The tableau was only momentary before she came to me and took my hand. This time hers wasn't shaking at all. I turned her around, put my fingers under the chin and tilted her head up to me. Very slowly, her tongue licked her lips, making them glisten softly, her eyes intense and sleepy looking. But I didn't kiss her. I let my fingertips run under her sleeves, caressing her skin gently, then I led her to the couch and eased her down. She quivered gently and smiled, squirming into the soft cushions, her eyes still sleepy and hungry.
"I'll be right back," I said and she nodded dreamily.
I went into the bedroom and it only took me two minutes to find the compact and another one to locate the catch that let the back of it drop open. It was made to hold another type of powdered cosmetic, and what was there was a powder, all right, but it wasn't cosmetic. The syringe was in a velvet case in her large jewel box. I took them both back to the living room and walked to the couch.
Heidi was lying there waiting. She had opened the belt and thrown the housecoat wide open. One hand half cupped a breast and her thighs were parted in invitation. Her eyes were closed but the one in the center of her belly was watching me avidly.
I said, "Heidi," her eyes came open and she smiled. "You're a junkie."
Then her eyes went wide and the smile stopped.
"No wonder you needed that compact so badly, kid. Who cut off your supply?"
No vibrancy in her voice now at all. Nothing but sheer childish fear, weak and hesitant. "Mike ..."
"You're a great actress, kid. You faked it nicely, but then, you didn't have much of a choice. A real loud beef about the loss might have brought in a smart insurance investigator who would have found your stash, or a trip to the police lost-and-found meant taking a chance talking to a wised-up cop who spotted your symptoms and got the picture right away."
"Please, Mike ..."
"You're lucky, doll." I tossed the compact down on the table. "It's your problem, not mine, and I'm not making it mine. I could dump this stuff but you'd only find another supplier. I could turn you in but some sweet judge would only turn you out again, especially if it were your first rap. The resulting publicity could kill you altogether or could make you bigger than ever. That's happened too. All I want to tell you is that you're a jerk. The complete clown. A raggedy-ass damn fool idiot and right now you're able to know what I'm talking about. You're probably not on too bad, but you're hooked and you're scared to bust it. All you can do is go downhill and lose everything you ever worked for and pretty soon you'll be working even harder peddling your behind ten times a day for enough to buy a jolt. You look great lying there right now and if you were for real I'd join the fun and games and come away with a great memory, but you're not for real any more and I wouldn't waste my time at it. So give it a big thought, baby, if you're capable of it. Think about it every day and do what you please. You can come back to the land of the living or start getting all your papers and photos in order so that when they find your lovely little corpse in the river or on the floor with a deliberate overdose because it all got too much for you, the news-hounds will be able to give you a nice, lurid send-off in the obit columns."
She had never stopped watching me. Those azure eyes were wide open, unconsciously wet. One hand pulled the front of the housecoat across the slow heave of her stomach and her breasts moved with a quick intake of breath.
I got my hat from the table beside the door and got the hell out of there. I walked eight blocks toward my apartment before I bothered to flag down a cab. When I got
home I showered, had another drink and flopped down on the bed, looking at nothing on the ceiling.
Stupid, idiotic broad. But I was just as sore at myself. Something about the whole deal should have told me something and I was too aggravated to put it in its right place.
CHAPTER 5
By noontime I had reduced Lippy's haul to two undelivered wallets. The owner of the rattier shabby job lived and worked in Queens and made an appointment to meet me at my office on Saturday to pick it up. The other belonged to William Dorn who was about to donate to the P.A.L. like the others. A maid gave me his office number and when I called him he was appreciative and invited me to lunch at The Chimes, a sedate and expensive restaurant on East Fifty-seventh Street. My taste didn't run to exotic French cuisine, but the change could be different and I made a one o'clock date to see him there. I tried another call to the office and Velda's apartment but she was at neither place so I rang Eddie Dandy and he was glad to take a beer, break with me for a half hour.
I had to laugh when I saw him. It wasn't the hell he had caught from the network for making waves or the embarrassment of sweating out the snide remarks from the rest of the staff. It was the agony of having to sit on a story he knew was hot and not being able to release it.
He downed a tall schooner of lager without stopping, belched once and called for another. "Only one thing got me, buddy. Suppose somebody else pieces it together the same way I did."
"Quit worrying. By now they have it all nicely organized with everybody briefed properly and they'll be able to con the best cynic into taking their word for it. Right now it's a dead issue."
"Not to a couple of guys I know. They couldn't picture me doing an about-face like that. You catch my retraction?"
"Missed it."
"That's the trouble with color TV. They could see the egg all over my face in bright yellow against screaming red. It wasn't easy, pal. I hope when I make the next
announcement I'm not a pasty white. If they don't get that stuff this whole country could be wiped out. You know anything about the germ warfare developments?"
"Just what I read in the papers."
"Well, it isn't pretty and you're not going to be reading much about it at all. That stuff is as top secret as it can get. Right now they're flooding us with news stories from every direction you can think of just to keep the public's mind off my big squeal. It may work and it may not. We've had the switchboard lit up like a star burst since I broke it and have operators working overtime with nice pat explanations. They're even sending form letters out to those who want them. It's rough, boy, rough. What are you up to?"
"Some simple legwork on a simple matter," I said.
"You still on that Sullivan deal?"
I nodded.
"A lost cause, Mike. They pull the cops in to track down Schneider's killers, they schedule a special political parade to cover the vacation wipe-out, the Crime Commission is laying it on heavy and you couldn't bust a cop loose for special detail work for anything. Nope, you won't get any leg up from the cops until this is over."
"I'm not asking for any."
"Okay, you know the story. You're making a federal case out of a simple murder and robbery. Why?"
"Beats me," I told him. "Maybe because I believed something nobody else believed."
"Hell, people will believe anything. Look what happened with me."
"So waste time. So feel lousy. What's left to do?"
"I told him about the wallets and my date with Dorn. I didn't mention Heidi Anders at all.
"William Dorn?" he asked.
"Know him?"
"Park Avenue offices?"
"That's the one."
"Sure, he's chairman of the board of Anco Electronics, his March Chemical Company engineered that new oil refining process the industry has turned to and now he's gone heavy in mining. You're traveling in fancy company, kiddo. I never thought I'd see the day. Ole Mike Hammer, denizen of the side streets, partying with cafe society. Better not let it get to be a habit."