Pitt said nothing as he enclosed her in his arms and lightly kissed her on her swollen lips. And suddenly the warning bells were clanging in his mind, but the warning came too late; the pain burst on him first His mouth dropped open and a gasp that started deep down in his throat erupted into the quiet air as Summer thrust her knee into his groin.
What caused the cells in his brain to order such a lightning reaction he would never know: through the haze of the shock he barely saw his fist lash out in a blurring reflex action and catch Summer solidly on the right side of her jaw. She swayed drunkenly for an instant and then crumpled silently onto the sand.
The hidden, unsuspected resources, ready to be called upon in a moment of desperation, kept Pitt from sliding into an unconscious void. The agony in his lower body forced him to suck in air in great wheezing gasps. He slowly sunk to his knees beside the inert form of the girl, clutching his groin and swaying in pain.
Pitt clenched his teeth together until his jaws ached, damming back any outcry from the agony. He dug his knees into the soft sand and swayed back and forth. Discovered hunched over an unconscious girl holding his hands tightly between his legs could result in embarrassing questions. Fortunately, except for a circle of beachboys and hotel guests who were seated around a small fire about two hundred feet away, the beach was vacant.
Four minutes passed; four minutes during which the grinding torment finally faded to a dull, throbbing ache. It was then he noticed something gleaming in Summer's hand, something glasslike reflected by the flames of the flickering tiki torches. He crawled over to the girl, crouched over her quiet form, and gently pulled a hypodermic syringe from between her loosely clasped fingers.
Pitt was at a loss. In the faint light Summer looked no more than twenty-five, gentle and sweet. Holding the syringe, he wondered what it held as he dropped the liquid-filled glass tube carefully into his breast pocket.
He leaned over, awkwardly heaved the girl over his shoulder, and rose shakily to his feet. It had suddenly occurred to him that she probably had a couple of friends lurking about in the shadows; he wasn't about to wait for the posse to block the pass. His hotel was a good three blocks away, so he balanced his load, steadied himself, and began limping stiffly across the sand.
His one hope of getting past the roving crowds of tourists who wandered the sidewalks at night was to skirt through the heavy foliage of the gardens. He certainly didn't want to meet cruising policemen or a do-gooder vacationer who might conjure up the notion of playing Herbert Hero and rescuing little Eva from the villainous Simon LaPitt.
Along the sidewalks it would have been an easy walk of five minutes, but it took Pitt twenty by way of the backyard jungle. He paused in the shadows, catching his breath and waited for a group of drunken party goers to stagger out of view. He savored the delicate fragrance that whispered about Summer's body. This time he recognized it as plumeria, not an uncommon scent in the Hawaiian Islands, but it was the first time Pitt had sensed its presence on a woman.
His hotel was just across the street now, the lights behind the lobby door beckoning with womblike safety. At the first lull in traffic, Pitt covered the distance on the run, his face strained from the ache in his groin and his lungs tortured from the physical effort of carrying a deadweight over a four-hundred-yard obstacle course in the dark. He threaded his way quickly around the parked cars at the curb, edged up to the doorway of the building, and cast a wary eye in the lobby.
His luck deserted him momentarily. A cleaning woman was vacuuming the carpet outside the elevators, a huge dark-skinned behemoth of a Hawaiian woman with an I'll-scream-for-a-cop-look. He moved around the corner and trotted down the ramp leading to the underground garage. Except for a sprinkling of cars stationed throughout the dim, concrete interior, the garage was empty. He found an open elevator, entered, and pushed the panel button and then leaned against the heavy teak railing that ran along the clos-etlike walls.
Pitt was a damp mass of sweat now; the exertion and the humidity of the night had combined to push him within a hairline of total exhaustion. As he stood there, stooped under Summer's weight, he managed to catch his breath. The elevator hummed monotonously and cooperated by not opening on any other floor than the one Pitt had selected.
