Mourn The Living by Max Allan Collins Page B

and the stooge role he’d had to assume, he might have gotten into that sweet bitch. As it was, the beautiful piece was sitting on the bed wishing she had made it with Webb.
    “When you turned me down, sugar,” Dinneck said easily, “you missed something real fine.”
    She kept her eyes fixed on the door. “I heard about you, needle dick. Remember a certain blonde waitress at the Eye? She says you don’t fuck for shit, and I believe her.”
    Dinneck snarled and swung at her. She ducked and shot a small, sharp fist into his adam’s apple. While he stood choking with his hands wrapped around his throat, he saw her go to the dresser, pull open a drawer and withdraw a mostly empty vodka bottle. She broke it over the edge of the dresser and turned it into a formidable weapon. She held it up in a very unladylike manner, the slivers of glass catching bits of light and reflecting it around the room.
    She said, “You’re going to leave now, and you’re going to leave lucky that I don’t call Elliot and tell him about the crap you’ve been giving me. The next time you come inside kicking range of me, you’ll leave wearing your balls for earrings.”
    Dinneck choked some more and shuffled out.
    She was a bitch, all right, he thought, but she was a tough bitch.
    Dinneck, in the lobby, tossed away the toothpick and fought the sour taste in his mouth with a cigarette. He rubbed his throat gently, thought about how much fun he would have within the next day or two, when he’d be free to hit Webb and leave Miss Parks begging for more. But first he had to take care of the job he’d been hired to do in Chelsey.
    He stepped up to the phone, dropped in a dime and dialed Elliot’s number.
     
     
    ELLIOT WAS in his den reading Fortune when the phone rang.
    It was Dinneck.
    “Mr. Elliot, Webb wouldn’t go for Broome’s woman.”
    Elliot said, “He wouldn’t dip into the delectable Miss Parks? Strange . . . did he give any reason for his celibacy?”
    “Just smartass shit—’ever hear the word clap and I don’t mean applause.’ And so on.”
    “A man of genuine wit, apparently. Did she get any information?”
    “No, Mr. Elliot. He still says he’s a writer, with a magazine. His cover is consistent, anyway. And he keeps asking questions about that Tisor twat that did that two-and-a-half gainer off the Twill building a few weeks back. The Parks girl dodged his questions and tried to get friendly, but no go. She started in pumping for a little information, then out the door he went.”
    “Is Tulip still following him?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Fine, Dinneck. Call back in three hours for further instructions.”
    Elliot hung up and rose from the desk. He stared blankly at one of the mahogany-paneled walls for a moment, then went to the doorway and called for his servant Edward, a black gentleman of around fifty.
    “Yes, Mr. Elliot?”
    “Ginger ale, please, Edward. With ice.”
    He went back to the desk and waited for the ginger ale. He drummed his fingers and glanced continually over his fireplace where, instead of a landscape, his license for real- estate brokerage hung. Behind the over-sized framed document was a wall-safe, where rested all the cash benefits netted by Elliot in the course of the Chelsey operation. Included was the last six weeks’ haul, as yet uncollected by the Boys’ periodic visitor.
    Edward came in with the ginger ale; Elliot thanked him and spent a quarter hour sipping it. Then he rose, stripped off his herringbone suit and his pale blue shirt and his blue striped tie, and began to exercise. He exercised for twenty minutes, push-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts, jumping jacks, touching toes, knee bends, a few isometrics.
    Then, exhausted, his bony frame slick with perspiration, he lay down on the black leather couch and tried to nap. And couldn’t. His heart was beating quickly from the exercise and he took deep breaths to slow it but his nerves kept it going fast and hard.
    He walked to his desk, opened