Sin In Their Blood | Page 5

the magazines back on the end tables next to the smart brown leather couch I was sitting on. I knew damn well Harry was alone, giving me the waiting treatment to show his importance. I was about to ask the receptionist if she had the daily paper, so I could start looking for a room, when the door opened and I smelled the perfume before I heard, "Matt!" and she threw herself on my lap, her red mouth over mine. I pushed Flo aside, and jumped up, said, "Damn it, don't kiss me!"
The months hadn't hurt Flo. She still had the fluffy blond hair, the sensuous mouth, and her chic dress proved beyond any doubt she had a full figure and wasn't wearing a bra. Her firm full breasts seemed to be held at the nipples, like two jack-in-the-boxes, waiting to spring over the low-cut dress. But I really wasn't looking at her fleshy bosom or the long shapely legs and the bit of round thigh that showed as she sprawled on the couch--I was only watching that over-red mouth, afraid of it. I'd thought a lot about Flo... she'd been the logical candidate to give me the bug: Flo and her sloppy soul kisses, ramming her sharp darting tongue down my throat.
Flo bounded to her feet as Miss O'Brien watched with respect and disapproval, hugged me, and fortunately her mouth only reached my shoulder, smearing my shirt. She was wearing high platforms--her lips used to come about halfway up my chest, she got her kicks biting the hair there. She said, in the gushy way she had of talking, "Ah, Matt, Matt, it's so damn good to see you! How you, honey?" She pushed me away, looked me over with delight. "You still look so... oh... rough and big. Matt, I've missed you so goddamn much."
"I can see that," I said, glancing at the silver fox scarf, the rings and bracelets--all real stones. Flo spent a lot of time dressing herself, and if her taste was a little on the loud side, she never wore cheap stuff. It used to amaze me how she spent hours dressing--to be able to undress in seconds.
She giggled. "Hell, Matt, I had to do something, or go to work--for peanuts. It don't mean a thing, you're the only stud for me. You know that. Why the very sight of you sent a hot..."
There was a cough from Miss O'Brien and Flo muttered a female word under her breath--which was the last thing you'd think about the faded Miss O'Brien. Flo whispered, "Hon, I'll wait downstairs. Be in the yellow Packard roadster--it's mine. And don't pay no mind to whatever Harry tells you, you know where you really stand with me--and any time."
"Well... I don't know how long I'll be with Harry...."
"Hon, I'll wait."
Miss O'Brien said crisply, "Mr. Loughlin will see you now."
Flo winked, said, "Don't forget, I'll be waiting."
The receptionist began, "Mr. Loughlin is waiting...
I pushed Flo away, my hand touching a lot of soft cool skin and Flo looked at Miss O'Brien and repeated the four-letter word--loudly--and the woman blushed a deep red as she buzzed the door for me.
I went through a small room, a kind of foyer, lined with big metal filing cabinets, the fireproof expensive ones, with a thick lock on each cabinet. There was also a desk with a bronze nameplate: Thatcher Austin, Jr.
The creep came complete. On the wall behind the desk there was a small American flag with a scale model sub-machine gun hung under it. It was a good model and I was about to stop and examine it, when Harry opened the door of his office.
He hadn't changed: wiry, dapper, the thin-featured face all clean-shaven and with a trace of powder and nice smelling after-shave lotion. He had the same small hands, soft and well manicured, as always. Sometimes when he was on a real good binge, he'd paint his nails a mild pink.
"You big thug, you look fine!"
I said, "That's what everybody has been trying to sell me."
He sat down behind his big metal and dark mahogany desk and I sat on one of these ultra-modern chairs that's supposedly molded to the shape of your behind. After the first few seconds, it was comfortable.
Harry said, "That wound and the hospital didn't do you any harm, you look fit. Those nurses as tail-happy as the jokes go?"
"Stop it." Harry, knew more dirty jokes than any man alive, or maybe dead. And all of them funny--to a high-school kid.
"But you do look fine. I don't know, expected you to limp in with half an arm. Never did get that wound business straight--where were you hit?"
"In the head. Forget the wound and the war. What did you want to see me about?"
Harry gave me a small