Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    In the Midst of Death
    In the Midst of Death
    In the Midst of Death
    Ebook199 pages3 hours

    In the Midst of Death

    By Lawrence Block

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Bad cop Jerry Broadfield didn't make any friends on the force when he volunteered to squeal to an ambitious d.a. about police corruption. Now he'saccused of murdering a call girl. Matthew Scudder doesn't think Broadfield's a killer, but the cops aren't about to help the unlicensed p.i. prove it -- and they may do a lot worse than just get in his way.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061802652
    In the Midst of Death
    Author

    Lawrence Block

    LAWRENCE BLOCK has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published more than 100 books, and no end of short stories. LB is best known for his series characters, including Matthew Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Evan Tanner, and Keller. LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke. His monthly instructional column ran in WRITER'S DIGEST for 14 years and led to a series of books for writers. He has also written television and film screenplays. Several of LB's books have been filmed, including A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES. LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards, Japanese Maltese Falcon award, Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association, been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has been awarded the Société 813 trophy.

    Read more from Lawrence Block

    Related to In the Midst of Death

    Titles in the series (12)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      'Greeks Bearing Gifts' Will Be The Last In The Popular 'Bernie Gunther' Series Begun In Nazi Germany

      Apr 5, 2018

      The 'Bernie Gunther' books were uniformly superb and reflected their hangdog protagonist: tough, cynical, very quotable, and ultimately, even quixotically, idealistic.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Karin Slaughter

      Jul 2, 2020

      This American crime author has sold more than 35 million copies of her books globally. This month she’s celebrating the release of her 20th novel in as many years. It’s also the 10th book in special agent Will Trent’s series. “It feels really great a

      1 min read

    • Article

      Boston Manner

      Feb 7, 2020

      Boston Manner
      3 min read

    • Article

      Why Mark Wahlberg Revived A Beloved Private Eye For Netflix With 'Spenser Confidential'

      Mar 6, 2020

      Growing up in South Boston in the '70s and '80s, long before films like "Good Will Hunting" and "Mystic River" came along, Mark Wahlberg didn't see many authentic depictions of his hometown on the big or small screen. Sure, "Cheers" gave the city a f

      5 min read

    • Article

      Soul On Sale

      Aug 10, 2022

      I was waiting for the call at the telephone booth. I’d been waiting for fourteen or seventeen minutes and finally, I decided to leave. It was pointless. I only had a 20-dollar bill on me and no coins for the slot. Hard rain was coming, some type of s

      9 min read

    • Article

      An Afternoon In Her Shoes

      Jul 26, 2022

      An Afternoon In Her Shoes
      6 min read

    • Article

      Festival

      Sep 15, 2018

      My husband, who loved festivals, who was a great fan of festivals, wanted to get to the square in time for the first band at eleven o’clock. From bed, the dog and I watched him dress. He tried on various T-shirts, declaring some of them too tight and

      13 min read

    • Article

      The Leather Coat

      Apr 4, 2024

      The Leather Coat
      6 min read

    • Article

      Philip Roth

      Jun 4, 2018

      Philip Roth
      25 min read

    • Article

      The Charm

      Jul 30, 2020

      The Charm
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Nose For Trouble

      Apr 12, 2022

      A Nose For Trouble
      6 min read

    • Article

      Hard Metal

      Jun 10, 2023

      When Raúl gave me his security job for August, he told me not to see anything. You don’t see nothin’, he said, because we both know I get curious. Sometimes the other guys think I’m soft, the way I get lost in my head. My girlfriend says it’s trauma,

      6 min read

    • Article

      Lockdown

      Aug 31, 2020

      You keep a secret safe, wrapped up in the back of a drawer in your mind, all tied up in metaphorical ribbon and string, for 14 years. And in the space of three days, it unravels. How did that happen? I’ll tell you how. I was up a ladder, that’s how.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Ice cream DREAMS

      Aug 4, 2021

      Ice cream DREAMS
      8 min read

    • Article

      After “The End”

