E. Hunt - House Dick

“He never mentioned her.”

“Fastidious, huh? That fits.” He got up heavily. “Well, the sparklers are gone. What we’ve got in exchange is a body. I don’t like cleaning up after Ben Barada but I can’t see any other way.”

Her eyes had widened. There was a little color in her cheeks. Enough to show the flesh was alive.

“Hotel work,” he muttered and blew a soft raspberry.

Turning, he left her and went out of the door, locking it behind him. He crossed the corridor quietly and listened in front of 515. The widow Boyd. Tomorrow would be a big test for Dr. Bikel.

Silently he slipped the key in the lock and entered. The room was totally dark. He took out his pencil flash and played it around. The furniture hadn’t moved. On tiptoes he moved toward the bedroom doorway and heard a guttural snore. Good. The widow was asleep. Retracing his steps he left the room, crossed the corridor and unlocked the girl’s door. She was sitting where he had left her, eyes remote, body shrunken. He went to the bedroom, bent over and tried to lift Boyd’s body from the bed. The effort dizzied him and his bruised ribs slashed razors of pain through his body. His right arm was next to useless. Wincing, he lowered the dead weight and went back to where Paula was sitting. “Too heavy,” he rasped. “When a guy’s over forty he ought to watch his weight.”

He left the room again, went down the corridor to the service closet and opened it. Propped against the wall was a dolly for heavy luggage. He wheeled it out, closed the door and pushed it back to 516 and into the bedroom. By the time he had lifted and pushed Boyd’s body onto it his face was strained and he was gasping from the pain of tortured muscles. To Paula he called, “Here we come, beautiful,” and began wheeling the body out of the bedroom. Glancing toward her he saw that she had turned away.

At the doorway he waited, listening, and then he pushed the dolly quickly across the corridor. Behind him Paula’s door snapped shut.

Novak trundled the corpse through the darkness until the dolly hit the side of the sofa. He stood still and listened. The snores were rhythmic now. Julia Boyd was light-years away.

Using his thigh as a lever he got the heavy body onto the sofa. Theatrical arrangement wasn’t important. He blinked his flash at the late Chalmers Boyd and wheeled the dolly out of the room. Closing the door he wiped his prints from the knob and hurried the dolly back to the service closet.

For a while he leaned weakly against the wall, breathing deeply until the dizziness left him. Then slowly he walked toward Paula’s door.

6

“God,” she breathed. “I thought you’d never get back. What’d you do with him?”

“You’ll hear about it in time. The less you know the better. When the body’s found there’ll be more cops here than dogfaces on D-Day.” He slumped into a chair. “You bring the bottle this time—with a couple of fresh aspirin on the half-shell.”

She did as she was told. Novak washed down four aspirin with Scotch whisky. Cold out of the bottle it tasted like the edge of a knife.

Standing beside him, she stroked hair back from his forehead. Her hands were cool. Closing his eyes he felt her mouth brush his cheeks. “Kissing’s nice,” he murmured sleepily.

“Very nice. But what about your condition?”

“I’ve had worse nights. And I could use a shower.”

After a while he got up, went into the bathroom, stripped and braced himself under a hot shower until the pain dulled. Then he toweled himself, pulled on his shorts and went into the sitting room.

The only light came from a table lamp by the far wall. He had to squint to see her, and when he did she was an indistinct swirl of white gauze on the sofa. “Hello, Novak,” her voice came throatily across the room. “Feel better?”

“Some. Room for two there?”

“Let’s try.”

He sat beside her and kissed the tip of her nose. Her hands moved around his body, kneaded the flesh behind his neck.

They were warm hands now. He put his arms around her and drew her close. She nibbled his lip and said, “You’re built like a buffalo, Novak. Including the pelt.”

“Only pansies and actors shave their chests.”

She laughed lightly. “I suppose you’re thinking I do this with all the boys.”

“It would be a waste of talent.”

Her hands framed his face. “You’re a kick,” she murmured. “Tough as elephant hide and laying your neck on the block for a girl you’ve known barely six hours.”

“Seven.”

“Ummmmm. What did you do before you got into the hotel business?”

“A lot of things. Too many. And very few things I liked.”

“You’ve got a funny job.”

“Well, you get to know a lot of drunks. And upper crust lushes.”

He felt her face wrinkle. “I guess I hadn’t better leave tomorrow, had I?”

“Stay around a few days. Act innocent.”

“Be sensible. What about Ben?”

“He’ll have to find a new girl.”

“Uh-huh.” Then her mouth covered his hotly. He felt her flimsy gown slide apart, the fullness of her breasts. Her eyelids fluttered shut.

The last thing he saw was the table lamp, an orange eye in the distant darkness.

“We could send out for something to drink.”

He was tying his tie. “Too late. This is a scissorbill town. You can’t buy a drink after midnight. Legitimately.”

“The law worry you a lot?”

“Just worries me enough.”

“What are you going to do about...Chalmers?”

“Give the police full cooperation. They don’t pay me to solve murders. Not the Tilden chain.”

“No ambition, Pete?”

Turning, he saw the glow of her cigarette from the sofa. “It’s a disease I went through long ago.”

“Along with a woman, maybe?”

“Along with a woman.” He pulled on his coat, patted the holster into place.

“Married?”

“We were married,” he said quietly. “She tired of it. She wanted bigger things—more than a mortgaged bungalow with time payments on the appliances.”

He saw gray smoke drift into the arc of light near the bathroom door. Huskily she said, “I wish I’d known you then—before her.”

“Hell, I haven’t changed much. A little older and grayer, but they say the richer years come later.”

“Not to a woman they don’t. That’s what I told myself. We’re a couple of characters, you and I—and not out of fairy tales. Me, looking for a guy to keep me in furs and caviar, you—wrestling drunks and hopheads out of lobbies. Or is there more to life than that?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He straightened his lapels. “The job buys whisky and clean sheets. In today’s world only a sap would complain.” He crossed the room, bent down and kissed her forehead. “See you tomorrow, beautiful. Thanks for the tender care.”

Her arms arched upward, her hands lowered his lips against hers. It was a long kiss. And a long time since he had known a kiss like that. Finally he parted her arms, patted the back of her hand and let himself out of the door.

Across the corridor only a closed door: Suite 515. Thirty-five bucks a day plus District Tax. Rate about to be lowered for single occupancy. He turned and made for the service elevator.

When the doors opened he saw the night watchman nodding in his chair. My alert security force, he thought, and eased around the corner and out to the street.

In the early dawn the trees were bony arms with fingers like ancient women. A newspaper truck whizzed around the corner, a heavy stack of newspapers bounced against the lamppost. Like a lazy black beetle a prowl car crawled down K Street. Lighting a cigarette, Novak coughed and turned up his coat lapels. The cold new morning was as gray as smoke. As he walked toward Seventeenth the streetlights flickered out. The night was over, a new day beginning.