One of the potted rubber plants rocked crazily and fell, spilling dirt on the carpet. The big scalloped leaves camouflaged the upper part of the detective’s body. Something about the angle and position of his feet told Michele that he was dead.
CHAPTER 2
McQuade came around fast, in a half crouch. Michele’s shoulder was against his chest, and she felt the heavy thump of his heartbeat. Through the front window she caught a flash of the mounted policeman’s face. The horse, too, had twitched around, startled by the shots.
McQuade ran for the elevators, dragging Michele with him. The plump lady had fallen on her back, her tight skirt riding up to show the underpinnings of her girdle. McQuade propelled Michele into the elevator and heaved the unconscious woman out of the doorway. He jabbed the button for the basement.
“Please let me go now,” Michele said. “You think if you hold me in front of you the police will not shoot. No, no, you are mistaken.”
He said nothing. When they reached the basement he walked her out into a cement-block corridor which came to a dead end to the right of the elevators. In the other direction two workmen were trying to ease an upright piano, riding on a dolly, into the freight elevator. The corner of the dolly had caught on the door, and until the workmen could back it off there was no way to get by.
McQuade yanked Michele back into the elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor.
“Twelve,” she said. “We are going to my-”
“Shut up.”
He watched the lights, his gun ready. If they stopped at the lobby there would be more shooting. They went by without stopping and he released her at last.
“An off-duty cop on the subway!” he said in disgust. “Eight million people in New York, and I had to get on the one train with that guy. You know I don’t have a single conviction? I mean that. Not even for carrying a weapon. And now all of a sudden the breaks start going the other way.” He appealed to her, as though he really wanted an opinion. “Why did those bastards have to be down there with that goddamn piano?”
She was watching him carefully. The corner of his mouth was working again. His eyes darted from side to side.
“Every cop on the West Side of Manhattan is going to be trying to ream my ass in another couple of minutes.”
Michele forced herself to breathe normally. She must think. After being shot once, the detective in the lobby had been no further threat to McQuade. McQuade had shot him a second time because he had been recognized and called by name. One more killing now would make no difference. She would stay alive as long as she could make herself useful, and no longer.
“What’s the apartment number?”
“Twelve H.”
“Who lives there besides you?”
“No one. I am alone.”
He gave her a quick glance, and she explained, “I am here on business. It is a colleague’s apartment, so I need not stay in hotels. He is in Los Angeles.”
“What kind of business?”
“Clothes.”
They reached the twelfth floor. McQuade punched the buttons of two higher floors so the car would continue without them. He took her arm again in his punishing grip.
“Don’t, please. This is not necessary. There is no place to run.”
His upper lip lifted. “Nobody tells me what to do. Remember that, kid.”
She took him down the short hall. There were two locks, the regular spring lock, which even an amateur could open with a strip of celluloid, the other a heavy bolt which couldn’t be forced without special tools. As usual, she tried the wrong key first.
“For Christ’s sake,” he snapped, shouldering her aside. “Don’t take all day.”
After throwing the bolt he took her arm again, nudged the door open, stepped quickly inside and kicked it shut.
They were in a large one-room apartment. It was comfortably furnished, though the furniture looked as though it had been ordered by phone. There were no books, no pictures on the walls. There was a kitchen area to the left, a bathroom to the right. Without relinquishing his hold on her arm, he looked into the bathroom and took her to the big windows.
“We are really alone,” she said. “You can release me now.”
With his free hand he lowered the Venetian blinds and adjusted the slats so he could look out without being seen. The three buildings in the group, tall, unadorned rectangular slabs, were arranged in U-shape around a paved court which was black with parked cars.
A siren sounded.
“There they are,” he said, sounding almost pleased.
He released her arm. She rubbed the place, hoping she would live long enough to see it turn black and blue.
“Do you want a drink? There is bourbon. Gin, perhaps.”
He rubbed his knuckles along his jaw. “Give me a slug of bourbon.”
She went to the little refrigerator. He bolted the front door and put the key in his pocket. Then he picked up her bag, unzipped it and shook out its contents on a low coffee table. While Michele waited for the water to run warm, she watched him. He picked her car keys out of the litter, two keys chained to a plastic tag with a New York number and the Chevrolet insignia. He weighed the keys for an instant before setting them aside. Then he looked at her passport. After checking the statistics on the first page-none of them, as it happened, true-he flicked past the intervening visas to get the date of her entrance into the country.
He looked up suddenly. Their eyes met and held. His stare was colder than the ice cubes in her hands. Michele shivered. She had to come up with something fast.
He swept everything off the table into his cupped hand, keeping out only the car keys, and returned it to her bag. When she came in with the drinks she found him studying the diamonds he had taken from Jake Melnick in the elevator. There were four unset stones, each wrapped separately in a fold of tissue paper.
“The transaction is profitable?” she said.
“Fair.”
He refolded the tissue around the diamonds and transferred them to his own wallet. She handed him a glass filled with whiskey and ice.
“Please, may I say something?”
He cut her short. “Shut up a minute.”
He took a long taste of the whiskey. As if to comment on his situation, another siren began to howl. It was coming across the park, coming fast. His face worked.
“I should have stopped on the way up to clobber that bastard Melnick. I mean clobber him. As soon as he comes out of it they’ll have my description.”
“If he recovers at all,” she said.
“Hell, I barely tapped him, I’m sorry to say.” He came to his feet suddenly, then waved it away. “Too late. But I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why didn’t I think of it?”
They were silent for a moment, listening to the sirens. He looked at her over the raised glass.
“You begin to get the idea, baby.”
“I think so,” she said quietly. “I do exactly what you say, or I stay in America, in an American graveyard.”
“Baby,” he said with one of his disconcerting returns to good humor, “there wouldn’t be enough left of you to bury.” He drank, watching, her. “Are you expecting anybody?”
“No, no one.”
“Then let’s get organized. The first thing they’ll do is go through the building.” He slid the clip out of his. 45 and added two loose rounds from his coat pocket. “How much of a look did that cop get at you? I mean the cop out on the street.”
“I think he did not really see me.”
“He saw you, but how much did he see? Now when they knock on the door”-he moved to the bathroom, his gun still in his hand-“I’m going to be inside here. With the light out. And I’ll be watching you, kid. I can’t hear out of one ear, but there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight. Don’t try to give him any message, because the minute that cop puts one foot inside the room-”