Julie had missed the connection if there was one.

"We had such grand times in those days, such grand times."

"Did she live at the Willoughby?" Julie asked to hold up her end of the conversation. She had seen Laura Gibson in a revival of A Streetcar Named Desire and felt that she was pretty awful.

"Well, at the end, she did, but when I first knew her she lived at the Algonquin, no less."

Mercifully, the second play was about to start.

It seemed a variation on the same theme as the first. Julie decided she much preferred Yeats a dirty old man to the hung-up young one. Pete in the pulpit, the wh.o.r.e singing hymns. Goldie, Mack, Rita... Rita-Juanita. Julie thought she would suffocate if she did not get out soon.

After the final curtain calls, everyone was invited to stay for coffee.

"How nice," Mrs. Ryan said.

Julie proposed to escape. "I'm going on if you don't mind, Mrs. Ryan."

"I'll go with you. Let me buy you a nice gla.s.s of lager at McGowan's. It's a cheerful place on a Sat.u.r.day night."

"Another time?" Julie said and put on her best smile.

"Oh, come along. You don't have to pretend with me. You've no place else you want to go or you wouldn't be here."

So they walked down Ninth Avenue, Mrs. Ryan setting the gait that had long ago been settled on her by two dogs. Julie was well aware that they would be pa.s.sing Pete's building, a more persuasive circ.u.mstance than having a beer with Mrs. Ryan. She would not have gone that way alone... pride's thin knuckles... but now she was carried along by a fate there was no point in resisting.

"What was the other dog's name?" Julie asked.

"Hans. Hans and Fritz. I named them after the Katzen-jammer Kids."

Who else?

It was not quite ten o'clock and yet the block in which they walked was all but deserted. Farther downtown there was considerable activity, and the few cars pa.s.sing Julie and Mrs. Ryan soon slowed down to a crawl, then a halt. As the two women moved forward, traffic backed up to meet them. People crowded the sidewalk. Whatever was happening, the police were in its midst, the prowl car light bubbles whirling. A precinct car raced by and opened its siren. Unable to get through, the driver mounted the sidewalk and scattered the crowd. Julie took Mrs. Ryan's arm and hurried her. She noted the building numbers.

"It's near Pete's. Can't you hurry, Mrs. Ryan, please?"

"Oh, my dear. Run on ahead and meet me at McGowan's."

As Julie moved into the crowd, an ambulance pulled out and away, its siren screaming. Julie kept asking what had happened, but no one heard or answered. Like her, everyone else was trying to snake in closer. The police had joined hands and forced the people back. Julie found herself surrounded by a group of weird, giggling, squealing women, jeweled and wildly made up and trying to keep together. Julie was jostled among them, their bodies as hard as telephone poles. Transvest.i.tes. The air now crackled with the garble of police communication. Julie made it through to the sawhorses in front of the building. 741.

"Stay back of the barricade, lady. This isn't a G.o.dd.a.m.n carnival."

"I've got a friend who lives in there," Julie tried.

"Then use the telephone."

The word "murder" went through the crowd.

"Who?" Julie kept trying.

She grabbed the arm of one of the cops and hung on. "Please listen to me!" She felt as sure as of anything in her life that something had happened to Pete.

The officer looked round to the doorway crowded with cops. "Russo! Talk with this girl, will you?" he shouted. He let Julie through.

A squarish man in plain clothes intercepted her. "I'm Detective Russo," he said.

"I just want to know... Pete Mallory lives here. He was supposed to be at the theater tonight and last night and n.o.body knows why he didn't show up."

"We don't know the ident.i.ty of the victim, miss," Russo said. "Let's see if your friend's been checked out." He guided her into the narrow vestibule and shone his flashlight over the row of names on the mail panel. Certain of them were chalked, including that of Peter Mallory. "He isn't answering his bell if he's home. Do you know anyone else in the building?"

"I don't think so." She couldn't make her eyes focus on the names.

Russo said, "Does the name Rita Morgan mean anything to you?"

The whole scene blurred. Julie caught herself just short of pa.s.sing out.

12.

"I'M ALL RIGHT," JULIE kept saying. "I'm going to be fine in a minute." She was sitting on the steps, graffiti running crazily up and down the yellow wall alongside her. She breathed deeply of the inhalant Russo held to her nose. It brought the tears to her eyes. The detective rubbed her hands.

"Feel better now?"

"I'm okay."

"Get her into a squad car. We can talk there," another man said.

"Yes, sir." Then to Julie, to whom he offered his hand: "How are the legs?"

Julie pulled herself up. The legs trembled, but held.

With Russo and the other detective supporting her, they went out of the building. "I can walk." She got into the car which had been driven up on the sidewalk.

"A couple of questions here," the bigger of the two men said, getting in after her, "and the rest we'll get under better conditions." Russo went around the car and got in the other side. The man in charge introduced himself. "I'm Lieutenant Donleavy, Homicide. Detective Russo is a precinct officer."

