Alarums. Part 23

He ran his hand down her sides and her legs. He stayed away from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and groin and rump. Pen was impressed. Maybe I've got him wrong, she thought. Maybe he's okay, after all.

'Okay, you're clean,' he said. He snapped a cuff around her right wrist and pulled her arm down behind her back. He brought her left arm down, pulling her away from the wall, and snapped the other cuff around her wrist. 'Any questions?'

'Got a key for these?' Pen asked and turned around. And saw the look on his face.

'Now the prisoner is in my control.'

' Harrison.'

'You're under arrest.'

'Let me go.'

'Uh-uh.'

She backed against the wall. 'Don't.'

He reached behind her neck to untie the cords of her gown.

'I'll scream.'

'Then I'll stuff something in your mouth, and that'll make it a little tough for you to breathe. Just relax.' The cords loosened. He drew them down, uncovering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His eyes were gla.s.sy, his face deep red. He pulled at the gown until it slipped to Pen's feet. He licked his bps. He squeezed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

'I'll have you arrested,' she said, her voice shaking. 'You'll get disbarred.'

'Bulls.h.i.t. It's common knowledge you've been going with me. You came over here after an expensive dinner. Who's gonna believe you were forced into anything?' His hands slid down her body. He pushed his fingers under the elastic of her pantyhose.

'b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' She kneed him, but missed the target, caught him instead in the thigh.

He cried out, staggered backward, then lunged at her, a shoulder driving her hard against the wall. A fist smashed her belly. Breath blasting out, she sagged.

Then she was on the floor, dazed and fighting for air as he yanked the pantyhose down her legs. 'It's time, baby,' he muttered. 'It's time.' He pulled her panties off. 'Time to pay the piper, babe. Can't string a guy along forever.' He tugged his belt open. 'A guy can just take so much. What does it take, huh? I'm not good enough for you? Maybe you're a d.y.k.e, huh? Is that it?' He flung his slacks aside.

'b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' she gasped.

'That's me, that's me.' He tugged down his underpants and stepped out of them. 'And what are you? f.u.c.kin' iceberg. What's it take to get in your pants, huh? Act of f.u.c.kin' Congress?' He made a sharp laugh. 'Handcuffs, that's what it takes.' He kicked her legs apart, dropped to his knees between them and tore off his shirt.

'Don't.'

'Time to pay the piper, babe. I'm gonna f.u.c.k your brains out. And know what? You're gonna like it. Yeah. When's the last time you got your brains f.u.c.ked out?'

'No!'

What did he say?

f.u.c.k your brains out.

Did he really say that? That's what the guy on the phone said.

Pen felt tears trickling from the corners of her eyes.

She was slumped backward on the sofa, teeth clenched, pillow squeezed to her chest, legs pressed together so tightly that they ached. She sat up. She wiped her tears on the shoulder of her blouse. Her right ear felt wet inside. It had caught a tear. She wrapped a fingertip with her shirttail and swabbed out the ear.

Christ, the rape.

Harrison had been very apologetic about it. Later that night. The next morning on the telephone. He'd even sent a dozen long-stemmed red roses. Pen knew he wasn't remorseful, just afraid she might tell on him.

I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing.

You knew, all right.

I'm gonna f.u.c.k your brains out.

Could Harrison be the one who phoned Friday night? The voice hadn't sounded like his. Maybe he disguised it.

But why would he call me? He and Joycea It wasn't him, Pen told herself.

Are you sure?

She went into the bathroom. She blew her nose. In the mirror, her eyes were red, the lids pink and swollen. They narrowed suddenly.

She hurried into her office. The tape ca.s.sette was still in the answering machine where Melanie and Bodie had left it. She rewound and played it.

Listening to the voice, she saw Harrison kneeling over her, naked. Her stomach clenched. Her heart pounded. Her legs felt weak. She was on the floor, Harrison thrusting into her, biting her, her arms cuffed behind her back fiery with pain, the foul words filling her head.

Then came Joyce's voice. She switched off the answering machine and sank onto the desk chair.

The voice hadn't sounded at all like Harrison.

The man who'd made those filthy calls, who'd left the note under her door, wasn't Harrison.

But he had Harrison 's soul.

'f.u.c.k you, buddy,' she muttered, 'and the horse you rode in on.'

Bodie finished reading the Traffic Collision Report and pa.s.sed it to Melanie. The detective on the other side of the desk was busy at his computer terminal. He was a touch typist, and fast. Hardly fits the stereotype of the two-fingered cop, Bodie thought. But then, this is Beverly Hills. He supposed that Beverly Hills cops weren't quite typical.

When Melanie finished reading, she set the report on the detective's desk. He swiveled his chair and faced them. 'Did you find what you were looking for?' he asked in a pleasant voice.

He looked younger than Bodie.

'There was only the one witness?' Bodie asked.

'The spouse? She's the only one we know about at this time.'

'What happens now?' Bodie asked.

'We've put out a notice to all the auto body shops in LA and Orange Counties. They're instructed to let us know if a sports car is brought in with front end damage. Also, we're checking auto theft reports. If a driver gets involved in a hit-and-run, usually the first thing he'll do is report his vehicle stolen.'

'That makes sense,' Bodie said.

'We've had better than two dozen reports of stolen autos since the time of the accident, and we're looking into them. I think there's a good chance that one of them will turn out to be the vehicle that struck Mr Conway.'

