towel. He was in a pair of navy swim trunks and a red t-shirt. His legs and arms were hairless, and he looked much younger than his forty or so years. He had dark eyes and pale skin and looked relaxed, head back, blowing smoke rings for his own amusement. He had the kind of nasty, smirky face that fraternity boys never grow out of.
“A little humid,” he said.
His voice echoed across the water.
“Could rain,” I admitted, mine echoing similarly. “But you can’t bitch about the temperature.”
“Sure I can.” He lowered his chin and grinned at me.
Was it just a dumb remark, or was there something in it?
I stretched, then walked around the pool-diving board was at the other end-and knelt to retrieve the two towels under my chair. One, of course, was rolled up like an ice cream cake with a nine millimeter center. I sat down, placed the bundle as inconspicuously as possible on the cement to my right-Monahan was seated at my left- and began toweling off casually.
“Looks like all the sweet pussy took a walk,” he said with a sneer.
I wasn’t sure I got that, but figuring he meant the bikini girls, I tried this: “Lotta nice stuff gettin’ strutted this afternoon, all right. I guess they’re all over at the Paddlewheel.”
He nodded. Smoked some more. No more rings. “This motel’s the loneliest place in town, after dark.”
“Rough little burg,” I noted.
“Paddlewheel’s safe enough. Games are straight. Good food. Decent entertainment.” He shook his head. Blew dragon smoke out his nostrils. “But you can get your ass handed to you downtown, brother.”
“Yeah?”
“Joint called the Lucky Devil, especially.”
“Rough?”
“Rougher than a cob.” He extended a hand. “Sam Mason. Insurance game.”
I shook it. “Jack Gibson. Veterinary medicine.”
“Really? Pets or farm animals?”
“Know much about farms?”
“Was raised on one.”
I gave him half a grin. “Me? Wouldn’t know a heifer from a hog. My line of meds is strictly the pet trade.”
He laughed and smoke came out. “You want to make a buck in this hellhole? Try selling penicillin.”
“Not at the Paddlewheel, though…”
“No! No. I don’t even think any high-class ass works out of there. Bluff City is too smalltown for call girls, and the kind of girls you meet on the Haydee’s side, you don’t take home to mother…unless mother is a doctor specializing in the clap.”
I shook my head, did a little shiver. “Since AIDS came around, Mrs. Gibson’s little boy don’t go out in the rain without his rubbers.”
“Ha! Don’t blame you. I’m a happily married man with a beautiful wife. Two healthy kids. I wouldn’t risk all that, fooling around with some trashy little cunt.”
I grinned at him, recalling the carry-out cutie back home. “What about the little beauties who were sunning themselves this afternoon?”
“I’m married,” he said with a grin, “not dead.”
Yet.
“I still have a pulse myself,” I said.
“You’re not tied down?”
“Nope.” I nodded toward the memory of the bikini girls around the pool. “What do you think, they’re college girls?”
“The ones today? They’re secretaries and office workers from St. Louis, on holiday.”
“You talk to ’em?”
“Maybe a little.” He grinned again. “No charge for looking. But there are some college girls from Iowa City checked in, too. This is nice, young, sweet pussy, my friend. Looking to be naughty. It’d be a sin not to help ’em out. Downright fucking unkind.”
Not only had he already forgotten the beautiful wife, the Chinese chickie was yesterday’s carry-out, too.
“Well,” I said, and reached down for the rolled towel, then slipped my hand inside, around the nine millimeter’s grip, “nice meeting you.”
The silencer wasn’t attached, but the towel would muffle a shot, though the cloth would likely catch fire.
He grinned again. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said.
“I think I can keep that promise,” I said.
I didn’t see where he could have a gun on him, not in swim trunks and t-shirt, but I took no chances, walking at an angle to my room, keeping the seated man in my eyeline.
As I reached my door, I saw him get up and slip off the shirt, his body ghostly pale in the moonlight. He dove in. He was doing his own laps as I went inside.
The bed cut the room nearly in half, and I sat on its edge facing the door with the gun in my hand, trained there. I was still in my trunks, which were damp, and I wasn’t completely dry myself. Then it occurred to me that if he was brazen enough to shoot through the door, he might get me.
So I moved down the bed, near the headboard, and sat and waited.
Nothing.
That had just been talk, right? Friendly talk? Guy stuff? He was staying here, I was staying here, two fellas taking a swim and striking up a conversation. He had a job to do but wouldn’t necessarily head over to the Paddlewheel till near dawn, when the time came to execute his plan. It was not at all unnatural for him to relax by the pool, to swim, to chat amiably with another guest. He had time to kill.
Could he have discovered his partner was dead?
I had the body, of course, but I hadn’t cleaned up after myself except to remove fingerprints. Blood was still on the refrigerator, and on the floor, and even on the back steps and driveway gravel-crusty and dark by now, but unmistakably blood, especially to a pro like Monahan. A clean kill in that the guy went quickly, but otherwise sloppy.
Like me?
Was I too sloppy and stupid to survive?
I showered and sat up on the bed in my shorts with a gun in my hand watching an old movie on Turner Classics. Monahan did not come knocking, and for that matter did not come not knocking…
This was what I got for staying at the same goddamn motel as my target. Perhaps I should just get in the Sunbird, dump the blond kid’s body along the road somewhere, and head back to Wisconsin. This was feeling like too much risk, with too much exposure. Sure, I had invested some time and money and spent a couple of nine millimeter slugs on Mike Love. But why chance it?
On the other hand, I was still about twenty grand short of what I needed to buy Wilma’s Welcome Inn. I wasn’t in a position to get a bank loan. I needed cash.
So I put on my Don Johnson duds and headed over to the Paddlewheel.
Chapter Three
I pulled in about nine-thirty and found the big parking lot nearly full, the Paddlewheel doing remarkable busi- ness for a Wednesday night. At the far end, a brown-and-gold vehicle emblazoned SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT was parked by a fence, nose forward, with what I presumed was an off-duty deputy sitting there to provide security. His windows were down and he was smoking-the amber eye of his cigarette and his vague shape were all I could make out.
His presence didn’t alarm me-I’d have been surprised if some off-duty law enforcement rep hadn’t been so employed here-but neither did it mean the master of the Paddlewheel castle was safe from becoming the victim of a
