Max Collins - Mourn The Living

The girl came in and was naked.

She held two small jars of body make-up in one hand, one yellow, one green, and was dabbing a tiny paint brush in the jar of yellow. There was a towel over her shoulder and her body dripped beads of water.

She said, “Oh, hi.”

Nolan said, “Hello.”

She appeared to be painting a yellow daisy around her navel. When he noticed this Nolan also noticed a few other things about her. Her stomach was attractively plump and her legs were long and well-fleshed. Her breasts were firm and large, with copper-colored nipples. Her face was scrubbed and pretty, surrounded by white-blonde hair cut in lengths and hanging down to partially conceal her full breasts. Her pubic triangle was dark brown.

“Have we met?” She asked, frowning in thought but not displeasure.

“No.”

“Did you lock the door?”

“No.”

“Lock it.”

“I’m here to talk, Miss Parks.”

“We’ll see. Lock the door.”

Nolan got up and night-latched the door. He returned to the bed and sat back down. The girl sat beside him and crossed her legs and worked on the daisy that was now halfway encircling her navel. He offered her a cigarette and she bounced up after an ash tray and came back and accepted it. He watched her alternately puff on the cigarette and stroke her stomach with the tiny brush. Her skin was pearled with moisture from the shower, her flesh looked soft, pink...

“I don’t pay,” Nolan said.

“I don’t charge.”

Nolan drew on the cigarette and collected his thoughts. Lyn Parks stunned him a bit. He’d never met a girl who paraded around naked painting flowers on her stomach. He glanced at her again and saw the sun spilling in the window on her white-blonde hair. She smiled like a madonna.

“Lyn... okay I call you Lyn?”

“Call me anything you like.”

But shy.

“Lyn, did you know Irene Tisor?”

“Yes. You have nice grey eyes, do you know that?”

“Were you a friend of hers?”

“I knew her, that’s all. Your shoulders sure are broad.”

“Did you hear anything strange about her death?”

“She took a bad trip. Have you ever been eaten alive?” She licked a pink tongue over her lips.

“Ever see her at the Third Eye?”

“All the time. Do you believe in free love?”

“Who’s Broome?”

“Lead singer with the Gurus.”

“The Gurus?”

“The band at the Eye. Don’t you like girls, mister?”

“Did Broome and Irene Tisor see a lot of each other?”

“Broome sees a lot of a lot of girls. You seeing enough?”

“Enough. Was Irene a regular tripper? What’d she take, LSD or STP or speed, or what?”

“I don’t know, none of it regular, I guess. Aren’t you interested in me at all?”

“I’m busy right now. Irene Tisor is dead and I want the details.”

She stroked the back of Nolan’s neck. “Why?”

“I’m writing a story on her.”

“Why not write a story on me?”

“We’ll see.”

“How do you like my daisy?” She had completed the flower and had added a green stem extending from her navel to the edge of the thatch of triangular brown.

Nolan got up, dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his toe. “Thanks for your trouble.”

“No trouble. You’re not going, are you?” She followed him to the door.

“That’s right.”

“So you’re a writer, huh?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Webb.”

“I guess you must not find me attractive, Mr. Webb.”

“You’re attractive.”

“Well then, Mr. Webb, come on, what’s to be afraid. It’s free.”

Nolan undid the night latch. “What if I were a killer?”

She stayed surface-cool but her eyes reflected a touch of fear. But just a touch. “What if you were?”

He couldn’t figure her. Well, if she didn’t scare easy, maybe she could be offended. “Ever hear the term clap? And I don’t mean applause.”

But that didn’t faze her, either. She just stretched her arms above her head and gave him another look at her lush breasts. She said, “It’s your loss.”

Nolan said, “Maybe.”

“You’ll be back.”

He said, “Maybe” again and went out.

He stood staring at the closed door. Was she for real? Did she really have the guts to let a stranger in her room and stroll around naked for him, offering him a piece of tail like it was a piece of candy?

Nolan shook his head. She couldn’t be on the level, she couldn’t have that kind of nerve.

But he’d remember her room number. She was right that, one way or another, he probably would be back.

Dinneck, who was in the john hiding in the shower, heard the door close behind the man he knew as Webb. Lyn Parks, still naked, came in and said, “Okay, lover boy, you can come out now.”

Dinneck stepped out of the stall, pleased to be freed from the damp, claustrophobic cell. He shook some of the moisture from his wrinkled, uncomfortable gold sportcoat and leaned his pork-pie hat back and scratched his head. As he slipped his .45 back into its shoulder holster, he glanced at Lyn Parks as she stooped nakedly to pick up her underwear. “That’s a sweet ass you got there, honey.”

She sneered at Dinneck as she wiggled into her panties. “It’s sweet all right, but you’ll never taste it.”

Dinneck laughed harshly and spat in the can. “So... your love child trip ends when that creep Webb cuts out.”

“Don’t try to talk like a hippie, Dinneck,” she said, pulling on ski pants that left her bare to the waist. “The only thing remotely hippie about you is your fat ass.”

A low blow, but just the same Dinneck flashed her what he considered to be his most charming smile. “Look, honey, you just made an easy fifty bucks, didn’t you? I mean, you didn’t even have to come across for Webb, just flirted a little and painted your cute tummy a flower. Now, wouldn’t you like to make an extra twenty-five for something really worth your while?”

She snapped her bra across Dinneck’s face and one of the metal snaps bit his cheek. “You were sent here to protect me, you little bastard, not to make passes. Now get the fuck out of here.”

“What’s eating you!”

“Not you, dork.” She whirled out of the john, hastily fastening the hooks on the bra.

Conceited little bitch, Dinneck thought, rubbing his cheek. He followed her out into the shabby mass of posters and pop art that was her apartment. He strolled over to the window and saw Webb leaving the Arms and heading down the street toward the dark blue Lincoln. In ten seconds he saw Tulip pick up Webb’s tail.

Dinneck looked back at Lyn Parks who was lying on the bed in ski pants and bra, sticking her shapely ass out at him in defiance, or so it seemed to Dinneck. She was staring at the door in a wistful sort of way, apparently wishing the man called Webb — whom she’d been paid to seduce and pump for information when he came calling on her — had taken her up on her offer.

Bitch, Dinneck thought. What the hell was it to her? She could obviously use the extra twenty-five he’d offered her. What was the difference if she gave Dinneck a quick roll in the hay?

“I suppose,” Dinneck said bitterly, gnawing on a toothpick, “it’s something else again when Broome tells you to diddle than when you diddle on your own.”

“Oh,” she said, not bothering to look back at him, “are you still here?”

Dinneck wanted her and he wanted her bad and he wanted her bad right now. “All right, baby, fifty bucks, that’s tops, fifty bucks!”

“Take your fifty bucks and stick it.”

“You bitch, you little bitch, if Broome okays Webb, why the hell not me?”