Free Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? by Ed Gorman Page A

now it was all done, all over.
        Then, at last, she was tender. "Tonight'll be our little secret, McCain. And I'll never forget it. You were so sweet and gentle with me. You're going to make somebody a great little husband, you really are."
        We were back to the World's Most Boring Husband. With the qualifying "little" thrown in.
        Her last kiss was passionate and tender and made me ready to go again. But to no avail. She was at the door saying, "Boy, you really should find out what that smell is. I think your intruder left something behind."
        
***
        
        I turned on the lights. I figured I couldn't feel any worse. He/she/they had done a good job as tossing standards go. The kitchen floor was covered with mounds of flour, sugar, coffee, salt. That's about as far as I got. I didn't want to see any more of the mess. Not right now. I took what was left of the whiskey and sat in the armchair and drank and smoked and thought up all the neat things I'd say to Pamela and Stu Grant the next time I saw them. Boy, would they be sorry they'd taken advantage of my good nature. And then there was the ultimate daydream: it's midnight on a rainy evening and there's a knock on my back door and there stands Pamela, drenched and sobbing. As soon as she sees me, she throws her arms around me and says, "I ran all the way back from Chicago! I love you, McCain, I love you!" I know it's corny, but you know how it is when you fantasize. When I was little, I used to pretend I was Batman, so I guess my fantasies have gotten a little more realistic. Except for that running all the way from Chicago bit, at least.
        My fantasies ran out just about the same time the whiskey did. And I was down to three cigarettes. I was starting to get cold.
        And that's when the smell really started getting to me. It was pretty awful, but I'd been in so much turmoil. Given everything else that was going on, a smell wasn't much to worry about.
        I hadn't checked any of the closets. I took the flashlight from next to the bedroom and went looking for the source of the stench.
        If you've read more than three detective novels, you've probably already figured out what I was about to discover. It was in the second closet I looked in. In the back. Under a pile of clothes.
        The more clothes I pulled off, the worse the smell got.
        And then, there he was.
        Karl Rivers. Or whatever his name really was. Dead.
        From what I could see, somebody had hit him pretty hard with something pretty heavy on the side of the head. A blunt instrument, as Agatha Christie would describe it.
        The smell was coming from his bowels and his blood. He wore the same gray Brooks Brothers suit he'd had on back at the college. His eyes were closed. His fingers were claws.
        "Aw, shit," I said.
        There was no way around it. I would have to pick up the phone and call Cliffie Sykes Jr.
        

PART 2
        

SEVEN
        
        "So there you are," Cliffie said to me, forty-three and a half minutes later, in the midst of the melee that was my apartment.
        "So there I am," I said.
        "Standing in the doorway of your apartment."
        "Standing in the doorway of my apartment."
        "And you see that your place has been tossed."
        We all must've gone to the same movies. Everybody knew what tossed meant.
        "And I see that the place has been tossed."
        "And you didn't think there might be a dead guy in your apartment?"
        "Why would I think there's a dead guy in my apartment?"
        "A dead - may I remind you? - FBI man."
        "Pamela was here and we had some things to talk about."
        "So you didn't think there might be a dead guy in the closet?"
        "No. I didn't think there might be a blue buffalo in my closet, either. I told you, Pamela and I had personal things to discuss."
        "What things?"
        "Personal