He went back to the office.
“Stay here, Stern, until the boys arrive. No need for you to stay, Mr. Hanson.”
“Hell, no,” Joey said bitterly. “I should just leave and let your hoodlums tear up the office by the roots. I stay.”
“You stay,” Sands said. “Who cares? Good night.”
Once out of their sight Sands ran along the hall and out to his car. He was on Charles Street within ten minutes. Most of the house lights were out. The houses were built alike, a row of them, dark and blank and mysterious.
One hundred and ten in tin letters nailed on a muddy-red pillar. A hall light was burning. Sands got out of the car and walked up to the front of the house and looked in. But he did not press the bell because a light had gone on suddenly in the front left room and a woman came to the window and pulled down the blind.
Sands rapped at the door, very quietly, so that only the woman could hear him. She came out immediately into the hall as if she’d been expecting someone. She was smiling when she opened the door.
The smile fled from her eyes though her mouth remained as it was, with the corners turned up.
“What do you want?” she said.
A man came sauntering up the street, and both Sands and the woman turned to look at him. Sands recognized him as the policeman assigned to watch the house.
“Miss Rosen?” Sands said. “My name is Sands.”
“Well?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“So do a lot of other guys,” Mamie said. “But I don’t like their language. Beat it.”
“I would like to borrow some of Mr. Murillo’s clothes,” Sands said. “Shall I wait here or come inside?”
She stared at him and her eyes were big brown glass marbles ready to fall out and roll down the steps.
“Police,” Sands said.
“What do you want?”
“What I said. Some of Murillo’s clothes.”
“Why?”
Sands smiled. “Oh, say for sentimental reasons. Shall I come in?”
“No, don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”
She leaned against the wall, breathing so hard that her breasts shook. She rubbed her left foot up and down her right leg, like a child seeking comfort. Sands noticed that her shoes were too tight. There was a puff of fat where the shoes stopped.
“Do your feet hurt?” Sands said.
“My... my feet?” The question frightened her more than the others. She didn’t understand that he simply wanted to know, had always wanted to know if it was true that women would suffer to make their feet appear half an inch smaller. This seemed the right time to find out.
“What about my feet?” she said huskily. “You must be crazy. What about my feet? What about them?”
“Did you walk home from the club?”
“Yes.”
“In those shoes?”
“What’s the matter with these shoes? You beat it. I don’t believe you’re a policeman. Get the hell out of here.”
“I want some of Murillo’s clothes. Hat, shoes, coat and a shirt, unlaundered if possible.” He stepped inside the hall and she made no move to stop him. She was still leaning against the wall as if she was exhausted.
“Do I go in alone?” Sands said. “Or are you coming?”
She blinked at him. “I’m coming. But don’t you touch me!”
“Why should I touch you?”
“Why in hell shouldn’t you?” she said angrily. “Who do you think you are? Think you’re too good for me?”
He had hit her professional pride for the second time and he knew she was dangerous without her pride. He let her walk in ahead of him, still watching her feet. She walked with small mincing steps, her body bent forward, adjusting itself to the high heels.
He looked around the room. The best room of the house undoubtedly, which was not saying a great deal. The bed had a chenille spread, there was a studio couch, a fireplace with a litter of unburned cigarette ends and waste paper, an easy chair, and a wardrobe standing along one wall.
He pulled open the wardrobe. Mamie’s clothes and Murillo’s hung together on the rack in conjugal bliss.
“Help yourself,” Mamie said bitterly. “I can’t stop you. Steal anything you want to.”
“Borrow is a better word,” Sands said.
He took a hat, a black fedora, from the top shelf, a coat, a dirty shirt from a pile of clothing on the floor, and a pair of shoes.
“What, no pants?” Mamie said.
He shut the wardrobe carefully. With the clothes piled over one arm and the pair of shoes in his hand he looked like a junk man who had just closed a bargain.
“Any rags, any bones, any bottles?” Mamie said, “Now get out and leave me in peace.” Her mouth was shaking and she covered it with the back of her hand.
“Nerves?” Sands said. “I shouldn’t wonder. What did you do with the gun?”
“G-gun? What gun?”
“The gun you used on Jordan.”
She began to sob. “Oh, you’re crazy, you’re just crazy. You keeping saying these things to me and I can’t stop you and I don’t know what you’re meaning. And I just don’t know...”
“Then I’ll tell you. Jordan was shot in the stomach tonight in Joey’s office. It’s a very nasty place to shoot anyone. They don’t die fast, they just bleed away. It’s the place a woman usually aims for. Women like big targets.”
“I don’t know,” Mamie sobbed. “I just don’t know.”
“That’s why I’m telling you. Jordan isn’t dead. They gave him a transfusion and took him to a hospital. The odd part of it is that he was talking to me when he was shot. I heard someone say ‘Stevie’ so it was someone he knew pretty well, don’t you think? Not Murillo. If Murillo had come into the office Jordan would have yelled. And besides, Murillo doesn’t use a gun. After the shot I heard footsteps, five of them. We tried it out later when Jordan was taken away. A man wouldn’t need to take five steps to reach the door. A woman would, especially if she wore shoes that were too small and had high heels.”
She stopped sobbing and cried, “And I’m the only woman in town who does?”
“Rather cool night,” Sands said. “What did you wear on your walk home?”
“A coat.”
“Gloves?”
“What about it?”
“Where are the gloves?”
“None of your business!” she yelled.
He began to walk toward her, slowly. “Everything you do is my business,” he said softly, “because I’m out to get Murillo. I’m going to get Murillo. I’m going to get Murillo.”
She fell forward on her knees, screaming.
Chapter 14
“... in co-operation with the police department, the makers of Crispcrunch, the ideal new breakfast food that is teeming with vitamins and good flavor, are broadcasting this description of a dangerous criminal. Wanted for murder: Antonio Murillo. Eyes, brown. Complexion, medium. Hair, curly black. Height, five foot eleven. Weight 160 pounds. Age 28. Watch for this man, all you good people who are breakfasting on Crispcrunch. He is a dangerous criminal, and perhaps he is a dangerous criminal because he hadn’t the advantage of a perfect diet with a balanced supply of minerals, vitamins and calories. And a perfect diet spells Crispcrunch! The time is fourteen and one-half minutes past eight o’clock, and your Crispcrunch announcer is Al Animal.”
“Turn it off, John,” Alice said irritably. “Your bacon is getting cold.”
The thin stream of sunlight from the window caught her face and pinched it into angles as sharp as her voice. It was as if Alice, having given herself away last night, had turned up a new path, and the controlled gentleness by which they had come to recognize her had vanished never to return.