“No.”
“That can be checked maybe. Right now we want you to get her to talk. Goddam her, she’s stopped us dead. Come on.” He moved.
I caught his elbow. “Hold it. If she sticks to it that she’ll only talk with me I’ll have to think up questions. I ought to know what happened.”
“Yeah.” Purley wanted no more delay, but obviously I had a point. “There were only three of us left, me here at the front, and Joffe and Sullivan there on chairs. The barbers were all working on customers. Fickler was moving around. I was on the phone half the time. We had squeezed out everything we could here, for the present anyhow, and it was a letdown, you know how that is.”
“Where was Janet?”
“I’m telling you. Toracco, that’s Philip, finished with a customer, and a new one got in his chair — we were letting regular customers in. The new one wanted a manicure, and Toracco called Janet, but she didn’t come. Fickler was helping the outgoing customer on with his coat. Toracco went behind the partition to get Janet, and there she was on the floor of her booth, cold. She had gone there fifteen minutes before, possibly twenty. I think all of them had gone behind the partition at least once during that time.”
“You think?”
“Yes, I think.”
“It must have been quite a letdown.”
“I said I was on the phone a lot. Joffe and Sullivan will not be jumped up, and don’t they know it. You know damn well how much we like it, her getting bopped with three of us right here.”