Sadie When She Died полностью

They were standing near Thornton’s showcase, a four-foot-long glass box on tubular steel legs. Rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants dizzily reflected the sunshine that slanted through the front window of the shop. Meyer took his time putting the stat back into his notebook, meanwhile giving Kling a chance to observe Thornton. The picture seemed to have had no visible effect on him. Like the solid mass of mountain that he was, he waited silently, as though challenging the detectives to scale him.

“What was your relationship with her?” Kling said. Thornton shrugged. “Why?” he asked. “Is she in trouble?”

“When’s the last time you saw her?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Thornton said.

“Well, you didn’t answer ours, either,” Meyer said, and smiled. “What was your relationship with her, and when did you see her last?”

“I met her in July and the last time I saw her was in August. We had a brief hot thing, and then good-bye.”

“Where’d you meet her?”

“In a joint called The Saloon.”

“Where’s that?”

“Right around the comer. Near what used to be the legit theater there. The one that’s showing skin flicks now. The Saloon’s a bar, but they also serve sandwiches and soup. It’s not a bad joint. It gets a big crowd, especially on weekends.”

“Singles?”

“Mostly. A couple of fags thrown in for spice. But it’s not a gay bar, not by the usual definition.”

“And you say you met Sadie in July?”

“Yeah. The beginning of July. I remember because I was supposed to go out to Greensward that weekend, but the broad who was renting the bungalow already invited ten other people to the beach, so I got stuck here in the city. You ever get stuck here in the city on a weekend in July?”

“Occasionally,” Meyer said dryly.

“How’d you happen to meet her?” Kling asked.

“She admired the ring I was wearing. It was a good opening gambit because the ring happened to be one of my own.” Thornton paused. “I designed it and made it. Here at the shop.”

“Was she alone when you met her?” Kling asked.

“Alone and lonely,” Thornton said, and grinned. It was a knowing grin, a grin hoping for a similar grin in response from Kling and Meyer, who, being cops, had undoubtedly seen and heard all kinds of things and were therefore men of the world, as was Thornton himself, comrades three who knew all about lonely women in singles’ bars.

“Did you realize she was married?” Kling asked, sort of spoiling the Three Musketeers image.

“No. Is she?”

“Yes,” Meyer said. Neither of the detectives had yet informed Thornton that the lady in question, Sarah or Sadie or both, was now unfortunately deceased. They were saving that for last, like dessert.

“So what happened?” Kling said.

“Gee, I didn’t know she was married,” Thornton said, seeming truly surprised. “Otherwise nothing would’ve happened.”

“What did happen?”

“I bought her a few drinks, and then I took her home with me. I was living alone at the time, the same pad on South Lindner, but alone. We balled, and then I put her in a cab.”

“When did you see her next?”

“The following day. It was goofy. She called me in the morning, said she was on her way downtown. I was still in bed. I said, ‘So come on down, baby.’ And she did. Believe me, she did.” Thornton grinned his man-of-the-world grin again, inviting Kling and Meyer into his exclusive all-male club that knew all about women calling early in the morning to say they were on their way down, baby. Somehow, Kling and Meyer did not grin back.

Instead, Kling said, “Did you see her again after that?”

“Two or three times a week.”

“Where’d you go?”

“To the pad on South Lindner.”

“Never went any place but there?”

“Never. She’d give me a buzz on the phone, say she was on her way, and was I ready? Man, I was always ready for her.”

“Why’d you quit seeing her?”

“I went out of town for a while. When I got back, I just didn’t hear from her again.”

“Why didn’t you call her?”

“I didn’t know where to reach her.”

“She never gave you her phone number?”

“Nope. Wasn’t listed in the directory, either. No place in the city. I tried all five books.”

“Speaking of books,” Kling said, “what do you make of this?”

He opened Sarah Fletcher’s address book to the MEMORANDA page and extended it to Thornton. Thornton studied it and said, “Yeah, what about it? She wrote this down the night we met.”

“You saw her writing it?”

“Sure.”

“Did she write those initials at the same time?”

“What initials?”

“The ones in parentheses. Under your phone number.”

Thornton studied the page more closely. “How would I know?” he said, frowning.

“You said you saw her writing . . .”

“Yeah, but I didn’t see the actual page, I mean, we were in bed, man, this was like after the second time around, and she asked me what the address was, and how she could get in touch with me, and I told her. But I didn’t actually see the page itself. I only saw her writing in the book, you dig?”

“Got any idea what the initials mean?”

“TS can only mean ‘Tough Shit,’ ” Thornton said, and grinned.

“Any reason why she might want to write that in her book?” Meyer asked.