Warren Murphy: Oil Slick

When they were done, Jessie just moved away from Remo and sat stock still, unable to speak for moments. She seemed unaware that her short skirt was still up around her hips, and in fact she did not even move when the waitress barged through the beaded screen to ask if they wanted refills.

Remo nodded yes. When the waitress left, Jessie came to and pulled down her skirt and straightened her sweater.

"Hey now, holy mackerel, Andy," she said.

"I take it that's a compliment," said Remo.

"No, man," said Jessie, her perfect white teeth shiny and brilliant in the ebony majesty of her happy face. "That's no compliment. That's called homage."

"If you're good, I'll invite you back," said Remo.

"I'll be good. I'll be good."

The waitress interrupted them with their drinks and Remo asked: "There was a redheaded man at the bar. Is he still there?"

"Yes, sir," she said.

Remo pressed a bill into her hand. "Don't mention that I asked." The waitress agreed, with an appreciative look toward Jessie, indicating that there might be a payment for the service more preferable than cash.

Remo squeezed her hand lightly, touching a spot between the thumb and index finger, watching her face brighten.

"Hey, I'm the jealous type," said Jessie after the girl had left. "Easy now."

"Just readying the reserves," said Remo. "In case you get uppity."

"I thought we weren't going to talk ethnic," said Jessie and they both laughed and sipped their drinks until Jessie excused herself to go to the ladies' room.

Remo leaned back on the bench, put his toes on the bench on the far side of the table, and concentrated on watching the new belly-dancer through the small cracks between the strands of beads.

She was an improvement over the first. This, Remo determined, because she seemed to sweat less and she smiled occasionally. The first had danced as if her primary interest were in not putting a heavy foot through one of the thin floorboards. This one danced as if there were something more on her mind than mere survival.

She finished one dance to scattered applause from the half-empty room and began another.

And then another.

And then Remo wondered where Jessie was. He waited a few more minutes, then looked out through the beaded drape into the room. She was not to be seen.

The waitress stood in the back of the large room, keeping a watchful eye on the small tables and Remo motioned to her.

She came forward with a smile. "Check, sir?"

"The lady I was with? Did you see her leave?"

"No, sir?"

"Would you check in the ladies' room and see if she is there? Her name is Miss Jenkins."

"Certainly, sir."

A moment later the girl returned to Remo. "No, sir. She is not in there. The room is quite empty."

"Is there another door out of there?"

"Yes sir, there is a door that leads into a back alley."

Remo grabbed bills from his pocket and pushed them into the girl's hand. "Thanks," he said. As he moved toward the ladies' room, he glanced at the bar. The red-haired man was gone.

Remo went into the ladies' room, past the single stall and the small mirror table and chair, to a push-bar fire door. He opened it and went outside, finding himself in a narrow dark alley, black at one end where it ended against an old building, bright at the other end where it admitted the light from Revolutionary Avenue.

And he saw what he had feared, a crumpled pile that looked black against the splash of light from the street, lying against a wall of the alley. He ran forward. It was Jessie.

She looked up at him, recognized him, and smiled. The blood from her head wound ran slowly down her face.

He saw the wound was serious.

"Who was it?"

"Redhead. From Clogg. Wanted to know about you."

"It's all right," Remo said. "Don't talk anymore."

"S'okay," said Jessie. "I didn't talk at all." And she smiled at Remo again, and then slowly, almost lazily, her eyes closed and her head drooped off to the side.

She was dead.

Remo stood up and looked down at the body of the girl that had only a few minutes ago been warm and bright and loving, and he took pains to remove from himself any feeling of rage or anger that might be found there. When he was sure there was nothing left except cold determination, he simply walked away from her body and went out onto the street.

In the mercury lights that illuminated the street, red blood looked black, and a black spot on the sidewalk to the right of the alley pointed Remo in the right direction.

He caught up to the redheaded man in two blocks.

The man was strolling casually, unconcerned, back toward the hotel where Clogg and Remo both stayed, probably to report, Remo thought.

Moving silently through the light-bright streets, Remo came up alongside the man. The man wore a dark sports shirt and dark slacks. Remo reached out his right hand, spanning it wide, and caught hold of the man's back, just above his belt buckle, grasping the two heavy vertical ropes of muscles that ran up and down alongside the spinal column.

The man gasped in pain.

"You ain't seen nothin' yet," said Remo coldly.

They were passing a tailoring and dry cleaning shop which was closed for the night. Still holding the man's back, steering him with the painful pressure of five iron-hard fingers, Remo used his left hand to smash open the door.

He pushed it open, then propelled the man into the darkened store ahead of him. Remo stopped to close the door behind him.

The man was leaning against the counter, facing Remo, Ms eyes glinting brightly in the reflected light from the street.

"What is this, buddy?" he said in an American accent.

"Do you have a knife? A gun?" asked Remo. "If you do, get them out. It'll make it easier for me."

"What are you talking about? I don't have any weapons."

"Then the sap you used on the girl. Get that," said Remo. His voice was cold and knife-edged, as dark as the store, as empty of feeling as death.

"All right, jewboy, if you insist," the man said. He reached into his back pocket and brought out a lead-loaded, policeman's leather blackjack.

"What'd Clogg want you to do?"

"Pump the girl. Find out who you were. I didn't get a chance. She collapsed too fast." Remo could see the man's teeth shine white as he smiled. "You made it easy. Now I can pump you."

"Do that," said Remo. "Do that."

"I'll go easy on you," said the redheaded man.

He came toward Remo, the lead club raised professionally at shoulder level in his right hand, his left hand bent up in front of his face to ward off any punches.

But no punches came. Instead Remo stood there, and allowed him to swing his blackjack toward Remo's temple.

But the blackjack missed, and then the redheaded man felt it plucked from his fingers, as if he were no stronger than a child.

And then his arm was behind his back and he was being propelled toward the back of the store, and he felt a pain in the back of his neck, and the blackness of the store gave way to a greater blackness of his mind and he felt himself fall into unconsciousness.

He woke up moments later to a strange clinking sound.

His back was on something soft, but his mouth felt funny. What was it, he wondered as he moaned into consciousness. And his mouth felt really strange. It was filled with something.

He felt himself choking. His mouth was filled with his teeth. He looked.

There was Remo Goldberg, standing over him, cracking the weighted lead blackjack down casually, rhythmically, into the redhaired man's face, breaking off his teeth one at a time.

The redhead spat, spraying the air with teeth and blood.

The blackjack came down again. More teeth splintered. The redhead tried to get up, but a finger in his solar plexus locked him in place as if he had been pinned to a board.