Hoppy yanked the car around a final corner and slid it to a halt in front of a canopy that stretched from the Gothic doorway of a skyscraper apartment building to the kerb.
“If you remember it so well,” Simon pursued patiently, “what was it — a right or a left?”
“Why it wuz a right, a... no, it wuz a left. A hook. Or maybe...” Hoppy hesitated, his vestigial brows furrowing painfully. “Maybe it wuz an uppercut dere against the ropes. He is t’rowin’ so many punches, I wouldn’t know.”
“That’s what I thought.”
The memory of Connie Grady’s enigmatic anxiety and her confused half-explained fears for Steve Nelson’s life rose in swelling reprise, cued in with the discord of tonight’s events like the opening movement of a concerto that gave promise of more — much more — to come.
Simon got out, the gloves dangling from his hand by their laces, entered the lobby of the building with Hoppy at his heels, and headed for the elevators.
“Maybe we oughta send out for sump’n to drink, huh, boss?” Hoppy suggested.
The Saint glanced at him. “Send who?”
Hoppy glanced around, becoming aware that the lobby was deserted, the desk man and lift operators off duty.
“It’s after midnight, chum,” the Saint pointed out as they entered the automatic elevator. He pressed the button marked “Penthouse.” The doors closed softly and the elevator purred skyward. “Besides,” the Saint added as an afterthought, “I believe there’s a half a bottle of bourbon left.”