Page 54

“Yeah, sure.”

“And that’s what I’m going to do now,” Wohl said. “I’m going to go charm the hell out of her, if I can, and apologize for you, if it seemed to her you weren’t as understanding as you could have been.”

“Fuck understanding,” DelRaye said. “My job is to catch the guys who done in the faggot.”

“And my job is to do what the commissioner tells me to do,” Wohl said. “I’m going to go talk to her. You make sure there’s a car outside when, if, I bring her down the stairs. Get those TV people, and the other reporters, away from the door.”

“How’m I going to do that, Inspector?” DelRaye asked sarcastically. “It’s a public street.”

“No, it’s not Lieutenant,” Wohl said. “It’s a private street. Technically, anybody on Stockton Place who hasn’t been invited is trespassing. Now get them away from the door, if you have to do it yourself.”

“Yes, sir, Inspector,” DelRaye said, his tone of voice leaving no question what he thought about the order, about Staff Inspector Peter Wohl, or Peter Wohl being a Staff Inspector.

EIGHT

Wohl walked out of Jerome Nelson’s apartment and rode the elevator to the upper floor. There were two uniformed policemen there, a portly, red-faced man in his late thirties, and a pleasant-faced young man. He had his head against Louise Dutton’s door and was trying, without success, to get her to talk back to him.

“What can I do for you?” the young one challenged when the elevator door opened.

“That’s Inspector Wohl,” the older one said.

“Hello,” Peter said, and smiled. “I know Miss Dutton. I think I can get her to come out of there. Lieutenant DelRaye is going to move the press away, and have a car waiting downstairs. I’d like you guys to see that Miss Dutton gets in it without being hassled.”

“Yes, sir,” the young cop said.

“She’s got a mouth, that one,” the older one offered. “Even considering she’s had too much to drink, and is upset by what she saw downstairs, you wouldn’t think a woman would use language like that.”

“Haven’t you heard? That’s what women’s lib is all about,” Peter said. “The right to cuss like a man.”

The younger cop shook his head and smiled at him.

He waited until they had gone down in the elevator, and then knocked on the door.

“Go the fuck away!” Louise called angrily.

“Miss Dutton, it’s Peter Wohl,” he called.

There was no response for a long moment, and Peter was just about to raise his cigarette lighter to knock on the door when it opened to the width its burglar chain would permit; wide enough for Louise Dutton to look out and see Peter, and that he was alone.

Then it closed and he heard the chain rattle, and then the door opened completely.

“I wasn’t sure you would come,” she said, and pulled him into the apartment and closed the door again.

She was wearing a blue skirt and a high-ruffle-collared blouse. The body of the blouse was so thin as to be virtually transparent. Through it he could see quite clearly that she wore no slip, only a brassiere, and that the brassiere was no more substantial than the blouse; he could see her nipples.

Her eyes looked more frightened than drunk, he thought, and there was something about her it took him a moment to think he recognized, an aura of sexuality.

She looks horny, Peter Wohl thought.

“Here I am,” Peter said.

She put a smile on her face; grew, he thought, determinedly bright.

“And what did Mrs. Wohl say when you were summoned from your bed at two in the morning, when the crazy lady from TV called for you?” Louise Dutton asked.

I know what it is. She hasn’t really been going around in a transparent shirt, baring her breasts. That skirt is part of a suit; there’s a jacket, and when she wears that, only the ruffles show at the neck. That’s what she wore when she was on TV.

“Nobody summoned me,” Peter Wohl said. “I heard about it, and came. And the only Mrs. Wohl is my mother.”