“Cripes! It’s the goddamn phone again!” Rhonda snapped. “They keep it muffled in case it rings while the show is on.”

“Do you have to answer it?” I asked, hoping she would.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said, wearily rising to her bare feet and padding toward the door to the hall. “You and Tonto have to leave now, anyway,” she added, shooting us a snotty glance over her shoulder. “I’m going back to sleep, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll run back across the street and take off your goddamn costumes.”

“Oh, we will!” I assured her, as she sashayed out the door and disappeared down the hall to the right. “And thanks for the autographs!” I called out, even though I knew she wasn’t listening. (I can be-and often am-polite to the puking point. Abby swears I’m related to Emily Post.)

Abby erupted as soon as Rhonda was gone. “What a bitch!” she spluttered, looking as if the top of her head would blow off. (Considering the pressure that had surely been building up in her stubborn, short-tempered skull, such an event wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.) “I never met such a sniveling, pretentious, big-mouthed broad in my life! She’s a tattletale and a tramp. And I bet she’s a murderer, too. She probably killed Gray for taking too long for lunch!”

“Shhhhhh!” I cautioned, holding a silencing finger up to my lips and tiptoeing over to the cot where Rhonda had tossed the pad and the pen. Glad she hadn’t taken the message pad with her to the phone, I promptly snatched up the tablet full of scribbles, hid it under my purse, and scrambled for the door. Abby scrambled right along with me and-fleeing down the hall to the left like Bonnie and Clyde (or, more precisely, Lucy and Ethel)-we made a clean getaway.

Chapter 10

MOST OF THE SCRIBBLED NOTES IN THE pad really were phone messages for Gray-a fact Abby and I determined as soon as we were seated on the subway headed home. Somebody named Bradley had called to say “Bravo!,” a fellow named Lloyd had phoned to say goodbye since he knew Gray would never talk to a “nobody” like him again, and somebody calling herself Aunt Doobie had left her room number at the Mayflower Hotel.

There were other messages as well-some of them congratulatory, most with first names only, just one with a phone number. No days or dates were noted, and there seemed to be no order to the listings, so-unless a message was congratulatory-I couldn’t determine if the call had been made last Thursday night or this afternoon. As far as I could tell, Cupcake hadn’t called on either day. I flipped the pad closed and tucked it under my purse, saving my careful clue-hunting inspection for later, when I could concentrate.

“Are you going to give the notebook to Flannagan in the morning?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Depends on how well he behaves. If he’s a good dog, I’ll give him the bone.”

“Ha!” she yelped. “Then you might as well bury it in the back yard. That man will always behave like a bastard.”

I laughed. “You’re probably right. He might even arrest me for stealing, or tampering with evidence. I’d better leave the pad at home.”

We got off the train at West 4th Street and climbed the steps to the street. The steamy heat engulfed me and I suddenly felt very weak. I hadn’t eaten much all day and-though I still wasn’t the least bit hungry-I knew I needed fuel.

“Want to grab a bite at the White Horse, Ab?” I asked, naming the popular tavern on Hudson Street that was famous for its cheap beer, lousy hamburgers, and literary clientele. They didn’t have air-conditioning, I knew, but very few places in the Village did.

“No way, Doris Day!” she said, shaking her head so violently her ponytail was twitching from one side of her back to the other, like a real horse’s tail swishing off flies. “I’m still full from lunch, babe. I’m just gonna mosey on over to the park, get a purple snow cone, see if Jimmy is there. Wanna come?”

“No, thanks. I’m too hot. And my head is too crazy for poetry or folk music. I think I’ll just go home, have a sandwich, catch some TV, and wait for Dan to call.”

The minute Dan’s name flitted out of my mouth, my heart started doing the hula. And my clammy forehead broke out in another sweat. I wanted to talk to Dan. The only thing in the whole wide world I wanted to do at that moment was talk to Dan.

I pulled Abby to a stop on the sidewalk and sputtered, “He’ll call me tonight, don’t you think? He probably tried to last night, but I was at the theater all evening, and after that my phone was off the hook. And he couldn’t get hold of me today since I haven’t been home. So he must be going nuts by now, wondering where I am and what I’ve been doing. Right? He’s going to call me tonight for sure, don’t you think?” (To say that I was eager to hear from my daring detective would be like calling the cruel heat wave cozy.)

“Be cool, fool,” Abby said, smiling. “If there’s one thing I know in this

focockta mixed-up world, it’s that a man likes a challenge. So it’s great that you’re playing hard-to-get. The harder you are to reach, the harder he’ll try to get there. You dig my meaning?”

I understood what Abby was saying, but I couldn’t accept her prognosis. She had never played hard-to-get in her whole darn hard-and-fast life, so what the heck did she know about it? And besides, I wasn’t playing games with Dan! I had gone to the theater at Abby’s insistence, and I had taken my phone off the hook to avoid a call from her, not him. And I had been out all day discovering a dead body and investigating a murder, for God’s sake, not toying with my boyfriend’s peace of mind. (Although now that I think of it, I guess that’s exactly what I

was doing. I mean, if Dan had known what I’d actually been up to, his peace of mind would have been pretty much shot.)

“Take it from me, Paige,” Abby added. “When you chase after a man, you’re just keeping him from catching you.”

“And that’s why you’re going to the park to look for Jimmy?” I teased. “To make yourself uncatchable?”

“Oh, shut up!” she said, giggling, nudging me with her elbow. Then she gave me a little bye-bye wave and quipped, “Catch you later, alligator. Tell Dan I said hi!” Before I could reply, she made an abrupt left turn and galloped across Sixth Avenue, her ponytail flapping wildly down her back.

I BOUGHT A LOAF OF ITALIAN BREAD AT Zito’s bakery, a few slices of salami and cheese at Faicco’s deli, and a green pepper at Angelo’s fruit and vegetable store before I went home. (That’s one advantage of living on Bleecker between Sixth and Seventh-anything you could possibly want to eat is right downstairs.) It was hot as hell in my apartment, but after I opened the back door and turned on the electric fan in the living room, it was almost suffer-able.

Switching on the radio and searching the dial for some cool music, I finally settled on Sarah Vaughn. She was singing “Whatever Lola Wants,” and-since Lola always got whatever she wanted-I wondered how hard it would be to change my first name.

Lola Turner, I thought. Has a nice ring to it. A tad too close to Lana’s label, but at least it’s not a stupid pun!

I took a bottle of Orange Crush out of the ice box, rolled its cold surface across my forehead, then pried off the metal cap using the handle of my kitchen drawer as an opener. Setting the soda pop down on the table, I removed the salami and cheese from the bag and slapped the slices on a plate. Then I grabbed a sharp knife from the kitchen drawer and-doing my best not to think of it as a murder weapon-used it to slash off a few pieces of bread and green pepper.

Dinner was served.

By the time I finished eating, the Four Aces were singing “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” and I was bawling like a baby.