A Killer's Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page A

together.”
    “Sure,” I said, still holding on to her arm as I walked her to the door. “In it together.”
    I stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, grabbed a dish towel from the counter, and wiped her lipstick off my lips.
    “Now let’s go meet the cops,” I said. “Their names are Sims and Hanratty. Hanratty is the big one. Watch out for Sims.”

4
    They put me in a small green room in the Roundhouse. The table was cheap, the chairs hard, the place smelled like sweat and vinegar and dead mice. But you had no excuse not to look snazzy, because the room had a great mirror on one of the walls in which you could straighten your collar and check your teeth.
    Julia was in an identical room somewhere in that same ugly building. I assumed they were giving her the business. Sims was whispering sweet nothings into her ear; Hanratty was banging on the table. But no matter how tough it got, I figured she was holding up just fine.
    Julia always had a place deep within the recesses of her emotions where she could retreat, a sanctuary from which even those who loved her the most were barred. It exists in all of us, that last place that others never reach, but in Julia it was a cavernous castle, with a fearsome moat and chains on the doors and evil dwarfs as guards. Even Gollum couldn’t have slipped inside. If Sims had chased her into her sanctuary, it didn’t matter howhard Hanratty banged on the table or knocked on the door, they weren’t getting in.
    When we came out together from the door of my apartment in the middle of the night, the two cops climbed out of the car as if they had been expecting us all along. Sims was kind and courteous, uttering solicitous words to the grieving widow, holding the rear door open as he offered us both a ride. Hanratty glared at me with a brutal little smile on his granite face. I was getting a pretty good idea of the range of Hanratty’s facial expressions. And the drive east, toward the river and the Roundhouse, had been almost jolly. Sims had talked about his planned retirement, how big would be the trout, how clear would be the air.
    “You ever fish in Montana, Hanratty?” said Sims.
    “I don’t fish,” said Hanratty.
    “Fly-fishing, I’m talking about.”
    “I don’t fish.”
    “Neither do I,” said Sims. “And I’ve never been to Montana. But I’m going as soon as I get my twenty-five. The land’s cheap and the trout are jumpy. I’ve been reading up. A River Runs Through It. ”
    “Runs through what?” said Hanratty.
    “Montana,” said Sims.
    “What river?”
    “I don’t know. The Mississippi, maybe.”
    “The Mississippi doesn’t run through Montana.”
    “Where does it run?”
    “Iowa.”
    “Who the hell goes to Iowa to fish flies?”
    “Don’t ask me, I don’t fish.”
    “Well, let me tell you, Hanratty, you don’t retire to fish flies in Iowa. Montana is it.”
    “What river?”
    “Who the hell knows the name of a river in Montana?” said Sims. “Any ideas, Victor?”
    “Take up knitting,” I said.
    It was quite an act—if vaudeville were still alive, they could have taken it on the road—but it wasn’t putting me at ease, like they intended. At the Roundhouse they were pleasant as could be, gallantly opening doors, offering up cups of cop coffee, tepid, bitter, and thick.
    “Can you wait in here a moment, Victor?” said Sims, gesturing toward the small green room.
    I went in and sat down. Sims closed the door, leaving me in there alone. I checked myself in the mirror. No jacket, no tie, haggard and unshaven and sallow. In a green room, under fluorescent lights, even a cherub looks like an ax murderer.
    I tried to fathom the depths of the trouble into which I had fallen, and I failed. Things were happening above and below, all around. I could sense their shapes and movement, but the purposes remained mere shadows. Still, I knew the taste of trouble and this was it, oily and electric, with too much salt and a bitter pinch of cumin. Oh,