voice, a thickness of desire. She was afraid of him, and she wanted him, too. He heard what I did in her voice.
“Come here,” his voice said.
The sounds on the other side of the panel were meaningless except in my mind. I imagined them, a man and woman close together. I saw Keefer holding her roughly, because that would be his pose. Her head was against his shoulder. The need in her voice was now stronger than the fear.
“You were really through with Fran, Frank? All over?”
“Three months ago, Cele. I had plans, sure. You can’t blame a man for trying for the bonanza. But she tossed me over, and what does Frank Keefer do against the Crawfords? I told Joel the hell with it, I wanted you. I mean it.”
His voice didn’t convince me, not all the way, and I imagined his eyes not quite looking at her as she looked up at his face. But that was a projection of how I would act. Keefer was probably looking straight at her and smiling.
“Frank?” her voice said. “What happened to Francesca?”
“Don’t know, baby. I got down here Tuesday. I went to your place, no one was there. I called Bel-Mod, they said you were out of town. Wednesday night I went to see if you were home yet. The cops were there, I heard Fran’s name. I got out. Yesterday, I saw the story in the paper.”
Beyond the wall he began to pace. “She’d been strange a while up in Dresden. Sort of keyed up. When she broke off, she said I was just another big fake. I was mad, so was Uncle Joel-all his big plans for getting in with the Mayor. He got drunk, had a fight with Fran. It was the last I saw of her.”
Keefer stopped pacing, and there was no sound or movement on the other side of the wall. Until Celia Bazer spoke.
“Let’s go home, Frank. Get out of this city.”
He didn’t answer, but I pictured him nodding, and he picked up the telephone. He asked for a bellhop. I left room 411, and went down to the lobby to wait.
They came out of the elevator with an ancient bellman who struggled with three bags. Frank Keefer carried the other two bags-Celia Bazer was his woman again. While he paid, I went out ahead of them, and ran to the corner to try for a taxi. The first three were taken. I looked back and saw Keefer loading the bags into a flashy red Buick convertible. I saw something else, too.
As an empty cab stopped for me, a man in a camel’s hair topcoat walked past and got into a green Cadillac parked behind me. The same Caddy I had seen before going into the hotel. All at once I knew he was tailing me. I could find the girl and Keefer in Dresden. I wanted to talk to my tail.
I gave the cabbie my office address. The Cadillac came behind us, far enough back to make me know he didn’t want to be noticed. The taxi dropped me at my building. I went up.
My corridor was as dark and empty as usual. That was fine now. I ran into my office, turned on the light, and got my big old pistol. There was a janitor’s closet near the stairs. I made it, left the door open a crack, as footsteps came up.
He passed like a shadow. I saw good shoulders, but he was two inches shorter than me. I slid out behind him. Sometimes I forget I have only one arm, but this time I had my gun for a club, at least. He heard me, and turned.
I had a glimpse of a high coat collar, a low hat brim, two dark eyes, and some very white teeth-and no more. He lunged at me without hesitation. I swung my heavy pistol for his skull-and hit nothing at all.
He was there, and then he wasn’t. Something hit me in the belly. A hard fist in my face. I hit the wall with my back, swung my pistol at him again, and missed again. Two fists hit one-two in my belly, another landed solid on my jaw. He had three arms, at least. I thought how unfair that was as my chin was hit and I landed on the corridor floor on my face.
5
He turned me over. I saw a face that was broad and olive-skinned. A gray homburg, gray coat-No! A camel coat…
“Fortune?”
He grew smaller and smaller like a mirage fading down a tunnel. His head became as small as a pin, and his thick body stretched up and up to touch the ceiling.
“Fortune?” he said. “It’s John Andera. You okay?”
He slipped into focus, became normal size, and I saw that he was standing over me where I lay on the floor of the corridor. John Andera, not the man who had hit me-unless?
“A man tailed me,” I said, my jaw stiff and heavy. “A little shorter than you, not as broad. Brown eyes, camel’s hair topcoat. Know him?”
“No,” John Andera said. “What did he want with you?”
“I was going to find that out by ambushing him.”
Some ambush. I wondered if I was ever going to learn that even with two arms I’d never have been a fighter. My “victim” had been a fighter, maybe a real one, the way he had moved.
“Did Francesca know any ex-professional fighters?”
“I don’t know,” Andera said. “I came for a report.”
I sat up. My left eye was puffed, my face hurt, and my belly ached. But it was all bruises-too fast to have done much damage. I had gone down, stunned, but not really out. I stood up. It could only have been minutes or less.
“You didn’t see anyone coming out of here?” I said.
“No, no one,” Andera said.
“Come on.”
I went down the stairs as fast as I could on stiff legs with John Andera behind me. In the gray noon only a few people walked along my street. Andera stood beside me, and I saw the green Cadillac. It was double-parked across the street with its motor running.
“There!” I said to Andera.
I heard the three heavy shots as something slammed into my head and the street went black.
A pale green ceiling, and a chemical smell. The ceiling was supposed to be a dirty ivory, my corridor. Why did my corridor smell of chemicals? I was on the floor of my corridor, I’d been knocked there. I… but why was the corridor so soft, my hand sinking in when I pressed?
I was on the floor outside my office. I had to be, of course. The man in the green Cadillac had…
What slammed into my head?
Shots. I’d been shot!
The shadow bent over me, close. A face.
“Did you see anything, Dan? Who shot you?”
Captain Gazzo not John Andera looked down at me, very close, and he was standing up, so I was high off the floor. How could a man float off the floor on a soft cloud if he was still alive and…
“Dan? Did you get a look at who shot you?”
“No,” my own voice said from somewhere.
“A guess?” Gazzo said.
“No.”
The pale green ceiling was a hospital room. The antiseptic smell. A soft, high bed. Now I knew that, so some time must have passed. A lot of time, or a little?
“How bad am I?” I said to the ceiling.
A face appeared over me. Captain Gazzo-again or still?
“That was this morning,” Gazzo said.
I must have asked him out loud. I hadn’t thought I had.
“You’re okay,” Gazzo said. “One shot creased your skull good. Probably a forty-five. We found you out cold on the sidewalk. You’ve got a nice groove on your head, and a fair concussion. No real harm, you’re full of dope. You
