Mario lolled his head to one side, holding his hand to his nose. Fleetwood raised his foot, and he came around fast.
"Don't!" he said. "Over there on the mantle, in the ivory box."
Fleetwood kept them both covered and crossed to the mantle. He picked up the box and flipped back the lid. Expensive fire, the cold kind of fire that comes from stones, flashed out at him. He closed it again and dropped it into his pocket.
"Look, Cassidy," Mario said, still sitting on the floor, "look, I took the rocks, I admit that, but I didn't rod Blanchard. Somebody else cooled him before I ever got to the dump...."
"Sure, Mario, sure," Fleetwood nodded, "you're the neat type. You just ran over in your dust cap to tidy up the death room. My client will be tickled to pieces to find out what a nice orderly vulture you turned out to be." He swiveled around toward the blonde. "And you'd better get yourself a new playmate, lamb-chop. This one won't even be able to keep you in rompers from now on." He gave Mario one last glance, to warn him to stay down, and legged it for the door. This was the kind of place and the kind of people he loved to leave behind.
She must have pole-vaulted across the room to have made it so fast; he was just reaching for the knob when her perfume pressed in on him from behind. He turned around, left his hand resting on the knob.
"Yeah?" he said.
"What you said," she drawled in a lazy, boudoir voice, "I mean about me getting myself a new playmate. You're right about that, Cassidy...." She held the idea out to him, waiting for him to take it up on the beat. He let it lay. She smiled, but her eyes turned as hard as a bride's biscuits. "Anyway, you could be right."
"And so...?" Fleetwood asked.
The smile stayed fixed, but she shrugged. "So maybe the music we'd make together wouldn't exactly be Brahms. But it wouldn't be Guy Lombardo, either. You've got the rocks, but your client doesn't know a thing about that unless you tell her. I have ... other things. And I can be sweet when I want." She moved closer and planted an arm around his neck, leaning in to make herself comfortable. "I can be so sweet you almost couldn't stand it. Almost."