“I should grieve over a broken-down private eye with a moth-eaten profile yet!” she said coldly. “Can a profile buy diamonds? Can you trade it for a white chinchilla? It’s not even good for eating!”
If I know nothing else, I know when to quit and it was 119
right there. I kept on going out into the night, back to my apartment. I had a couple of drinks, opened a can of smoked oysters and ate them for dinner, because somehow I didn’t feel hungry. The time seemed to drag for a while, then suddenly it was nine o’clock and time I was on my way.
It was exactly nine-thirty when I parked the car in Beckman Place. Half a minute later, Martha Hazelton opened the front door of the apartment for me.
“Come right on in, Danny!” She smiled brilliantly at me. “You don’t know how good it is to see you again.”
I followed her through into the living room, shedding my topcoat on the way. There was a roaring log fire in the white marble fireplace, and the room was almost uncomfortably warm. I noted that Martha was dressed for the warmth of the room.
She had a white nylon kimono knotted loosely over a pair of matching pajamas. The kimono had black piping around the neck which made two deep lapels and was kind of cute. The pajama pants were skintight from the waist down to her ankles and they were even cuter.
A couch had been pulled across in front of the fire, and beside it a formidable array of bottles was stacked on a small table. Martha was watching me intendy, her eyes dancing.
“Come and sit on the couch, Danny,” she said, “nice and warm in front of the fire. Make us a drink and then we’ll be comfortable.” Her voice thickened slightly as she spoke.
“Sounds like a good idea,” I said. “What are you drinking?”
“Scotch,” she said. “Good dependable Scotch—and no ice, Danny. This is winter . . . the winter of my discontent. That’s a quote!”
I moved over to the table and started to make the drinks.
“Just how much of this good dependable Scotch have you had already?” I asked her.
“Don’t be middle-class!” she said contemptuously. “You think I count my drinks?”
“They count, if you don’t,” I said. “But I guess you’re old enough to know what you’re doing.”
“Twenty-seven,” she said. “Old enough to do what I want—rich enough to do what I want—why don’t I do what I want? Answer me that, Daniel Boyd!”
I sat beside her on the couch with the two drinks held in my hands. She whipped the nearest glass out of my hand in a sudden swoop without spilling one drop of whisky.
“Here’s to us, Mr. Boyd!” She raised her glass in an exaggerated toast. “We’ve got it made! Isn’t that what they say?”
“Who say?”
She wrinkled her nose distastefully. “Now you’re being a bellhop again!”
“And you’re being Miss Richbitch again,” I said.
She giggled suddenly. “I guess you’re right. Drink up, Danny, you only live once!”
“Sure,” I said. “Just take it easy and you’ll live a whole lot longer.”
The glass tilted and she drank the neat Scotch down like she was dying of thirst in the middle of the Sahara. She gazed thoughtfully into the empty glass for a moment, then hurled it into the fire. It smashed against the marble, showering fine splinters over the burning logs.
“My grandfather was a Cossack,” she said, slurring the words together slighdy. “He raped all the women and killed all the men! And he lived to the ripe old age of nineteen. You know the moral of that story, Danny Boyd?”
“You tell me,” I grunted.
“You shouldn’t go around killing men, life’s too short to waste on nonessentials.” She dissolved into helpless laughter.
1 thought what the hell was the use of being sober anyway, and drained my glass in one gulp, then refilled it.
Martha stopped laughing suddenly. “What’s the time?” she asked in a quiet voice.
I looked at my watch: “Five after ten.”
“Night’s young,” she said. “And I don’t have a drink.” “I'll get around to it,” I promised. “Right now Tm try-to catch up/’
Half an hour later, I figured maybe I had caught up. There was a slight pounding in my temples, and the pattern in the rug that lay in front of the fire would twitch suddenly now and then.
“Danny?” Her voice drifted over me lazily from right beside me on the couch.
“You call?” I said vaguely.
“When do I get another drink?” she asked plaintively. “About now,” I said. “I figure I’ve caught up and we’re breaking even.”
I made the drinks and handed her one. She clutched the glass with both hands, lovingly, and lifted it to her lips.
“That’s better,” she said when the glass was empty. “I was just starting to get mad at you.”
“I never thought you’d get mad at me,” I said in a hurt voice. “I’m a real nice guy—I know it.”
“I got awful mad at you the first time we met in that bar,” she said. “Remember when you said you bet I wore white underwear and thought all men were beasts?”
“I said that?” I felt mildly surprised at myself.
“You sure did!” she giggled again. “I got mad at you because you were absolutely right. I always wear plain white underwear—and I certainly did think all men were beasts.”
“Not true,” I said profoundly. “Not all the time anyway.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “What’s the time?”
I had trouble focussing for a moment. “Ten after eleven,” I said finally.
“Maybe we should have another drink, Danny.”
We had another drink, and the pounding got fiercer inside my head.
Martha got up on her feet suddenly and threw another glass into the fireplace.
Tm hot,” she said idly. “You hot, Danny?”
“Boiling,” I agreed.
“Should take something off,” she said slowly. “That’s the only answer.”
She undid the kimono belt and slipped the fragile coat from her shoulders, letting it drop to the rug.
“That’s better!” She sighed contentedly and sat down on the couch again.
I leaned my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes for a moment. Everything started to whirl around, gathering speed as it went, so I opened my eyes again quickly.
Martha’s face was only six inches away from mine, her dark eyes looking intently into my face.
“Danny,” she whispered. “You think I’m attractive?”
“I think you’re close to being beautiful, Martha,” I said honesdy. “You have a lovely, elegant, arrogant face, and a figure to match it.”
“Maybe you mean all that,” she said slowly. “I guess that arrogant bit you mean for sure! But you didn’t really answer my question, Daniel Boyd. Am I desirable? Do you want me when I’m close to you like this?” Her head came closer still until our lips met and I nearly jumped at the savage, demanding passion of her kiss. The pounding in my head started all over, but it wasn’t liquor causing it this time.
She broke away from me a long time later, sobbing for breath, her hands flat against my chest, her nails gouging viciously into my skin.
“Danny!” Her voice was choked.
“Yeah?”
She kept her head averted from me. “You remember what you said once—in a joke—about your true profession?”
“Not right now I don’t remember,” I said huskily.
“You know—like my grandfather?”
The faint scent of her perfume mixed with the liquor fumes inside my head like a clarion call to arms. I caught hold of her shoulders and forced her back on the couch. She lay there, limp, her eyes closed tight.
I grabbed hold of the lapels of her pajama jacket and pulled them apart savagely, so the jacket ripped open all the way down to her waist, baring her high, rounded breasts.
Then she laughed. A low, gurgling, sensual sound which was so obscene that my ears refused to believe it for a split-second. A chord in my memory sounded like the crack of Doom. I reared back away from her, stumbling to my feet, and for a moment I felt the terror come creeping over me again, the cobwebs brushed my face and my nerve ends screamed mutely.