Bedside Murder

Chapter I

He made me want to laugh. If my case of the jumps hadn’t been so bad, I would have laughed. Maybe he could have been at ease and charming with college girls. He had a face he could have used to be charming with. One of those Mephistopheles faces, but young and nice around the eyes. Crinkly. It was flattering the way he acted as though I were Helen of Troy, just hurled into his lap.

I had to repeat my name twice before it got by the glaze in his brown eyes. He stuck two fingers under the knot in his necktie and pulled it.

“Ah, yes,” he said hoarsely. “Henrietta Ryan.” He pretended as though it meant something. The name couldn’t possibly have meant a thing to him.

The office was new and dean and small. Kimberly Hale, Attorney-at-Law. No girl. I guessed he used the public stenographer whose sign I had seen in the lobby of the musty old office building on Fortieth.

I had no appointment I hadn’t even phoned. When you have the jumps as bad as I had them, you don’t consider the niceties. I sat in the chair he made the aimless gesture at.

“My friends call me Hank,” I said.

He stared at me as though I were Truman and had just asked him to call me Harry. “I’m Kim,” he said weakly.

Maybe he wouldn’t have had such an extreme reaction to Harry. In my business I’m forced to be spectacular. Nature helped by giving me soft silver hair and smoke-gray eyes — and a figure that I have inadvertently overheard described in words no lady would repeat. I further the illusion with the right clothes and a sunlamp that gives me a tan the color of warm honey.

He stared at me, popped up and adjusted the blinds behind his desk to keep the light out of my eyes. I took my cigarettes out of the red lizard purse and he scampered around the desk with a lighter, banging his leg heartily against one of the desk corners. After he sat opposite me, he pulled himself together again, squared his shoulders.

“What is your trouble, Miss Ryan?”

I puffed a fat and perfect smoke ring which looped nicely over his pen on the desk set.

“Somebody is trying to kill me,” I said. “I’d like to assure a — certain degree of failure on their part.”

The remains of the smoke ring flattened out against the top of his desk in an expanding gray pool. There was a frantic note in his voice.

“People just don’t come into law offices with that sort of thing,” he said. “What’s the matter with the police?”

“I think the police are fine. In fact, my father was a cop.”

“Then you better tell them about this. I... I wouldn’t know what to do.”

He was becoming a shade brusque. I relaxed in his uncomfortable visitors’ chair, arching my back just the smallest bit. As his eyes began to glaze, I lowered my head, looked at him through the small thicket of eyelashes and smiled.

“Maybe you’d like to hear about it?” I asked.

He tried to say he did and he didn’t, at one and the same time.

“I thought of going to the police,” I said, “and I thought of going to some reliable detective agency. But I don’t want an obvious bodyguard. I’m afraid my unknown friend is a little too clever to be stopped by such a move. I have friends who would help me, but I prefer a stranger.”

“Did... did someone mention me?” he asked.

“I found your name in the book. How busy are you?”

He regained his dignity. “Quite busy. I have some estate work and... and... quite a bit of estate work.”

I unclipped the purse again, took out one of the five new bills I had picked up at the bank an hour before. A five hundred dollar bill. I put it neatly on the corner of his desk, smiled at him again.

“Shall we call that a retainer?” I said.

He stood up suddenly, turned to the window and shoved his hands in his pockets. When he turned back there was no shade of expression on his face.

“I’m afraid, Miss Ryan, that I’d rather not get into this sort of thing. I’m sure the police would—”

It wasn’t an act on my part. The tears were just there. You can fight something for just so long, and then it’s too much. They rolled down my cheeks and I knew my mouth was trembling. I couldn’t look at him. He handed me a big, white, crisp handkerchief and made small soothing sounds.

After I had blotted up the tears, I looked up. He was sitting on the edge of the desk.

“Suppose you tell me about it,” he said softly.

“My professional name is Laura Lynn,” I said.

His eyes widened. “Some quality in your voice, the huskiness—”

I smiled through the remnants of tears. “It isn’t natural. When I was thirteen I was playing football with the kids on the block and got kicked in the throat.”

“All women ought to be kicked in the throat,” he said warmly, then caught himself. “Ah — you’re singing at the Staccato Club now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, backed up by Sonny Rice and his band. I’ve been there six months and, according to Sam Lescott, the owner, I’ll be there another six. I make recordings on the side, do some guest spot work in radio and so on.”

“What makes you think someone is trying to kill you?” he asked, frowning.

I caught the faint tone of disbelief in his voice. I dug in my purse, handed him the bit of paper. He unwrapped it, stared at the small object.

“A bullet!”

“I live in an apartment in the Village,” I said. “There is a fire escape outside my window. It came through the window one night on a short visit. I dug it out of the plaster.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t meant for you.”

“The curtain was scorched. Whoever fired the gun stood on the fire escape.”

He shrugged again. “Some sort of a practical joke.”

I stood up so quickly it startled him. I unbuttoned the coat of my navy suit, drew the blouse up out of my skirt, exposing a tan tummy. I pointed a shaking finger at the faint red streak two inches long just below my ribs.

“Big joke,” I said. “Ha, ha!”

He stared at the red mark and then his eyes roamed away from it and he began to perspire. I hurriedly tucked the blouse back into the top of my skirt. His nice crinkly eyes were narrowed.

“Who would want to kill you?”

“Are you going to take the case?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Become the current boyfriend,” I said. “Take me around places. Keep your eyes open. I’ll pay all expenses and give you whatever you ask.”

For the first time he really smiled. “Mother forgot to mention that some days would be like this,” he said. “All this and money too!”

“You understand, Kim Hale, that this is purely a business arrangement,” I said coldly.

He sobered at once. “Of course. Of course.”

“Just exactly how busy are you?”

He glanced over at the crisp bill. “That money, Hank, will keep the men from coming and taking away the furniture.”

“Do they do that to lawyers?”

“Especially to lawyers. I trust you’re not thinking of me in terms of a bodyguard. I’m not — in practice for that sort of thing. I can use a gun, and I have both the gun and the permit to carry it because sometimes I have to carry negotiable securities around. Should I wear it?”

“I’d feel better if you would, but I didn’t expect you to.”

He picked up the bill, glanced at his watch. “Now, then,” he said, “I’m working for you, Hank. Give me the rest of the story. Whom do you suspect? What other attempts have been made?”

“I’ll tell you about the other attempts. That bullet was fired at me four nights ago at four o’clock in the morning. A week ago I was crossing Madison at Forty-second. The crowd was thick. I was in the front rank waiting for the traffic to thin out. I like to hurry across whenever there’s an open space between cars. I saw room enough between two cabs. Just as I moved ahead, somebody tripped me. I went flat on my face and it was so close that the right front tire of the taxi smashed my hat and ran over my hair.”

He looked at me wide-eyed and swallowed hard. Evidently the idea of Henrietta Ryan with a mashed head did things to his insides.

I continued, “You know the Halloween stunt of balancing a bucket of water on top of a door so that when you open it, it comes down and drenches you?” He nodded. “Two weeks ago I went back to the apartment and found the lock broken. When I opened my bedroom door, I was moving quite rapidly. That’s what saved me. I was hurrying to see if all my things were safe — jewelry and clothes. A plain cardboard carton had been put up there. It had a rock in it twice the size of your head. It smashed on the floor so terribly hard it broke two floor boards. The edge of the carton barely grazed my— Well, you see it fell right in back of me and—”

“I see,” he said quickly. It’s refreshing to meet a man who can blush.

