Part 22 (2/2)

But instead of getting beneath the covers he lay on top of the coverlet, and he kept picking up the brand-newit rain down over his naked body like falling leaves

”Have a good ti crazily to hi door

She quickly stepped across the bathroom, opened the opposite door and stepped into the other bedroo out across the cover and the other folded loosely across his stohtly

She closed the bathroom door behind her, crossed the room quietly, and set the radio to alarm within five minutes Then she dressed quickly in a slack suit without stopping to put on underwear, slipped into the robe again, and went back into the bathroo all the while and had reached the overflow outlet She turned off the faucet, turned on the shower and pulled the drain stopper

Then she went quickly into the hail, turned into the kitchen, took her saddle-leather shoulder handbag froh the service doorway

She was crying so hard as she ran down the stairs she bu up They stood aside to let her pass

20

The radio ca out a rock and roll rhythh he'd been bitten by a snake, leaped out of the bed and grabbed for the pistol underneath his pillow

Then he realized it was only the radio He grunted sheepishly and noticed that Dulcy was out of bed He felt his inside coat pocket with his free hand, still holding the pistol in his right hand, and discovered the ten thousand dollars were gone

He patted the coat absently where it lay on the chair beside the bed, but he was looking at the empty bed His breath came shallowly, but his face was expressionless

”Sevened out,” he said to hi so loudly he didn't hear the door to the bathrooht a ificker of movement from the corner of his eye and turned

chink stood naked, with his eyes dilated and his mouth wide open, in the doorway

They stared at each other until the moment ran out

Suddenly the veins popped out in Johnny's teh they were about to explode The scar ballooned out fro to free the flash went off inside of his skull as though his brains had been dynamited

His brain ger of his 38 autos into chink's stos, heart and head Then he leaped across the floor and sto bloody body with his bare feet until two of chink's teeth were stuck into his calloused heel After that he leaned over and clubbed chink's head into a bloody pulp with his pistol butt

But he didn't know he had done it

The next thing he knew consciously after having first caught sight of chink was that he was being held forcibly by thite uniformed cops and chink's bloody corpse lay on the floor in the doorway, half in the bedroo down into an empty tub

”Turn me loose so I can dress,” he said in his toneless voice ”You can't take an to dress

”We've called precinct and they're sending over some jokers from Homicide,” one of theet here?”

”What for?” Johnny said, without stopping dressing

”We heard the shots and the back door was open, so we cahtHe was dressed before the men from Hoeant Brody came

”Well, you killed him,” Brody said

”There's all the evidence,” Johnny said

They took hi because Grave Digger and Coffin Ed were on the case and they worked out of that station

Brody sat as before behind the desk in the Pigeon Nest Grave Digger was perched on the edge of the desk, and Coffin Ed stood in the shadow in the corner

It was 8:37 o'clock and still light outside, but it didn't make any difference to them because the room didn't have any s

Johnny sat in the spifi of light on the stool in the center of the roorotesque patterns of the scar on his forehead and the veins swelling fro muscular body was relaxed and his face was expressionless He looked like a otten a load from his shoulders

”Why don't you just let me tell you what I know,” he said in his toneless voice ”If you don't buy it, you can question me afterwards”

”Okay, shoot,” Brody said

”Let's begin with the knife, and get that cleared up with,” Johnny said ”I found the knife in her drawer on a Tuesday afternoon a little over teeks ago I just thought she'd bought it to protect herself froot to thinking about it and I was going to put it back, but Big Joe seen it If she was so scared of me she needed to keep a skinner's knife hidden in the drahere she kept her underwear, I was going to let her keep it But I was handling it and Big Joe said he'd like to have a knife like that, and I gave it to hiht about it until you showed it to me here on that desk and said it was the knife that killed Val, and that the preacher had said he'd seen chink when he gave it to her”

”You don't knohat Big Joe did with it?” Brody asked

”No, he never said All he ever said was that if he carried it around he was scared he et mad some day and cut somebody with it, and it was the kind of knife that would cut ato do was mark him”

”Did you ever see another knife like it?” Brody asked

”Not exactly like it,” Johnny said ”I've seen knives what look kind of like it, but none what look exactly like it”

Brody took the knife from the desk drawer as he had done the first time and pushed it across the desk

”Is this the knife?”

Johnny leaned forward and picked it up