Anything But Saintly

Chapter 8

Rising, I carried both glasses over to the dresser. Mine was still half full, so I added only about a half ounce of bourbon and filled the glass with soda and ice. I made her a full drink. The news had started when I returned to my chair and handed back her glass. We watched and listened in silence through the national and international news. When that ended and another commercial came on, she hoisted her glass.

“Cheers again,” she said. “Don’t you think we’re acquainted enough now?”

I gave her an inquiring look.

“I mean there’s such a thing as being too slow,” she said. “Those psychologists have it all wrong.”

“What psychologists?” I asked, lost.

“The ones who write books about call girls. They sit in their dusty offices and make up a lot of stuff about how we live and how we feel.”

“Oh,” I said. “Those psychologists.”

“In every book I’ve read about call girls, they say they’re all frigid, that they do it just for the money. Not even for the money, really, because subconsciously they think it’s dirty money, so they throw it all away on pimps as fast as they earn it. They make me so mad.”

I gave her a sympathetic smile.

“I don’t throw my money away. You should see my bank account. I’m saving to open a lingerie shop. And I’m not frigid either. Sometimes I’d just as soon sit out the whole night. But you kind of appeal to me. It makes me all goose pimply to sit here bare naked with you looking at me from those big brown eyes. I’m getting kind of warm.”

I grinned at her. “Soon as the local news is over. Can you hold out five more minutes?”

Her shoulders lifted in another shrug and she took a long pull of her drink.

The commercial ended and the local news came on.

Apparently there hadn’t been any further developments in the Katherine Desmond case, for the report was an exact replica of the one on the eight-thirty newscast. I kept my eyes on Jolly’s face as the newscaster spoke. There was no reaction to his first sentence, which merely announced that a local young woman had been murdered by an unknown assailant. But when he mentioned the name Katherine Desmond, Jolly’s eyes popped wide open. As the newscaster’s voice droned on, her mouth formed a little round O and she grew paler and paler.

When the item ended and the announcer went on to other news, Jolly pulled her feet from beneath her, set them on the floor and stared at me white-faced.

“What’s the matter?” I inquired.

“That was Kitty,” she whispered. “One of my best girl friends.”

“The murdered girl?” I asked with raised brows.

“Yes. I just talked to her on the phone at eleven-thirty this morning. She’d just returned from an all-night date.”

“Oh, she was a colleague of yours?”

Her head moved up and down in a jerky nod. “She must have been killed not more than an hour or two after I talked to her. The man said Doll walked in at three. Maybe it was only minutes after I talked to her.”

“Doll?”

“Her apartment-mate, Delores. We call her Doll.”

“Oh. She’s in the business too?”

“Just recently. She’s brand new, only been on a couple of dates. Kitty got her lined up with — with the referral agency, and had her move in with her only about a week ago. Kitty asked me to share her apartment first, but I like to live alone. Just think. If I had taken her up, I would have been the one to walk in and find her.”

Shuddering slightly, she drained her glass and held it out. “I need another drink. Straight, on the ice.”

Walking over to the dresser, I set down my own glass, which was hardly touched, threw a little more ice into hers and poured about four ounces of whisky over it. When I handed back the glass, she greedily knocked off about half of it in one gulp.

The raw whisky made her gasp. Closing her eyes, she shook herself like a puppy, making her oversized breasts jiggle like twin balloons full of Jello. When she opened her eyes again, a little color had returned to her face.

“I think I’m going to cry,” she announced.

I probably looked alarmed, because crying women upset me. “Drink the rest of your drink,” I urged hurriedly.

Her face had begun to screw up for tears, but my suggestion distracted her attention to the glass in her hand. Raising it, she drained it completely, closed her eyes and shook herself again, with the same interesting effect.

After a moment she opened her eyes and thrust the glass at me. “I’ll be all right now. Thanks.”

“More?” I inquired.

She shook her head. “I’d pass out.”

Setting her glass on the dresser next to mine, I walked over to switch off the TV set, then turned to gaze down at her.

“Do you have any idea who could have killed your friend?” I asked.

She started to shake her head, abruptly stopped as something occurred to her. “I told her she was playing with dynamite,” she said, as though speaking aloud to herself.

“How was that?” I asked.

Her eyes focused on me as though she had momentarily forgotten I was there. Her face had become quite flushed, and I realized she was becoming slightly drunk.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’d rather not talk about it any more.”

“It might make you feel better to talk things out. I’m a good listener.”

“No. I don’t even want to think about it. Poor Kitty.” Her face started to screw up again.

I came to a decision. “Jolly!” I said sharply.

She gave me a startled look.

“I’ve got another shock for you, Jolly.”

“What do you mean, Matt?”

Producing my wallet, I walked forward and thrust my badge under her nose. “I’m a cop. Sergeant Matt Rudd of the prostitution detail.”

When she recovered from the first shock of my announcement, the girl underwent a typically feminine reaction. She clasped her arms protectively across the bare bosom I had been gazing at for more than fifteen minutes.

Looking up at me reproachfully, she said, “And I thought you were nice!”

“I am,” I assured her. “Want to put on your clothes?”

Jumping up, she hurriedly dressed with her back to me. This offered just as pleasant a view as her front. She was a trifle plump in the rear, but it was an attractive plumpness.

When she was fully clothed, she turned to stare at me defiantly.

“Take a look at that fifty I gave you,” I suggested.

Picking up her bag, she removed the bill and studied it. In a rueful voice she said, “It’s initialed M.R. Matt Rudd, huh?” The alcohol was no longer effecting her voice. The discovery that I was a cop had shocked away the mild glow she had been getting.

Moving forward, I took the bill from her hand and replaced it in my wallet. “Now there’s no evidence,” I said. “I guess I can’t arrest you.”

She examined me warily. “What is this?”

“Sit down again,” I invited.

Her eyes narrowed. “If this is some kind of a shakedown, I never carry more than five dollars on a date.”

I put a pained expression on my face. “Do I look like a crooked cop?”

“You’re beginning to sound like one.”

“Look,” I said. “I’m not going to arrest you and I’m not going to shake you down. Before you arrived, I meant to run you in as soon as the financial transaction was completed. But I changed my mind a couple of minutes after you got here.”

She said with mocking disbelief, “You mean my charm made you forget your duty?”

“Your charm had nothing to do with it,” I said irritably, beginning to tire of the exchange. “You’re a rather charming gal, but I’ve got a cold-blooded sense of duty. I’d arrest my own grandmother if I thought she deserved it. I’ll give you a choice. Sit down long enough to listen to me, or I’ll upend you and fix you so you won’t want to sit down for a week.”

After eyeing me for a moment, she decided I meant it. Returning to the easy chair, she sat primly erect with her hands clasped in her lap.

“I’m listening,” she said.