Over Her Dear Body (2 page)

“But we haven't finished the dance.”

“Maybe you haven't, baby, but
I've
finished.”

“Oh, come on, Scotty. Just another minute.”

“Another minute would do it, all right. No. Thank you, but no.” I spoke firmly. If you can speak firmly while breathing through your mouth. “I really do need that drink.”

While she argued with me,
Imagination
ended and the boys in the group took a short break. Arline and I finished our drinks, then she said, “You're fun, Scotty. But I want to dance. I'm just crazy about dancing.”

“I'd guessed it.”

“So I'm going to find somebody with—with stamina. With stick-to-it-iveness.”

“Maybe if it hadn't been a fox trot...” I began weakly. Then I changed my tune and defended myself, “I've got stamina. The thing is, I've got too much stamina. I've got so much...” I paused. “Incidentally, exactly what do you mean by stick-to-it-iveness? And stamina, for that matter?”

“Oh, Scotty. Here we are arguing. Already.”

“Arguing? Who's—”

“Oh, there's Zimmy,” she cried.

“Zimmy? Who's—”

“'Bye, Scotty. We'll get together later maybe. I've got to dance a Shiffle with Zimmy.”

“Shiffle? What's—”

But she was gone. Maybe it was just as well. The conversation had become pretty disconnected. I stood there, feeling as if somebody had given me a hot transfusion and then taken it back. So I looked around, sort of sneering loftily at everybody, then walked toward the bow, having another healthy glug of my bourbon. If those glugs were really healthy, by now I would have been in perfect condition—I'd had no dinner, and I'd been pouring this healthy bourbon down quite rapidly since my arrival. And a dinner of bourbon is practically no dinner at all. Time to start taking it easy, no doubt. So I finished the last swallow, put my glass at the edge of the alleyway, and went on to the spot up forward where I'd been earlier.

No client had put in an appearance, after two or three minutes, so I lit a cigarette and looked out over the bay to the lights of the Balboa Fun Zone. The Ferris wheel was circling slowly, suspended carriages rocking to and fro as the wheel stopped for another pair of passengers. Above it the stars, distant suns sharp in the clear sky, seemed mere dim reflections of the lights below. Somewhere over on the starboard side of the yacht a gal was singing off-key, but pleasantly, happily off-key.

Then, below decks, somebody in one of the staterooms on this side switched on a light. The glow poured out of the portholes and onto the water below. And, for the second or third time tonight, I saw that swirl of white.

It looked almost like somebody swimming around down there. I shook my head. That didn't make good sense. Maybe it was a porpoise. An albino porpoise. Yeah—that made sense. I was squinting, leaning forward, and now my eyes not only focused but the vision got very clear indeed.

That was no porpoise. Or if it was, it had a beautiful bare fanny. Suddenly I didn't feel so crushed about being abandoned by Arline. Maybe the best party wasn't on this here yacht after all; maybe it was down there with the fish.

I shook my head again. This kind of thinking won't do at all, I thought. I must be drunk. I must be losing my mind. That can't be a porpoise. Porpoises simply don't have fannies like that.

And, by golly, that's what it wasn't.

As she straightened out, the contours of a shapely little gal became clearly visible just under the water's surface. She stroked toward the
Srinagar.
And I got a good look at it.

That's what it was, all right. I was convinced.

It was a bare fanny.

Chapter Two

That's what it was, for sure. I knew. I may not know much about porpoises, but I know a little about bare fannies. It's hard to fool me with those.

I have seen them before. In fact, when I was Health Director of the Fairview Nudist Camp, I saw more bare fannies than you would think a man could stand. Some beautiful, some only moderately pleasing, and some that should have been filed under “Miscellaneous.” For a while there I'd thought I might never want to look at one again.

But that feeling passed. And how it passed. The truth is, it just whetted my appetite. And down there was what looked like a veritable banquet. Even after Fairview, this was more than just a—well, a bottom. It was the tops in bottoms, a vision of water-kissed dandiness, sheer poetry, a fanny sonnet; all by itself, it was enough.

She had swung clear up to the side of the yacht by now, and she stopped, keeping almost motionless by dog-paddling. She raised one arm and waved.

