The Pearl Harbor Murders by Max Allan Collins Page B

did his best not to look down into the considerable cleavage of this girl who was young enough to be his daughter. "Oh, Mr. Burroughs, I know you're a good man, a considerate man, underneath that ... gruff exterior."
    "Underneath this gruff exterior, my dear, is a gruff interior."
    "I don't believe it—I can see kindness in your eyes. I know Colonel Fielder doesn't approve of us, Bill and I. . . ."
    "Can you blame him, at a time like this?"
    She shook her head, and the dark arcs of hair swung. "That's why I have to speak with the colonel—I have to speak with him privately, and I know you can arrange that. Discreetly, Mr. Burroughs. It's important."
    "You want a private meeting with Colonel Fielder. Just you and him—not Bill."
    She was nodding. "I need to state my own case. I want to prove myself to Bill's father."
    Burroughs smiled, shook his head. "You're a determined young woman."
    "Yes I am."
    He couldn't help it: she impressed him. She was as intelligent as she was beautiful, and she had courage and conviction. Who could blame any man for loving a woman like this?
    "I've written about women like you," he told her. "But I've met damn few."
    "I... I don't understand."
    He stood, holding out his hand to her. "I'll help you. I'll talk to Colonel Fielder, and set the meeting up here at my bungalow... discreetly. Tomorrow soon enough?"
    "Oh, Mr. Burroughs," she said, beaming, and she almost threw herself off the couch into his arms, holding on to him, tight. Face pressed sideways against his chest, she said, "Hully is a lucky boy, having a father like you."
    "Yeah, I'm a peach." He patted her back, gently. "Now get out of here before I fall in love with you, myself, you little vixen. Scoot!"
    The dark eyes were teary with joy, her smile a white slash of happiness, as she scurried out of the bungalow, thanking him as she went.
    Wishing he were thirty years younger, Burroughs sighed and headed into the bedroom. There's a Jane any Tarzan might fall for, he thought. He slipped out of the robe and—bare-chested, in the pajama bottoms—crawled under a single sheet of his bed, a flower-scented breeze whispering in the open window, fluffing sheer curtains, the lap of waves on the nearby beach soothing him, lulling him to sleep.
    Deep asleep, dreaming, he believed he'd awakened, hearing a sound. In his dream, he opened eyes that in reality were tightly shut, and saw—shrouded in darkness—a figure standing across the room from him. The figure gradually revealed itself to be female—a tall, beautiful female who moved into a shaft of pure, heavenly light, slanting through the window.
    The woman's flesh was an emerald green, her hair scarlet, her voluptuous body bare but for strategic scatterings of gold sequins that appeared to have been applied to her naked skin. She seemed to be approaching him, reaching out to him, and he sat up, and reached out for her....
    A roar from the darkness—for the bedroom had become a cave—announced a third player, and a mammoth man-beast lumbered into view ... a pair of tusks, a huge single eye, a fiercely muscular build matted with fur with two arms on either side, each thick pawlike hand clutching a scimitarlike blade, four swords slashing at the air, threatening the green woman, who fell as the blades cleaved her emerald flesh, blood the color of gold splashing, and Burroughs tried to move, but found himself paralyzed in bed, screaming in protest, unable to move, too late to save the beautiful emerald girl, too late....
    Then he was sitting up in bed, drenched in sweat, catching himself in mid-scream.
    Quickly Burroughs got up out of bed, raced to his typewriter, snapped on his desk lamp, and sat in front of the keyboard, fingers flying. Before it could fade, he recorded the dream, in its every detail. Such nightmares came to him regularly—often involving some terrible creature or unidentified danger. Many of the plots and characters in his novels and stories had been literally dreamed up;