The muffled clang of elevator doors was heavy through the silence. A horn tooted dismally out in the rain on the boulevard. The girl sagged forward suddenly, then sidewise, fell across Carmady’s knees. Her body was half turned and she lay almost on her back across his thighs, her eyelids flickering. The small blue veins in them stood out rigid in the soft skin.
He put his arms around her slowly, loosely, then they tightened, lifted her. He brought her face close to his own face. He kissed her on the side of the mouth.
Her eyes opened, stared blankly, unfocused. He kissed her again, tightly, then pushed her upright on the davenport.
He said quietly: «That wasn’t just an act, was it?»
She leaped to her feet, spun around. Her voice was low, tense and angry.
«There’s something horrible about you! Something — satanic. You come here and tell me another man has been killed — and then you kiss me. It isn’t real.»
Carmady said dully: «There’s something horrible about any man that goes suddenly gaga over another man’s woman.»
«I’m not his woman!» she snapped. «I don’t even like him — and I don’t like you.»
Carmady shrugged. They stared at each other with bleak hostile eyes. The girl clicked her teeth shut, then said almost violently: «Get out! I can’t talk to you any more. I can’t stand you around. Will you get out?»
Carmady said: «Why not?» He stood up, went over and got his hat and coat.
The girl sobbed once sharply, then she went in light quick strides across the room to the windows, became motionless with her back to him.
Carmady looked at her back, went over near her and stood looking at the soft hair low down on her neck. He said: «Why the hell don’t you let me help? I know there’s something wrong. I wouldn’t hurt you.»
The girl spoke to the curtain in front of her face, savagely: «Get out! I don’t want your help. Go away and stay away. I won’t be seeing you — ever.»
Carmady said slowly: «I think you’ve got to have help. Whether you like it or not. That man in the photo frame on the desk there — I think I know who he is. And I don’t think he’s dead.»
The girl turned. Her face now was as white as paper. Her eyes strained at his eyes. She breathed thickly, harshly. After what seemed a long time she said: «I’m caught. Caught. There’s nothing you can do about it.»
Carmady lifted a hand and drew his fingers slowly down her cheek, down the angle of her tight jaw. His eyes held a hard brown glitter, his lips a smile. It was cunning, almost a dishonest smile.
He said: «I’m wrong, angel. I don’t know him at all. Good night.»
He went back across the room, through the little hallway, opened the door. When the door opened the girl clutched at the curtain and rubbed her face against it slowly.
Carmady didn’t shut the door. He stood quite still halfway through it, looking at two men who stood there with guns.
They stood close to the door, as if they had been about to knock. One was thick, dark, saturnine. The other one was an albino with sharp red eyes, a narrow head that showed shining snow-white hair under a rain-spattered dark hat. He had the thin sharp teeth and the drawn-back grin of a rat.
Carmady started to close the door behind him. The albino said: «Hold it, rube. The door, I mean. We’re goin’ in.»
The other man slid forward and pressed his left hand up and down Carmady’s body carefully. He stepped away, said: «No gat, but a swell flask under his arm.»
The albino gestured with his gun. «Back up, rube. We want the broad, too.»
Carmady said tonelessly: «It doesn’t take a gun, Critz. I know you and I know your boss. If he wants to see me, I’ll be glad to talk to him.»
He turned and went back into the room with the two gunmen behind him.
Jean Adrian hadn’t moved. She stood by the window still, the curtain against her cheek, her eyes closed, as if she hadn’t heard the voices at the door at all.
Then she heard them come in and her eyes snapped open. She turned slowly, stared past Carmady at the two gunmen. The albino walked to the middle of the room, looked around it without speaking, went on into the bedroom and bathroom. Doors opened and shut. He came back in quiet catlike feet, pulled his overcoat open and pushed his hat back on his head.
«Get dressed, sister. We have to go for a ride in the rain. Okey?»
The girl stared at Carmady now. He shrugged, smiled a little, spread his hands.
«That’s how it is, angel. Might as well fall in line.»
The lines of her face got thin and contemptuous. She said slowly: «You — You — — — —.» Her voice trailed off into a sibilant, meaningless mutter. She went across the room stiffly and out of it into the bedroom.
The albino slipped a cigarette between his sharp lips, chuckled with a wet, gurgling sound, as if his mouth was full of saliva.
«She don’t seem to like you, rube.»
Carmady frowned. He walked slowly to the writing desk, leaned his hips against it, stared at the floor.
«She thinks I sold her out,» he said dully.
«Maybe you did, rube,» the albino drawled.
Carmady said: «Better watch her. She’s neat with a gun.»
His hands, reaching casually behind him on the desk, tapped the top of it lightly, then without apparent change of movement folded the leather photo frame down on its side and edged it under the blotter.
EIGHT
There was a padded arm rest in the middle of the rear seat of the car, and Carmady leaned an elbow on it, cupped his chin in his hand, stared through the half-misted windows at the rain. It was thick white spray in the headlights, and the noise of it on the top of the car was like drum fire very far off.
Jean Adrian sat on the other side of the arm rest, in the corner. She wore a black hat and a gray coat with tufts of silky hair on it, longer than caracul and not so curly. She didn’t look at Carmady or speak to him.
The albino sat on the right of the thick dark man, who drove. They went through silent streets, past blurred houses, blurred trees, the blurred shine of street lights. There were neon signs behind the thick curtains of mist. There was no sky.
Then they climbed and a feeble arc light strung over an intersection threw light on a signpost, and Carmady read the name «Court Street.»
He said softly: «This is woptown, Critz. The big guy can’t be so dough-heavy as he used to be.»
Lights flickered from the albino’s eyes as he glanced back. «You should know, rube.»
The car slowed in front of a big frame house with a trellised porch, walls finished in round shingles, blind, lightless windows. Across the street, a stencil sign on a brick building built sheer to the sidewalk said: «Paolo Perrugini Funeral Parlors.»
The car swung out to make a wide turn into a gravel driveway. Lights splashed into an open garage. They went in, slid to a stop beside a big shiny undertaker’s ambulance.
The albino snapped: «All out!»
Carmady said: «I see our next trip is all arranged for.»
«Funny guy,» the albino snarled. «A wise monkey.»
«Uh-uh. I just have nice scaffold manners,» Carmady drawled.
The dark man cut the motor and snapped on a big flash, then cut the lights, got out of the car. He shot the beam of the flash up a narrow flight of wooden steps in the corner. The albino said: «Up you go, rube. Push the girl ahead of you. I’m behind with my rod.»
Jean Adrian got out of the car past Carmady, without looking at him. She went up the steps stiffly, and the three men made a procession behind her.