'You know something, Mike... you're not such a heel. I mean, such a
I told her not to come to any hasty conclusions and backed the car out. It was a quarter to six and both of us were pretty hungry, so I drove up Broadway to a lot, left the car and walked back to a place that put out good food as well as good dinner music. While we waited for our orders Ellen bummed a nickel from me and went back to the phone booth to call Patty.
I could hardly wait for her to sit down again. 'Get her?'
'Uh-huh. Everything's all set. Most of the office crew have left already. She'll leave the stuff at the house for us.'
'Could we meet her somewhere? It would save time.'
'Too risky. I'd rather not. Patty seemed a little jittery on the phone and I doubt if she'd like it either. I only hope they can be put back as easily as they're taken out.'
'You won't have any trouble.' Maybe. I didn't put enough conviction in my voice, because she just looked at me and bent down to her salad. I said, 'Now quit worrying. There won't be anything there that I couldn't find out if I had the time to look for it.'
'All right, Mike, it's just that I've never done anything like that before. I won't worry.'
She wrinkled her nose at me and dug into her supper.
It was eight-ten when we left the place. A thunderhead was moving up over Jersey blotting out the stars, replacing them with the dull glow of sheet lightning. I let Ellen pick up a couple quarts of beer while I rolled the car out and met her on the corner. She hopped in as the first sprinkle of rain tapped on the roof.
Sidewalks that were just damp a moment before took on a black sheen of water and drained it off into the gutter. Even with the wipers swatting furiously like a batter gone mad I could hardly see out. The car in front of me was a wavering shadow with one sick red eye, the neon signs and window fronts on either side just a ghostly parade of colors.
It was another night like that first one. The kind that made you run anywhere just to get away from it. You could see the vague shapes that were people huddled under marquees and jammed into doorways, the braver making the short dash to waiting cabs and wishing they hadn't.
By the time we reached Ellen's apartment it had slacked off into a steady downpour without the electrical fury that turned the night into a noisy, deafening day.
A doorman with an oversize umbrella led Ellen into the foyer and came back for me. Once we were out of it we could laugh. I was only making sloshing noises with my shoes but Ellen had gotten rained on down the back and her dress was plastered against her skin like a postage stamp. Going up in the elevator she stood with her back against the wall and edged sidewise after making me walk ahead of her.
I was going to knock first, but she poked her key in the lock and waved me inside.
'Nobody home?'
'Don't be silly. Tonight's date night... or haven't you noticed the couples arm in arm dashing for shelter.'
'Yeah.' I kicked my shoes off and carried them out to the kitchen. Ellen dumped the beer on the table and showed me where the glasses were.
'Pour me, Mike. I'll be back as soon as I get these wet things off.'
'Hurry up.'
She grinned at me and waltzed out while I was uncorking the bottles. I just finished topping the glasses off when she waltzed right back in again wrapped up in a huge terrycloth bathrobe, rubbing the rain out of her hair with a towel.
I handed her a glass and we clinked them in a toast we didn't speak. I drank without taking my eyes from hers, watching the deep blue swirl into a smoky gray that seemed to come up from the depths of a fire.
It got to be a little more than I could take. She knew it when I said, 'Let's look at the files, Ellen.'
'All right.' She tucked the bottle under her arm and I trailed after her into the living room. A large console set took up a corner of the room and she pulled it away from the wall and worked her hand into the opening.
'Your private safe?'
'For intimate letters, precious nylons and anything else a nosy cleaning woman might take home with her.'
She pulled out another of those Manila folders held together with a thick rubber band and handed it to me. My hand started to shake when I worked the band off it. The thing snapped and flew across the room.
I took it sitting down. I reached in and pulled out a stack of official reports, four photographs and more affidavits than I could count. I spread them out across the coffee table and scanned them to see what I could pick up, laying the discards on top of the empty folder. When I tried to do it carefully I got impatient, and when I went faster I got clumsy and knocked the whole batch on the floor. Ellen picked them up and sorted them out again and I went on from there.
I was cursing myself and the whole damn mess long before I was finished because it was ending in a blank, a goddamn stone wall with nothing there but a fat ha-ha and to hell with you, bub. My hand went out of its own accord and spilled everything all across the room while Ellen let out a little scream and stepped back with her hand to her mouth.
'Mike!'
'I'm sorry, kid. It's a dud. Goddamn it, there's not a thing in there!'
'Oh, Mike... it can't be! The D.A. has been working on that a month!'
'Sure, trying to tangle Link up in that lousy gambling probe of his. So he proves he's a bookie. Hell, anybody can
