Chicago Typewriter

6.

Pleasant dreams of mink-brown eyes and a voice like velvet wrapped around a lightning bolt gave way to the slow beat of a bass drum so low and deep that it vibrated every bone. The pounding got louder and louder, until the throbbing transformed into pulses of pain. I groaned and my eyes flickered open. There was a ceiling up there, with cracked plaster. I tried to hold hands to my pounding head, but only one hand made it. The other made a jingle sound and wouldn't budge.

With the aid of my hand, I steered my pounding head around. I was in Iggy's apartment. The suits and the shoes were gone. The valise with the jewels in it, definitely gone. Iggy was gone.

Carefully, I turned my head the other way to behold a sturdy steel radiator. My left hand was cuffed to it. With my own police-issue handcuffs. I licked dry lips and croaked, "How insulting."

I closed my eyes for a while. The pounding in my head slowly, slowly grew bearable. My ribs, however, ached like crazy. "Kick a guy when he's down, huh?"

Eventually, I sat up. With little hope, I searched my pockets. Nothing. My wallet was next to me on the floor, minus the two dollars it had in it after paying Muddy his buck. My gun holster was empty.

Eventually, I saw the key to the cuffs. It was in the next room, on the floor. I stared at the key. "Isn't there a Greek story about some starving sap tied up just out of reach of the grapes?"

I cradled my head with my free hand for a few eons. Finally, an idea formed. "Eat your heart out, Tantalus." I shed a shoe and slid my belt off. I tied the shoe by its laces to the belt's buckle and tossed the tethered shoe past the key. After a dozen tosses, I dragged the key within reach.

Freed, I put my shoe and belt back on and gingerly felt the goose egg on my skull. Some crusted blood, there. I lurched to my feet. My head and ribs almost blacked me out again. Fighting the dizziness, I staggered around the apartment. It was pretty bare, though, and I didn't see anything I could use regarding the robbery-murder. The necklace I had dangled just before getting cold-cocked, though, that was photograph number eight from the sheaf of jewelry items stolen from Ebony Gardens. My spotty memory does serve, at least for selected, case-related items.

Wait. I spotted a little pile of ash on the kitchen counter. Iggy wasn't a smoker. I stalked the ash like a cat. I bent low and inhaled. Same as at Ebony Gardens. Something rare. Just a hint of something sweet in it.

That was all the investigating I could stomach. The world was spinning. I staggered off, out the door. I struggled up the wonky steps and onto the street, every step heavier than lead. I wondered if I could drive my motorcycle while dizzy.

"Detective Lucy? Fancy meeting you, here."

That voice. Like satin flowing in a Mediterranean breeze.

Sure enough, when I got my body turned around, there she was. Bianca Largo, in a blue dress with a narrow, belted waist and a hat to match. She held a paper-wrapped baguette. I was so slow to reply, she spoke again, "Detective Lucy? Are you alright?"

I grinned charmingly, which probably came across as grim and skeletal in my present condition. "Been better. You're looking fine."

She gestured with her baguette. "I see blood. You've been having adventures without me and I disapprove. I want in on all the excitement." She came over and slipped a hand around my elbow. Her perfume cleared my head like a miracle drug.

I babbled, "Your perfume cleared my head like a miracle drug just now. I mean, sorry. Sorry you missed the excitement."

"I like you, Detective. What's your first name?"

She steered me along the sidewalk. I didn't resist. Eventually, I remembered my name. "Drew. It's Drew ... Bianca."

"I'm taking you into the station, Drew. I wouldn't wonder if they sent you to the hospital from there. Did you just fall down the stairs? Or was it better than that?"

She could take me to the station. She could take me anywhere. "It's the Ebony Gardens murder. I caught one guy, but the other conked me on the pate. You never visit the station. I would have seen you. I would have remembered."

"Oh, Tigermouse doesn't like to be distracted at work."

"Tigermouse?"

She laughed, an appealing sound. "Chief Largo, to you. Tigermouse to me. My fuzzy mouse, all squeaky. But he roars when I want me a tiger."

"T-tiger," I repeated. I wasn't up for wordplay. I was barely up for walking.

"Oh, yes. A tiger once in a while. Evenings, mostly. Mmmm! But he's been roaming, this year. Tiger on the prowl. I get lonely, Drew." She squeezed my bicep and leaned into me, a half smile curving her plush lips. Her brown eyes teased. Paralysis set in. I could have said a lot of things to put some brakes on, but I just fell. The wild gravity in those brown eyes overcame all the friction in the universe.

I impacted a gleaming Packard sedan. "Ow!" When my throbbing kneecap allowed, she settled me and my flushed face into the passenger seat. I deflected the topic. "Largo wouldn't happen to have a brother, would he?"

Bianca eased her well-upholstered self into the driver's seat. "Yes, darling. Deacon Largo, owner of Heber & Roe."

"Oh. Nice." Heber & Roe, that fancy clothing store, registered in the back of my mind. Mostly, I was busy wondering if she'd really called me darling. I studied her profile.

The Packard had a self-starter. She flicked the switch. It roared to life. Very slick.

"Hold on." Her voice teased, low and coy.

In hindsight, I should have held on. She drove like a demon, and I bounced around the car interior like popcorn in a popper.

I gripped what I could as we screamed through the city. Bianca's eyes shone in delight. She glanced at me now and then, and I realized she enjoyed my discomfiture as much as she relished having pedestrians scurry out of her way.

It was only half a dozen blocks to the station. Four blocks along, she broke out in raucous laughter. "We have a police escort!" she gleefully sang out. "How sweet. How thoughtful."

There was no way I was going to twist my abused head far enough to look, but I could hear the siren. We arrived at the station with a screech of tortured rubber. The police car pulled up behind us. Bianca Largo got out slowly enough to show some leg and posed on the fender. Packard could sell more cars if they had a picture of that. I struggled with my own door, but finally got it unlatched. I pulled myself out. I held on to the car to keep from falling over. I felt banged up before the car ride. Now, I felt like I needed a medic.

The beat cop who tailed us said, "Ma'am, you were driving faster than ..."

"But officer," Bianca silkily interposed, "Detective Lucy deputized me. He said it was all right. He said he might be dying."

Willard materialized next to me. "Lucy? You all right?"

I looked at him blearily. "O'Rourke ..."

"I'm Willard! Willard!"

"I mean, tell O'Rourke that Iggy ... Oh, never mind. I can't remember what I was about to say."

"Lucy? Is that blood in your hair?"

I don't remember much more. They bundled me off to the hospital. Apparently, I'm "not a good patient," and the doctors drugged me to sleep.