know what happened to him, but it sounds like your guy. Any help?”
“It’s someplace to start.”
“Glad to help, old buddy. But just take it easy. These are some nice acquaintances you’ve got, real nice. Jesus... Well, I’ve got to go now. I got some things of my own to check out.”
“You sure you should do that on your own? Shouldn’t you bring your partner into it?”
“I can look after myself, old buddy.”
Sure, Charlie. Fuck it, I had my own problems, and I didn’t know why I should be concerned about him. I had only saved his life, I didn’t own it.
Anyway, I thanked him for his help, and he got up. He seemed a little bit more determined than when he came in. I watched as he purposefully crossed the room, opened the bathroom door, and went in. A second later he came out, an embarrassed look on his face, went to the right door, and exited. I shook my head. Some detective—he can’t even find the front door. Watch out, you dope pushers, Popeye Watkins is in town.
I still had plenty of time before I went to see Maycroft, so I decided to take another shower. It wasn’t just the steadily rising temperature. Watkins had left me feeling vaguely depressed, and I wanted to wash his visit away.
I got in the shower and adjusted the head to the hardest spray. I let it run as hot as it would go, and after a couple of minutes the bathroom was completely steamed up. I turned off the hot and ran the straight cold. After I alternated hot and cold several more times, the last remaining kinks in my back had just about disappeared.
I wasn’t singing arias or anything like that, but I still didn’t hear my apartment door open. I didn’t know anyone had come in until the bathroom door opened. I must really have been slipping to let something like that happen. Either that, or some of the incipient disaster that Charlie Watkins carried around had rubbed off.
I stuck my head around the shower curtain and saw that it could have been a lot worse. It could have been The Mountain That Walks Like A Man, or a number of other unwanted visitors. Instead, it was only the daughter of the woman who manages the apartment building. Her name was Candi or Cindi or Bambi or one of those goddamn dumb names that were dropped on kids by parents who were terminally warped by the Mickey Mouse Club.
She was sixteen and pretty delectable if you like them that young. I had no particular prejudices either way, though I usually preferred them a bit older. I had boffed her mother a couple of times. Not bad, but she tried a little too hard to look like her daughter’s sister. She came close, but not close enough. The girl knew that I had made it with her mother, and she in turn had been trying to make me for some time now. Nice healthy mother-daughter competition. For no particular reason I had successfully resisted the girl’s advances, and, as is nearly always the case, this only made her try harder.
So there she was in my bathroom wearing a bikini that can only be described as minimal—three very small triangles of cloth, strategically placed, and held there by thin bits of string. It was the kind of bathing suit that, except for L.A., the Riveria, and Copacabana Beach, was only seen in magazines. She was tall and pleasantly thin with nice firm flesh. Her breasts were small, but well shaped and perfectly suited to her body. Her nipples were erect and visible through the thin fabric of the top. Her belly was beautifully rounded, and she arched her back to thrust it forward in the provocative stance that many adolescent girls display. She was blonde and pretty in a slutty sort of way that exactly suited her name, Suzi or Sherri or whatever it was. I figured she must have had boys howling around her like tomcats.
“Hi, Sam,” she said, grinning, displaying teeth that were a tribute to an orthodontist’s skill.
“Don’t you know it’s not polite to come into a man’s bathroom without being invited.”
She shook her long hair.
“It’s someplace to start.”
“Glad to help, old buddy. But just take it easy. These are some nice acquaintances you’ve got, real nice. Jesus... Well, I’ve got to go now. I got some things of my own to check out.”
“You sure you should do that on your own? Shouldn’t you bring your partner into it?”
“I can look after myself, old buddy.”
Sure, Charlie. Fuck it, I had my own problems, and I didn’t know why I should be concerned about him. I had only saved his life, I didn’t own it.
Anyway, I thanked him for his help, and he got up. He seemed a little bit more determined than when he came in. I watched as he purposefully crossed the room, opened the bathroom door, and went in. A second later he came out, an embarrassed look on his face, went to the right door, and exited. I shook my head. Some detective—he can’t even find the front door. Watch out, you dope pushers, Popeye Watkins is in town.
I still had plenty of time before I went to see Maycroft, so I decided to take another shower. It wasn’t just the steadily rising temperature. Watkins had left me feeling vaguely depressed, and I wanted to wash his visit away.
I got in the shower and adjusted the head to the hardest spray. I let it run as hot as it would go, and after a couple of minutes the bathroom was completely steamed up. I turned off the hot and ran the straight cold. After I alternated hot and cold several more times, the last remaining kinks in my back had just about disappeared.
I wasn’t singing arias or anything like that, but I still didn’t hear my apartment door open. I didn’t know anyone had come in until the bathroom door opened. I must really have been slipping to let something like that happen. Either that, or some of the incipient disaster that Charlie Watkins carried around had rubbed off.
I stuck my head around the shower curtain and saw that it could have been a lot worse. It could have been The Mountain That Walks Like A Man, or a number of other unwanted visitors. Instead, it was only the daughter of the woman who manages the apartment building. Her name was Candi or Cindi or Bambi or one of those goddamn dumb names that were dropped on kids by parents who were terminally warped by the Mickey Mouse Club.
She was sixteen and pretty delectable if you like them that young. I had no particular prejudices either way, though I usually preferred them a bit older. I had boffed her mother a couple of times. Not bad, but she tried a little too hard to look like her daughter’s sister. She came close, but not close enough. The girl knew that I had made it with her mother, and she in turn had been trying to make me for some time now. Nice healthy mother-daughter competition. For no particular reason I had successfully resisted the girl’s advances, and, as is nearly always the case, this only made her try harder.
So there she was in my bathroom wearing a bikini that can only be described as minimal—three very small triangles of cloth, strategically placed, and held there by thin bits of string. It was the kind of bathing suit that, except for L.A., the Riveria, and Copacabana Beach, was only seen in magazines. She was tall and pleasantly thin with nice firm flesh. Her breasts were small, but well shaped and perfectly suited to her body. Her nipples were erect and visible through the thin fabric of the top. Her belly was beautifully rounded, and she arched her back to thrust it forward in the provocative stance that many adolescent girls display. She was blonde and pretty in a slutty sort of way that exactly suited her name, Suzi or Sherri or whatever it was. I figured she must have had boys howling around her like tomcats.
“Hi, Sam,” she said, grinning, displaying teeth that were a tribute to an orthodontist’s skill.
“Don’t you know it’s not polite to come into a man’s bathroom without being invited.”
She shook her long hair.
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