'Why don't you call me?' Louise had asked, flashing him her most dazzling smile. 'At home, of course. I wouldn't want it to get around the station that I was having drinks and dinner with one of Carlucci's Commandos. Especially a married one. Sonice to talk to you, Captain.'
She did not get the response she expected.
'You're really full of piss and vinegar, aren't you?' he said, approvingly.
She had stormed furiously away. She first decided that he was arrogant enough to call her, even if her sarcasm had flown six feet over his head. She took what she later recognized was childish solace in the telephone arrangements at the studios. With all the kooks and nuts out there in TV Land, you just couldn't call Channel 9 and get put through to Louise Dutton. But they might put a police captain through, and then what?
When she went back to the studio, she went to the head telephone operator and told her that for reasons she couldn't go into, if a police captain named Moffitt called, she didn't want to talk to him; tell him she was out.
The arrogant bastard would sooner or later get the message.
And there was no way he could call her at home. The studio wouldn't tell him where she lived, and the number was unlisted.
Today, three hours before, the telephone had rung in her apartment, just as she had stepped into the shower.
She knew it wasn't her father; he had called at ten, waking her up, asking her how it was going. Anybody else could wait. If they'd dropped the atomic bomb, she would have heard it go off.
The phone had not stopped ringing, and finally, torn between gross annoyance and a growing concern that some big story had developed, she walked, dripping water, to the telephone beside her bed.
'Hello?'
'Are you all right?'
There was genuine concern in Captain Dutch Moffitt's voice, but she realized this only after she had snapped at him.
'Why shouldn't I be all right?'
'People have been robbed, and worse, in there before,' he said.
'How did you get this number?' Louise demanded, and then thought of another question. 'How did you know I was home?'
'I sent a car by,' he said. 'They told me the yellow convertible was in the garage.'
She raised her eyes and saw the reflection of her starkers body in the mirror doors of her closet. She wondered what Captain Dutch Moffitt would think if he could see her.
She shook her head, and felt her face flush.
'What do you want?' she asked.
'I want to see you,' he said.
'That's absurd,' she said.
'Yeah, I know,' he said. 'I can take off early at four. There's a diner on Roosevelt Boulevard, at Harbison, called the Waikiki. Meet me there, say four-fifteen.'
'Impossible,' she said.
'Why impossible?'
'I have to work,' she said.
'No, you don't. Don't lie to me, Louise.'
'Oh, hell, Dutch!'
'Four-fifteen,' he said, and hung up.
And she had looked at her naked body in the mirror again and known that at four o'clock, she would be in the Waikiki Diner.
And here she was, looking into this married man's eyes and suddenly aware that the last thing she wanted in the world was to get involved with him, in bed, or in any other way.
What the hell was I thinking of? I was absolutely out of my mind to come here!
'I'm a cop,' he said. 'Finding out where you lived and getting your phone number wasn't hard,'
'I think I will have a scotch and soda,' Louise said. 'Johnnie Walker Black.'
He pushed his glass to her.
'I'll get another,' he said.
It was rude and certainly unsanitary but she picked it up and sipped from it as he gestured toward the bar for another.
Why the hell did I do that? she wondered, and then the answer came to her: Because I don't know what to do to keep myself from making more of a fool of myself than I already have. How am I going to get out of this?
The mustached Greek proprietor delivered the drink immediately himself.
'We seem to have at least one thing in common,' Dutch Moffitt said.
'Wow!' she said.
'Relax, Louise,' he said. 'I'm not going to hurt you.'
She looked at him again, met his eyes for a moment, and then looked away.
'I don't know why I came here,' she said. 'But just to clear the air, I now realize it was a mistake.'
Dutch Moffitt opened his mouth to reply, but before the words came out, he was interrupted by a male voice.
'Good afternoon, Captain Moffitt, nice to see you.'
The sleeve of a glen-plaid suit passed in front of Louise's face.
'Hello, Angelo,' Moffitt said.
Louise, once the arm was withdrawn, looked up. A pleasant-looking, olive-skinned man-Italian to judge by the 'Angelo'-well barbered, smelling of some expensive cologne, was standing by the table.
'My father was asking about you just this morning,' the man said.
'How's your mother, Angelo?' Moffitt asked.
'Very well, thank you,' Angelo said.
'Give her my regards,' Moffitt said.
Angelo smiled at Louise, and then looked at Moffitt.
'Are you going to introduce me to this charming lady?'
'Nice to see you, Angelo,' Moffitt said.
Angelo colored, and then walked away.
'What was that,' Louise demanded. 'Simply bad manners? Or-'
'That was Angelo Turpino,' Moffitt said. 'You don't want to know him.'
'Why?'
'He's a thug,' Moffitt said. 'No. Correction. He's a made man. Their standards are slipping. A couple of years ago, that slimy little turd wouldn't have made a pimple on a made man's ass.'
'What's a 'made man'?'
He looked at her, into her eyes again.
'When one commences on a career in organized crime, one's highest aspiration is to become a made man,' Moffitt said, mockingly. 'A made man, so to speak, is one who is accepted, one who enjoys all the rights and privileges of acknowledged master craftsmanship in his chosen trade. Analogous, one might say, to the designation of an individual as a doctor of medicine.'
'You're saying that he's in the Mafia?'
'The 'family,' we call it,' Moffitt said.
'What did he do to become 'made'?'
'About six weeks ago, Vito Poltaro, sometimes known-from his initials, you see-as 'the vice president,' was found in the trunk of his car in a parking garage downtown, behind the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. Poor Vito had two.22 holes in the back of his head. Fivedollar bills were found in his mouth, his ears, his nostrils, and other body orifices. This signifies greed. I think that Angelo did it. A week after Organized Crime found Vito, they heard that Angelo had been to New York and had come back a made man.'
There was no question in Louise's mind that what he was telling her was true.
'What about Organized Crime finding the body?' she asked. 'I didn't understand that.'
