The Girl Hunters

'My face was grinning again. Not me, just the face part. I stared at the wall and grinned idiotically. 'If she is alive, I'll find her. If she is dead, I'll find who killed her. Then slowly, real slowly, I'll take him apart, inch by inch, joint by joint, until dying will be the best thing left for him.'

I didn't realize that I was almost out of the chair, every muscle twisted into a monstrous spasm of murder. Then I felt her hands pulling me back and I let go and sat still until the hate seeped out of me.

'Thanks.'

'I know what you feel like, Mike.'

'You do?'

'Yes.' Her hand ran down the side of my face, the fingers tracing a warm path along my jaw. 'It's the way I felt about Leo. He was a great man, then suddenly for no reason at all he was dead.'

'I'm sorry, Laura.'

'But it's not over for me anymore, either.'

I swung around in the chair and looked up at her. She was magnificent then, a study in symmetry, each curve of her wonderful body coursing into another, her face showing the full beauty of maturity, her eyes and mouth rich with color.

She reached out her hand and I stood up, tilted her chin up with my fingers and held her that way. 'You're thinking, kitten.'

'With you I have to.'

'Why?'

'Because somehow you know Leo's death is part of her, and I feel the same way you do. Whoever killed Leo is going to die too.'

I let go of her face, put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her close to me. 'If he's the one I want I'll kill him for you, kid.'

'No, Mike. I'll do it myself.' And her voice was as cold and as full of purpose as my own when she said it. Then she added, 'You just find that one for me.'

'You're asking a lot, girl.'

'Am I? After you left I found out all about you. It didn't take long. It was very fascinating information, but nothing I didn't know the first minute I saw you.'

'That was me of a long time ago. I've been seven years drunk and I'm just over the bum stage now. Maybe I could drop back real easy. I don't know.'

'I know.'

'Nobody knows. Besides, I'm not authorized to pursue investigations.'

'That doesn't seem to stop you.'

A grin started to etch my face again. 'You're getting to a point, kid.'

She laughed gently, a full, quiet laugh. Once again her hand came up to my face. 'Then I'll help you find your woman, Mike, if you'll find who killed Leo.'

'Laura--'

'When Leo died the investigation was simply routine. They were more concerned about the political repercussions than in locating his killer. They forgot about that one, but I haven't. I thought I had, but I really hadn't. Nobody would look for me--they all promised and turned in reports, but they never really cared about finding that one. But you do, Mike, and somehow I know you will. Oh, you have no license and no authority, but I have money and it will put many things at your disposal. You take it. You find your woman, and while you're doing it, or before, or after, whatever you like, you find the one I want. Tomorrow I'll send you five thousand dollars in cash. No questions. No paperwork. No reports. Even if nothing comes of it there is no obligation on you.'

Under my hands she was trembling. It didn't show on her face, but her shoulders quivered with tension. 'You loved him very much,' I stated.

She nodded. 'As you loved her.'

We were too close then, both of us feeling the jarring impact of new and sudden emotions. My hands were things of their own, leaving her shoulders to slide down to her waist, then reaching behind her to bring her body close to mine until it was touching, then pressing until a fusion was almost reached.

She had to gasp to breathe, and fingers that were light on my face were suddenly as fierce and demanding as my own as she brought me down to meet her mouth and the scalding touch of her tongue that worked serpentlike in a passionate orgy that screamed of release after so long a time.

She pulled away, her breasts moving spasmodically against my chest. Her eyes were wet and shimmering with a glow of disbelief that it could ever happen again and she said softly: 'You, Mike--I want a man. It could never be anybody but--a man.' She turned her eyes on mine, pleading. 'Please, Mike.'

'You never have to say please,' I told her, then I kissed her again and we found our place in time and in distance, lost people who didn't have to hurry or be cautious and who could enjoy the sensual discomfort of a cold leather couch on naked skin and take pleasure in whispering of clothing and relish the tiny sounds of a bursting seam; two whose appetites had been stifled for much too long, yet who loved the food of flesh enough not to rush through the first offering, but to taste and become filled course by course until in an explosion of delight, the grand finale of the whole table, was served and partaken.

We were gourmets, the body satisfied, but the mind knowing that it was only a momentary filling and that there would be other meals, each different, each more succulent than the last in a never-ending progression of enjoyment. The banquet was over so we kissed and smiled at each other, neither having been the guest, but rather, one the host, the other the hostess, both having the same startling thought of where was the past now? Could the present possibly be more important?

When she was ready I said, 'Let's get you home now, Laura.'

'Must I?'

'You must.'

'I could stay in town.'

'If you did it would be a distraction I can't afford.'

'But I live a hundred and ten miles from your city.'

'That's only two hours up the Thruway and over the hills.'

She grinned at me. 'Will you come?'

I grinned back. 'Naturally.'

I picked up my hat and guided her to the outer office. For a single, terrible moment I felt a wash of shame drench me with guilt. There on the floor where it had been squashed underfoot by the one who killed old Morris, Fleming and who had taken a shot at me was the letter from Velda that began, 'Mike Darling--'

We sat at the corner of the bar in P. J. Moriarty's steak and chop house on Sixth and Fifty-second and across the angle his eyes were terrible little beads, magnified by the lenses of his glasses. John, the Irish bartender, brought us each a cold Blue Ribbon, leaving without a word because he could feel the thing that existed there.

Art Rickerby said, 'How far do you think you can go?'

'All the way,' I said.

'Not with me.'

'Then alone.'

He poured the beer and drank it as if it were water and he was thirsty, yet in a perfunctory manner that made you realize he wasn't a drinker at all, but simply doing a job, something he had to do.

When he finished he put the glass down and stared at me blandly. 'You don't realize just how alone you really are.'

'I know. Now do we talk?'

'Do you?'

'You gave me a week, buddy.'

'Uh-huh.' He poured the rest of the bottle into the glass and made a pattern with the wet bottom on the bar.

When he looked up he said, 'I may take it back.'