Free Pardon My Body by Dale Bogard

a tail on me.” I didn’t think it necessary to tell him that Cass had taken the tail off because it suited him.
    Mr. Canting made a small noise into the instrument.
    â€œSo it will be just too bad if the police tail ends up tailing the Canting tail, won’t it?”
    â€œIt could be embarrassing,” he admitted. “Thank you for telling me. I shall see that your movements are unhampered, Mr. Bogard. By the way, you…er…”
    â€œThat’s right,” I said, “I kept my part of the bargain.”
    â€œExcellent. Goodbye, Mr. Bogard.”
    â€œAu revoir,” I said.
    I walked whistling into my little bedroom and switched on the center light. The room had a French window opening onto a verandah which gives access to a fire escape leading down to the alleyway at the back of the block. I was suddenly aware that the drapes across the window were slightly parted. I hadn’t left them like that. I frowned. O’Cassidy must have been snooping. Somehow, I hadn’t thought he would do that.
    Then I knew he hadn’t. The drapes lifted just a little as though there was a draught blowing. I moved over and wrenched them aside. The windows were ajar. I stepped out onto the verandah. Nothing. I closed the windows, pulled the drapes and went back into the room. I stood quite still letting my eyes take it all in.
    I quit when I looked at the floor immediately in front of my clothes closet. Those icy fingers were running up and down my spine again. There was atrickle of dull brownish-red fluid seeping under the closet door and soaking into the carpet.
    If my knees were knocking I wouldn’t be surprised. But I managed to make it. I got hold of the knobs on each of the closet doors and swung them wide open.
    Next moment I was struggling with a body. It fell out into my arms. It was the body of a sallow-faced man wearing a flashy suit. His jacket was flapping open and there was a lot of congealed blood around the two small holes in the middle of his shirt. His eyes were wide open and his features were twisted in the last expression they ever had. Not a nice expression. But I knew who the man was.
    It was Harry Bule.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    I T WAS ELEVEN O’CLOCK in the morning when I got out of bed, feeling as though I hadn’t been there more than a half hour. The homicide boys, the fingerprint experts, the photoflash men and a couple of criminal lawyers from the D.A.’s office had been camping out in my apartment until 3:00 a.m. They had asked all the questions in the book, taken all my suits out and put them back, looked under the carpet and covered all the show surfaces with graphite powder. They didn’t tell me whether they had found anything. They didn’t have to tell me. I knew damn well they hadn’t. The only thing you could say was that somebody had bumped Bule, carried him up the fire escape and dumped him in my closet. If the idea was to throw a scare into me, it had. When I got into bed I had carefully locked all the doors and windows, oiled and cleaned an old Luger and borrowed some shells from O’Cassidy, who didn’t even ask if I hada licence—though I had. I woke up three times in what was left of the night and every time I found my hand under the pillow hanging on to the Luger.
    I awoke with a headache which appeared to have started in my feet, getting steadily worse on the way up. My mouth seemed to be using a tongue from a hobo’s cast-off boot. I put eight helpings of coffee into the percolator and took a hot bath and a cold shower while it was brewing. I began to feel part human by the time I had shaved. The coffee and three aspirins settled it. I could bear conversation now, if nobody spoke higher than a whisper.
    I skipped breakfast and walked all the way to Central Park. It was early fall but the day seemed to have strayed in from summer. I sat in the sun watching the young matrons with their baby carriages and the old men who