witnesses' doors without a better reason than she told you to go fuck yourself.
'You really think she could be the doer, Lieutenant?' Wohl asked, dryly sarcastic, and then, without waiting for an answer, asked, 'She' s still upstairs? You didn't enter her apartment?'
'I got your message, Inspector,' DelRaye said. 'She can't go anywhere. I got two cops trying to talk sense to her through the door.'
'I know her,' Wohl said. 'I'll try to talk to her.'
'I know,' DelRaye said. 'When she's not screaming at me to go fuck myself, she's screaming that she demands to see Inspector Wohl.'
'Really?' Wohl asked, surprised.
'Her exact words were,'Get that sonofabitch down here!' ' DelRaye said. 'Don't you think you ought to tell me what's going on with you and her?'
'I was in on the assist when Dutch Moffitt was shot,' Wohl said. ' When the commissioner heard that the eyewitness was Miss Dutton, and who she was, he decided it was in the best interest of the department to treat her with kid gloves, and since I was there, told me to take care of it.'
'Something going on between her and Dutch? Is that what you're saying?'
'I'm saying that when a woman goes on television twice a day, it doesn't hurt to have her think kindly of the police department,' Wohl said.
'Yeah, sure.'
'And that's what I'm going to do now,' Wohl said. 'I'm going to go charm the hell out of her, if I can, and apologize for you, if it seemed to her you weren't as understanding as you could have been.'
'Fuck understanding,' DelRaye said. 'My job is to catch the guys who done in the faggot.'
'And my job is to do what the commissioner tells me to do,' Wohl said. 'I'm going to go talk to her. You make sure there's a car outside when, if, I bring her down the stairs. Get those TV people, and the other reporters, away from the door.'
'How'm I going to do that, Inspector?' DelRaye asked sarcastically. ' It's a public street.'
'No, it's not Lieutenant,' Wohl said. 'It's a private street. Technically, anybody on Stockton Place who hasn't been invited is trespassing. Now get them away from the door, if you have to do it yourself.'
'Yes, sir, Inspector,' DelRaye said, his tone of voice leaving no question what he thought about the order, about Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, or Peter Wohlbeing a Staff Inspector.
EIGHT
Wohl walked out of Jerome Nelson's apartment and rode the elevator to the upper floor. There were two uniformed policemen there, a portly, red-faced man in his late thirties, and a pleasant-faced young man. He had his head against Louise Dutton's door and was trying, without success, to get her to talk back to him.
'What can I do for you?' the young one challenged when the elevator door opened.
'That's Inspector Wohl,' the older one said.
'Hello,' Peter said, and smiled. 'I know Miss Dutton. I think I can get her to come out of there. Lieutenant DelRaye is going to move the press away, and have a car waiting downstairs. I'd like you guys to see that Miss Dutton gets in it without being hassled.'
'Yes, sir,' the young cop said.
'She's got a mouth, that one,' the older one offered. 'Even considering she's had too much to drink, and is upset by what she saw downstairs, you wouldn't think a woman would use language like that.'
'Haven't you heard? That's what women's lib is all about,' Peter said. 'The right to cuss like a man.'
The younger cop shook his head and smiled at him.
He waited until they had gone down in the elevator, and then knocked on the door.
'Go the fuck away!' Louise called angrily.
'Miss Dutton, it's Peter Wohl,' he called.
There was no response for a long moment, and Peter was just about to raise his cigarette lighter to knock on the door when it opened to the width its burglar chain would permit; wide enough for Louise Dutton to look out and see Peter, and that he was alone.
Then it closed and he heard the chain rattle, and then the door opened completely.
'I wasn't sure you would come,' she said, and pulled him into the apartment and closed the door again.
She was wearing a blue skirt and a high-ruffle-collared blouse. The body of the blouse was so thin as to be virtually transparent. Through it he could see quite clearly that she wore no slip, only a brassiere, and that the brassiere was no more substantial than the blouse; he could see her nipples.
Her eyes looked more frightened than drunk, he thought, and there was something about her it took him a moment to think he recognized, an aura of sexuality.
She looks horny,Peter Wohl thought.
'Here I am,' Peter said.
She put a smile on her face; grew, he thought, determinedly bright.
'And what did Mrs. Wohl say when you were summoned from your bed at two in the morning, when the crazy lady from TV called for you?' Louise Dutton asked.
I know what it is. She hasn't really been going around in a transparent shirt, baring her breasts. That skirt is part of a suit; there's a jacket, and when she wears that, only the ruffles show at the neck. That's what she wore when she was on TV.
'Nobody summoned me,' Peter Wohl said. 'I heard about it, and came. And the only Mrs. Wohl is my mother.'
'They didn't send for you?' Louise asked, surprised. 'Then why did you come?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'Why did you ask for me?'
'I'm scared, and a little drunk,' she said.
'So'm I,' he said. 'A little drunk, I mean. There's nothing to be afraid of.'
'Bullshit!Have you been downstairs? Did you see what those… maniacs… did to that poor, pathetic little man?'
'There's nothing for you to be afraid of,' Peter said.
'The cops are here, right? My knight in shining armor has just ridden up in his prowl car?'
'Actually, I came in my Jaguar,' Peter said. 'My department car was in the garage and I wasn't sure I was sober enough to back it out.'
'AJaguar? ' she asked, starting to giggle. 'To go with that ridiculous turtleneck? I'll bet you even have got one of those silly little caps with the buttons in the front.'
'I had one, but it blew off on the Schuylkill Expressway,' he said.
She snorted, and then suddenly stopped. She looked at him, and bit her lower lip, and then she walked to him.
'Goddamn, I'm glad you're here,' she said, and put her hand to his cheek. 'Thank you.'
And then, without either of them knowing exactly how it happened, he had his arms around her, and she was sobbing against his chest. He heard himself soothing her, and became aware that he was stroking her head, and that her arms were around him, holding him.
He could not remember, later, how long they had stayed like that. What he was to remember was that as he became aware of the warmth of her body against him, the pressure of her breasts against his abdomen, he had felt himself stirring. And when what had happened to him became evident to her, she pushed herself away from him.
'Well,' she said, looking into his eyes, 'this has been a bitch of a day, Peter Wohl, hasn't it? For both of us.'
'I've had better,' he said.
'What happens now?' Louise asked.
'There's a car waiting downstairs,' Peter said. 'It'll take you down to the Roundhouse, where you can make your statement, and then they'll type it up, and you can sign it, and then they'll bring you back here.'
