Ed McBain - Cinderella

And at the last apartment, the door was slammed in his face before he could even open his mouth.

Sighing, he knocked on the door to apartment 2C.

He could hear rock music coming from inside the apartment.

“Who is it?” a voice called.

“My name is Matthew Hope,” he said, “I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time.”

“Who?”

“Matthew Hope.”

“What do you want, Matthew Hope?”

This from just inside the door.

“I’m trying to locate someone, I wonder if—”

“Try the manager’s office.”

“I’ve just been there. Miss, if you look through your peephole you’ll see I’m not an ax-murderer or anything.”

A giggle on the other side of the door.

Then:

“Just a sec, okay?”

He waited. Night chain coming off. Tumblers falling. Door opening.

The girl standing there was wearing cutoff jeans and a green tank top shirt. She was barefoot. Matthew guessed she was five feet eight or nine inches tall, somewhere in there. Her russet-colored hair was cut in a short wedge with bangs falling almost to the tops of her overlarge sunglasses. There was a faint smile on her mouth. No lipstick. She stood in the doorway with one hand on the jamb, sort of leaning onto the hand. It was difficult to tell her age. She looked like a teenager. He felt like asking her if her mother was home.

“So okay, Matthew Hope,” she said.

Very young voice.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he said.

“No bother.”

“I’m an attorney...”

“Uh-oh,” she said.

But not alarmed, just jokingly. Smile still on her mouth. Eyes inscrutable behind the dark glasses.

“I’m trying to locate someone for one of my clients.”

A lie.

She kept watching him, smile still on her mouth.

“I’m sorry I don’t have a photograph,” he said, “but she’s a girl of about twenty-two or three — long blonde hair, blue eyes, very attractive — and she may be living here at Camelot Towers. Would you happen to know her?”

“Not offhand.” A pause. “What’s her name?”

“Well, she uses several different names?”

“Oh? Is she wanted by the police or something?”

“No, no.”

“That’s right, you said you were trying to locate her for a client.” Another pause. “What are these names she uses?”

“Jenny Santoro...”

Shaking her head.

“Melissa Blair...”

Still shaking her head.

“Jody Carmody... Angela West... Mary Jane Hopkins...”

“Lots of names.”

“Any of them ring a bell?”

“Sorry.”

“And you haven’t seen anyone of that description?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Going in or out of the building...”

“No.”

“...or in the elevator?”

“No place.” Shaking her head again. “Sorry.”

“Do you live here?” he asked.

“I’m visiting a friend,” she said.

“Is she home?”

“ He . No, I’m sorry, he’s out just now.”

“I was wondering, you see—”

“Yes?”

“—if he might have seen this person I’m looking for.”

“I really don’t know. I’ll ask him, how’s that?”

“Would you? Here’s my card,” he said, reaching for his wallet, searching for a card, never a damn card when you needed one, “he can call me here,” handing her the card, “if he thinks he knows her.”

She took the card, looked at it.

“I’ll tell him,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Not at all,” she said, and closed the door.

The name plate on it read: HOLLISTER.

She did not reach Martin Klement until six o’clock that night. She had called him earlier at his restaurant — Springtime, what a name for a restaurant, it sounded like a place selling plants — and she’d been told that he wouldn’t be in till the dinner hour. She asked what time that would be. For different people the dinner hour was at different times. The snippy little bitch who answered the phone said they began serving at six-thirty.

Jenny figured she’d try at six, nothing ventured nothing gained.

When Klement came on the line, she said, “Hello, this is Sandy Jennings, I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon, a girl named Merilee James, she had some interesting things to say about two Hispanic gentlemen.”

“Oh?”

Caution in that single word. British caution, but caution nonetheless.

“I think I might be able to accommodate them,” Jenny said.

“I’ll have to call you back,” Klement said.

“No, I’ll call you back. What do you want to do? Check with Merilee?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I’ll call you back in half an hour,” Jenny said, and hung up.

There was no way she was going to give this telephone number to anybody. Not this one, nor the one at the hotel, either. She didn’t want Klement or his two spic friends — or anybody , for that matter — barging in looking for coke.

She wondered when Vincent would be home.

When she’d spoken to him on the phone this morning, he’d told her his last appointment was at two-thirty, and he’d be back at the condo by three, three-thirty. She’d come here right after talking to Merilee, hoping he’d be home already, knocked and knocked and finally let herself in with her key. Tried him at Unicorn, they told her he’d already left. So where the fuck was he? Six o’clock already. She desperately needed to tell him what she’d heard from Merilee, first damn good news since they’d come to Calusa.

Sitting on four fucking keys of cocaine, you think there’d be buyers coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches.

Well, you can’t take an ad in the paper, can you?

No way.

You kept your ears open, you listened, you didn’t trust anybody with the secret. In the state of Florida, you could find yourself on the bottom of the ocean if somebody thought you had four keys of coke. So you had to play your cards very close to your chest. Meanwhile sitting there with what you knew was worth seventy, seventy-five a key. All that shit and no way to translate it to cash.

Until now.

So where the fuck was Vincent?

Thought it might be him when the lawyer knocked on the door.

How the hell did a lawyer get into this?

If he really was a lawyer.

Man, this was weird.

Well, he’d given her a card, she guessed he was a real lawyer.

Summerville and Hope.

On impulse, she dialed the number—

“Good evening, Summerville and Hope.”

— and immediately hung up.

So who hired the lawyer?

Larkin again? It sure as hell wasn’t Fat Louie in Miami. You steal a man’s cocaine, he doesn’t go to any kind of law. No, it had to be Larkin again. Guy coming around with a picture of her. Knocking on the door here at the condo, you know this girl? Vincent later described the picture. Polaroid color shot of her in the ice-blue gown she’d worn first for Amaros in Miami and later here at the Jacaranda Ball. Went there with a girl she’d met at the Sheraton. She hadn’t told Vincent about that night with Larkin. Hadn’t told him she’d stolen the Rolex. Didn’t want to risk his shrill faggoty rage. Didn’t want to piss old Vincent off, fags could get meaner than pit vipers.

The look on his face.

“Amaros,” he said.

She knew it wasn’t Amaros, she knew it was Larkin.

Larkin trying to find her for what she’d given him.

Directly traceable to Amaros.

Nice little present from Amaros, the shit.