“Those are the only three attempts.”

“Does anyone beside the two of us know about them?”

“A girl named Betty Lafferty knows about the rock, nothing else. She lives with me. She’s a girl I played with when I was little over in Brooklyn. She’s had simply awful luck. She’s a companion and secretary and keeps the place neat and does the cooking when we eat in. I pay her a good salary.”

“How good?”

“A hundred a week. I gross about fourteen hundred a week from all sources, including the record sales. Betty is a tax deduction. My net after taxes is around four and a quarter a week.”

“How about your list of suspects?”

I fiddled with the catch on the red purse. “How does this sound? Suppose I just arrange that you meet all the people who could have some crazy reason for killing me. You can form your own opinions. You can start taking me out. I hope it won’t get you into too much of a mess with your wife.”

He jingled the change in his pockets, blushed again. “I haven’t got one.”

“All the better,” I said briskly. “Are you busy tonight? Good. Here’s my address. I have to be at the Club at nine. The food there is just dreadful. Pick me up at six and we’ll eat some place, then you can take me to the Club.”

He smiled. “Sounds wonderful.”

I then pulled something that I shouldn’t have done. I walked briskly to the door, hearing him hurry along to open it for me. I stood so close to it that he had to reach around me to get the knob. When he did, I turned and smiled up into his face. The brown eyes were glazed again and he was breathing shallowly. I was surprised that he was so tall. I’m five nine, a big, big girl. He seemed about six two, with that nice, flat rangy build that I like.

Chapter II

Kim Hale, taut and nervous arrived at the apartment at one minute of six. I opened the door and his smile was an expression of utter relief.

“I was worried,” he said in a low voice. “I never should have let you go off alone like that and—”

“Shhh!” I said.

I hadn’t yet put on my lipstick and, as we walked down the four steps into the living room, Betty appeared in the arch that leads to the kitchen, bedrooms and bath.

“Betty,” I said. “This is Kim Hale. You’ve heard me speak of him. Kim, this is Betty Lafferty.”

I saw the questioning look in his eye as he looked at Betty and greeted her, then complete relaxation. Betty is the size of a pint of cream. Rusty red hair, a pert little face and smiling blue eyes. She’s just a wee shade too plump and she laughs a lot.

I hurried into my bedroom, gave a last look of inspection, touched up the lipstick, scooped up purse, hat and gloves and went back into the living room. I didn’t want to give them too much time together until I had briefed Kim on where and how we had met.

I told Kim and Kim told the cabbie to take us to Lamont’s on Sixty-third. Kim looked wonderfully nice. I decided that I never would tell him that he was the fourth lawyer I had gone to, and that I hadn’t liked the looks of the first three enough to tell them the story.

Ramond recognized me and, smiling, led us to a quiet corner in the cocktail lounge and said that he would call us when the proper table was ready. I told him we wanted to eat at quarter to eight. He glanced at his watch, smiled again, and walked off.

“What do you think of Betty?” I asked.

“Cute as a button! Very nice.”

“Potential murderess?”

“Could be,” he said slowly. “Anyone could be. That’s the trouble with the world. Smiling faces can hide some very savage souls.”

The way he said it, gave me the shivers. And I had had my share of goosebumps during the previous two weeks.

“By the way,” I said. “I met you at a party in Los Angeles in early nineteen forty-four. I was singing out there at a place called Jerry’s, on Wilshire. You were a friend of Stan Haskell.”

“Who’s he?”

It’s a struggle to keep from self pity whenever I remember Stan. He was the one. Maybe he’ll always be the one. It seems that way.

“He’s dead. Killed in the war. And so nobody can check. Were you ever in Los Angeles?”

He smiled. “I was in Los Angeles in nineteen forty-four. I was at Camp Anza waiting to go overseas. And I heard you sing at Jerry’s.”

There was a rough and yet tender note in his voice that made me wonder if maybe I should reappraise the shy young lawyer.

“Who do you want me to meet tonight particularly?” he asked.

“Sonny Rice, of course, the band-leader. And Johnny France, who also sings with the band. We do duets once in a while. Sam Lescott, who owns the joint. Carl Hopper, my agent, if he happens to drop in. Donald Frees, my shadow.”

“Your what?”

“The little man who follows me around. Hopeless love, he says. His folks hold some sort of plastics patents. He’s working up to be a playboy.”

I looked across the room and saw Wallace Wint, the gossip columnist, come in alone and take a table diagonally across from us in the lounge. It gave me an idea. I leaned toward Kim.

“Don’t look now,” I said, “but the disher of dirt is across the way. Wallace Wint. We can get this off to a wonderful start if you want to cooperate. Maybe you’ll be able to read all about us in tomorrow morning’s paper.”

He looked puzzled. “What do I have to do?”

“Don’t be so dull! For one thing, hold my hand across the table and look as if you were in love. I’ll give you the old melting eye. He’ll wonder who you are, after he sees that, and keep an eye on us. Then kiss me.”

He swallowed hard, took my hand and, as I looked softly at him, he said, “Darling, you’re the most beautiful, glamorous lovely thing that ever came along.”

“Hey!” I said.

“Shut up! I’m getting in the mood.”

I risked a glance at Wallace and saw his beady little eyes on us. After a time I moistened my lips and leaned toward Kim, parting them just a little. He leaned across the small table. He was very adequate. He was even deft. It took me a good four seconds after it was over to remember why it had happened. I loosened up on the fingernails that were about to punch holes in his hand.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Excuse yourself and go to the little boy’s room. I’m sure Wallace will join you.”

He left. I sat sipping my drink. Kim came back in a few minutes. He was grinning to himself.

As soon as Wallace Wint left, Kim said, “He came in and asked me if I were John Whitson. I told him no, and he said I looked like John and he asked me if I were an artist too. I told him that I was a lawyer and that my name was Kimberly Hale. Then he said that he noticed I was with you. I said that he was a good noticer. He gave me a very lewd look and asked if it was a serious thing, or if I was just a fancy passing. He told me who he was. I put one hand against his chest and pushed him a little. I said that if he felt like sticking anything in his column, it better be dignified, or I’d personally print a small personal message on his hide. He assured me that he was always dignified and asked me if a date had been set. I told him he should ask you and if you wanted to confirm it, it was okay with me. He asked me if you’d stop singing commercially, and I told him certainly not.”

I gasped. “You didn’t overdo it, did you?”

“I don’t think so. Tomorrow will tell.”

I got him a small corner table not far from the dance floor at the Staccato. The place would have given anyone snow blindness, but I knew that it would fill up later on. I had time to sit and have a drink with Kim. Sam Lescott came over. Sam is a balding man in his late fifties with the energy of a man half his age. His features are somewhat marred from the old days when he did a bit of prize fighting in the ring.

“Sit down, Sam,” I said. “Meet Kim Hale.”

They shook hands. Sam sighed and sat down. He waved a hand at the empty tables.

“Look at the place!” he exclaimed. “Without you, honey, it would look that way all night. Take care of yourself. You’re money in the bank for tired old Sammy.”

I saw Kim’s hand tighten on the tabletop. He asked in an easy tone, “I suppose some of your competition would like to see Laura Lynn booked for a hospital instead of the Staccato?”

“They wouldn’t cry none if she broke a couple legs.”

“Is there anybody in particular, Sam, who’d like to see you have trouble making ends meet?” Kim asked. I kicked him under the table.

