Too Sweet to Die by Ron Goulart, Llc Ebook Architects Page B

condition?”
    “It’s his name. Kemp. Kemp takes things,” said Nada. “People call him the Medicine Cabinet. He’ll put anything inside himself. Don’t worry about him, he always recuperates.”
    “What did he take this time?”
    “Some little white tablets with red flecks in them. I don’t know the name.”
    Easy rose up away from the sprawled Kemp. “Who is he?”
    “Kemp the comic artist,” said Nada. “I guess you probably don’t follow that medium. He’s a cartoonist, very gifted.”
    “That explains the spots.”
    “Spots?”
    “Black, spots on his fingers. I was trying to think what drug will do that. It must be India ink, though.”
    Nada touched Easy’s arm with one slender hand. “I let Kemp stay here off and on. I have occasional maternal impulses, though I’m basically bitchy at heart,” she said. “I think I forgot to pay my electric bill for a few months, which is how come you’re being entertained by candlelight.” She picked up the candle from beside Kemp. “I usually hold my at-homes out back in the kitchen. Come along.”
    In the long hardwood hallway they passed two more leaning bicycles. “You’re fond of bikes,” said Easy.
    “I never had one when I was a kid.” She pointed with her free hand. “Over that way. No, over there actually. Over there across the Bay is Oakland. You know where 7th and Central is?”
    “No.”
    “Good for you then. That is where I grew up, in that vicinity. Now I’m practically a superstar.”
    “When you’re full-fledged you can pay your light bill.”
    “I could pay it now except I keep forgetting.” The kitchen was large, with a high white ceiling. Copper pots, all new and unused, hung from hooks around the walls. “Want a drink?”
    In the center of a round carved oak table sat a half-full bottle of Riesling and another candle in a saucer. Easy lit the candle. “No, thanks,” he said. “Now, what about Jill Jeffers?”
    “I think you’re supposed to chill this,” said Nada, setting her candle on the big table and picking up the wine bottle. She wiped the lip of the green bottle with the back of her hand. “Skol.” She drank from the bottle, took it with her as she walked, slow and slide-footed, across the room. There was a 10-speed Italian bicycle propped against the refrigerator. “I don’t mind making the skin cinema stuff for Dean. However, I still have a … well, maybe you can’t call it a moral sense. Anyhow, sometimes I see things happen which I don’t much like.”
    “Did Dean do something to Jill?”
    Nada shook her red head. She took another swig of the warm Riesling. “What I’m going to tell you … you have to act like you obtained it from an informed source who prefers to remain nameless. A deal?”
    Easy nodded at her. “Sure. What happened to Jill Jeffers? Where is she?”
    “I don’t know where she is, not for sure. But what happened to her is Poncho.”
    “Who’s Poncho?”
    “Poncho is Poncho,” replied Nada. “A great big bastard, and mean. Good looking, in a grizzly bear sort of way. He works in some of Dean’s flicks once in a great while. He took Jill.”
    “Took her?”
    Nada drank from the green bottle. “Took her with him, away from that party,” she said finally. “I’ve met Jill once or twice before. Saturday she was in a very down mood. I’m bitchy myself most times and you have to be pretty nasty to beat me. Jill did. Poncho kept circling around her. He got her to try some stuff he had, to cheer herself up.”
    “What kind of stuff?”
    The black girl shrugged her left shoulder and her breasts bobbed under the ribbed wool. “Supposed to be meth. Whatever it was, it didn’t bring her up any.” Nada ran her tongue over her lips. “Nor did what Poncho had in mind for her probably. Poncho and his friends.”
    Easy moved nearer the dark girl. “What did they do to her?”
    Nada’s left shoulder gave a faint shrug. “A gang shag.”
    Easy’s face grew taut. “You mean