Skin Deep

her nose. Then she had to stand on one leg. Well, she fell, of course. She fell on that whore's floor, and they both laughed.'

'Then they went outside,' I said.

'First the sidewalk, then the gate to the apartment house. She fell again, off the gate. Then the diving board.'

'And she fell off the diving board.'

'Sure. Who do you think she was, some Olympic gold medalist? She was a little girl fucked up on twelve kinds of dope. You know how much she weighed?'

'About the same as she does now.' I indicated Nana.

He shook his head. 'Even less. Even less.'

'And she fell.'

'Nine feet, I think. She fell on her head.'

'But she wasn't dead.'

'They didn't know that. Not any more than you know whether that one is dead.' He pointed the gun at Nana, and I took a step toward him. His hand tightened on the gun. He closed his left eye to sight. I moved between them, trying to think of something to say.

'So they took her to the Spice Rack, right? I haven't figured that out. Why the Spice Rack? Why not home? Why not someplace else?'

He opened the eye and looked at me. 'Oh, they took her home,' he said in a sulfurous voice. 'Saffron sat on her lap, you hear me? Saffron sat on her lap in that little shit car and then got out and walked like a drunk to the door so that old pervert upstairs would see her. You're telling me they didn't mean to kill her?' He spat on the floor. 'She sat on Amber's lap so the guy upstairs would see a girl in the passenger seat when Toby drove away. She acted loaded, imitating Amber. Then she used Amber's keys to get in and waited, and then she left and Toby picked her up around the block, and she sat in Amber's lap again until they got to the Spice Rack. Then they dumped her, just shoved her out of the car. They made the mistake of taking her where I was. They didn't know I was there. They didn't know I was inside, counting the receipts. Usually I don't. Usually I do that at home.' His eyelids clamped closed, and he gulped a gallon of air.

'And they didn't know she was alive,' I said, just to say something.

He arched a four-pound eyebrow. It looked like it cost him a lot of effort. 'I already said that. I already told you that. They thought they could just dump her in the parking lot like garbage and then go home and finish their party. Like garbage. They figured the cops would think someone got her between home and the club.'

'But you came out and found her.'

He made the grimace again. 'She found me. Somehow she crawled to the back door and made some noise.' His eyes strayed to a point over my shoulder and focused there. They seemed to move independently of each other. 'She had a lot of guts,' he said.

A wave broke outside, thundering onto the sand. I had a prickly feeling that if I turned my head, I'd see Amber standing behind me, looking into Tiny's eyes.

'She wouldn't have wanted this,' I said.

'She was too soft. Toby has to pay.'

'And that was why you broke her arms and legs?'

He forced his eyes back down to me. 'One arm was already broken. That's why I started with an arm on this one and Saffron. I carried her to the stage and put her on it, and her arm was all wrong. I tried to put it back, but I couldn't make it look right again. Then.' He stopped for a moment, looking suddenly smaller somehow. 'Then she died,' he said. 'She caught a big breath like she was going to say something, and when she let it out something rattled, and then she went away.'

'Wait. Wait a minute. She didn't tell you anything?'

'I knew where she'd been. I knew who she was with. I knew about Toby, what Toby was, what Toby likes to do to women. I'd seen her'-he jerked the gun toward Nana- 'when Toby was finished with her. She gave me some bullshit story, but I knew Toby. I told him then if he ever touched another one of my girls in the wrong way, I'd hurt him. But for Amber, for hurting Amber, I'd kill him.'

'You brutalized her. And you didn't even know for sure what had happened.'

'She was dead. I stood over her, crying like a big baby, and broke whatever I could break. I did it one bone at a time, thinking about Toby. You see, he's not just going to die. The whole world is going to know what he is before the law kills him. They're going to know what filth he is. They're going to hate him as much as I hate him. That means he'll die twice. I wish I could figure a way to make him die three times.'

'Why didn't you just turn him in?' I was hoping he'd let the gun droop again.

'And let Saffron go? She had to die, too.'

'Saffron told you what happened that night,' I said.

'Saffron told me a lot of things. Saffron told me everything I could possibly want to know. She was dying to tell me.' He made a choking sort of sound that eventually turned into a laugh. 'That's a joke,' he said. 'She was dying to tell me. It only took one arm and a couple of cuts, little cuts, and she was dying to tell me.'

'What about the clothesline? How'd you know about the clothesline?'

'That one,' he said, gesturing toward Nana. 'That tramp on the floor there. She told Amber all about poor little Toby. You're the big detective, you should have figured that out. There was clothesline strung in the girls' dressing room. They use it to dry their costumes between sets. I just put up a new rope the next morning.'

'Congratulations, Tiny,' I said. 'You figured it all out. It's a shame it's not going to work.'

He gave me a loose-lipped smile. 'It's gonna work,' he said. 'There's no reason, not a reason on the world, I'd kill these girls. But everybody who matters knows about Toby, even the cops. And they're going to find her here, and there's gonna be three Polaroids in Toby's little album over there.'

'That's the problem,' I improvised. 'The Polaroids.'

The little gun came up and pointed directly at my chin. 'Explain,' he said.

'The cops have the picture of Amber. Someone was with Toby when he got it in the mail. She made him take it to the cops. I was the one who found Saffron, and I gave them both of the pictures you left there. Toby's got an alibi for Saffron.' I licked my lips. They felt like sandpaper. 'Toby's with the cops now,' I said.

'You asshole,' Tiny said in a tight little voice. 'That's why I killed Nana, because she was working with you.' He blinked, the heaviest blinks since Charles Laughton, two or three times. 'Okay,' he said. 'First we kill you, and then we wait for Toby. I'll worry about me after I kill Toby.'

He extended his arm and cocked the gun.

I'd run out of things to say.

Toby's front door slammed shut.

The hand with the gun in it wavered. 'Sit down,' he whispered, 'or I'll blow your brains out right now.'

I remained standing, watching the little pig eyes shift toward the hallway as boots sounded on the wooden floor. The hall light came on. Tiny kept the gun on me but swiveled his eyes to the archway between the hall and the living room.

Big John, AKA Jack Sprunk, stood in the doorway. Tiny looked bewildered and shifted the gun to a point halfway between us. 'Stay where you are,' he said to John.

John looked at me and smiled. 'Hello,' he said. Then he started to walk toward Tiny. Even compared with Tiny, he looked big. The smile stayed on his face. He looked from one of us to the other, as calm as a postulant taking communion. I gathered myself for a leap.

A door somewhere on the other side of the kitchen opened and closed.

Tiny looked at me and then toward the kitchen. John kept walking. Tiny swallowed and pivoted toward the kitchen door.

But he shot John first.

The gun made a bright, hard spang sound: small caliber. Tiny was already facing the kitchen when he realized that John was still coming at him and turned to fire again. The second shot caught John in the collarbone and threw him to the floor. Dolly appeared in the kitchen door, and Tiny aimed the gun at her.

At the same moment, Toby flew through the door leading to the beach and jumped onto Tiny's back, grabbing Tiny's gun hand. Dolly let out a yell I didn't know she had in her and leapt toward Tiny and Toby, now