Abby bounced up the stairs with a mile-wide grin on her face. “Hey, babe,” she said, opening the door to her apartment. “Come on in. I’ve got something to tell you.” She charged inside, tore off her jacket, and tossed it on the loveseat. Then she flounced into the kitchen, took a bottle of vodka out of the cabinet, and set it down on the counter. “Want a drink?” There was a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I know it’s early, but what the hell? You only live once.”

I picked up my bags and carried them inside. “I bought some limes and tomato juice. Want to make Bloody Marys?”

“Great!” she said, cranking open a tray of ice. “What else have you got there? Anything to eat? I’m famished!”

“Bread, cheese, salami, green pepper.” I put the grocery bags down on the table and removed the contents. Then I took off my jacket and beret and put them on the loveseat. Catching a glimpse of the painting propped on the easel in Abby’s living room-cum-art studio, I went over for a closer look. A bosomy blonde in a skimpy pink bikini was tied spread-eagle to the large wheel of a covered wagon, and several bare-chested Indians with feathers in their hair and tomahawks in their hands were doing a war dance around her.

“Your new painting’s really far-out,” I said, returning to the kitchen to help get things ready. “I didn’t know pioneer women wore bikinis.”

Abby laughed. “In Men’s Wild Adventure magazine, all the women wear bikinis-unless they’re going swimming, of course, in which case they just wear seaweed or lily pads.”

I snickered and said, “What’s the cover line for this one? Wait, don’t tell me. It’s ‘Busty Blonde Gets a Hatchet Haircut!’ Am I right?”

“Close,” she teased. “It’s ‘Scalped Blondes Have More Fun!’ ”

We giggled while we prepared our lunch. Except for the tomato juice, everything I brought needed slicing. After stirring our drinks and assembling assorted slices of food on two plates, we sat down to eat.

“Here’s blood in your eye,” Abby said, raising her glass in a toast, then taking a big gulp of her Bloody Mary.

I did the same, and we were quiet for a while after that. (It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full.)

“SO, WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?” I ASKED, AS soon as we finished our feast. “You said you had something to tell me.”

“Yeah, I do,” Abby murmured, “but you’re not gonna be very happy about it, so I think we’d better have another drink first.”

She took our glasses over to the counter and plunked in a few more ice cubes.

“Oh, no!” I said, stomach churning. “Why won’t I be happy? What have you done now?”

She measured out the vodka and poured in the tomato juice. “Nothing really bad, babe. And it was for your own good. But you’re still not gonna like it.” She squeezed a segment of lime into each glass, then added more than a few drops of Tabasco and brought them over to the table. “Stir it with your finger,” she said, setting one of the drinks in front of me. “All the hot stuff’s on top.”

Too upset to listen, I grabbed the glass and guzzled down a third of the fiery cocktail. It didn’t even faze me. My brain and tongue were already ablaze. “Stop stalling!” I screeched. “What the hell happened? What are you afraid to tell me?”

Abby sat down and lit a cigarette. Then she propped her feet up on an empty chair, blew a perfect smoke ring in my direction, and announced with an air of defiance, “I went to see Sabrina this afternoon.”

“What?” I thought my skull would explode. “Are you crazy? How could you do that to me? I told you it would be disastrous if you met Sabrina! Whatever made you-”

“Oh, hush, Paige,” she said, untying her ponytail and shaking her shiny black mane down her back. “You always make such a tsimmis.” (For those not familiar with Yiddish, that means stew, fuss, mess.)

“But there was no reason for you to go there!” I shrieked, making another tsimmis. “I spent the whole morning with Sabrina, and she answered every single one of my questions, and now I know she didn’t kill Virginia. You hear what I’m saying? She’s not a suspect anymore, and that’s all there is to it!”

“Well, now that I’ve met the woman, I agree with you. But I needed to see for myself.”

“But how did you know where to go? I never gave you her address.”

“No, but you told me she lived on Gramercy Park, and you gave me a very vivid description of her building. How many white castles with gargoyles and cherubs and knights in shining armor could there be? The minute I stepped onto the sidewalk surrounding the park, I spotted the right place.”

I took another swig of my drink. And then another. “So what did you do then?” I whimpered, wondering if she’d destroyed my credibility with Sabrina altogether. “Burst into her apartment and tell her that Paige Turner sent you? Claim that I had appointed you my deputy?”

Abby rolled her eyes. “No way, Doris Day. I wouldn’t dream of such a thing! You said Sabrina had sworn you to secrecy, so I was careful not to jeopardize your pact with her. I told her I heard about her operation from a friend of a friend of a friend who used to be one of her girls. Trust me, babe, your name was never spoken.”

I found that heartening but hard to believe.

“So what did you say after that? What reason did you give for suddenly appearing at her apartment and sniffing around like a demented beagle?”

“I told her I was broke and wanted to join her escort service.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I said I wanted to become one of her call girls.”

Aaargh!

“Well, that’s just great,” I spluttered. “My best friend wants to be a whore.”

“Oh, shut up, Paige! You know it’s not like that. I went there for one reason, and one reason only: to protect you.”

“Protect me?” I cried, incredulous. “That’s a laugh and a half. I fail to understand how pretending you want to be a call girl-if, indeed, you were pretending-could afford me any protection at all. What the hell were you thinking?”

Abby shot me a furious look and blew another smoke ring. “Can’t you figure that out for yourself, Miss Marple? For a crime writer, you’re not too swift. My motives were simple and pure, you dig? I thought I’d talk to Sabrina for a while, and study her behavior up close, and then-if I came away from the interview convinced that she was capable of murder-I’d do whatever I could to pry you out of her evil clutches.”

“Pry?” I questioned. “Evil clutches?” I scoffed. “Aren’t you being a bit melodramatic? You make it sound as though I’d been brainwashed or something.”

“Well, it was possible, you know!” Abby said, pouting. “Sabrina was in control of your actions to a degree. And she could have been feeding you false clues, steering you to pin the murder on somebody else. And the way I saw it, you weren’t anywhere near as suspicious of her as you should have been. I mean, what if she did lead you to identify and incriminate an innocent man? Wouldn’t she then have to kill you to make sure the truth never came out? Sorry, Paige, but I was really wigged out about this. I thought you weren’t watching your back, so I decided to watch it for you.”

“Well, that was very sweet of you,” I said, with just the slightest hint of sarcasm, “but I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I was supicious of Sabrina’s motives from the outset, and-though I admit to being more focused on her list of primary suspects than I was on her-I never once lost sight of her possible involvement in the crime.

“That’s all changed now, though,” I added, giving Abby a potent Bette Davis gaze. “After my emotional heart-to-heart with Sabrina this morning, I’m convinced she would have killed herself before lifting a finger against Virginia.”

Abby nodded and smiled. “I’m with you, Lulu. Sabrina and I never discussed the murder or even mentioned Virginia ’s name, but I could tell from the way she treated me during our interview, and by the kind of questions she asked, that she’s a real mensch. Sure, she was sizing me up-trying to judge how good a prostitute I’d be-but she was also concerned about me as a person. My welfare actually mattered to her. I could see it in her eyes. I tell you, Paige, if I ever do decide to become a call girl, Sabrina’s the madam for me!”