Mickey Spillane - Kiss Her Goodbye

"Chrome had been grooming Ginnie to be a backup dancer in her act."

"She doesn't use any backup dancers in her act."

"Well, not her current act, maybe. But Chrome's preparing for this big national tour, and she'd been dangling that opportunity over Ginnie's head, as recently as the day the young woman was killed. Chrome had really been courting her—otherwise Ginnie wouldn't have been on my radar at all. They often had lunch together, after dance class, and Ginnie seemed enthralled to be in the star's company."

I sipped more beer. "If you did your research, which I'm sure you did, then you know Ginnie took out a cabaret entertainer's license a while back. Making it as a performer was apparently a long-held dream."

"Right," Angela said, nodding. "And when I heard the description of the dead girl who was a mugging fatality, it sounded awfully close to Ginnie—not just physically, but down to the clothes I'd seen her wearing earlier ... so I checked it out."

"And we had our first star-crossed meeting."

She smiled. "Boy, did I hate your guts."

"I wanted to ram that Japanese sports car of yours up your rear highway."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Or ram something somewhere."

She almost blushed at that. Damn, she was cute.

"But, Mike—now Ginnie's boyfriend has been murdered, and there can be no question about that. Nobody could write Fidello's death off as a mugging. And it's sure not a robbery, considering where he lived."

"No," I confirmed. "That was as cold-blooded as kills get. So how do the pieces fit? You're looking at Tony Tret as a drug kingpin. What does that have to do with Chrome making friends with Ginnie Mathes?"

"Simple." She shrugged. "Chrome works for Anthony. She may even be his main squeeze, if rumor can be believed."

"I say Tony's gay, but go on."

"Whatever the case, this may just be a matter of Chrome enlisting Ginnie for some purpose. An errand of some kind, which might explain what Ginnie was doing on that rough patch of real estate where she died."

Delivering Basil's diamond to somebody. But who? And why?

"Mike, what's on your mind?"

"Just thinking, doll. Just thinking."

"Can you figure why Fidello was murdered?"

My eyebrows hiked. "Possibly he was getting back with Ginnie, and overheard something, and maybe became the kind of loose end that needs cutting off."

"Somebody is killing awfully casually."

"Little Tony comes from that kind of stock."

She put the beer bottle back.

"I have to tinkle," she said.

"As long as you put it so sweetly, you don't even have to leave a quarter on the porcelain."

Angela laughed at that, tipsy enough for my quip to seem funny. She snatched her purse off the nearby nightstand and scampered off. Always a kick to see a big, beautiful woman scamper.

I sat there thinking about a young woman who dreamed of a show biz break and had done a star a favor, maybe delivering a valuable pebble. Her reward had been a quick, nasty death. If Angela was right, Ginnie was doing Tony Tret's bidding, in a roundabout way.

What was Tretriano doing with Basil's diamond in the rough? And assuming Tony was using it as a small-size big payoff, whose palm was he greasing in such a magnanimous fashion?

The toilet had long since flushed and she wasn't back yet.

Then the door opened and she stepped out in the shaft of light, and all she had on was the silk blouse, buttoned up discreetly, but with the tail not quite hiding the dark tip of her pubic triangle. Her legs were long and with a little flesh around the thighs, which was fine with me because I hated these skinny kids. She was tiptoeing, like she was sneaking up on me, though I was right there staring.

She stood before me like a good soldier waiting for inspection. But I was standing at attention, too, even if I was still sitting down.

"Am I too forward?" she asked.

"Not forward enough," I said. "That blouse is ruining the view."

She made me crazy, working those buttons one at a time, taking several seconds each that made sweat bead on my forehead despite the cool spring breeze coming in the crack of the window under the closed blinds, which made a metallic rustling.

When she'd shrugged out of the silk blouse, she put her shoulders back and the full breasts jutted proudly, displaying large, round, puffy nipples whose erect tips pointed slightly right and left, as if a practical joke to turn me cockeyed. Her waist was narrow and her stomach firm and well defined without losing its womanliness, and the dark, dark tangle of pubic hair promised a jungle well worth exploring.

"Should we have some fun?" she asked.

"I'm gonna say yes," I said.

"Check my purse. See if anything interests you."

I stood up and she giggled at the tent I'd made, and grabbed it, pulled it down, and let go. "Boiiiing," she said, and laughed.

Maybe not just a little drunk.

I went over and got in her purse and found what she was talking about—handcuffs. Well, she was an officer of the court.

I stood by the bedside and dangled the shiny pair, which caught what little light was in the room. "I don't wear bracelets, honey—I'm a man."

"I can see you're a man. But I'm a woman."

She threw the sheets and blankets back, and crawled up on the bed, pointing a well-rounded, dimpled behind at me with a little teasing tuft sticking out from in between, where heaven met the earth, and she snapped her right wrist to the bedpost at left. Then she lay on her back, spread-eagled, pink peeking through the curly black, and looked over to where I stood getting out of my own clothes, and she said, "You'll never make me talk, officer."

I didn't make her talk, but I did make her holler, and laugh, and even cry a little. She was moist and tight and wild, a prisoner gyrating for freedom that she didn't really crave, and as I was buried in her dark hair with her moaning in sweet pain, I thought, So like Velda ... so like Velda....

"Velda," I whispered.

Out loud. Not meaning to.

"What did you say?" She stiffened under me. "What did you call me?"

"Old Celtic term of endearment, baby."

"What does it mean?"

"Love of my life."

"You're sweet..." Her hips began to grind under me again. "You're so sweet.... "

Wasn't I?

She fell asleep almost immediately, despite her cuffed wrist. She was on her side, her back to me with the covers over her, snoring softly, when I slipped out of bed. I left my clothes on the floor, but got into my shorts. I went to her purse to find the handcuff key, though when I started to rustle in there, she stirred and made a protesting sound that made me shrug. If the cuff didn't bother her, it didn't bother me.

We'd turned all the lights off, but I'd been in this room for enough days to easily make my way to the john without any help. I didn't even turn the bathroom light on until I'd sealed myself in.

What a wonderful, smart woman this was. I'd thought Velda was one of a kind, but another had found me, and took me on my own terms, rough edges and all. It seemed a kind of miracle. I wouldn't say I loved her, not yet, but the sex had been great, hot and loving and crazy. The kind of memory you save up for your deathbed, when you can really use it.

I did a few things in the john that don't really move this story forward. What may be relevant is that the lovemaking had been spirited enough to make my side ache like hell, particularly that hot spot under my ribs. The pill bottles were lined up behind the sink like members of the jury.

The pill bottle for pain, which I knew to be a goddamn narcotic, I grabbed and held and sat staring at, like a kid in school with poor reading skills trying to make sense out of Dick, Jane, and Spot. My hand was shaking a little and my side was burning, like some sicko bastard with a red-hot poker was having a horse laugh at my expense, and I heard the door snick open out there.