[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]of police resources, as I knew better than anyone, so I let it ring on
instead.
Then I heard the elevator doors open in the hallway. He was actually upstairs
and was going to try to get in to me.
What if Mike Chapman was right that Jed s greatest fault had not been his
infidelity, but that he was, indeed, a murderer? Maybe he was coming to kill
me, to silence me because I had implicated him in Isabella s death? My mind
didn t seem to work. I simply didn t know what to do next but I had clearly
waited too long to call the police.
There were voices in the hallway now. That meant he had come back with at
least one other person and I was terrified that he had found some thug to do
his dirty work for him. I stepped over to the bar next to the television set
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and picked up the wine-bottle opener which lay on top the screw-pull version
with the wickedly sharp-pointed tip that projects into the cork. I had no idea
what I would do with it but its mean metal point felt good in the palm of my
hand as I tiptoed closer to the front door.
Coop, Coop? It s Mike. Open up, I got a surprise for you.
Lucky I didn t have a gun because I probably would have blasted it through the
door at Chapman at precisely that point, for freaking me out and heightening
my growing sense of paranoia. I looked out the peephole for a confirmatory
sighting, threw back the bolt, and turned the lock to open the door.
I was fuming, again.
Do you have any idea- That s when I saw Mercer Wallace standing next to him,
holding three pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream the most direct way to my heart
stacked up in a pile as his deep bass hummed the melody of What Becomes of
the Broken Hearted? while Mike laughed.
Great music, Mercer. But I can t dance to it tonight.
This shit s gonna melt all over your hall carpet if you don t let us in,
Alex. Move it. Chapman pushed past me and the two of them headed straight for
the kitchen to dish up the portions.
What happened since I left you off, kid? he asked, eyeing my tattered
chenille robe.
You look like Ma Kettle in that getup. Here you got the two most eligible
guys in the city banging at your doorstep and you won t open up. Look at her,
Mercer, she s prayin for somebody to show up at this hour with some vintage
Chateau Lafite. Who ya gonna kill with that bottle opener? Okay, we got Cookie
Dough Dynamo, Chocolate Chocolate Chip, or Vanilla Fudge?
What ll it be, blondie let s put a little meat on those bones.
Now that we re having this cozy breakfast party, boys, who wants to explain
to me what it s all about? Chocolate for me, of course.
Not my fault. I was lookin deep into the most beautiful pair of ebony eyes,
in a gentrified townhouse we used to call em tenements on West Ninety-third
near Amsterdam Mercer was dropping a hint that was supposed to suggest the
identity of the recipient of his enormous charm, undoubtedly one of my
colleagues when my beeper went off an hour ago. Seems Brother Chapman s
knowledge of Motown is a bit shallow. It started and ended with Respect. The
man wanted help with some lyrics life-will-go-on-after-your-man-is-gone kind
of stuff.
When he told me it was you he was gonna serenade, I volunteered to do backup
for him.
What s the story, Mike? I asked once more, leading the three of us, each
with a bowl of ice cream, back into the den.
He hemmed and hawed and stalled a bit more before coughing up the real answer.
Chapman had waited in his car at the parking space at the end of the driveway,
thinking he would watch for an hour or so to make sure Jed didn t stop by and
try to see me.
I walked down to the all-night coffee shop to get a cup of brew to keep me
awake. Called the office from a phone booth outside the place to explain the
situation to the lieutenant can you believe it, the City of New York is paying
me to do this little power breakfast ? When I looked up at your apartment I
can always pick it out cause it s on the corner, and it s got those
fancy-drooped drapes your mother had done for you your lights were all off.
While I stood out there drinking my coffee, I looked up again and every few
minutes another light went on, till you got comfy in front of the TV.
Geez, you put that much deduction into one of your homicides you might close
a case now and then.
By that time it was almost three o clock. Figured I might as well sleep in my
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