I waved back.

Then a deliciously merry feminine voice called softly, “Hey, up there.”

“Yeah! Yeah!” I called down to her. “Hello! What's...” I couldn't think of anything else to say.

She called up, “Please help me.”

“Okay. I'll be right in. Don't panic.”

“No! Stay there,” she yelped. “I want to get back
up.
”

“Back up? Up here? With ... me?”

“Yes, up there. Somebody took away my ladder—never mind. I'll tell you when I get up there.” I was still leaning over the rail, so the light which poured onto the water from the portholes below was also shining up on me. She went on, “I saw your cigarette, but I couldn't see you until the light came on just now. I decided to take a chance on you.”

“You're taking a chance, all right.”

She laughed. “Don't tell anybody I'm in here.”

“Don't you worry!”

“I'd be embarrassed. Will you get my bikini for me? Better do that first.”

“Bikini?”

“My bathing suit. It's a red and white striped bikini back at the far end of the boat—where all the people are. But way farther back, clear at the end, on the deck behind some kind of storage box.”

“I can find it.” Explanations, I decided, could wait; now was a time for action.

“I can't come back aboard like this,” she said. “So run and get it and give it to me, will you?”

“Trust me. I'll do it,” I said. “Hold tight. Don't go anywhere ...
don't ask anybody else!
”

I heard her laugh again, but I was racing toward the stern. Alongside the dancing people I slowed down, walked on past the bar. I didn't have any trouble finding the bikini. The red and white striped wisps of cloth were in deep shadow behind some kind of chest affixed to the deck on my right, close to the edge. I picked the two small pieces up, wadded them in one hand and started back to the bow.

And now, at a time when I was in no mood for delays of any kind, there was a delay. In fact, two delays. And at least one of them was trouble.

It all happened in about a minute. As I turned and headed forward again, I saw the lovely dark-haired gal in the white dress, whom I'd earlier been admiring, step from the edge of the dance floor and walk up the darkened alleyway down which I'd just rapidly traveled. The whiteness of her dress was visible in the darkness as she walked twenty feet or so along the corridor and stopped.

It seemed more than a coincidence; there was, I thought, a chance she was waiting there for me. At any other moment I would have been overjoyed by that possibility, but at this moment I merely felt a slight queasiness come over me. Maybe, though, she was just getting some fresher air, watching the lights. I didn't get to ask her.

As I passed the dance floor and reached the alleyway a man behind me said, “Hey, you.”

I didn't know if he meant me or not, so I kept on going. He said sharply, “You. Scott.”

I was out of sight of the dancers, a few feet into the corridor's relative dimness, and I stopped and turned around. Walking toward me was a tall, thin, hawk-faced guy. I'd never seen him before. But he knew my name; and it came out of his mouth as if he didn't like it.

“Yeah, you,” he said, walking up to me. “You are Shell Scott, aren't you?”

“So?”

“So what the hell are you doing aboard?”

His voice was nasty. In fact, most things about this egg impressed me as nasty, unpleasant. He was about an inch taller than I, but very thin, and his face was sucked in at the sides of his mouth, his hairline high on his forehead, the nose hooked and sharp over a thin black mustache. Some women might have thought him sort of sinisterly handsome, but to me he looked emaciated, unhealthy. Hawk-faced, but as if the hawk were moulting.

I said quietly, “I could think quite a while without thinking of any reason why I should tell you.”

“A smart guy,” he sneered. “I heard you was a smart one, a tough boy.” He was asking for it. He went on, “There's no room on the
Srinagar
for no private eye, no peeper. Especially not you, Scott.”

“Well, maybe I can make room.” I took a deep breath, still managing to keep my voice calm and quiet, “So good-by.”

“Yeah, good-by all right. You're leaving, jerk.” He frowned at me, straight black brows drawing down over his eyes. “But first you're gonna tell me what brought you here tonight, of all nights.”

“What's so special about tonight?”

He chewed on his lip. “Never mind. You want to go now, quiet like, in the launch? Or all of a sudden, over the side?”

“You don't look much like the skipper of this tub. Or the guy throwing the party. Or a guy who can toss me over the side, for that matter. So maybe I'd better wait until somebody else tells me to blow.”

