ahead?”
“One more block, anyway.” He looked for a familiar landmark as the cab rolled through the quiet streets. “Yeah. Turn right here.” When the cab straightened out from the turn they were passing the apartment, and Johnny looked up at the second floor and saw the light on in the front room. He slapped the leather-covered back of the front seat sharply to attract the driver's attention. “Pull in here a minute.”
“Listen, bud,” the cabbie said disgustedly as the cab slowed and turned into the curb. “This is no night to be cruisin' on instruments. Make up your-”
“Shut up, will you?” Johnny thought it over. After three now, and Lorraine was still up? Or she could have fallen asleep with the light on. It was hardly the hour for a social call-or was it? He opened the cab door and got out on the sidewalk. “What's the tab, Mac?”
“Thirty-five,” the cabby said morosely and then brightened. “Say, thanks, Jack.”
He walked past the familiar iron fence with its blunted pikes; he thought back fleetingly to that merry-go- round he had stumbled into coming out of this apartment. One more thing that had never been explained satisfactorily. With the aid of his cigarette lighter he found the right buzzer, and Lorraine's voice came so quickly he knew she could not have been asleep.
“Yes? Who is it?”
“Johnny.”
A faint murmur of sound. Surprise? “Come up.”
He climbed the stairs; she was in the apartment door in pajamas and dressing gown, both of a lightish blue color that did nothing for the dark circles under her eyes. She looked tired, and her hair was disheveled and damp- looking. She closed the door behind him and patted at her hair defensively when she caught him looking at it. “It's a mess, I know; I'm just out of the shower, and I need to set it.” She looked at his wet clothing. “What have you been up to on a night like this?”
He didn't answer her. He took another hard look at her hair and deliberately pushed his way past her into the bathroom. The light was on, but the tub was dry. So was the shower stall; so were the neatly folded towels. He opened the hamper; no wet towels. He turned to find her in the doorway, and he could see the storm clouds in her face as he accused her. “You've been out in the rain, that's why your hair's wet. You just got in ahead of me.”
The voice was mocking, but there was an edge to it. “You've heard of a shampoo, no doubt?”
“First it was a shower.” So it was important to her to deny that she had been out tonight? He brushed her out of the doorway as she stood in his way, and bright anger flared in her face; back in the front hall he opened the closet door and ran a probing hand down the line of hanging clothing. It was not hard to find; his questing fingers picked up the wet folds of a raincoat, and he took it down from the rod, hanger and all, and flourished it at her. “You shampoo this, too?”
“Put that back where you found it.” Her voice was hard.
“When I get good an' ready I'll put it back, Lorraine.” He turned the raincoat in his hands; beneath it he could feel other clothing on the hanger. He peeled back the wet rubber and looked down at a black-and-white checked jacket and a pair of gray flannel slacks wet from the knees down. He stared at their wrinkled dampness for a moment before he turned back to the woman. “Let's hear something,” he demanded grimly.
Two bright spots blazed in the pale cheeks; Lorraine Barnes had not lost her poise, but the same could not be said for her temper. She was furious. “I'll let you hear something. You get out of here, this minute, and you stay out. I'll thank you to mind your own business. Now get out!”
He shoved the jacket and slacks at her. “Don't you think you should have burned these after you killed Roberta Perry?”
“Burned-” She looked suddenly uncertain of herself. He could see her almost repeating aloud the description of the clothing seen on the man on Roberta Perry's fire escape. Man? A short, stocky man… or a tall, plump woman? She looked at the jacket and slacks in his hand as though she were seeing them for the first time. “That's not… those aren't- It's simply a… coincidence-” Her voice trailed off; he could see that she was thinking hard, but she recovered quickly. “I'll still thank you-”
She broke off as he dropped the wet garments on the floor and took her by the arms, not gently. “I'm through foolin' around,” he said between his teeth. “Where were you tonight?”
She tried to twist away. “Let go of me!” Her face was scarlet. “Let go!”
He held her effortlessly. “Where were you? I'm sick of this one-way deal. You'll tell me if I have to raise lumps all over you.”
“If you think-you can third degree me… I'll show you — different!” she panted breathlessly, and with a surge of anger he picked her up by the shoulders and in four long strides carried her inside to the sofa, where he dropped her. She bounced high and landed asprawl with head snapped back. The blue-gray eyes stared up at him malevolently as he pulled up a chair in front of her and seated himself, hemming her in. He made his voice deliberate. “Make it easy on yourself, Lorraine. Fast or slow, you're going to talk. I played along with you all I'm goin' to. From right here we do it my way.”
Her lips were drawn back from her teeth; there was no fear in her. “Let me remind you, Johnny-because I have a stake in this myself I refuse to be caught in the down-draft of your emotional involvement. That's final. Now get up out of that chair.”
“You're not talkin' to your husband Vic's friend, Lorraine. You're talkin' to Johnny Killain, who used to be married to Ellen Saxon, an' I want answers. What's the matter? Don't you have an alibi for Russo tonight?”
“Russo? Alibi? What's-” Her teeth gnawed at her lower lip, and she sat up straighter on the sofa. The anger vanished from her face as though with a sponge. “What happened tonight, Johnny? You've got to tell me.”
“Lady, you've got more brass than a foundry. I've got to tell you, have I? Those days are gone. I gave you a chance to join the team an' you turned me down.” His mind veered off on a tangent; he leaned back and considered her carefully. “Did Ed Russo work for Robert Sanders?” he asked her abruptly.
She looked surprised. “I've already told you that it was Mrs. Sanders he worked for over there.”
“But if it was out of the same office-”
She shook her head. “The public relations business doesn't work like that,” she said patiently. “They each had their own clients and their own staff.” She tried to make her voice placating. “What's all this about Russo? What happened tonight, Johnny?”
“We're gettin' off the subject. Where were you tonight? I want to know. Now.”
The red spots were back in her face, but her tone was restrained in her effort to appear casual. “If you think you can find out anything from me I don't want you to know, then you just don't know me very well.”
He leaned toward her. “Where were you tonight, Lorraine?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you're not on your way out that door in five seconds I'll rip these pajamas and start screaming.”
“Suit yourself. You won't be screamin' when they get here.”
Her short upper lip curled. “You frighten me. Terribly. I'm speechless with fear.” But she made no move toward the pajamas; she spoke again quickly. “Don't let's do this to each other, Johnny. I have the best of reasons for everything I've done. I have to do it my way.”
“Not any more. Cut the stalling. Talk!”
“Find out, then, you fool!” she gritted and, in movement nearly too quick to follow, braced her back against the sofa, drew up her knees tightly to her chest and as part of the same motion straightened them viciously, exploding her slippered heels with projectile force against Johnny's breastbone as he leaned forward in his chair. The impact was tremendous; only his weight prevented the chair from going over backward, and he teetered uncertainly in mid-air for an instant before he could rock himself level again.
She stared up at him unbelievingly as he fought against the knifelike assault on his lungs; when he stumbled erect and kicked the chair behind him fear washed her face a pasty gray. She lurched up and tried to duck past him as he stood bent nearly double, and he half straightened with an effort and slapped her heavily. She gasped and fell back on the sofa, the mark of his hand standing in livid relief on her cheek.
Fear and anger struggled for dominance in her distorted face as she stared up at him, and the livid finger marks turned a dull red. When Johnny could speak at all his voice was a croak. “Not a bad move for a hundred- twenty-five-pound female woman. Too bad you didn't know I was comin'. You coulda had your high heels on, then, an' hung your spikes in me.”
“Don't think I wouldn't!”