      Oct 10, 2022

      I walked down the road with a hunched back and a wet cigarette in my mouth—the fire had died a while back. My hands were tucked into the pockets of my jacket, and my hair fell over my face, limiting my sight. But I wasn’t really seeing where I was go

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Man I Should Have Married

      Dec 29, 2019

      The Man I Should Have Married
      11 min read

    • Article

      Thirteen

      Jan 30, 2020

      Thirteen
      21 min read

    • Article

      Daughters’ Bodies

      Dec 1, 2019

      WHEN I’M about to go away to college, my grandmother dies and my mother silently puts herself up for adoption. LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO ADOPT ME: Kind, lonely, beautiful woman in her 50s. Dead husband. No children. Cooks and cleans. 4’11 and 90 lbs. Gu

      20 min read

    • Article

      Coming To Terms

      May 25, 2021

      Coming To Terms
      14 min read

    • Article

      Just The Way YOU ARE

      Feb 7, 2023

      Just The Way YOU ARE
      9 min read

    • Article

      Enough of THE OLD!

      May 16, 2021

      I recently took up my doctor’s kind offer of a flu shot. Last year was the first time I’d ever had one. But though I tend not to catch the flu and don’t like having needles stuck in me, it seemed the sensible thing to do now that I’ve reached an age

      2 min read

    • Article

      Haunted

      Sep 27, 2023

      Haunted
      6 min read

    • Article

      In a Silent Way

      Nov 25, 2023

      In a Silent Way
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Duplex

      Jun 9, 2020

      I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart. My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey,

      21 min read

    • Article

      Three Blocks

      Aug 10, 2023

      I lock my car and shove my keys into the pocket of my big coat. The parking garage is nearly full this morning, so I have to use the elevator to get down to the exit. The moment the doors slide open, there is a woman waiting for me. She is wearing my

      8 min read

    • Article

      I’ll Burn You Alive

      Aug 19, 2021

      I’ll Burn You Alive
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Silhouette Artist

      Jul 25, 2019

      The Silhouette Artist
      6 min read

    • Article

      Counting

      Feb 12, 2021

      Counting
      18 min read

    • Article

      Righteous

      Jan 22, 2019

      Righteous
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for In the Midst of Death

    3.5/5

    155 ratings11 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Lawrence Block is a master of of the dark side of life and his protagonist Matthew Scudder is a tarnished anti-hero who does not follow moral code but his own. With all his flaw Matthew once he is on the case is going to follow it to the end no matter where that takes him.Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series is a must read.
    • 4/5
      First line:~ October is about as good as the city gets~This, the third book in the Matt Scudder series, moves us along in getting to know Scudder, a skilled, private investigator. If you have read my reviews of Book 1 and Book 2 The Sins of the Fathers and Time to Murder and Create you will know that I am more interested in the development of Scudder than in the actual mystery that he solves. Having said that, I always find Block’s stories keep my attention to the end. In this book, Scudder investigates on behalf of a policeman who has been framed for a murder he did not commit. And as he investigates we get more insight into Scudder and how he lives his life, on the edges of skid row. His struggles with alcoholism continue. His denial has been solid. A new friend who is an alcoholic suggests he might be one also and at one point Scudder finds himself outside a meeting. However, he leaves without going in. We can see that he is beginning to question whether or not he can ‘take it or leave it’ as he often maintains. I am on to the next one as soon as I can get it from the library.3.5 stars
    • 5/5
      If, like I did, you started reading the Matthew Scudder series with some of the later books in the series where Scudder runs from AA meeting to AA meeting, it comes as a shock to delve into the early books in the series where he is actually rolling from bar to bar and often barely remembers his conversations from the previous night. Obviously, the bar-hopping life has to precede the AA meetings, but it gives the story a decidedly different feel.

      You can pick up the Scudder novels in just about any order and be intrigued. For the most part, they are each independent books. Each one is a terrific detective novel. If you think these novels are going to be about a hardboiled detective with a fedora and a sexy secretary taking dictation, you will be quite surprised. Although derived from the hardboiled tradition, the Scudder books are different. Scudder is an old-fashioned detective who puts together little bits and pieces and figures things out by dogged work.

