She looked at him, on the verge, he decided, of saying something, but not speaking.
'I'll go with you, if you'd like me to.'
'I told that faded matinee idol everything I know,' she said.
He chuckled, and she smiled back at him.
'I did the 'Nine's News' at eleven,' Louise said. 'And then I went with the producer for a drink. Okay, drinks. Three or four. Then I came home. I went into the lobby to check the mailbox. Jerome's door was open. I went in. I… saw what was in the bedroom. So I called the cops. That's all I know, Peter. And I told him.'
'There's a procedure that has to be followed,' Peter said. 'The police department is a bureaucracy, Miss Dutton.'
''Miss Dutton'? ' she quoted mockingly. 'A moment ago, I thought we were at least on a first-name basis.'
'Louise,' Peter said, aware that his face was flushing.
'I'll be damned,' she said. 'A blushing cop!'
'Jesus Christ!' Peter said. 'Do you always think out loud?'
'No,' she said. 'For some mysterious reason, I seem to be a little upset right now. But thinking out loud, I don't seem to be the only one around here who's a little off balance. Do you always calm down hysterical witnesses that way, Inspector?'
'Jesus H. Christ!' Wohl said, shaking his head.
'Don't misunderstand me,' she said. 'That wasn't a complaint. I just wondered if it was standard bureaucratic procedure.'
'You know better than that,' Peter said.
'Get me out of here, Peter,' Louise said, softly, entreatingly.
'Where do you want to go?'
'I'm not that far yet,' she said. 'All I know is that I don't want to run the gauntlet of my professional associates outside, and that I can't,won't, spend the night here. I'mafraid, Peter.'
'I told you, there's nothing to be afraid of,' he said. 'And I sent two officers downstairs to make sure you weren't hassled when you get in the car.'
'There's an Arch Street entrance to the garage,' she said. 'I don't think the press knows about it.'
'But you'd have to get past them to get to the garage,' he said.
'There a passage in the basement,' she said. 'A tunnel. And even if they were on Arch Street, I could get down on the seat, or on the floor in the back, and they wouldn't see me.'
'Take your car, you mean?' he asked.
'Please, Peter,' she said.
Why not? She's calmed down. You can't blame her for wanting to avoid those press and TV bastards. I'll take her someplace and buy her a cup of coffee and then I'll go with her to the Roundhouse.
'Okay,' he said. 'Get your jacket.'
'My jacket?' she asked, surprised, and then looked down at herself. ' Oh, Christ!' She crossed her arms over her breasts and looked at him. 'I wasn't expecting visitors.'
'I'll be damned,' he said. 'A blushing TV lady.'
'Fuck you, Peter,' she flared.
'Promises, promises,' he heard himself blurt.
'Youbastard! ' she said, but she chuckled. She went farther into the apartment, and returned in a moment, shrugging into the jacket of her suit.
He waited until she had buttoned it, and then opened the door to the foyer. There was no one there. He pushed the elevator button, and he heard the faint whine of the electric motor. She stood very close to him, and her shoulder touched his. He put his arm around her shoulders.
'You're going to be all right, Louise,' he said.
There was a uniform cop sitting on a wooden folding chair outside the elevator door in the basement. He got up quickly when he saw Wohl and Louise.
'I'm Inspector Wohl,' Peter said. 'I'm taking Miss Dutton out this way. Are you alone down here?'
'No, sir, a couple of guys are in the garage.'
'Thank you,' Peter said. He put his hand on Louise's arm and led her down the corridor. Halfway down the tunnel, she put a set of keys in his hand.
Two uniform cops walked quickly across the underground garage when they saw them. The eyes of one of them widened-a cop Wohl recognized, a bright guy named Aquila-when he recognized them.
'Hello, Inspector,' Officer Aquila said.
'I'm going to take Miss Dutton out this way,' Wohl said. 'The press is all over the street.'
'There's a couple of them outside, too,' Aquila said. 'But only a couple. You can probably get past them before they know what's happening. You want to use my car?'
'We'll take Miss Dutton's car,' Wohl said. 'When we're gone, would you tell Lieutenant DelRaye we've gone, and that I'm taking Miss Dutton to the Roundhouse?'
'Yes, sir,' Office Aquila said. It was obvious that he approved of Wohl's tactics. He had certainly heard that DelRaye had sent for a wagon to haul a drunken and belligerent Louise Dutton off. This would be one more proof that Staff Inspector Peter Wohl knew how to turn an unpleasant situation into a manageable one.
They got in Louise's Cadillac.
'There's a thing in the floor that you run over, and the door opens,' Louise said, and then, 'What are you looking for?'
'How do you get the parking brake off?'
'It comes off automatically when you put it in gear,' she said.
'Oh,' he said.
As they approached the exit, she laid down on the seat with her head on his lap. The door opened as she said it would, and he drove through. A reporter and a couple of photographers moved toward the car, but without great interest. And then he was past them, heading up Arch Street.
'We're safe,' Wohl said. 'You can sit up.'
She pushed herself erect.
'I am not going to the 'Roundhouse'!' Louise said. 'Not tonight.'
She had not moved away from him. When she spoke, he could feel and smell her warm breath.
'We can go somewhere and get a cup of coffee,' Wohl said.
'Hey, Knight in Shining Armor, when I say something, I can't be talked out of it,' Louise said.
'Where would you like to go, then?' Peter asked.
There was a perceptible pause before she replied.
'I don't want to go to a hotel,' she said. 'They smirk, when you check in without luggage. What would your mother say if you brought me home with you, Peter?'
'I don't live with my mother,' he said, quickly.
'Oh, you don't? Then I guess you have an apartment?'
'I'm not so sure that would be a good idea,' he said.
'I don't have designs on your body, if that's what you're thinking. I'm wide open to other suggestions.'
'I'll make you some coffee,' Peter said.
'I don't want coffee,' she said.
'Okay, no coffee,' Peter said.
Ten minutes later, as they drove up Lancaster Avenue, she said, ' Where the hell do you live, in Pittsburgh?'
'It's not far.'
'All of my life, my daddy told me, 'If you're ever in trouble, you call me, day or night,' so tonight, for the first time, after the matinee idol told me he was sending for a battering ram, I called him. And his wife told me he's in London.'
'Your stepmother?'
'No, his wife,' Louise Dutton said, as if annoyed at his denseness. He didn't press the question.
'But you came, didn't you?' Louise asked, rhetorically. 'Even if you didn't know I'd sent for you?'
