Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1953

“He’s still unconscious and you can’t see him,” she said, but I merely took her shoulders and lifted her out of the way.

Inside Frank Durant was flat on his back attempting to look unconscious. As I approached the bed Dr. Durant started yapping about holding me personally responsible if I disturbed his patient, but I calmly pulled aside the patient’s pajama top, hooked a finger under the bandage across his chest and pulled it loose.

There was no sign of a wound of any sort.

“You can sit up now, Frank,” I told him. “Buttons is dead and your whole scheme collapsed.”

“I don’t get it,” Hub Topping said in a bewildered voice.

So I explained it, first bringing Inspector Day and Hannegan up to date on the part they didn’t know, the syndicate’s sending in an advance agent and my attempt to bluff him out. I told them that as Frank Durant had guessed it would, my bluff actually, worked, for the syndicate wasn’t enough interested in the town to fight a war over it. Swan had moved on to organize some other town.

“Buttons Sharkey was the ‘syndicate’ machine-gunner who killed Gruder and Delanco,” I said. “To remove suspicion from himself Frank had Buttons throw a few slugs in the front door, then had his doctor brother put on fake bandages and further cover him by assigning his wife as nurse. Tonight I asked Ann a few questions, and after I tripped her up a few times, she told Frank she thought I knew he hadn’t been wounded at all. So Frank ordered his stooge Buttons to rub me out.”

“But what was behind all this?” Day asked bewilderedly.

“Frank Durant wanted to absorb the other rackets. With both Gruder and Delanco dead, and with neither Tecca nor Hubbing having enough brains to run the rackets they had inherited, Durant knew once he managed to consolidate all three factions, he would be able to hold them together taking his orders, and he’d be kingpin of the local underworld.

“Frank made two tactical errors, though. First, no one tried to get me, yet Marty Swan was supposed to think I was the local big wheel. When I mentioned this to Durant, he belatedly had Buttons squirt a few slugs at me which were intended to miss. He wanted me alive, and at the same time mad enough at the syndicate to take over the leadership of a non-existent gang war.

“The second error was not realizing the machine-gunnings would make the news wire services. When Marty Swan read about them, he phoned me long distance to find out if I’d like the syndicate’s help. He assumed it was a local war, you see, and if the syndicate was invited in, naturally they would stay after helping put down the rebellion.”

Ann Durant said suddenly, “I didn’t know Frank was going to order you killed, Manny. If I had, you don’t think I would have told him... after we...”

She stopped and looked at her husband from wide eyes.

“No, I don’t think you would, Ann,” I said gently. “Anyhow, I hope you didn’t. Where you’re going as accessory, you’ll be able to think about it for a long, long time.”

The murder itself was a cinch, no trouble at all. The things that were hard to do came later...

I rolled over in the hot sand and sat up. Down the artificial beach about fifty yards, the old man was coming toward us with a bright towel trailing from one hand. He was wearing swimming trunks, and with every step he took, his big belly bounced like a balloon tied up short on the end of a stick. Dropping the towel on the sand, he turned and waded into the water.

“The old man’s taking a swim,” I said.

Beside me on the beach, Cousin Cindy grunted. She was stretched out flat on her belly with her head cradled on her arms and her long golden legs spread in a narrow V. Her white lastex trunks curved up high over the swell of her body, and the ends of her brassiere lay unattached on the sand. When she shifted position, raising herself a little on her elbows, my reaction was not cousinly. Not cousinly at all.

“Hook me in back,” she said.

I reached over and brought the loose ends of her brassiere together below her shoulder blades, letting my fingers wander off lightly down the buttons of her spine. She sat up, folding the golden legs Indian style and shaking sand from the ends of her golden hair. She was gold all over in the various shades that gold can take. Even her brown eyes, behind dark glass in white harlequin frames, were flecked with gold.

Out in the lake, Grandfather was swimming toward the raft that was a small brown square on the blue surface of the water. He was swimming breast stroke, as many old men swim, and the water bulged out ahead of him in smooth, sweeping undulations.

“The old man’s strong as a bull,” I said.

Cindy didn’t answer. She just handed me a bottle with a white label and a white cap and some brown lotion inside. I unscrewed the cap and poured some of the lotion on her shoulders and back, rubbing it in gently with my fingers until it had disappeared and her skin was like golden satin to my touch.

Looking over her shoulder, past the soft sheen of her hair and out across the glittering blue lake, I saw that Grandfather had reached the raft. He was sitting on the far side, his back to us, legs dangling in the water. He’d made it out there in good time. For an old man, damn good time. He was strong, in spite of his fat belly. It didn’t look like he was ever going to die.

“It’s hot,” Cindy said, her voice slow and sleepy like the purring of a kitten, “but it’s not as hot as it gets in Acapulco. You ever been in Acapulco, Tony? It’s beautiful there. The harbor is almost land-locked, with mountains all around, and the ships come right up against the shore.”

I didn’t say anything. My hands moved across her shoulders and down along the soft swells of flat muscle that padded the blades. The perfumes of her hair and the lotion were a strange, exotic blend in my nostrils. Out on the raft, Grandfather still sat with his legs in the water.

“I was there for two weeks once,” Cindy said. “In Acapulco, I mean. I went with a man from Los Angeles who wanted me to wear red flowers in my hair. He was very romantic, but he was also very fat, and the palms of his hands were always damp. It would be better in Acapulco with you, Tony. Much better.”

My hands reversed direction, moving up again into her hair, cupping it between palms as water is cupped. The raft, out on the lake, rose and dipped on a slight swell. Grandfather rode it easily, still resting.

“He just sits,” I said bitterly. “He’ll be sitting forever.”

Her head fell back slowly until it was resting on my shoulder, and her golden hair was hanging down my back, and I could look down along the slim arch of her throat into the small valley of shadow under the white band she wore. Behind dark glass, her lids lowered, and she looked dreamily through slits into the brash blue of the sky.

“Acapulco, Tony. You and me and Acapulco. It’s hot and beautiful there by the harbor in a ring of mountains, but it wouldn’t be good unless you and I were hot and beautiful, too. It wouldn’t be good if we were too old, Tony.”

“He’s strong as a bull,” I said. “He’ll live forever.”

A shiver rippled her flesh, and the tip of her pink tongue slipped out and around her oiled lips.

“It’s a nice day, Tony. A hot, dreamy day with a blue sky and white clouds drifting. If I were old and ugly, I’d like to die on a day like this.”

She remained quiet a minute longer, lying against me with her hair splashing down my back, and then she slipped away, rising in the hot sand.

“I want a drink,” she said. “A long, long drink with lots of ice and a sprig of mint. You coming, Tony?”