The taxi bumped across Sixth Avenue and scooted ahead for Fifth, along Bryant Park. Nearing the library, he called to the driver, "Stop at the kerb and leave the meter on." As we rolled to a standstill I said, "You'd better kept the rest of your dough to pay the fare with."
He sat and glared at me in silence. Finally he blurted, "Look here, I can't take you to her. I can't do that. I'll tell you what I'll do: You wait right here, and I'll take another cab and be back here with her inside of twenty minutes."
I stared at him. "The reason I don't talk," I told him, "is because I'm speechless. Holy heaven!"
"What's wrong with that? I give you my word-"
"I don't want it. Cut the comedy and let's go."
He glared some more. I permitted it for a full minute and then got impatient. "I'll count up to twenty-nine," I said, "one for each year of my life and one to grow on and one to get married on, and then-"
"Wait a minute." He was approaching the pleading stage. "The reason I can't take you to her is a personal reason. I don't intend to try any deception; I can't. You know damn well the hole I'm in. What about this? You go with me to a phone booth, and I'll call her up and tell her to meet us-"
I shook my head emphatically. "No. A thousand times no. Quit trying to wiggle off the hook. How do I know but what you've got a code with her to use in emergencies? Remember I'm ignorant. I don't even know but what Wolfe has got it figured out that she killed Ludlow and, in that case. " I shrugged. "I'm only a puppet and I'm under orders. For God's sake, shut up and let's go."
He curled his fingers to make fists. "I can just open this door and beat it. You know?"
"Go ahead. Don't let me stop you. Then I could phone Wolfe and go on home."
"But, goddam it, if you hear me phone-"
"Shut up! I'm bored stiff."
He gave me one more good long glare and then leaned forward and gave the driver an address on Madison Avenue, not ten blocks away. The driver nodded and got going again.
He had enough left to pay the fare. It wasn't a modern apartment house we stopped in front of, but an older building whose days of pride were in the past. The ground floor was a trinket shop, dark, of course. Barrett got out a key and unlocked a door that let us into a small public corridor, went to the rear of it, and with another key admitted us into a miniature elevator of the drive-it-yourself variety. That took us up five storeys, and then we had to climb a flight of stairs. The layout wasn't exactly shabby, though it was far from ostentatious. From the top of the stairs he preceded me through a sort of vestibule and used a third key on a wide, solid-looking door. I followed him in and he shut the door and turned to call out:
"Yoohoo!"
An answer came: "Back here, Donnybonny!"
I could already smell perfume, and the temperature even there in the foyer must have been close to ninety. I copied his example when he took off his coat, but when he scowled at me and said, "Wait here a minute," I disregarded it and went along behind him into a large and dazzling room full of heat, synthetic smells, thick rugs, divans and cushions, miscellaneous fluff, and a pair of damsels. They were sprawled out, one on a divan and the other on a chaise-longue.
Zorka, a loose red thing around her, started a wave of greeting at Barrett and then halted in mid-air as she saw me. Belinda Reade, nothing at all around her, called, "How's my Donny- Oh!" and grabbed for a pale blue neglig233;e that was draped over the back of the divan.
Chapter Eleven
Barrett growled at me, "Didn't I ask you to wait?"
"It doesn't matter," I soothed him. "When my mind is on business-"
"Why," Belinda Reade cried in innocent delight, "it's the detective man! Have a drink?"
She was working on one herself, and the ingredients for plenty more were handy on a little table. Zorka was having one, too. She had raised herself to her elbow on the chaise-longue and was smiling at me foolishly, without any intention, apparently, of saying anything.
Barrett said, "Be quiet, Bel. This fellow came. " He turned to Zorka. "He came for you. My God, look at you-both of you." He frowned at her and switched at me: "You explain it to her "
"Thees ees no time," Zorka declared in an injured tone, "for explanations "
"Have a drink," Miss Reade insisted. "I have never had a drink with a detective, and especially such a darned good-looking detective " She patted the divan and tugged at the negligйe to cover a knee. "Sit here by me and have a drink "
"Don't be a damned fool," Barrett told her Zorka tittered. "She only wants to make you jealous, Donald. Because you make her jealous of the Tormic girl "
"Bah," said Miss Reade. "Have a drink! What's your name?"
"Call me Archie " It struck me that a little reinforcement might help, so I stretched for the bottle and a glass. Then I drew back and turned to Barrett. "But excuse me. If you're the host. "
"This is Miss Reade's apartment," he said stiffly. "But you came here-"
"Please have a drink," the lady begged me.
"Thanks, I will " I poured a good one and tossed it off, and then advised Barrett, "You ought to have a shot yourself. You're under a strain " I confronted Zorka. "The idea is this. After you phoned me at Nero Wolfe's office and told me-"
"What? After what?"
I went closer so she could focus easier "After you phoned and told me you saw Miss Tormic putting something in my overcoat pocket-"
"But I didn't! I? I phoned you?" She waved her glass at Belinda, spilling a drop or two on the rug, and said in a hurt tone, "Don't let him have another drink! He says I phoned him!"
"Maybe you did, darling. You phone so many men. I wouldn't blame you for phoning him. I like him."
"But I didn't!"
"Well, you should have " Belinda used the blue eyes on me. "Have a drink, Percy "
"Not Percy, Archie Percy was the one that got murdered."
"Oh " She frowned at me. "That's right. That's why we started drinking, to forget about it. Brrrh " She shivered, "And I called you Percy! How funny! Don't you think that's funny, Donnyhoney?"
"No," Barrett declared curtly. "This fellow-"
"But of course it's funny! I like Archie, and why should I call him Percy?" She shivered again "It was perfectly terrible! Simply awful! The porter yelling and Percy lying there on the floor, and the police and-" She stopped and stared at me with her lips parted. "Why! I forgot! You son-of-a-gun! It was you that wouldn't let me out of that door! You dirty bum!"
Barrett tapped me on the shoulder "You know, you came-"
"Yeah, I know " I faced Zorka. She had the fixed smile on again I would have given an hour's sleep to know how many drinks she had had "About your phoning me," I said. "Maybe I was just trying to brag. It's my one weakness, bragging about women phoning me. The fact is, I came along with Donald Barrett to save him some trouble. I had to come to 48th Street anyway, to get my car. He told me he had asked you to come and spend the night with Miss Reade, but after the talk we had that wasn't necessary, so he supposed you would want to go home, and that's really what I came for, to take you home. Isn't that right, Barrett?"
"I didn't agree-"
"Isn't that right?"
"Well. yes."
"Sure it is. So if you'll just put on a coat-you don't need to bother to dress-we can take your bag and suitcase-"
"What for?" she demanded.
"Why, if you're going home you'll want your luggage-"
"I'm not going home."
"My God, it's nearly daylight-"
"I'm not going home. Am I going home, Belinda?"
"You are not. Even if you were, you wouldn't go with him. I don't like him. Didn't you hear me say I remembered that I don't like him?"
I poured myself another drink, drank it, sat down on the end of the chaise-longue next to Zorka's feet and considered the situation. It had various aspects, the basic problem being whether she was or was not honestly stoozled. If she was, she wouldn't be worth a damn to Wolfe even if I got her there. But I had my reputation to consider. Over a period of years Wolfe had sent me many places many times, to bring him everything from a spool of thread to a Wall Street broker, and I had batted mighty close to a thousand. Besides that, if I went back without her I knew what Wolfe would say: and in addition to that, her silly smile aggravated me.