Read Online So Nude, So Dead by Ed McBain - Free Book Online Page B

teeth, and spilled down onto his chin.
    “You ready, Massine?” Ray drew back his fist again.
    “I only saw her on the band, that’s all. I only saw—”
    The fist cut him short again. It was hard and bunched like a solid iron ball. It rattled into Massine’s teeth and Ray felt the skin rip back off his knuckles. Massine’s mouth was a pomegranate now, pulpy and red.
    Ray pulled back his fist.
    “All right, all right!” Massine shrieked. “I saw her. Damn you, I saw her.”
    “Every day?”
    “Every day, yes, every day.”
    “Why?”
    Massine didn’t answer. He leaned against the fist bunched in his undershirt, his breath ragged and uneven.
    “Why?” Ray shouted.
    “She—she—was an addict.”
    “I know that.” He tightened his fist in the undershirt. He was sweating, and he didn’t like this. There was an insistent pounding in his head. His mouth was dry. “Come on, come on. Talk, Massine.”
    “I was getting her the stuff.” Massine let out a tortured sigh. “Heroin. I was supplying her.”
    Ray’s mind flicked to the sixteen ounces of heroin Eileen had shown him. His brows pulled together, and his mouth hardened.
    “You’re lying again, Massine. I’m going to break every tooth in your mouth unless—”
    “I’m not lying,” Massine screamed. He lowered his voice. “I’m not lying. Why would I lie? She was a junkie. I got the stuff for her. That’s the truth. Why should I lie?”
    “How much stuff? How much each day?”
    “An eighth, a quarter. It varied.”
    Ray unleashed his right fist again. Massine’s head shook with the blow, and his eyes were pleading and surprised.
    “That’s the truth! Holy God, it’s the truth.”
    “Eileen Chalmers had sixteen ounces of pure heroin with her when she was killed,” Ray said.
    “No!” Massine’s eyes were wide. Shock registered on his face.
    “I saw it,” Ray said. “Sixteen goddam ounces. What would she need a punk like you for?”
    “Sixteen—ounces?” Massine shook his head. “No, no—” He seemed to be trying to digest the fact. “That’s impossible.”
    “I saw it.”
    “Sixteen ounces? Pure?”
    “I said sixteen ounces. Stop stalling, Massine.”
    “I don’t know, I don’t know. She must have just got it. So help me, I sold her heroin every day.”
    “You want another fistful, Massine?”
    “I swear! Jesus, I swear. On my mother, I swear. I supplied her.”
    Ray shoved Massine backward, pulled his hand from the undershirt. “All right,” he said. He began pacing the room.
    It was with him again—all the longing, all the mounting desire. It tore at his mind and his body, threatened to shake his nerves loose from his skin, gouged at his stomach. And he’d thought it had left him. That was a laugh, all right. That was the biggest laugh today. It was still here, big as life, scratching away at his back. Goddamned monkey!
    Massine was leaning against the table, a fresh cigarette in his mouth.
    “Getting you, eh, hophead?” he asked.
    There was something familiar in the voice, the subtle urging perhaps, the superior tone, the well-known inflection of the man who held the key. Ray turned swiftly, his eyes narrowed. The sweat stood out on his brow in round, shining globules.
    “Massine,” he said softly, his voice a hiss. Massine didn’t answer. He backed against the table as Ray advanced slowly.
    “You supplied Eileen.”
    “Look, I already told you—”
    “You’re going to supply me.”
    “What?”
    “You heard me.” His voice was still low. It went on in an even tone, persuasively menacing. “You’re going to get me all the horse I need.”
    “You’re crazy. The cops are checking ever pusher in the city. You think I’m gonna stick out my neck for a lousy—”
    “Yes,” Ray said. “I think so.”
    “Well, you’re crazy. You think I want to spend the next five years in jail?”
    “I don’t care where you spend the next five years.”
    “Well, I do. You’re the hottest thing in the city,