"Where—where is he?" he asked weakly, his heart pounding helplessly in his throat.
"Not another step," the girl snarled. "Another inch and I'll slice you up like putty."
"No, no—" Jeff shook his head, trying desperately to clear his mind, to understand. This was the girl he had seen in the visiphone screen. Yes, the same clothes, the same face. But she wasn't the girl in the tavern. "Conroe," he blurted out, plaintively. "You—you must know Conroe—"
"I've never heard of Conroe."
"But you must have—last night, in that dive—dancing—"
Her jaw dropped as she stared at him in disgust. Then she gave the knife a flip into the desk top and sank down on her bed, her face relaxing. "Go away," she said tiredly. "That goddam Frenchman's sense of humor. Go on, beat it. I'm not rooming with any hoppy—at least until he's off the stuff."
"You don't know Conroe?"
The girl looked at him closely. "Look, Jack," she said with patient bitterness, "I don't know who you are and I don't know your pal Comstock or whatever it is. And I sure as hell wasn't dancing anywhere last night. I was working in the tank last night getting some looped-up hophead cooled off for the axe this morning. And it wasn't fun for either of us, and you'll be down there yourself if you don't cool off. And you won't like it, either. So go away, don't bother me."
Jeff sank down on the opposite bed, his head in his hands. "You—you looked so much like her—"
"So I looked so much like her!" She spat out a filthy word and drew her legs up, glaring at him.