Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime

Thirteen

I woke the next morning stiff and sore-but I was grateful to wake up, at all. If Dori hadn’t come to the door, I might have been dead.

Dori stayed the night. She checked my eyes to make sure my pupils contracted in the light-she’d seen a doctor do this to the girl that had fallen onstage-and pronounced me concussion free.

We went to bed but didn’t have sex. Not that I didn’t want to. Dori’s all woman, and having her next to me gave me a raging hard-on all night, but my aches and pains just wouldn’t allow it. Believe me, we tried. The second time she whacked my sore knee with one of hers and we gave it up.

However, when we woke the next morning I was still hard, and she had pity on me.

Then she sprang a surprise on me while she was getting dressed.

“I think you should consider that a goodbye blowjob, Eddie.”

“What?” I’d been distracted watching her move about the room naked, enjoying the play of her dancer’s muscles beneath her smooth, pale skin.

“You’ve gotten yourself into something funny,” she said, “and I don’t mean ‘ha ha’ funny.”

“Well,” I said, “you’re right about that.” I watched as she fit her showgirl tits into her bra, then pulled on her top.

“Those men scared the shit out of me last night,” she said, pulling on her panties and hip-huggers at the same time, “so now that I know you’re all right I don’t think I want to be around if and when they come back.”

I couldn’t blame her for that. They’d pretty much scared the shit out of me, too-which, according to one of them, had been their job. Hurting me, that just seemed to be something the first guy wanted to do because he liked it.

She put on her shoes, grabbed her purse and came over to the bed to kiss me goodbye.

“Give me a call when you’ve got it all sorted out,” she said, then added, “then we’ll see.”

After she was gone I realized she’d been feeling the same thing I had, that maybe we’d run our course. We’d probably bump into each other around town-I’d even go to see her show-but we both knew that anything more than that was no longer an option.

In other words, we were done.

Being from Brooklyn I had seen a lot of street fights in my life. Hell, I had even done my time as a kid in a street gang, but had outgrown that stage very quickly. My point is I’m not really all that brave, but getting beat up didn’t send me running right to the cops, either. In the light of day I decided not to bring them into it-at least, not until I talked to Dean, again.

I took a shower when I got up and then checked myself out in the mirror. None of my injuries were visible except for a bruised knee-and no one would see that once I got dressed. The wound on my scalp was covered by my hairline, at first glance no one could tell I’d been attacked. Probably the only explaining I’d have to do was about the slight limp. Good thing Dori and I had iced the knee the night before, or it would have been much worse come morning. It was still somewhat swollen, but not so bad I couldn’t get my pants on. As far as thelimp went, I was hoping that it would get stronger and start to handle all my weight as the day progressed.

I made myself some coffee and tried not to rub my knee while I drank it. There was nothing else going on in my life that would cause two men to break into my house, wait for me, and then try to hurt me. And “break” was not even the right word. There was no damage to my door, or to any of my windows. Those guys had gotten in slick as you please, which meant they were pros-and that meant they had probably been paid to do what they did-only they hadn’t gotten the job done. Did that mean they’d be back? And wasn’t that a good enough reason to call the police?

I was still going over the one hand and the other hand when the phone rang.

“Is this Eddie Gianelli?” a man’s harsh voice asked. I didn’t recognize it, but got a chill down my spine anyway. I had a feeling I knew why he was calling.

“That’s right. What can I do for you?”

“Stay healthy, Eddie,” the man said. “I can always send my friends back around.’

“Who is this?”

“That don’t matter.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?”

“Stick to what you know best,” he said. “Don’t be tryin’ to branch out.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talkin’ about stickin’ your nose where it don’t belong,” the man said. “I’m talkin’ about doin’ favors for people and gettin’ hurt.”

“You’re talking about vague threats,” I said, starting to get angry. “How am I supposed to know what you’re warning me off of if you don’t tell me?”

“Names don’t matter,” he said. “You got a job, do it. Just don’t be freelancing, Eddie. It ain’t healthy.”

“For Chrissake,” I yelled, “this isn’t a Bogart movie, you stupid sonofa-”

But he was gone. I hung up, feeling totally frustrated. He had tobe talking about me helping Frank and Dean, but why wouldn’t he say it?

I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Bardini investigations,” a girl’s voice said.

“Is he there, Penny?” I asked. “It’s Eddie.”

“Hey, Eddie, how’s it goin’? Yeah, he’s here. Hold on.”

She put me through to Danny.

“Lookin’ for results already?” he asked. “You’re a harsh taskmaster, buddy.”

“I think I may have already gotten more results than I bargained for, Danny,” I said. “I need to talk to you. I’m coming to your office. I can be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Bring coffee,” he said, and hung up.