Corpus Delectable

Seventeen

I reached toward him to grab his collar. In reaching, I leaned forward. In leaning, I saved my life.

The gun winked on the roof of the building across the alley. Shards of glass from the window of McJunkin’s room spilled to the floor like dimes from an up-ended pocket. The sound was immediately followed by the spilling of glass from the bureau mirror as the slug crossed the spot where I had been standing.

I dropped, hit the floor, and rolled away. McJunkin crossed the room and struck the light switch. The return of intense gloom blinded me for a moment.

I fired the .38, realizing almost instantly that the shot was high. His body was a shadow that had dropped into a crouch in anticipation of the shot.

He’d grabbed the end of the dresser. Shoving with all his power, he fired it straight at me, its small metal casters rolling with a quick, angry, hollow sound.

I threw up my arm to keep the end of the rushing bureau from knocking my brains out. Twisting, I took most of the force against my shoulder. Off balance, I was slammed against the wall by the impact.

I kicked the piece of furniture aside as McJunkin threw the latch and eeled through the door. The hallway light caught him. I had time to fire once as he was slamming the door behind him.

I knew I had hit him. The slug knocked him halfway around. Then the door had boomed closed between us.

I started to rise, ducked again as the gun across the alley fired three times, the bullets searching the room at random. The nature of the volley indicated to me that it would be the last. Whoever was over there would get off the roof quickly and out of an unhealthy neighborhood.

I scrambled to my feet, lunged across the room, and yanked McJunkin’s door open. I glanced toward the elevator, saw the stairwell beside it.

As I headed for the stairs, I glanced up to check the elevator pointer. It told me the cage was at ground level. McJunkin hadn’t been able to use it.

I plunged into the stairwell and started down. I was carrying the .38 openly. Marked by knife and gun, McJunkin was proving that he had the durability of a razor-back tusker. I didn’t want to kill him. I wanted him to talk. If I had to maim him seriously to keep him in speaking distance, I was prepared to do so.

I passed the third-floor landing without seeing any sign of him. I continued down with my feet knocking puffs of dust from the ancient stair runner.

Second-floor level. The stairs remained empty before me.

First floor.

It was impossible. He could not have come down any faster than I had.

The old deskman was stricken to a state of semi-paralysis as he watched my rush across the lobby.

His eyes were hard on the gun when I stopped at the desk.

“I... I... I...” he said.

“Take it easy, Pop. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He clutched the edge of the desk. Under wispy white brows his eyes rolled upward until the irises were half hidden.

I reached across the desk, gripped his arm gently to support him. “Don’t faint on me, Pop. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Which way did McJunkin go?”

“Muh... muh... muh... Muhjunkin?”

“You must have noticed him hightailing it across the lobby,” I said. “When he hit the street, which way did he turn?”

The old man’s senses had pulled back from the brink. The reaction of it brought high color to his white, sunken cheeks and broke sweat across his lined forehead.

I gave his arm a little shake. “Come on, Pop. I need every second. The man’s a murderer.”

“Murderer?”

“McJunkin, damn it!”

“McJunkin?”

“The big man from four-o-four,” I said. “That’s Rogers.”

“I don’t care what name he registered under. Which direction did he pick?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“You couldn’t have missed him, Pop.”

“I saw him come in — but not out. Rogers... McJunkin, you say? He came in and gave me that very nice smile of his, like always. Not many do, you know. It’s like I’m a piece of furniture, but he always spoke and asked me how I was feeling. He rode the elevator up, several minutes ago, and I haven’t seen him since.” The old man raised a finger and thoughtfully picked his nose. “If you’re a cop, better show me some credentials and start explaining. Rogers don’t seem to be like no killer. He’s a cut above what we usually...”

I let the old man deliver the remainder of the character reference to my backside as I hurried out of the lobby. On the street, Gasparilla merriment was being expressed in a torchlight parade complete with hobgoblins, skeletons, mobs of pirates. Squawkers and noisemakers created a chaotic tide of sound. Against the riotous din, the popping of a pistol four stories away would have been as noticeable as the crunch of a peanut shell.

With the .38 out of sight under my shirt, I used my hands and elbows to push my way through the swarms of people. Reaching the alley, I was free of the entangling mass.

I slid my hand under my shirt to touch the gun and ran toward the hotel fire escape.

I paused close to the building, saw no movement in the alley.

Sliding the miniature flashlight from my pocket, I pointed the beam upward. Close to the side of the building, the counterweight was still swaying on its rusty cable below the pulley. McJunkin, I knew, had reached the bottom of the fire escape mere minutes ago, imparting force to the counterweight when he’d stepped to the ground, the departure of his weight permitting the bottom section of the escape to swing back up to its usual position when not in use.

A feeling of wild rage came over me. I looked toward the mouth of the alley, at the carefree swirl of humanity in which McJunkin had lost himself. I had the reasonless urge to smash something.

Then I dragged in a deep, deliberate breath and scanned the area around my feet with the flashlight beam. I found the first glistening red glob of blood near the base of the fire escape. A trail of crimson droplets, spaced a few yards apart, pointed toward the street.