      Scudder, if you did not know, is a former police officer. One night, off duty in a bar (where else would he be), he sees two guys hold up the joint and take out the bartender. Pursuing them outside, Scudder took them out, but a stray bullet from his gun ricocheted into the skull of a seven-year-old girl, ending her life. The shooting was found justified, but Scudder lost the desire for police work, the desire for his married life, and holed up in Hell’s Kitchen, doing favors for people in return for a few bucks. It is a dark period of his life and he literally tries to drown his troubles in booze.

      “In The Midst Of Death” is a terrific detective story and certainly deserves five stars. An officer (Jerry Broadfield) has had it with graft and crooked double-dealings and has talked to a special prosecutor. No one on the NYPD has any love for him anymore and someone put a call girl up to alleging that Broadfield has been demanding weekly payments from her. Suddenly, the special prosecutor wants nothing to do with Broadfield and neither does anyone else. Scudder doesn’t like the guy, doesn’t like the fact he can’t tell when the guy is lying or not. He talks to the call girl, who is mesmerizing to him. When the call girl ends up slashed apart in Broadfield’s apartment, the whole world is ready to parade him up to the Attica and Scudder is about all Broadfield’s got. Scudder doesn’t think the crime makes any sense. Broadfield is way too smart to leave a dead body in his apartment. Scudder pokes around here and there, trying to figure out the connections, trying to figure out what went on.

      The novel is perfectly paced and I, at least, found that it was hard to put down. It has a dark, hard feel to it, but it is not another remake of the classic hardboiled fedora-wearing detective. This is a novel with depth and substance to it and you can see how Block’s writing has matured.
      Five stars for this one.
    • 4/5
      Lawrence Block's Scudder is a wonderful character. He and his world are entirely believable. In fact, these are stories that could be an account of a real guy's experiences, which is not usually the case in hardboiled detective fiction.

      This is a hard-drinking PI (without a license) who, later in the series, kicks the booze and starts attending AA meetings at whatever church/center is closest. If you've seen the movie with Liam Neeson, then you know why he quit the police force (accidentally kills a child, while apprehending two murderers) and that's also why he becomes a functioning alcoholic. He's a complex character who is tough, but not able to kick a roomful of ass, a good detective, but not able to solve mysteries without the necessary luck and clues... basically, a believable knight in tarnished armour.

      This one involves a murdered dominatrix, a framed cop who is dirty as hell, but not a murderer, political dirty dealing, and just a little bit of (off camera) sex. Oh... and a hell of a lot of drinking.

      "It was a hard morning. I swallowed some aspirin and went downstairs to the Red Flame for a lot of coffee. It helped a little. My hands were slightly shaky and my stomach kept threatening to turn over.
      What I wanted was a drink. But I wanted it badly enough to know not to have it. I had things to do, places to go, people to see. So I stuck with the coffee."

      I like the honesty of his struggle, and how it progresses through the series.
    • 4/5
      As many have noted in reviews posted here, Block begins to really establish Scudder as a person rather than as an unlicensed detective. We get to see him grow in ways that we've yet to dive into. Between his shaky relationship with his ex-wife and kids, to his struggle with intimacy, to his budding alcohol addiction.

      I feel a little crazy giving all these 5 star ratings to Block's books but they're really that good. They're tightly structure; they don't run on for the sake of running on. We're given what we need to know about a suspect, not what they had for breakfast 3 years ago on a Tuesday - I guess what I'm saying is the man knows how to edit a book.

