“It’s true, then.”
“Somebody was shot, yeah.”
“Were you there?”
“I was there. I saw it.”
She didn’t say anything right back, and I could hear the Cafe de la Paix orchestra playing “Whoopee” in the background, Paul Whiteman style.
Then: “I’m going to take a taxi home in about fifteen minutes, Nate. Why don’t you head over to the Drake and meet me?”
“I don’t think I better.”
“We could talk…”
“I don’t think I have any talk left.”
“I’d like to help.”
“If anybody could, it’s you. Tomorrow.”
Another pause; another bride, another groom…
“Tomorrow,” she said.
And hung up. Me too.
I sat in the dark a few minutes; the street sounds were subdued tonight, I was thinking—then the El rushed by. After that I got up to pull the Murphy bed down out of its box. I was reaching up to do that when there was a sharp insistent knock on the door—a three-beat tattoo. Then again.
There was just enough light out there in the hall for me to make out through the frosted glass the shape of the person knocking. It was a small person. Not two cops with a rubber hose.
I unlocked the door and peeked out.
“I’ll be damned,” I said.
She smiled nervously and long lashes fluttered over eyes as blue as Sally Rand’s. But this girl in a white blouse and tan skirt and open-toe sandals was not Sally Rand.
“Hello, Nate,” Polly Hamilton said.
“Hello.”
“Can I come in?”
“Okay, but I’m not going to the movies with you, so don’t bother asking.”
Her lower lip quivered and she glanced down. “You must think I got that coming.”
“Don’t you?” I opened the door wide for her, and she slipped by me, her reddish-brown hair swinging in arcs alongside her face; she smelled like jasmine. I glanced out in the hall to see if anybody else was around. Nobody seemed to be.
I shut and locked the door, reached for the light switch and she touched my hand; her touch was as warm as the air coming in my open windows.
“No,” she said, breathily. “Leave them off.” For a minute I thought she was vamping me, but then I recognized the breathiness as fear. Fear and passion have similar symptoms, after all.
She had a little white purse with her, which she clasped fig-leaf style before her as she looked around the room. The light from the street let her do that.
“I didn’t notice you had that purse at the Biograph,” I said.
She looked at me sharply. “Were you there?”
“Are we going to kid each other, Polly?”
She got wide-eyed and sucked in air.
“No!” she said, as if insulted by the very idea she might be capable of less than truth.
“Yes, Polly, I was there. Across the street with my hands in my pockets, playing with myself. Just like the fed I was with.”
She gave me a reproving look. “Do you have to be so crude?”
“Funny, that’s what that fed’s always asking me. Personally, I think getting shoved on your face and shot in the back a couple times is rather on the crude side.”
She covered her mouth and looked down at the floor with the wide eyes; the hand was shaking. She was shaking. She seemed about to cry. But I didn’t see any tears.
“Why don’t you sit down, Polly?” I pointed to the chair opposite my desk.
She nodded and sat, clutching the little purse, her legs tight together like a virgin on her first real date. And trembling the same way.
I got behind the desk. Sat. Gestured to the lamp, and she nodded she didn’t mind and I turned it on. It didn’t make the room bright—just made a pool of light on the desk, not big enough for either of us to bathe in.
She glanced around the room some more. “Is that a Murphy bed?”
