She raised her head and said, "He killed Sonny. He was one of them, anyway."
"What?"
She spoke with the kind of fragile gentleness you associate with poor but honorable spinsters. "Isn't my English clear, Mr. Dwyer?"
"What I guess you said is, 'He killed Sonny.'
"That is in fact what I said, Mr. Dwyer."
"Well, I've got a couple of questions about that."
"Which are?"
"First of all, who is the 'he' you're referring to, and second, who is Sonny?"
The blue eyes grew grave. She sat there looking old suddenly, and tender too, and something like a chill worked down my back, and I felt afraid of her. It wasn't the gun, it was her simple flat connection to some truth I did not understand, the ageless mad truth of the fanatic.
"You know who 'he' is, Mr. Dwyer, and you certainly know who Sonny is. That's why you want the suitcase. So you can sell it to the men who killed him."
Then she very carefully got up and, even sensing what she was going to do, all I could do was sit and watch, fascinated as much as frightened.
She got me just once, but it was a good clean hit with the butt of the.45 right on the edge of my jaw. The headache, which had waned, came back instantly. It was now joined by something very much like a toothache.
I started to move, my male arrogance instinctively believing that I could simply grab her fragile wrist and throw her to the floor, but she had other ideas.
She put the cold, oil-smelling weapon right to my temple and said, "I'm going to make you a deal, Mr. Dwyer."
"What deal?" I wanted to sound hard, even harsh, giving her the impression that even though I had a mouth full of blood and the world's biggest ice-cream headache, I was still in charge here. I was a man, and dammit, men were always in charge of women, right? Even women with guns. Right?
"I won't kill your girlfriend if you get the suitcase and bring it to me at ten o'clock tomorrow night. I'll phone you where I want you to bring it. Do you understand me?"
I started to snarl something about what I'd do if she so much as looked at Donna again, but for the second time that night, the tall, slender woman in the black motorcycle leathers caught me fast and cracking sharp across the back of the head.
This time I fell into the darkness with something like relief. My head was starting to ache intolerably and I was tired and confused and at least a little bit afraid of what I saw in her blue eyes, the same thing I'd seen one night ten years earlier when a young mother had put an ice pick through the eyes of her infant and then waited patiently for the policeman she'd summoned. I had been that policeman.
Chapter 18
The next morning I woke with Donna sitting on the edge of my bed in a royal blue belted robe and her beautiful wild red hair fresh from the shower. I was in her bed in her apartment, where I'd come in a stupor not unlike drunkenness after leaving Larry Price's house, where the woman in black had knocked me out not once but twice.
"How're you feeling?"
"Better than I should, probably," I said.
"This should help."
I sat up in bed like an invalid and she set the tray across my lap. There were two lovely eggs over easy on a pink plate. And two lovely pieces of delicately buttered toast. And three lovely orange slices. And a lovely steaming cup of coffee. And two round little white tablets that unfortunately were not half as lovely as the other things on the plate.
"Aspirin," she said. "I figured you'd need them." She bent over and gave me a soft kiss and I just held her there momentarily, knowing her for the prize she was.
"Thanks," I said.
Her bedroom was a woman's room, with yellow walls and canopied bed, and outsize stuffed animals, one I like especially, a plump bear with oddly forlorn eyes and a little red cap. He sat in the corner, his arms forever spread in greeting, watching me eat, which I did with boot-camp hunger.
"Man," I said.
"Taste good?"
"Tastes great."
"Boy, I love to watch you eat."
"I thought you said I needed to lose ten pounds."
"You do. But I still love to watch you eat. It just makes me feel-secure somehow."
She leaned over and gave me a kiss again and then she said, "May I tell you something?"
"Sure," I said, wiping up egg yolk with the last piece of toast. I let my gaze lie on the windows, blue with cloudless spring sky. A jay flitted past the window and perched on a branch just blooming. The window was partly opened. I thought of how fresh laundry smelled in the breeze.
"That woman's threats last night?"
"Yes."
"I'm scared, Dwyer."
I put my hand out and brought her over to me. She sat on the edge of the bed. She smelled of perfume, bath soap, and clean skin. She smelled wonderful.
"I want you to go to Joanna's for a few days," I said.
"What?"
"Please."
"Joanna? You think I could handle it for a few days? All those heartbreak stories?"
Joanna was a news writer at a TV station, a woman gifted not only with talent but great looks that did not seem to do her much good with men. She was perpetually heartbroken.
"I really wish you'd call her," I said.
"What about you?"
"I'll stay at my place. I'll be all right."
She touched my head. "Dwyer, she's mean. So far she's knocked out three people, and from what you say, she's not hinged quite right."
"I know." Then I smiled. "All the more reason for you to stay at Joanna's. You've got the magazine done for the month. You can just sort of hole up. What I'd like you to do is pack a bag now and leave. And watch your rearview very carefully."
"Make sure nobody is following?"
"Right."
"God, people really do do that, don't they? I mean, it's not just in detective movies, is it?"
"No, it isn't."
"What're you going to do?"
"Check the calls on my answering service. Then I'm not sure."
She picked up the tray. "Did you really like it?" She's very insecure about her cooking, probably because her former husband Chad was always criticizing her for her lack of culinary imagination and, by implication, her lack of culinary skills.
"Honey, it was great, and it was sweet. It was very sweet."
"Thanks for saying that."
"It's the truth."
Water ran in the kitchen sink; then the bathroom door closed; then the hair drier erupted. I phoned my service. This was my day off at American Security, so my first dread was that there'd be a message saying somebody hadn't shown up so would I please come in. Fortunately, no. The only message came from a Dr. Allan Cummings. I wrote his number down and thanked the woman picking up the calls this morning. Just before we hung up, she said, "I saw one of your commercials on the tube last night. You did a good job."
"Thanks."
"Oh, that doctor who called?"
"Yes."
"He sounded real-uptight or something."
"Thanks."
"Sure."
We hung up. I dialed Dr. Cummings' number. These days, getting through directly to a doctor is nearly as unlikely as winning a lottery. So I was surprised when a baritone male voice said, "Dr. Cummings here." He must have given me a direct number.
"Doctor, my name is Jack Dwyer."
"Oh yes, Mr. Dwyer, thanks for returning my call." He sounded nervous.
Then he stopped talking. I sensed hesitation.
"What can I do for you, Doctor?"
"Well, I was wondering if we might talk a few minutes."
"Of course."