out again, and reached the hall in three strides, but the indicator over the cage had already slid down to two. I put away the .38 and went back inside.
Kneeling with my ear to Pingree’s chest, I thought I heard a heartbeat. Then I thought it was mine. I plucked some fibers from the carpet and held them under his nostrils. They seemed to be stirring, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he was still breathing faintly or because of the drafts that lanced through the rickety old building like a magician’s knives. I took off my coat and bunched it under his shoulders, tipped back his head, pinched his nose, gulped air, and breathed into his mouth. I kept that up for five minutes. Then I put my ear to his chest again. There was nothing going on there. I felt the big artery on the side of his neck. I stood up.
The base of the broken glass had come to rest rightside up on the carpet. There was some clear liquid in the bottom. I picked it up with my handkerchief and stuck my nose inside. A scorched, bitter smell. You’d think he’d have noticed it. Maybe he didn’t want to seem impolite. I put the base down where I’d found it.
The desk contained a blotter and pen set with matching brass trim, aside from the bookcase the single largest investment in the room. Probably an office-warming gift. A red plastic frame that went like hell with the set contained a portrait, one shoulder turned mock-seductively toward the camera, of a honey blonde with slightly protruberant blue eyes, a large nose, and an overbite. The hair was her best feature, but I liked the face fine. Nobody had been at it with a mallet and scalpel and a picture of Linda Evans for a model.
Pingree’s appointment book was blank but for a single note on the top page: “Lunch Edie, Black Bull, 12:30.” It didn’t look like any sort of code. I tore off the page and pocketed it.
I went through the drawers. Scissors, rubber bands, envelopes, a copper letter-opener with a lion’s head for a handle. Desk stuff. A collection of paperback detective novels in the deep file drawer, thumb-blurred and bloated. Herbert would sit with his feet crossed on the desk, reading and waiting for an exotic woman with a thick accent to come swaying through the door and offer to fall in love with him if he found her emerald necklace. While he was waiting he would have lunch with Edie of the Incisors. No telephone or address book. Herbert would have no addresses or telephone numbers to put in it except Edie’s, and he would have that memorized. He’d mentioned a girlfriend who taught English in Dearborn. The honey blonde looked like a teacher. I didn’t know what teachers looked like these days. I was just playing detective.
There was a side door that would connect with Antoinette’s Academy of Massage, the other office in the suite. I tried it. Locked. A radio was playing easy listening music very low on the other side. I used my handkerchief on the things I’d touched in the office and went outside and rapped on Antoinette’s door. A female voice invited me in.
It was a corner room as I said, twice as big as Pingree’s, painted dark red, with two windows on adjoining walls. A sort of cubicle had been constructed out of partitions to the left of the door with an archway closed off by wine-colored velvet curtains. Matching hangings draped the walls like bunting. A pile carpet the color of intestinal blood tickled my ankles. The music was muted and the place smelled of incense and liniment and more delicate oils in pump containers on shelves in back. She came to me from that direction, a small brown girl with her dark hair in a straight page-boy that may have been a wig and a silver-blue robe knotted around her waist with a green sash. Her bare feet were in platform sandals. I had a hunch I was looking at everything she had on. The hunch was confirmed when she passed through a shaft of weak sunlight and for a brief moment the robe became transparent. Her smile looked
Kneeling with my ear to Pingree’s chest, I thought I heard a heartbeat. Then I thought it was mine. I plucked some fibers from the carpet and held them under his nostrils. They seemed to be stirring, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he was still breathing faintly or because of the drafts that lanced through the rickety old building like a magician’s knives. I took off my coat and bunched it under his shoulders, tipped back his head, pinched his nose, gulped air, and breathed into his mouth. I kept that up for five minutes. Then I put my ear to his chest again. There was nothing going on there. I felt the big artery on the side of his neck. I stood up.
The base of the broken glass had come to rest rightside up on the carpet. There was some clear liquid in the bottom. I picked it up with my handkerchief and stuck my nose inside. A scorched, bitter smell. You’d think he’d have noticed it. Maybe he didn’t want to seem impolite. I put the base down where I’d found it.
The desk contained a blotter and pen set with matching brass trim, aside from the bookcase the single largest investment in the room. Probably an office-warming gift. A red plastic frame that went like hell with the set contained a portrait, one shoulder turned mock-seductively toward the camera, of a honey blonde with slightly protruberant blue eyes, a large nose, and an overbite. The hair was her best feature, but I liked the face fine. Nobody had been at it with a mallet and scalpel and a picture of Linda Evans for a model.
Pingree’s appointment book was blank but for a single note on the top page: “Lunch Edie, Black Bull, 12:30.” It didn’t look like any sort of code. I tore off the page and pocketed it.
I went through the drawers. Scissors, rubber bands, envelopes, a copper letter-opener with a lion’s head for a handle. Desk stuff. A collection of paperback detective novels in the deep file drawer, thumb-blurred and bloated. Herbert would sit with his feet crossed on the desk, reading and waiting for an exotic woman with a thick accent to come swaying through the door and offer to fall in love with him if he found her emerald necklace. While he was waiting he would have lunch with Edie of the Incisors. No telephone or address book. Herbert would have no addresses or telephone numbers to put in it except Edie’s, and he would have that memorized. He’d mentioned a girlfriend who taught English in Dearborn. The honey blonde looked like a teacher. I didn’t know what teachers looked like these days. I was just playing detective.
There was a side door that would connect with Antoinette’s Academy of Massage, the other office in the suite. I tried it. Locked. A radio was playing easy listening music very low on the other side. I used my handkerchief on the things I’d touched in the office and went outside and rapped on Antoinette’s door. A female voice invited me in.
It was a corner room as I said, twice as big as Pingree’s, painted dark red, with two windows on adjoining walls. A sort of cubicle had been constructed out of partitions to the left of the door with an archway closed off by wine-colored velvet curtains. Matching hangings draped the walls like bunting. A pile carpet the color of intestinal blood tickled my ankles. The music was muted and the place smelled of incense and liniment and more delicate oils in pump containers on shelves in back. She came to me from that direction, a small brown girl with her dark hair in a straight page-boy that may have been a wig and a silver-blue robe knotted around her waist with a green sash. Her bare feet were in platform sandals. I had a hunch I was looking at everything she had on. The hunch was confirmed when she passed through a shaft of weak sunlight and for a brief moment the robe became transparent. Her smile looked
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