Richard Hawke - Speak of the Devil

“I need you to call me a cab,” I said. The words were like razor blades running on the inside of my throat.

There was a pause. “Okay. You’re a cab.”

My upper body collapsed against the side of the car. Laughing hurt even more than speaking, but I had no control over it. I was still holding the cell phone, though not to my ear. I could hear the buzzing of Margo’s voice.

“Fritz? Fritz?”

MARGO POKED HER TONGUE AGAINST THE INSIDE OF HER CHEEK AND said nothing as I pulled Betty from my pocket and set it on the dresser. She was sitting on the edge of the bed holding a mug of warm mulled cider and rum. I looked at her in the dresser mirror.

“The pimp,” I said to her unasked question. “He had a knife, I had Betty.” I set my.38 on the dresser, next to the blackjack.

“Mr. Arsenal,” Margo said in her quiet voice.

I leaned closer to the mirror. Margo had dabbed iodine on the several scratches I’d suffered from Donna Bia’s fingernails. I looked like an Indian in his war paint. My eyes were still red, but much of the stinging had subsided. I had a walnut-sized lump just above my left ear, where Donna’s stiletto heel had done its damage. Hellcat, indeed. Lance Jennings hadn’t been kidding. I recalled Donna swinging her dishy brown legs in my direction and giving me that dark smile, just seconds before hitting me full force with the spray.

“What are you going to do about the car?” Margo asked, blowing lightly into her cider.

“The easiest thing is to report it stolen. There’ll be a lot less explaining to do to the rental company if I say somebody stole it. It’s insured against the damage.”

“What about wasting the police time?”

I turned from the dresser. “I can call Captain Kersauson. I’ll tell him not to bother.”

Margo took a sip of cider. “So how much money did you end up handing over to all these sexy women tonight?”

“They weren’t all sexy.”

“How much?”

“I took a thousand with me. I came back with just under half.”

“How sexy was the sexiest one?”

I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off. Gingerly. The evening’s festivities had kicked up the injury in my shoulder. I balled up the shirt and made a two-pointer on the chair in the corner. I stepped over to the bed and snapped my fingers. Margo handed me the mug. “Yes, Allah.”

I took a sip. Nutmeg. Cinnamon. Cider. Rum. My raw throat welcomed the blend. So did my bloodstream. “The sexiest one? That would be the girl who slapped me around. More curves than the Daytona Speedway.”

“Aren’t you funny.”

“You asked.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small silver tube. Margo made a quizzical face. “Is that what I think it is?” I twisted the bottom of the tube, and a soft ruby nub emerged from the top. Margo placed a finger on her chin. “I think something a little softer would suit you better.”

I set the lipstick on the bedside table and pulled a similar shape from my pocket. This one was a transparent vial. It was three quarters filled with what the police like to call a powdery substance. I set the vial down next to the lipstick.

Margo asked, “Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s my catch of the evening. While I was flailing away blindly-literally-after the lovely Miss Bia sprayed me, I managed to catch her purse and knock some stuff out.”

Margo picked up the vial and held it up to her face. “Artificial sweetener?”

“I guess one could make the argument.”

“What is it? Cocaine? Heroin?”

“One of the above. Or some such cousin.”

“So your take for the evening was drugs and cosmetics. This cannot have met expectations.”

I pulled one more thing from my pocket.

“That’s not yours,” Margo said.

“It’s Donna Bia’s.”

“You got her cell phone?”

I weighed the weightless thing in my palm. “Yep.”

“You’re looking smug.”

“I’m feeling smug.”

“Okay, Mr. Smug. Why don’t you put away your toys and come to bed?”

She hopped off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. I pulled open the drawer on the bedside table and stashed the goodies. I finished off the cider and rum, kicked off the rest of my clothes and fell heavily onto the rack. The bathroom door opened, then closed, and the overhead light went out. My former boss’s daughter crawled into bed next to me. I sniffed the air.

“What’s that?” I asked. “Eau d’intrigue?”

“I’m not as curvy as a racetrack. I thought a little booster might be nice.”

“You don’t need no stinkin’ booster.” I turned to her. “Besides, you’ve got plenty of curves. Who says you don’t?”

“I can tell I ain’t no Donna Bia.”

“And I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”

Margo turned to me. Her fingers found the back of my neck and started playing little games there.

“Try,” she whispered.

I WOKE SOMETIME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. MARGO’S HEAD WAS tucked under my chin, one of her legs thrown across mine. Her breathing was barely audible, like a tiny teapot not quite coming to a boil. My right hand was resting against her bare back. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been doing it, but I realized I was running my thumb gently back and forth against two of her vertebrae. Not waking, she muttered something in her sleep and nestled even closer.

I looked up at the ceiling. Margo’s bedroom is a corner room. Two windows. South and west. One of the windows-the one at the fire escape-has a security gate. Ambient light from outside hits both windows and sends elongated patchworks of shadows onto the ceiling. It’s never quite the same pattern twice; it’s a little like clouds in that way. When a car travels down the street, a new shadow appears, sliding along the ceiling atop the others. Sometimes it looks to me like a guillotine blade whooshing down. Margo will occasionally stay awake simply to watch the shifting patterns. She claims it’s one of her favorite features of the apartment.

As I lay looking up at the patterns, one of those car-induced shadows ran its diagonal course along the ceiling. It was followed immediately by a second one, this one moving faster. I heard a squeal of brakes, and the second shadow halted partway along the ceiling. I heard the thump of a car door closing. A few seconds later, Margo’s front door buzzer went off.

“Shit.”

Margo stirred as I peeled her off. “What is it?”

“Company.”

I got out of bed and reached for my pants. Margo scooted up onto one elbow. A gash of pale light cut across her face.

“What time is it?” She leaned sideways and squinted at her clock. “It’s three-thirty.”

The buzzer sounded again. I pulled on my shirt. Margo slipped out of bed and into her bathrobe in one liquid move.

“Don’t get up,” I said.

“It’s my apartment.” The sleep was gone from her voice, replaced with irritation. She went into the hallway and hit the intercom button. “Who is it?”

The crackly answer came back: “Malone.” I joined her in the hall.

“It’s you,” Margo said humorlessly. “You’re here and you’re down there at the same time. Ain’t you something?”

I pushed the button to buzz open the front door. I went back into the bedroom and got my.38 and tucked it into the waist of my pants.

“Why don’t you wait in the bedroom,” I said to Margo.

“Who do you think it is?”

I stepped to the door. The across-the-hall neighbor was a photographer. Several months back, he was backing out of his apartment carrying a tripod on his shoulder and somehow managed to land one of the hard rubber feet directly on the peephole in Margo’s front door, making a spiderweb of the tiny lens. I looked through the peephole now, but all I could see was a triangular view of the carpet. I heard the sound of steps in the stairwell, and a moment later, the edge of a shoe nosed into view.