She took off a pale bluetrenchcoat and hung it in the front closet.
Under it she'd been wearing a knee-length plaid skirt and a tailored yellow blouse with a button-down collar. She had very long legs and a powerful, athletic body.
She turned again, and her eyes did not quite reach the spot where I was standing, and I said, "Hello, Portia."
The scream didn't get out. She stopped it by clapping her own hand over her mouth. She stood very still for a moment, her body balanced on the tips of her toes, and then she willed her hand to drop from her mouth as she settled back down on her heels. She took a deep breath and made herself hang onto it.
Her coloring was very fair to begin with, but now her face looked bleached. She put her hand over her heart. The gesture looked theatrical, insincere. As if she recognized this, she lowered her hand again and breathed deeply several times, in and out, in and out.
"Your name is- "
"Scudder."
"You called before."
"Yes."
"You promised to give me an hour."
"My watch has been running fast lately."
"Has it indeed." She took another very deep breath and let it out slowly. She closed her eyes. I moved out from my post against the wall and stood in the middle of the room within a few steps of her. She didn't look like the sort of person who faints easily, and if she were she probably would have done it already, but she was still very pale and if she was going to flop I wanted a fair shot at catching her on the way down. But the color began to seep back into her face and she opened her eyes.
"I need something to drink," she announced. "Will you have something?"
"No, thanks."
"So I drink alone." She went to the kitchen. I followed close enough to keep her in sight. She took a fifth of Scotch and a split of club soda from the refrigerator and poured about three ounces of each into a glass. "No ice," she said. "I don't fancy the cubes bumping up against my teeth. But I've got into the habit of taking my drinks chilled. Rooms are kept warmer here, you know, so that room-temperature drinks won't do at all. You're sure you won't join me?"
"Not right now."
"Cheers, then." She got rid of the drink in one very long swallow. I watched the muscles work in her throat.A long, lovely neck. She had that perfect English skin and it took a lot of it to cover her. I'm about six feet tall and she was at least my height and maybe a little taller. I pictured her with JerryBroadfield , who had about four inches on her and could match her with presence of his own.
They must have made a striking couple.
She drew another breath, shuddered, and put the empty glass in the sink. I asked her if she was all right.
"Oh, just peachy," she said. Her eyes were a very pale blue verging on gray, her mouth full but bloodless. I stepped aside and she walked past me into the living room. Her hips just barely brushed me as she passed. That was just about enough. It wouldn't take much more than that, not with her.
She sat on a slate-blue sofa and took a small cigar from a teak box that rested on a clear Plexiglas end table. She lit the cigar with a wooden match,then gestured at the box for me to help myself. I told her I didn't smoke.
"I switched to these because one doesn't inhale them," she said.
"So I inhale them just the same and of course they are stronger than cigarettes. How did you get in here?"
I held up the key.
"Timmiegave you that?"
"He didn't want to. I didn't give him much choice. He says you've always been nice to him."
"I tip him enough, the silly little fuck. You gave me a fright, you know. I don't know what you want or why you're here.Or who you are, for that matter. I seem to have forgotten your name already." I supplied it. "Matthew," she said. "I do not know why you are here, Matthew."
"Who did you phone from the coffee shop?"
"You were there? I didn't notice you."
"Who did you call?"
She bought time by puffing on her cigar. Her eyes grew thoughtful.
"I don't think I'm going to tell you," she said at length.
"Why are you pressing charges against JerryBroadfield ?"
"For extortion."
"Why, Miss Carr?"
"You called me Portia before. Or was that just for shock value?
The peelers always call you by your first name. That's to show their contempt foryou, it's supposed to give them some sort of psychological advantage, isn't it?" She pointed at me with her cigar."You. You're not a policeman, are you?"
"No."
"But there's something about you."
"I used to be a cop."
"Ah." She nodded, satisfied. "And you knew Jerry when you were a policeman?"
"I didn't know him then."
"But you know him now."
"That's right."
"And you're a friend of his? No, that's not possible. Jerry doesn't have friends, does he?"
"Doesn't he?"
"Hardly.You'd know that if you knew him well."
"I don't know him well."
"I wonder if anyone does."Another puff on the cigar, a careful flicking of ash into a sculptured glass ashtray. "JerryBroadfield has acquaintances.Any number of acquaintances. But I doubt he has a friend in the world."
"You're certainly not his friend."
"I never said I was."
"Why charge him with extortion?"
"Because the charge is true."She managed a small smile. "He insisted I give him money. A hundred dollars a week or he would make trouble for me. Prostitutes are vulnerable creatures, you know. And a hundred dollars a week isn't so terribly much when you consider the enormous sums men are willing to pay to go to bed with one." She gestured with her hands, indicating her body. "So I paid him," she said.
"The money he asked for, and I made myself available to him sexually."
"For how long?"
"About an hour at a time, generally.Why?"
"For how long had you been paying him?"
"Oh, I don't know. About a year, I suppose."
"And you've been in this country how long?"
"Just over three years."
"And you don't want to go back, do you?" I got to my feet, walked over to the couch. "That's probably how they set the hook," I said. "Play the game their way or they'll get you deported as an undesirable alien. Is that how they pitched you?"
"What a phrase.An undesirable alien."
"Is that what they- "
"Most people consider me a highly desirable alien." The cold eyes challenged me. "I don't suppose you have an opinion on the subject?"
She was getting to me, and it bothered the hell out of me. I didn't much like her, so why should she be getting to me? I remembered something ElaineMardell had said to the effect that a large portion of Portia Carr's client list consisted of masochists. I have never really understood what gets a masochist off, but a few minutes in her presence was enough to make me realize that a masochist would find this particular woman a perfect component for his fantasies. And, in a somewhat different way, she fit nicely into my own.
We went around and around for a while. She kept insisting thatBroadfield had really been extorting cash from her, and I kept trying to get past that to the person who had induced her to do the job on him.
We weren't getting anywhere- that is, I wasn't getting anywhere, and she didn't have anyplace to get to.
So I said, "Look, when you come right down to it, it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter whether he was getting money from you, and it doesn't matter who got you to press charges against him."
"Then why are you here, angel?Just for love?"
"What matters is what it'll take to get you to drop the charges."
"What's the hurry?" She smiled. "Jerry hasn't even been arrested yet, has he?"
"You're not going to take it all the way to the courtroom," I went on. "You'd need proof to get an indictment, and if you had any it would have come out by now. So this is just a smear, but it's an awkward smear for him and he'd like to wipe it up. What does it take to get the charges dropped?"