That was as far as I got. Luke Ritter was behind a desk, tilted back in a swivel chair and looking at me with a twisted grin. He was alone. Even as I realized he couldn’t be alone, something swished through the air behind me and the room exploded into a pain-filled void of stars. I felt myself falling as from a great height, then the stars were gone and nothing was left.
VI
Water trickled down my face and under my collar. I swam up from the depths into a pale green world of twisted shapes. Another wave of water poured over me and I sneezed suddenly, sending a lance of pain through my head.
I opened my eyes. I was flat on my back. Up above me floated a pair of pale balloons with grotesque faces painted on them. I blinked a time or two before my eyes focused, and then the balloons were faces after all. The familiar undershot jaw, slept-in features and dark eyes belonged to Luke Ritter; but the other was a pale cameo of delicate perfection, the face of a dreamer, a poet, a faerie prince. Eyes of azure blue widened appealingly, perfect lips parted to show beautiful teeth and a voice like muted viol strings said, “You want I should rough him up some more, Luke?”
“You did fine, Nekko,” Ritter said. He drew back his foot and slammed his toe into my ribs. “All right, snoop. Up you go.”
I rolled over and got both knees and one hand under me and tried to stand up. My head weighed a ton and was as tender as a ten-dollar steak. A hand came down and took hold of my hair and lifted me three feet in the air. The pain almost caused me to black out a second time. The edge of a chair hit me under the knees and I sat down, hard. The room moved around a time or two, then lurched to a stop. It looked only slightly better that way.
I could see my gun over on a corner of the desk, much too far away to reach by any sudden move on my part. Ritter gave me a cold smile and went around behind the desk and sat down in the swivel chair. He reached out, lifted the .45 by its trigger guard, swung it idly back and forth between thumb and forefinger and looked at me over it.
“You’re kind of a secretive guy, mister,” he grumbled. “I kind of went through your wallet while you were sleeping. Some money, but no identification. Just who the aching Jesus you supposed to be?”
“The name’s Trotsky,” I said. “My friends call me Cutie-pie.”
Ritter stopped swinging the gun and lifted a corner of his lip. “Nekko,” he said quietly.
A small hard fist came out of nowhere and hit me under the right eye. It hurt, but not enough to get excited about. I turned my head far enough to look at the beautiful young man called Nekko. I said, “Hello, honey. How’re the boys down at the Turkish bath?”
His flawless complexion turned scarlet. He lashed out at me again but I moved my head quickly and he missed. He tried again, instantly, but his rage made him careless and he got too close to me. I lifted my foot hard and caught him squarely in the crotch. He screamed like a woman and fell over a chair.
Ritter bounded to his feet, came quickly around the desk and hit me high on the cheek with a straight left. No one had ever hit me harder in my life. My chair went over backwards with me in it. The back of my head hit the carpet and the light from the desk lamp blurred in my eyes. Ritter, his mouth twisting in a snarl, followed me down, trying to hit me again, this time with the gun. I took a glancing blow on the shoulder and grabbed the gun hand and tried to bite it off at the wrist. He slammed a fist into my throat and I vomited against the front of his shirt. That was when I got the barrel of the .45 behind my left ear and I went to sleep again...
When I opened my eyes I was back in the same chair. Ritter was over behind the desk mopping his shirtfront with a wet handkerchief and swearing in a monotonous undertone that sounded like the buzz of a rattler. Nekko sat in a straight-backed chair tilted against the wall. His azure eyes stared at me with distilled hate through a veil of blue cigarette smoke. A good deal more important was the short-barreled .32 revolver he was holding against his thigh.
My head felt like a busted appendix and my throat wasn’t any improvement. I sat there and caught up on my breathing and thought bitter thoughts. The room was ominously quiet.
Ritter finally threw the handkerchief savagely into a wastebasket and lifted his eyes to me. “Let’s try it again,” he snarled. “Give me your name.”
“Take it,” I said. “I can always get another.”
“You come busting in here with a gun, smart guy. All I got to do is call in the cops and you end up behind bars.”
“Ha ha,” I said.
He stood up casually and came over to me and swung the back of his hand against my face. I rolled with the blow but that didn’t help much. I tried to kick him in the shin but missed and it earned me another belt in the face. I felt my teeth cut into the inner surface of my cheek and the salt taste of blood filled my mouth.
Nekko slid out of his chair and jabbed the .32 against the back of my neck. Ritter bent down until his face was inches from mine. His breath was the reason they’d invented chlorophyll.
“Your name, you son of a bitch!”
I spat a mouthful of blood squarely into his eyes. He bellowed like a branded bull and swung a punch that started from the floor. Even though Nekko’s gun was boring into my neck I jerked my head aside. The fist whistled past my ear and knocked Nekko’s gun clear across the room.
It was my chance — maybe the last one I’d get. Before Ritter could recover his balance I slammed a shoulder into his gut and knocked him across the desk. Nekko was already across the room, bending to pick up the gun. I picked up the chair and threw it. It caught him in the ribs and spun him against a filing case. I jumped for the gun, snatched it up and turned, just as Nekko, his small white even teeth gleaming behind a crazed snarl, sprang at me. I took one step back and hammered the gun barrel full into his half-open mouth. He sprayed broken teeth like a fountain and his scream was half gurgle from the blood filling his mouth. He staggered back a few steps clutching his face, then collapsed into a sobbing heap.
I wheeled, just in time to see Ritter leveling my own gun at me from the opposite side of the desk. The look on his face told me he meant to blast me down and worry about the consequences afterward.
The .32 jumped in my hand with a spiteful crack. A red flower seemed to blossom under Ritter’s left eye. The .45 dropped from his extended hand and bounced once on the blotter. Ritter turned in a slow half circle, took a wavering step going nowhere, then fell like the First National Bank.
I stood there, listening. Doors didn’t slam, no feet came running down the hall, no one yelled for the police. Evidently the rest of the fourth floor was deserted, and from any place else that single shot could have been the slamming of a distant door or the filtered backfire from a car. The only sound was the bubbling sobs from the crumpled and no longer beautiful man known as Nekko.
I went behind the desk and looked at Ritter. He was as dead as Diogenes. I picked up the .45 and slipped it back under my arm and came back to where Nekko lay. Picking him up was like picking up a bucket of mush. I flopped him into a chair and took a handful of his wavy blond hair and shook him.
“Arleen Farmer,” I said. “Where do I find her?”
His mouth dripped crimson like a fresh wound. The shattered stumps of teeth winked through the red. A vague mumble ground its way into the open. His eyes were completely mad.
I gave his head another shake. “Arleen Farmer,” I said again. “Where is she?” I slapped him across the face and wiped the blood on his coat. “Talk, damn you!”
“...do’n know...”
I hit him squarely in the nose. More blood spurted. His eyes rolled up and he fell off the chair. I kicked him full in the mouth. Even the stumps went this time. I tore off his necktie and bound his hands behind his back and left him lying there. My only hope was to find an address book that might give me additional leads to the kidnappers of my wife.