Lady Killer

'Well from when you leave the apartment until your show is over.'

'My last show is at two,' she said. 'Your cop'll be busy. Or will the cop be you?'

'No, he won't,' Hawes said.

'Worse luck,' Jay answered, and she pulled at her drink.

'Your first show goes on at eight, is that right?'

'That's right.'

'The letter says—'

'That could be a coincidence.'

'Yes, it could. What time do you generally leave for the Brisson?'

'About seven.'

'I'll have a patrolman stop by for you.'

'A handsome Irish cop, I trust.'

'We have a lot of those,' Hawes said, smiling. 'In the meantime, can you tell me whether or not anything has happened recently that would—'

'—cause someone to want me dead?' Jay thought for a moment. 'No,' she said.

' Anything at all? An argument? A contract dispute? A disgruntled musician? Anything?'

'No,' she said pensively. 'I'm easy to get along with. That's my rep in the trade. An easy lady.' She grinned. 'I didn't mean that to sound the way it did.'

'How about the threatening letters and calls you mentioned? When was the last time you got one of those?'

'Oh, before I went to South America. That was months ago. I've only been back two weeks, you know. I doubt if the buggos know I'm around. When they hear my new album, they'll begin their poison penmanship again. Have you heard it?' She shook her head. 'But of course you haven't. It hasn't been released yet.'

She went to a hi-fi unit, opened one of the cabinets, and pulled a record album from the top shelf. On the alburn cover, Lady Astor was riding a white horse, naked. Her long black hair had been released so that it cascaded over her breasts, effectively covering her. There was the same malevolent, mischievous, inviting gleam in her eyes as had been in the newspaper photo. The album was titled, 'Astor's Pet Horse'.

'It's a collection of cowboy songs,' Jay explained, 'with the lyrics jazzed up a bit. Would you like to hear a little of it?'

'Well, I—'

'It won't take a minute,' Jay said, moving to the hi-fi and putting the record on the turntable. 'You'll be getting a sneak preview. What other detective in the city can make that statement?'

'I wanted to—'

'Sit,' Jay said, and the record began.

It began with the customary corny cowboy guitar, and then Lady Astor's insinuatingly chic voice came smoothly over the speaker.

'Home, home in the slums,

Full of pushers, and junkies, and bums.

Where seldom is heard

Mating call of the bird,

And the zip guns play music like drums…'

The record went on and on. Hawes thought it only mildly funny. He was too close to the reality to find the parody amusing. At the end of 'Home on the Range', a parody of 'Deep in the Heart of Texas' began.

'This one is a little rough,' Jay said, 'full of innuendo. A lot of people won't like it, but I don't give a damn. Morality is a funny thing, do you know?'

'How do you mean?'

'I came to the conclusion a long time ago that morality is strictly personal. The hardest thing any artist can attempt is to reconcile his own moral standards with those of the great unwashed. It can't be done. Morality is morality, and mine's mine and yours is yours. There are things I accept matter-of-factly, and these same things shock the hell out of the Kansas City housewife. That's a trap the artist can fall into.'

'What trap?'

'Most artists—in show business, anyway—live in the big cities. That's where the business is, you know, so that's where you have to be. Well, urban morality is pretty different from morality in the sticks. The stuifthat goes with the city slickers just won't go with the guy mowing a field of wheat—or whatever the hell you do with wheat. But if you try to please everybody, you go buggo. So I try to please myself. If I use my own good taste, I figure the morals will take care of themselves.'

'And do they?'

'Sometimes, yes—sometimes, no. Like I said, things I consider absolutely pure and simple don't seem quite so pure or quite so simple to the farmhand.'

'Things like what?' Hawes asked innocently.

'Things like—would you like to go to bed with me?'

'Yes, I would,' he answered automatically.

'Then let's,' she said, putting down her drink.

'Right now?' he asked.

'Why not? It's as good a time as any.'

He felt ridiculous answering what he had to answer, but he plunged ahead, anyway. 'I haven't the time right now,' he said.

'Your letter-sender?'

'My letter-sender.'

'You may have lost your golden opportunity,' she said.

'Those are the breaks,' Hawes said, shrugging.

'Morality is a question of the means and the opportunity,' Jay said.

'Like murder,' Hawes answered.

'If you want to get morbid, okay. All I'm trying to say is that I would like you to make love to me now. Tomorrow I may not feel the same way. I may not even feel the same way ten minutes from now.'

'Now you've spoiled it,' Hawes said.

Jay raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

'I thought it was me. Instead, it's just your whim of the moment.'

'What do you want me to do? Undress you and burp you?'

'No,' Hawes said, rising. 'Give me a rain check.'

'It hasn't rained for weeks,' Jay said.

'Maybe it will.'

'And to quote an old sawhorse, lightning never strikes twice in the same place.'

'I'll tell you,' Hawes said, 'I'm just liable to go out and shoot myself.'

Jay smiled. 'You're pretty damned sure of yourself, aren't you?'

'Am I?' he asked.

For a moment they faced each other. There was none of the photographic sensuality on her face now. Neither was there the fury of a woman scorned. There was only the somewhat pathetic loneliness of a little girl living in a vast top-floor apartment with an air-conditioner in the living room.

Lady Astor shrugged.

'What the hell,' she said. 'Give me a call sometime. The whim may return.'

'Expect that cop,' Hawes said.

'I will,' she answered. 'He may beat your time.'

Hawes shrugged philosophically. 'Some guys have all the luck,' he said, and he left the apartment.

CHAPTER NINE

Some guys, too, have all the misfortune.

Meyer Meyer and Steve Carella had their share that blistering day. By 1.40 p.m. the sidewalks were baking, the buildings were ready to turn cherry red with contained heat, the people were wilting, automobile tyres were melting, and it was obvious even to the neophyte science-fiction fan that the earth had somehow wandered too close to the sun. It would surely be consumed by fire. This was the last day, and Richard Matheson had called the tune, and the world would end in molten fire.

Undramatically speaking, it was damn hot.

Meyer Meyer was a sweater. He sweated even in the wintertime. He didn't know why he sweated. He supposed it was a nervous reaction. But he was always covered with perspiration. Today he was drowning in it. As the two detectives wandered from hockshop to hockshop on sleazy Crichton Avenue, wandered from open door to open door, passed rapidly from one trio of gold balls to the next, Meyer thought he would die in a way unbefitting a heroic cop. He would die of heat prostration, and the obits would simply say COP FLOPS. Or perhaps, if the news was headlined in Variety, SOPPY COP DROPS.

'How do you like this Variety headline announcing my death by heat prostration?' he said to Carella as they entered another hockshop. 'Soppy cop drops.'

'That's pretty good,' Carella said. 'How about mine?'

'In Variety?'

'Sure.'

'Let me hear it.'

'SOPPY WOP COP DROPS.'

Meyer burst out laughing. 'You're a prejudiced bastard,' he said.