DeLaroza lay beside Domino for only a few minutes, then got up, showered, and dressed. When he returned to the room she was still lying on the table, although she had covered herself with a robe. He was anxious to leave. With his orgasm DeLaroza had closed the book on Domino.
He leaned over the table and she looked at him with smoky eyes, smiling. ‘Magnificent,’ he said. ‘You exceeded your promise. I shall never forget tonight. When next we meet, it will be as old friends. The past is erased.’
‘Thank you,’ she said softly, ‘for everything. For showing me the world and its treasures. You have been a dear friend. Joy geen.’
‘Goodbye to you,’ he said and kissed her, knowing it was the last time he would ever see her. Then he closed the door. En his mind Domino was already dead.
She lay alone for several minutes before the tears came and then she cried softly to herself, not so much because she would miss him, but because it was an ending and endings always saddened her.
Sharky did not hear them. He had pulled off the earphones and dropped them beside him on the cot. The last twenty-four hours had burned him out. He had killed a man, been chewed out royally by The Bat, been transferred to Friscoe’s Inferno, assigned to this machine, bugged an apartment, and had not only been attracted to a suspect but joined her vicariously while she made love to another man.
Great, Sharky. You aren’t even hitting the slow pitches.
His nerves were stretched to the breaking point. Everything seemed amplified. The buzzing fluorescent tubes overhead, the humming motors, the wind whistling at the crack in the door, all agitated his skin. He scratched his arms and neck.
I’m cracking up, he thought. Standing in the doorway of the rubber room.
He remembered the joint he had lifted from the drawer earlier in the day. He put on his jacket and went out into the icy air. Leaning against the wall of the utility room, he lit up and took two deep hits, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as he could before exhaling. The high came quickly, soothing his tattered nerves. He closed his eyes, let the cold wind wipe his face.
He thought more about Domino, surprised that he felt no ill feeling towards her, that he did not condemn her open sensuality, her need to embrace pleasure, and he understood why. He had the same needs, the same desires, and for the first time in his life he accepted them without guilt.
He wanted Domino. Period.
‘So what?’ he said aloud and then chuckled.
He appraised the situation. She had done nothing illegal tonight. No money had changed hands. There wasn’t even any talk of money. Hell, there was hardly any talk at all. She had entertained a friend and how she entertained him was her business.
Unless, of course, the man below was the mark and tonight was part of the set-up. If so, the tapes would prove she knew him. Intimately. They would provide the connection.
He would have to identify the mark. He could call in Livingston, have him follow the guest when he left her apartment. But that would take time. So he would do it himself.
He returned to the dim interior of his listening post. The tape recorder to the master bedroom was spinning.
Jesus, he thought, they’re not going at it again!
He held one of the phones to his ear. There were two women speaking now.
He put the earphones on, pressed them to his ears, concentrating on the voices. One was talking, the other was singing. And the shower was going.
Of course, the television was on. Virginia Gunn, Channel Five, was giving the weather report. The shower stopped. He heard her come into the bedroom, heard the click of a remote unit, and the television went off.
Silence.
The recorder stopped.
The mark was gone. He had left while Sharky was out on the roof.
‘Shit!’
He went back out on the roof, knowing it was too late. He looked over the parapet, down at the parking lot, but there was no activity. He went to the other side of the roof and stared down into darkness. The wind rattled the treetops below him. Overhead the storm clouds moved silently away and the cold stars mocked him.
He went back to his solitary room, dropped wearily on the cot, then stretched out, and before he could decide on his next step, Sharky fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Eleven
Sharky was still asleep when Papa arrived to relieve him at 7:48 the next morning. He jerked awake when be beard the door open. Reaching under the blanket he bad used for a pillow and grabbing his 9mm automatic, he flipped the blanket off and sat up quickly.
Papa stopped short, appraised the situation through bored eyes and smiled.
‘Easy there, Roy,’ he said, ‘it’s only Gabby Hayes.’
Sharky sagged, letting his gun hand drop between his legs.
‘I musta died,’ he said.
‘Why not? Tough day,’ Papa said.
‘I was jumping outa my skin last night.’
‘Any action?’
Sharky put his gun under his arm. ‘Lots of action, very little dialogue. Nothing we’re interested in.’
‘Who was the trick?’
Sharky looked up at him and an embarrassed grin played on his lips.
‘You’re not gonna believe this,’ he said.
‘Fell asleep,’ Papa said. ‘Missed him.’
‘How the hell did you know that?’
‘Done it myself,’ Papa said smiling. ‘Fifteen years. I fucked up every way you can fuck up. Arch, too. Friscoe. Nobody hits a thousand. You got the tapes.’
‘Shit, if there’s twenty words on the goddamn tapes I’ll eat them.’
‘Answer me something, okay, Sharky’
‘Sure.’
‘Why we staked out? We got the tapes, why not check ‘em, you know, every three, four hours, see what’s doin’?’
‘I figure if they go after the mark and somebody’s here, on top of it, we can maybe nail them while it’s happening. We’re four hours late, we could come in on our ass.’
Papa nodded. ‘Okay, I buy it. Go home.’
‘Yeah, I feel like I was born in these clothes.’
Sharky reached down to retrieve the used tapes. Then he noticed that the fresh tapes in the machines to her bedroom and the living room had advanced.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said. ‘I slept through something here.’
He rewound them and listened. The machine to her bedroom had been activated by the television set, The Today Show. She was moving around in the background, opening and closing the closet doors, obviously getting dressed. The tape ended abruptly when she turned off the television. The radio had activated the machine for the living room. Once again he heard her in the background. A disc jockey’s fast patter was interrupted by music and traffic reports. Then:
‘Okay, all you pillow pounders, it’s Doctor Dawn here on Z-93 and it’s a c-o-o-o-old Friday morning out there. Seven- twenty-nine and here’s one to get you on your feet. ELP, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and —‘
The radio cut off. The tape went dead, then cut back on. She was opening the door, leaving the apartment. It closed and the latch clicked. The tape ended.
‘I’ll be a son of a bitch,’ Sharky said.
‘Early starter,’ Papa said.
‘1 don’t believe it. She got out on us.’
‘She’ll be back.’
‘Yeah, but we should be on top of her right now. For all we know, she could be —,
‘Go home. Forget it for a while. See ya at six.’
‘Okay,’ Sharky said. He wiped the sleep out of his eyes and stuffed the tapes in his pocket. ‘There’s some fruit in the bag there, also a book to read.’
‘Got my own,’ Papa said, taking a worn copy of The Guinness Book of World Records out of his coat pocket.
‘You read that on stakeout?’ Sharky said.
‘Easy to put down, if I gotta move,’ Papa said.
‘You got a point there,’ Sharky said, walking to the door.
‘Hey, Sharky’ Papa said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Car keys?’
Sharky tossed them to him. ‘Maybe at six o’clock I’ll be back with the living,’ he said and left.