Dan Marlowe - Shake a Crooked Town

Daddario's snapping black eyes slid off to Kratz. “Did you send him over there, Jigger?” he asked quietly.

“You know I never sent him no place you didn't say to send him,” the big man protested. “I never sent him there.”

Jim Daddario reached for his phone. “Police Headquarters,” he grunted. A hand tapped idly on a corner of his desk. “Riley,” he said. “Jack? Jim.” His voice gathered force. “What the hell did you think you were doing threatening this man Killain?” Veins swelled in his temples as he listened. This man really had a temper, Johnny decided. “Don't try to lie to me-he's standing right here in front of me! He taped your whole goddamn foolish conversation.” Scratchy sounds issued from the phone. “I'll do the damn thinking! You do what you're told! And the next time I won't just be telling you!” He banged up the receiver furiously.

“Too bad, Daddario,” Johnny needled him. “At least when you buy 'em they ought to stay bought.”

Jim Daddario never even looked at him. “Get over there before the blithering idiot has time to put a story together,” he said to Kratz. “I want to know why he did it. Shake him down to the holes in his socks.” Kratz glanced at Johnny. “I'll handle this,” Daddario said impatiently. “Get going.”

“Nice, tight little army you've got,” Johnny said admiringly when Kratz had gone. “Rudy and his friends pay the private taxes that subsidize it?”

“You've got a big, fat lip, Killain,” the realtor said coldly. “Button it while you can.”

“You sound like a big, brave boy. Are you forgettin' you sent your army off to the wars?”

“Killain, I've got a thousand things on my mind beside a two-bit slab of beef like you, but if you push me I could get around to you. As of now you're excused. Get out.”

“I only got half what I came for, hotshot. Where's Micheline Thompson?”

“I haven't the faintest notion.”

Johnny reached across the desk and took him firmly by the tie. “Jack your brains up, wise guy. It's time you learned a few manners.” Slowly and steadily he applied downward pressure on the tie until Daddario's head was forced down to the desk top. His face turned scarlet. His hand darted suddenly to a desk drawer.

Johnny dropped his grip on the tie and picked up the desk. Daddario screamed as the rising desk trapped his hand in the drawer. His chair went over backward and he hung by his hand from the desk for an instant before Johnny dropped it on him. Drawers and papers cascaded in all directions as Daddario lay winded, panting.

Johnny started around the upside-down desk after him. A gobbling noise from the phone on the floor distracted him. He picked up the receiver. “Police, police, police!” he could hear one of the women in the outer office babbling. He dropped the receiver.

He bent down beside the hard-breathing realtor and spoke slowly and distinctly. “The next time I ask you something, wise guy, have the answer handy.”

He walked lightly past the shattered door into the outer office. At sight of him, the woman at the phone shrieked and threw it away from her. Johnny waved at her. At the door he looked back. Jim Daddario's private office looked as if a tidal wave had rolled over it and Jim Daddario still lay amidst the debris.

Johnny touched off the kindling in the fireplace with a folded newspaper he used as a torch. Beside him, Jessamyn Burger watched as it alternately flared and dimmed until the birch logs began finally to crackle and sputter. Johnny sat back on his heels and looked up at her. “That appeal to your homemakin' instinct?”

“Don't make fun of me,” she said softly. She retreated to the nearer of the two chairs drawn up before the fire, but paused before she sat down. “Would you like a brandy to settle dinner?”

“If you have one, too.”

“I'm afraid I had too many cocktails. I feel-well, lightheaded.” She went to get his brandy and returned with a second glass with half as much in it. “I couldn't resist.” She handed him his glass as he sat in one of the chairs and with an outstretched leg he barred her from the other.

“One chair this size is big enough for two people,” he told her.

She exaggerated the lift of her brows. “I can see you're not the practical type. I'd crush my best dress.”

“Take it off.”

“Really, you're-”

“Take it off, Jessie.”

She smiled, a slow, helpless smile. “Then stay right where you are,” she warned him, and disappeared behind the bedroom door.

Johnny sat and watched the firelight's refractions from his brandy glass. He felt pleasantly relaxed. There was no sound from the bedroom. He sipped at his brandy. Jessamyn reappeared in the doorway and he set down his glass.

She had on a pale ivory negligee that nicely complemented her dark hair. Her pom-pomed mules had high heels and the heels contained clusters of rhinestones that twinkled brilliantly as she walked. She came directly to him and sat on the arm of his chair. Her face was calm and there was no coquettishness about her.

Johnny fingered a fold of the negligee. “No lace?” he asked her.

“No lace,” she agreed. “I'm practical, if you're not. Most women have lingerie they've never worn. Not little Jessie.”

“If what you are is practical I just hope it never goes out of style, baby.” They could both hear the deepened timbre in his voice.

She reached up over his head and turned off the floor lamp that was the room's only light except for the fire's dancing shadows on the white hearth. She bent down over him and unbuttoned the collar of his sport shirt and then the rest of the shirt down to his belt. She tried to span his neck with her two warm hands. “Heavens!” she said softly. “What size is your shirt?”

“Tent size,” he said, and with an encircling arm swept her from the chair arm down into his lap. She snuggled down against him and he could feel the moist pressure of her lips against his throat.

He could hear her lengthy sigh as she stretched generously. “You know I was told not to see you again,” she murmured in his ear.

“Yeah? Lucky for me you don't take orders. What was the reason supposed to be?”

“The questions you'd ask me.”

He increased the pressure of the arm around her until he heard the sibilant intake of her breath. “The answers to the questions I'm about to ask, little girl, you couldn't print in a family newspaper.” He dropped his free hand firmly on a round thigh.

She stirred on his knees as her breathing quickened. “I'd entertain a motion to declare a moratorium on questions and answers,” she said huskily.

“You've got one,” he said promptly. He shifted the position of his hands and stood up with her in his arms.

“Wait!” she commanded. “Put me down.” He complied, knowing it was no last-minute retreat. “Sit down again,” she told him. She knelt and removed his shoes, straightened up and took his hand and tugged him to his feet again. She removed his shirt completely. Her hands went to his belt and he lifted his own to assist her. “Let me!” she said urgently. He dropped his hands.

She stripped him, moving like an ivory wraith in the light of the fire. He couldn't see her face dearly, but he could hear her breathing. Her hands lingered on his arms, then on his shoulders and back. When her hands quieted his own moved rapidly. He picked her up again and felt her arms twine tightly about his neck.

In the bedroom he lowered her gently to the floor.

Through the open door only the faintest trace of the light from the fireplace's leaping flames pursued them. Her hands went to the neckline of her negligee. He captured the hands.

“My turn,” he said. He dealt with the negligee, unhurriedly. He disposed of the gossamer nightgown that couldn't have weighed more than an ounce and a half. He sat her down on the bed and removed the mules whose rhinestoned heels glittered even in the near-darkness.