Nor was Gobbo on the wide porch, taking the evening air. There was no car in sight, no signs of human habitation.

  I came back to the front door and walked in. The quiet made my ears ache. I waited inside the door until the moonlight showed me I was in a big room, the living room, and that there were doors from it leading into two bedrooms and a kitchen.

  My feet took me toward one of the bedrooms.

  My right foot hit something.

  It was a dead body.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I stood there for a long time, hardly breathing, not quite daring to look down to discover the identity of the dead man. My head told me who it was, my heart clamored against the information.

  Finally I knelt down and peered close to the face of the dead man. It was Gobbo Ragusi, all right.

  I damn near died myself.

  There went my hope of proving my innocence. Without Gobbo to testify, I didn’t have much chance of telling the world I wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.

  If I could find the gun now… .

  I didn’t want to turn on the lights. I’d showed my face to the fat man in the diner and to Elmer Pleyden. They would remember it. They would tell the State Troopers about the redheaded chick who had come looking for Gobbo Ragusi.

  Hold on, though. Two men had come looking for him as well. They might have left some clues, unless they had just burst in here and started shooting. I ran about the room, hunting for a light switch. The hell with caution right now. The harm had been done.

  When light flooded the room, I took another look at Gobbo. Three bullets, right in the middle of his chest. Those lead pellets were so well placed, they must have shattered his heart.

  Mafia work. Hit men under a contract.

  Augie Impiccato’s boys?

  I had no way of knowing, of course, but I began my search. I went into the bedrooms. One of them was in immaculate condition, the bed made, everything neatly in place. The other bedroom had an unmade bed, clothes and such scattered about helter-skelter. This was where Gobbo slept, I guessed.

  My feet took me into the kitchen, after a fruitless search for the missing gun. There was a half-eaten sandwich of Italian bread and Genoa salami. I stared at it, and my memory banks began clicking.

  Didn’t Augie Impiccato have a button who loved salami? Sure. “Salami Sam” Scanelli. A hit man. A deadly shot with a revolver, or so the rumor had it.

  Of course, Gobbo Ragusi might have been eating a salami sandwich when the killers came in on him. It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing. At that moment, I had to cling to something or sit down in that kitchen and bawl my eyes out. Everywhere I turned, I was running into blind alleys.

  I wondered if an analysis of Gobbo Ragusi’s stomach would show whether he had just eaten a salami sandwich. I had no analysts to turn to, so I did the next best thing. I found a baggie and with the help of a Kleenex, shoved the half-eaten sandwich into it. It might be some evidence against Salami Sam.

  I went out into the living room and stared down at what was left of Gobbo. An idea percolated its way into my head, so I ran out to the Mercedes-Benz and grabbed some photographic equipment I carry with me in the car trunk.

  I took some flashbulb photos of the dead man. My camera was a Polaroid, I didn’t have to bother with getting the pictures developed. They were in my hot little paws minutes after I had snapped them.

  Turning off all the lights, I tiptoed out of the cabin and closed the door gently behind me. I was wearing driving gloves. I would leave no fingerprints behind me.

  I slid into the car and drove off.

  Frankly, I didn’t relish the long drive back to New York. I was tired, drained emotionally. All I wanted to do was bed down and sleep.

  There was no way I was going to do this anywhere near the lake. I wanted to put distance between me and Gobbo Ragusi.

  About a hundred miles away, still traveling the back roads, I found a flea-bitten motel that was still open. I went in, registered, and was shown to a room.

  I undressed to my bikini panties and slid between the covers. I lay in the darkness, with my eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling that I could just about make out. I had to think, had to make some plans.

  It took maybe an hour, but when I fell asleep, I knew what I was going to do. I think there was a faint smile on my lips as I drifted off to dreamland.

  Next morning was bright and sunny. I drove to a diner, fed myself some bacon and eggs with toast and coffee, then turned the wheels toward the Thruway. I made good time. I was in Fun City inside three hours.

