She kept going. 'Roger had this liquid in a bottle, an anesthetic. He wanted me to use it on Philip. Get him drunk or stoned, then inject him in the buttocks. Said it couldn't be traced.'
'He gave you the bottle?'
'No. I wouldn't take it then. After Philip died, I was at Roger's house. I was still seeing him until I filed the lawsuit. I knew he kept the bottle in a small refrigerator, so I took it. I wanted to turn it over to the authorities.'
'Did you?'
She looked away. 'No. I know I should have, but then everything would have come out in the newspapers. I've worked hard to earn respectability, and it would all be gone.'
'But you sued him for malpractice.'
'I didn't want to. I didn't want the attention. But I was afraid if I didn't sue Roger, it would raise suspicions. Philip's daughter, that tomboy bitch, would have thought Roger and I killed him.'
Lights were flashing like a pinball machine. Susan Corrigan may have been right about Roger Salisbury but wrong about Melanie Corrigan. Melanie had to be telling the truth,
I thought. She couldn't risk telling me about the drug if she had been in on it.
'What was Roger doing here today?'
'I never really told him it was over. I didn't want to hurt him. When I filed the suit, I told him we'd get back together after the trial. Today I told him to stay away and he freaked.'
'Show me the drug,' I said, already knowing the response.
She gave me a helpless look that I hadn't seen on her before. 'I can't,' she said. 'It's gone, stolen.'
I decided there was nothing to be gained in telling Melanie Corrigan that her beloved stepdaughter had been poking around in her underwear drawer. 'What do you want me to do?' I asked.
She half smiled and half sighed. Her eyes seemed to widen, to change from business to bedroom, a neat trick. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun was setting, and inside, the room was bathed in pink. Melanie Corrigan's skin took on a soft glow, and it hadn't looked bad in the light. She glided around the bar to where I was planted on the hard-as-granite barstool. She pulled up the silky strap one more time and now her perky nipples poked at the flimsy fabric. Maybe they were standing at attention because of the cool evening air or maybe it had something to do with the full moon coming up over the bay. Or maybe it was the proximity of me. Or maybe, just maybe, I should have my head examined. Ready to drink that pretty poison, as big a fool as Roger Salisbury.
At that moment what I wanted most was knowledge of self. I would have liked to figure out that urge that started halfway between my knees and chest and threatened to spread northward until it flooded whatever brain cells still worked without a jump start. I would have liked to, but I didn't have time because she looked me right in the eyes, smiled, and then slapped me.
There are slaps that ring your ears and slaps that bring tears to your eyes. This one could do neither. Less sting than my aftershave. I smiled at her and stood up. She had on a funny look, watching me with pouting lips. She had a good pout.
Then she slapped me again. Harder. Not enough to take an eight-count, but probably enough to bring some color to my cheeks, as well as to hers. Especially hers. She was enjoying this, warming up around the eyes. A hot little smile now. And crack, another slap. I was getting used to it.
She threw her arms around my neck, pressed herself up against me, then rocked up and down on her tiptoes as if stretching her calves. What she was doing was rubbing parts of her against parts of me like a very friendly, very slinky cat. My hands slid down her back to her round, tight bottom. She was firm where a woman ought to be firm and soft where a woman ought to be soft.
I looked at her close up. She had tiny golden freckles across the bridge of her nose, and little smile lines creased the corners of her mouth. A look of innocence and mirth. But the eyes were something else, wet and wild. And her neck was fragrant with the sweetness of the tropical night. A provocative blend of the pure and the wanton.
'When your face gets red, your eyes are even bluer,' she said.
'Wait'll I start bleeding. I'll be another Paul Newman.' 145
'You like being slapped,' she said. Telling me, not asking me.
'Not as much as some other things,' I said.
'You could learn.' She pulled me toward her, looking into my eyes from under long lashes, still standing on her toes, straining against me. 'You're a big man,' she said, running her hands across my back. 'More man than Roger or Philip.'
Then she decided to see if I could swallow her tongue.
I could.
Just then an ugly noise from outside filled the room. A shout in Japanese split the air like a police siren. It could have awakened the dead at Guadalcanal, and it nearly cost Melanie Corrigan the tip of her slippery tongue. I let her go, and she straightened her sliding strap and brushed a hand through her hair.
'Must be Sergio,' she said, as if there was nothing unusual in a banzai yell interrupting a perfectly fine kiss. We retraced the path to the foyer without pausing for food or water. Then another bellow from outside, and the front door shuddered as if hit by a wrecking ball. 'He probably saw your car outside. He's insanely jealous.'
Yet another Oriental war whoop and again the door groaned in pain.
'Sergio?' I asked.
'Sergio Machado-Alvarez,' she said, serenely. 'My chauffeur, boat captain, and… friend. We'd better open the door or he'll just break it down.'
She punched the code into the digital alarm and unleashed the deadbolt. The huge door swung open to reveal a swarthy, moustachioed block of concrete. Sneakers, sweat pants, and a sleeveless muscle shirt, a tattoo of a lightning bolt on his tricep. He had plenty of beef to show, huge shoulders and chest, a fireplug of muscle and malice. Recently, I'd seen even more of him on videotape.
Sergio Machado-Alvarez stepped into the foyer and shot me a sideways smile, a mean little smile under the drooping moustache. He had big gray teeth like a double row of gravestones. He needed a shave and always would.
There was only one thing that detracted from his overall appearance as a menace to society. He was short. Like a lot of little guys he probably was working hard on the compensation factor. Building huge muscles, getting tough with karate, having something to show off. Stand at any gas station and study men and their cars in relation to their size. Check out how many short guys drive Sedan de Villes and Lincoln Town Cars. They need pillows to see over the steering wheel. Then come the big guys. They have to unfold a section at a time to get out of their Alfa Romeos and Corvettes.
'Do you know who I am?' he asked. A voice of practiced toughness, a faint Cuban accent.
'Something that escaped from the zoo.'
'Hijo de puta,' he snarled, 'I'll dig you another asshole.'
'Why not spare yourself the trouble and just lend me one of yours?' Even I didn't know what that meant, the mouth being quicker than the mind.
He took a few seconds to think it over, then dropped into the half-moon stance with legs spread, left foot forward, hands on hips. I needed this like I needed to be in traction, which I might be if either of us found it necessary to show off for the lady of the house. I had been hitting the heavy bag at home. But the heavy bag doesn't know karate. And this guy looked like he intended to scatter my teeth.
'Hombre, you think you're tough?'
'No, I'm a pansy. You're tough.'
He was trying to figure out if I was pulling his chain. He was the kind of guy who needed to take a thought and spread it on the kitchen table with the comics page. 'I got cojones grandes, balls the size of grapefruit,' he said slowly, as if he had memorized the phrase.
'You can take penicillin for that,' I suggested.
His throat released a growl that a Doberman would be proud to own. Melanie shook a long fingernail and said, 'Sergio, Mr. Lassiter is my guest. Please mind your manners. And don't you have a class to teach?'
The sinister little hulk looked at his watch, his lips moving slowly.
'Little hand on the six, big hand on the eleven,' I said, helpfully. 'You can figure it out.'
His eyes flicked toward Melanie. 'I got to train housewives to kick their husbands in the balls.' Then he