I was guessing. For all I knew he might have been the yacht's owner; but my guess was apparently right and he was just a punk throwing his weight around. Why, I didn't know.

He swore softly and said, “Let's say I'm a friend of a friend. And I'm telling you, beat it.”

I was tired of this egg. Guys like this one I get tired of very fast. I started to squeeze my hand into a fist, and felt the cloth in my hand. I'd forgotten the bikini, and automatically I glanced down at it. So did the hawk-faced guy.

“What in the hell—” he said explosively and grabbed at the cloth. The red and white wisps were jerked from my fingers, and he glared at them, then said, “Why, you bastard! That's Bunny's bikini. What the hell you doing with Bunny's bikini?”

He didn't know it, but that was the last time he was going to swear at me. I said softly, “Friend, watch your language. Or I'll wash out your mouth with your teeth. And who's Bunny?”

He didn't answer. He just pivoted suddenly and swung at me. Not with an awkward right. It wasn't a right, and it wasn't awkward. It was a sharp left hook launched hard and fast at my face with his body pivoting gracefully behind it.

I didn't quite get out of the way of his fist. I did manage to jerk my head back enough so the blow bounced off the point of my chin. But then I had him.

I have been hit with just about everything except a Ford's rear axle, and in the process I've developed a number of automatic reflexes. That, added to years as a United States Marine, with the Marines' emphasis on manual self-defense, with more judo and several ideas of my own thrown in for good measure, made the rest of this practically automatic.

As his left fist bounced jarringly off my chin I brought up both arms fast, right hand closing around his elbow and left arm slapping the inside of his forearm. I turned left with him, pushing on his elbow and following the force of his blow, and his wrist slid neatly into the crook of my left elbow. With his wrist caught there, I slapped my left hand over the right one as he swung off balance, kept pulling down on his elbow with both hands now as I leaned into him. And I really leaned into him. I heard the bone pop. It hadn't broken—not yet it hadn't—but the elbow bones and tendons, bending the wrong way, were audibly protesting. And so was he.

It wasn't a loud sound. The noise was a pained grunt growing into a choking gasp. I kept the pressure on, even increased it a little as I bent forward. He was turned clear around, facing almost in the same direction I was, his knees bending. He gasped some more, went down on one knee. His right hand was still free, but he couldn't swing it toward me without breaking the other arm that I was playing with. Or getting it broken.

But he didn't wilt, or quit, or ask me to stop. He just swore at me filthily, spittle rolling over his lower lip.

I said softly, “Friend, in about five seconds I can break a couple arms and a couple legs for you, and then you wouldn't have any left. So shut that kisser and take it easy.” I leaned into him a little more and his head snapped back, mouth stretching wide. The mouth was wide, but nothing was coming out of it.

I held him that way long enough so he wouldn't forget it, then let go and straightened up. For a moment he kept his arm in the air where I'd left it, then slowly he pulled it toward his chest, grabbed it with his right hand. Breathing gustily through his mouth he got to his feet and stood facing me, staring at me.

“Okay, Scott,” he said finally. “Okay.” He swallowed. “Remember, you asked for it, Scott.” He sighed shudderingly, as if pain and hate and anger were all mixed into the sound, then added, “And you'll get it.”

Chapter Three

The hawk-faced guy wheeled and walked away, holding his arm close to him. I watched him go, wondering what that had been about, then bent forward and picked up the two pieces of cloth that had so infuriated him. He'd dropped them about halfway through the elbow-bending bit. I straightened up and started to turn when there was a sound behind me.

I swung around suddenly, stopped when I saw the white dress. I'd completely forgotten the girl who'd come up here ahead of me. She must have been only a few feet away all the time.

She said, “How do you do, Mr. Scott. I'm Elaine Emerson.”

It was the throbbingly beautiful voice I'd heard on the phone. But now, undistorted, issuing softly from her lips, it was a caress, like whispers in front of glowing fireplaces, the softly slurred laziness of a woman's words between kisses, a voice for after midnight, and cocktails, and soft music.

“Believe it or not,” I said, “I've been hoping you were. Hello.”