didn't want to drink any of it.
I let myself out. A block away on Canal Street I managed to flag a cab. I got uptown in time to catch the last half-hour or so at Armstrong's, but I said the hell with it and went straight to my room.
I got to sleep eventually.
Chapter 14
I had a night of dreams and shallow sleep. The dog, Bandy, turned up in one of the dreams. He wasn't really dead. His death had been faked as part of some elaborate scam. He told me all this, told me too that he'd always been able to talk but had been afraid to disclose this talent. 'If I'd only known,' I marveled, 'what conversations we could have had!'
I awoke refreshed and clearheaded and fiercely hungry. I had bacon and eggs and home fries at the Red Flame and read the News.
They'd caught the First Avenue Slasher, or at the least had arrested someone they said was the Slasher. A photograph of the suspect bore a startling resemblance to the police artist's sketch that had run earlier.
That doesn't happen too often.
I was on my second cup of coffee when Vinnie slid into the booth across from me. 'Woman in the lobby,' he said.
'For me?'
He nodded. 'Young, not bad-looking. Nice clothes, nice hair. Gave me a couple of bucks to point you out when you came in. I don't even know if you're comin' back, so I figured I'd take a chance, look here and there and see if I could find you. I got Eddie coverin' the desk for me.
You comin' back to the hotel?'
'I hadn't planned to.'
'What you could do, see, you could look her over and gimme a sign to point you out or not point you out. I'd just as soon earn the couple of bucks, but I'm not gonna go and retire on it, you know what I mean? If you want to duck this dame-'
'You can point me out,' I said. 'Whoever she is.'
He went back to the desk. I finished my coffee and the paper and took my time returning to the hotel.
When I walked in Vinnie nodded significantly toward the wing chair over by the cigarette machine, but he needn't have bothered. I'd have spotted her without help. She looked utterly out of place, a well-groomed, well- coiffed, color-coordinated suburban princess who'd found her way to the wrong part of Fifty-seventh Street. A few blocks east she might have been having an adventure, making the rounds of the art galleries, looking for a print that would go well with the mushroom-toned drapes in the family room.
I let Vinnie earn his money, strolled past her, stood waiting for the elevator. Its doors were just opening when she spoke my name.
I said, 'Hello, Mrs. Ettinger.'
'How-'
'Saw your picture on your husband's desk. And I probably would have recognized your voice, although I've only heard it over the phone.'
The blonde hair was a little longer than in the picture in Douglas Ettinger's photo cube, and the voice in person was less nasal, but there was no mistaking her.
'I heard your voice a couple of times. Once when I called you, once when you called me, and again when I called you back.'
'I thought that was you,' she said. 'It frightened me when the phone rang and you didn't say anything.'
'I just wanted to make sure I'd recognized the voice.'
'I called you since then. I called twice yesterday.'
'I didn't get any messages.'
'I didn't leave any. I don't know what I'd have said if I reached you. Is there someplace more private where we can talk?'
I took her out for coffee, not to the Red Flame but to another similar place down the block. On the way out Vinnie tipped me a wink and a sly smile. I wonder how much money she'd given him.
Less, I'm sure, than she was prepared to give me. We were no sooner settled with our coffee than she put her purse on the table and gave it a significant tap.
'I have an envelope in here,' she announced. 'There's five thousand dollars in it.'
'That's a lot of cash to be carrying in this town.'
'Maybe you'd like to carry it for me.' She studied my face, and when I failed to react she leaned forward, dropping her voice conspiratorially. 'The money's for you, Mr. Scudder. Just do what Mr.
London already asked you to do. Drop the case.'
'What are you afraid of, Mrs. Ettinger?'
'I just don't want you poking around in our lives.'
'What is it you think I might find there?' Her hand clutched her purse, seeking security in the presumptive
