Read Shark Infested Custard for Free Online

chest, and dug the keys out of his left front pocket. Eddie slid into the driver's seat, shut the door, and took the keys.
           "Get going," I said to Hank, who was still standing there. "We'll be right behind you."
           Hank walked over to his car. I climbed over the side of the Starfire, into the back seat, and Eddie started the engine.
           "Wait till Hank clears the exit before you pull out," I said to Eddie.
           "Where're you guys takin' me, anyway?" the man said. "I got friends, you know. You're gonna be sorry you broke my fuckin' nose, too. It hurts like a bastard." He touched his swollen nose with his right hand.
           "Shut up," I said, "and keep your arms crossed. If you move either one of your arms again, I'm going to put a round through your shoulder."
           Eddie moved out, handling the car skillfully. He drove to the extreme right of the row before turning onto the exit road, and without lights. There was a quarter-moon, the sky was cloudless, and we'd been in the drive-in so long by now that we could see easily.
           When we reached the fire door at Dade Towers, Don and Hank were waiting for us. I ordered the man in the yellow jump suit to follow Don, and Hank followed me as we went up the stairs. Eddie parked the convertible in a visitor's slot across the street, and came up to Hank's apartment in the elevator.
           While we were gone, Don had turned on the television, but not the sound. On the screen, Doris Day and Rock Hudson were standing beside a station wagon in a suburban neighborhood. She was waving her arms around.
           The man in the yellow jump suit didn't react at all when he saw the dead girl. Instead of looking at her, he looked at the silent screen. He was afraid, of course, and trembling visibly, but he wasn't terrified. He stood between the couch and the kitchen, with his back to the girl, and stared boldly at each of us, in turn, as though trying to memorize our faces.
           He was about twenty-five or -six, with a glossy Prince Valiant helmet of dark auburn hair. His hair was lighter on top, because of the sun, probably, but it had been expensively styled. His thick auburn eyebrows met in the middle, above his swollen nose, as he scowled. His long sideburns came down at a sharp point, narrowing to a quarter-inch width, and they curved across his cheeks to meet his moustache, which had been carved into a narrow, half-inch strip. As a consequence, his moustache, linked in a curve across both cheeks to his sideburns, resembled a fancy, cursive lower case "m." His dark blue eyes watered slightly. There was blood drying on his moustache, on his chin, and there was a thin Jackson Pollock drip down the front of his lemon-yellow poplin jump suit. His nose had stopped bleeding.
           Jump suits, as leisure wear, have been around for several years, but it's only been the last couple of years that men have worn them on the street, or away from home or the beach. There's a reason. They are comfortable, and great to lounge around in—until you get a good profile look at yourself in the mirror. If you have any gut at all—even two inches more than you should have—a jump suit, which is basically a pair of fancied up coveralls, makes you look like you've got a pot-gut. I've got a short-sleeved blue terrycloth jump suit I wear around the pool once in awhile, but I would never wear it away from the apartment house. When I was on the force and weighed about 175, I could have worn it around town, but since I've been doing desk work at National, I've picked up more than twenty pounds. My waistline has gone from a 32 to a 36, and the jump suit makes me look like I've got a paunch. It's the way they are made.
           But this guy in the yellow jump suit was slim, maybe 165, and he was close to six feet in height. The poplin jump suit was skin tight, bespoken, probably, and then cut down even more, and he wore it