Janis Whitney’s face was white. She caught my arm for support.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Five
I was afraid for a moment that I was going to be sick.
I held Janis’ arm and pulled her into the elevator. I pushed a button at random. I didn’t care particularly where we were going. I just wanted to get away from the sight of Jean Dahl’s body on the floor by the door.
In a moment the elevator began to move. Downward. I could hear voices at the top of the stairs as the hall disappeared.
“They killed her,” I said. “My God, they killed her.”
“The poor kid,” Janis Whitney whispered.
The elevator came to a stop at the basement floor, and the doors opened.
“What are we going to do?” Janis Whitney asked.
“Come on,” I said. I led her out of the elevator. “Look, there’s no reason for us to get involved in this. A thing like this could be bad for you and bad for your studio. What could we do if we stayed? We were together when it happened. We both know we didn’t do it…” I couldn’t bring myself to use the words kill her. “Let’s just stay out of it.”
“How?”
I looked around. “There must be a service entrance for deliveries down here. We just leave, that’s all. It’s as simple as that. Nobody in that madhouse upstairs can tell who was there and who wasn’t. Come on, let’s go. If anybody should happen to ask us, we left together the minute the lights went out. Let someone try to prove different. Come on. I think the service door is over this way.”
It was so easy.
The service door opened onto the side street, around the corner from Fifth Avenue. We walked east to Madison and then to Park and over to Lexington. And we walked four or five blocks down Lexington before we hailed a cab.
We walked rapidly all that time. We spoke very little.
In the cab, I reached over and took her hand. It was icy cold.
I gave the driver my address. It was force of habit. I wasn’t thinking very clearly.
Beside me Janis shivered.
I put my arm around her. We huddled together in the back of the cab.
When the cab came to a stop, I said mechanically, “Here we are.”
We got out and I paid the driver. I guided Janis into the building.
I had not been back home since the night of my visitors.
It was a shock to see the place when I unlocked the door. In addition to the damage the two men had done, the police had smudged the walls with their fingerprint powder.
Janis looked blankly around the room.
“I should have warned you,” I said. “I had a robbery a couple of days ago. The place is a little bit messed up.”
“My God,” Janis said.
I pulled two of the foam rubber cushions down to the floor and then I poured a couple of inches of whisky into two glasses and handed one to her. We sat on the rubber cushions in the middle of the debris and sipped it.
“I was pretty sure we’d meet sometime again,” Janis said. “I didn’t think it was going to be anything like this.”
“I’ve seen you in pictures a few times,” I said. “I didn’t go to many of them. I couldn’t take it.”
We were quiet for a while. We finished the whisky and I refilled the glasses.
“That poor girl,” Janis said.
“I don’t know what it’s all about,” I said. “She showed up in my office about a week ago. With a book she said she had and wanted to sell. Since I met her I’ve been beaten up once and slugged once. And now she’s been killed. What was it? What kind of mess was she mixed up in?”
“It happens,” Janis said. “A person can get in over her head.”
“Janis?”
“Yes?”
“You know something?”
“What, Dick?”
“I still love you.”
“That’s not possible, darling.”
“I didn’t think it was either.”
“Ten years.”
“Nine and a half. Ten in March.”
“Things change. People change.”
“Not so much. I love you, darling.”
I reached over and, very gently, ran my hand up the back of her neck and through her hair. She reached out and took my other hand and squeezed it. Then I kissed her.
“Things don’t change,” I said. “They get worse sometimes. Or better. But they don’t change.”
Janis put her hands on my shoulders and boosted herself to her feet.
“Have you got an old shirt and some dungarees?”
“I guess so.”
“Let’s fix this place up.”
“What?”
“I haven’t done anything like housework in years. Come on. I need the exercise.”
I found her a T-shirt and a pair of army pants. When she came back out of the bedroom she had them on, with the pants rolled to the knees. She was barefoot, and her lovely hair was tied up in a scarf.
“You better put something on your feet. There’s a lot of broken glass.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“No, really. You’ll lose a toe.”
I found her a pair of loafers. They were too big, of course, but she put on two pairs of heavy wool socks and that filled them out a little.
It was a brilliant idea. The hard work was a release.
For two hours we labored. It was real physical labor. Shoving furniture around. Sweeping, hauling, dumping.
“No, wait a minute. Don’t fool with that couch. You’ll kill yourself.”
“Are you kidding? I’m a dancer now. I’m rugged. Feel my muscle.”
Her arm was slim, but hard as a rock.
“Hey,” I said. “You should play pro football.”
We made four trips down to the street with boxes and cartons of broken junk.
By the time we were through I was puffing and sweating. Her T-shirt was plastered to her back.
We looked around.
The place looked pretty good. The upholstery would all have to be redone. And I needed new lamps. But everything was back in place, at least.
“Now I’m ready for the showers,” Janis said. “A shower and then a drink.”
“Help yourself. Right in there.”
“You want to go first?”
“Ladies first.”
She went into the bathroom. She did not bother to close the door.
“I’ve got to scrape this shirt off,” Janis said. “I really lathered it up.”
