I slid him the fifty bucks.
“Okay, but you’d better stick to this,” I told him. “If you and I work together much longer, you’ll be buying your own apartment block.”
He snapped up the note, eased his collar, came out of his office.
“If you’ll pardon me,” he said, “I have to check on the mail deliveries.” He hurried across the lobby without looking back.
It didn’t take me longer than it’d take you to blink to pick up the pass-key. I walked over to the elevator, rode up to the fourth floor.
Apartment 466 was silent and in semi-darkness. I pulled my .38, held it in my fist. I had no intention of being jumped by Gomez.
I crossed the sitting-room, wandered into the bedroom.
Gomez and Lois Spence were in bed. He lay on his back; she on her side. Neither of them snored. Neither of them looked particularly attractive.
I sat on the edge of the bed, pinched Lois’s toes. She muttered in her sleep, turned, flung out a white arm, hit Gomez on his beaky nose. He cursed, threw her arm off, sat up. His eyes took me in, and he snapped awake. He didn’t move. The .38 must have looked pretty menacing from where he lay.
“Hello, sportsman,” I said, smiling at him. “How did you like your swim?”