fourth floor of the reeking tenement and knocked on the door to apartment 4C. The sound of music came from somewhere inside the apartment. Its noisome beat filled the hallway tremblingly. He heard the stammering click of high-heeled shoes approaching the door.
The woman who opened the door was a very gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old blonde, thirty-six, twenty- two, thirty-four, wearing a long green gown slit up the side to show her extremely curvaceous thigh. Leaning against the door jamb, the gown’s quite low neckline exposed fulsome white creamy breasts. She smiled dazzlingly out into the hall.
“Hello, Detective Watts,” she exclaimed.
“So, Mother,” he retorted. “We meet again.”
ED MCBAIN is the only American ever to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association’s highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America’s prestigious Grand Master Award. His most recent 87th Precinct novel wasThe Last Dance.Under his own name—Evan Hunter—his writing career has spanned almost five decades, from his first novel,The Blackboard Jungle, in 1954, to the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’sThe Birds, toCandyland,his most recent novel, written in tandem with his alter ego, Ed McBain.
