Sweet Women Lie Read Online Free PDF Page A

rubber grip of the Police Special in its belt holster. The sight of so much lethal equipment shocked him into silence. He was about to fall asleep on his feet. I’d have bet my car he could get the L-frame automatic that was rubbing a hole in the lining of his jacket out and pumping before I had a hand on the .38.
    “Every job has its ethic,” I said. “I don’t guess bodyguarding is different. You’re paid to lay down your life. It’s a lot of life so I imagine you’re getting better than union scale, if you had a union. Large men who can handle themselves come in case lots, so you’re also loyal. But you’re not working for a man anymore. If Lucy’s as bad off as I hear, you’ve got to have asked yourself if it’s worth collecting a couple of holes for someone who can’t go to the toilet without General Electric.”
    A muscle flickered in his jaw.
    Half a minute bumped by on square wheels. A gray-haired doctor wearing a white coat over golf greens passed us with a curious glance. It would be the one he reserved for an irregular heartbeat or a rough lie.
    “What’s the incentive?”
    It had been so long since the young man had spoken I had to chew on it for a second. “Secrecy.”
    “Keep on.”
    “I just found out today Lucy’s been in there fourteen months. That means your employers are spending a lot of money to keep the news from spilling out. Hospitals are full of prowling press. If we get into a hassle here it’ll draw attention, someone’s going to start asking who’s in there that was worth the fuss. Okay, Lucy’s retired, but he’s got holdings. Whoever put the wraps on needs more time to nail them down before the scrambling starts. He’s going to be sore.”
    “Maybe there won’t be any fuss.”
    “There’ll be a fuss.”
    The square wheels took another turn. He was thinking.
    I helped him out. Moving very slowly, I raised my right hand where he could see it and used the thumb and forefinger of my left to lift the revolver from its holster. I worked the barrel up into my hand and offered him the butt. After a beat he curled the slim fingers of his left hand around it.
    “Careful,” he said. “I could make you crawl to the emergency room from here.”
    The door to the room was wide, to admit a wheelchair. I pushed down the handle and went in with it, into the thick muted dimness of the room where time lay like a rock in its depression. No one shot me in the back.

5
    A STROBE ROCKETED across the backlit screen behind the little stage, accompanied by an angry swishing noise like George Reeves used to make when he whipped in through a window on the old Superman TV show. In its wake twinkled a green phosphorescence, turning the stage and the walls and the faces above the tables the color of crème de menthe. Then the light show started in earnest, rainbow lasers and Star Wars sound effects and a throbbing instrumental rendition of “Sea Cruise.” I figured it was safe to light a cigarette.
    By the time I discarded the match in the nondescript little period ashtray on my table, the music had stopped with a thump, extinguishing the lights. The stage was black for half a minute or more; long enough anyway for the anticipation to start to break up into whispers and self-conscious giggles. Then a powder-blue spot sprang on over the stage and Gail Hope appeared suddenly from darkness, encased in glossy satin from jacked-up breasts to five-inch stilts and flanked by four tanned miracles of male construction in disco suits and patent-leather boots. The audience gasped. Gail’s hair was piled on top of her head and she had on elbow-length gloves that made her look like a blonde Natalie Wood from Gypsy. The backlit screen showed a montage of scenes from her leather-and-suntan-oil pictures while she did a few dance turns to “Sea Cruise” that looked trickier than they were because of the hobble-skirt, and the beach boys did some time steps and tried not to knock anything over. The audience