She stared at me blankly.
“He wasn't necessarily after loot,” I said. “He might have been there after Nadine.”
“You mean he might actually have come there to kill her?”
“It's possible.”
“My God! Think what would have happened if he hadn't put that flashlight on me!”
“It's something to think about, all right,” I said. “What'd he do after he stood there for a while? Just up and walk out?”
“Yes — and it was a good five minutes afterward before I could stop trembling enough to get up and put a chair under the door knob.”
“I assume you didn't call the police because you were afraid something might come out about you and Eddie Dycer.”
“Yes. Naturally.”
“Wasn't the light burning in the hall?”
“Yes.”
“Then how does it happen you couldn't see him when he opened the hall door? He would have been directly in the light.”
“I was facing the other way. I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn't have turned my head if my life had depended on it.”
“What'd Nadine say about all this?”
“She didn't believe it had happened. There was nothing missing from the apartment, nothing disturbed, and no signs of anyone tampering with the lock — so she thought I must have been dreaming. I do have perfectly horrible nightmares sometimes, and I'd told her about them. That's what she thought it was — a nightmare. The more I tried to convince her otherwise, the more I amused her. Finally I decided to say no more about it.”
“No chance she could have been right about it being a nightmare, is there?”
“Definitely not, Mr. Selby,” she said testily. “None whatsoever.”
“Nadine had a pair of sapphire earrings,” I said. “You ever see them?”
“She wore them constantly.”
“You know whether they were the genuine article?”
“Yes. It happens I am an authority on stones, Mr. Selby. Nadine's earrings were genuine sapphires.”
“Valuable?”
“Very. I never examined them too closely, but I'd judge they were worth about two thousand.” She picked up the paint brush, and then dropped it and began drumming her fingertips soundlessly on the top of the desk. “I remember that when she came in asking for work, I wondered why a girl with such an expensive pair of earrings preferred not to sell them, even if it meant going to work for the pittance I could pay her.” Her voice was even enough, but her eyes were frightened, as if she were reflecting on the close call she'd had in Nadine's apartment.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about that man with the flashlight?” I asked. “You saw only his outline. That's all?”
“Yes, that's all. He was broad-shouldered, as I told you, and very tall. He must have been as tall as you are.”
“You're certain there's nothing else?”
“Quite certain, Mr. Selby.”
“You think Nadine may have been blackmailing anyone?”
“Blackmail? Nadine? Why, of course not. She wasn't that kind of person.”
“I don't think either of us can be too sure just what kind of person she was,” I said.
She shook her head emphatically. “Not Nadine. It's inconceivable.”
“Still, she was in a pretty good business for it. Almost every one of her customers would have been vulnerable. If they hadn't been, they wouldn't have been willing to pay her so much for so little.”
“I can't help thinking you'll find you're mistaken, Mr. Selby,” she said. “I realize what she did can't be defended morally or ethically, any more than what I did can be. But Nadine had a kind of — call it a rationale. She merely understood that people are often all too human. All she did was provide a place where they could be human safely.”
“In other words, if she didn't accommodate them, someone else would,” I said. “Was that the rationale?”
“I suppose you might put it something like that, yes,” she said. “But there was certainly nothing vicious about her, Mr. Selby. No matter what else can be said of her, she had no meanness in her.”
I took out the snapshot of Nadine and Marty and placed it on the desk before her. “You ever see this before?” I asked.
“Isn't it the one from her mirror?”
“Yes. How about the man? You recognize him?”
“Yes. At least I think it's the same man.”
“You know his name?”
“No, that I can't tell you. But I think it's the same man that…” She broke off; and once again her eyes made the same involuntary trip to the front of the shop and back again.
“The same man that what, Mrs. Pedrick?” I said.
“I think I've seen him come in the Hi-Lo,” she said reluctantly. “Mr. Selby?”
“Yes.”
“Must you talk to Eddie?”
“Yes.”
“I wish you didn't.”
“Why not?”
“He — Well he has an unbelievable temper.”
“I'll bear that in mind.”
“He'll be very angry with me, if you cause him any annoyance.”
My cigar had gone out again. I relighted it, put the snapshot of Nadine and Marty back in my pocket, and started for the door.
“I won't even mention your name,” I said.
Chapter Five
THERE ARE, it seems to me, more different kinds of people, places and things in Greenwich Village than there are in any other part of the city. The Village, as a whole, is like no other place anywhere. It is all things to all people, and yet it is not always the same thing to any of them.
There are, for example, the saloons.
The Hi-Lo was a workingman's bar, a small, narrow place with black paint halfway up the plate-glass front and, above the paint, a couple of hundred playing cards stuck to the glass in fan-shaped groups of five, mostly straights and flushes. To the left of the Hi-Lo was a posh drinkery called The Academy, complete with gold-and-blue canopy and liveried doorman. To the right was The Ultimate Ecstasy, a shabby-looking dike joint that usually had more lesbians cruising the sidewalk outside it than it had paying customers within.
I walked into the Hi-Lo's air-cooled dimness and took the stool nearest the street end of the bar. Aside from the barkeep and a middle-aged lady loner, it was empty.
The bartender was about forty, a powerfully built man with a square, heavy-featured face, thick black hair combed straight back to the nape of his neck, and gray eyes with tiny hoods at their outer corners. He finished totalling up a handful of bar tabs, stacked them neatly beside the cash register, and walked up to my end of the bar.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “What'll it be?”
“Glass of water,” I said.
“Characters,” he said softly. “Straight?”
“With an ice cube,” I said, and showed him my potsy.
He sighed, drew a glass of water, dropped an ice cube into it, and sat it down before me. “So?” he said.
“You Eddie Dycer?”
“Maybe.”
“It's a hot day,” I said. “Too hot to fool around.”
He shrugged. “So I'm Eddie Dycer. So?”
I showed him the snapshot of Nadine and Marty. “You know these people?” I asked.
He glanced at the picture disinterestedly, then made a pass at the bar with his towel. “I think maybe I've seen them around,” he said. “The guy, anyway.”
“You've seen the girl, too,” I said. “You've seen her two or three times a week for the last six months.”
“What a fink,” he said. “She's got a big mouth, that one.”
“How much do you know about her?”
“What's to know? She's a friend of a friend of mine. All I know is she's too good-looking a piece to have such a big mouth.” He put both elbows on the bar and leaned forward. “What's the beef?”