The man with the derby spoke in a sharp nasal voice. “Okay, step aside.”

  Behind the heavy lenses his eyes were hugely magnified. His bony hand fell on my shoulder.

  I said softly, “Easy. Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Inside.”

  I shook my head. “Think again.”

  He seemed surprised. His eyes glinted. “What is this—a rib?”

  “Hardly. What do you want?”

  “I want in,” he said.

  “Not today, brother.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. She gave her head a puzzled toss. “That—that’s not Bob,” she said.

  The man scowled at her. Black brows contracted over his nose as he turned on me with a deepening frown. His eyes were the kind of eyes that had peered through many keyholes and seen many things, few of them pleasant. He emptied his lungs and said, “Let’s have a look anyway.”

  I planted my feet solidly. “Get your paw off me,” I said.

  He took the hand off my shoulder and put it against my chest. He should not have done it. No one will ever make me like being shoved around.

  “You’re asking for it,” I said.

  I gave it to him. It was a very fine shot. His nose made a target that was hard to miss. I put my weight behind it. I shot my fist out like an engine piston and his head jolted back with an ugly wrench. He bounced against the opposite wall. The black derby fell and rolled along the carpet. For a brief moment nothing happened and then, suddenly, his nose squirted like a crushed tomato.

  The young man was white. The blemishes on his face stood out like a rash. He moved sideways, his chin drawn in, gulping.

  The girl did not scream. She goggled at me. There was an eager look in her eyes, as if she was excited. Her full bottom lip was caught between her teeth.

  The tall man produced a large gray handkerchief. He dammed up his nose with it and threw his head back, letting the blood congeal. After a moment he lowered his chin and his eyes focused on me sharply.

  “Still anxious to come in?” I asked pleasantly.

  “Somebody’s going to pay for this,” he said.

  “Not me,” I told him. “A man’s home is his castle and he can defend it unto death. I can quote precedents.”

  Between narrowed lids his eyes were venomous. He stooped, retrieved the derby, and stalked toward the elevator. The young man trotted after him. The girl held her ground. I smiled at her. She smiled back and it was like getting hit with a battery of klieg lamps.

  “You’re Scott Jordan,” she said.

  “My birth certificate says so. But I was beginning to doubt it.”

  “May I come in?”

  I thought of the blonde lying on the floor. She saw my hesitation and added, “I’d like very much to talk with you.”

  I shook my head. “Some other time.”

  She looked at me oddly. “Where… we were looking for Bob Cambreau.”

  “He’s not here. When I find him I’m going to kill him.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll explain it all at his funeral.”

  The elevator door clanged open. The operator called out, “Going down.”

  She gave me a fleeting, somewhat tentative smile, whirled abruptly, and sprinted for the car. She moved like a fawn at the crack of a rifle.

  I closed the door and stood still, thinking about Bob Cambreau with mixed emotions. Originally, I had made the trip south to handle the sale of his Palm Beach shack, a small item of fifteen rooms, landscaped gardens, swimming pool, and tennis court. Bob was a client of mine, a good one—for several reasons. We had gone to school together, he had more money than he could spend, and he was always getting into trouble. On leaving New York I had given him a key to my apartment. I remembered that now and it almost explained the presence of the blonde.

  I went into the living room and frowned down at her. Bob was a notorious chaser. A bon vivant. An easy spender. Perhaps she was one of his more amorous escapades. He collected women like some men collect stamps or jade. They were his hobby. He was married, but had recently separated from his wife.

  The blonde was still out, her breathing still ragged and uneven. I picked her up and carried her through the hall to the freight elevator. The old man who ran it swung open the door and admitted us with an unblinking, dead-pan expression. Another drunk would not ruin the building’s reputation. It was not his building anyway.

  In the street the cab driver hopped out and held the door open. I deposited the blonde on the rear seat. She tumbled sideways, her skirt climbing high over a length of round white thigh. The cab driver whistled.

  “Boy! That’s what I call a bun!”

  He speared the ten-dollar bill almost before I had it out of my pocket.