"I think I know Mrs. Russo," Julie said.

"Good."

She gave her name and home address and then added, "I have... I guess you'd call it a business address on Forty-fourth Street"

"What kind of business, Mrs. Hayes?"

"I tell fortunes." Christ! What difference did it make?

"Well, now, aren't we in luck?" Donleavy said.

"Please... Tell me what happened to Pete."

"How do you know it's him, miss?"

"I don't. I just feel that it is. Which is crazy, except that he is missing."

"Do you know Rita Morgan?"

"I don't really know her. She came into my shop a couple of times. But I didn't know she lived in this building."

"Did you know she was an acquaintance of... Mallory, is it?"

"No."

"But he is a friend of yours?"

"Yes."

"When did you last see him?"

"It's over a week, but I talked with him on the phone-that's over a week too, but he was going to meet me at the theater tonight. He's a scene designer. When I asked for him, they said he hadn't been there for the opening last night, that they tried to find him but couldn't."

Russo took the name and address of the New Irish Theatre. Julie, remembering the program in her pocket, gave it to the detective.

"Now, miss, when did you last see Rita Morgan?"

"I think it was the same day." Julie tried to remember the sequence... she had seen Doctor Callahan, Rita had gone by with the cowboy and then came back alone... Mrs. Rodriguez and then that night the call from Pete. "It was Friday, a week ago yesterday."

"Where?"

"In my shop at the address I gave you, sir."

"Was she in the habit of patronizing your shop?" Donleavy asked.

"She wanted someone to talk to, lieutenant. In a way that's what my business is all about."

"What business is she in?"

Julie hesitated. To no point: they would find out. "She was on the street."

"That isn't your line, is it?"

"No, sir. No way."

"It will take us longer without your help, Mrs. Hayes," the lieutenant said, "but in the end we'll find out all there is to know about Rita. Prost.i.tutes have a hard time keeping secrets. If your friend is the homicide victim, I think you'd want to tell us everything you can, now, wouldn't you?"

Julie nodded. "If."

Russo said, "Someone was the victim, and the crime did occur in her apartment."

"I have the feeling she hasn't been around for several days. I'll tell you what I can." It wasn't Rita she was trying to protect, that didn't matter now. What held her back was not knowing whether or not the girl had seen Doctor Callahan. Under no circ.u.mstances did she want to involve Doctor. "The day before yesterday a man named Mack came into my place looking for her."

"That would be her pimp," Russo said.

"Yes."

Donleavy asked, "Do you know him, Russo?"

"Yes, sir. He's the only white regular on the street. He's got an a.s.sault record, narcotics, and he's tied in with the Romano outfit."

Donleavy grunted. "Can you give us a description of the woman, Mrs. Hayes? The key things for now-something we can use with the people in the building so we can find out when she was last seen around here."

"She's about my height and build, five foot two, a hundred ten pounds. She's sixteen years old..."

"That young?" he interrupted.

"I thought she was even younger. She looks like a child, not a bit like the others, and she wants desperately to get out of The Life and go home. That's what she came in to talk to me about."

"Where's home?"

"She wouldn't tell me. I did ask that."

"Go on with the description."

Russo took down such details as Julie gave, even to the look of innocence in the girl's smile.

Donleavy shook his head as though at the misery of it all. Julie liked him better than she had at first.

"We'll get to your friend in a minute," he said then. "I'm going to tell you how the complaint came in. The reason I'm doing this is to see if anything in it rings a bell with you. Nine-one-one got a missing persons call tonight about seven from an unidentified male caller. He gave her name and address. They tried to switch him to Missing Persons but he hung up. The first precinct men available made a routine check. The apartment door was unlocked. The officers investigated and found the victim. He had been dead for at least twenty-four hours. There was no identification on him, no wallet, no keys. Male, white, about thirty years old, slender build, height just under six feet, light brown hair that curls at the nape of his neck."

"It sounds very much like Pete," Julie said.

"All right. Put that aside for a minute. You'd be surprised how many men would fit that description. The one thing that's sure is the victim did not call the police. Who did?"

"Mack?"

"He's a strong possibility. We'll pick him up for questioning as soon as we can find him. Would you know of any connection between him and your friend?"

"No, sir."

"It seems to me," Russo said, "Mack would have been on the scene earlier than tonight. He'd have wanted her out there hustling over the weekend."

Julie remembered Mack's having said this to her: "Tell her to get her a.s.s out on the street. I've got a big weekend coming up and I need the money." She told it now. Then: "There was a man in town with the rodeo at the Garden. She made kind of a joke of it, saying she could get him to marry her. I saw them together. Coming here, I guess. Afterwards she came back to see me; it was as though she wanted to prove to me that she really was a wh.o.r.e."

"Did she mention him by name?"