Free Murder for the Bride by John D. MacDonald

not permitted to do. When it failed, I knew I was—as dead as they wished you to be. I didn’t want to die. So I ran. Now there is no one I can get to help me. Except you. Maybe you can do nothing. I must have a place where I can sleep, where no one knows I am there. After I have slept, maybe I can start to think again, think how to save myself.”
    “What kind of a stupid joke is this?” I demanded.
    She looked at me, her eyes steady. She said softly, “You can go. Please go now. There is no point in your staying.”
    I put a quarter on the table for the coffee and got up and walked toward the door. I looked back. Her eyes were closed again. She sat slumped in the uncomfortable chair.
    I went back. “Suppose I can find you a safe place. What then?”
    Her lip curled. “Someday you people will learn that there is no safe place in all the world. The days of safe places have gone by.”
    “Do you want help, or don’t you?”
    “Only if you are willing to help, Mr. Bryant.”
    I got change from the cashier, looked up a number, and shut myself in the airless, breathless phone booth. It took a long time before I heard Sam Spencer’s rumble.
    “Sam, this is Dil Bryant. I want—”
    “You ready to give up gumshoeing and get back on the job, boy?”
    “Not yet, Sam. I need help. Look, have you got any visiting big shots staked out in Paul Harrigan’s apartment over on Loyola? Expecting any?”
    “There’s nobody there now, but in about ten days I expect—”
    “I’m coming after the keys, Sam. And don’t ask meany questions. Just trust me. Better yet, have your girl seal the keys in an envelope and leave them with the cashier at that drugstore diagonally across the street from you. Have her tell the cashier a Mr. Robinson will pick up the keys. Can you do that right away?”
    “Sure, but—”
    “Thanks, Sam,” I said, and hung up. Paul Harrigan can afford to keep the apartment in town because Trans-Americas uses it for a billet for visiting brass and pays Paul for its use. It’s over in the university section, a ground-floor apartment with a private entrance at the rear of an old, ugly house.
    Back at the table I wiped my face with paper napkins from the table dispenser. “It’s all set. Ready to go?”
    She fell asleep in the taxi that took us from the foot of Canal Street to the drugstore and from there to the apartment. I unlocked the door and she went in ahead of me. The apartment had been redecorated since the last time I had been in it. The dark woodwork had been painted white, the walls done in cool greens and blues.
    She let me guide her back to one of the two bedrooms. She sat on the edge of the bed and I went around the room, opening windows, drawing draperies. I started the fan and adjusted it. When I looked around she had lain back on the bed.
    I spoke to her and she didn’t move. I slipped her shoes off and swung her legs up onto the bed. She mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I shook her until her eyes opened.
    “Wha’?” she said.
    “I’ll come back around midnight. That’ll give you nearly eight hours’ sleep. I’m taking the keys. Do you need anything?”
    She frowned. Her voice was far away. “Dress. Toothbrush. Comb. Lipstick. And …”
    I waited and then looked at her again. She was sound asleep, breathing heavily through parted lips. I stood looking down at her in the darkened room. The fan made a soft purring sound. It seems a violation of privacy to look upon a sleeping stranger. In her sleep she rolled over onto her left side, her right leg drawn up, her hands, palms together,under her cheek. It is the classic pose of a sleeping woman. It exaggerates the curve of hip. Something about her weariness and helplessness brought on desire. Her body had a look of strength. I stood and the blood hammered in my ears louder than the sound of the fan. Then I turned and left. My palms were wet and my hands trembled as I locked the door behind me.

Chapter Seven
    N ew Orleans