He was sweating as he thought how far from easy that year had been. How his mind had almost cracked. Because Mel Crane wasn’t made for the tough stuff. He was a lover, not a fighter. He was a pussycat, a pushover for most pretty white chicks, and especially for his young wife.
She proved it by dropping her voice—probably so the guy in bed with her wouldn’t hear: “You been thinking about your little Beth-Anne, Mel? You been thinking how you’d like to crawl into her?”
“Among other things,” he said, but she had his number. He was her ole black patsy. “Can I come to your pad?”
“Someone’s sharing it with me.”
Guess who, but he wanted no hassles. “Then my place.”
“Well, maybe.” She was playing little-girl cute. “First, we’ll have dinner. Then we’ll talk about reconciliations and your pad.”
“Dinner? You have to be on stage by nine, and it’s three before you’re done.”
“Night off, baby. Don’t play with that cute black dicky too much. Save some for Beth-Anne. If you bring the pot and we get along without arguments.”
They’d get along without arguments, once she saw the bread.
“Tarpon’s Fishery?” he asked.
“Right! I haven’t had a good seafood dinner since we split. Chris . . .” She paused. “Almost all my dates eat steak and Italian over and over, maybe a little Chinese. You know how to keep a girl’s figure for her, Mel.”
There was a voice in the background. She said, “Eight. Tarpon’s. ’Bye.”
He told himself he wasn’t square enough to feel jealousy . . . but whatever the feeling was, it hurt.
Frank Berdon hadn’t picked up his Chevy until noon, though Lila drove him to the garage at nine. “A few last-minute adjustments,” Gallico had said; then Frank had waited three hours. People were always doing that to him.
He’d been carrying his briefcase. He often did, when he was going to call on his steady customers, checking them for shortages, showing them whatever was current in the lines he carried.
Berdon’s Stationery and Business Machines specialized in such personal service. His father had started the practice in a more gracious time, and Frank had carried on so as to survive in an era of big discount stores.
But his briefcase hadn’t held stationery today, and while he’d waited for his car he’d taken it with him to the garage’s toilet. It was a dirty, smelly, closet-like room and he would no more have considered sitting on that grimy seat than drinking from that foul bowl.
What it did have was privacy.
After locking the door, he’d opened the case and taken out the gun, examining it in the light for the very first time. And noticed another unusual feature besides the obvious one, the silencer: the entire weapon, including the custom wood grips, was finished in dull black.
He’d found the catch on the base of the butt, fiddled with it, and felt it give as he pushed it toward the rear. Then he’d pulled out the magazine, and smiled his cherub’s smile. Because there were eight rounds in the clip, and since this was an automatic that reloaded itself on firing, there was another round in the chamber. Nine in all.
Now, at seven-thirty, closing up the store, he looked at the counter on which the briefcase rested, and again smiled. He’d been given a bonus. Whoever had loaded the gun had inserted a shell into the chamber in addition to a full clip of ten in the butt. Eleven to start with, two fired, nine remaining—one more than he had expected.
And when those rounds were finished, so was he with the gun. No purchases of shells to connect him to the killings. Nothing at all to connect him to the killings.
He left the store, drawing the grilled metal gate closed behind him, and locking it with the heavy chain and padlock.
Crime was a real problem in this town.
When Mel reached the restaurant, he saw Beth-Anne standing outside. Which surprised him. True, he was twenty minutes late—he’d had to cover half of L.A. to get angel-dusted pot on such short notice—but why wasn’t she waiting inside in comfort?
Then he realized the Tarpon Fishery’s parking lot was empty except for Beth-Anne’s Javelin and his Mustang.
“Damn,” he said, running over to her. “Forgot they’re closed on Mondays.”
She wore a sour expression along with her tight knit dress, and the way she was standing, hand on hip, showed she figured him for some sort of con.
No matter what her expression, her attitude, he loved the way she looked. God, but the broad had everything! In that wild pink knit, in spike heels that brought her a little over his five-eight, she was the prettiest blonde on the Strip.
He smiled, drinking her in. “Hey, baby, I gave up kiddy scams like running out of gas and hitting on closed joints a long time ago. Besides, we can choose from a dozen seafood places.”
She nodded, but he could tell she was still pissed. So he decided not to wait. He took her arm and hurried her to his car, where he handed her the brown paper bag with the thick plastic bag inside.
She sniffed it, beginning to smile. “Dusted?”
He nodded. “Three full ounces.”
She leaned toward him from the passenger’s seat. Her lips brushed his cheek.
“And then there’s something a little heavier,” he said. He reached into his breast pocket and took out the bulging wallet, and from it the thick, rubber-banded sheaf of crisp hundred-dollar bills. He riffled it under her nose.
“Ummm!” she exclaimed, reaching. “Smells like two or three grand!”
He let her take it. “Five. For our second honeymoon. Vegas or wherever. Right here in L.A. if you want. Clothes and jewelry and anything that makes you happy.”
“Great!” She began to put the money in her purse.
He laughed, and took it back and put it away. “First the reconciliation.”
“All right,” she murmured. “Let’s pick up some Chinese or fried chicken and go to your place.”
“How about picking up your clothes? I’m talking about a permanent deal.”
Her green eyes were on him, and they were warm. “One step at a time, black beauty.” She leaned over and kissed him again, on the mouth this time. “Step one,” she said, and her hand pressed his thigh and began to slide upward.
He hadn’t kissed her, held her, in almost three months. He was so hungry for her he was trembling. But he pushed her away. “Not in the parking lot.”
He began to drive, saying they’d pick up her car in the morning. He drove two blocks, reaching out to touch her short-cropped platinum hair, her soft cheek, telling her how much he’d missed her, how much he loved her. . . and her hand returned to his thigh.
He went another block before she reached his crotch.
“Remember our first time? On your lap in the Fairfax Drive-In movie? You couldn’t wait, black beauty. I’ll bet you can’t now.”
He wanted the comfort of his bed. He wanted the pleasure of her naked body stretched out beside his. But she began squeezing, and he just had to stop.
They were on a side street somewhere between Santa Monica and Fountain, and it was very dark. She rolled a joint and they shared it. It was heavy junk