Sam gave him an odd expressionless stare. “If you’re asking if I got enemies, sure. All kidding aside, I just talk like this to make Hank feel good. She’s a top star. But there’s other toppers, friend. She gets sick and I get somebody else. In this business you got to give the customers top entertainment.”

Kim smiled easily. “And you certainly know how to do it.”

“I been doing it long enough, Mr. Hale.” Sam stood up. “See you around,” he said and wandered off.

Betty was waiting for me up in the dressing room. With our usual struggle we managed to get the Ryan figure into the silver gown. The top of the dress doesn’t start until it gets way down to here. And I mean way down. Sammy says half the customers come back time after time to see if I’ll ever get the hiccups. The rest of the dress fits in such a way that if I ever get a mosquito bite on one hip, it won’t be possible to zip it up the side.

I sat and smoked and listened to Sonny’s boys ride through the numbers, then the drum roll, the announcement, and I stubbed out the cigarette, went down the stairs and out across the floor, the spot picking me up at the doorway and taking me on out to the mike. Even after all these years, it’s hard to remember not to squint into the glare of it. Some juvenile yowled like a wolf, but I kept my smile on and gave them “Old Fashioned Love” in that voice that Downbeat calls “low down and dirty.”

I gave them a current one, then another oldie and when they clapped long enough, another current one. The spot carried me back to the door, then shifted to Sonny. I threaded my way between the tables and Kim saw me coming. He jumped up and held my chair.

After Sonny finished his special number, the lights came up a little. I could see that Kim was uncomfortable. He wanted to look at me, and yet my show dress was so extreme that he was shy about it. He jingled change, fiddled with his glass and kept tugging at his necktie.

When the break came, I caught Sonny’s eye and motioned him over. Kim stood up and I introduced them. Sonny sat down. He is aging and has been aging since 1901. But he fights bravely against it. The black wavy hair and the teeth are detachable. He is fabulously beaten on the massage table to keep the waistline down. He eats bland foods, doesn’t smoke or drink, gets all the sleep he can and exercises most religiously.

Sam says that for all practical purposes, Sonny Rice died in 1931, and the current walking corpse is the result of pure will power. From forty feet away, Sonny looks twenty-three. From twenty feet away he looks thirty-two. From six feet away he looks fifty. From three feet away he looks as though he had been taken out of one of those Egyptian mummy boxes and reactivated.

Most women get to see Sonny from forty feet away. His voice is quick, light and gay — with something in it like the voice of a woman who is laughing while clutching a sodden handkerchief and mopping at her eyes.

“How do you like the show?” he asked eagerly.

“Your music is splendid!” Kim said gravely. “Youthful.”

Sonny couldn’t have been more touched. “Youthful,” was, to Sonny, the peak accolade.

“We work hard,” Sonny said joyously.

“Your music brings out the best qualities in Hank’s voice,” Kim said.

He was heaping it on so thick that even Sonny could afford to be generous. Sonny beamed at me.

“Why, I don’t know what we’d do without Hank,” he said. “She’s tops.” He patted my hand. It was like the touch of a dry old lizard.

Donald Frees came in between shows, a few moments before Sonny left our table. As I told Kim, Frees is working up to be a playboy. His bland, moon-like face expresses nothing but fatuous self satisfaction. His pink hands are always faintly wrinkled as though he had just stepped out of a long, hot tub. He is about thirty, I think, but by reason of his weight he has jowls, which make him look older.

At the age of twenty-five, Donald became heir to a life income of at least a hundred thousand a year after taxes. But he doesn’t fit properly into the role of playboy, for he worked for five years after college and got into the habit of it and feels remotely guilty about the whole thing.

He motioned to me to come over to his table and since I resent being summoned like the cigarette girl, I ignored him. Several minutes later he lumbered over, smelling of soap, hair tonic, shaving lotion, a pine and leather scent, shoe polish, deodorant and fine Scotch. Kim stiffened a little and I sensed the instantaneous dislike.

I introduced them and Donald said to me, “Mind if I join you?”

“This is Mr. Hale’s table,” I said primly.

Donald sighed. “Then you join me, Laura.” Donald feels that Laura Lynn is more dignified than Hank Ryan, so he always calls me by my professional name.

“I came with Kim,” I said.

Donald’s little blue eyes inspected Kim again. “May I join your table?” he asked.

Kim looked him up and down carefully, taking his time. He pursed his lips, smiled pleasantly and said, “Get your own dates, fatso.”

It was the first time I had ever seen Donald without his pink complexion. He turned and walked majestically off, his back rigid. Twenty seconds after he paid his check, Sam Lescott came over, a dark look on his face.

“Honey,” he said, “Did you brush moneybags?”

“I did,” Kim said. “He asked if he could join me and I told him no.”

I looked at my watch. “Sam, he’ll be back in twenty minutes. Don’t fret.”

“I hope so, honey. All by himself he’s good for enough, and once in a while he brings in a nice party.” He walked away.

“I don’t care for Mr. Frees,” Kim said.

“Nobody does, Kim. But he’s harmless. He just breathes on me, and his eyes go soft, and then he asks me if I’ll let him buy me a beautiful house in Hawaii or the South of France or Bermuda or somewhere. And he never looks at my face while he’s asking. He always looks where my tie clip would be if I were a man.”

“His kind of money is never harmless, Hank. I’ve learned that with lots of money you can hire people to be unpleasant for you.”

“Why you old cynic, you! And so young, too.”

The rest of the evening was uneventful until, at quarter to one, Roger Blate came in with a small party of sharpies. Roger gave me a look of pure hatred and I knew that it hadn’t been his idea to come to the Staccato. I finished my number and went back to the table. I pointed out Roger to Kim.

“There, my boy,” I said, “is what too many people think of when they think of showbusiness.”

“How so?”

“Roger Blate was my agent. I was getting a hundred and seventy-five a week and I’d made one recording and I was just beginning to catch on. Roger came to me all excited and told me that he had a new spot for me at a hundred dollars more a week, singing with Jerry Jerome and his band. I took the job and Jerome’s business manager thought I was pretty nice. One night he got tight and told me that Blate had asked Jerry Jerome for five hundred a week for my services, which would have given Blate fifty a week as his commission. But then, after the price was decided on, Blate told Jerome he could have me for two seventy-five, provided he’d kick back a hundred cash each week to Blate. Of course Jerome agreed, as it saved him a hundred and a quarter a week, and Blate was happy because it meant he made one hundred twenty-seven fifty a week off me instead of only fifty. And little Hank was the babe in the woods.”

“What did you do?” Kim asked. “Sue him?”

“Are you crazy? Some of the little boys on my street in Brooklyn grew up to be on the rough side. They like to help a gal from the old neighborhood. One of them went to see Blate and Blate nicely canceled our contract. The doctors took eight stitches on the inside of Blate’s mouth. Then I hooked up with Carl Hopper, who is straight.”

Most rats look like anything but what they are. Not Roger Blate. He has a flat face, like some kind of a snake. I knew that he had Johnny France, who also sings with the band, all hooked up with an airtight agreement. It wasn’t my style to warn Johnny. Let him find out for himself. It isn’t comfortable to be hated the way Roger Blate hated me.

I finished the last turn a few minutes after two and went from the floor up to the dressing room. Betty never stays, of course, to help after the evening’s over. I wouldn’t want her to stay. Usually she leaves the small light on the dressing table on.

I opened the door and frowned because the dressing table light was off. I started through the darkness and suddenly stopped. Had it not been for the three close calls, I would have walked to the dressing table and reached blithely for the lamp switch.

