"Great, all I have to do is stay alive."
"Well, if you do get knocked off, let me repeat a favorite old saying of yours, 'Kismet, buddy.'"
He hung up and left me staring at the phone. I grinned, then put it down and started to laugh. Velda said, "What's so funny?"
"I don't know," I told her. "It's just funny. Grebb and Charlie Force are going to come at me like tigers when this is over to get my official status changed and if I can make it work they don't have a chance."
That big, beautiful thing walked over next to me and slid her arms around my waist and said, "They never did have a chance. You're the tiger, man."
I turned around slowly and ran my hands under her sweater, up the warm flesh of her back. She pulled herself closer to me so that every curve of hers matched my own and her breasts became rigid against my chest.
There was a tenderness to her mouth that was only at the beginning, then her lips parted with a gentle searching motion and her tongue flicked at mine with the wordless gestures of love. Somehow the couch was behind us and we sank down on it together. There was no restraint at all, simply the knowledge that it was going to happen here and now at our own time and choosing.
No fumbling motions. Each move was deliberate, inviting, provoking the thing we both wanted so badly. Very slowly there was a release from the clothes that covered us, each in his own way doing what he wanted to do. I kissed her neck, uncovered her shoulders, and ran my mouth along them. When my hands cradled her breasts and caressed them they quivered at my touch, nuzzling my palms for more like a hungry animal.
Her stomach swelled gently against my fingers as I explored her, making her breath come in short, hard gasps. But even then there was no passiveness in her. She was as alive as I was, as demanding and as anxious. Her eyes told me of all the love she had for so long and the dreams she had had of its fulfillment.
The fiery contact of living flesh against living flesh was almost too much to stand and we had gone too far to refuse the demand any longer. She was mine and I was hers and we had to belong to each other.
But it didn't happen that way.
The doorbell rang like some damn screaming banshee and the suddenness of it wiped the big now right out of existence. I swore under my breath, then grinned at Velda, who swore back the same words and grinned too.
"When will it be, Mike?"
"Someday, kitten."
Before I could leave she grabbed my hand. "Make it happen."
"I will. Go get your clothes on."
The bell rang again, longer this time, and I heard Pat's voice calling out in the hall.
I yelled, "All right, damn it, hold on a minute."
He didn't take his finger off the bell until I had opened the door.
"I was on the phone," I explained. "Come on in."
There were four others with him, all men I had seen around the precinct. Two I knew from the old days and nodded to them. The others went through a handshake. "Velda here?"
"Inside, why?"
"She was down asking questions around the party headquarters. They want an explanation. Charlie Force is pushing everybody around on this."
"So sit down and I'll explain."
Velda came out as they were pulling up chairs, met the officers and perched on the arm of the couch next to me. I laid it out for Pat to save him the time of digging himself, supplied him with Velda's notes and the names of the persons she spoke to, and wrapped it up with Art's little speech to me.
When Pat put his book away he said, "That's one reason why I'm here. We're going to see what we can get on Howie Green. These officers have been working on it already and have come up with something that might get us started."
"Like what?"
"The real estate agency Howie Green operated went into the hands of his partner after his death. The guy's name was Quincy Malek. About a year later he contracted T.B. and died in six months. Now from a nephew we gather that Malek was damn near broke when he kicked off. He had sold out everything and his family picked over what was left. The original records left over from his partnership with Green went into storage somewhere, either private or commercial.
"Right now I have one bunch checking all the warehouses to see what they can dig up. The nephew does remember Malek asking that the records be kept so it's likely that they were. It wouldn't take up much room and a few hundred bucks would cover a storage bill on a small package for a long, long time.
"Now that's a supposition, the commercial angle. Malek and Green had a few other properties still in existence and we'll go through them too. Until everything is checked out you can't tell what we'll find. Meanwhile, we're taking another angle. We're checking all property transactions carried out by Green within a certain time of his death. If you're right something will show up. We'll check every damn one of them if we have to."
"You know how long it will take, Pat?"
"That's what I want to know. You got a better idea in that screwy mind of yours?"
"I don't know," I told him. "I'll have to think about it.
"Oh no, not you, boy. If you got anything you have it now. You just aren't the prolonged-thinking type. You got something going this minute and I want to know what it is."
"Stow it."
"Like that?"
"Like that. If it proves out I'll get it to you right away. The only reason I'm slamming it to you like this is because you're in deep enough as it is. Let me try my way. If there's trouble I'll take it alone."
"Mike... I don't like it. We have a killer running loose."
"Then let me be the target."
His eyes drifted to Velda beside me.
I said, "She'll stay safe. I went through that once before."
"Watch her," Pat said softly, and I knew he was never going to change about the way he felt for her.
"How many men you going to put through the files?"
"As many as I can spare."
"Suppose you get to it first?" I queried.
He smiled crookedly. "Well, with your official status I imagine I can pass on a tip to you. Just make sure it works both ways."
"Deal. How will we make contact?"
"Keep in touch with my office. If anything looks promising I'll leave word."
He got up to go and I reached for my coat. I picked the letter out and handed it to him. "It was in Sue's teddy bear. It puts a lock on Sim all the way. I don't advise showing it to the kid though."
Pat read it through once, shook his head, and put it in his inside coat pocket. "You're a card, man, a real card. What kind of luck have you got?"
"The best kind."
"Don't pull that kind of stunt on Grebb, buddy."
"You know me."
"Sure I know you."
I let them out and went back and stretched out on the couch. Velda made me some coffee and had one with me. I drank mine staring at the ceiling while I tried to visualize the picture from front to back. It was all there except the face. Blackie Conley's face. I knew I was going to see it soon. It was a feeling I had.
"Mike... where are we going?"
"You're thinking ahead of me, kiddo."
"Sometimes I have to."
"You're not going anyway."
"Don't cut me out, Mike." Her hand touched the side of my jaw, then traced a tingling line down my chin.
"Okay, doll."
"Want to tell me what you have in your mind?"
"A thought. The only thing that's wrong with the picture."
"Oh? What?"
"Why Blackie Conley would want to kill Sim."
"Mike..." She was looking past me, deep in thought.
"Since it was Torrence who engineered that robbery and not Conley as you first thought, perhaps Conley suspected what was going to come off. Supposing he out guessed Torrence. In that case, he would have had the whole bundle to himself. He would have made his own getaway plans and broken out at the right time. Don't forget, Conley was older than Sonny and he was no patsy. There was no love between the pair either. In fact, Conley might even have guessed who the brain was behind the whole thing and had reasons for revenge."