      I don't exactly know where to go from here. Supposedly, the series continues to get better and better. Damn you Goodreads for not establishing a rating system higher than 5 stars!
    • 5/5
      A lean, mean, hard-boiled detective novel.WARNING: Once you pick it up you won't want to put it down until you're done.A fun, satisfying crime story. This book wouldn't be out of place beside the best works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Matthew Scudder is a hard drinking ex-cop taking life as it comes near the fringes of society in New York City. He'd tell you that he's not a private detective. Private detectives do things like charge fees, keep records, and file tax returns -- Scudder doesn't do any of that. Instead he does "certain things for certain friends." Favors he calls them, and in return these certain friends might do him a favor... like give him money.When Jerry Broadfield, a cop of questionable ethics who has decided to turn stool pigeon against the department, gets accused of extortion he needs help. Bad. Since it's not like he can go to the cops, they hate him, he reaches out to Matt Scudder. After some consideration Scudder reluctantly agrees to take the case even though he can't shake the feeling that Jerry Broadfield isn't being straight with him.Then the key witness against Broadfield is murdered and the cops decide they needn't look any further than Jerry Broadfield himself for the murderer. Scudder doesn't buy the official version, he also doesn't completely buy Jerry Broadfield's version, but since he's on the case anyway he's going to stick with it until he finds out what there is to know. And he will find out!This is the third novel in the Matthew Scudder series and it's one of the best -- some sources will list it as the second novel: It was written third but originally published second, so it may depend on when your copy was printed. It's a lean, riveting, fast paced example of the best of one of the modern masters in the private detective genre.Shorter than most of Lawrence Block's other Matthew Scudder novels and as a result it focuses almost exclusively on the case. There isn't much in the way of Scudder's usual self-reflection or the more colorful characters that will generally turn up in the course of his investigations. This one is a pure example of the pulp fiction detective novel.I had read this years ago, this and Eight Million Ways to Die were what got me hooked on the Scudder series in the first place, but in the years since I had forgotten how hard-boiled the early Scudder novels were compared to the more recent ones. It's like renewing an old friendship.I can't recommend this book highly enough for anyone who likes a hard edged detective novel in the old pulp tradition.
    • 2/5
      I remembered this series quite fondly and thought to revisit the whole thing, but have decided to bail out after book 2. This one has dated badly, and it's just not as much fun the second time through. I'm disappointed that I feel this way, but am not willing to keep at it when there are so many new and fabulous books to read.
    • 4/5
      Blurb....NYPD cop Jerry Broadfield has turned on his own, collaborating in a Special Prosecutor's investigation into police corruption. It's a move that lands him in a jail cell on a murder rap and Scudder has his work cut out trying to free Broadfield.I’ve got a bit of a series jag on at the minute; I’m currently reading 5 separate character series at the rate of 1book a month. Whether each and every one sustains my interest in the coming months, only time will tell. One that does look like prolonging my interest and staying the course is Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder.Currently 17 books long, this is the 3rd instalment I’ve read in as many months. Block has a writing style that engages me. Scudder frequently bar-hops, he’s often doing nothing more than drowning his sorrows or taking his poison with coffee if he’s not on a full-blown bender. There’s a frailty about Scudder, whilst physically large and imposing, and mentally sharp his guilt about accidentally killing a young girl while on the police force is slowly dragging him down. He provides financial support for his ex-wife and boys, but never seems willing to be the dad his sons clearly crave, always with a ready excuse as to why he can’t take them to a game. Drink being his one true love, but he hasn’t fully surrendered to it just yet. He’s still functional and still coherent most of the time.There are almost two mysteries involved in each of the books I’ve read in the series so far. Each case, each crime, each murder is somewhat incidental, in my opinion to the real mystery of Matthew Scudder which Block slowly reveals a book at a time. I’m already looking forward to episode 4 next month.4 from 5 Bought my copy second hand years ago for £4.50 from Oxfam – the first books in an omnibus edition – bargain!
    • 4/5
      Firstly, to be clear, I love Lawrence Block's writing style - he is crisp, to the point, sometimes a bit shocking (more so in later books), and non-moralistic. His characters are flawed men who remain calm, cool and collected under pressure... all without any whining or "woe is me" behind it all. There is some mature language, but it is not gory or graphic.This is the third book in a series about Matthew Scudder and was originally published in the mid-70s. Surprisingly, it doesn't have a dated feel, other than the references to pay phones and NY City rents. I have read the series to book 7 but this was the first one that I listened to in audio. The story was as good as I expected, and the narration was well-done. My only note was that the narrator didn't have the voice I expected Matthew to have after reading so many books about him... this isn't a negative thing though, it was just a bit surprising.If you've read others in this series, you will find that Scudder is his typical self and the story is written in Block's typical style. There is no preaching and the resolution is quick and to the point. If you haven't read the others, but like Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, you will probably like this one too. The books stand alone, but the main character is developed over time, so it might be best to start the Scudder series as close to the beginning as you can.
    • 3/5
      This was a little more disjointed than the first installment (or maybe it was the way I read it). I am still not sure how I am supposed to take the ending. Scudder gets a cop on the take off a murder charge partly by exploring the realities of a type of higher end prostitution and partly by having good contacts in the neighborhood (some of which appeared in the first book (gay barkeep)). The police do not come off too well.
    • 4/5
      I liked this soooooooo much more than When the Sacred Ginmill Closes. I like how Block doesn’t really narrate the story… he lets the characters tell you what’s going on through the dialogue. There’s no futzing around with pages of background story and set-up. The book does show its age at some points, with mentions of $20/week rent (in New York City!?) and Scudder’s reliance on pay phones, but it’s easy enough to look past. I guessed the bad guy, but not long before Scudder did. A nice, quick read.

