Ed Lacy - Strip For Violence

When I opened the door, Louise rushed by me, giggling: she was in a good mood again. Dressing, I stuck the Luger in my belt, called out, “Be back in a few minutes.”

“There's a delicatessen down on Amsterdam that should be open. I'll be dressed by the time you return....” Her voice was lost in the sound of the shower.

I found the delicatessen, bought a couple pounds of coffee, cream, bread, and coffee cake. As an added thought, I asked for half a dozen cans of frozen orange juice and the sleepy-looking counter man said, “You're my first customer of the day. The others should buy an order like this.”

“Yeah, I'm the early bird, or the worm, or something,” I said, picking up the big bag of groceries. It was going to be a clear, sunny day. I felt rested, ready to step.

I sprinted up the stairs to Louise's apartment, pushed the door open and put the bag on the table. She was still in the shower. I got a drink of water, said, “Come on, thought you were in such a big hurry, baby?”

She didn't hear me over the sound of the water. I took the stuff out of the bag, put the cream and juice in her little icebox. “You'll be late—might as well take the day off,” I said, pushing the bathroom door open.

The shower was running but the bathroom was empty. I stepped back into the room, snapped on the fight There were wet tracks on the floor, leading to the door.... But Louise would hardly leave the shower and go visiting a neighbor... even to borrow a towel. Of course she....

I glanced at the bed and there in the bundle of sheets and blanket I saw it—the two red splotches: one was the awful red of her dyed hair and a little farther down the sheet was the very bright red of blood.

I ran over to the bed and pulled the sheet away from her. Her body was still wet and there was a terrible look of fear on her face... and her throat was sliced from ear to ear—one long slit.

For a long moment I stood there, dazed. Still in a trance, I walked over to the bathroom, shut off the shower. It didn't matter, my fingerprints were all over the place. The delicatessen man would remember me and my big order. And Louise's boyfriend would be overanxious to tell the cops about me. All I could think of was one thing—I didn't want the cops to pick me up now—not till I settled two scores with some murdering bastard!

I followed the wet footsteps to the door—vaguely thinking it had all happened so recently the water hadn't even dried. Hell, I hadn't been out of the apartment more than ten minutes. Somebody had knocked, rung the bell, and Louise—thinking it was me—had left the tub and opened the door to her murderer....

The ringing of the phone cut the chilling silence of the room. I knew who it would be before lifting the receiver. The goddamn mocking voice, speaking through crumpled paper or something, asked, “Well, wiseguy, ready to play it smart?”

I was too choked with fury to say a word. There was a hollow minute of silence at the other end of the line, then the sharp click as he, she, or they, hung up. I gently put the receiver back in its cradle, went over to the bed. The bloody stain was growing larger and larger. It seemed a horrible thing to do, a final insult to Louise, but I had to leave her—leave her in that bloody bed.

Fixing the door so it would lock behind me, I softly shut it.

2

I stood on the sidewalk, looking up and down the street, the windows of the houses across the way. Some big kids were walking toward the subway—that was all. Except I knew there was a murderer watching me. A killer who had tailed me here, waited most of the night for me to leave so he could kill a girl unknown to him—to spite me. The ruthless extremes to which this murderer went made me shudder. Whoever was watching me didn't know one thing —they were looking at another killer.

I may have had some doubts deep in my mind about being responsible for Anita's death... but Louise, the unhappy lush I'd come to sleep with... I'd brought her a fine lover's gift—death.

Oh yes, as I gave my car the gas I had only one clear thought in my stunned mind: one thing was for sure—there was another killer loose in the city—and sure as hell that was me!

BOOK FOUR

I

I gassed up the car and drove for two hours, just driving around, going no place in particular. I kept watching to see if I was being tailed, but couldn't make anybody following me. And if I was driving in circles, my mind was off the merry-go-round, starting to think in a straight line.

It was a bad shock to realize that up to now, despite Anita's death, I'd been horsing around, waiting for the breaks instead of going out and making them. Now I had to get off my rusty-dusty damn fast, find the murderer. It wasn't only a matter of avenging the two girls... once Saltz started on Louise's death, all roads would lead to me and my story was so silly I wouldn't believe it myself. “I went down to get coffee and when I came back she was dead....” It sounded phony even as I repeated it.

The trouble was, all the time I'd been acting like the small-time operator I was... I was fighting their kind of battle, doing what they wanted me to. Either I had to admit I was in over my head and let the cops handle everything, or find the killer goddamn quick, before circumstantial evidence had me warming my behind in the electric chair.

After a solid breakfast, I drove to the office. It was an even bet Louise's body wouldn't be found for a day at least—take several days before it began to decay and smell —and after they found it, be another day before the fingerprints boys and her boyfriend put me on the hook.

Shirley and Bobo were straightening up the place. Shirley said, “This is where I came in. Go through this routine every night?”

Bobo said, “See you stopped a few with your face. What's the...?”

“Forget the files and junk. Shirley, here's five bucks, get me copies of all the morning and evening papers for...” I looked at the wall calendar, gave her several dates—all about four weeks previous—about the time Will said the rock came busting into his room. I was going to start from the beginning, the very beginning.

I told Bobo to go with her. I didn't want to see her killed and this maniac I was dealing with... you could never tell.

Bobo pointed to the mess of papers on the floor. “But, Hal, we lose any of these, the agency will fold like an...”

“Hell with the agency. I'm starting to think that as a private detective I'd make a good dressmaker's dummy. Come on, I want those newspapers soon as possible.”

2

I cleared my desk by the simple process of sweeping everything on the floor. Then I took out Marion Lodge's picture, the paper on which I'd written the list of people that kept cropping up since yesterday, added the fact that the stone was an industrial diamond, that Louise was dead, that I'd received another mysterious phone call.

I stared at the paper, knowing that somewhere in this list was a clue, the key I'd been overlooking all the time. I had a hunch that Anita, with her cock-eyed correspondence course, was probably a better dick than I—she'd somehow found the answer in her first few hours on the case, and that was why she was killed.

Shirley and Bobo returned loaded with papers, and we all started reading. I told them, “Want you to read every story... and when you run across anything about diamonds, mailmen, or anything that happened up near Staymore Avenue... or in the Marble Hill section... sing out.”

It was an odd feeling reading last month's papers, to see all the scare headlines, the predictions that came off wrong. I finished one day's batch of papers when Shirley said, “There was a double killing up around that neighborhood. Here, see.”

She placed the paper on my desk and there it was— the headlines jumped up and hit me in the face. It was a case I'd read about and forgotten but Anita, with her morbid kid's curiosity, had probably filed it away in her mind.