And suddenly it came, and he was on stage, and the girl was talking to him, and in the void beyond the footlights were a thousand eyes all staring at him, waiting for him to reply, waiting like the girl for an answer that would not come, for a performance that would not happen. And here was this girl talking to him, and he didn’t even know her name. Christ, he didn’t even know his name. And the girl was talking, and the people were watching, and a phone was ringing, and-
A phone? A phone in a Chekhov play? Wait What was going on? Something was not right. Couldn’t be a phone. A bell, maybe. Yeah. A bell. Saved by the bell. He didn’t have to go on. He didn’t have to answer. The play was called off, down but not out, saved by the bell at the count of nine and-
Steve’s eyes popped open. He blinked, stared. Where was he? What was that?
His eyes blurred. Then focused.
A battered bookcase. The top two shelves taken up with worn, dog-eared, Perry Mason murder mysteries-paperbacks, some with their spines cracked, and the pages separated so that the titles were no longer legible; others, in slightly better repair, dating themselves with twenty-five-and thirty-five-cent prices. The middle shelves filled with books of plays, including several Samuel French scripts. The lower shelves filled with newer-looking law books.
Posters tacked to dirty, cracked, off-white walls. Faded posters from summer stock theatre productions: “Mayfair Theatre presents A Streetcar Named Desire”; “Roundtree Summer Theatre presents The Homecoming.”
A window with the blind drawn, light spilling through the cracks, offering the only illumination in the room.
The room where Steve lay stretched out on the couch.
Listening to the phone ring.
His room. His couch. His phone.
Phone.
Shit.
Steve rolled onto one side, reached over the end of the couch and grabbed the receiver from the end table.
“Hello,” he muttered.
An adenoidal voice said, “Mr. Winslow?”
“Yes.”
“This is your answering service. A Miss-”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” Steve said. “Lemme get a pencil.”
He hung the phone over the end of the couch, sat up, and threw the blanket off him. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock: 4:30. Damn.
He got to his feet and pulled up the blind to let the light in. He turned and looked around, helplessly.
Steve’s apartment was a one-room affair not unlike Sheila’s except for the fact that his couch did not fold out into a bed, he slept on it as is, and, while Sheila kept her apartment fairly neat, his was a holy mess.
He plodded to the desk, pawed through the litter on top, and pulled open the drawers.
No pencil. Letters, books, magazines, newspapers, everything else but a pencil.
He was about to give up and just try to memorize the message, when he spotted a pencil on the floor. He scooped it up. The point was broken. He began picking at it with his thumbnail. He grabbed a letter off his desk and hurried back to the phone.
“Okay,” he said. “Shoot.”
“A Miss Sheila Benton called and wants you to call her right back. She said it was urgent.”
“Wait a minute. What did you tell her?”
“Just what it says on your card-‘Mr. Winslow is in conference with a client right now. Could I have him call you back?’”
“Fine. What was the name?”
“Sheila Benton.”
“And the number?”
She told him and he wrote it down as best he could with the unsharpened pencil. It was poor, but it was legible.
He hung up the phone and dialed the number.
The first ring had barely begun when the phone was snatched up and a voice said, “Hello?”
“Sheila Benton?”
“Yes.”
“Steve Winslow, returning your call.”
“Oh, Mr. Winslow. Thank god you’re there. I need an attorney.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“A man was murdered in my apartment this afternoon.”
There was a moment’s pause while Winslow digested the information. Murdered! Really? Was this a crank phone call? Was this one of his friends playing a joke on him?
“Murdered?”
“Yes. A man I’d never seen before. And yesterday I received a blackmail letter.”
Jesus. If this was a prank, it was too good not to bite.
“Miss Benton, I’d better see you right away. Where are you now?”
“In my apartment. Do you want me to come to your office?”
Steve instinctively glanced at the cluttered room. He smiled slightly. “No. Don’t come to my office. I want to see the scene of the crime anyway. I’ll come there.”
“All right It’s 193 West 89th Street, 2B.”
He almost said, “Or not to be,” but controlled himself. Instead he said, “Be right there.”
He hung up the phone and shook his head. Holy shit. Was it possible? A client.
He stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the light and splashed water on his face. He gazed at his reflection in the mirror.
Though he was thirty-five, he looked younger. Part of the reason was his shoulder-length dark hair, which made him look like a hippie from the sixties. The hair framed a lean, expressive, sensitive face. Damn. An artist’s face, not a lawyer’s.
Steve pulled off the t-shirt and undershorts he had been sleeping in, and jumped into the shower. He washed quickly, got out and toweled himself dry.
Now what to do? His hair. Jesus, his hair. He had kept it long since his acting days out of force of habit-you could always cut it for a part, but you couldn’t grow it overnight. Well, no time for a haircut now. He left it wet, combed it back, plastered it to the back of his neck. There. He could tuck it into his shirt collar.
If he had a clean shirt. Shit. He groped through the closet. Yes. A white shirt. Could use an ironing, but not bad. He grabbed it off the hanger, put it on, tucking the hair under the collar. He buttoned it to the neck, to hold the hair in place.
He went and looked in the mirror. Not bad.
Of course, pants would help.
He went back, jerked open a drawer of the bureau, found a pair of jockey shorts, pulled them on.
Great. Now the suit.
Steve rummaged through the whole closet before he remembered. Shit. He’d lent the suit to Arthur for that wedding last year, and he’d never gotten it back. And Arthur’d moved to California.
Jesus, what to do? Improvise. Pants, jacket, tie-throw it together, get it done. If you’re going to do it at all. If not, call her back and tell her to forget it. What are you, nuts? The first client in a year. Come on Winslow, you big schmuck, this can’t be that hard.
He continued to rummage through the closet and dresser drawers.
10
Sheila Benton opened the front door and stared.
Standing in the doorway was a young man with his hair slicked back from his head, wearing blue jeans, a tan corduroy jacket and a green tie.
Sheila blinked. “Yes?”
“Sheila Benton?”
“Yes.”
“Steve Winslow.”
Sheila blinked again.
Steve wasn’t going to take the chance of having the door slammed in his face, not by a potential client, and not in a murder case. He pushed right by her and into the apartment.
Sheila, as if in a daze, closed the door and locked it. She turned to find the young man standing looking down at the chalk outline on the floor.
“This is where you found him, eh?” Steve said.
“Yes.”
“How was he killed?”
“With a knife.”
“In the front or the back?”
“The back.”
He frowned. “Hmm. That probably rules out self-defense. So he was lying on his stomach?”
“Yes.”
“Where’d the knife come from?”
“It was mine. From that set on the wall.”
Sheila pointed to the kitchen alcove.
“Uh huh.” He crossed to the alcove. He pantomimed taking a knife out of the rack, turning and stabbing the man. He followed the man’s fall down to the chalk line.