Gat Heat (28 page)

I turned the knob and stepped inside.

The lights were on in the room. The bed covers were turned down.

Dilly—somehow I would always think of her as Dilly—apparently slept in the nude. At least, that's what she was wearing. She was standing by the bed, and as we came in she turned toward us.

There was just a flicker of surprise, and perhaps shock, when she saw it was not her husband coming gayly to join her in the sack. Then her expression smoothed. She sank gracefully down onto the edge of the bed.

Dilly didn't make any effort to hide her nude body, to cover any part of herself with fluttering hands. She just placed her palms flat on the bed at the sides of those sonnet-worthy hips, leaned forward an inch or two, breasts swinging slightly, and looked at us from the melting, hazel eyes.

And, for a moment, I stood still, looking at her.

Even after the time I'd spent gazing at that body in the thin white jersey swimsuit, at the lovely face and eyes and brows and lips and smoothness of her, the sight of her was something which entered the nerves and loins and heart more than the eyes. Even aside from the nakedness of her flesh, seeing her once again had a newness, and might always have something of that newness. Maybe there's a better word. But it was the kind of newness Adam might have felt on discovering that Eve was not a boy.

O.K., I told myself. She's still beautiful, gorgeous woweewow, with a body not real, that can't truly be real, with a warmth and vital glow and an almost-sweet heat a man could feel from clear across the street on a drizzly day.

O.K. And so what? You know the real Dilly, I told myself. You know what's inside her, the dark pools, the emptiness, the—call it evil, to sum it up in a word. And you sure enough know what she did to you. Not once, but twice.

But fool me once, fool me twice, and so on—I was cured. I'd bleed no more. With all that in my mind, I knew she'd never be able to turn me on again, never be able to dazzle my eyes and brain with mere beauty and artful wile.

She smiled. “Hello, Shell,” she said. “Believe it or not, I'm glad you got away.” Then she looked past my shoulder and went on, “And who's your handsome friend?”

Well,
that
did it. Cool as a cucumber, wasn't she? Well, so was I. If I'd needed any additional little bit more just to be
sure,
that was it. I was cured, all right.

I took three long steps toward her, cool, calm, fully rational at last. Savoring my triumph, I stopped before her, looked down at her.

“Dilly Gun,” I said, “I have come to get my pickle.”

Hours later, I smoked a last cigarette, and decided to get some sleep. Try to get some, anyway.

The case was wrapped up, over entirely. Except, of course, for the attorneys, the D.A., courts, testimony, the legal denouement. Just the frosting on the cake, but the cake was cooked. I'd been running it all through my mind.

I was glad it was over, pleased with the way it had worked out. With most of it. Not all.

Ordinarily I might have tried to forget the bad parts and unwind a bit more by going out on the town with a gorgeous tomato. Some food, a few drinks, a bit of this and a bit of that.

But not tonight—I didn't have anybody in mind, anyhow, nobody in particular. Certainly nobody available. Most of the pretty girls I'd met lately had been married, for one thing. Too, I was a little tired. In fact, I was damn tired.

No, not tonight. It was common sense to relax a bit, conserve the old energies, build up the
élan vital
.

And I'd spring back soon, I knew. Things would work out for me. They always had; they would this time, too, no doubt. No doubt about it.

Yes, I would stay in tonight and get a good rest. For all the common-sense reasons I'd been thinking of.

And, of course, for one other reason.

But a man—especially one who knows all will work out well—can get used to anything, I figured.

Even jail.

So I lay back on my cot and—in about another hour—fell asleep.

About the Author

Richard S. Prather (1921–2007) was the author of the world-famous Shell Scott detective series, which has over forty million copies in print in the United States and many millions more in foreign-language editions abroad. There are forty-one volumes in the series, including four collections of short stories and novelettes. In 1986, Prather was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Private Eye Writers of America. He and his wife, Tina, lived in Sedona, Arizona.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1967 by Richard S. Prather

Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

ISBN: 978-1-4976-5055-8

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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