Evan Hunter: Candyland

"Well, we're investigating every possibility," Emma says. "Miss Ford, we have a record of calls…"

She is already nodding.

"… Benjamin Thorpe made from his hotel room…"

"Yes," Lois says.

"… yesterday morning. Our list indicates…"

"Yes, he called me."

"At four-forty-eight a.m., is that right?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me what the call was about?"

"Yes. He wanted to apologize."

Emma looks at her.

"He was crying," Lois says. "He called to apologize for his earlier behavior. He said he was a decent man. He said he didn't want me to get the wrong impression of him. He said he didn't know what Heather told me — he'd called earlier, you see…"

"Yes, I know."

"Heather, I mean. While I was there. This was around eleven, eleven-thirty. He was afraid Heather might have given me the wrong impression of him. So he wanted to apologize. He was crying very hard. I've never heard a man cry that hard."

"He didn't ask if he could come here, did he?"

"No, he didn't," Lois says.

She looks somewhat disappointed that he didn't. Now that Emma has mentioned it, she seems to be wondering why he didn't.

"Did he say where he might be going? When he checked out? Did he say he was going back to California?"

"No, he didn't. I mean, he didn't mention California or anyplace else. He just said he was terribly sorry if he'd offended me in any way, and he wanted to apologize. I told him it was okay. I mean, guys come on that way all the time. You really think he killed someone?"

"He might have," Emma says. She reaches into her tote, takes her wallet from it, pulls a business card from behind her Metrocard. "Here's where you can reach me," she says. "In case he calls back."

"Gee, do you think he might?" Lois asks.

"He may still be in the city, we don't know. I'll give you my home number, too," she says, and writes it on the back of the card. "Call me at any time of the day or night."

"Okay," Lois says, and studies first the printed side of the card, and then the number Emma scrawled on the back of it. "Is this a seven?" she asks. "Eight-one-oh- seven?"

" Yes."

"Okay," she says again, and nods, and suddenly looks up. "You don't think I'm in any danger, do you?" she asks.

"I'm sure you're not," Emma says.

But she isn't sure at all.

Harry Davis is not at all happy to see her.

This is one-forty in the morning, their busiest time, he tells her, and he does not need a snoopy female in a grungy suit she's been wearing all day, sniffing around scaring the customers and embarrassing the girls. Emma suggests that the girls might feel a little less embarrassed if she called for a paddy wagon and carted the whole fucking lot of them over to the One-Nine, where she can question them each and separately in the privacy of a detective squadroom, would Harry prefer that?

"Just what is it you're looking for, Miss Boyle?" he asks. The use of the "Miss" form of address is an attempt to diminish her status as a detective. She has had this pulled on her before. It is telling her all over again that she is merely a snoopy female in a grungy suit — God, how those words rankle! Eight hundred dollars at Saks Fifth!

"Mr Davis," she says, "Cindy Mayes tells me she saw Cathy waiting downstairs here when she left at four yesterday morning. We have a witness who saw a man get out of a taxi at that same time, and walk over to where a blonde was standing just outside your front door. I want to know who got out of that cab."

"Was he a black man?"

"No, he was white."

"Then, thank God, he wasn't me," Davis says, and grins.

"Is Cindy still here?"

"She is."

"I'd like to talk to her, please."

"She's busy just now."

"I'll wait."

She waits in Davis's office.

There is a sense of busyness outside the closed door to the office, telephones ringing, voices echoing, high heels clicking past. There is a sense of business as well, a crisp energetic commerce of the night, money changing hands, transactions negotiated and executed.

Emma waits.

Like an old Irish woman riding a subway to the Bronx, she sits with her hands resting on top of her tote bag.

Cindy does not come into the office until seven minutes past two. She is wearing a flimsy black wrapper over red bra and panties, a red garter belt, black nylons, black ankle-strapped sandals with stiletto heels. She lights a cigarette, sits opposite Emma, crosses her stockinged legs. She looks superbly whorish and eminently at home, an exceptional slut in a kingdom of ordinary tarts. In her blatant presence, it is Emma who somehow feels dowdy and cheap in her grungy suit — the son of a bitch!

"What is it now?" Cindy asks.

Blows out smoke. Jiggles her foot.

"The Rule of Three," Emma says.

"What the hell's that, the Rule of Three?"

"Leo Gephardt. Always ask the same question three times. If you don't get the answer the first two times, you'll get it the third time around. The Rule of Three."

"Who's Leo Gephardt?"

"Captain I once had. He's dead now."

"Shows how good his rule was."

"Third time around, Cindy. You ready?"

"You know how busy we are out there?"

"Who was she waiting for?"

"Who are we talking about now?"

"Cindy, I'm tired."

"So am I. Did you suck a dozen cocks tonight?"

"No, but you make ten times what I do."

"Is that supposed to be sarcastic?"

"Who was she waiting for?"

"That's the fourth time. And I still don't know."

"Why'd she change the lock on her door?"

"I have no idea."

"Who was she afraid of?"

"These are new questions, aren't they?"

"Who are you afraid of?"

"Does the Rule of Three start all over again?"

"Cindy, I'm really very very tired."

"Then whyn't you go home to sleep? Nice girl like you needs her beauty rest."

"Cindy, in just about thirty seconds, I am going to bust your ass from here to Canarsie."

"I don't think so."

"I think so."

The women look at each other.

"You're impeding the progress of an investigation," Emma says reasonably. |

"Not if I really don't have the answers you want," Cindy says reasonably.

"A homicide investigation, no less."

"But I don't know anything about who killed Cathy."

"It's called Obstructing Governmental Administration," Emma says.

Cindy seems to be thinking it over.

"Section 195.05. A Class-A misdemeanor."

"I've never been arrested in my life."

"You can go to jail for a year."

The room is utterly still. From somewhere in the boundless corridors outside the closed office door, Emma hears someone calling "Time!"

"Who was waiting for her?" she asks softly.

"I don't know."

"Cindy…"

"Him, I guess."

"Him? Who's him?"

"The guy who always waited for her. Listen, I don't want to get in trouble here."

" Always waited for her?"

"I don't know. Maybe not."

" Always? Is this a steady boyfriend or something?"

"I don't know what he is. He's just some kind of weirdo, that's all."

"Who? Who is he?"

"I don't know. I only know what she told me."

"What'd she tell you?"

"He fell for the Heidi act."

"What do you mean?"

"Treated her like she was half her age. She's twenty-six years old, she's been around the block a hundred times, he treats her like a teeny-bopper. Meets her after work, walks her home, is afraid something's gonna happen to her, somebody's gonna rape her or something, right? She's twenty-six, for Christ's sake, she's only been hooking forever! Dresses her in little pleated plaid skirts, white cotton panties, the whole fuckin Short Eyes trip. She told me she was sick of it but she didn't know how to get out of it. She was afraid to get out of it. She told me she was thinking of changing the lock on her door. She didn't know what to do."