  Once my apartment door was shut and locked behind me, I dyed my hair black. The word was out that a redheaded N.Y.M.P.H.O. agent had shot Martin Obermayer, so the red hair had to go. Maybe Elmer Pleyden would remember that a redhead had come asking for Gobbo Ragusi, too, when his body was finally found.

  Then I telephoned Mark Condon.

  He came within the hour. I told him what had happened.

  “And the gun? It wasn’t there?”

  “Mark, I turned that place upside down, hunting for it. If it was there, it was gone by the time I got there. I think Augie’s boys took it away with them.”

  “It looks bad, Cherry.”

  I moved around the pad, feeling just as dejected as a man being sentenced to life imprisonment. I was wearing a rather short wraparound, and under it I was stark-naked. Mark gave me the once over, his eyeballs lighting up at the sight of my bare legs and bouncing breasts.

  “You look different with black hair,” he muttered.

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Down, boy. I’m not in any mood for zigzag.”

  He grinned. “Take your mind off your troubles.”

  “I’ve got plenty of those, God knows.”

  “Well, I’ll try and ease some of them, I’ll get up to Speculator and talk to the law officers there. I’ll put it to them that it was a Mafia killing and that we have agents working on the case.”

  “I’m not an agent any more, Mark.”

  “They don’t know that. We’re not obstructing justice, Cherry. You said you didn’t kill Gobbo and I believe you. Therefore, somebody else did.”

  “Salami Sam.”

  “Okay, Salami Sam. But we can’t make accusations without any more proof than a half-eaten sandwich.”

  “Willie Ciabatta can, I’ll bet.”

  Mark sat up and scowled. “You aren’t thinking of going to him, are you?”

  “Can you suggest anything else? I’m damned well not going to sit around this place and trash myself with worry.”

  Mark rose to his feet and moved to the portable bar that I keep well stocked with liquor. I watched him pour out Tanqueray gin and dry vermouth into two glasses and stir them, then add ice cubes. He carried both glasses to me and gave me one.

  I eyed it dubiously. “I don’t feel like drinking, Mark. I just haven’t the heart for it.”

  “You need it, Cherry. This isn’t for sociability, it’s medication.”

  I sipped and brightened. I sipped some more until the martini was inside me, and brightened even further. Mark came up behind me and kissed my neck, lifting my long hair to do so.

  “You bastard,” I laughed. “If you tell me you’re doing this for therapeutical reasons, I’ll wallop you one.”

  “It’s been a long time, honey.”

  His manhood was nudging my unfettered buttocks. He was in desperate want. I turned and lifting my arms, put them about his neck and gave him my mouth, open and wet. We kissed for long moments.

  What the hell! My nerves needed calming and I loved the guy, in my own fashion. Against his mouth I murmured, “I was thinking of shaving off my hair.”

  He said, “You don’t dare. I’d hate to make love to a bald woman.”

  “Not that hair, silly.”

  He grinned, with devil lights in his eyes. “I’m pretty good with a razor. You need help?”

  “Come on,” I smiled, and led him by the hand into my bedroom.

  Mark is no stranger to my bed. He went and got a towel and put it on the counterpane. Then he moved into the bathroom and came back carrying a shaving brush, a Trac II and a stick of Williams shaving cream. He made another journey for hot water.

  I sank down on the towel and parted my wraparound. Mark knelt down, dipped the brush into the hot water and started to lather my pubic hair. After all, I was a natural redhead, and my red pubic bush might not look so good if somebody were to see me naked, not with my long black hair.

  Mark was very careful, very gentle.

  When he was done, my pubic mound was pure white, empty of the slightest suggestion of hair. There were sweat beads on his forehead, he was suffering from what the French so aptly name a really terrific pine d’officer.

  I said as casually as I could, “You might as well take your clothes off too, lover.”

  We didn’t hurry. Mark and I never hurry when it comes to lovemaking. He is very interested in my body—he kisses it all over, usually, as a preliminary to our sex play. I was relaxed, at ease. I turned where he pushed and gurgled my pleasure when his mouth went browsing.

  I really needed that, as the TV commercial puts it.