'I hope so,' Bodie told him. He looked at Melanie.

'I guess that's all,' Melanie said, and stood up. 'Thank you for helping us.'

'That's what I'm here for. If I can be of any further a.s.sistance, don't hesitate to call or come by.' He handed his business card to Melanie. She looked at it and nodded.

'Why didn't you tell him?' Bodie asked as they crossed the parking lot.

'I never intended to.'

'They might have focused their investigation on Harrison.'

'What would I say, that I know the b.a.s.t.a.r.d did it because I'm psychic?'

'At least you could've told about him and Joyce having an affair.'

'So could you.'

'I didn't think it was my place to bring up something like that. I mean, it's your family. If you wanted it out, you had the opportunity.' He opened the van door for Melanie, went around to the driver's side, and climbed in.

'Let's go back to Harrison 's place,' she said. 'Maybe they're gone by now.'

Pen hesitated at the door and wiped her sweaty hands on her shorts. Calm down, she told herself. There's no reason to be nervous. You're not going in for a physical or to have a cavity filled. Nothing bad will happen. What do you think, they're going to grill you?

She opened the door and stepped inside.

There were several other customers, but she felt conspicuous, an alien who had no right to be here. A trickle of sweat dribbled down her side. She pressed her arm against it, blotting it with her blouse.

Some of her tension eased when she spotted a book rack over near the counter. Books. Familiar territory. She stepped to the rack and saw The Shooter's Bible. Her copy at home was probably five years old, its information outdated. She lifted one of the heavy volumes off the rack, flipped through its pages, then tucked it under her arm to buy.

I'm not so out of place, after all, she thought. I probably know more about firearms than a lot of the people who come in here.

I know that revolvers don't have safety switches. A silencer is fine on an automatic, but stupid on a revolver because noise escapes around the cylinder. You don't get shot by a sh.e.l.l - that's the part of the cartridge that stays in the chamber. And it doesn't get ejected if you're talking revolvers. An automatic, all you've got to do is hold the trigger down but with a semi-auto you've got to pull the trigger for each shot. A.357 magnum will take.38 caliber ammo.

h.e.l.l, I'm not totally ignorant.

Feeling more confident, she turned away from the book rack and walked up an aisle. She could see rifles and shotguns standing upright in wall racks behind the counter at the far end of the store.

She stopped in front of the gla.s.s display case. The clerk at the far end was ringing up boxes of ammunition for a man in a safari jacket.

Inside the case were handguns, telescopic rifle sights, handcuff's, knivesa Handcuffs.

She stared.

They had cut off her circulation so her hands went numb. Their edges had left deep grooves in her wrists and red marks that turned to bruises just above her b.u.t.tocks. She had felt them under her, digging in as Harrison rammed.

'Could I show you a pair of those bracelets?'

Pen looked up, surprised to find the clerk in front of her. 'Uh, no. No thank you.' She lifted The Shooter's Bible onto the counter. 'I'd like to get this. A gun, too.'

He nodded. His head, on top of a long neck, looked too small for his body. His tightly curled blond hair was cut short and his mustache was nearly invisible. He blinked at her through wire-rimmed gla.s.ses. 'Would this be for personal defense, or perhapsa?'

'Personal defense,' Pen said.

His small head bobbed some more. That narrows it down. You'll want something lightweight but with some stopping power.' His head tipped down and swiveled as he searched the case. 'We have a mean little Walther PPK, a seven-shot semi-auto. You'd probably want either the.32 or the.380.' Crouching, he reached down to slide open the back of the case.

'No,' Pen said. 'Actually, I was thinking in terms of a shotgun.'

His pale eyebrows lifted.

'A 12-gauge shotgun.'

He stood up straight. There seemed to be admiration in his eyes. 'You do want stopping power.'

That's what it's all about.'

He turned away. He lifted a shotgun down from the wall rack. This is your Marlin 12-gauge pump-action, walnut stock and fore-end, all steel action and parts. A five-shot magazine with your standard sh.e.l.ls, or four if you use the magnum sh.e.l.ls.'

'Magnum?'

They're three inches long, not two and three-quarters like your standard sh.e.l.ls. High velocity buckshot loads.'

'I see.'

'Here, try this on for size.' He pa.s.sed the shotgun to Pen. It was heavy. It felt dangerous. She liked it. But she didn't know what to do now that she was holding it. After peering down its sight ramp, she handed it back to the man.

'The perfect weapon for home defense,' he told her. Then, speaking softly as if sharing a secret, he said, 'You're in your home at night, somebody breaks in - n.o.body in the world is going to mess with you, you've got one of these babies. Not even a guy with a handgun. He just has to know you've got it and he's gone. I mean gone.' A grin spread over the young man's face. 'Odds are, you won't even have to fire a shot. You shut your bedroom door. You hear him coming. You wait till he's just outside the door, then youa ' His arm jerked, snapping the pump-action back and forth with a snick and clatter of steel. 'He hears that and he knows what you've got. He's out of there. Best deterrent in the world -just the sound of it c.o.c.king.'

'Sounds good to me,' Pen said. 'How much is it?'

'Two-twenty-five, and I'll throw in a box of those magnums.'

*I'll take it.'

'Great.'

'How many sh.e.l.ls to a box?'

'Five.'