  “You know what to do,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, Jack. I always know what to do.”

  “Keep the windows closed,” I said. “She’s sweating. Don’t give her too much breeze.”

  “Sure.” He was in a hurry to be off. I tossed her purse into her lap. The engine throbbed. The cab spurted away from the curb. I watched it turn the corner out of my sight and then I exhaled a long sigh of relief.

  Back in the apartment I mixed a highball, brought it to the bathroom, ran a tubful of steaming water, stripped, climbed in, closed my eyes, and relaxed. A calm, comforting lethargy stole through me like a footpad at night. I reached for the glass and had a drink. I was beginning to feel almost normal. Drowsiness hung onto my eyelids like a pair of sandbags. I saw the copper-haired girl in a mist and wondered if she too was one of Bob Cambreau’s girl friends. I did not like the thought.

  The doorbell got hysterical again.

  I struggled up with a groan. I did not want much. Only peace and quiet. I decided to stuff a wad of paper in the bell before retiring. The bell rang itself out.

  I was relaxing again when I heard a noise. The creaking of footsteps. Inside the apartment. I sat erect. Someone was moving around.

  I yelled, “Hey!”

  No answer. The steps advanced with a heavy tread through the bedroom. I had my eyes glued to the bathroom door when he materialized. He was a solid, dark man. He had a square, hard-muscled face, dark as polished cordovan, shining black hair over a flat skull. He wore the blue-gray uniform of a merchant marine officer. He was barrel thick through the chest and the seams of his coat looked ready to burst apart. He squinted at me along eyes that were gray, cold, and steady.

  I sat in the tub and stared back at him.

  “Where is she?” he asked out of clenched jaws.

  “Who?”

  A vein throbbed in a blue diagonal across his temple. “Cute, eh? Listen, Jordan. I want Verna. I’m going to find her if I have to tear this place apart. Where is she?”

  I shook my head. “Listen, I don’t have the vaguest notion who you are, or what you’re talking about. And what’s more, I don’t give a damn. This is my apartment and I want you to get the hell out of it.”

  He flexed his right hand and made it into a fist and looked at it. It was a good hand for uprooting trees if you couldn’t find an ax. His voice rumbled. “She was here. I saw her come up.”

  “Nobody’s here,” I said angrily. “I was alone—till you walked in.”

  His eyes met mine solidly. They were chilled. He backed up into the bedroom. I heard him moving around, searching. After a moment he reappeared and spread pylon-thick legs in the doorway. He gave me a bleak, hard stare.

  “She’s gone now,” he said. “But she was here. I can smell her perfume. Here’s a tip. Jordan. Stay away from her. If I ever catch you putting your hands on Verna I’ll kill you.”

  With that he turned and was gone. The building seemed to shudder as he slammed the door.

  I was now as sore as an open wound. Looked at from any angle it was crazy. A guy I don’t know from Adam barges in and threatens to kill me if I touch a strange girl I never want to see.

  I got up and toweled briskly and padded out to the door and found it off the latch. I closed and locked it. Then I wadded some paper against the bell. I opened the windows wide and flushed out the smell of jasmine.

  I went to bed. I started to read a mystery story by an aged English lady that opened at a garden party in a country vicarage and had all the vigorous action of an exhausted turtle. Experience had long proved it a better sedative than phenobarbital.

  On page three I was fast asleep.

  I was dreaming. I dreamed that I was running after an undraped blonde and that a man in a gray-blue uniform was trying to stop me. He had a hand on my shoulder and was dragging me back.

  CHAPTER 3

  I AWAKENED. Consciousness crept back reluctantly. There was a hand on my shoulder. It was a hard hand and it kept shaking me.

  A voice from far away said, “He must be alive. He’s too warm to be dead.”

  I don’t think I had been sleeping for more than two hours. I struggled up. My head felt thick, my eyes grated, and my muscles numb and wooden. My tongue was swollen and tasted like a piece of dry flannel.

  “Wassamatter?” I mumbled in a furry voice.

  A lean face with dark, brooding eyes swam vaguely into focus. I didn’t know it then but I was going to get to know that face very well.

