“No?” That burned me. For him to think I could be dumb enough to believe she’d ask this hundred-thousand-a-year biggie to hang around her hotel room until her indefinite return. Or that he’d remain, on any such vague basis. “Where’d she go?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“Know who she went with?” From the door of the west bedroom, I gave it the quick runover. Lingerie on one boudoir chair. Mules and nylons on the floor beside it. Gold brush and mirror on the dresser alongside a flock of crystal bottles, lacquered jars.
“Some friend.” Lanerd kept that winning smile on his face. “Wouldn’t it be better if you asked her, when she gets back?”
“I’ve known occasions when an early question saved a lot of trouble later. F’rinst—” I pointed to dark marks on the pile of the chartreuse broadloom, curving in a crazy parabola toward the door from the bedroom to the corridor, “why did somebody feel it necessary to move the bureau against her door? That was done after the maid vacuumed in here.”
Lanerd chuckled, a forced chuckle. “Some women never can stay in any place without shifting the furniture to see how it’ll look in a different arrangement. ‘Now, if the beds were only catercorner instead of straight against the wall,’ or ‘How would it be if—’”
“—we stopped horsing.” His assumption he was putting over that mahaha got under my skin. “I saw Miss Marino down in the lobby just now. Be my guess she was afraid of somebody then. I come up here, find you ready to plug any unwelcome intruder. Then there’s this, sometime after the maids were here this afternoon, she felt it was necessary to block the door with furniture. Then it was moved back where it belongs. People don’t do it for laughs.”
“Well—” Lanerd dropped the kidding attitude. “Not exactly, perhaps. But it isn’t as serious as you imagine.” He went to the video set again, inspected his wrist watch. “I’ve pledged my word not to tell a soul. But I’m going to tell you, because I can see you’re the persistent kind who’ll keep on until you’ve dug out the answer — and spilled the whole keg of nails, meantime.”
I said, “Damn white of you,” just to be saying something — anything — except what was running through my mind.
How’d you get that blood on your hand?