“It wasn't an accident. Terry Chavez was mugged by a gang of thugs right on the sidewalk.” Johnny turned his head in time to receive the indignant candle power of the brown eyes. “And Al says the police haven't been able to find out a thing. We sent a basket of fruit over to him this afternoon.”
Terry Chavez, Johnny thought. Charlie Roketenetz's trainer. A white-haired, lean, half-Mexican, half-Indian old man with the reputation of never, using three words when two would do. Johnny's mind leaped ahead. Could it have been Chavez whom Manuel had been to see in the hospital and about whose health Rick Manfredi had inquired in Spanish? It was on the tip of Johnny's tongue to ask the girl if she knew Manfredi, but he decided against it. In her innocence she might repeat something at the office that could get her in trouble-along with a few other people. Johnny thought grimly to himself that trouble seemed to be using Lonnie Turner's office as a clearing house.
He sought to get the afternoon back on the rails. “It was real nice of you to let me rob the cradle today, baby.”
“Rob the cradle!” the girl repeated with distaste. “Do I look like an infant?”
“Not by a hundred forty pounds, kid.”
She looked unmollified. “I'm free, white-”
“An' almost twenty-one,” he interrupted her. “I know. Not to change the subject, but now that you're a member in good standin' of the wicked world, when you havin' me to dinner over at your place?”
“You know I can't do that!” she said in surprise.
“Can't cook, huh?”
“Certainly I can cook!”
“Then what's the hitch? Monday night? Tuesday?”
She nibbled at her lower lip. “You-hurry me along too quickly,” she complained.
“You got to run nowadays just to keep up. What's the harm in a home-cooked meal an' a little sofa-wrestlin' afterwards?”
“There'll be no sofa-wrestling,” she replied with dignity. “And one more remark like that and there'll be no home-cooked meal.”
“Baby, you can give me the ground rules when I get up to bat,” Johnny told her. He looked around for the waiter. “Tomorrow? Tuesday?”
“You're hopeless,” she replied primly. “I don't know why I listen to you.”
“My unbounded charm.” He grinned at her. “Well? Chicken?”
She flushed, but was silent as the waiter approached and Johnny paid the check. “Make it Tuesday,” she said abruptly when he had gone and Johnny was assisting her on with her coat.
“I wouldn't kid you, Stacy,” he said softly. “I can hardly wait.” On the way out he took her the long way around, out of sight of the end of the bar at which they had seen Dr. McDevitt and Ed Keith.
CHAPTER VII
In the apartment's tiny kitchen Johnny mixed a moderate rye highball and carried it in to Sally in the big armchair in the living room.
“I just wish you'd stop babying me!” she protested as he handed her the glass, a hint of exasperation in her tone. “I'm perfectly all right!”
“Sure you are,” Johnny agreed. Physically, maybe, he thought. The pleasantly small features still looked drawn. That particular note in her voice, though… He bent down over the chair and slipped his hands about her slender waist. “Watch the glass,” he warned her as he picked her up and sat down in the chair with her in his lap. “By God, Ma, in wartime you'd be classified as a dangerous weapon. A man could cut himself on those ribs.”
“Only notarized complaints accepted, sir,” she answered placidly.
“Good thing one kind of meat sticks to your bones.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “What's that?”
“Me.”
“Hush, man.” She took a sip from the highball and replaced the glass on the table beside the chair. “I don't know why it is men feel they always have to talk about things!”
“Our braggin' natures, Ma.” He tipped up her chin to examine the still-shadowed brown eyes, which regarded him steadily. “'Course a man should really shake down the furnace once in a while to make good on his brag,” he continued thoughtfully, and stood up with Sally in his arms, alert to the first faint movement of negation. It never came. When her hands did tighten on his shoulders, he found that they were attuned to a familiar wave length.
In the bedroom he slid her easily to her feet and turned her about like a mannequin as he unzipped her. She stood passively as he whisked her out of dress, slip and underwear and speedily removed his own things. Over her shoulder in the vanity mirror he admired the slim, glowing pallor of her body, and, sensing what he was doing, she half-twisted within the circle of his arms to see.
“Voyeur!” she charged breathlessly, and lunged up against him as she tried to dodge the big palm she could see about to descend on her small ivory buttock. She yipped at the crack of his hand and rebounded, only to be engulfed again in the big arms. He whirled her aloft and over to the bed, afire with the silken feel of her, and then his strong hands gathered her in for the harvest.
“Nice… to have you… back with us, Ma-”
He awakened from a light doze to find himself alone on the bed with a blanket thrown over him. He rolled onto his back and stretched mightily, digging his toes luxuriantly into the sheets. Up on an elbow, he looked about him expectantly. “Hey, Sally!”
Before the sound of his voice died away she appeared in the bedroom doorway with a tray in her hands. She wore a robe of Johnny's hitched up at the middle and bloused over the cord, with the cuffs turned back three or four times.
“You'd be a sensation on the Avenue in that outfit,” he told her lazily. “You look like a pregnant monk.” He sat up, examined the contents of the tray and nodded approvingly at the bottled beer and the outsized ham, cheese and onion sandwiches on thick, black rye bread. “Now you're readin' my mind, Ma.”
“Never too difficult,” she informed him. She sat down on the edge of the bed and pushed back the huge sleeves of the robe. “The Killain war cry is food, women and trouble.” She smiled as she poured a glass of beer for herself; Johnny already had a bottle in his hand. “Not necessarily in that order, of course. More properly, shouldn't it be women, trouble and food?”
Johnny ignored her comfortably and, leaning forward, took a large bite from the sandwich Sally had selected for herself. “Mmmmm! Boy, those onions really got some zing to 'em, haven't they?”
“Like the man that bought them?” she asked lightly, and laughed at his expression. A look of surprise came over her face as she sobered. “You know, I think that's the first time I've laughed since-”
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Don't backslide on me, now,”
“Don't worry.” She drew a long breath. “I haven't forgotten it, but I guess I've accepted it. I can talk about it. Now.” She wriggled into a more comfortable position on the bed. “And that reminds me. What am I going to do about that money Lieutenant Dameron was over here asking questions about?”
“Spend it on me,” he advised her, and started on his second bottle of beer.
“But it's ridiculous!” She bounced up and down on the bed in her vehemence. “It's not Charlie's money! He never had any money! He borrowed seventy-five dollars from me to help pay his last year's taxes.”
“Don't spill the beer, Ma. Whose money is it, then? I never saw Jake Gidlow in his life he didn't need a clean shirt. It don't add up that it's his money.”
She was watching him closely. “You think you know whose it is, don't you?” He hesitated a second too long. “You do, don't you?”
“I know whose it could be,” he amended.
“Well, tell him to come and get it as soon as the police release it, and have them stop bothering me about it.” She sounded very determined, and Johnny smiled at her for an instant before he turned serious.
“Look, Sally. I don't think anyone can afford to claim this money. Gidlow was probably hiding it out for someone to keep it away from the tax people, an' whoever claims it now is claimin' a fine and a jail sentence at the
