Chase: Roman

even have slid inside and sat down without noticing the wire, aware of the danger only when it was too late to escape.
        The trigger wire snapped in two as Chase applied one last, hard twist to it.
        He put the pliers down and crawled over the console, sat in the passenger's seat. He opened that door to let some of the streetlight flood in, and then set to work snipping the wires that bound the grenade in place. Those and the strips of black electrician's tape came away with little problem. When he freed the metal pineapple and tested its weight, there was no longer any doubt in his mind that it was a live piece and not just a stage prop Judge had put there for a laugh.
        Chase wrapped the grenade in the chamois waxing cloth that had come with the car and tucked it into the glove compartment, which he locked.
        He got out of the car, unwound the wire from the window knob and pushed that under the seat, closed the door and walked to the steps. ‘It's all done.’
        ‘Where's the dynamite?’ she asked.
        ‘No dynamite, just a hand grenade. I wrapped it and locked it in the glove compartment.’
        She looked ill, the colour gone from her face. ‘Is that safe?’
        ‘Perfectly safe. It can't go off unless someone yanks the pin loose.’
        ‘Where could he have gotten a hand grenade?’
        ‘I don't know,’ Chase said. ‘I guess there are a number of ways. I intend to find out some day.’
        ‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
        ‘We go see Louise Allenby, like we planned. Now it seems even more urgent to track down that bastard.’
        In the car, as he started the engine, she said, ‘I must congratulate you on your good nerves. This hardly seems to have upset you at all.’
        ‘It did, though,’ he said. ‘I don't think I've ever been so upset in my life.’ He knew he had to conserve himself for hate, hate directed toward Judge, hate that would benefit him if he nurtured it.
        
        Louise Allenby answered the door wearing the tops of blue-flowered pyjamas that barely covered her below the curve of her ass, and she had a very slick come-hither look for him. She said, ‘I knew you'd be back to get the reward -’ Then she saw Glenda and said, ‘Oh!’
        ‘May we come in?’ Chase said.
        She stepped back, confused, closed the door after them.
        Chase introduced Glenda as a close friend, though he felt that Louise saw instantly past the description. Her face soured into a pout that was not at all the woman but completely the child she was.
        She said, ‘Will you have a drink this time?’
        ‘No,’ Chase said. ‘We've only got a couple of questions, and we'll be going.’
         I'm drinking tonight,’ she said. She flounced across the room and made herself something Chase could not identify. She stood with her right hip cocked so that the pyjama tops pulled up slightly on her round, firm buttocks, soft and white against the tan of her legs. When she came back, she sat down in such a fashion that for a brief moment it was all there and visible and pretty, then swung one leg over the other and shut down the best part of the show. ‘What are your questions?’
        Chase felt uncomfortable, but he could tell that Glenda was enjoying his embarrassment and the girl's anger. She sat on one of the stiff chairs, looking exceedingly delicious, her own legs crossed and much more fetching than Louise's legs for all the younger girl's nakedness.
        Chase said, ‘You said you'd gone with Mike for a year before - before he was murdered.’
        That's about right,’ she said. She looked at Glenda, looked down at her legs, frowned just the slightest, then returned her gaze to Chase and never took it from him until he got up to leave. ‘What about it?’
        ‘In that time, did you ever notice anyone following you - as if they were keeping a watch on you?’
        ‘Recently? No.’
        ‘Not just recently,’ he said. ‘Even weeks ago, or months ago.’
        She hesitated, sipped her drink and said, ‘The beginning of the year, about February and March, there was something like that.’
        Chase felt his throat catch, and he did not want to speak for fear that it would all prove to be nothing and would put them right back where they had been when they walked in the door. At last he said, ‘What do you mean?’
        ‘Well, when Mike first said he was following us, I j ust