“Yes, she is.”
“Yeah,” the man said, licking his bottom lip. He moved his hand down from her neck to her breasts, where he pressed the blade against one of her nipples. “Real nice!”
“Decker—” she said, biting her lip.
“Why is she calling you Decker?” the man asked, looking puzzled. “Your name’s Dover.”
“No, my name’s Decker.”
“But—oh, I get it,” the man said. “You’re using a phony name.”
“I’m using my real and only name,” Decker said, “and it’s Decker. Are you sure you’ve got the right man?”
“I’ve got the right girl,” the man said, frowning. He leaned down so that his mouth was against Linda’s ear and asked, “How many men you got, girl?” The man pressed his blade tightly against her nipple. A small drop of blood appeared, and she gasped. “That’s what they like you to think, women,” he said. “That you’re the only one.”
“You don’t like women, do you?”
“I like them,” the man said, “I like to cut their nipples off.” He looked at Decker and added, “And I like to cut them while their men watch.”
“Only I’m not her man.”
“Ah,” the man with the razor said, “now we’re getting someplace. Dover’s her man, right?”
“Right,” Decker said, “and if he catches me here with her, he’ll kill me.”
“Is he coming here?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Decker shrugged, still trying to figure a way to his feet.
“When did you say he was coming, Linda?” Decker asked Linda, hoping that she wasn’t too far gone to go along with the play. “It’s nearly midnight now.”
“He—he said he’d be here at one.”
“See?” Decker said. “I’m running late already. He’ll be here soon. I have to get out of here—” Decker said, starting to rise.
“You sit back down there on the floor, friend, or I’ll cut her tit off,” the man snapped.
Decker watched as he moved the razor from her nipple to the top slope of her right breast.
“I’ve done this before, you know,” the man said. “You start here and just cut around.” He made a circuit of her breast and then stopped at the upper slope again. “It comes right off in your hand,” he said, sliding his other hand underneath to cup her breast. “I’ve cut off some big ones. These aren’t too big, but they’re nice and firm. Probably weigh as much as a small puppy.”
“Well, like I told you,” Decker said, standing up, “I’m not her man, so if you’re going to cut off her breast I wish you’d wait until I leave. That’s got to be messy.”
Decker was standing now, in a much better position to mount an offensive.
The man with the razor was confused—it was plain on his face. He had one hand underneath her breast and one above, holding the razor. The gun he’d taken from the night table was in his pocket, and he didn’t have one of his own.
“I’m getting dressed.”
“Stop!”
He removed both hands from Linda’s breast, and she sprawled onto the bed.
Now was the time for Decker to move, while the razor man was trying to get the gun from his pocket.
Decker launched himself over the bed and slammed into the man waist high. He felt the razor open his back as they fell to the floor. The razor man’s hand was flailing away, trying to cut him again, while his other hand was pinned in his pocket, trying to get the gun out. His hand had closed around the gun, but there wasn’t much he could do while they were both lying on it.
Decker knew this and knew he had to act fast. He set his left hand against the floor, lifted his weight up off the man and then swung his right fist in a short, vicious arc against the man’s chin.
Decker then came down hard on the man’s wrist to jar the razor loose, just in case he was playing possum. He turned him over to get his gun out. As he put his hand in the man’s pocket, the man groaned and came awake, and his finger jerked the trigger. The gun was pointed at his own stomach. Decker felt the body jerk and then go limp.
He stood up and looked at Linda, who was sitting up in bed now.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“Y-yes,” she said, “but you’re not.”
“What?”
“Your back,” she said. “It’s all full of blood.”
Chapter Twenty
“You what?” Tally asked.
“Cut myself shaving.”
“Very funny,” the lieutenant said. “Where’s the body?”
“What makes you think there’s a body?”
“I can smell blood in the air,” Tally said, “and from what I can see, a lot of it is yours.”
“Can we get this man to the hospital?” Linda Hamilton asked irritably…
Decker had asked Linda if she knew anyone who would go for the police, and she said that the woman on the next floor up had a teenage son who had a crush on her. He’d go out if she asked him.
“Ask him,” he’d said.
“You’re bleeding—” she’d said, but he’d cut her off.
“Get him on his way, and then we can do something about that.”
“All right.”
“Where are your extra sheets?”
“In there,” she’d said, pointing while dressing.
He took out a sheet while she was gone and covered the body of the razor man. When she returned, she took a pillowcase from a pillow and pressed it to the cut on his back.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” she said. “All that blood fooled me. But you’re still going to have to be sewn up.”
“After the police arrive,” he’d said. Now that they had, she wanted to get him taken care of…
“In a moment, Miss…”
“Hamilton.”
“Miss Hamilton.”
“The body’s over there,” Decker said, pointing to the lump beneath the sheet.
Tally walked over, lifted the sheet, took a look and then dropped it.
“You know him?” he asked Decker.
“No.”
“But he tried to kill you.”
“Yes.”
“But you killed him first.”
“By accident.”
“Miss?”
Linda gave Tally a withering look before answering. She also pulled another pillowcase over and replaced the first one, which had soaked through with blood.
“We were asleep,” she said, “and that man came through the window. He threatened to…to cut my—to cut me, and Decker jumped him. While they were struggling, Decker got cut, and then I heard a gun go off, and the other man was dead.”
