Chapter 2
“Mr. Gafferson! What do you think you’re doing?”
It’d taken some effort, but Moe had finally got past the three-month-old baby stage. He was sitting up. Sort of. His legs hung limply over the side of the bed like packaged meat. Beads of sweat dotted his upper lip. And if he let go of the side rail he’d probably play patty cake with the floor. But at least he was upright.
“I’m busting out,” he panted. “This place gives me the creeps.” Moe hated the weak, breathy sound of his voice.
Mona Dale’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, really? How far do you think you’ll get before those stitches pop and you lose what little blood you have left?”
“Far enough to get a good meal. A man’s last meal shouldn’t be carrots he sipped through a straw.”
Mona Dale grinned. Not an ordinary nurse, this dame. Most of the Nightingales would have been in a lather, pushing Moe back to bed. Not her. Miss Dale’s green eyes sparkled as she leaned against the doorjamb like she was posing for a pin-up. “All right,” she said. “I’ll wait here. Bring me back a ham and swiss.”
Moe could have stared all day at the way her feminine curves fought with the starched white uniform. “They don’t serve deli food where I’m going,” he said.
“What if I can swing a plate of mashed potatoes? Would you consider staying with us a little longer?”
Moe liked her style: soft with some bite around the edges. The slim hope that her tits might win the battle against her buttons didn’t hurt either. But the dealmakers that had him acquiescing was the killer pain in his side, the nausea in his gut, and the weakness in his legs.
“Gravy, too?” he groaned.
“Only if you promise to stay in bed.”
“Yes, Mama.” Moe felt like a little boy being put to bed, except no mamas in his neighborhood ever looked like this frill. His body might not be up to do-si-do-ing with the nursing staff, but it couldn’t hurt to lay some groundwork for the future. Moe wouldn’t mind seeing a little more of Mona Dale when just lifting his head didn’t feel like work.
“You got something special planned for me, Miss Dale?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she sashayed over, felt Moe’s forehead with the back of her hand, and stuck a thermometer in his mouth. Five minutes later, Moe was back under his blanket, feeling like he’d climbed twelve stories to the penthouse suite.
“Mr. Gafferson...” she read the thermometer and scribbled on her clipboard. “I figure you for a man who wouldn’t care to hear the percentage of people who die,
not
from their stab wounds, but from the infection they get afterward.”
“You figure
that
right.”
She didn’t look up. “Then I’ll save that speech for the next guy.”
She finished her Red Cross routine by reaching behind Moe and fluffing his pillow. A man would have to be dead not to notice the sweet smell of Miss Dale, or the sweet swell of her breast against his shoulder.
“What do you do when you’re not bashing pillows and pushing mercury sticks, doll?”
Before Mona could answer, a tough cop from uptown Cincy, Officer Harold Murphy, waltzed into the room. Murphy could be a poster boy for Irish Catholic cops, except the Irish brogue had evaporated from his family a couple of generations ago.
“Hitting on the nurses, Gafferson?” Murphy smirked. “I guess the story you was shadowboxing with Lucifer was a little premature?”
Officer Murphy and Moe had butt heads on more than one occasion. Murphy didn’t like anyone playing John Law unless he carried the right kind of badge and wore the right color of blue. Moe wore mostly gray and kept his PI license in a drawer in his office.
“I wondered how long before a flatfoot would show up. Draw the short straw again, Murphy?”
“Apparently not as short as you, Gafferson. You ain’t lookin’ so good.”
Moe wasn’t feeling so good either, but that was none of Murphy’s business.
Mona Dale stepped up like a tiger protecting her cub. “Officer Murphy, is it?”
Murphy removed his hat and nodded politely. “Uh, yes, ma’am. Harold Murphy. Please to make your acquaintance.” Murphy’s pale Irish skin bloomed red. Moe had never seen this side of the guy, the side that went all squashy with manners. Beautiful dames could be powerful.
“Officer Murphy, this man has been through a great deal. I won’t allow you to upset him.”
“No, ma’am. I wasn’t planning to. But I do have to ask him a few questions.”
“I’m trusting you to be a man of your word.” She gave Murphy the Mother Superior look and then turned to Moe. “I’ll just go see about some potatoes.”
She left the room with two pair of eyes glued to her caboose and a momentary silence in shared appreciation.
When there was nothing else to look at, Moe spoke first. “What took you boys so long, Murphy? I figured you’d be here writing my epitaph.”
“We’ve been busy writing one for the other stiff.”
Moe took a second take. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t bust my chops, Gafferson. You know who I mean. The stiff in the house where you was snooping.”
Moe played the reel-to-reel in his head. The last thing he remembered was Mr. Smooth giving it to Kitty. Who was dead?
“What’s this stiff to me?”
