Thai Died (Book2 Studs Draqual Mystery) by William Maltese

Author:William Maltese [Maltese, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery/Crime
Publisher: MLR Press, LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Fourteen

Roxanne teetered. Her feet tipped off the ground from the pull of the man's weight. I wrapped my arms around her waist and held on. That the seams of Roxanne's jacket held longer than the man's clutching fingers is a testament to the staying power of bespoke stitching.

I knew the moment he was gone, because Roxanne went feather-weight. My ongoing attempt to keep her anchored brought us both down. For a horrifying instant, I thought we'd slip into the vat beneath the railing. Then, just when I was confident I had Roxanne safely secure, the vat went grand-mal. Gears groaned. Dead-weight shifted. Multi-ton metal, water, dye, Roxanne, I, and seemingly everything around us, performed a dance-macabre. Mr. Sabop arrived and performed a precarious weave of his own at the top of the stairs.

The cataclysm stopped; the sudden silence deafening.

“I saw the bastard run up,” Mr. Sabop said. Cautiously, he stepped to the edge of the cauldron and peered into it. He turned back to us. “Every sign said someone had gone in. I feared it was one of you.”

“Every sign"? Jesus! How many times had he been provided with bases for comparison?

“Is the shit dead?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, I do think so,” Mr. Sabop said. “I've never seen anyone survive a mangling between paddles to the point of gear gridlock.”

The only thing I could do was something I hadn't done in years. I started to (yes, goddamn it!) cry. No matter that I recognized the picture was all wrong: the hero falling apart; the heroine consoling with, “You saved our lives, you saved our lives, you saved our lives.”

It was how I'd saved our lives, by ending the life of another, that didn't seem to compute. I'd taken karate as a precaution, but I'd never figured to put it to death-dealing use. Actually, I'd been relieved when my G.P. suggested it might be better, after my polo accident, to stop the muscle-taxing karate altogether. Granted, my inadvertent experiences with mayhem and murder in New York City had seen me connected with one murder victim or another, but I hadn't been responsible for any of them.

“It's only natural, what you feel,” Roxanne said “You just have to remember, it wasn't something you did because you liked doing it. You were forced into it.”

I barely made it to the edge of the vat before projectile vomiting my picnic lunch. My green-dyed dead-Thai manslaughter-victim hardly gave a damn with what additional messy shroud I covered him.

I'd hardly wiped the last of the vomit from my mouth with the tissue Roxanne gave me before the local police investigation of the incident was over. At least it was pretty much done as far as I was concerned. Inspector O'Reilly, NYPD, would not have been impressed by how unprofessional it was. My part consisted of nothing more than looking green around the gills while Roxanne gave a terse synopsis of events.

“The would-be assassin came at us. Mr. Draqual came to the rescue.”

The policeman left.

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