  “Jordan?” the face asked.

  “Yeah.” I blinked at him.

  “Okay, boy, get up. Get outa bed.” There was no compromising with that tone.

  I swung my feet to the floor and held my head and groaned. I was completely bushed. I felt terrible. I felt worse than if I’d had no sleep at all. Then I looked up and saw two other men in the room. One of them had rusty hair and cold eyes and about as much expression in his face as you’ll find in a bag of walnuts. He wasn’t wearing a uniform but everything about him said cop. Beside him stood the old man who ran the freight elevator.

  Looking at him, the lean-faced man said, jerking a thumb at me, “This the bird?”

  The old man ducked his head. “Yes, sir. That’s him, all right. I guess his name is Jordan. I don’t know tenants by their names, but he’s the one who brung the lady down in my car. He was carrying her and I figured she was drunk. She musta been. She was breathin’ like she was. I didn’t say nuthin’. It wasn’t none of my business. I just run the car and—”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Yaller hair. You never saw hair so yaller. Nice lookin’ too. She hadn’t oughta drunk so much.”

  I was wide awake now.

  “Hey!” I said. “What is this? What’s going on?”

  The lean-faced man flashed a leather folder with a badge pinned to it. “Lieutenant John Nola,” he said quietly. “Homicide Bureau.”

  “Homicide!”

  “Take it easy, boy. Don’t blow off. We got a lot to talk about.”

  A cold vacuum sucked at the pit of my stomach. “Talk?” I said. “About what?”

  He didn’t answer me. He turned to the rusty-haired dick and said, “Get that hackie in here, Wienick.”

  Wienick stepped out and Lieutenant Nola stood there, watching me speculatively. There was intelligence in his dark eyes. The set of his jaw was determined, but not aggressive or arrogant. Wienick came back into the bedroom. The knife-faced taxi driver was with him.

  He was jittery. His fingers were pulling nervously at his collar. His ferrety eyes spotted me and he jabbed out a finger, quivering with anger.

  “That’s him!” he bleated. “That’s the sonovabitch who dumped the broad on me. He said she was drunk. He said to run her around until she got sober. But she didn’t. She never got sober. When I turned to look at her, there she was on the floor of the cab—stone dead.”

  I jumped up. For a moment I couldn’t talk. My throat was constricted. I guess I had almost been expecting it, but now it jarred me. My lungs emptied and I stared at him.

  “You!” he yelped. “Dumping a dead broad in my cab and giving me a lousy ten bucks to get rid of her.”

  I swallowed. “How much did you want—fifteen?” And I wasn’t trying to be funny. I just couldn’t think of anything to say.

  He chopped jerkily at the air with his hand. “You see, he admits it. He knew she was going to conk out. The dirty sonova—“

  “Okay,” Nola cut in. “Take him out, Wienick.” Wienick steered him forcibly from the room.

  I looked at the lieutenant. “I don’t get it. Is she really dead?”

  “They don’t come any deader.” His eyes were unwavering.

  “But how—when—”

  “You don’t know?” he asked, eyeing me obliquely.

  I spread my hands. “How should I know? She was alive when I took her down to the cab. I figured she was drunk. What killed her?”

  “Poison. Probably in the liquor she swallowed. We’re getting a post-mortem on her tonight. What had she been drinking?”

  “Brandy,” I said.

  “This it?” He pulled a bottle out of his pocket.

  I nodded slowly. “I guess so.”

  “Yours?”

  “No. I don’t like brandy and never buy it.”

  He looked skeptical. “How did it get here?”

  “I don’t know. She must have brought it herself.”

  Wienick came back into the room and stood watching me with his hands in his pockets.

  Nola asked, “What was her name?”

  “Verna,” I told him.

  “Verna what?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw her before in my life. It sounds crazy as hell, I know, but I can’t help it. I just got home from a business trip this evening and there she was—sitting in my living room with that bottle of brandy. She had made herself at home. I swear I don’t know who she was or how she got in.”

  Wienick snorted.