A draft caught the door and banged it shut and I stopped breathing and began to tremble. The expanse of tanned skin exposed by the dress suddenly turned into a rodeo for goose bumps. I was a little girl again, standing in the dark — and afraid.

The room was so dreadfully dark that I felt as though someone had their hand over my eyes. I backed cautiously to the door, found the latch and opened it, backing out into the hall.

Bud Mitch, trumpet, just coming by, grinned at me. “Got mice in there?”

“Lend me some matches, Bud,” I said.

He handed me a packet of matches and went whistling down the hall. The open door let a little light into the room. I walked cautiously across the floor to the dressing table, lit a match and looked. The bulb from the lamp was on the top of the table. One of those screw-in plugs had been put in where the bulb had been. A six-inch length of insulated wire protruded from the plug. It was bent down and at the end, the insulation was peeled off the two naked wires and they were right where my hand would have touched them as I reached for the switch.

It was then that the moisture soaked through my thin slippers. Somebody had spilled water on the floor. Perfect! Hank walks into her room, stands in the puddle and electrocutes herself.

The match singed my fingers and I dropped it. It hissed faintly when it struck the water on the floor. I lit another match, pulled the wall plug out. When the lamp was dead I unscrewed the thing out of the bulb socket and replaced the bulb. It was only after I had thoroughly smeared it up that I thought of fingerprints. And me the daughter of Joe Ryan!

I shut the door, unzipped my dress, and took my first really deep breath of the evening. I slipped out of the thin sandals, dried my damp feet and hurried into street clothes. I put the socket arrangement in my purse, wondering whether the shock would actually have been sufficient to kill me.

I was able to get out of the place quickly because I have the sort of coloring that in a club the size of the Staccato doesn’t demand showgal makeup. My thick black eyebrows and lashes came that way, making what I think is an interesting contrast with the silver hair. I looked in the mirror as I was ready to leave. Hank was okay, except for a haunted look in the gray eyes and a certain tightness around the lips. I practiced a smile, clicked out the light and left.

I had told Kim to wait five minutes after my number, then pay the check and go around to the side door. He was standing in the shadows waiting for me.

As I walked toward him, smiling, he said, “Fatso seems to be awaiting his princess.”

I remembered then that Donald Frees hadn’t returned to the club. Sam, my boss, had probably noticed it also and would have a few barbed words to say the next day.

“Where is he?”

“His big fat black car awaits at the end of this charming alley. He’s practicing having money by being parked by a hydrant. What is my line?”

“Polite, but firm,” I said.

He nodded. “Polite but firm it is.”

We walked down the narrow alley.

Chapter III

Our heels made echoing noises in the narrow alley and we came out of the mouth of it into the lesser darkness of the street. It was twenty of three. Donald’s car was a — black mass that caught highlights on the roof and the hood. He was leaning against it, his hands in the pockets of his dark topcoat.

“Laura!” he said hoarsely as I appeared with Kim.

“Yes, Donald?” I said lightly.

“I want to talk to you!” he said.

“Call me up like a good boy, Donald. We’ll have a nice talk tomorrow afternoon over the phone.”

We started to walk up toward a cab. Donald Frees took two quick steps behind us and clamped my arm, spinning me around. His big pink face was twisted with anger.

Kim chopped down on Donald’s forearm with the edge of his hand. Donald let go of my arm.

“You heard her tell you to call her tomorrow,” Kim said. “Now go away and stop annoying us.”

Donald swayed and I realized for the first time that he was very drunk. His meaty pink fist floated up toward Kim’s face. It seemed to be properly aimed, but somehow it floated right over Kim’s shoulder.

There was a small thud and Donald sat down on the sidewalk holding his fat tummy with both hands, breathing hard. The chauffeur came out of the car as though he had been shot from a gun.

I had never particularly noticed the man and remembered vaguely that he had a broad flat face and always looked as though his seams were about to split.

There was a sharp crack and Kim was bent like a bow, his knees sagging. I screamed as he went down. Kim was shaking his head from side to side.

The chauffeur helped Donald up, pushed him roughly toward the car. The wonderful sound of a whistle blasted the night as running footsteps came toward us.

The big black car roared off with Donald, and the lights didn’t flash on. The cop, a young one, peered hard at it.

“Got the last number of the license and that’s all,” he said.

Kim made it to his feet and the officer caught him or he would have gone down again. Kim touched his jaw.

“They ought to prop these buildings up better,” he said, “so they wouldn’t fall on people.”

“What happened to him?” the officer asked me. “Who was in that car? Somebody slug him?”

There was no point in implicating Donald. I gave the cop my best smile and said, “I don’t know about the car, officer. This is just a little lover’s quarrel.”

“Don’t give me that!” he said loudly. “What’d you scream for?”

I doubled up my fist. “I don’t know my own strength, officer. I screamed because I thought I’d killed him.”

The cop turned to Kim. “Don’t tell me this dish knocked you flat!”

“This dish, as you so rudely call her, officer, was once the woman heavyweight champion of Atlanta, Georgia.”

The cop hitched up his pants, glared at both of us with deep disgust, and walked off down the street, mumbling to himself.

I took Kim’s arm. “How do you feel, legal eagle?”

“Polite, but firm. The boxing coach in college told me never to lead with a right. And yet I have the vague memory that the citizen who came out of the car led with his right. What happened to Donald?”

“He probably would have liked to kick you in the head, but the law was galloping down on us and the chauffeur had better sense.”

“For a playboy he wants to play rough. Where can we get some medicine?”

“Medicine?”

“Yes, Muscles. My head aches. I need wheatcakes, scrambled eggs, black coffee, toast and marmalade.”

There was a booth in the back of the small, cheery restaurant. After Kim ordered, I opened my purse, handed him the device I had unscrewed from the lamp and told him the whole story. He held the plug so tightly in his lean hand that his knuckles turned white.

“That seems to narrow it down a bit,” he said. “Your unknown admirer is someone who could have had access to the dressing room. I wish you hadn’t handled that bulb, but my guess is that whoever unscrewed it was smart enough to wipe it off. Also, despite popular belief to the contrary, a clear fingerprint is a very unusual thing to find.”

“So my pappy used to say. Joe Ryan, with the flattest feet on the force. A great guy, Kim. You would have liked him.”

“What happened to him?”

“Some eighteen-year-olds with a war souvenir pistol were taking fur coats out of a loft. There were three of them. The old man clumped up the stairs and managed to catch five of the six slugs in the chest. The five slugs annoyed him so much that he shot two of the fur thieves through the head and got the third one in the middle. The third one died the next day, two hours before the old man did. Six weeks later my mother paid a nickel to join Dad. Courtesy of the Eighth Avenue Subway.”

He reached across and touched my hand. “Why do you make yourself sound so bitter?” he asked.

I looked down into my lap, hoping that he wouldn’t see the tears. My voice came out surprisingly small as I said, “What else can I do? Sing Hearts and Flowers.”

“Don’t be like that, Hank,” he said. “You’re not like that underneath.”

I looked at him. “What makes you think you know what I’m like underneath? I’ve consistently lost everybody I’ve learned to love. The world is a rough little place, and I’m the rough little gal who can handle it.”

He took his hand away and shrugged. “Have it your way, lady. Let’s get back to cases. Who could have gotten into your dressing room?”

“Betty doesn’t lock the door. She locks the closet with my clothes and purse inside and leaves the key under the saucer on top of the dressing table. Both rest rooms are in the downstairs hallway. Anybody could find a chance to duck up the stairs and go into the dressing room.”