    Book preview

    In the Midst of Death - Lawrence Block

    Chapter 1

    October is about as good as the city gets. The last of the summer heat is gone and the real bite of cold weather hasn’t arrived yet. There had been rain in September, quite a bit of it, but that was past now. The air was a little less polluted than usual, and its temperature made it seem even cleaner than it was.

    I stopped at a phone booth on Third Avenue in the Fifties. On the corner an old woman scattered bread crumbs for the pigeons and cooed to them as she fed them. I believe there’s a city ordinance against feeding pigeons. We used to cite it in the department when explaining to rookies that there were laws you enforced and laws you forgot about.

    I went into the booth. It had been mistaken at least once for a public lavatory, which is par for the course. At least the phone worked. Most of them do these days. Five or six years ago most of the phones in outdoor booths didn’t work. So not everything in our world is getting worse. Some things are actually getting better.

    I called Portia Carr’s number. Her answering machine always picked up on the second ring, so when the phone rang a third time, I figured I’d dialed a wrong number. I’d begun to take it for granted that she would never be home when I called.

    Then she answered the phone. Yes?

    Miss Carr?

    Yes, this is she speaking. The voice was not pitched quite so low as on the tape of the answering machine, and the Mayfair accent was less noticeable.

    My name is Scudder, I said. I’d like to come over and see you. I’m in the neighborhood and—

    Terribly sorry, she cut in. ’Fraid I’m not seeing people anymore. Thank you.

    I wanted to—

    Do call someone else. And she broke the connection.

    I found another dime and was set to drop it in the slot and call her again when I changed my mind and put the dime back in my pocket. I walked two blocks downtown and one block east to Second Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street, where I scouted up a lunch counter with a pay phone that was in view of the entrance of her building. I dropped my dime in that phone and dialed her number.

    As soon as she came on the line I said, My name is Scudder, and I want to talk to you about Jerry Broadfield.

    There was a pause. Then she said, Who is this?

    I told you. My name is Matthew Scudder.

    You called a few moments ago.

    Right. You hung up on me.

    I thought—

    I know what you thought. I want to talk to you.

    I’m terribly sorry, don’t you know, but I’m not giving interviews.

    I’m not from the press.

    "Then what is your interest, Mr. Scudder?"

    You’ll find out when you see me. I think you’d better see me, Miss Carr.

    I think not, actually.

    I’m not sure you have any choice. I’m in your neighborhood. I’ll be at your place in five minutes.

    No, please. A pause. I’ve just tumbled out of bed, don’t you see? You’ll have to give me an hour. Can you give me an hour?

    If I have to.

    One hour, then, and you’ll come round. You have the address, I suppose?

    I told her I did. I rang off and sat at the counter with a cup of coffee and a roll. I faced the window so that I could keep an eye on her building, and I got my first look at her just as the coffee was getting cool enough to drink. She must have been dressed when we spoke because it only took her seven minutes and change to hit the street.

    It wasn’t much of an accomplishment to recognize her. The description pinned her all by itself—the fiery mane of dark red hair, the height. And she tied it all together with the regal presence of a lioness.

