To the waist.”
She said nothing at all for a count of twenty, and when she did speak her voice was an octave lower. “If I didn't need you-” She said it between her teeth as she stood up.
“I'm in this thing, and I want out with as whole a skin as I can manage. Sit where you are.” She unfastened the three small mother-of-pearl buttons at the neck of her dress and in one long flowing motion stooped, caught up the hem of her skirt and pulled the dress off over her head. She had on a half-slip and a bra. In seconds she had the bra unhooked and off, and made one slow, complete pirouette. In the room's waning light her body glowed, and the only break from neck to waist in the ivory symphony were the dark-nippled, firmly jutting breasts.
She re-hooked the bra, face averted, picked up her dress and reversed it from its inside-out condition. She sounded a little breathless as she slipped it back over her head. “Satisfied?”
“Almost. I want to look at your scalp.”
“Then come and look at it,” she said wearily and sat down. In ninety seconds he had satisfied himself that there were no more scratches or abrasions hidden beneath her hair than there had been beneath her clothing.
He returned to his chair, and his voice was abrupt. “I don't know why you want me on your side. I don't know what you've got in mind, but let me tell you something I've got in mind. I wouldn't want to find out later that you had a partner and that he had the scratches.”
She sounded honestly curious. “And if you did find it out?”
“We wouldn't need any police.” The sound of his voice hung in the room, fiat and deadly. “I'd break your back. His, too.”
“I wish I knew you better, Johnny. Anyone who can make a statement like that, which should sound merely theatrical, and make it so impressively lethal-”
He refused to be distracted. “Who killed Sanders, Lorraine?”
The face she turned to him was perfectly guileless. “I don't know. I didn't see him killed. I'm not sure I know anyone with a good motive for killing him.”
“Why were you over there near his place?”
He could see her jawline ridge itself prominently. “That's my business.”
“You said a minute ago you needed me,” he suggested softly. “I don't move very fast up a one-way street. I want to know what you know. Now, not when it's too late. Let's hear something.”
“You've heard all you're going to hear from me,” she replied positively.
He did not want an open rupture-yet. He went off at a tangent. “You know a guy named Ed Russo?”
“Russo? I don't believe so. Why?”
“He has an office over at the hotel. He's a slim, dark, slick-looking job, thin face, good clothes, quick way of moving. Was Ellen carrying a white kitten when you saw her last night?”
“Why, yes, she was. I remember it on her arm-”
Johnny nodded. “She had it at the hotel, too. This morning I overheard this Russo asking if a kitten had been delivered for him. I got curious and went upstairs and poured a little kerosene on him. He exploded all right, but not in a way that meant anything to me. Then in his desk I found a newspaper folded back to the Robert Sanders headline.”
Lorraine Barnes frowned. “Your general description… Does he wear a ruby ring?”
“Never noticed.”
“The rest of it sounds like a man named Winslow I see in and out of Mrs. Sanders' office all the time. Hair plastered down-”
“Tight,” Johnny agreed. “You know his first name?”
“I think it's Edward, though that doesn't sound-” She looked up at the ceiling. “Edmund. That's it. Edmund Winslow.”
“At my place he's Edmund Russo. He worked for Mrs. Sanders? Or was there something personal between them?”
“Something personal? I wouldn't think so.” Lorraine Barnes said it slowly; obviously the possibility had not occurred to her before. “And he did run around a bit with a girl in the office. Roberta Perry; everyone calls her Bobby. I know they've dated.”
“You got an address for this Perry girl?”
“It's in my address book. I'll get it for you before you go.”
“What about her? How would you size her up?”
“Well, a little on the shrewd side, I'd say. Attractive. Calculating is the word I want, I guess. I wouldn't think vicious.”
“She'd better be shrewd if she's taking on Russo.”
“You don't like him?”
“We've agreed to disagree.”
Her smile was surprising, the first real smile he had seen on the usually guarded face. “You said he exploded? I don't see any marks on you.”
“I must outweigh him seventy pounds.” The smile still lingered. “Years ago I found the application of strength and leverage a fascinating subject. You'd never think it to look at me, but I'm a phys-ed grad.” She looked at him steadily. “If we can't be partners, Johnny, how about an armed truce?”
“Why can't we be partners? Because I want to know too much? I want to find this guy.”
“I'm afraid you'll have to forgive me if I don't want you finding him at the expense of shattering the foundations of my life.”
“Look, Lorraine. I don't give a damn about your private life. I want to know what you know that'll help me get closer to this guy. I don't see why you're afraid-”
“I'll tell you why I'm afraid,” she interrupted firmly. “In the important area of the police I'm not yet involved in this thing. If I should tell you my suspicions, and you acted upon them without proof, we would both be involved with the police, and my entire purpose would be defeated. That's why I'm afraid.”
He stood up and turned to the door. “Good night, Lorraine.”
“Good night, Johnny. I'm sorry.”
On the stairs he paused; one of the reasons you'd just about scratched this woman from the derby, Killain, was because you thought she couldn't have the strength to kill Ellen. Now she's a phys-ed grad.
So where are the marks?
He shrugged and ran lightly down the stairs to the street.
CHAPTER 7
Johnny sat slumped in the deeply cushioned armchair in his room and frowned down at his shoes propped up on a hassock. His shift had just gone off and it was time for bed, but an underlying restlessness clawed at his nerves. His physical batteries felt overcharged.
He removed his feet from the hassock, kicking it to one side, and bent down and untied his shoelaces. He toed his shoes off, unfastened the two top buttons of the uniform jacket, jerked loose the tie and undid the constricting collar button on the white shirt. He recognized wryly as he did so that the gesture was superficial; the tension was within, not without.
He tried to relax in the depths of the chair, but the muscles in chest and stomach and thighs crawled and jumped in cramped mute protest at the enforced inactivity. With no conscious volition he found himself on his feet, and he impatiently finished unbuttoning the jacket and slid out of it. He stripped off tie, shirt, trousers and underwear, and in his socks padded over to the bed. Ridged muscles leaped in back and shoulders as he leaned forward to turn down the coverlet and top sheet; he stared down at the bed for a moment and then walked to the window. He raised the shade and looked out; in the early morning light the street below was still deep in shadow, but across the way the upper stories of the taller buildings gave off a golden approximation of the sunrise as reflected from hundreds of windows.
Johnny grunted, half aloud. Live in the concrete canyons anywhere below the twenty-fifth floor and get your sunrises secondhand. He turned away from the window. On the other hand, Killain, he reminded himself, in your
