So Nude, So Dead by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online

sensation. He began to sweat. Yes, yes, he’d have to get that shot soon or go crazy, go babbling down the street like a madman.
    His picture in the paper. He’d have to do something about that. Blond hair was a dead giveaway—thank you, Mother, for your powerful genes. His eye caught a big shoe swinging in the breeze over a shop. Across the side of the shoe, in red letters, was the word “Repairs.” He walked to the glass-paneled door and opened it. A heavy man with a handlebar mustache looked up as Ray closed the door behind him.
    “I want some black shoe polish,” Ray said. “The liquid stuff. In a bottle, you know.”
    The shoemaker got him what he wanted without a word. Ray paid him and left.
    * * *
    On West Sixty-third Street he found a small hotel, registered under the name of Ralph Surrey, and then went to work on his hair. He thought fleetingly of the two bucks the room was costing him, two bucks that took a sizable chunk out of the second deck he’d planned for. Maybe one deck would hold him until tomorrow, though. Then he could hock his links and maybe even his jacket. As always, when he thought of the drug, an excitement shivered up his spine. He tried to hold his hands steady as he stood over the sink in the bathroom and poured the black liquid into the bowl. As the liquid rose against the white porcelain, he reached down for the stopper, making sure it was in tight. He dipped both hands into the thick polish then and began, working it into his hair.
    It was sloppy going, but he was getting results. He looked at the strange face in the mirror, marveling at what a change the color of hair can make. Carefully, with all the patience of a beautician, he dug down deep, close to his scalp, making sure each blond strand was now black.
    Finally, he surveyed himself in the mirror, pleased with his handiwork, convinced that he looked different. He pulled out the stopper and let the remainder of the polish flow down the drain. Then he rinsed out the sink and washed his hands. He wet the end of a towel and carefully rubbed at the few streaks of black that had dripped down onto his forehead and cheekbones. He noticed his eyebrows, naked blond against the phony of his hair, and a new panic seized him.
    He wanted to cry. He felt the way he had when he was a kid and he’d spent hours building a sand castle only to have a bigger kid knock it down. He stared at the eyebrows, and a complete hopelessness flooded his mind. For several moments, the problem seemed insurmountable. His eyes looked down at the sparkling whiteness of the sink. He swallowed heavily, looked at his own sad reflection in the mirror.
    The need for immediate action sparked suddenly within him. He ran his fingers through his drying hair, pulled them away black. Quickly, he daubed at his eyebrows, spreading the smears of polish into the sparse hair. Again, his fingers went to his hair and back to his eyebrows, away, back, away, back. And at last he breathed deeply, his brows as black as the hair on his head. He wet the edge of the towel and wiped the excess polish off his forehead. He wondered what the clerk would think when he walked out.
    Was he going to walk out? What was the next move?
    An unreasoning anger took hold of him, and his mouth set in outraged righteousness. What the hell! He hadn’t shot the girl. He hadn’t killed her. But he was an addict, that was it. Give the police a juicy addict to play with and they’d blame him for every nickel ever stolen from a blind man’s cup. Well this was one goddam addict they weren’t going to decorate with the Purple Shaft. Some lousy bastard had put two slugs in Eileen Chalmers’s stomach, and that same lousy bastard was keeping him away from Louie and the H he needed so desperately.
    The answer seemed logical and simple to him: find that bastard. Find him, and the pressure would be off. The cops would have a new sucker to toy with. And then Ray Stone could contact Louie or any other damned pusher