Her gaze was steady upon my face. 'An envelope was being-was being-I lost an envelope in the tavern. What happened to it?'
I shrugged. 'In that free-for-all, who knows? Maybe one of the knife-fighters got it. Did you know them?'
'No.'
'Was the envelope important?'
'Very.' There was distress in her dark eyes. 'I shall-I shall have to account for its loss.'
'Maybe I can help you get it back,' I suggested. 'I've, got a few contacts. What about the man who was killed? Was he a friend of yours?'
'Just a man I knew. No friend. How can you help to regain the envelope? I think that I would do anything-'
'Listen, we ought to get you a booster tetanus shot for that arm right away,' I interrupted her.
'I have antiseptic in the bathroom,' she said. 'What do you mean when you say you can help me get the envelope back?'
'I said maybe I could,' I corrected her. 'But it wouldn't be easy. What Was in it? If it was cash, forget it.'
'I wasn't told what it was.' She rose from her chair and came to me, standing so close I got a whiff of perfume either from her blue-black hair or from deep within her cleavage, I couldn't be sure which. 'My boss is going to be terribly upset with me for not delivering the envelope,' she continued.
'You could hardly deliver it to a dead man,' I pointed out.
Her voice had turned husky, and with the warmth of her full curves crowding me, I wasn't left in much doubt what 'anything' was. 'If it was local hoods who got it, I can probably get a line on them,' I said. 'But if the contents are valuable, it will take money to recover it.'
'Iskir will pay,' she said quickly. 'He will pay well. I must call him now. I should have called before. May I tell him that you will help?'
'Wait a minute,' I warned. 'For the right price, okay. Otherwise, no. And no guarantee goes with it.'
'I must call him,' she repeated, but she made no move toward the telephone. She obviously dreaded making the call. She was almost literally afraid to touch the phone. Whoever her boss was, he had her buffaloed.
'Let's fix up that arm of yours,' I suggested.
'I must call first,' she said, and snatched it up as though afraid she'd change her mind. I could see that there was easily twenty feet of loose cord attached to the phone.
Her bosom swelled as she took a deep breath before dialing. 'Talia here,' she said. 'I must speak to Iskir. Yes, it is urgent.' She stood up and carried the phone to the door of what I had surmised was a bedroom, trailing the loose cord behind her. 'Excuse me, please,' she said over her shoulder and went inside and closed the door.
In the instant the door was open I had a glimpse of my own reflection in a large mirror above a low dressing table on which a lamp glowed with a soft light. The light shone on a gigantic bed covered with a Prussian-blue brocaded spread. A shaggy purple rug covered the floor, and a narrow strip of pale green carpeting suggested a bathroom beyond.
At first I could hear only the indistinct sound of Talia's voice. As the conversation continued, its pitch increased. Overtones of fright and pleading were stark in its inflections. 'The man is here with me now,' I heard her say. Then there was something I couldn't catch. 'He says he might be able to get it back. What? Yes, a gun. Why? Because his throat was cut before he could get to the envelope.' Her voice rose still another notch, and she sounded as if she were nearly in tears. 'I am telling you the
There was silence. I unbuttoned my shirt and transferred the envelope from under my armpit to inside my shirt, then rebuttoned. The bedroom door opened and Talia held the phone out to me. 'He wants to speak to you.'
I took a step toward her, then stopped. 'Not on the phone.'
'But you must!' she pleaded.
I wasn't about to commit myself to anything until I checked with Erikson. I'd already learned in Erikson's office what could be done with voice prints, too.
'Look, I've got to check out a couple of things first,' I said. 'If it's local people, there's all kinds, right? Some I can talk to, some I can't. Tell your boss I'll have an answer for him tomorrow, but I don't do business by telephone.'
She said something into the mouthpiece in a foreign language. After a silence she spoke again for a good two minutes before she walked back to the table and hung up the phone. She didn't look happy. 'No later than tomorrow,' she said. 'And he will pay you well.'
'I should know by then if there's anything I can do,' I agreed. 'How do I get in touch with him?'
'Through me.' She looked down at the bloody handkerchief around her arm and began to unwind it.
'Better let me rebandage that before I go, Talia.' She hesitated. 'I get the feeling you don't want to go to a doctor, and I've had a little experience with wounds.'
'Well-all right.'
She led the way through the frilly bedroom into the bathroom. There was a rose-tinted, lighted wall mirror behind a pink, formica-topped lavatory. All the tiling was pink. An array of bottles and jars containing creams, lotions, shampoos, and perfumes covered the space in front of the mirror. I sat down on the toilet seat which was capped with a pink, furry cover.
Talia opened the medicine cabinet and took out a bottle of medicinal alcohol, a box of absorbent gauze, a jar of clear Vaseline, and a roll of adhesive tape. She unwrapped my handkerchief from her arm, then shrugged the jacket of her suit from her shoulders. I stood up and helped her remove it. It was warm in the bathroom. Under the jacket, she had on a long-sleeved white blouse. The left sleeve was spotted with dried blood.
'Off with the blouse, too,' I told her.
'Just cut the lower sleeve away,' she said.
'Don't play the schoolgirl,' I said. She was standing with her back to me, and I reached around in front of her and began to unbutton the tiny, pearl-white buttons lining the front of the blouse. She resisted me for a moment, then apparently thought better of it. I unbuttoned the blouse completely, pulled its bottom edge from the confines of her skirt, and tossed the blouse into a corner.
She folded her arms at once across her lacy-brassiered, large breasts with her palms cradling her biceps, but not before I saw a spot of blue discoloration on the inside bend of her right elbow and needle marks along the purple line of her largest vein. She'd folded her arms so quickly I couldn't tell if the marks were on both arms or only one, but one was enough. The girl was a hophead, and from the number of punctures, not a recent one.
I didn't say anything. I took her left arm and washed the raw-looking slash on her outer forearm with warm water. She flinched when I swabbed it with alcohol, but made no sound. The slash wasn't deep, but she could wind up with a hairline scar. I'm an authority on scars.
I put Vaseline on some folded gauze to form a dressing, wrapped it around her arm with more gauze, and taped it in place. Talia's right arm remained curved across her breasts, but I knew it wasn't the breasts she was hiding. It was the telltale needle marks on her arm. 'That ought to do it,' I said. 'Time for me to hit the road.'
'But I haven't even had a chance to thank you!' she protested. 'Do have a drink first. It's the least I can offer you.' It was said in a tone of voice calculated to convince the hearer that the least was just the beginning. She gave me a smile which made me realize all over again just how much this girl had going for her in the way of good looks. 'The liquor cabinet is against the wall under a picture of the Blue Mosque of Istanbul. Pour a glass of
From her point of view a robe made sense. Exposed arms exposed too much. 'One quick one, then,' I said, and walked through the bedroom to the living room.
The liquor cabinet wasn't large but it was well stocked. I found the unmarked milk-glass bottle and poured a drink from it. The liquor was clear and syrupy, and when I held the glass to my nose it gave off a sweet, licoricelike scent. I fixed myself a bourbon on the rocks before I sat down.
I ran an eye appraisingly around the room as I took the first swallow of my drink. Talia obviously had expensive tastes and a large monkey on her back. If there was no sugar daddy taking care of the expenses of this establishment, she needed to work every angle open to her to take care of her habit. She had the youth and looks
