expected—the killer had taken everything. The room gave me nothing—a few clothes, but not a thing out of which information could be squeezed.
My prying done, I stood in the center of the floor scratching my chin and considering. In the hall a floorboard creaked. Three backward steps on my rubber heels put me in the musty closet, dragging the door all but half an inch shut behind me.
Knuckles rattled on the room door as I slid my gun off my hip. The knuckles rattled again and a feminine voice said, “Kid, oh, Kid!” Neither knuckles nor voice was loud. The lock clicked as the knob was turned. The door opened and framed the shifty-eyed girl who had been called Sylvia Yount by Angel Grace.
Her eyes lost their shiftiness for surprise when they settled on the boy.
“Holy hell!” she gasped, and was gone.
I was half out of the closet when I heard her tiptoeing back. In my hole again, I waited, my eye to the crack. She came in swiftly, closed the door silently, and went to lean over the dead boy. Her hands moved over him, exploring the pockets whose linings I had put back in place.
“Damn such luck!” she said aloud when the unprofitable frisking was over, and went out of the house.
I gave her time to reach the sidewalk. She was headed toward Kearny Street when I left the house. I shadowed her down Kearny to Broadway, up Broadway to Larrouy’s. Larrouy’s was busy, especially near the door, with customers going and coming. I was within five feet of the girl when she stopped a waiter and asked, in a whisper that was excited enough to carry, “Is Red here?”
The waiter shook his head.