Angel of Mercy (23 page)

“I guess so,” he said.

“We already know we like touching each other,” she said, laughing.

“Oh, I love touching you. There’s nothing I want more.”

“As long as you’re always gentle with me and understand that I’m…

I’m not very sophisticated,” she admitted.

“That means nothing to me. I’m far from what you would call sophisticated.”

“Oh, I bet you’ve had a lot of girlfriends.”

“Me? No, ma’am. No.”

“You mean we’re both… virgins?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“That’s good, because we’ll make discoveries together and Faye says when two people do that, they find it easier to love each other.”

“I bet she’s right.”.

“Oh, I’m sure she’s right. She’s usually right about most things.”

“She’s a very good nurse. I know,” he said nodding.

“Will you kiss me?” Susie asked.

“What?”

“Will you just lean over and kiss me?” She closed her eyes and pursed her lips.

Corpsy took a deep breath and looked around the room as if he wanted to be sure this wasn’t all a dream.

Then he swallowed and leaned forward to press his lips to hers. It was a quick kiss, and to illustrate that she didn’t think it was enough, she kept her eyes closed and her lips pursed. He swallowed again and leaned forward to kiss her harder and longer. The moment he did so, she put her hand on his shoulder. She kept it there when he lifted his lips from hers.

“That was very nice,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“You know that I’m shy.”

“Well… I thought you might be, but…”

“I am shy. I’m just very excited right now and very happy. Aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” he said, nodding.

“Kiss me again,” she said. “Go on.”

Corpsy did as she asked. He thought he was on fire.

She moaned and leaned against him, kissing his neck and his shoulders.

Her caresses both excited and frightened him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it? He was sorry now that he had had such limited experience with women. What was he supposed to do?

Was she testing him? If he turned her away, would she resent him and be angry? Or would she be angrier if he returned the kisses and the caresses?

“Your sister might be coming soon,” he said to test the waters.

“No. She won’t be here for a while. Besides, she’ll call first.

Girls know what to do,” Susie said, winking.

She kissed him on the tip of his nose before pressing her lips to his again and pushing herself on him so that he fell back on the bed. He kept his hands at his sides as she kissed her way down his chest and then fingered the towel around his waist.

“Don’t you like me?” she asked when he didn’t respond.

“Oh yes, I just thought you’d be angry if I…”

“I won’t be angry, but you’ve got to hold me and kiss me and do love the way I want to do love the first few times, because I’m shy. I told you. I’ve never been with a man like this.”

“Of course,” he said, and he kissed her quickly. She laughed and stood up to unbutton her uniform. But she’ paused before taking it off.

“Turn over,” she said. “I don’t want you to look at me right away.”

“Okay.” He turned over.

“I’ll help you, though, if you don’t mind,” she said, and he. felt her fingers under the elastic of his briefs.

He lifted his body as she pulled them down. Then he felt the palm of her hand on his buttocks. “You’re as smooth as a baby,” she said. He laughed, too.

“I’ve got to go into the bathroom first and do something girls do,” she said. “Faye would be very angry if I didn’t.”

“Of course,” he said. He started to turn..

“No,” she said sharply. “Don’t move and don’t look back at me, okay?”

“Okay.”

He lay there while she picked up her purse and went into the bathroom.

His erection was so full and firm, it nearly lifted his lower body off the bed. A few moments later, he heard her approach the bed and then he felt her naked body over his, her breasts on his back, her pubic hair against his leg as she clamped her legs around his. Her brace was cold against his hot skin.

She moaned, and he closed his eyes and moaned softly, too.

“Susie,” he murmured, “my Susie.”

Was this really happening? He was in the greatest ecstasy of his life.

“Don’t look,” she said when he started to turn his head.. “He pressed his forehead to the sheet and obeyed.

Then he felt her body lift from his. A moment later, there was a pin-prick pain in his neck that grew and grew. He started to lift himself up, but she pressed her knees against the small of his back and the pain continued for a moment more. It was as if a giant bee had gotten stuck in him.

Finally he screamed and frailed out, pushing her off him. Then he turned and sat up. She was on the floor, naked, but in her right hand there was a hypodermic needle, its contents emptied.

