"I'd offer you a drink, but…"
"Look, white boy, I didn't come to socialize. I came to talk business."
"What kind of business?"
"Packer was feeling romantic. He got us a room here at the Ciel. Now he's zonked out down in our unit — number fourteen." She took another drag of her candy stick while her eyes darted around my room. "I half-expected you to be shacked up with that white chick you were with at Rick's last night."
"Sorry," I said, finally pulling on a pair of pants. "Would it disappoint you to know that the so-called white chick and I are business associates?"
"Sure," Bluebell said, "and I'm Snow White."
"But you're not here to exchange fairy tales, right?"
Bluebell shook her pretty head. "Last night you were asking questions about Chauncey. Now's your chance to ask him. He's in the mainline, out of his everlovin' pawin' gourd. He's babblin' all kinds of things I think you'd like to hear."
I could feel that old "get even" smile start to spread across the tortured patch of skin I laughingly referred to as my face. "Come to think of it, a little chat with Chauncey might be in order. Give me a second to put on the rest of my clothes."
"Don't bother," Bluebell said, smiling, "he isn't dressed for the occasion either."
The lady led me across the palm-studded courtyard to her love nest, threw open the door and pointed to the far side of the room. He was there all right, spread-eagled out across the bed on his back, staring up at the ceiling through a heavy white haze. When he heard us enter, he rolled over on his side and stared at us without an ounce of recognition.
Even though I've been pounded on by the best, they're usually not the kind who will readily give you a shot at a return engagement. All of a sudden it looked like Chauncey Packer was going to be the exception to that rule. And since I had demonstrated atypical Wages foresight by bringing a friend, my trusty old Mauser, the odds had abruptly shifted to my court.
Ever the gentleman, I asked Bluebell the all-important question. "Are you through with him?"
Bluebell slumped back against the door with her arms folded. "Through? I never got started. Haven't you heard that a coke head can't get it up?"
That was all I needed. I jammed the muzzle right in that little area below the nose on Chauncey's upper lip, pinning it to his teeth. "Hi," I said brightly, "remember me, your little playmate out on the beach last night?"
Packer was doing a lot of blinking. Bluebell was right. Loverboy had a snoot full, and for a moment I was concerned he was too far gone to answer questions. But when he made a dive for the pillow and the handle of a .38 sticking out from under it, my prospects brightened.
That one lunge was all I needed. I jerked back the Mauser and brought my knee straight up from the floor. It worked just like it always does in the Charley Bronson movies, only better. Chauncey's mouth met my knee head on. It's surprising how much you can feel in your knee at a time like that, but I got the whole picture. Lips split, teeth shattered, and the cartilage in his nose took off in several different directions.
Chauncey rocketed backward, slammed against the wall and fell down between the wall and the bed. I walked calmly around the foot of Bluebell's little playground and dug him up out of the darkness. His face, or what was left of it, was a bloody mask. He was gasping for breath, spitting up copious amounts of thick black stuff and completely disoriented. I grabbed him by his peroxided blond hair, stood him up and, when I was convinced he was as vertical as I could get him, laid the old recoiling knee trick on him a second time. Chauncey doubled over this time and dropped to his knees, coughing, sputtering, gasping and sounding like an antique freight train.
Sylvia was going to kill me for what this guy was doing to her carpet, but the fact of the matter was, I was doing pretty well by myself. Who needs a Mauser?
While all of this was going on, I caught a quick glimpse of Bluebell out of the corner of my eye. She had picked out the best seat in the house, situated herself, crossed her long, gorgeous legs and fired up another stick. It was spectator sport time at the Ciel, and she was grinning from ear to ear.
Chauncey, meanwhile, was trying to pull his brains together, so I set my own tender body down on the edge of the bed, cocked the Mauser and punched the business end of the barrel up against the man's throbbing temple. "Guess what this is?" I challenged.
Chauncey Packer was in no mood for guessing games. I could hear his innards rebelling, but there was no place for them and the contents to go. I put my foot on the back of his head and slammed it to the floor, face down in what had once been the contents of his stomach. From that point I bent over close enough for my words to get through to his scrambled brain, borrowing a line from Joan Rivers. "How about it, Chauncey, can we talk?"
Mrs. Packer's son was surprisingly docile. He tried to nod his head back and forth in the vile puddle of green and yellow stuff that had erupted from his stomach.
"Good boy," I complimented. "You know something, Chauncey? When I think back about that little episode on the beach last night, it occurs to me you overreacted to several things. Could it be you're sorry you did that? Or did you do all those nasty things because some not so nice person told you to?"
Chauncey couldn't answer. The best he could do was to stare up at me.
"You see, Chauncey, I don't really think you're sorry, and I also don't think you're very smart, at least not smart enough to figure out what this is all about. Someone would have had to explain it to you. That's what I think."
Since Chauncey's features were spread all over what used to be his face, I was having a little trouble reading any meaning into his expression. In addition, he hadn't mastered the art of verbal response through a restyled mouth, a mouth that for the most part seemed to be splattered on the left side of his face.
"Know something, Chauncey? I've decided to give you a break, which, incidentally, is a helluva lot more than you gave Poqulay. I'm only going to ask you two questions — just two simple straight-for-ward questions. If you're a good boy and tell me what I want to know, I'll quit hammering on you. If you don't, well, let me assure you, me and this little Mauser here know a few tricks we haven't shown you yet. Get the picture?"
Chauncey choked and went through another coughing fit.
"Now this is your big chance. Which one of your naughty little friends hired the Bay Foreman to retrieve those cylinders?"
The man managed to look up, dazed and messy. He shook his head. "Cy… cyl… cylinders?"
Suddenly Bluebell entered the foray. "That's what I was trying to tell you," she interrupted. "Chauncey got stoned and laid there mouthing all kinds of weird stuff, but he never said anything about any cylinders."
Just to make certain Chauncey knew I was still in control, I slammed his head back to the floor.
"Okay, then what did he talk about?"
"About what Zercher would do when he found out Poqulay had taken you and your friends to Deechapal."
"You're doing fine. What else?"
Bluebell looked a little petulant. She glanced at the battered Chauncey and wrinkled her nose. She couldn't help but wonder what he would do when the fog finally cleared and he realized she had told me things he obviously didn't want others to know.
"Don't worry about our little friend here," I consoled her.
"It's about what's still on Deechapal," she admitted.
"Cocaine?"
"You said it, boy, not me."
"Lots of it?"
"Zercher runs a big operation," she replied, the emphasis on the word "big."
"He said nothing about the Bay Foreman or cylinders — or…?"