Page 42

Jerome laid a finger against his cheek, cocked his head, and studied Wohl.

“I just don’t know,” he said. “Maybe a stockbroker. A successful stockbroker. I love your suit.”

“Miss Dutton, they’re ready for you at the Roundhouse,” Wohl said.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, I’d like you to come down there with me. They want your statement, and I think they’ll have some photographs to show you. And then I’ll see that you’re brought back here.”

“Will whatever it is wait five minutes?” Louise said. “I want to see what Cohen’s going to put on.”

“I beg your pardon?” Wohl asked.

“It’s time for ‘Nine’s News,’ “ she said.

“Oh,” he said.

“Can I offer you a drink?” Jerome asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Wohl said. “I’d like a drink. Scotch?”

“Absolutely,” Jerome said, happily. Louise opened the door of a maple cabinet, revealing a large color television screen. She turned it on and, still bent over it, so that Wohl had a clear view of her naked breast, looked at him as she waited for it to come on.

“The guy on ‘Dragnet,’ “ Louise Dutton said, “Sergeant Joe Friday, would say, ‘No ma’am, I’m on duty.’“

“I’m not Sergeant Friday,” Wohl said, with a faint smile.

She’s bombed, and unaware her dressing gown is open. Or is it the to-be-expected casualness about nudity of a hooker?

That’s an interesting possibility. She’s obviously not walking the streets asking men if they want a date, but I don V think she’s making half enough money smiling on television to afford this place. Is she somebody’s mistress, some middle-aged big shot’s extracurricular activity, who was taking a bus driver’s holiday with Dutch?

And who’s Jerome? The friend of the family?

The picture suddenly came on, and the sound. Louise turned the volume up, and stepped back as Jerome touched Wohl’s shoulder and handed him a squarish glass of whiskey.

The screen showed Louise Dutton’s old convertible with a cop at the wheel leaving the Waikiki Diner parking lot. A female voice said, “This is a special ‘Nine’s News’ bulletin. A Philadelphia police captain gave his life this afternoon foiling a holdup. ‘Nine’s News’ co-anchor Louise Dutton was an eyewitness. Full details on ‘Nine’s News’ at six.”

The Channel Nine logo came on the screen. A male voice said, “WCBL-TV, Channel 9, Philadelphia. It’s six o’clock.”

Another male voice said, as the “Nine’s News” set appeared on the screen, “ ‘Nine’s News’ at six is next.”

The “Nine’s News” logo appeared on the screen, and then dissolved into a close-up shot of Barton Ellison, a tanned, handsome, craggy-faced former actor, who had abandoned the stage and screen for television journalism, primarily because he hadn’t worked in over two years.

“Louise Dutton isn’t here with me tonight,” Barton Ellison said, in his deep, trained actor’s voice, looking directly into the camera. “She wanted to be. But she was an eyewitness to the gun battle in which Philadelphia Highway Patrol Captain Richard C. Moffitt gave his life this afternoon. She knows the face of the bandit that is, at this moment, still free. Louise Dutton is under police protection. Full details, and exclusive ‘Nine’s News’ film, after these messages.”

There follow

ed twenty seconds of Louise being escorted to her car at the Waikiki Diner, and of the car, with a policeman at the wheel, following a police car out of the parking lot. Then there was a smiling baby on the screen, as a disposable-diaper commercial began.

“That sonofabitch!” Louise Dutton exploded. She looked at Wohl. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“I don’t understand,” Wohl said.

“I never told him I was under police protection,” Louise said.

“Oh,” Wohl said. He could not understand why she was upset. He took a sip of his scotch. He couldn’t tell what brand it was, only that it was expensive.

The diaper commercial was followed by one for a new motion picture to be shown later that night for the very first time on television, and then for one for a linoleum floor wax which apparently had an aphrodisiacal effect on generally disinterested husbands.