The Girl Hunters

were crying out for some bottle love again and I had to rub the back of my hand across my mouth to take the thought away.

The guy made a wry face and shook his head. 'You'll...never do it.'

My tongue ran over my lips without moistening them. 'Do what?'

'Get her in time.'

'Who?'

'The woman.' His eyes closed and for a moment his face relaxed. 'The woman Velda.'

I sat there as if I were paralyzed; for a second totally immobilized, a suddenly frozen mind and body that had solidified into one great silent scream at the mention of a name I had long ago consigned to a grave somewhere. Then the terrible cold was drenched with an even more terrible wash of heat and I sat there with my hands bunched into fists to keep them from shaking.

Velda.

He was watching me closely, the glaze in his eyes momentarily gone. He saw what had happened to me when he said the name and there was a peculiar expression of approval in his face.

Finally I said, 'You knew her?'

He barely nodded. 'I know her.'

And again that feeling happened to me, worse this time because I knew he wasn't lying and that she was alive someplace. Alive!

I kept a deliberate control over my voice. 'Where is she?'

'Safe for...the moment. But she'll be killed unless...you find her. The one called The Dragon...he's looking for her too. You'll have to find her first.'

I was damn near breathless. 'Where?' I wanted to reach over and shake it out of him but he was too close to the edge of the big night to touch.

Cole managed a crooked smile. He was having a hard time to talk and it was almost over. 'I gave...an envelope to Old Dewey. Newsy on Lexington by the Clover Bar...for you.'

'Damn it, where is she, Cole?'

'No...you find The Dragon...before he gets her.'

'Why me, Cole? Why that way? You had the cops?'

The smile still held on. 'Need someone...ruthless. Someone very terrible.' His eyes fixed on mine, shiny bright, mirroring one last effort to stay alive. 'She said...you could...if someone could find you. You had been missing...long time.' He was fighting hard now. He only had seconds. 'No police...unless necessary. You'll see...why.'

'Cole...'

His eyes closed, then opened and he said, 'Hurry.' He never closed them again. The gray film came and his stare was a lifeless one, hiding things I would have given an arm to know.

I sat there beside the bed looking at the dead man, my thoughts groping for a hold in a brain still soggy from too many bouts in too many bars. I couldn't think, so I simply looked and wondered where and when someone like him had found someone like her.

Cole had been a big man. His face, relaxed in death, had hard planes to it, a solid jaw line blue with beard and a nose that had been broken high on the bridge. There was a scar beside one eye running into the hairline that could have been made by a knife. Cole had been a hard man, all right. In a way a good-looking hardcase whose business was trouble.

His hand lay outside the sheet, the fingers big and the wrist thick. The knuckles were scarred, but none of the scars was fresh. They were old scars from old fights. The incongruous part was the nails. They were thick and square, but well cared for. They reflected all the care a manicurist could give with a treatment once a week.

The door opened and Pat and Larry came in. Together they looked at the body and stood there waiting. Then they looked at me and whatever they saw made them both go expressionless at once.

Larry made a brief inspection of the body on the bed, picked up a phone and relayed the message to someone on the other end. Within seconds another doctor was there with a pair of nurses verifying the situation, recording it all on a clipboard.

When he turned around he stared at me with a peculiar expression and said, 'You feel all right?'

'I'm all right,' I repeated. My voice seemed to come from someone else.

'Want another drink?'

'No.'

'You'd better have one,' Larry said.

'I don't want it.'

Pat said, 'The hell with him.' His fingers slid under my arm. 'Outside, Mike. Let's go outside and talk.'

I wanted to tell him what he could do with his talk, but the numbness was there still, a frozen feeling that restricted thought and movement, painless but effective. So I let him steer me to the small waiting room down the hall and took the seat he pointed out.

There is no way to describe the immediate aftermath of a sudden shock. If it had come at another time in another year it would have been different, but now the stalk of despondency was withered and brittle, refusing to bend before a wind of elation.

All I could do was sit there, bringing back his words, the tone of his voice, the way his face crinkled as he saw me. Somehow he had expected something different. He wasn't looking for a guy who had the earmarks of the Bowery and every slop chute along the avenues etched into his skin.

I said, 'Who was he, Pat?' in a voice soggy and hollow.

Pat didn't bother to answer my question. I could feel his eyes crawl over me until he asked, 'What did he tell you?'

I shook my head. Just once. My way could be final too.

With a calm, indifferent sincerity Pat said, 'You'll tell me. You'll get worked on until talking won't even be an effort. It will come out of you because there won't be a nerve ending left to stop it. You know that.'

I heard Larry's strained voice say, 'Come off it, Pat. He can't take much.'

'Who cares. He's no good to anybody. He's a louse, a stinking, drinking louse. Now he's got something I have to have. You think I'm going to worry about him? Larry, buddy, you just don't know me very well anymore.'

I said, 'Who was he?'

The wall in front of me was a friendly pale green. It was blank from one end to the other. It was a vast, meadowlike area, totally unspoiled. There were no foreign markings, no distracting pictures. Unsympathetic. Antiseptic.

I felt Pat's shrug and his fingers bit into my arm once more. 'Okay, wise guy. Now we'll do it my way.'

'I told you, Pat--'

'Damn it, Larry, you knock it off. This bum is a lead to a killer. He learned something from that guy and I'm going to get it out of him. Don't hand me any pious crap or medical junk about what can happen. I know guys like this. I've been dealing with them all my life. They go on getting banged around from saloon to saloon, hit by cars, rolled by muggers and all they ever come up with are fresh scars. I can beat hell out of him and maybe he'll talk. Maybe he won't, but man, let me tell you this--I'm going to have my crack at him and when I'm through the medics can pick up the pieces for their go. Only first me, understand?'

Larry didn't answer him for a moment, then he said quietly. 'Sure, I understand. Maybe you could use a little medical help yourself.'

I heard Pat's breath hiss in softly. Like a snake. His hand relaxed on my arm and without looking I knew what his face was like. I had seen him go like that before and a second later he had shot a guy.

And this time it was me he listened to when I said, 'He's right, old buddy. You're real sick.'

I knew it would come and there wouldn't be any way of getting away from it. It was quick, it was hard, but it didn't hurt a bit. It was like flying away to never-never land where all is quiet and peaceful and awakening is under protest because then it will really hurt and you don't want that to happen.

Larry said, 'How do you feel now?'

It was a silly question. I closed my eyes again.

'We kept you here in the hospital.'

'Don't do me any more favors,' I told him.