Vengeance Is Mine

Mr. Perry was the scared fat man. Now he was really scared. He didn’t sit-he occupied a huge leather chair behind a desk and quivered from his jowls down. He must have been at peace with himself a minute before because an opened book lay facedown and a cigar burned in an ash tray.

I threw my hat on the desk, cleared away some of the fancy junk that littered it and sat on the edge. “You’re a liar, Perry,” I said.

The fat man’s mouth dropped open and the first chin under it started to tremble. His pudgy little fingers squeezed the arms of his chair trying to get juice out of it. He didn’t have much voice left when he said, “How dare you to . . . in my own home! How dare you . . .”

I shook a butt out of the pack and jammed it in the corner of my mouth. I didn’t have a match so I lit it from his cigar. “What did Rainey promise you, Perry, a beating?” I glanced at him through the smoke. “A slug in the back maybe?”

His eyes went from the window to the door. “What are you . . .”

I finished it for him. “I’m talking about a hood named Rainey. What did he promise you?”

Perry’s voice faded altogether and he looked slightly sick. I said, “I’ll tell you once then I want an answer. I told you whatever Rainey can do I can do better. I can beat the hell out of you worse. I can put a slug where it’ll hurt more and I’ll get a large charge out of it besides.

“I’m talking about a guy you said you knew. His name was Wheeler, Chester Wheeler. He was found dead in a hotel room and the verdict was suicide. You informed the police that he was despondent . . . about business you said.”

Emil Perry gave ,a pathetic little nod and flicked his tongue over his lips. I leaned forward so I could spit the words in his face. “You’re a damned liar, Perry. There was nothing the matter with Wheeler’s business. It was a stall, wasn’t it?”

The fear crept into his eyes and he tried to shake his head.

“Do you know what happened to Wheeler?” I spoke the words only inches away from him. “Wheeler was murdered. And you know something else . . . you’re going to be in line for the same thing when the killer knows I’m on your tail. He won’t trust your not talking and you, my fat friend, will get a nice nasty slug inbedded somewhere in your intestines.”

Emil Perry’s eyes were like coals in a snowbank. He held his breath until his chin quivered, his cheeks went blue and he passed out. I sat back on the edge of the desk and finished my cigarette, waiting for him to come around.

It took a good five minutes and he resembled a lump of clay someone had piled in the chair. A lump of clay in a business suit.

When his eyes opened he made a pass at a perspiring decanter on the desk. I poured out a glass of ice water and handed it to him. He made loud gulping sounds getting it down.

I let my voice go flat. “You didn’t even know Wheeler, did you?”

His expression gave me the answer to that one. “Want to talk about it?”

Perry managed a fast negative movement of his head. I got up and put my hat on and walked to the door. Before I opened it. I looked back over my shoulder. “You’re supposed to be a solid citizen, fat boy. The cops take your word for things. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going out and find what it is that Rainey promised you and really lay it on.”

His face turned blue and he passed out before I closed the door. The hell with him. He could get his own water this time.

Chapter Six

The sky had clouded over putting a bite in the air. Here and there a car coming in from out of town was wearing a top hat of snow. I pulled in to a corner restaurant and had two cups of coffee to get the chill out of my bones, then climbed back in the car and cut across town to my apartment where I picked up my topcoat and gloves. By the time I reached the street there were gray feathers of snow in the air slanting down through the sheer walls of the building to the street.

It was twelve-fifteen before I found a parking lot with room to rent. As soon as I checked my keys in the shack I grabbed a cab and gave the driver the address of the Anton Lipsek Agency on Thirty-third Street. Maybe something could be salvaged from the day after all.

This time the sweet-looking ‘receptionist with the sour smile didn’t ask questions. I told her, “Miss Reeves, please,” and she spoke into the intercom box. The voice that came back was low and vibrant, tinged with an overtone of pleasure. I didn’t have to be told that she was waiting for me.

The gods on Olympus could well be proud of their queen. She was a vision of perfection in a long-sleeved dress striding across the room to meet me. The damn clothes she wore. They covered everything up and let your imagination fill in the blanks. The sample she offered was her hands and face but the sample was enough because it made you want to undress her with your eyes and feel the warm flesh of a goddess. There was a lilt to her walk and a devil in her eyes as we shook hands, a brief touch that sent my skin crawling up my spine again.

“I’m so glad you came, Mike.”

“I told you I would.” The dress buttoned up snug at the neck and she wore but one piece of jewelry, a pendant. I flipped it into the light and it threw back a shimmering green glow. I let out a whistle. The thing was an emerald that must have cost a fortune.

“Like it?”

“Some rock.”

“I love beautiful things,” she said.

“So do I.” Juno turned her head and a pleased smile flashed at me for a second and disappeared. The devils in her eyes laughed their pleasure too and she walked to her desk.

That was when the gray light from the window seeped into the softness of her hair and turned it a gold that made my heart beat against my chest until I thought it would come loose.

There was a bad taste in my mouth.

My guts were all knotted up in a ball and that damnable music began in my head. Now I knew what that creepy feeling was that left my spine tingling. Now I knew what it was about Juno that made me want to reach out and grab her.

She reminded me of another girl.

A girl that happened a long time ago.

A girl I thought I had put out of my mind and forgotten completely in a wild hatred that could never be equaled. She was a blonde, a very yellow, golden blonde. She was dead and I made her that way. I killed her because I wanted to and she wouldn’t stay dead.

I looked down at my hands and they were shaking violently, the fingers stiffened into talons that showed every vein and tendon.

“Mike . . .?” The voice was different. It was Juno and now that I knew what it was I could stop shaking. The gold was out of her hair.

She brought her coat over to me to hold while she slipped into it. There was a little piece of mink fur on her hat that matched the coat. “We are going to lunch, aren’t we?”

“I’m not here on business.”

She laughed again and leaned against me as she worked the gloves over her fingers. “What were you thinking of a minute ago, Mike?”

I didn’t let her see my face. “Nothing.”

“You aren’t telling the truth.”

“I know it.”

Juno looked at me over her shoulder. There was a pleading in her eyes. “It wasn’t me . . . something I did?”

I forced a lopsided smile. “Nothing you did, Juno. I just happened to think of something I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m glad, Mike. You were hating something then and I wouldn’t want you to hate me.” She reached for my hand almost girlishly and pulled me to the door at the side of the room. “I don’t want to share you with the whole office force, Mike.”

We came out around the corner of the corridor and I punched the bell for the elevator. While we waited she squeezed my arm under hers, knowing that I couldn’t help watching her. Juno, a goddess in a fur coat. She was an improvement on the original.