Ed Lacy - Shoot It Again

Shoot It Again

Ed Lacy

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CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

Len Zinberg

Ragged red streak crawling up the sand to where she was spread-legged on her belly... as if staring over the top of the sand dune. Dull-dark and bright red blood on the strong legs, the bathing suit. I was quite sorry Lu was dead.

For a very long time I looked up at her solid thighs—the only direction in which I could look. So many men had known those legs, although not a one of us had really known her body or.... I heard these little dry coughs, like animal barks

....

Oh God, dogs attacking us? Turning my head was a great effort, so I pushed it back into the sand far as possible, tried rolling my head from side to side, looking for the dogs.

I saw blood splashes all over the sandy hollow... hell of a large stain under me. The red blotches... like one of my non-objective paintings. DEATH SCENE—obvious and corny title. But dying certainly is damn objective, the most objective thing....

The animal grunts came from above me... at the top of the dune. Pressing my head deep into the sand, rolling my eyes upward, I watched her lips move—it didn't seem possible she wasn't dead. Calling to her, I didn't hear my voice. Lu just kept staring intently ahead, making these weird barking sounds. Digging with my elbows, I started moving up the dune toward her....

then the fire broke out in my guts again.

A very long time later—the sky was now a much truer blue—I found myself next to Lu. I tried not seeing the bloody breast covered with sticky sand...

looking for all the world like a giant hamburger with bread crumbs, ready for frying. Her face had the falling-apart-look, as when she needed a shot. Full of taut lines... aged... harsh. But her eyes were bright, alive. With sand sticking to her thick red lips, Lu was making these muted grunts.

“Honey... Lu...”

Talking made me shoot into space again. When I came to, I touched her shoulder with my bloody finger. God, her skin was cold! She didn't look at me: her eyes fixed... ahead.

Digging in the sand with my right elbow...

then... jacking myself up with the left elbow—I flopped over on my side... only soaring a little. My can... legs... didn't move, no longer seemed a part of me.

My face now so near hers.

...

I felt the motion of air with each mumbled squeal Lu made. Stink of death already on her breath, the stale odor of dying. Were the barks that so-called...

death, rattle?

“Honey... Lu.... hon...” I had to rest and float around, each banal word a ton of effort.

Coming to, following her burning eyes staring hard toward the ocean—I saw it. Below us, below the dune... on the beach... this beautiful...

beautiful castle.

CHAPTER 1

I awoke feeling “wrong.”

For a brace of weeks I'd been full of a restless depression. I'd had these bottom-of-the-barrel feelings before, God knows, but only when things were going badly. Now, I should have been in high: I was painting well, had a few bucks—the result of seducing a dizzy school teacher into buying one of my water colors. I also had Sydney, even if I didn't quite understand my feelings about Syd.

But I was so jumpy I could hardly hold a brush.

At the moment it wasn't merely any blue mood —I was badly hungover. I couldn't recall having ever been so stupid-drunk as last night. Plus—the foggy idea I'd also smoked a few sticks of tea. I wasn't sure what I'd done.

I wasn't positive of a damn thing except I was half-alive on a sunny Tuesday morning. I saw the ultramarine blue Mediterranean through the window, and by the height of the sun it had to be around nine a.m. On a cockeyed chair before the open window, shorts, socks, and a pink sport shirt were drying. My sloppy clothes. I've always been a slob, now I dressed that way deliberately—figured it gave me an air of manliness.

I'd made a dozen attempts to paint the view from my window—they all came out like these $9.98 “original oils” in department store bargain basements. Of course, for me that wasn't bad—compared to the abstract crap I used to pass off as painting. The drying laundry, my “sneaky blanchis-sere” as Sydney called it, in front of the window... perhaps this was the earthy touch to add character to the standard scene? A gimmick to... It suddenly hit me that somewhere along the line I'd lost Sydney last night. I wasn't certain I was ready to give Syd the brush.

Sydney is a rather scrawny Australian gal, the sort who's good fun for a few nights—although we'd been banging it for... God, it was almost two months now. Her folks had given her a “holiday” on the Riviera as a college graduation present. I could recall playing boule with Syd at the Casino —growing bored with her and all the other characters making like bit roles from a horrid movie as they worked out “systems” of beating the wheel, on paper. Some even nervously sucking long cigarette holders or cold cigars... all taking it so damn big with 20-franc chips—a fat 5c! Syd had won a tiny pile of chips betting on red and black, and was rather pleased with herself.

Because it had been my thirty-ninth birthday the day before—an historic event utterly known only to myself: I hadn't even received a card from any of my ex-wives, it would have frightened me if I had—I took one of Syd's chips and played 3. The old rubber ball dropped into the 3 slot. We now had 160 francs. To her horror I let the chips ride. 3 won again. I still let the pile remain on 3. Syd said nervously, “I say Clay, so much ruddy money... Are you going mad, old chap?”

“Stop it, all we can lose is our original 20 francs.

When 3 turned up again—all the characters looking at me as if I had a pipe line to heaven—following my hunch, I shifted the chips to 9, something over 10,000 francs, or a 100 new francs. 9 came up on time and we walked out with about $165.

Rolling over on my hot bed, I stared put at the sea and sky, remembering many rhums and sickening Pernods, followed by a wild ride on Syd's scooter. She drove and I sat behind, my hands aware of the gentle muscles of her long stomach under the thin dress as I held on to her. Once she had called back, “Clay, you ass, stop playing with me before I explode, drive off the blooming road!”

I'd howled with delight. Yet, it wasn't anything —I could move Syd anytime I wanted to. I'd been doing that to women over since I was fourteen. The big deal was that Syd turned my passion on— of late that had been so hard to do it was worrying the hell out of me... a little.

Deciding it would be bad luck not to blow every franc I'd won, we stopped at many bars. We'd eaten lobsters at one of the swank tourist joints near the port. Then were racing down a number of narrow, steep streets—probably Villefranche—I dimly recalled handsome U.S. sailors on the sidewalk wisecracking as we scooted by. Syd was thrilled... so was I and...

But now, closing my eyes, Syd vanished from the picture... there was this big blonde—truly tremendous and naked... kind of nudes the old masters painted. The blonde had shoulders and thighs large as those of a tackle I once roomed with— the guy later became a TV wrestling clown. In my mind, the blonde had a tough, craggy face like his, too.