She gave him an address in the east Eighties. Diener hung up. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it thoroughly under his shoe. It’s all in the way you talk to them. You’ve got to be bold. Women love bold men. Diener hooked up the corner of his mouth in a smile, the way Errol Flynn does, and went out to find a cab.
The apartment building lobby was all glass brick and marble. A uniformed doorman pushed one of a row of buttons and said into the phone that hung beside them, “Mr. Curtis, ma’am.” His eyes were faintly envious as he nodded toward the self-service elevator. “14-A, sir.”
The elevator door slid open with a pneumatic whoosh and Diener stepped into a tiny foyer with three doors opening off it. He rapped too sharply on the one marked 14-A, feeling himself taut with lust. There was a muted click behind him and the elevator door rattled faintly as the cage began its descent.
The door of 14-A was drawn quickly open and Diener beheld Linda. Her face was abnormally white against the mass of dark hair. The scarlet lips were parted and her jaw made nervous chewing motions. With a flicker of disappointment, Diener took in the quilted gray housecoat buttoned to her chin. She was taller than he had thought, too.
Something scraped lightly on the floor behind him and a sledge hammer drove into his kidney. Diener shot, stumbling, past the side-stepping girl into the dark apartment. A small gossip bench crashed away from his clawing hands. Diener fell to his knees, his cheekbone thudding into the edge of a doorframe. He felt two huge hands grip him, swing him to his feet.
Linda was at the door, closing it against his flight. The man who held him was over six feet tall, red-haired, huge in a costly blue suit. He held Diener’s shirt in a choking ball at his throat and his cocked fist shot forward. In the split second before the fist exploded against his face, Diener thought giddily: “What a handsome guy!”
The room tilted. Diener was on his knees again, watching his blood drip onto a polished parquet floor inches from his nose. Two sharp kicks drove a scream through his puffed lips. He was hauled to his feet again.
The big man didn’t curse. Silently, methodically, he threw his maul-like fists into Diener’s ribs, at his heart. Diener clutched feebly at his sleeves, feeling himself on the edge of oblivion. “No, no, Tim!” Linda was calling from a mountain-top. “That’s not him! That’s not the one!”
The big man stepped suddenly away from Diener. Diener leaned slackly against the wall. “You’re sure?” The big man asked. “This isn’t the one you saw? He’s not the one that threatened you?”
“No! Don’t hit him again, Please!”
The big man eyed Diener thoughtfully for a moment. Then he bent and righted the tiny bench. He thrust Diener contemptuously into the seat. Unhurriedly, he drew a badge in a leather holder from his hip pocket and held it inches from Diener’s face. “Lieutenant Patterson, vice squad. Get your I-D out.” His breathing was only slightly disturbed from the exertion of having beaten Diener helpless.
Diener shook his head dazedly. With surprising gentleness, the big man went through Diener’s pockets until he found a wallet. He turned to the girl. “Better get him a drink,” he muttered, and Diener heard Linda’s mules clatter out of the entrance hallway.
“Elroy Diener,” Patterson read out of the wallet. “I thought you said your name was Curtis?”
“I thought — thought it sounded better,” Diener choked out, grateful for the man’s calmness.
“What did you think you were trying to do?”
Diener said: “I—,” and then shook his head hopelessly.
“You ever been arrested before, Elroy?”
“No! No!” Diener for the first time raised his eyes. He repeated himself, for it seemed important to show this man he was innocent of any past guilt.
Linda was back then, holding two glasses, one of water, the other a third full of whiskey. She handed them to Diener. He could smell her perfume. He thought her eyes seemed warm and forgiving.
“I got to take you in anyway,” Patterson said.
In the lobby, Patterson walked on his left, shielding him with his bulk from the eyes of the doorman. The big policeman seemed bored now and disposed to be kindly. Outside, he tugged Diener gently toward a black and yellow ’56 Buick convertible. He held the door open for Diener and didn’t handcuff him.
After a silent, two-mile drive downtown, Patterson parked before the twin green lights of a police station near Third Avenue. A big Italian sergeant behind the desk flashed a smile and called, “ ’Lo, Tim!” Patterson replied with a wave and led Diener up a rickety, sour-smelling staircase into a long room on the second floor.
The room contained battered desks and filing cases, grim under the harsh overhead lights, and a long row of yellow oak chairs. Two men sat at one of the desks, drinking coffee from cardboard containers. They looked quizzically at Patterson when they saw Diener’s bruised, white face. “Got a cutie,” Patterson told them, and they went disinterestedly back to their coffee.
Diener was brought to a high fingerprint table against the wall. He stood passive and unspeaking while Patterson fastened a fresh card in the holder, squeezed ink onto a glass plate and spread it with a roller. “Now just relax and let me do it,” the big man said, pressing Diener’s fingers into the ink and rolling them one at a time onto the card. His voice was soft. Diener, remembering the fists thudding into his ribs, felt relief shake his knees.
Patterson led him to one of the chairs, removing a pair of handcuffs from his belt. He fastened one link to the chair and pushed Diener’s sleeve back. The metal clicked, cold and irrevocable, around the bared wrist. A deep sigh of resignation wheezed through Diener’s nostrils.
Patterson, carrying the fingerprint card, paused to speak briefly with the two detectives and went out of the room. Diener hadn’t heard what had been said. He closed his eyes. The whiskey the girl had given him burned sourly at the back of his throat. His body and his head ached.
Don’t get sick. He’s not mad anymore. Maybe he’ll let me go. He seems like a nice guy. Don’t get sick. He might get sore again if I puke here. Maybe he’ll let me go. He repeated it over and over to himself, like a kid praying. Maybe he’ll let me go.
He relived lying in bed when he was little, hearing his old man come in, mean drunk as usual, looking for somebody to beat up. He used to lie there, saying over and over to himself, “If I’m quiet, he won’t come in here.” Sometimes it had worked.
A half hour passed. The two men at the desks argued desultorily about Leo Durocher. Maybe he’ll let me go, Diener thought.
Then Patterson was back, standing over him. The handcuffs came off. “Comeon, Elroy,” Patterson said. Diener rose and followed the broad, beautifully tailored back down the stairs and into the street.
Patterson paused by his car, a big man with thick healthy hair, coatless against the chill night. “There’s a bar around the corner on Third,” he told Diener. “You want a beer?”
Diener nodded dumbly.
In the half-empty bar, Patterson slid into a booth and held up two fingers to the waiter. “A pair of brews.”
The little Puerto Rican grinned and said, “Si, Teem.”
Patterson watched thoughtfully while Diener poured the beer into his burning throat. “It’s a good thing for you, you didn’t lie to me,” he said at last. “I called headquarters after I got a classification on your prints. You don’t have any record. What did you think you were doing up there tonight?”
Diener flushed and lowered his eyes to the table top. “I–I don’t know. It’s crazy, all that stuff I told her. I just wanted to meet her, I guess.” A wild hope was running through Diener. Maybe he’ll let me go, if I can just make him see what it’s like. “I can never talk to girls when I meet them. An ugly guy like me. I’m too shy.” He moved his head abruptly to look Patterson in the eye. “I’m thirty-four. I never had a girl in my life without paying her for it!”