You’re here for a rest, not to make an arrest.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“If we are not here for rest and relaxation, big boy, I am going home.”
She turned and started to walk away, but I put out my hand and stopped her, turned her to me. She had tears in her eyes.
“Mike, don’t ruin this…”
“Hey, kid, I’m not drinkin’, am I? I’m just curious about what’s going on out here in the sticks.”
“Leave the curiosity to those scraggly cats, why don’t you?”
Poochie edged up near us and said, “Golly, Mike, why do you make the nice lady cry when you like her so much? I can tell you do.”
When he realized what he had said, he turned his head and blushed. It was so silly and cute that both Velda and I wound up grinning at each other.
Then her expression turned serious and her dark eyes took on a sensual cast. “ Do you, Mike?”
“What?”
“ Like me… so much?”
I looked at her. She was as pretty as anything I had ever seen. Tall, jet black hair, always in that sweeping pageboy that I so admired. Big and beautiful with more curves than a mountain road…
She was warm under my hands. I tilted her chin and bent my head. Her mouth found mine and she trembled under me as our mouths surrendered to each other.
When I held her away from me, she was gasping. “That was the first time you ever did that, Mike.”
“I’ve wanted to for a long time,” I told her roughly.
“Why?” Her eyes were soft and inviting. I ran my fingers through her hair.
“You know why. A dame works for a guy, and it gets out of hand, and all of a sudden-”
“Shut-up and kiss me again.”
I did, but then Poochie was right there watching us with a big smile plastered on his baby-face mug. The kiss turned into a mutual laugh, and then I tugged at her arm.
“Let’s go, Velda.”
She just nodded.
We were already walking when I called back, “So long, Poochie!”
“So long! You’ll come see me again, won’t you?”
“Sure will!” we said together.
As we glanced back, we saw him dash into the shanty and come out with a shell. He rushed to us and handed it to Velda.
“A pretty present for the pretty lady,” he said with a shy grin.
Velda took it, looking pleased. It was his latest, the Nativity scene.
“Why, thank you, Poochie,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
When we were walking back to the car, she squeezed my arm and lay her head against my shoulder. “I like Poochie, too, Mike. Maybe we shouldn’t leave Sidon until we know he’s safe.”
“Yeah.” I lit up a Lucky. “I have to make sure that Dekkert character isn’t a threat to him.”
“You’re a softie, underneath it all, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. All squishy.”
“If it weren’t for Poochie back there, I’d still be thinking you were just an old so-and-so.”
I blew a cloud of cigarette smoke and broke out my lopsided smile.
“Kitten,” I said, pretending to be shocked. “Watch your language.”
They were waiting for me when I ambled into the police station. I hoped they’d enjoyed themselves, speculating on what they’d do to me.
There was a counter at right, but otherwise this was a fair-sized bullpen of half a dozen desks. Everybody from last night was there-the athlete, the scarecrow and Dekkert, of course. But today they were in police uniforms. Somebody reached for a phone while I stood there jamming a butt in my sneer and firing it up.
Then a fat slob in a too-small uniform and a too-large cap squeezed out through a wood-and-pebbled glass door that said CHIEF OF POLICE. His face was a bloated red mask of fury; all the purple veins in his nose had dilated until it looked like a cross section of a Martian landscape. His thick lips were working with anger at the thought of anyone flaunting his authority.
“Morning, Chiefie,” I said with a respectful nod.
Chief Beales said nothing. Just froze between his office and me.
Dekkert was sitting behind one of the front two desks with veins popping on his forehead and cords standing out on his neck, but most of his face was hidden behind a swathing of bandages. If he wore an expression I couldn’t see it. Not that I gave a damn.
He pulled his bulk from the chair and got to his feet, fists clenched into a pair of hams. The cops on either side of him tried to keep him back behind that desk, with hands on his shoulders.
“Let him go,” I said, with a dismissive wave.
They did.
He came out and around the desk, moving at me as though he were going to beat my brains out. Maybe he thought last night was a fluke. If he did, he changed his mind in a hurry.
I never moved.
He stopped in front of me, breathing heavily in my face. No onions this time. Tabasco on his morning eggs, maybe.
The big man seemed almost insane with anger. “I ought to kill you, Hammer!”
“Dekkert, I told you a long time ago, back in the city,” I said casually, “you are welcome to try it. Any time.”
Every word I spoke must have gone through him like a knife. He just stood there, his huge chest rising and falling to where his badge might pop off. I could see him trying to force himself to make a move.
I laughed in his face. “You’re not going to try anything, Dekkert.”
His teeth were clenched and his eyes showed white all round. “I’m not? And why is that, Hammer?”
“Because you’re yellow.”
I put my mitt in his puss and shoved. As he stumbled back against his desk, everybody in the room stopped breathing. Except me.
The bastard’s eyes made narrow slits.
I grinned at him.
His hand streaked for the gun at his hip. I let him get it out before I bothered to move. But when I did, it was faster than his eyes could follow. I fired from a crouch and his gun spun out of his hand and clunked to the floor, while from the corner of my eye I saw wood chips fly from the desk, barely a foot away from the chief.
Dekkert was looking at his gun hand, and the ragged red groove carved there, amazed.
I got to my feet, the. 45 still in hand, waiting to see if any of these other fine officers of the law had anything to say or do about what just happened.
They didn’t. They were too busy standing there shaking like somebody opened a door and let in a cold damn wind.
Finally I shoved my gun back under my shoulder, sauntered over to Dekkert and grabbed a handful of his shirt. With the back of my free hand, I smashed him across the bridge of that nebulous nose. He tried to pull away, but he wasn’t that big. I hit him twice again, until blood stained the bandages on his face.
“You forgot something, Dekkert,” I informed him, his shirt in my fist holding him up, depriving his feet of the floor. “You forgot that I practice with my rod and can get it out in a fraction of a second. And you forgot something else. I never take it out unless I intend to use it. The next time you pull a on gun me, I put one between your eyes.”
I turned to the rest of them, moving from one face to another. “That goes for the rest of you goof-offs. Spread the word to any off-duty brothers in blue.”
I pushed Dekkert away. He was holding his gauze-covered face, peering at me from between his fingers, like a child afraid Daddy would get out the razor strop next.
