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?”
Murphy closed in until he could touch the side of the bed. “You were there. He was there. You boys wasn’t playing tiddly-winks.” Murphy paused. “Or maybe you was.” He let his shoulders relax. “I never figured you for a daisy, Moe.”
So the stiff wasn’t Kitty Winslow. Moe let free the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I never stepped foot inside that house.”
“Oh, no? Well, he was playing footsies with someone. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“How should I know? I don’t even know the gink’s name.”
“You was playing Private Dick, Moe, you always are. We find a man naked and spent and the smell of sex still dripping in the air, we figure he wasn’t alone at the climax. What was on that broken camera of yours anyway?”
“Vacation pictures.”
“Don’t be a wise-ass, Gafferson. You’re in up to your neck in this one. You better come clean.”
Moe glanced down at the bandages covering him from armpit-to-armpit. “I thought I was the victim.”
“That’s what happens to guys who stick their nose where it don’t belong.”
“All choked up, aren’t you Murphy?”
Murphy shrugged. “I ain’t got time for handing out handkerchiefs.”
Moe rubbed his hands over his face. He’d had enough chit-chatting with Murphy, and he wasn’t above milking a predicament when he needed to. “My mind’s a little jingle-brained, Murphy. Facing a coffin will do that.”
“Your mind’s as clear as rain water, Gafferson. You better spill what you know.”
“I think the nurse is coming, Murphy. You want to stick around to show off your manners, or maybe change my bandages?”
Murphy glimpsed over his shoulder. “Nah, I got better things to do than squeezing gimps like you. But something you oughta remember, Moe.” He put his hat on and walked toward the door, whistling. “Killers don’t like leaving jobs undone.”
Murphy continued whistling all the way down the hall. A perfect rendition of Taps.
“Have a nice day, Murphy,” Moe yelled after him. A sharp pain in his gut told him he wasn’t ready to do much yelling, not yet.
Moe closed his eyes. His body wanted to snooze, but his brain was working overtime. If Mr. Smooth was the one bumped, that muddied up the water. In Moe’s experience, goons with knives didn’t work alone. Moe had figured his attacker was a pal of Mr. Smooth’s. So if Smooth wasn’t the goon’s dance partner, who was? Moe could only drum up two possibilities.
Dutch Winslow didn’t fit right—murder wasn’t in his line-up. Dutch might have wanted Mr. Smooth out of the picture, but slicing up Moe in the process made no sense.
That left Kitty. But why would she want to off her lover?
Minutes later, the drugs in his body won the tug-of-war, and like it or not, Moe was snoozing.
