It wasn’t a bad apartment. One look told me she didn’t keep it from the profits she made out of running the cigar stand at a second-rate hotel.
She slipped off her coat, told me to sit down, brought out cigarettes, asked me if I wanted some Scotch, and sat down on the sofa beside me. We lit cigarettes, and she sidled over to lean against me. I could see the gleam of light on her neck and shoulders, the seductive look in her blue eyes; and the hair that was like raveled hemp brushed against my cheek. “You and I,” she said, “are going to be good friends.”
“Yes?”
“Yes,” she said, “because the girl who went up to see Jed Ringold — the one you were following — was Alta Ashbury.”
And then she snuggled up against me affectionately.
“Who,” I asked, with a perfectly blank face, “is Alta Ashbury?”
“The woman you were following.”
I shook my head, and said, “My business was with Ringold.”
She twisted around so that she could keep looking at my face. Then she said slowly, “Well, it doesn’t make any difference in one way. It’s information that I can’t use myself — directly. I’d rather work with you than with anyone else I know,” and then added with a little laugh, “because I can keep you straight.”
“That isn’t telling me who Alta Ashbury is. Was she his woman?”