The effect was immediate. He started to speak but experienced a tightness in his throat. His eyelids felt like they had turned to stone and his breathing shortened until he was gasping for air. He struggled to stand. Susie got to her feet and scooped up her uniform as he fell to the floor and then grasped the bed to pull himself up again. She put on the uniform quickly, gathered her purse, dropped the hypodermic into it, and rushed to the door as he collapsed to the floor again, his guttural noises ugly. When she looked back, he was clutching his rib cage. His face was turning blue.

She looked around the parking lot as Faye had instructed, waited to be sure it was clear, and then closed the door quietly and moved as quickly as she could with her limp to the car.

“Well?” Faye asked as soon as she got into the car.

“It went just as you said it would, Faye,” Susie said, gasping slightly.

She was so excited she couldn’t find the key, and Faye had to tell her it was still in the ignition.

“Go on, get us out of here quickly,” Faye said, sitting back.

Susie started the car and drove out. In moments they were down the street.

“I’m proud of you, Susie,” Faye said. “So proud.”

Back in the room, Corpsy had managed to drag himself toward the door.

He put all his strength and determination into reaching for that doorknob.

When his fingers found it, he closed them as best he could and pulled and pulled, but it seemed like his arm was pulling away from his body.

He wasn’t rising and he wasn’t getting any air into his lungs. He did manage to turn the knob so that the door clicked open. He fell back to the floor, his nose close to the opening.

And there he died of respiratory failure, looking like a fish out of water, his eyes bulging, his lips swollen, his tongue a pale pink, his ecstasy cut short forever.

Jennie was sitting in the living room with the lights low. Frankie closed the front door softly and almost tiptoed into the house. At the moment, he would rather charge into a den of terrorists, guns blasting.

He paused in the living room doorway. The weak illumination cast a long, dark shadow over Jennie’s face, making it look as gaunt as death.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?” he asked.

“Isn’t it funny,” she said, “how even when things can be simple, we make them complicated. We are our worst enemies.”

“Jen…”

“I called Dr. Pauling. Something told me your story was a fabrication.

That’s a nice way of saying you lied to me, Frankie. Now I don’t know who’s more furious, me or the doctor.”

“Oh, those specialists,” Frankie said, stepping into the living room.

“If they don’t get things exactly their way… They’re prima donnas, that’s what they are, the prima donnas of the medical world.”

“It’s not Dr. Pauling who has to be worried.”

“It’s no big deal. It’s just a matter of schedules,” Frankie claimed.

“If I were in the middle of a life-anddeath situation…”

“You could be,” Jennie snapped.

“Jennie, I haven’t so much as walked fast since I was in the hospital.

I haven’t lifted anything that weighs more than… than a pencil.”

“Why did you do it, Frankie? Why did you postpone getting this over with?”

“Jen,” he said sitting on the sofa, “I stumbled on something… you wouldn’t believe. You see,” he said becoming’ visibly excited, “I had this warning bell go off in my head when Rosina told me about this suicide the other day. I never liked loose ends. If something is cut-and-dried, it shouldn’t have loose ends. Anyway, there was this medication…”

“I heard about this already, Frankie.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t hear the follow-up. Turns out there was a maid looking after the victim the night before. No one knew her and only this old gent saw her.

His description was worthless until he mentioned this leg brace she wears, see.

“Anyway, turns out the maid’s the twin sister of this private-duty nurse who took care of the victim’s wife.

That situation in and of itself isn’t a bell ringer, but

. ú

“Frankie.”

“No, wait, listen,” he said, hoping to infect her with his enthusiasm.

“The two of them are involved in the same way with the next suicide victim, Tommy Livingston, who again is killed with an overdose of medicine. I check out the nurse’s background and find she worked in Phoenix…”

“Frankie, for God’s sake, you’re actively involved in a potential murder case, and a suspected serial killing to boot!”

“It’s not a big deal physically. I’m not wrestling with anyone. I’m doing some hard-nose, nitty-gritty police work: phone calls, a little research, some interviewing…”

“Couldn’t this be done by someone else, Frankie?

