Free Mourn The Living by Max Allan Collins Page B

at seven?”
    “Okay. See you at seven. Dress casual.”
    She hung up.
    Nolan nearly smiled. A touch of promise in that voice? He glanced over at Tulip, who stood at the cigar stand engrossed in Modern Man .
    Nolan stepped in an elevator, said, “Fourth floor,” to the elderly attendant. He wondered what Lyn Parks would look like. He wasn’t worried about Tulip. If Tulip cared to join him, that would be Tulip’s problem.
    He knocked on door 419 and immediately heard movement inside. A voice cried out, “Come on in, it’s open.” A feminine voice.
    Nolan opened the door.
    The walls, pink crumbling plaster, were covered with posters and flower power graffiti. Doc Leary put in another appearance, Bonnie and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway version this time) again rode the plaster. Also W. C. Fields, Mae West, a Fillmore Ballroom poster in purple announcing Moby Grape and the Grateful Dead, and several home-made efforts, including “Legalize Pot” and “If It Feels Good, Do It.” There were two bubbling “lava” lamps—one red, one blue.
    Nolan sat on the bed, a bare mattress with a single crumpled blanket on it. He smoked a cigarette. The girl was in the john, making john noises. He sat and smoked and waited for her. For two minutes he stared at a chest of drawers that had been stripped of varnish and assaulted with red, green and blue spray paint.
    The girl came in and was naked.
    She held two small jars of body make-up in one hand, one yellow, one green, and was dabbing a tiny paint brush in the jar of yellow. There was a towel over her shoulder and her body dripped beads of water.
    She said, “Oh, hi.”
    Nolan said, “Hello.”
    She appeared to be painting a yellow daisy around her navel. When he noticed this Nolan also noticed a few other things about her. Her stomach was attractively plump and her legs were long and well-fleshed. Her breasts were firm and large, with copper-colored nipples. Her face was scrubbed and pretty, surrounded by white-blonde hair cut in lengths and hanging down to partially conceal her full breasts. Her pubic triangle was dark brown.
    “Have we met?” She asked, frowning in thought but not displeasure.
    “No.”
    “Did you lock the door?”
    “No.”
    “Lock it.”
    “I’m here to talk, Miss Parks.”
    “We’ll see. Lock the door.”
    Nolan got up and night-latched the door. He returned to the bed and sat back down. The girl sat beside him and crossed her legs and worked on the daisy that was now halfway encircling her navel. He offered her a cigarette and she bounced up after an ash tray and came back and accepted it. He watched her alternately puff on the cigarette and stroke her stomach with the tiny brush. Her skin was pearled with moisture from the shower, her flesh looked soft, pink . . .
    “I don’t pay,” Nolan said.
    “I don’t charge.”
    Nolan drew on the cigarette and collected his thoughts. Lyn Parks stunned him a bit. He’d never met a girl who paraded around naked painting flowers on her stomach. He glanced at her again and saw the sun spilling in the window on her white-blonde hair. She smiled like a madonna.
    “Lyn . . . okay I call you Lyn?”
    “Call me anything you like.”
    But shy.
    “Lyn, did you know Irene Tisor?”
    “Yes. You have nice grey eyes, do you know that?”
    “Were you a friend of hers?”
    “I knew her, that’s all. Your shoulders sure are broad.”
    “Did you hear anything strange about her death?”
    “She took a bad trip. Have you ever been eaten alive?” She licked a pink tongue over her lips.
    “Ever see her at the Third Eye?”
    “All the time. Do you believe in free love?”
    “Who’s Broome?”
    “Lead singer with the Gurus.”
    “The Gurus?”
    “The band at the Eye. Don’t you like girls, mister?”
    “Did Broome and Irene Tisor see a lot of each other?”
    “Broome sees a lot of a lot of girls. You seeing enough?”
    “Enough. Was Irene a regular tripper? What’d she take, LSD or STP or