Too Darn Hot by Sandra Scoppettone Page A

there soon as I can.”
    Zachary looked at me with pitiful eyes. Claire would have to wait. I stood up and he jumped down. I got his food, dished it up, and put it on the floor. I heard him purring. He was one happy guy.
    “I hate to do this to ya, Zach,” I said, “but I gotta go out again.”
    He kept eating; I coulda been invisible. I grabbed my stuff and headed out. A neighbor, Jim Duryea, was in the hall. We’d had a strange encounter a few months ago, but since then we’d been friendly enough though he’d never be my favorite guy.
    “Going out in this heat?”
    “I have to, Jim.”
    “I’ll bet you’re on the missing soldier case.”
    That knocked me back on my heels. How’d he find out?
    “Ya know I can’t talk about my cases.”
    “It’s in all the papers. Do you think they’ll find him? The soldier?”
    “I have no idea. I gotta go, Jim.”
    Outside I walked to Sixth and Tenth and hailed a hack. Something I hardly ever did. But I’d put it down as expenses. I gave the driver the address and sat back to smoke a cig.
    Jim’s guess made me think of Anne Fontaine, who was a real psychic. I missed her like mad. We’d been friends since high school, but a couple of months ago she’d moved to California. She said she saw the name of the state written on somebody’s forehead and knew she had to go. We kept in touch by letter, but it wasn’t the same.
    At Sixty-first Street and Eighth Avenue the cabby let me out. I paid him the $1.25 and tipped him a nickel. Cabs were getting pricey.
    At Claire’s building I walked up three flights. She was standing in the doorway.
    “Hurry,” she said.
    She looked around the hallway before she shut the door. The first thing she did was light a cigarette.
    The apartment was pretty dark cause her view was another building about two feet away. Mismatched pieces that looked like she’d gotten them at a fire sale made up her furnishings. I gave the room the once-over, but saw nothing that looked like ya could sleep on. Then I noticed a floor-to-ceiling cabinet. A Murphy bed. I figured the one inside door was the bathroom.
    “Sit down, Faye.”
    I sat and took a cig from my pack of Camels, which was running low.
    She paced. “He called.”
    “Who?”
    “The person who took Charlie.”
    “Ya mean he
was
kidnapped?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What’d he say?”
    “He said he had him and he wanted a hundred thousand dollars to give Charlie back.”
    I let out with a whistle. “A hundred thou. That could buy a lotta tamales.”
    “Where am I gonna get that kinda money?”
    “What else did he say?”
    “He said he’d be callin back with instructions. I tried to tell him I couldn’t get that much money but he wouldn’t pay attention to me.”
    “You didn’t get to speak to Charlie, did ya?”
    She flashed a smile of pride. “Yeah, I did. I knew enough to ask for that. He put Charlie on for a couple a secs, but I knew it was him.”
    “Did ya call the police?”
    “He said no cops.”
    “Yeah. They always say that.”
    Her eyes widened. “You know who they are?”
    “I meant kidnappers in general.”
    “Oh. So what should I do, Faye?”
    “I think we have to tell the Ladds. They’re in town at the St. Moritz.”
    “Have ya seen em?”
    “I went to their hotel. Naturally I didn’t tell em you hired me. But they assumed that anyway.”
    “They hate me.”
    “They never met ya.”
    “They hate me anyway.” She pooched out her lower lip. “Why d’ya think Charlie hasn’t introduced us?”
    “Ya said . . . never mind. When they meet ya, they’ll like ya.”
    She sat on the chair across from me, put out her cigarette, and pulled her feet up under her.
    “Look, Claire, ya don’t have the money and the Ladds probably do. I mean if they’re stayin at the St. Moritz, they’re not broke.”
    She nodded. “Charlie tried to play it down, but things he said made me know they’re rich.”
    “It seems like callin them is yer only angle.”
    “What if the