“Near there. Bourbon County. North Middletown.”
“Hm.” I told her about the Seven-for-a-secret note I’d left with Tildy at the Brulard. “Any idea who might have signed that ‘Lx’?”
“Oh, Dow, I suppose. They have a sort of code, all abbreviations. Not secret, just affectionate. She’d call up to leave a message for him and say, ‘Tell him Lx will be late.’ Or he’ll send her a crate of orchids with nothing but ‘Lx’ on the card. Doesn’t have any significance. Only a reference to the Bluegrass they’re both so fond of.”
I said I guessed it was just jive-talk, no meaning. Had she seen any note on the floor when she came in and found me cooled?
No. She’d waited for Lanerd to call. Waited and hoped and waited some more. She hadn’t phoned his suite because she supposed the police would be there, as I’d warped her. She’d come straight to her apartment from the hotel so she hadn’t eaten.
Around three she decided to go down to the delicatessen on the corner of Broadway to get a sandwich and some of the mushrooms Lanerd liked so much. She’d left her door open because she thought, though he had a key to her place, that he might not have it with him.
She’d only been away ten minutes at most. When she came in and saw me on the floor, she thought surely I was dead. She called Lanerd’s doctor, he’d attended her several times, he came right over.
There’d been no envelope on the floor when she found me, she was positive about that.
I asked if I could dry the dishes. She shook her head; it was time for me to lie down.
“Just for the record,” I told her, “let this be the first time a Vine has refused that kind of an offer in a girl’s apartment. But I’ll take a check for a rainy day.”