You’re not the only cop in Palm Springs.”

“Well, the department’s been a little busy and…

Nolan… that smartass bastard… ridiculed my suspicions from the start.”

Jennie leaned forward into the light and nodded.

“So it’s not so much a matter of cracking a case as it is keeping your ego intact, is that it, Frankie?” she asked.

“No. I mean, I don’t mind shoving it to Nolan, but there are people in grave danger out there if I’m right, and I’m about ninety-five percent convinced I am. I just don’t know to what extent both sisters are involved, if both are.”

“So you have a ways to go?”

“Not much. That’s why I wanted to put off going in tomorrow, see?

Once I do…”

“You’ re retired.”

“Exactly, and this case might fall through the cracks. They’ll leave Palm Springs and prey on other people, Jen.”

She stared at him a moment.

“What does Nolan think now?” she asked softly.

“He’s come around to my way of thinking and ‘he feels like the horse’s ass he is,” Frankie said happily.

“So then he won’t let the investigation die if you go into the hospital.”

“It’s not that siinple, Jen. This is lny baby now. A good detective develops a passion for his cases, and another detective conting on might very well not have the same passion. These women, they’re… very intelligent, and the MOs are sophisticated. I mean, they’ve gotten by coroners from here to the East Coast.”

“But they won’t get by Frankie Samuels. No sir,” Jennie said bitterly.

“Jen.” He sighed and sat back. “Most of my adult life,” he began,

“I’ve been a cop. I’ve eaten, worked, slept cop. It’s been who and what I am. Now, practically overnight, I’m told I’ve got to become a different person. I’ve got to bm?“j the identity I’ve had. All right, I’ve come to terms with that, but let me say goodbye my own way,” he pleaded.

“Let me give the old flatfoot one last moment of glory.”

“Oh Frankie, I’m just scared,” Jennie said. “I don’t want that old flatfoot to take you with him.” Frankie nodded.

“He won’t, Jen. I promise. If I don’t wrap it up before I’m supposed to go in now, that’s it; it’s over.”

He saw the tears streaming down her face and went to her, kneeling beside her and wiping the tears off gently. Then he kissed her and embraced her, lowering his head to her lap. She put her hand on his head and stroked his hair.

“I love you, babe, and I’m sorry I lied to you and I’m sorry you’ve suffered at all.” He looked up at her.

“I’ve been afraid, Frankie. I’ve always been afraid. I know you go to war every day. Most of the time, I filled my life with things just so I’d keep busy and not think about it. But every time you came home to me, I felt this great relief and this great surge of 10ve. I know I became complacent at times, overconfident, maybe; and I just came to believe I’ve been lucky. I’m sorry you had this heart problem, but I didn’t look at it as tragically as you did. I saw it was a way out.

Maybe I’m selfish for wanting you all to myself, but I want you, and that flatfoot Frankie Samuels is just going to have to give you up.”

“He will, Jen. I swear.”

She put her hands under his chin and he rose to bring his lips to hers.

“Hey, I’m home in time for dinner for a change,” he said, and she laughed. “What?”

“I was so angry at you, I didn’t make any dinner.”

“What?”

“You’ll have to take me out.”

“Fine thing. A man comes home from a hard day’s work and…”

“And takes his wife to dinner. Get used to it,” she said. “I’m close to retirement age myself.”

They both rose just as the phone rang. He stared at it.

“It might be Beth or Stevie,” she said with confession in her eyes.

“You ratted on me?”

“I had to vent my feelings on someone. Isn’t that what your grown children are for?”

He laughed and lifted the receiver. It was Beth.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

“Just living up to my idealistic beliefs,” he kidded.

“How do you like it?”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Why, because it’s me?”

“Oh, Dad.”

“Look, you and your brother don’t have to worry,” he sa’ld. “I’ve got it all figured and…”

“I want you around, Dad. I want you there to see my children.”

“Children? You’ve got children?”

“Eventually.”

“Sure you want them around Dirty Harry?”

“I’m sure, Dad. You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“No sense in stopping now,” he said. “How was your date?”