook hands briefly and I went to the cashier’s window. She checked my name, told me everything had been paid for by my secretary, then handed me a receipted bill.
When I turned around they were all standing there politely, hats in their hands. Young guys with old eyes. Sharp. Junior executive types. Maybe you could pick them out of a crowd but most likely you couldn’t. No gun bulges under the suit jackets, no high-top shoes with arch supports. Not too fat, not too lean. Faces you wouldn’t want to lie past. Junior executives all right, but in J. Edgar Hoover’s organization.
The tall guy in the blue pin stripe said, “Our car is out front, Mr. Hammer.” I fell in beside him with the others bringing up on the flank and went out to get driven home. We took the Lincoln Tunnel across into New York, cut east on Forty-first then took Ninth Avenue downtown to the modem gray building they used for operational headquarters.
They were real nice, those boys. They took my hat and coat, shoved up a chair for me to sit in, asked if I felt well enough to talk and when I told them sure, suggested that maybe I’d like a lawyer present.
Kiss Me Deadly Page 2
