Little Fish was damn near giddy. “What you said.”
As they headed for the exit they passed a section of the bar. Sitting there was the blonde who’d been upstairs. She sipped a martini while a man with a massive mound of dark hair was trying to talk her up. She put her icy blues on Holmes over the rim of her glass, and reached out to touch his arm. Leaning in close, she whispered, “Did you see my panties up there?”
“Why I believe I did.” He took her hand and, pausing no more than the tick of a clock’s sweep hand, bent and kissed it. “Maybe I can help you with finding another pair.”
Her bedroom eyes could pin a man’s stomach to his spine. “I believe you can.”
Little Fish didn’t have to be hit with a two by four to take the hint. “I don’t know what you got, Terry, but I’m sure gonna buy me some. See you tomorrow when we said, right? Get our thing down before showtime.”
“Right you are,” Holmes answered, his attention on the woman. Big hair mumbled a curse and ambled away.
It wasn’t too long before Holmes and the woman entered her modest apartment in the east forties. They were backlit by light in the hallway as they kissed and grabbed at each other in the open doorway. The bearded man tip-toed from the shadows of the apartment’s front room, a set of nunchuks in his hand. Being a fan of Hong Kong kung fu movies, he’d taken a few lessons on how to handle the instrument. He raised the weapon over his head, spinning one of its blunt ends to strike Holmes.
Squelch Waller left the Five Note bar in Harlem and, after a cab ride, got out on a quiet block in Queens. He looked up and down the dark street and then went up the steps to a nondescript row house. He tapped his knuckles on the screen door. The porch light came on. The door’s peephole swung inward and the front door opened thereafter. Waller entered and the door closed. Dock Watson witnessed this from the LTD he had parked up the street on the opposite side.
Sherlock Holmes shoved the woman away, twisting his body, taking a glancing blow from the nunchuk on his shoulder. He winced and, finishing his pivot, delivered an uppercut to his attacker’s jaw. The bearded man rocked back but employed his weapon again as he did so. Holmes went low, the stick missing his head. He whipped his leg around and upended the kung fu fan.
The man went down hard on his back. “Get his ass,” he blared. The bearded man began to rise and Holmes rammed stiffened fingers under his heart, momentarily stunning him as he held onto the man.
The blonde produced a small-caliber automatic from a garter holster on her inner thigh. For Sherlock Holmes, the world’s only consulting detective, had not only smelled the gun oil on her hand when he’d kissed it in the bar, he’d felt the weapon while pretending—or at least, semi-pretending—to be lost in lust. He tensed for the bullet to strike him, but she hesitated.
Holmes shoved the bearded man into her. The gun went off impotently, plaster falling onto his hair as he snatched up the nunchuks and expertly used them to disarm her. Holmes retrieved the gun and leveled it on the two.
“Now, let’s chat about the Council, shall we?” he said.
Glaring at him, a false eyelash askew, she said, “Go to hell.”
Holmes smiled wickedly.
On the front page of the Amsterdam News, a black weekly, a story ran. The article alleged that Tony “Squelch” Waller was an FBI informant, and had been one for a number of years. It was further alleged he’d first been pressed into this role by a combination of factors, including an assault charge from a picket line incident in Brooklyn. The piece went on to say that he’d been confronted by a high-placed member of the Freedom Now Coalition and had confessed his sins. Waller was said to have disappeared to parts unknown.
“You noted the marks where the base of the door’s chain guard had been,” Holmes said to Dock Watson.
“I’m sure you saw those the first time you were in the library,” Watson responded. Reviewing the photos he’d taken in Barrow’s library, he’d finally noticed the gouges and returned for a second look. Once he surmised the chain lock had been pried off with a flat head screwdriver, and not broken away as Waller claimed, he began tailing the man.
The two sat at a table in Francine’s Southern Cantonese Style Café having lunch. Harlem was electric with the discussion about Waller and the implications of that.
“The professor must have found out Waller was a snitch and Waller killed him, terrified he’d be exposed,” Watson said.