Murder Takes a Break by Bill Crider

Author:Bill Crider [Crider, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Crime
Publisher: Crossroad Press

22

I let Dino out at his house and drove home after he assured me that he was going to be just fine as soon he got a good night's sleep. I gave him the baseball bat and told him to take a couple of aspirin and call me in the morning, but he didn't laugh.

There were all kinds of ideas tumbling around in the back of my head by the time I got home, but I couldn't make sense of any of them. It was almost as if the bartender had hit me with that bat of his.

I managed to feed Nameless, take off my wetly sawdusted clothes and stick them in the washer, except for the jacket and tie, of course, which I hung on the back of a lawn chair outside. Maybe they'd air out and I could get them cleaned later.

After that, I took a hot shower, but I didn't manage to read even a page of O'Hara. I fell into the bed and went to sleep almost at once.

Nameless woke me up the next morning. He was standing on my stomach, plainly irritated that I hadn't gotten up at the usual time to feed him.

He stared at me accusingly with his green eyes and said, "Mowr."

I lifted my head to get a better look at him and immediately wished I hadn't. It felt as if it weighed a ton.

"Mowr," Nameless said again, with no regard for my pain. Cats have no pity.

"I don't guess I blame you for not feeling sorry for me," I told him. "I'd be upset if someone delayed my meals, too. But I've got a good excuse."

"Mowr?"

"Never mind. You wouldn't believe it, even if I told you."

"Mowr."

"Oh, sure, you say that now. But you haven't heard the story yet."

I tossed off the sheet and sat up with my legs over the side of the bed. My head felt a little better, but my whole body ached.

Nameless didn't care how I felt. He just wanted me to feed him. He jumped down from the bed and walked around in front of me so that he could look up at me.

"Mowr?"

"I'm not going to tell you. Let's just say that I'm getting too old to get into fights with women. And with bartenders who carry baseball bats."

Nameless had no comment. Apparently my decrepit condition was obvious to him. He stalked away, his tail in the air, confident that I would follow him.

So I took a deep breath, stood up, and did.

After I'd fed him, I shaved and washed my clothes. I wasn't sure I'd ever wear them again, but I wanted them to be clean even if I threw them away. I didn't want to be arrested for polluting the garbage dump.

While the clothes were chugging through the wash cycle, I went in and fixed a bowl of shredded wheat. It tasted surprisingly good, and I remembered that I hadn't eaten a thing since breakfast the previous day. I'd gotten cheated out of my enchiladas, but then I hadn't paid for them, so I guess it all evened out.

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