Time to Murder and Create

The cocktail lounge in thePierre is illuminated by small candles set in deep blue bowls, one to a table.

The tables are small and well separated from one another, round white tables with two or three blue velvet chairs at each. I stood blinking my eyes in the darkness and looking for a woman in a white pants suit. There were four or five unescorted women in the room, none of them wearing a pants suit. I looked instead for Beverly Ethridge, and found her at a table along the far wall. She was wearing a navy sheath and a string of pearls.

I gave my coat to the checkroom attendant and walked directly to her table.

If she watched my approach, she did so out of the corner of her eye. Her head never turned in my direction. I sat down in the chair across from her, and only then did she meet my eyes. "I am expecting someone," she said, and her eyes slipped away, dismissing me.

"I'm Matthew Scudder," I said.

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"You're pretty good," I said. "I like your white pants suit, it becomes you.

You wanted to see if I could recognize you so that you would know whether I had the pictures or not. I suppose that's clever, but why not just ask me to bring one along?"

Her eyes returned, and we took a few minutes to look at each other. It was the same face I'd seen in the pictures, but it was hard to believe it was the same woman. I don't know that she looked all that much older, but she did look a great deal more mature. More than that, there was an air of poise and sophistication that was quite incompatible with the girl in those pictures and on those arrest sheets.

The face was aristocratic and the voice said good schools and good breeding.

Then she said, "A fucking cop," and her face and voice turned on the words and all the good breeding vanished. "How did you come up with it, anyway?"

I shrugged. I started to say something, but a waiter was on his way over. I ordered bourbon and a cup of coffee. She nodded at him to bring her another of what she was drinking. I don't know what it was. It had a lot of fruit in it.

When he was gone I said, "The Spinner had to leave town for a while. He wanted me to keep the business going in his absence."

"Sure."

"Sometimes things happen that way."

"Sure. You collared him and he threw me to you as his own ticket out. He had to get himself picked up by a crooked cop."

"Would you be better off with an honest one?"

She put one hand to her hair. It was straight and blonde, and styled in what I think they call a Sassoon cut. It had been considerably longer in the pictures, but the same color. Maybe the color was natural.

"An honest one? Where would I find one?"

"They tell me there's a couple around."

"Yeah, working traffic."

"Anyway, I'm not a cop. Just crooked." Her eyebrows went up. "I left the force a few years back."

"Then I don't get it. How do you wind up with the stuff?"

Either she was honestly puzzled or she knew Spinner was dead and she was very good indeed. That was the whole problem. I was playing poker with three strangers and I couldn't even get them all around the same table.

The waiter came around with the drinks. I sipped a little bourbon, drank a half inch of coffee, poured the rest of the bourbon into the cup. It's a great way to get drunk without getting tired.

"Okay," she said.

I looked at her.

"You'd better lay it out for me, Mr. Scudder." The well-bred voice now, and the face returning to its earlier planes. "I gather this is going to cost me something."

"A man has to eat, Mrs. Ethridge."

She smiled suddenly, whether spontaneously or not. Her whole face brightened with it. "I think you really ought to call me Beverly," she said. "It strikes me as odd to be addressed formally by a man who's seen me with a cock in my mouth. And what do they call you—Matt?"

"Generally."

"Put a price on it, Matt. What's it going to cost?"

"I'm not greedy."

"I bet you tell that to all the girls. How greedy aren't you?"

"I'll settle for the same arrangement you had with Spinner. What's good enough for him is good enough for me."

She nodded thoughfully, a trace of a smile playing on her lips. She put the tip of one dainty finger to her mouth and gnawed it.

"Interesting."

"Oh?"

"The Spinner didn't tell you much. We didn't have an arrangement."

"Oh?"

"We were trying to work one out. I didn't want him to nickel me to death a week at a time. I did give him some money. I suppose it came to a total of five thousand dollars over the past six months."

"Not very much."

"I also went to bed with him. I would have preferred giving him more money and less sex, but I don't have much money of my own. My husband is a rich man, but that's not the same thing, you see, and I don't have very much money."

"But you've got a lot of sex."

She licked her lip in a very obvious way. That didn't make it any less provocative. "I didn't think you noticed," she said.

"I noticed."

"I'm glad."