'There is none!' she said, and shook the folder on the air again. 'You never planned to give me any part of that million-whatever, did you? You just used me, the same way Ame Carter used me. I was just a handy little whore to you, wasn't I?'
'Well,' he said, and smiled, and spread his hands reasonably, 'that's what you are, isn't it, Liss.'
Which was perhaps a mistake.
He realized this when he saw her dip into her bag again and come up with not another airline ticket, but with what looked instead like a small nine-millimeter pistol.
'Careful,' he said.
'Oh yes, careful,' she said, and waved the gun recklessly in the air. 'Know what else I found on your computer, Adam? I found
'I can assure you, Lissie, there is another ticket in my desk. Let's go look for it, shall. . . ?'
'No, I don't think so.'
'We'll look for it togeth
'No, we won't look for it together because it doesn't exist. Would you like to know what else I found?'
He said nothing.
He was wondering how he could get to that blue sports bag under the hall table, wondering how he could get his hands on the Uzi in that bag before she did something foolish here. He was not eager to get shot again. It had taken too long for Dr. Rickett to fix him up after the last time a woman shot him. He did not think she was going to shoot him, but he did not like the way she kept tossing that gun around so negligently.
'I found a file titled 'PROSPECTS,'' she said, 'and another one titled 'BUYERS,' which had some of the same names and addresses in them, little bit of duplication there, Adam? Little redundancy?'
He said nothing.
He was wondering how he could back slowly away from her, toward the sports bag, without tipping his hand. He certainly did not want to get shot here. Not again.
'I'm figuring these are the names of people who might care to own that little Stradivarius across the room, Adam, am I right?'
He still said nothing.
'Names and addresses of all those prospects and buyers, I don't think they'd give a rat's ass who they bought that fiddle from, you or me, so long as they get their hands on it, am I right?'
'Backups, Liss. Merely backups. In case the fiddler refuses to pay the piper.'
'Meaning?'
'We'll offer the Strad to Sallas first. If he pays what we want for it. . .'
'We?'
'Of course, Liss. You and I. We. Us. If he gives us what the fiddle's worth, it's his again. If not, as you surmised, there are all those redundant prospects and buyers out there. Can you imagine such people in this world, Liss? People who don't know how to play the violin, who don't care at all about music, people who just want to own something beautiful and precious.'
'I can imagine them, yes.'
'Like you,' he said, and tried a smile. 'Beautiful and . . .'
'Bulshit!' she said, and waved the gun again.
'Careful with that thing,' he said, and spread the fingers of his right hand on the air, sort of patting the air with them, urging caution.
'What I'm going to do right now,' she said, 'is buy myself a ticket to Paris or London or Rome or Berlin or Buenos Aires or Mexico City or Riyadh, where all these backups seem to live, and see which one of them might care to take this fiddle off my hands. I feel sure
'Why don't we just do that together?' he suggested.
'No, why don't we just not do that together!' she said, and rattled the gun on the air again. 'I want to be on that plane alone. Without you, Mr. Fen. Just me and the Strad, Mr. Fen. And then I'll see about all these violin- lovers all over the world. Maybe they'll be willing to pay a handy little whore even more than
'I never called you a . . .'
'Oh, didn't you?' she said, and waved the gun at the floor. 'Lie down, Adam. Face down. Hands behind your head. Do it!'
'Liss . . .'
'Do it! Now!'
'You're making a big mis . . .'
'I said now!'
He turned swiftly and moved closer to the hall table, and then got down on his knees, and then lowered himself flat on the floor, positioning himself so that his head and his hands were close to the hall table. He could feel her presence behind him, the gun level in her hand. If he did not make his move now . . .
In that next crackling instant, she realized he was reaching into the blue sports bag on the floor under the table, and she saw what was in that bag, saw his hand closing around the handle of the automatic weapon there. And in that same crackling instant, he saw from the corner of his eye the little gun leveling in her hand, steady now, no longer uncertain, and he tried desperately to shake the Uzi loose of the bag before . . .
Almost simultaneously, they thought exactly the same thing: No, not again!
She meant getting fucked by yet another pimp.
He meant getting shot by yet another woman.
Actually, she did manage to say just that single word aloud, 'No/', before she shot him in the back the same
way she'd shot that other pimp, Ambrose Carter. Twice. The same way.
16.
IN THIS CITY, there are beginnings, and there are sometimes endings. And sometimes those endings aren't quite the ones imagined when you and I were young, Maggie, but who says they have to be? Where is it written that anyone ever promised you a rose garden? Where is it written?
'I understand someone sent you a note,' Hawes said.
'I get notes all the time,' Honey said.
'This note was an important one,' he said.
They were in her apartment. The apartment on the seventeenth floor of the building where Eddie Cudahy had taken a potshot at him on Wednesday morning, the second day of June. Several potshots, in fact.
It was now three o'clock on the afternoon of the twelfth, ten days and some eight hours later, but who was counting? Hawes had already arrested, questioned, and booked Eddie Cudahy, but Honey Blair was still in her nightgown and peignoir, trying to look innocent when she knew exactly which note Hawes was talking about. He was talking about the Note.
DEAR HONEY:
PLEASE FORGIVE ME AS I DID NOT KNOW
YOU WERE IN THAT AUTOMOBILE.
'According to a man named Eddie Cudahy,' he said, 'who works for Chann 'Yes, I know,' she said.
'You know him . . . ?'
'Vaguely.'
'. . . or you know the note I'm talking about?'
'Both.'
'Why didn't you tell me about it?'
'Because Danny decided not to broadcast it.'
'Who's Danny?'
'Di Lorenzo. Our Program Director.'
'That was withholding evidence,' Hawes said.
'Well, it certainly wasn't truth in broadcasting,' she said, and smiled.
'This isn't funny,' he said. 'The man was trying to kill me.'
'Yes, well, me too, you know.'
'No, not you too.