He thought that one over. “But whoever it was, Hank, that person would have to know your habits. They’d have to know that Betty left after helping you for the first show. They’d have to know that you’d go over to the dressing table and reach for the switch on the tablelamp.”

“That wouldn’t be hard to figure. It’s the only lamp in the room. And anybody could see Betty leave night after night.”

“Would it have to be somebody who was in the club as a customer or an employee?”

I thought that one over. “Not even that, Kim. The side door has one of those gimmicks on it that keeps it from closing quickly. Lots of the band boys catch fresh air out the side door and leave it propped open with a pack of matches so they can get back in. The shadows are deep back there. A person could hide in the shadows and wait until one of the band boys came out, finished his smoke and pulled the door open to go in. He or she would have time to get to the door and stop it before the latch clicked.”

“Then it could have been anyone,” he said in a discouraged tone.

“Except Donald. He was waiting.”

“And if he’d done it, it would be a good angle for him to wait around.” We sat and stared at each other blankly. He said, “We better get in touch with the police.”

I shook my head. “Kim,” I said patiently, “if I were a clerk in a store or a stenographer or a housewife, we could get in touch with the police. But you forget my line of work. Any kind of publicity helps my income. I can see a brighteyed lieutenant snickering and saying, ‘And so you figure somebody is trying to knock off the famous Laura Lynn? How much newspaper space is she looking for?’ ”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said.

“You don’t know how hard some of the girls and boys fight for those headlines. From bitter experience the cops would suspect that I had fired a shot into my wall, make a scratch across my tummy, broken my own floorboards and fixed up that gimmick to make it look as if I was the lucky girl in a private electrocution. They would sneer wisely and then be very surprised when I stopped breathing.”

“Why don’t you risk it anyway?”

“Because that sort of publicity turns into a boomerang sometimes. The smart boys figure that if your agent dreams up that sort of a sloppy script for you, you must be slipping and need a shot in the arm and they stay clear. I want to keep singing at top rates, Kim.”

“You might be able to convince them anyway — the police I mean.”

It was my turn to touch his hand. “Kim, my lad, I have learned to make the lyrics of moronic songs sound sincere. I have learned how to turn on and off imitation emotion like a kid playing with a faucet. However, when it comes to the real thing I just can’t keep it from looking like an act.”

“The fact that you can see yourself that way means that you’re a pretty bright lass, Hank.”

“Pretty, period,” I said brightly.

Betty woke me up and I looked at the bedside clock and found out that it was only eleven. Somebody had rubbed gravel in my eyes and sprayed my teeth with wet peach fuzz.

I peered up at Betty.

“Hank, honey,” she said, “that Mr. Hale is here with another man. I tried to shoo them away, but Mr. Hale said that he would personally come in and bounce you out of bed unless I got you up.”

She giggled, then got my robe out of the closet. I yawned, stood up, slipped into it and belted it around me. I stuck my feet into the battered fleece-lined slippers I have had since I was fourteen and shuffled, yawning again, out into the horrid glare of the living room.

Kim Hale looked disgustingly washed and healthy and full of life. He had a man with him, a man who was completely bald and had a face that looked nineteen years old.

“Hank, meet Baldy Owen,” Kim said. He turned to Betty and performed the same introduction. Then he said pleasantly to Betty, “Shoo!”

The dismissal didn’t fracture her grin. She trotted on out and pretty soon I heard her singing and clattering in the kitchen.

Kim said, “Baldy is the man I stood on during the war, when I tromped on his left shoulder, the tank went to the left. When I stepped on his right shoulder, it went to the right — usually.”

“Had fallen arches ever since,” Baldy said cheerfully.

“And you charming people got me out of bed to tell me about the war?”

“Baldy is my new assistant on this case, Hank,” Kim said. “It appears that I will find it necessary to sleep and also conduct a spot of research. During those periods, he will be your constant admirer. And should you meet up with a certain chauffeur, Baldy has my permission to do some amateur dental work on him.”

Baldy looked a bit frail. Suddenly the light dawned. I said, “Baldy Owen! Of course! I saw you take Moose Gainey at the Garden a month ago.”

“Nice fight, wasn’t it?” he said complacently. “Seems I busted a little bitty bone in my left hand on his thick skull. Can’t even train until it knits solid.”

For the first time I noticed the taped hand.

“How much does he know?” I asked Kim.

“Just that somebody is trying to knock you off in a lot of trick ways, Hank. He isn’t going to worry about who it is, just about how it might happen next.”

“I’ve been to so many movies I’m going nuts,” Baldy said. “This’ll be a nice change. Anybody got a claim on that nice chubby little redhead that let us in?”

“Keep your mind on your work, Baldy!” Kim said.

“Sure, sure. You go back to bed, Hank,” Baldy said. “Me, I’ll help the redhead. Kim says she works here. I wash a mean dish.”

As I was going back to sleep I heard the two of them giggling in the kitchen. When I got up again at two, Betty asked me if it was okay if Baldy had lunch with us. Her eyes were bright. I began to wonder if I had lost Betty.

Chapter IV

Baldy took me to the door of Lazardo’s Bar at six and, when he saw through the glass that Kim was sitting at the bar waiting, he said, “Owen to Hale. Over.”

He drifted off into the crowd and I went in and sat at the bar with Kim, sliding up onto the stool before he saw me coming. He bought me a Martini and told a waiter to bring his drink and mine over to a corner table. The next-door booth was empty so we could talk freely.

I had a thought that I had been working on most of the afternoon and I told him. The substance of it was that with Baldy on the job as well as Kim, I was being so well protected that whoever was after me would slide off over the horizon and twiddle his or her thumbs until the mob scene ceased.

He slowly twisted his glass on the black plastic tabletop. “Maybe yes, but just as probably no. The pixie we’re after has been clever up until now. You’ve just been lucky that not one of his tries has worked. A murderer who goes about it the way this one has is probably a shade psychopathic. Guessing at the type of mentality involved, I’d say that all this protection would be considered a challenge. I have a hunch the pixie would very much like to knife in between Baldy and me and rub you out.”

He paused to light my cigarette.

“I’ve been working, Hank,” he went on then. “All morning and all afternoon. I have one or two little items that might interest you. Of course, I didn’t meet Johnny France or your agent, Carl Hopper, yet. I worked on the others. Before I forget, did you see Wint’s column?”

I laughed. “When is the happy day, lover? Or haven’t we decided?”

“What I liked was that business about ‘brilliant young attorney.’ You know, this case may do me some good yet.”

“Get on with the dirt, Kim.”

“How did you know it was dirt? I looked up the ownership of the building where the Staccato Club is located. It’s owned by two brothers named Zachik. I paid a visit, told them I represented somebody who wanted to lease the whole building. They said that the lease of one tenant would run out in six months. I guessed that they meant Sam Lescott. I asked if he’d renew. They said that he would unless my client could offer a startlingly large sum to buy him off his option to renew. I said good-by and checked Sam’s credit. He is more flush than you’d expect. Any competition eager enough to get you out of the way in order to break him would be smart enough to know that getting rid of you wouldn’t do it. So, for a time, we’ll cross any mysterious business interests off our list.

“But checking the credit of Lescott, I also checked this former agent of yours, Roger Blate. He is in rough shape. When your friends worked him over, they also dropped a few words in the right places and a lot of his business has gone elsewhere. Johnny France is the best client he has left. Last month he had to move out of his apartment. Two ex-wives are into him for alimony and he will probably be dodging a process-server one of these days. He has every reason to hate you, but killing you will not, of course, restore his bankroll.

