Not looking at her, he started toward the bedroom. “Please, Diana. Drop it. I’ve got to get some sleep.”
“Sleep!” she screeched, heaving the book across the room at him. Her aim was bad. The book hit the wall three feet behind his head and fell to the floor with an angry thud.
“You need sleep?” she raged, getting up and coming across the room after him. “What about me? I’ve been up all night, too, up and worried sick!”
He turned to face her, and the ravaged, stricken look on his face brought her up short. Something was terribly wrong, and she couldn’t imagine what it was.
“I said drop it!”
The quiet menace in his words took her breath away. She had heard those very same words countless times before, spoken in just that tone of voice and with just that shade of meaning, but always before they had come from her father, always from Max Cooper. Never from her husband, never from Gary.
Without another word, he disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. For minutes afterward, she stood in the middle of the room staring at the door, too frightened to move, too sick to cry.
Room 831 in the Santa Rita Hotel was a reasonably plush two-room suite. The bottle of champagne was on ice, and Johnny Rivkin had donned a blue silk smoking jacket by the time his expected guest turned the key in the lock. The blonde came in looking even more bedraggled than Johnny remembered. The dim light in the bar of the Reardon had been very kind.
“Welcome,” Johnny said with a smile. “I’m glad you decided to come.”
“I almost didn’t,” the blonde returned. “I don’t remember how to do this anymore.”
“Come on.” Johnny did his best to sound cheerful and encouraging. “It’ll all come back to you. The two of us will have some fun. If you like dressing up, you might check out the closet in the other room. I work in the movies, you see. I always keep a few nice things on hand just in case.”
The blonde disappeared into the other room while Johnny busied himself with opening and pouring champagne. His hands shook some. He didn’t know if it was nervousness or anticipation, maybe both. An unknown assignation was a lot like diving into an ice-cold swimming pool. Once you were in, everything was fine, but getting in required nerve.
The blonde came back out wearing a long silk robe with nothing on underneath, walking with shoulders slouched, hands jammed deep in the pockets. His obvious nervousness made Johnny feel that much better.
“Here,” he said, passing a glass. “Try this. It’ll be good for what ails you.”
The blonde settled in the other chair, primly crossing his ankles, pulling the robe shut over his knees.
“Take off the wig,” Johnny ordered. “It’s dreadful, you know. I’d like to see you as you really are.”
“Are you sure?” the blonde asked.
“I’m sure.”
When the wig came off, Johnny found himself faced with a totally bald fifty-year-old man still wearing the garishly madeup features of an aging woman. The effect was disconcerting, like looking at your own distorted face in a fun-house mirror.
“What’s your name?” Johnny asked.
“Art.”
“Art what?”
“Does it matter?”
“Only if I want to call you again.”
“Art Rains.”
“And what do you do, Art Rains? For a living, I mean.”
Johnny was beginning to enjoy himself. Here was someone who hated small talk almost as much as he did, someone else who wasn’t any good at it. Knowing that made Johnny feel in control for a change, something that didn’t happen to him very often.
“Believe it or not, for the past six years, I’ve been a housewife.” Art ducked his head as he made this admission, as though it were something he was ashamed of.
“I believe it all right.” Johnny got up and poured two more glasses of champagne. “Here. Have another. It’ll take your mind off your troubles, Art. You need to relax, lighten up, have some fun.”
“What did you have in mind?”
Johnny shrugged. He was enjoying the
Art smiled sadly. “That’s something else we have in common.”
“Well, come on, then. Shall we flip a coin to see who goes first? Although my mother always said company got to choose.”
“I’ll do you first,” Art said, “unless you’d rather. .”
“Oh, no, by all means. Suit yourself.”
Trembling with anticipation, Johnny took his glass and the almost-empty bottle of champagne and led the way into the bedroom. He set the bottle and his glass on the bedside table and stripped off his jacket and trousers. If Art had been much younger, Johnny might have worried more about how his body looked, but Art Rains wasn’t any spring chicken, either.
Before Art had arrived at the hotel, Johnny had turned down the covers on the bed. Now, he lay facedown on the cool, smooth sheets and waited. He sighed and closed his eyes. This was going to be delightful.
“Mind if I turn on the radio?” Art asked.
“Not at all.”
Soon KHOS blared in his ear. Johnny didn’t much like country-western, but it was a good idea to have some background music. After all, if this was very good, there might be a few inadvertent noises. A Holy Roller family might be next door.
A moment later, Johnny was surprised when, instead of a pair of well-oiled caressing hands touching his back or shoulders, he felt the weight of a naked male body settle heavily astride his buttocks. He didn’t worry too much about that, though. There was certainly more than one way to do a massage. Johnny had heard the Japanese actually walked on people’s backs.
Suddenly, a rough hand grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked his face off the pillow.
“Hey,” Johnny said. “What’s this. .?”
The sentence died in the air. Johnny Rivkin never saw the hunting knife that cut him. In fact, he hardly felt it at first. He tried to cry out for help, but he couldn’t, nor could he free his flailing arms from the powerful hands that held him fast.
Rivkin’s body leaped in the air, jerking like a headless chicken while Glen Campbell’s plaintive “Wichita Lineman” lingered in the air and the almost-empty champagne bottle and glass fell to the carpeted floor but didn’t break.
Johnny Rivkin’s death was much bloodier than Margie Danielson’s had been. Andrew Carlisle was glad he’d taken off all his clothes, glad he’d be able to shower and clean himself up before he left the room.
He had planned to let things go a little further, indulge in a little more foreplay, but buggering an aging queer didn’t have much appeal. Besides, Carlisle was impatient. He wanted to get on with it.
He waited out the ride, which wasn’t that different from the other, although it seemed to take quite a while longer before Johnny Rivkin’s gurgling struggles ceased. Fortunately, the hotel mattress was easy on Andrew Carlisle’s sore knees. They still hurt from the scorching rocks at Picacho Peak.
Chapter 12
It was late when Diana fell asleep, and even later when she woke up on Sunday morning. With Rita gone, the house seemed empty, and prospects for breakfast weren’t good.
On her salary, eating out wasn’t something Diana could afford often, but that Sunday morning seemed like a time to splurge. Both she and Davy had been through enough of a wringer that a special treat was in order. They