  I was unwinding in a very pleasant manner. When his mouth found my con, I grabbed the sheets and balled them up between my fingers, giving little cries of ecstatic enjoyment.

  My troubles flew away on cloud nine.

  Then he was coming upward, joining himself to me. My arms and legs locked around him, my hips swiveled and jerked, and I wailed out my delight.

  He went on and on.

  It really had been a long time for him.

  When we were finally finished, we simply lay there and drifted off to sleep. I didn’t have anything else to do right then, and Mark Condon was busy on my case.

  How better to work on my case than take such a personal interest in my welfare? It was only right and proper.

  We made love again when we woke up, but when Mark wanted to be let free, I wouldn’t unlock my legs.

  “I’m pooped,” he grunted. “For the time being, anyhow.”

  “The bullet, Mark.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. The bullet Obermayer fired at you.”

  “Have you found it?”

  “Not yet. I’ll look tomorrow.”

  My hands pushed him back and away. “You haven’t been doing a damn thing for me, have you?”

  “Sure I have. I’ve been asking around town about Martin Obermayer. It seems he isn’t above taking an active part in some of The Family’s affairs, and I don’t mean just legal matters. He beat up a man once, and another time he was embroiled in a fight between a couple of Ciabatta’s boys and some of Augie Impiccato’s buttons. He also carries a gun. That is, he has a license to carry one. And—that gun can’t be found among his personal effects. It was searched for, but not found.”

  I sat bolt upright in bed, eyes wide with delight. “But that proves what I’ve been telling everybody. He did shoot at me.”

  Mark smiled grimly. “It’s not proof that he did, no. But it’s suggestive.”

  I eyed him warily. “Did you tell Avery King about this?”

  “I did. He seemed very pleased. He told me to keep working on the case. Said we may have you back with us before you know it.”

  “No way,” I announced flatly.

  Mark seemed distressed. “What are you talking about? Do you mean to tell me that you won’t come back to N.Y.M.P.H.O. when and if we prove you shot in self-defense?”

  “That’s just what I do mean, Mark. I’m finished with N.Y.M.P.H.O. For good. I just want to show I’m not guilty to clear my name. After that, I’ll get myself another job.”

  “You don’t mean that!”

  “I do. I do, indeed.”

  I flounced from the bed and reached for a wraparound. Standing beside the bed where Mark lay staring up at me, I told him, “I’ve had it with Avery King. Any boss who’d run scared because circumstances made one of his agents look bad isn’t the sort of man I want to work for.”

  Mark would have argued, but I held up my hand and said sweetly, “That’s all I have to say on the subject. Now how do you want your eggs, scrambled or sunny-side up?”

  “Scrambled,” he muttered.

  He would have continued the argument over breakfast, but I refused to listen. “I’ve had plenty of time to think all this out, driving up to Lake Sacandaga and back again. Right now, I’m going all out to prove to the world that I only shot because I was shot at. But I won’t go to work for Avery King ever again. He just threw me to the wolves.”

  Mark grumbled and glowered, but he ate his breakfast hungrily enough. He got dressed while I did the dishes and made my pad reasonably presentable. I saw him to the door and gave him a kiss, then went back to the bedroom and doffed the wraparound so I could take a shower.

  I did my thinking under cascading waters.

  Toweling off, I decided to dress in some glad rags, something to show off my bod. I selected a high-waisted dress of sari fabric. Due to the low cut of its bodice, it showed off the inner slopes of my somewhat generous breasts—I wore no bra—and a good deal of my rather shapely legs.

  Willie Ciabatta ought to like it, I thought.

  I chose a Gucci bag to match the pale blue of the dress, but for once didn’t put my Gold Cup Colt inside it.

  I knew where Willie Ciabatta hung out, more often than not, around lunchtime. He always went to a trattoria and ordered either spaghetti and meatballs, or a slice of lasagna These dishes were made specially for him, because he always phoned up in the morning and gave his order, so that when he got there, the food was almost ready.

  For once, I was lucky. I found a parking spot not too far from the restaurant. I marched myself down the sidewalk in my pale blue shoes that matched the dress, and attracted quite a few male eyes.

