Page 74 of Killer Body

They’d seen different sides of Julie, so there was no point in telling him that Julie would do what she damn well pleased, when she damn well pleased to do it.

They stepped onto the sidewalk.

“So, where next?” Lucas asked. “Luau Larry’s? The Marlin Club?”

“The Marlin, of course, with that wonderful fish-shaped bar. Dolores and I used to go there a lot in the eighties, you know. She had the cancer then, but she was still the most beautiful woman in the place. On the whole damned island, for that matter.”

Off they walked, to visit the past. Lucas hoped, as the bracing air hit their faces like a tonic, that Bobby W had forgotten the subject he’d raised at dinner, but, of course, he hadn’t.

“We need to hire someone to find out where she is.” He said it as if ordering a drink.

A niggling itch spread along Lucas’s spine.

“Like a detective, you mean?”

“Or a reporter.” Bobby W stopped, arched an eyebrow. “That little girl impresses the hell out of me.”

“Rikki?” In the rush of night air, his face felt hot. “Forget it.”

“Okay, so the chopped-off hair can be a turnoff, at first, but on her, it’s cute. And her body, Luke. Have you taken a look at that?”

“So what? I know lots of attractive women.”

“Like Ellen?”

“Ellen and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”

“So all of those dinners and lunches, and you’re not getting any?”

“You know it’s against the Killer Body code of ethics. No relatives, no dating, right?”

Bobby W’s parchment lips tightened. His eyebrows rose. “Would that stop you?”

“It would stop me with Ellen. It’s stopped me with people in the past. Boring, aren’t I?”

The door of the Marlin Club was opened. He turned to Bobby W, about to ask if the fraternization policy would stop him.

Instead, a tightly wound guy in a stocking cap almost collided with him, then shoved him out of the way.

“Watch where you’re going, asshole.”

He looked like a power-boat owner, or maybe just someone who traveled on one.

Lucas stepped back in his path. “Maybe you’re the one who’d better watch where he’s going.”

“You think so?” The sailor raised something that looked like a thick, gray wand.

Lucas tried to block it with his upraised hands, but the weight of most of it assailed him. He felt a hard hit from which he couldn’t quite recover. Felt himself crash into something solid. No, God, not Bobby W.

Yes, it was. Bobby W moaned beneath him.

“Careful, you pricks.” The man’s voice, a hoarse whisper, was the most frightening sound Lucas could recall in his adult life.He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t. Oh, God, he really couldn’t.

“Leave this thing alone,” the man said.

“What thing?” Lucas choked out.

As he did, a sharp pain caved in his right side.