Free Torch by John Lutz Page B

look around his place?”
    “Not in the slightest.”
    Hodgkins shuffled out of sight for a minute with his stiff-jointed gait, then returned and handed Carver a key attached with string to a metal-rimmed cardboard tag with 2-W lettered on it in black ink. Carver thanked him and climbed back up the stairs, clumping on the wooden steps with his cane.
    Gretch’s apartment looked exactly as it had this morning, but it was warmer and stuffier. Hodgkins had turned off the air-conditioning in the unit. Carver studied the mismatched furniture, but none of it seemed to have been moved. A bead of sweat ran down his ribs as he limped into the bedroom and saw that the bed was still stripped down.
    Everything looked the same here, too. He opened the closet’s sliding louvered door and felt around on the top shelf. The porn magazine and the photos he’d returned there were now gone. They must be what had drawn Gretch back to the apartment. More specifically, it would be the photographs he wanted. Blackmail material, maybe.
    No, Carver thought, the photos weren’t lewd or compromising enough for that, and they were of women posed by themselves. The most the subjects could be accused of was posing for what looked like amateurish attempts at the kind of mild pinup shots still seen on calendars in garages and small-town barbershops.
    “Hello.”
    The voice was soft and throaty and might have belonged to a woman.
    But when Carver turned around he saw a man standing just inside the bedroom door. He was Oriental and diminutive, maybe not even five feet tall, wiry beneath his loose-fitting gray slacks and long-sleeved white shirt. His hair was black and combed severely to the side, and his features were smooth and dainty, with the kind of toothy, cheery grin that had made stereotypes of a generation of Oriental actors. He was wearing light and supple tan leather shoes that might have passed for house slippers. He made absolutely no sound as he strode a few smooth steps toward Carver. It occurred to Carver that the man might have followed him up the stairs one step behind and he wouldn’t have known it.
    Something about the tight, controlled way the small man moved alerted Carver, but too late. The man’s almost dainty right hand made a quick, elegant gesture, drawing Carver’s gaze as one of the small slippered feet flicked out and kicked the cane from his hand. The man’s other hand was against Carver’s chest, then he was three feet away and grinning down at Carver, who was lying on his back where he’d fallen on the floor. Carver had never seen anyone move so smoothly so fast.
    “Maybe we should talk,” Carver said, raising himself on one elbow and noticing that his cane was too far away to grab.
    The man kicked him in the ribs, almost casually, but so quickly that Carver couldn’t block the flashing foot or clutch it so he could pull the man down on his level. The smile stayed firm as a mask on the man’s face.
    “Easy!” Carver groaned through his pain. “We’re both Bruce Lee fans.”
    “Amateur shit,” the tiny man said. He did a complete turn so quickly it appeared that film had jumped frames. Carver felt but didn’t see the kick to his shoulder. His arm went numb as if it had been shocked with high voltage.
    “I could splatter your brains on the wall just like a bullet had hit you,” the man said. He had only a faint Oriental accent that Carver couldn’t place. Everything he said sounded condescending. “I might mess up my shoes, though.”
    “Don’t do that,” Carver said. “They look expensive.”
    “They are made from the flesh of my enemies.”
    Carver didn’t think the man was kidding. He lay still, figuring that was about the only defense he had. He didn’t want to be kicked in his good leg; that might immobilize him to the point of panic.
    The little man kicked his good leg. Carver tried with his uninjured arm to grab the blur that was a foot but failed.
    “Have we met someplace before?” he