  I glared at him. “How about her purse?”

  Nola shook his head. “Nothing there. So you found her here. What happened?”

  “She had been drinking,” I said. “She folded on me. She passed out before I had a chance to question her.”

  “So you took her downstairs and dumped her into a taxi.”

  “Sure. I didn’t want her here. I figured she’d sober up and tell the driver where to take her.”

  Nola turned. “Get the doorman, Wienick.”

  The plain-clothes dick went to the door and came back a moment later with George. George looked unhappy. He stood there, swallowing hard, his face glistening with moisture.

  Nola said, “You remember what you told us, George?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “Tell it again.”

  George ran a tongue around the rim of his mouth. “Well, suh, when Mistuh Jordan here got outa the cab with his bag he ask me to get him some ginger ale. I brought some from the drugstore like he said, but when I rung the bell nobody answered, so I think maybe he’s in the bathroom and I tries the door and it was open. I just come right on in.” He stopped.

  “What did you see?” Nola prodded.

  George flicked me with harried eyes. “I’m powerful sorry, Mistuh Jordan,” he said.

  I shrugged, “That’s all right, George.”

  “What did you see?” repeated Nola.

  “Mistuh Jordan was sittin’ in a chair with this girl, the blonde girl, the one they said is daid, and she was sittin’ in his lap.”

  “What were they doing, George?”

  He swallowed hugely. “They was kissin’, suh.”

  Wienick tilted his head. “I got to hand it to you, buddy. Pretty good for a guy who never saw the dame before in his life. Christ, I’d like to see what would happen if you knew her for a week!” His lip curled. “That’s what I call a fatal charm. One look and they’re in your lap. Two looks and they’re dead.”

  Nola nodded. “Okay, Jordan. Get dressed. We’re taking you downtown.”

  I looked at him blankly. “You don’t think I had anything to do—”

  “Just get your clothes on, son.”

  I dressed automatically, trying to think, but it was no use. My brain seemed to be sloshing around loosely, as if it wasn’t properly anchored to my skull.

  We filed into the living room. Nola paused and his keen eyes swept over the furniture. Then he got down on his knees and looked under the furniture. He reached under the sofa and when he straightened, a cloth glove dangled from his fingers. It was a lilac-colored woman’s glove.

  “This hers?” he asked.

  “I guess so,” I said. “I never saw it before.”

  Wienick made a disgusted noise. We went down to the street. A squad car with a uniformed cop behind the wheel was waiting at the curb. I sat in the rear between Nola and Wienick. Casual-like, no handcuffs. But I didn’t feel casual. I was as nervous as a canary in a swinging cage. My mind was spinning. I was thinking, What is this? What’s happening? Me, a lawyer, about to be charged with a murder I did not commit of a girl I didn’t even know.

  The street flicked by. A signal light winked red, but the cop sent his siren into a shriek that parted two cars and we careened through them against the traffic tide. He was good.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes. I was thinking about a girl. A girl with bright yellow hair, hard, a bit gaudy perhaps, but alive and breathing. A girl addicted to brandy and too much make-up. A girl who doused herself with too much perfume called “Disaster.”

  What a name for a perfume!

  CHAPTER 4

  INSPECTOR ELMO BOYCE was a heavy-jowled, thicknecked man with a horsehide complexion. He sat behind his battered desk in the drafty old building on Centre Street and eyed me with the suspicious eyes of a man who has dealt with the seamy aspects of a great city for more years than he likes to remember. I had just finished telling him my story. He snorted skeptically.

  “Right out of Andersen’s Fairy Tales. I’d get indigestion swallowing a yarn like that.”

  “It’s true,” I said doggedly. “Every word of it.”

  Lieutenant John Nola was sitting in a hard straight chair, tilted back against the wall, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, his eyes squinted against the upward curl of smoke.

  Boyce said, “You could have wired her that you were coming home and she was there, waiting for you.”

  “I could have. But I didn’t. You’d have a hell of a time proving it. The fact is, I came home a week ahead of time and nobody was expecting me.”

 

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