The panel light blinked 10. Pitt's luck stuck by him — the hall was clear in both directions. Groping clumsily in his pants pocket for several frustrating seconds, he finally managed to extract a key and shove it into the lock of a carved rosewood door marked 1010.
A plushly decorated suite was a luxury Pitt could hardly afford on his salary, but he justified its existence under the excuse that it was his first vacation in three years.
He entered the bedroom and dumped Summer unceremoniously on the bed. Another time, staring down at a woman who was so delicate and smooth, he would have felt desire. Not tonight. Mentally, emotionally, and physically, Pitt had had it. The day began and ended as one grueling endurance run. Pitt left Summer blissfully unconscious and entered the bathroom where he undressed and took a shower.
Nothing made sense. Why would a perfect stranger want to kill him? His only beneficiary was his little white-haired mother, and unless she'd given up charity teas and hooked rugs, and had taken up with the Mafia, she'd have no motive. Besides, he grinned to himself at the sheer fantasy of it all, what proof did he have that the hypodermic syringe held poison?
A drug? That was a semicredible possibility. But again, why? He knew no military codes he could think of, no nuclear bomb secrets, no classified missile locations, no top secret plans for the destruction of the world. His thoughts wandered back to Summer's magnificent beauty. Then he finally forced his mind back to the reality of the moment, closing the tap and stepping out of the shower stall. He slipped a robe over his broad shoulders and, returning to the bedroom, placed a damp washcloth over the girl's forehead, noting with a tinge of sadistic pleasure that she would wear a healthy-looking bruise on her jaw in the morning.
He shook Summer roughly by both shoulders. Slowly, reluctantly, not wanting to part with the contentment of oblivion, and murmuring incoherently in a soft voice, her big gray eyes crept open. Awaking in a strange place would have startled most women. Not Summer. She was tough. Pitt could almost see the circuits of her mind burst into sudden operation. Her eyes darted about the room, first to Pitt, then to the door, to the balcony, and back to Pitt again. She stared at him casually, but a little too casually to be genuine. Then she raised her hand and ligfrtiy touched her jaw, wincing at the contact.
«You hit me?» It was more a question than a statement.
«Yes.» He grinned. «And now that I have you on home ground, I think I'll rape you
At last her eyes came wide. «You wouldn't dare.»
«How do you know I haven't already?»
She almost fell for it; her hand began moving down across her lower stomach and then suddenly stopped.
«You're not that perverted.»
«Who said I was?»
She looked at Pitt in a very peculiar way. «I was told.» She stopped herself and avoided his eyes.
«You should be more careful,» Pitt said reproachfully. «Believing nasty old rumors and running up and down Waikiki Beach jabbing hypodermic needles into defenseless men can get you into a heap of trouble.»
She stared at him for a few seconds, her lips moving as if she were about to reply, but uncertainty slowly welled in those fantastic gray eyes. 1 don't know what you mean.»
«No matter.» Pitt turned his back on her and reached for a telephone. «I'll let the police figure your game. That's what honest citizens like me pay them for.»
«A mistake.» Her voice suddenly turned hard and cold. «I'll scream rape and with these marks on my face, who will they believe, you or me?»
Pitt picked up the telephone and began punching the numbered buttons. «There's not the slightest doubt that they'd believe you. That is, until Adrian Hunter testifies in my defense. She probably has a few marks of her own.» Pitt turned his attention to the phone. The voice that answered on the other end of the line surrendered after the fifth hello and hung up. At the dial tone, Pitt said: «Hello, I'd like to report an assault…»
That was as far as he got Summer leaped off the bed and pushed the receiver down. «Please, you don't understand.» Her voice was low and desperate.
«That's the understatement of the evening,» Pitt said angrily. He grabbed her by the shoulders, squeezing hard and staring unblinking, only a few inches from her widening pupils. «Kick a man in the balls and jam a hypodermic needle into his back and then act like little Miss Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm when you screw up. Just what in hell is your game?»
