Booked to die

need a crew over here to comb through things. You come supervise, will you? Tell them to leave the books for me. I want to go out and talk to some more book dealers.”

“Will do. You had a couple of calls while you’ve been out. One of them might be important. Barbara Crowell.”

“When did that come in?”

“Time on the message said one-fifteen. Just a few minutes ago.”

“Did she say anything?”

“The dispatcher wrote ‘urgent’ on it, underlined in red. Said the woman sounded scared to death. But she wouldn’t talk to anybody else.”

“What’s her number?”

He read it to me. I hung up and dialed it. Another goddamn answering machine.

“Hi, this’s Barbara. I can’t come to the phone right now, but…”

I slammed the phone down. I had a very dark vision suddenly. Jackie Newton walked over my grave.

“Ruby, I want you to stay here and keep Mr. Zimmers company. I’m leaving you the key, so you can give it to Hennessey when he comes. I don’t want either one of you guys to go into that apartment. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I think I do, Dr. J.”

“You boys need to vouch for each other that nobody’s been up there between the time I left and when the cops came. Okay?”

“Sure. What’re you gonna do?”

“I’ve got to be somewhere, right now.”

Five minutes later I pulled up at Barbara Crowell’s place on Pearl Street. The Lamborghini was parked out front.

7

The house where Barbara lived had two apartments on each floor. I parked in the loading zone behind Jackie Newton’s car, got out, went inside, and started up the stairs. The place seemed like a mausoleum, still and deathly quiet. The steps creaked as I moved up, but that was the only sound until I got to the second floor and heard the radio. It was soft rock music, trickling faintly from above. I knew it was her radio playing—the apartment across the way was vacant. I took a grip on my gun and started up to the top. The radio came closer but still there were no voices. At her door I stopped and listened. Nothing. It was one of those oh-hell bad times in a cop’s life. You want I should maybe knock on her door? Not this boy. I’d walk in and catch him in flagrante delicto, my only witness the terrified victim. Can’t you just see it? No. Your Honor. I didn’t invite him in. That’s me she’s talking about now, not Jackie Newton: we know from past experience what she’d say about a guy who could make her heart stop just by saying boo. I asked Mr. Newton over to make up a quarrel we’d had… I certainly didn’t expect or want Detective Janeway to come walking into my bedroom…

Why couldn’t she scream? Throw something against the wall? I’d take any help I could get, any way I could get it.

But there was only profound stillness and the refrain from A Lover’s Concerto on the other side of the door.

Ah, fuck it. I turned the knob. It was unlocked. I pushed it just a crack, enough to see into the front room. The radio got suddenly louder and that was all. I could see it blaring away on a table across the room. I pushed the door a little wider and I could see through to the kitchen. Still nothing. Nothing. No… living… thing. The bedroom door across the room was closed. Here I come, ready or not. I pushed the door wide and stepped in, the gun pointing my way like a beacon. I saw that the wood had been shattered where she’d had a chain lock fastened. That had stopped him for all of twenty seconds. I took four long steps to the bedroom door and listened again. It wasn’t going to happen, was it? They just weren’t going to invite me to their little party. I stood on the verge of big trouble, a brilliant, silly line from James Jones running through my head. They can kill you but they can’t eat you. I had news for Mr. Jones, whatever corner of Eternity he’d gone to. They could kill you, yes, and they could eat you too.

I opened the door. They weren’t there.

They weren’t anywhere.

The bed had been neatly made up, not a ripple showing on the pink-and-white spread.

I looked in the closet and found nothing I could call unreasonable. I looked in the bathroom. Finally I went into the kitchen and began to see what had happened. There was a door that opened onto an outside landing, and a wooden stair-case that ran down the rear of the apartment house to a small parking lot. The door had been slammed open with such force that the glass was broken. I walked back into the main room, the gun still in my hand. The scenario was becoming fairly clear. The curtains were drawn back: the Lamborghini was parked directly below. Barbara had looked out this front window and had seen Jackie Newton down in the street. She had called me: when I wasn’t there, she had hung up. The recorder had activated automatically, and here we were. She had panicked when she heard him coming up the stairs. She took the only way out—down the back way. The lock had bought her a few seconds, then he came through the door and went down after her. That’s where they were now, playing a game of chase on the streets.

Probable cause had dropped in my lap like a plum. I had never been in here—that was my story before God, Mother,