    I stood up and moved toward the door, ready to follow her as soon as I knew where she was going. But she kept walking straight toward the coffee shop, and when she came through the door, I turned away from her and went back to my cup of coffee.

    She headed straight for the phone booth.

    I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Enough telephones are tapped so that everyone who is either criminally or politically active knows to regard all phones as tapped and to act accordingly. Important or sensitive calls are not to be made from one’s own phone. And this was the nearest public telephone to her building. That’s why I had chosen it myself, and it was why she was using it now.

    I moved a little closer to the booth, just to satisfy myself that it wouldn’t do me any good. I couldn’t see the number she was dialing, and I couldn’t hear a thing. Once I’d established this, I paid for my roll and coffee and left.

    I crossed the street and walked over to her building.

    I was taking a chance. If she finished her call and hopped into a cab I would lose her, and I didn’t want to lose her now. Not after all the time it had taken me to find her. I wanted to know who she was calling now, and if she went someplace I wanted to know where and why.

    But I didn’t think she was going to grab a taxi. She hadn’t even been carrying a purse, and if she wanted to go somewhere, she would probably want to come back for her bag first and throw some clothes in a suitcase. And she had set things up with me to give herself an hour’s leeway.

    So I went to her building and found a little white-haired guy on the door. He had guileless blue eyes and a rash of broken capillaries on his cheekbones. He looked as though he took a lot of pride in his uniform.

    Carr, I said.

    Just left a minute ago. You just missed her, couldn’t have been more than a minute.

    I know. I took out my wallet and flipped it open quickly. There was nothing there for him to see, not even a junior G-man’s badge, but it didn’t matter. It’s the moves that do it, that and looking like a cop in the first place. He got a quick flash of leather and was suitably impressed. It would have been bad form for him to demand a closer look.

    What apartment?

    I sure hope you don’t get me in trouble.

    Not if you play it by the book. Which apartment is she in?

    Four G.

    Give me your passkey, huh?

    I’m not supposed to do that.

    Uh-huh. You want to go downtown and talk about it?

    He didn’t. What he wanted was for me to go someplace and die, but he didn’t say so. He turned over his passkey.

    She’ll be back in a couple of minutes. You wouldn’t want to tell her I’m upstairs.

    I don’t like this.

    You don’t have to.

    She’s a nice lady, always been nice to me.

    Generous at Christmastime, huh?

    She’s a very pleasant person, he said.

    I’m sure you’ve got a swell relationship. But tip her off and I’ll know about it, and I won’t be happy. You follow me?

    I’m not going to say anything.

    And you’ll get your key back. Don’t worry about it.

    That’s the least of it, he said.

    I took the elevator to the fourth floor. The G apartment faced the street, and I sat at her window and watched the entrance of the coffee shop. I couldn’t tell from that angle whether there was anyone in the phone booth or not, so she could have left already, could have ducked around the corner and into a cab, but I didn’t think so. I sat there in a chair and I waited, and after about ten minutes she came out of the coffee shop and stood on the corner, long and tall and striking.

    And evidently uncertain. She just stood there for a long moment, and I could read the indecision in her mind. She could have gone in almost any direction. But after a moment she turned decisively and began walking back toward me. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and settled down to wait for her.

    WHEN I heard her key in the lock, I moved from the window and flattened out against the wall. She opened the door, closed it behind her, and shot the bolt. She was doing a very efficient job of locking the door but I was already inside it.

    She took off a pale blue trenchcoat and hung it in the front closet. Under it she’d been wearing a knee-length plaid skirt and a tailored yellow blouse with a button-down collar. She had very long legs and a powerful, athletic body.

    She turned again, and her eyes did not quite reach the spot where I was standing, and I said, Hello, Portia.

    The scream didn’t get out. She stopped it by clapping her own hand over her mouth. She stood very still for a moment, her body balanced on the tips of her toes, and then she willed her hand to drop from her mouth as she settled back down on her heels. She took a deep breath and made herself hang onto it. Her coloring was very fair to begin with, but now her face looked bleached. She put her hand over her heart. The gesture looked theatrical, insincere. As if she recognized this, she lowered her hand again and breathed deeply several times, in and out, in and out.

