Lawrence Sanders - McNally's risk

Of course Hagler could have been telling the truth and had just visited a male client rather than Pinky Schatz. And if you believe that, I told myself, leave an extracted molar under your pillow and expect the Truth Fairy to arrive.

I sauntered over to the security desk, where a uniformed stalwart (armed) was on duty.

"To see Miss Pinky Schatz, please," I said.

"Name?" he demanded.

I remembered who I was just in time. "Chauncey Wilson Smythe-Hersforth," I told him.

"What was that?" he said.

"Just announce me as Chauncey," I advised.

He looked up her number in a ledger, stabbed his phone, and murmured. "Okay," he said to me. "Apartment Nineteen-ten. First elevator on your right."

"Thank you," I said. "Attractive building. Do you have any security problems here?"

"Do dogs have fleas?" he asked, reasonably enough.

I rode a silent, Formica-paneled elevator to the nineteenth floor. The corridor was ceramic tile. Impressive, but the color was off-putting: a sort of pasty pink. I remembered how my tongue had looked that morning.

Ms. Schatz opened the door wearing a diaphanous peignoir. I was aware of it but all I could see was her face. Ah, bejaysus, but she was sporting a fine mouse under her left eye. It was of recent vintage and I knew that within an hour it would be rainbowed. Raw steak or leeches wouldn't help. Pancake makeup might.

"Good lord," I said, "what happened to you?"

"An accident," she said dully. "Come on in."

It was a one-bedroom condo decorated in a style I call Florida Glitz. That includes veined mirrors, patterned tiles, silver foil wallpaper, a glass cocktail table on a base of driftwood and, of course, the requisite six-ft. ficus tree made of silk. I mean the place shrieked. But the glitter was dimmed by an overall scruffiness; everything needed an industrial-strength douche.

"I wasn't going to let you in," she said. "I don't feel so hot."

"Would you like me to go?" I asked.

"Nah," she said, "you can stay. I was about to have a wallop. Would you like one, Chauncey?"

"A wallop of what?"

"All I got is gin. I like to mix it with diet cream soda. How about it?"

"I think not," I said hastily. "But a splash of gin on the rocks would be nice."

I watched her mince into the kitchen. She may have been injured but she still jiggled. She returned a few moments later with our drinks. She had given me more than a splash of gin but that was all right; I needed it; deceit makes me thirsty.

She lolled on an enormous couch covered with greasy cerise velvet. I sat in an overstuffed armchair big enough to accommodate King Kong. I looked at her but she didn't look at me. She was busy feeling that discoloration under her eye.

"Hurt?" I said.

"I've been hurt before," she said defiantly. "The story of my life. How did you find out where I live, Chauncey?"

"Fifty bucks."

Her smile was sour. "That Ernie," she said. "He'd sell his sister if anyone wanted to buy, which no one does. How come you looked me up?"

"I just want to find the man who killed Shirley Feebling."

"Yeah?" she said, and gave me a cruel, knowing glance. "You sure you're not looking for a replacement? Like me?"

Sad, sad, sad.

"Pinky," I said, "can we stop playing games? Please. I'm certain you know more about Shirl's murder than you've told the police."

She said nothing, just sipped her noxious drink and kept touching her bruise.

"I thought she was your best friend," I continued.

"I got a lot of best friends," she said. "Women and men both."

"I can promise you protection," I told her.

"No, you can't," she said. "Not total. I don't mind getting hurt occasionally; that comes with the territory. But I don't want to end up like Shirl, with my brains splattered."

"You won't. If you're willing to tell what you know, the cops will pick him up and shove him behind bars. You have nothing to fear."

"What are you talking about?" she said. "Who is him?"

I decided I might as well go for broke. "Reuben Hagler," I said. "The man who just gave you that black eye. Drives a Cadillac with Michigan plates. You knew he was tailing Shirley. And you know or suspect he was the one who put her down."

"You're nuts," she said, affectedly bored.

"How did he get to you?" I went on. "Threats of what might happen if you talked? Or a payoff?"

She suddenly stood up. "You get out of here," she screamed at me. "Right now!"

"But then again," I said thoughtfully, "maybe you weren't just an innocent witness. Maybe you were in on it from the start, an accomplice who helped that creep knock off your best friend."

She collapsed back onto the couch. The glass fell from her hand and shattered on the tile floor. Gin and diet cream soda made an ugly pool, the color of old blood. She began wailing, her face muffled in the cushions.

"Leave me alone," I heard her say. "Just leave me alone. I can't take anymore. Please, just leave me alone."

I rose, finished my gin, and departed. I left her sobbing on the couch. It was not one of my proudest moments. But you comprehend the reason for my cruelty, do you not? I reckoned she would report my visit to Reuben Hagler. And he would be forced to react. If he was guiltless, he would seek me out and denounce me for vile slander. And if he was involved in the murder of Shirley Feebling, he would seek me out and… I didn't want to envision what he might do.

I don't wish to imply that I was acting heroically, offering myself as a sacrificial lamb in order to snag an assassin. But Shirl's death continued to haunt me, and my personal safety seemed of minor import compared to finding and bringing her murderer to justice. Lofty, huh? Well, I do have a moral code. A bit skewed, I admit, but it's mine.

Look, at that point all I had was a suspicion that Reuben Hagler had stalked her. I had no proof and couldn't conceive what his motive might have been. So I had no choice but to force events. I thought of my actions as a lighted fuse. If I was correct, there would be a stupendous KABOOM! If I was mistaken, there would be a mild sizzle as the fuse burned out.

I was engaged in this mental nattering on the drive back to Palm Beach. I believe I was just leaving Boca Raton on A1A when my cellular phone sounded. It was lying on the passenger seat and its harsh ring startled me because I rarely get calls when I'm on the road. I suspected it would be a wrong number but it wasn't; Sgt. Al Rogoff was calling.

"Where are you now, Archy?" he asked in that sepulchral voice he uses when he's about to announce the world is coming to an end in fourteen minutes.

"North of Boca," I reported. "Heading home. What's up, doc?"

"Did you tell me Marcia Hawkin was driving a black Jeep Cherokee when you saw her yesterday?"

"That's right."

"Uh-huh," he said. "Well, right now there's a black Cherokee in the lake. It's upside down and the divers say there's a woman inside."

I was silent.

"You there?" he said.

"I'm here. Where is it, Al?"

"Off Banyan Road. You know it?"

"Yes."

"We're trying to get a cable on the car to haul it out. You want to stop by?"

I didn't. "Yes," I said, "I'll stop by."

By the time I arrived there was a crowd of spectators, perhaps twenty or thirty, many in bathing suits. Two gendarmes were herding them back from the scene of operations.

There was a short wooden pier extending out into Lake Worth. It looked relatively new and mounted on one side was a steel gantry with canvas slings for lifting small boats out of the water. The police tow truck had backed up alongside the pier, the cable from its winch stretched taut into the lake.

I joined the rubbernecks, spotted Rogoff, and yelled to him. He waved and came over to escort me past the guards. He was wearing khaki slacks and scuffed loafers. His shield was clipped to the shoulder of his white T-shirt.