“Now for Donald Frees. His mother spent a lot of her life in and out of sanitariums. There is always the chance that Donald may have inherited a little of his mother’s lack of balance, but it is hard to see what he’d gain by killing you while trying to talk you into marrying him.”

I was impressed. “You get around, don’t you?”

“You are paying for it, Hank. Eager attorney doing job eagerly.”

At the break just after midnight I got Johnny France to come over to the table and meet Kim. Johnny’s real name is Juan Francisco and he’s a good boy to work with. At times he is moody and at other times entirely too gay, but neither emotion affects his singing. Like most people in our business he has had his lean times, and it has taught him a certain amount of humility.

He was in one of his down moods and spent most of the time at our table staring at the tablecloth while Kim’s conversation and mine floated over his sleek head.

After he left the table Kim said, “Moody kid, isn’t he?”

“Up and down. But no matter how happy he is, those big dark eyes of his always look sad.”

Kim was waiting in the alley when I let myself out the side door. The glowing end of his cigarette arced over through the darkness and he stepped out into the light, smiling up at me.

I started down the steps, smiling back when an unseen sledge hammer caught me in the side. It smashed the breath out of me and drove me off the steps, the echo of the shot roaring in the narrow canyon of the alley.

I fell on my side, gagging and straining to get my breath back. Another shot sounded — Kim’s gun. I heard the slap of shoes against the pavement. My side ached and I touched it with my fingertips, feeling for the blood that should be there.

Kim came back, dropped on his knees beside me. He was breathing hard and his voice was hoarse.

“Where is it, darling?” he asked. “Where did it hit you?”

“My side,” I gasped, touching it with my right hand.

The cop who had talked with us the night before came running down the alley.

“Where was that shot?” he demanded.

Kim pointed toward the street. I let myself fall back against the pavement. Kim’s quick fingers unbuttoned the jacket to my suit. He pulled the blouse up out of my skirt, rolled me gently so that the light touched my side. As his fingers probed at my ribs, I fainted.

When I swam back up through the layers of darkness, I was on the couch in my dressing room. A stranger, the light glistening on his bald head, was stripping wide adhesive off a roll and taping my ribs.

When I moaned, he looked at my face and said, “Hello, young woman. Exhale, please.”

I did so, and he taped me up. We were alone in the room. I could hear voices out in the hall. I suddenly realized I was bare from the waist up, but, as I reached for one of the couch cushions he said, “If you feel strong enough, you can slip into your clothes now.”

I still couldn’t figure out what had happened. My white blouse and the jacket of the gray-green gabardine suit were over the arm of the chair near the couch. He fussed with getting the tape and scissors back into his bag as I dressed. It hurt to lift my right arm.

“What happened to me?” I asked in a small voice.

He straightened up. “Shot, I believe. At least that’s what the policeman said. Your friend and two policemen are out in the hall. I thought you’d rather I shooed them out.”

“Thank you, Doc. How much?”

“Ten will cover it.”

I walked dizzily over to the bench where I noticed my purse. I opened it up, took out the wallet and looked at it in dismay. There was a ragged hole that went completely through it, and through every bill in it. I found a ten and it was in bad shape. I gave it to him. He looked at it curiously, but pocketed it, picked up his bag and walked out.

Kim, the familiar cop and Danny Geraine came in. Danny hurried over and kissed me on the cheek while Kim looked on, baffled.

“How do you feel, Hank honey?” he asked.

“Sort of beat up, Uncle Danny,” I said, sitting on the couch gratefully.

Danny was one of my pop’s best friends. He was in plain clothes, and his weathered old face looked drawn and grim.

“What is it they’re trying to do to you, girl?” he asked, his big hands on his hips, the hat on the back of his head.

“I was coming out—”

“I’ve got all that, girl. You got down two steps and you caught a forty-five slug in the ribs. I took the slug out of your purse. A good thing you carry the purse in the crook of your arm, girl. That big slug went through one side of the purse, through both folds of the wallet and then hit your cigarette lighter and cigarette case. Girl, it must have been like getting hit with a ball bat. The doc says you’ve got two broken ribs.”

I tried to take a deep breath. “He’s crazy. I’ve got eleven broken ribs, a broken back and a small fire just under the skin.”

“Hank,” Kim said, “I saw the muzzle flash from the shadows about thirty feet from the steps. I fired back and ran toward it. By the time I got to the bend in the alley, whoever it was, was gone. I ran back to see how badly you were hurt.”

Danny looked at me severely. “This lad tells me that this is the fourth time in two weeks you’ve nearly died, girl. Why haven’t you been to tell Uncle Dan about it?”

“And be told I was looking for publicity?”

He frowned, then nodded. “Some of them that don’t know you might have thought so, girl. But not Dan Geraine. What have you been doing that somebody should want you dead?”

I shook my head. “Nothing, Uncle Danny. Nothing.”

He thought for a few moments and then made a suggestion. “Girl, suppose you tell Uncle Dan every little thing you know, and in return I’ll keep this out of the papers.”

“How about last night?” the patrolman asked. “How about the trouble out there on the sidewalk?”

Dan turned to him. “Son, suppose you trot along and take care of your beat. When you make your report, refer to the report I’ll make.”

“Okay,” the patrolman said sullenly. He turned and went out.

I was beginning to feel better. I stood up and took the cigarette Kim offered me. Danny took the slug out of his pocket and showed it to me. It was large and flattened. He pointed with a blunt thumbnail to one portion of it.

“There’s the only place we can get a marking off it to put under the comparison microscope,” he said. “There’s so many G.I. forty-fives around that it’s nearly impossible checking.” He shoved it back into his vest pocket and pulled out a more familiar one. “Now this one, this little thirty-two slug isn’t so battered. Found that in your purse too.” He pulled up a chair and sat down heavily. “Start talking, Hank baby.”

An hour later he had every detail. There was silence in the dressing room. Everybody else had gone home, having tired of waiting around to find out about the excitement in the alley. Dan looked at Kim.

“It was your duty to report all this to the police, Hale,” he said, “even if she didn’t want it reported.”

“I realize that now, and I’m sorry,” Kim said humbly.

Dan smiled at me. “You’re the daughter of Joe Ryan. You tell me what my next step is?”

“What Dad used to call footwork. Find out where everybody was at the time I stopped the bullet. Eliminate those that have a good alibi. Double check those that don’t to see if you can uncover motive. If you find one with a good motive and no covering alibi, try to prove they did it. If you can’t prove it, set some sort of a trap so they’ll commit themselves.”

He stood up. “Right.” He turned on Kim. “A good thing you’ve got a permit for the gun of yours, lad. Now get this girl back to her place.” He turned to me. “You’ve had a shock. You will stay in your apartment until I tell you you can leave it. You will eat there every meal. Stay away from windows and don’t open the door unless you know who is on the other side, and even then only when you’ve got me or Hale here in the apartment with you.”

I gave him a startled look. “Hey, there! You seem to forget that I have a job here. Remember? Do re me fa so?”

“Doctor’s orders, Hank. You set one foot outside the apartment and I give this whole thing to the newspapers. I can keep it out by telling the captain that it’s the only way to keep the criminal off guard.”

Kim nodded in agreement. I looked helplessly at him and then at Uncle Danny. “All right. All right,” I said wearily. “Take me home, Kim.”

