“All right.” Candy slipped and nearly fell. The waiter caught her. “I’m all right,” she insisted.
“Sure,” the waiter said.
“Hey, you remind me of somebody. My boyfriend.”
“I thought he was your boyfriend.”
“No, he’s my …” She could not think of a polite word and was not certain there was one. “My boyfriend, you know, he didn’t have—” She belched again. “Any more money. That champagne. How much did I drink?”
“Couple bottles,” the waiter told her. “Where’s your car, sir?”
“Black Caddy,” Sweet grunted. “Other side of the van.” Candy was leaning most of her weight on him.
“Nice car.”
“Rented.”
“We’ll have to put her in back.”
Sweet nodded. “It’s not locked.”
“Okay, sir. Just hold her for a moment while I get the door open.”
For a moment Sweet did so, as Candy took two tottering steps toward the black car. One bare foot slipped in the snow, and she fell.
She fell slowly and yet inevitably, as a ruinous warehouse collapses under a surfeit of rich goods, or a tall, broad maple (and indeed, her red-gold hair and round, flushed face suggested one) under the intoxicating weight of a thousand fruiting vines.
Sweet tried to support her and nearly fell with her. She sought to hold herself up, or at least to break her fall, with the arm the waiter had released. That, too, failed her, her hand skidding from under her in the snow, which had not yet been much packed. Her belly and her face buried themselves in the loose snow.
“Oh, God!” Sweet said. He jerked a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his sweating face.
“Wait a minute, I’ll help you with her, sir.”
“If you hadn’t let go it wouldn’t have happened.”
“All right,” the waiter said. “All right.”
A jet with blazing lights roared past, a thousand feet overhead. Futilely, Candy struggled to stand.
Murder Mystery
The room over the witch’s was not a room at all; it was a suite. Stubb glanced appreciatively at the white- and-gold mirrors and the Louis XIV carpet before seating himself on a spindly chair of velvet and gilded wood. He liked small chairs, and this one smelled of money.
“Drink?” Cliff asked.
“I’ve had too much beer already,” Stubb told him. “On an empty stomach, too. Think you could order your star operative a sandwich from room service? I haven’t eaten since lunch.”
“Whatever you want.” Cliff picked up the telephone.
“Then make it a hot roast beef, medium rare. Coffee. How come I’ve got an in on this one?”
“You don’t happen to know … ?” Cliff squinted at the label pasted on the cradle.
“Two eleven.”
“Thanks.” He dialed. “A hot roast beef sandwich
As he hung up, Stubb said, “I asked you how come I’ve got an in, Cliff.”
“Who said you’ve got an in?”
“You did.”
“Like hell!”
“You said three hundred a day.”
“And I meant it, Jim. That’s solid.”
“Enough to buy me off the case I was on. This afternoon you wouldn’t have me for fifty.”
“For God’s sake, Jim, you know the business! When you called, I didn’t have this job.”
Stubb stood up. “If I meet the boy in the hall, I’ll tell him to take the sandwich back.”
“Okay,” Cliff threw up his hands. “You always were a smart monkey. It ever get through to you that you’d be better off if you weren’t quite so God-damned smart?”
“And a foot taller.” Stubb sat down again.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. All right. There’s a murder, and you knew him. That’s all, Jim. That’s everything—I swear to God.”
“Uh huh. No rough stuff. That’s what you said. Ben Free?”