  I walked into the restaurant two minutes before Willie Ciabatta entered. He was a big man, once very muscular, but now running to fat. His jowls were heavy and despite a recent shave, showed a bluish color. He walked with a swagger. There was a perpetual sneer on his thick lips that were wrapped around a cigar. He puffed on the cigar as he walked, so that his head seemed always to be enveloped in a gray cloud.

  Two bodyguards walked in front of him, two behind.

  “Willie,” I called sweetly.

  His eyes flashed sideways at me, widened slightly, then narrowed. He nodded reluctantly, probably wondering where he had met a dish like me, but not remembering. Willie and I had never crossed paths before, which explained why he didn’t remember me. But I knew him very well, from having seen mug shots in the Rogues’ Gallery of the Mafia that N.Y.M.P.H.O. maintains.

  He was past me when I called out, “I have a present for you, Willie.”

  His step faltered. His left hand made a motion and the two bodyguards at his back detached themselves from him and stepped to my table. They had hard faces, their eyes had all the expression of two snakes.

  My lips dimpled a smile at them. “Mister Ciabatta will be glad to see me,” I told them.

  I pushed the bag to the far side of the table, stood up and turned around, holding my arms up. This showed the entire restaurant that I had no gun concealed on my person. One of the buttons grabbed the blue Gucci bag and opened it, feeling inside.

  He turned and nodded to Ciabatta.

  Willie grinned at me. His eyes ran over my body slowly, taking it all in. Expansively, he waved a pudgy hand. “Come on, kiddo. Join me for a bite.”

  I didn’t need a second invitation. But when I reached for my Gucci bag, the button holding it held it away from my hand. “No bag,” he muttered.

  I sat down demurely beside the capo di tutti capo.

  “I don’t know you, kiddo. I’ve been thinking. If I’d ever met you, I’d have remembered you. You’re some looker.”

  “Gobbo Ragusi used to think so too,” I murmured.

  Willie froze. “Used to?”

  I nodded, making myself look as miserable as I could. I leaned closer to Willie, whispering, “He isn’t around any more, you know.”

  Obviously, Willie Ciabatta didn’t know. He stared at me out of his hooded eyes. He took the cigar away from his mouth and put it down carefully in an ashtray.

  “Go on,” he muttered tonelessly.

  “He’s dead.”

  Even the bodyguards seemed startled. They looked from me to Willie, then back to me again. Willie sat frozen. His eyes held absolutely no emotion.

  “You’re trying to crap me.”

  I shook my head and wriggled a finger at the bodyguard who held my Gucci bag. “May I?” I asked.

  Willie nodded, the bodyguard handed me the bag. The other three buttons had their hands inside their jackets, on the butts of the guns they carried in shoulder holsters.

  I brought out the ten pictures I had taken of the dead Gobbo Ragusi. I handed them over to Willie, saying, “This is the present I had in mind.”

  He took the pictures and stared at them. His eyes told me he knew they weren’t faked. Gobbo Ragusi was dead, complete. The pictures shouted the fact. His face was still immobile, as though he had died himself. Only his eyes glowed.

  “Where’d you get these?” he whispered.

  “I took them myself with a Polaroid camera.”

  “Where’d you take them?”

  “In his cabin at Lake Sacandaga.”

  The eyes bored into me. “What were you doing there?”

  “I had a date with him. We were going to spend some time together.”

  His eyes flickered, left my face and traveled down to where my breasts were exposed in the low-cut bodice. I guess he liked what he saw, he smiled faintly.

  “How come you had a camera with you?”

  My smile was dazzling. “Sometimes the man liked to take pictures of me in—various poses. Gobbo was a real sensualist, you know what I mean?”

  Obviously, he didn’t, because he blinked and looked momentarily stupid.

  I explained. “He’d pose me without clothes on. In a chair, on a bed, stuff like that. He told me it made him remember how lovely I was.”

  My shoulders shrugged, making my breasts dance. “It was good publicity for me, in a way. It kept him from forgetting me.” I looked down at the table. “Gobbo was very generous.”

 

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