When we got back to the apartment, Baldy and Betty were sitting side by side on the couch. They both looked up when I swung the door open. Betty looked a bit rumpled and Baldy looked a bit flushed.

Betty brought in some beer and they listened while Kim told them the full story of the latest attack on me, including the fact that I’d have to stay in the apartment. Baldy and Betty both nodded their agreement with the plan. Kim looked at Baldy.

“Chum,” he said, “I think that you should have been sleeping this evening instead of being a gay blade. Wasn’t that the agreement?”

Baldy looked hurt. “You misjudge me, boss. I turned the canary over to you at six. I bought a steak. I went back to my hotel. I went to sleep at eight. I slept until two. Insomnia. I guessed it was about time Betty got home from her date. I called her at twenty to three. She was in. I was hungry. I invited myself over. Okay?”

Betty had been very quiet ever since Kim had told of the attempt on my life. Her usually cheerful and placid face had looked strained.

To cheer her up I said, “Two dates in one night, Betty! You’re really getting around.”

“Did you leave your window open when you left?” she asked me.

“No.”

She turned to Kim. “When I got back from my date, a few minutes before Baldy phoned, I heard a noise in Hank’s room. I opened the door and went in, thinking that she might have gotten through unusually early. Her window was wide open and I thought that was funny because three days ago some men came up and put a ventilator on the window, the kind that lets air in without anybody being able to open it any further from the outside.”

Kim jumped up. “Come on, Baldy,” he said. “You gals stay right here. Maybe they boobytrapped the bedroom.”

Betty and I sat and watched each other with wide eyes. After the shot that came through my bedroom window I had had the trick ventilator installed, and I had also bought thick curtains that could be drawn across so that no one could see into the bedroom. Betty had helped me move the furniture around. I had told her it was because I was sick of the old arrangement. Actually, I hadn’t wanted anybody hitting the target with a second shot fired by guess through the locked window and the heavy curtains.

And somebody had opened the trick window!

Chapter V

In a way, that one little thing frightened me more than even the shot that had knocked me sprawling off the steps. Remembering the fall, I noticed that I was getting stiff and sore.

The living room, which had always seemed so cheery, had clots of dark shadow in the corners. We heard the distant murmur of the voices of Kim and Baldy. Once, Betty shuddered. She crossed over and sat on the arm of my chair. We held hands like a couple of frightened schoolgirls. In a low voice, I told her of the two attempts she knew nothing about. She held my hand even tighter. Her plump fingers were cold.

In fifteen minutes they came back to the living room. Kim had a smudge of dirt across one cheek. Both men looked relieved.

“No fiendish devices, no infernal machines,” Baldy said. He sat down and picked up his glass. “As far as the window is concerned, I don’t think it can be opened from the outside. My guess is that it wasn’t completely latched. There’s a catch on each side, just above the ventilator. If only one of them was unlatched, it would give a man a chance to edge up one side and slip a knife blade through to disengage the other catch. They’re both latched now. And we’ve been over every square inch of that room.”

“If nothing was disturbed, why was the window opened?” I asked.

“My guess,” Kim said, “is that they were in there when Betty arrived and didn’t have a chance to finish what they had started.”

Betty gasped again. “When I heard that noise, I thought it was the wind blowing the curtains. You mean—”

Baldy patted her shoulder. “They’re gone now, lambie. Don’t keel over. You’re a big girl now.”

The color came back into her round cheeks and she smiled shyly at Baldy.

Kim walked over and up the steps to the door. He examined the sliding bolt and chain of ornamental brass, tugged at the chain.

“Strong enough,” he said.

“How do we work this?” I asked.

Kim sauntered down into the room, his hands in his pockets. “How about this? We’ll shove off now and wait in the hall until you kids get the chain across the door. Either Baldy or I will be back early in the morning. In the meantime, don’t open the door for any reason at all. Don’t leave this room unless the building starts to burn down. Understand?”

Betty and I nodded in unison. He pulled a fiat automatic out of the side pocket of his suit coat and handed it to me, the muzzle pointing at the ceiling. He sat down beside me.

“This little thing here—” he began.

“—is the safety catch,” I said. “And the clip holds eight and the gun is a basic Browning patent.”

Kim gave me a look of complete disgust. “Showoff!” he said.

Betty and I walked them to the door. Baldy muttered something to Betty and she went out into the hall with him, closing the door behind them.

“Pause for refreshment,” Kim said, leaning back against the wrought iron railing, his face moody. I looked at him with narrowed eyes. I began to tap my foot.

“At least you should make me say no,” I said.

At that moment the door swung open and Betty came in, a canary-well-swallowed look on her face. Kim left without a word. I slammed the door and locked it.

“He’s nice,” Betty said dreamily.

“At least he’s cooperative,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, go to bed!”

“Why, Hank honey! You don’t mean that after brushing off half the loose dough in New York, you’d get swooney over a two-bit lawyer?”

“Go to bed!”

She giggled and I walked off and slammed my bedroom door. After I had climbed in and after the lights were out, she tapped on my door.

“Come on in,” I said. “I’m not asleep yet.”

She was in her powder blue robe. I saw the hall light shine on it just before she closed my door. The bed creaked as she sat on the edge of it.

“Are you mad because I kidded you?” she asked.

“For heavens sake, Betty! Of course not! I was just mad at Kim. I thought when you went into the hall with Baldy, he’d try to kiss me. I was all braced to give him a polite no thank you. I must be slipping. His nice brown eyes don’t glaze any more when he looks at me. He looks at me like a scientist inspecting a bug.”

“Maybe he’s worried about you.”

“I hope that’s it. Or else my best friends better start telling me.”

We sat without speaking for a time. Though I ached with weariness and the reaction from shock, I wasn’t sleepy. I guessed that Betty felt the same way. I heard the far-off blare of a tug in the harbor, the soft sound of tires when a car went by. Around us were millions of people. A certain percentage would die during the night or the next day.

There’s nothing like wondering if you’re going to die to help you do a little evaluation of your place in society. I thought of myself in some bright little kitchen in some bright little house. Maybe if Mother and Dad hadn’t died I’d be in one of those bright kitchens. Maybe I’d have a kid. The husband would be a cop, maybe. A tall guy. A nice guy. I could almost see him. For some dopey reason, he wore Kim’s face.

Suddenly I was homesick for the old neighborhood, the old way of life. Running up the stairs two at a time after school. The cooking smell in the hallway of the flat. The noise of kids at play out in the summer dusk.

I wanted to cry.

To keep myself from crying, I started to talk about the people who had been in that neighborhood. I talked about the old times.

Betty and I had done a little reminiscing in the past. Not much. We’d never had time to do much.

“Remember,” I said softly, “the time that Hubey Goekner was trying to figure out what was going on in that pianobox in back of the grill and fell off the roof on top of it.”

“Um hmm,” she said.

I tried to remember who had been in that pianobox. Suddenly I remembered that it was fat little Betty Lafferty. I blushed in the darkness. She would certainly remember that day. She and Skin Mosher had been in there together, hiding from the rest of us. That was just before her family had moved away, taking her along.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said.

“Why not?” she asked, innocently.

“Well, I guess you had sort of a crush on Mosher.” I remembered that Hubey had fallen feet first, busting the boards on top of the pianobox. One of the boards had smacked Betty on the top of the head. She was a kid that I had never played with much. I guess the time I saw her with the blood running out of her reddish hair was the first time I had ever really noticed her.

“Could be,” she said.

