I growled at her. “Talk.”
“Not much to talk about.” She shrugged her pretty shoulders. “I don’t know much. I met her only once and that was about... oh, say six or seven weeks ago. I could find out the exact date easily enough. It was the night ‘Hungry Wedding’ opened. Did you see it?”
I hadn’t.
“You didn’t have much chance. It closed after five performances, to the surprise of practically no one and to the delight of many. It was a gold-plated turkey.”
“You weren’t in it, were you?”
“No such luck. That’s usually the kind of show I wind up in, the type that fights to last a week. But I missed this one. Anyway, I was tight with a few kids in the cast and I got an invite to the cast party. It was sort of a wake. Everybody in the show knew they were going to get a roasting. But no actor passes up a party with free drinks. We all got quietly loaded.”
“And Sheila Kane was there?”
“With one of the angels,” she said. “She wasn’t an actress. She waltzed in on the arm of a very grim-looking man with a cigar in his mouth. His name was Clay and her name was Alicia and that’s all I found out about either of them. I didn’t particularly want to know more, to tell you the truth. He looked like a Hollywood heavy and she looked like Whore Row Goes To College and I just wasn’t interested.”
“Clay—”
“Clay and Alicia, and don’t ask me her last name or his first name. I don’t know how much money he wasted on the show but he didn’t seem to give a damn. He smoked his cigars and nursed one glass of sour red wine and ignored everybody. She spent her time watching everybody very carefully. Like a rich tourist taking a walk on the Bowery, curious about everything but careful not to get her precious hands dirty. I took an instant dislike to her. I suppose it was bitchy of me but that’s the way I am. I make quick judgments. I didn’t like her at all.”
“Anyone else with either of them?”
“Not that I noticed. And no, I don’t remember who the other backers were. Lee Brougham produced the play — he could tell you who put up the money, I suppose. Unless he thought you were trying to steal his angels for a dog of your own. But he’ll be tough to find. I heard he went to the coast. You can’t blame him after ‘Hungry Wedding.’ A genuinely terrible play. An abortion.”
She didn’t have anything more to tell me. She hadn’t seen the girl again, never heard anything more about her. I tried to fit the new picture with what I knew about Sheila Kane. Now her name was Alicia, and she sounded a little less like Jack Enright’s mistress, a little less like the girl in the snapshot.
And I had another name now. Mr. Clay. Joe Clay? Sam Clay? Tom, Dick or Harry Clay?
To hell with it. It was another scrap and it would fit into place eventually. In the meantime we could switch to another topic of conversation.
But I forgot I was talking to Maddy Parson.
“Now,” she said dramatically, “give.”
I tried to look blank.
“It is now my turn to play detective, Mr. London, sir. If you think you can pump me blind without telling me a damn thing—”
“Pump you dry, you mean.”
“That sounds dirty, sort of. And don’t change the subject. You are now going to tell me all about Sheila or Alicia or whoever the hell she is. Come clean, Mr. London, sir.”
“Maddy—”
“About the girl,” she said heavily. “Talk.”
I said: “She’s dead, Maddy.”
“Oh. I sort of thought so. Now I’m sorry I didn’t like her. I mean—”
“I know.”
“Tell me the whole thing, Ed. I’ll be very quiet and I won’t repeat a thing to a soul. I’ll be good. But tell me.”
I told her. There was no reason to keep secrets from her. She wasn’t involved, didn’t know any of the people involved, and made a good sounding board for the ideas that were rattling around in my head. I gave her the full summary, from the minute Jack Enright walked through my door to the moment I picked her up for dinner. I didn’t leave anything out.
She shivered properly when I told her how I got shot at. She made a face when I described the scene in the blonde girl’s apartment. And she listened intently all the way through.
“So here you are,” she said finally. “Hunting a killer and dodging him at the same time. You think Clay’s the killer?”
I shrugged. “He looks as good as anybody else, but I don’t know who he is.”
“He looked capable of murder. Be careful, Ed.”
“I’m always careful. I’m a coward.”
She grinned at me. I grinned back, and we stood up together, both grinning foolishly. Somewhere along the way the grins gave way to deep long looks. Her eyes were not opaque at all now. I stared into them.
Then all at once she was in my arms and I was stroking silky hair. Her face buried itself against my chest and my arms were filled with the softness of her.
She pulled away from me. Her voice was very small. “I’m going to be forward again,” she said. “Very forward. You’re not going home now, Ed. I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I’m glad,” she said, taking my hand. “I’m very glad, Ed. And I don’t think we should stay in here. I think we should go to the bedroom.”
We started for the bedroom.
“It’s right through that door,” she said, pointing. “But you know that. After all, you’ve been there before.”
Five
She was soft and warm and sweet. She moved beside me and her lips nuzzled my ear. “Don’t go,” she whispered. “Stay all night. I’ll make breakfast in the morning. I make good coffee, Ed.”
I drew her close and buried my face in the fragrance of her hair. Her body pressed against mine. Sleep was drowning me, dragging me under. The bed was warm, too warm to get out of. Sheila Kane and Jack Enright and a man called Clay were dull and trivial, a batch of mute ciphers swimming in charcoal gray water. I wanted to let them drown, to wink the world away with Maddy’s fine female body beside me.
Something stopped me. “I’ve got to go,” I said.
“Don’t, Ed. See how shameless I am? Every sentence ends with a proposition. But stay here. It gets so lonely in this bed. It’s a big bed. I rattle around in it all by myself. Don’t go.”
She didn’t say anything while I slipped out of bed and fumbled around for my clothes. I leaned over to kiss her cheek and she didn’t move a muscle or speak a word. Then, while I was tying my shoelaces, she sat upright in the bed and talked to me. A half-light from the living room bathed her in yellow warmth. The sheet had fallen away from her small breasts and she looked like a primitive goddess with wild hair and sleepy eyes.
“Be careful, Ed. I’m not kidding; I like you; I like having you around, be careful, please. I don’t like the way everything sounds. These people are dangerous. My God, one of them tried to kill you—”
“It was just a warning.”
“He shot at you. He could have killed you.”
“Please don’t worry.”
“Of course I’ll worry. It’s a woman’s prerogative to worry — you ought to know that. Worrying makes me feel all female and motherly and everything. If I only knew how to knit I’d make you a nice warm sweater. A warm wool sweater with a bullet-proof lining. Would you like that?”
I grinned. “Sounds good.”
Her tone turned serious. “You better call me tomorrow, you bastard. Otherwise I’ll get mad. When I get mad I’m hell on wheels, Ed. There’s no telling what I might do. I could sic the Mafia on you or something.” She frowned. “So call me.”
“I will.”
“But not before noon.” A low sigh. “I like to sleep late. I wish you could stay with me, Ed. We’d both sleep late and then I’d cook breakfast and feel as domestic as a pair of bedroom slippers. Maybe I’ll knit you a pair of bedroom slippers.”