I jostled my way through the sidewalk throngs, returning to the lobby of the hotel. The old man was standing in the doorway. He looked at me uncertainly. I brushed past him, crossed to the phone booth, and shut myself in.

With the phone in my hand, I hesitated. Then I shrugged and dropped a coin in the slot. I dialed Lieutenant Steve Ivey’s home number. He answered on the third ring.

I cleared my throat. “Ed Rivers, Steve.”

“What’s up?”

“Plenty. I had a face-to-face chat with Ben McJunkin at the San Salvador Hotel.”

“Have you got him? What does he say?”

“I had him,” I said, “but a friend of his fire-escaped to the top of the neighboring building and started taking pot shots. I didn’t have a chance to finish talking with McJunkin.”

I sensed the build-up of an explosion as Ivey hunted words.

“Don’t light into me, Steve,” I cautioned. “My own fuse has burned damn short. I suggest you blanket this area and alert all local doctors. McJunkin will have to have medical attention. He’s hurt badly this time. Not a flesh wound from a knife, either. He’s carrying a bullet.”

I hung up before Ivey started tongue-lashing me for being a bad boy. I saw no sense in the waste of time.

Myrtle Higgins had waited with my apartment door open. When she heard my footsteps coming up, she rushed to the top of the stairs. She stood looking down at me, a lush Valkyrie swaying slightly and reaching for the newel post to steady herself.

I hurried up the remaining steps and caught her around the waist. She leaned against me, resting her face on my shoulder. I felt the beating of her heart.

“You... you made it,” she said.

“Did you expect me not to?”

“I didn’t know,” she said. “This waiting has been hell, Ed.”

“You need a drink.”

“No, not now.” She eased away from me, brushed the tangle of heavy, dark-blond hair from the side of her face. “I can manage under my own steam.”

She moved into the apartment ahead of me. “Did you find Ben McJunkin?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I shot him.”

She gasped, looked at me, shivered slightly. “Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“Then... it isn’t over?”

“Not quite,” I said. “He got away. But we’ll get him this time. From signs I saw in the alley where he escaped, McJunkin will either have to reach a doctor or bleed to death.”

She touched my cheek, let her hand fall. “I think I will go home, Ed. I feel... limp.”

“I’m a little dishraggish myself,” I admitted, “but a beer should be of some very slight help. Sure you won’t join me?”

She shook her head. “The pirates can have the city tonight. For me, a long, hot bath, a good book. When the book gets tiresome I’ll have a sleeping pill. I hope I don’t have bad dreams. You’ve put me through a lot this evening.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be, Ed. Ben McJunkin was to blame.” She picked up her small handbag and crossed the room to the wall mirror. I watched her run a comb through her hair and touch a lipstick to her mouth.

“I intend to crash a party,” I said. “It may be interesting. Sure you won’t reconsider and join me?”

“Nope. The party mood has been wrung out of me. Cold water seems to have been dashed over the lovely fire.”

“Too bad.”

Our gazes met in the mirror. “There’s always the prospect of another evening, Ed. The future holds a lot of nights.”

“I suppose so,” I said. “Well, if this is the way it’s got to be, I’ll take you home.”

“Go ahead and crash your party. I can get a taxi.”

As I started to protest, she reached and pinched my cheek. “Haven’t you discovered yet that I’m not one of those porcelain dolls? I don’t like for people to hover anxiously over me. I prefer to run my own errands, do my own chores. I like to take care of myself.”

She walked to the door. “Anyway,” she added with a touch of a smile, “if you take me home, you might want to come up. And I might relent, right when I’m trying to be sore at you.”

“Why be sore?”

“Because you are what you are,” she said quietly. “No one or no force will ever change you until the day you die.”

“Is that bad?”

“Sometimes. It was bad this evening. Some men would have felt they had a choice. But when you got the phone call, nothing or nobody could have kept you in this apartment.”

“There wasn’t really a choice, Myrtle. I had to go.” She tilted her head and studied me deeply. “You’ve made my point precisely, Ed.”

“You’re sounding a bit final, Myrtle.”

“Am I? Chalk it up to my mood.”

“Are you judging me?”

“Judging...? Oh, no, Ed! No one has the right to judge another person. Seeing a human being clearly doesn’t mean you’re judging him. You’re simply left alone in a place like this with the truth. You know that when next you hear of him, he will be dead — or he will have killed another man.”

“Neither happened, Myrtle.”

“A technicality,” she said. “A twist of circumstance. All the forces and factors were there. The fullness of the truth and knowledge was driven home to me, you might say.”

“You impressed me as a person big enough to face it.”

“I don’t know, Ed. I’m not sure of too many things right now. I need to sit in a taxi alone and later read a book with half of my mind while the half that really counts does some thinking. I need to get out of this aura of relentlessness that you somehow carry around with you. I... Good night, Ed. Call me in a couple of days.”

She moved quickly, crossing the hallway, reaching the stair well, and sliding from view.