The Loves of Harry Dancer Read Online Free PDF

Become rigid. She changes before his eyes. Quintessential passion. Lips drawn back from gleaming teeth. Breasts flinty. Vaginal muscles pulling at him.
    He is suddenly fearful. Death is here. He surrenders with a sob. She rises to meet him. Their sharp yelps…
    “Got him,” Shelby Yama says. With satisfaction. Glances at his watch. “A little over a half-hour. He’ll never be the same. Right, Briscoe?”
    “We’ll see,” the other man says. “This is just the start.”
    Dancer doesn’t move away. He lies atop her. Strokes her hair. Face. Nuzzles her neck.
    “Sally,” he says. “Sally.”
    She opens her eyes. Flesh of face and body softening. Death’s-head gone. Looks at him with wonderment.
    “Are you really you?” she asks.
    He laughs. “No, I’m Jack the Ripper. Of course I am me. What kind of a question is that to ask?”
    She doesn’t answer.
    “Are you all right?” he says. Anxiously.
    “If I felt any better I’d be unconscious.”
    “May I take a shower now?”
    “No,” she says. “Let me give you a tongue bath.”
    The two men in the parking lot listen to the talk and sounds for another hour. Then, when Dancer leaves, Shelby Yama switches off the receiver.
    “Good, good, good,” he says. Rubbing his palms. “He’s hooked. He’ll be back again.”
    “I don’t know…” Briscoe says. “The tone was off. Something wrong there.”
    “Wrong? What could be wrong? She followed orders, didn’t she?”
    “Oh yes. She did her job. But some of her responses bother me. What did she mean by, ‘Are you really you’?”
    “I don’t know,” Yama says. Puzzled. “That bothered me, too. I’ll ask her about it.”
    “You do that,” Briscoe says. “I’d hate to lose that lady.”

10
    C ase officer Anthony Glitner finds his heavy by the simple expedient of looking up “Detective Agencies” in the Pompano Beach Yellow Pages. The first three he visits are unsatisfactory: their organizations are too large, too legitimate. They are more interested in providing security services than personal investigations. And they’re not hungry enough.
    On the fourth try, he finds the man he wants. Herman K. Tischman. Retired New Jersey cop. But young enough that Glitner figures he has been nudged into retirement. For whatever reason. Squat, thick man with caterpillar eyebrows. Lips browned from the cigars he chews. And hungry.
    He runs a one-man office on Federal Highway. “Domestic investigations our specialty.” His fee is a hundred a day, plus expenses.
    “You have a permit to carry a handgun?” Glitner asks him.
    “Uh-huh. But why ask? You say this is a cheating husband thing. Why would I need a piece?”
    “You never know,” the case officer says. “The man’s name is Harry Dancer. I’ll leave you his home address, business address, and a photo. See what he’s up to. We’ll meet again in a few days and decide what to do next.”
    “Uh-huh,” Tischman says. Chomping his cold cigar. “Three bills in advance would be nice.”
    They meet four days later.
    “Yeah,” the investigator says. Flipping pages of a pocket notebook. “The guy’s playing around. At a motel. The bimbo is named Sally Abaddon. A nude go-goer at the Tipple Inn. Skin for hire.”
    “That’s fine,” Tony Glitner says. “That’s what we wanted to know.”
    “You want me to keep on it?”
    “Oh yes. We don’t want to stop now.”
    “Uh-huh,” Herman K. Tischman says. Examining the wet butt of his chewed cigar. “You told me this is a possible divorce action. Mrs. Dancer figures her husband is cheating. You’re her lawyer.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Funny,” Tischman says. “The wife has been dead for almost two months now. If you’re a lawyer, you’re not licensed to practice in the State of Florida. Also, while I was planted in that motel parking lot, I saw two other guys on a stakeout. Black Mercedes. What’s going on here?”
    “You really want to know?” Glitner asks.
    “Sure, if it means my