Read Online Pardon My Body by Dale Bogard - Free Book Online

dressed. She set the drinks on the table while Mr. Canting stroked her bottom. Then she gave a little curtsy with the scrap of fabric acting as her skirt and was gone.
    â€œYou like them that way?” I asked.
    â€œI find it wholly agreeable.” A flicker passed over his face. “That was Marie. She is on duty this evening. But I have a number of other amenable nymphs. Perhaps you…”
    â€œLet’s talk about money,” I said brutally.
    â€œAh, yes. You are interested?”
    â€œI’m interested in the implications which arise when men start bidding at five grand.”
    The cold eyes snapped. “I did not make you a bid, Mr. Bogard. It was an offer. What exactly have you in mind as an appropriate sum?”
    I tapped the dottle from my pipe onto a magnificent cut-glass and solid silver letter tray. I had had just about too much of Mr. Lucius Canting.
    â€œYou could make it a half-million dollars,” I saidgenially. “Or maybe you could make it a million. I wouldn’t know and I wouldn’t give a damn.”
    Canting eyed me in silence for a moment. When he spoke his voice was as gentle as a maiden’s whisper. But not so pleasant.
    â€œThere are others ways open to me. I hope you will not force me to adopt them.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œI could have you beaten up. A distressingly vulgar procedure. I do not care for the uncouth and illiterate men you would compel me to employ. But they would be efficient. It would be very difficult for you to identify your face for a considerable time and walking would be quite impossible for at least six weeks.”
    I stood up. “Mr. Canting,” I said, “as a plotter of violence you could take a correspondence course. You will not have me beaten up because I could have a nice long chat with Detective-lieutenant O’Cassidy at homicide about your curious proposition. O’ Cassidy is a very persistent policeman indeed and if he came along here he would be likely to arrest you just on general principles. He doesn’t like your kind. To take care of me you would have to get someone to bump me off—and I don’t think you want a murder on your hands.”
    Suddenly, his face was livid. “Don’t try me too far,” were the words he managed to grate out.
    I went on, easily, “And even if you got a loogan to squib me off you couldn’t be sure I hadn’t left a letter about you in my safety deposit. No, Mr. Canting, you will just sit tight in your obscene little private world and do nothing.”
    â€œAnd you?” By an effort he had wiped the hate and the fear from his face.
    I thrust my hat on the back of my head and picked up my gloves. “I don’t ordinarily make pacts with your sort—but as long as you don’t try to get out of line it will suit me not to have that talk with O’Cassidy. Now you can press one of those comic-opera buttons and let me out of here.”
    He reached out a heavily-ringed hand.
    â€œGoodbye, Mr. Canting,” I said. Then a thought struck me. “I think I will give myself a little vacation. Maybe a little trip to the Adirondacks—or, could it be, to Falls City…”
    There was a silence as I walked out of that long disgusting room.
    I was going through the big doors when I caught a whisper. “I wouldn’t go there, Mr. Bogard, if I were you….”
    Then the doors swung soundlessly to behind me and I was knee-deep in carpet again.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    I WANTED TO DRIVE HARD and fast when I got back to the Buick, but most of the way it was a slow drag with the pile-up getting steadily worse at every intersection. Finally, I detoured to a little saloon off lower Broadway. I felt like a long cold lager after Mr. Canting’s hothouse eroticisms—though maybe I should have settled for a pint of mouthwash.
    The barkeep, a wiry little half-Italian who lived in the Bronx, slid a bottle and a tall glass over