Read Pardon My Body for Free Online Page A

twenty you don’t have to.
    â€œMaybe,” I said carefully, “maybe we should make a date?”
    She said, “Uh-huh.”
    â€œTonight at eight?”
    â€œYeah—I guess I could fix it.”
    â€œNice long moonlight drive?”
    â€œYeah—then what?”
    I gave her the best squeeze I could with a yard of desk between us. She reached up and pulled my head down and let me have it. She had a big slash of a mouth and all of it was open. When I got out of the clinch I had half of her lipstick and the mark of her front canine tooth.
    â€œBabe, I could go for you kinda big,” she said with the fine detachment of one who says it often.
    I thought I’d sacrificed enough in the pursuit of truth. “Look,” I said hurriedly, “I’d better see this friend before I go.”
    â€œWhich guy d’ya want, sweetie?”
    â€œGuy named Harry Bule,” I told her.
    She gave me a stare. Maybe I didn’t look the sort to go running around with the Harry Bules of this city. At that stage I wouldn’t know. Though I could guess.
    â€œHe’s a couple rooms on the first floor. Fourteen and fifteen. ’Smatter fact, he went up a half-hour since. He ain’t been down again.”
    I put my handkerchief away. “I’ll go up, baby. I’ll be seeing you.”
    â€œYou can ride in the elevator,” she said.
    I hadn’t supposed they owned one. It had probablybeen installed to take the lush-heads up Saturday nights. You could operate it yourself by pressing a numbered button. I got out at the first floor. They even had carpet on it. Fourteen and fifteen were almost opposite the elevator shaft. I tried fourteen. No reply. I got the same result from fifteen. Mr. Harry Bule was either giving himself a sleep or…
    The memory of the ash-blond killer brought me up with a jerk and the palms of my hands suddenly went sticky. I turned the door handle and found it wasn’t locked and marched in with only slightly more aplomb than if I had been entering a lion’s cage for the first time.
    The room was surprisingly well furnished. Apparently Mr. Bule had added a few luxuries of his own to the purely formal concessions provided by the hotel. I numbered the radio, bureau and a deep hide-leather armchair among them. The owner was nowhere in sight. I moved silently to the connecting door on my left and pulled it open. The bedroom lay exposed to view. Just a small room with a single bed, a fitted clothes closet, wash-bowl with hot and cold water, and a bedside table carrying a reading lamp. But still no sign of Mr. Bule. Maybe he’d gone out by the fire escape, doubtless for the best of reasons.
    The bedside table also carried a leather-boundnotebook, I leafed through half a dozen pages and tossed it back. Just a pencilled list of horses and bets, with various calculations footnoted. The closet contained three suits of the flashier kind and a heavy ulster greatcoat. I wandered back into the sitting room. Maybe the bureau would yield a clue, though I hadn’t much hope. Mr. Bule’s more doubtful transactions were not likely to be set down on paper. Still, it was worth trying. But the bureau was locked. Perhaps he did write things down. I stood there trying to figure out the next move. Breaking open a bureau in a room in which you have no right to be anyway is liable to be frowned upon in police circles.
    The place was as quiet as a morgue. Or I was too preoccupied to hear even the muffled clatter of the routine hotel sounds. But suddenly my back hair began to stand up in the little quivering bristles and I knew that the next move was going to be made for me.
    â€œDon’t do nothing,” said a man’s voice, “that is, unless you want a slug in your guts.”
    â€œI’m not doing a thing,” I said.
    His voice came nearer. “If you’re trying to figure out how I got here, I was in the toilet down the corridor. A