“What did your folks say when you got home?” I asked.

“They never found out about it,” she said, a giggle in her voice.

I frowned in the darkness. That was strange. I remembered that her father had walked her down to the doctor’s, with her crying every step of the way. It wasn’t possible that Betty had forgotten. You never forget the major catastrophes of childhood. Of course, the major catastrophe had come a week later when the truck had run over Mosher and killed him.

“I wonder what ever became of Skin Mosher?” I said casually. I remembered that little eleven year old Betty Lafferty had gone to the funeral two days before she had moved away.

“Gosh, I don’t know,” Betty said.

It was getting stranger and stranger.

“Remember the time when you were sitting behind Carol Jorgasen and cut off her braids with the teacher’s shears?” I said softly. I had never heard of anyone named Carol Jorgasen, and to my knowledge Betty Lafferty never cut off anyone’s braids.

“I sure do,” she said. “I caught the devil for that.” She yawned and stretched. “Guess I better get back to my bed, Hank. Sweet dreams.”

I waited until she crossed the room, put her hand on the knob. Then I spoke up in a tight, strained voice.

“Just exactly who are you? You aren’t Betty Lafferty.”

I could have counted slowly to ten before she answered.

“What kind of a joke is this, Hank?” she laughed and said.

“It isn’t a joke. Who are you?”

As she walked back toward the bed, I reached up and clicked on the bed lamp. There was no expression on her usually cheerful face. She sat on the bed again, even though somehow I didn’t want her so close.

“I needed a job,” she said. “I wanted to work for somebody like you. I went to your old neighborhood and talked to the people who are still there that knew you. I wanted to pretend that I was from the same section. It would give me a chance to talk to you. By accident I found out about Betty Lafferty. She moved away when she was eleven and you were thirteen. She was killed in England during the war. I memorized a lot of stuff and came to see you and told you I was Betty Lafferty. It worked. Is there anything wrong with that?”

I wanted to be fair. “You could have told me of your own accord, Betty, or whatever your name is,” I said. “You knew a month after you came with me that I was satisfied and that I would have kept you on and probably laughed at the trick you played on me. Why did you wait so long? You came to work for me six months ago.”

Her face looked doughy, the eyes lifeless and dull. “I would have come to you much sooner, Miss Ryan. It took a little time to find you, you know. Your press releases call you Laura Lynn. I suppose you were trying to hide behind that name.”

“What do you mean?”

“I suppose you didn’t want to be known as Henrietta Ryan, after what happened. I didn’t get to you soon enough, you know. I didn’t have the money to follow you to Chicago.” Her voice was as lifeless as her face.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I didn’t want to tell you to your face. But I might as well. It doesn’t make any difference, I suppose. I wanted it to be quick.”

“You wanted what to be quick?” The fear was like something black and velvety that was slowly beginning to fill my throat.

“My name is Carla Planck. Ever hear of George Planck?” Her lips pulled back from her teeth in an odd grin.

I had heard of the name, somewhere. I repeated it softly. George Planck. Of course! George Planck was one of those fur robbers. George Planck was the one that died two hours before Dad did.

Betty saw by my face that I remembered.

“He was my brother,” she said softly. “I thought about it for a long time. George would never do that sort of thing. I was his kid sister. I was by his bed when he died. He told me before he died that he was trying to help your father catch some thieves and your father shot him.”

I tried to laugh. “He was trying to make you feel good. His prints were all over the gun he killed my father with.”

She didn’t pay any attention. “I was glad your father died. But it wasn’t enough. The police department told your mother he was a hero. She believed it. I prayed for her to die too. Then I stopped praying and I followed her wherever she went. One day I was behind her at the edge of a subway platform. Nobody would think that a little fat fourteen year old girl would do what I did. That’s how I got away with it. She screamed as she fell.”

I knew then that Carla Planck was completely mad. Her mouth twitched. Her fingers constantly curled and uncurled.

“By the time I came after you, you were gone. Part of your father lives in you, you know. You have no right to live. For nine years I’ve been waiting to kill you, Miss Ryan.”

I wanted her to keep talking. I was afraid of what would happen when she stopped.

“Why didn’t you do it when you first came to work for me?” I asked quickly.

“Because I’d be suspected. I want to go on living. After you die, I can begin to live.”

“But if you kill me in a locked apartment, they’ll get you for it.”

“Not if I open the window afterward, they won’t.” She smiled proudly. “Those two men think the window was opened once. I planted that in their minds. You have to be clever to kill. I know how to be clever.”

It was as though she wanted me to approve of her cleverness, to tell her that she was a bright kid. The gun Kim had given me was over on the bureau, a thousand miles away.

“How do you intend to do it?” I asked.

She looked at me with the dull blue eyes. “I guess I better strangle you.”

The fat hands reached suddenly for my throat. I hit her in the face with all my strength and screamed as I rolled toward the wall. I had hopes of being able to get away from her, but then her fat fingers closed on my wrist. She had the horrid, unbelievable strength of madness. I cried out with the pain, and tried to lift her and lower my head so I could bite her.

The other fat hand closed on my throat, and the world became a slowly swirling pool of darkness. A mile away glass tinkled thinly.

Then I could breathe. There was a hoarse shout, a loud explosion and a scream. It was a funny scream. It was as though somebody had stuck their head out of a moving car and screamed. It seemed to be carried away so suddenly. It ended in a squashy noise.

Somebody was close to me, breathing hard. I felt the faint touch of his breath. I wanted to tell him that it was a wonderful thing to be able to breathe and did they appreciate it?

And suddenly I was kissed. And that, in its way, was just as nice as breathing. So, to make certain that it would last an adequate length of time, I put my arms up and around the neck of someone who obviously had a neck built for the sole purpose of putting arms around.

The lips went away.

“Faker,” Kim said softly.

I looked up into his brown eyes. The wonderful glaze was there and I decided that I would become a specialist.

I would spend the best years of my life plotting exactly how to put that glaze there and how to keep it there.

Suddenly I remembered. I sat up and tried to ask a question. My voice didn’t work the first few times. Then I asked it. Kim sat on the edge of the bed.

“Baldy’s phoning your policeman friend, Dan. I had the silly idea that I could trap your visitor by hiding on the roof where I could watch the fire escape platform outside this window. I was up there when you screamed. I made good time coming down. I kicked the window out and came through. She let go of you and raced for the gun. She got there first. I knocked it out of her hand as she fired it at me. She missed. When I went after it, she went toward the window. She might have been all right except that I was waiting on the roof with a piece of pipe I picked out of the trash in front of this place. I left the pipe on the fire escape. She must have stepped on it.”

I shuddered. I clung to him, looking through tear-misted eyes toward the bedroom door.

Baldy appeared in the door, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. He looked wryly at us. “People, you are looking at a guy with a defective judgment of the fair sex,” he said.

Kim’s voice was muffled by my hair. “Go out into the living room and sit down and maybe I’ll come and look at you,” he said. “I can’t right now.”

Baldy left.

Kim kissed me. “You make so much more money than I do, darling.”

“You shouldn’t let a thing like that bother you,” I answered softly.

He held me at arm’s length. “Bother me! Honey, I was just gloating.”

At that moment Dan knocked on the apartment door. Through the broken window I could hear heavy feet and low voices in the alley. The end of fear. Be gay, Hank. Be ready with the quick retort, the bright-colored, billboard charm.

I wanted to say something to Kim that was deep and warm and real and honest. But all I could do was grin like a happy fool.