    Your name is—

    Scudder.

    You called before.

    Yes.

    You promised to give me an hour.

    My watch has been running fast lately.

    Has it indeed. She took another very deep breath and let it out slowly. She closed her eyes. I moved out from my post against the wall and stood in the middle of the room within a few steps of her. She didn’t look like the sort of person who faints easily, and if she were she probably would have done it already, but she was still very pale and if she was going to flop I wanted a fair shot at catching her on the way down. But the color began to seep back into her face and she opened her eyes.

    I need something to drink, she announced. Will you have something?

    No, thanks.

    So I drink alone. She went to the kitchen. I followed close enough to keep her in sight. She took a fifth of Scotch and a split of club soda from the refrigerator and poured about three ounces of each into a glass. No ice, she said. I don’t fancy the cubes bumping up against my teeth. But I’ve got into the habit of taking my drinks chilled. Rooms are kept warmer here, you know, so that room-temperature drinks won’t do at all. You’re sure you won’t join me?

    Not right now.

    Cheers, then. She got rid of the drink in one very long swallow. I watched the muscles work in her throat. A long, lovely neck. She had that perfect English skin and it took a lot of it to cover her. I’m about six feet tall and she was at least my height and maybe a little taller. I pictured her with Jerry Broadfield, who had about four inches on her and could match her with presence of his own. They must have made a striking couple.

    She drew another breath, shuddered, and put the empty glass in the sink. I asked her if she was all right.

    Oh, just peachy, she said. Her eyes were a very pale blue verging on gray, her mouth full but bloodless. I stepped aside and she walked past me into the living room. Her hips just barely brushed me as she passed. That was just about enough. It wouldn’t take much more than that, not with her.

    She sat on a slate-blue sofa and took a small cigar from a teak box that rested on a clear Plexiglas end table. She lit the cigar with a wooden match, then gestured at the box for me to help myself. I told her I didn’t smoke.

    I switched to these because one doesn’t inhale them, she said. So I inhale them just the same and of course they are stronger than cigarettes. How did you get in here?

    I held up the key.

    Timmie gave you that?

    He didn’t want to. I didn’t give him much choice. He says you’ve always been nice to him.

    I tip him enough, the silly little fuck. You gave me a fright, you know. I don’t know what you want or why you’re here. Or who you are, for that matter. I seem to have forgotten your name already. I supplied it. Matthew, she said. I do not know why you are here, Matthew.

    Who did you phone from the coffee shop?

    You were there? I didn’t notice you.

    Who did you call?

    She bought time by puffing on her cigar. Her eyes grew thoughtful. I don’t think I’m going to tell you, she said at length.

    Why are you pressing charges against Jerry Broadfield?

    For extortion.

    Why, Miss Carr?

    You called me Portia before. Or was that just for shock value? The peelers always call you by your first name. That’s to show their contempt for you, it’s supposed to give them some sort of psychological advantage, isn’t it? She pointed at me with her cigar. You. You’re not a policeman, are you?

    No.

    But there’s something about you.

    I used to be a cop.

    Ah. She nodded, satisfied. And you knew Jerry when you were a policeman?

    I didn’t know him then.

    But you know him now.

    That’s right.

    And you’re a friend of his? No, that’s not possible. Jerry doesn’t have friends, does he?

    Doesn’t he?

    Hardly. You’d know that if you knew him well.

    I don’t know him well.

    I wonder if anyone does. Another puff on the cigar, a careful flicking of ash into a sculptured glass ashtray. Jerry Broadfield has acquaintances. Any number of acquaintances. But I doubt he has a friend in the world.

    You’re certainly not his friend.

    I never said I was.

    Why charge him with extortion?

    Because the charge is true. She managed a small smile. "He insisted I give him money. A hundred dollars a week or he would make trouble for me. Prostitutes are vulnerable creatures, you know. And a hundred dollars a week isn’t so terribly much when you consider the enormous sums men are willing to pay to

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1