happy.)

“Getting tired yet, Mrs. Turner?” Flannagan prodded. “Had enough?” He was taking pleasure in interrogating me. You could tell by the way his thin lips kept curling up in the corners.

“I’ve had more than enough,” I said, “but apparently

you haven’t. How long do you plan to keep me here?”

“As long as it takes for you to tell me the truth.”

“And what makes you think I’m not?”

He let out a nasty chuckle. “And what makes you think I’m a stupid fool?” He loosened his tie (finally) and glared at me across the back seat. “Look, I know your game, Mrs. Turner. I know you’re a nosy reporter for

Daring Detective magazine, not just a secretary as you told me at our first meeting. Did you think I never learned how to read? I’ve seen your name in the papers on several occasions-in connection with one murder case or another-and it’s a damn easy name to remember.”

Aaaargh!

“But that doesn’t mean I was lying to you,” I insisted. “Ask my boss Brandon Pomeroy if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you I’m a secretary, and nothing

but a secretary.”

“Then he’d be lying, too.”

Score one for the perceptive detective.

“Okay, okay! So I’m a nosy crime writer. I didn’t reveal myself before because I was afraid you might tell my boyfriend, Dan Street, about my connection to this case. I’m sure you know him. He’s in homicide in the Midtown South precinct, and he’s forbidden me to inquire into any more unsolved murder cases-ever! If he thought I was working on a story about the Gray Gordon murder, he’d kill me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Flannagan jeered. “At the rate you’re going, somebody else is gonna beat him to it.”

He had a point. I wouldn’t have believed it yesterday-even the Baldy and Blackie incidents hadn’t convinced me that I was in serious danger-but the Aunt Doobie incident tonight had made a deep and painful impression. Now I

knew I was at risk.

“If you know what’s good for you,” Flannagan went on, “you’ll tell me the truth-and I mean the

whole truth-about what’s been going on. You’ll tell me everything you’ve learned about the case so far, and you’ll stop meddling in the investigation right now. And here’s another tip: You’d better quit dressing like a dyke and hanging out with homosexuals. Willard Sinclair, in particular. He might do to you what he did to Gray Gordon.”

“Oh, come off it, Detective Flannagan!” I sputtered. “You don’t

really believe Willy killed Gray! You can’t! Willy is a kind, gentle, and very squeamish man. He’s as dainty and fastidious as your grandmother. He couldn’t bring himself to carve up a turkey, much less a human being!”

“Leave my grandmother out of this.” Flannagan fired up a Camel and blew the smoke in my direction. “You could be wrong about your homo pal, Mrs. Turner. Ever think of that?

Sinclair is our number one suspect. He’s the same blood type as the killer.”

“Yes, he told me that, but-”

“But what? The proven facts don’t mean anything to you? You’ve decided the fat little faggot is innocent, and that’s the end of it? I thought you were smarter than that, Mrs. Turner. You’re just begging for trouble. For all you know, Willard Sinclair was the one who knocked your block off tonight.”

By this point I wanted to knock off his. “Don’t be ridiculous! Willy didn’t even know when I left the bar. I shot out of there in a flash because…”

Take it easy, Paige. Slow down. Be cool. I fully intended to tell Flannagan about Aunt Doobie, but I wanted to choose my words carefully, make sure I didn’t reveal more than was good for me. Or Willy.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Flannagan scoffed. “I’ve heard it all before. You left the bar because you had too much to drink and you needed to get some air. But you might as well ditch that pack of lies right now. We know what really happened. We’ve known it all along.” The gloating smile on his face was so annoying I wanted to wipe it off with my fist. (When you think you

look manly, you kind of feel manly, too.)

Luckily for both of us, I took the passive (i.e., feminine) route instead. “I’m sorry, Detective Flannagan,” I cajoled. “I haven’t been totally honest with you. I’m so scared and confused I don’t know what I’m saying. But look, I have an idea. Why don’t you tell me what

you know, and then I’ll tell you what I know. That way, we can compare notes and work out the truth together.” I smiled sweetly at him and fluttered my lashes, hoping I could get him to go first.

To my great astonishment, he did. (Sometimes you really

can catch more flies with honey.)

“We learned by telephone at approximately ten thirty-five tonight,” he began, speaking in a lofty, official tone, “that a woman had been attacked at the corner of West and Barrow. The caller reported seeing a dark-haired man in dark clothing hit the victim on the back of the head-with a brick, or a rock, or a hunk of cement-and then run away on West toward Christopher. About halfway up the block, the assailant jumped into the back seat of a black Lincoln limousine, and the car took off for parts unknown.”

Black limousine? Baldy. Dark hair and dark clothing? Aunt Doobie. Or maybe Blackie. Cripes! It could have been anybody! Does Baldy have a wig?

“We arrived on the scene within minutes,” Flannagan went on, “and found you lying on the ground in the dark, unconscious and unprotected. There were no onlookers or eyewitnesses-even the man who called us was gone. You regained consciousness almost immediately, though, claiming to feel fine and showing no signs of serious injury. There was a big rock lying nearby which may or may not have been the assault weapon. We’re taking it into the lab for testing.”

Flannagan wiped his sweaty face with his handkerchief and opened the top button ot his shirt. “That’s my story,” he said. “Now you tell me yours.”

I knew it was time to come clean. So I did (well, clean

er, anyway). I admitted that I was working on the Gray Gordon story, and that I was trying to find the killer (for a variety of reasons, truth and justice being among them), and that I had withheld that information from the police in order to save myself-and Willy-from further scrutiny and admonishment.

“But now I realize that was the wrong thing to do,” I said, in total honesty, “and I’m ready to tell you everything I know.”

With just a couple of itty bitty details left out. I took an L &M out of the pack in my breast pocket, lit it with a match (Flannagan never extended his lighter), and started puffing and talking.

Confessing that Abby and I had begun looking for clues to the killer’s identity the same day we discovered the body, I gave Flannagan a full account of our expedition to Stewart’s Cafeteria, my brief talk with Blondie and Blackie, our infiltration of the Morosco Theatre, and our chance meeting with Rhonda Blake. Then I told him about the list of phone messages Rhonda had written down for Gray.

I didn’t tell him that I had stolen the message pad, of course (if he charged me with evidence tampering, I’d be in trouble too sticky to sidestep), but I did tell him almost everything I could remember about the list, including Aunt Doobie’s room number at the Mayflower Hotel, and the four messages from Randy. The only call I didn’t mention was the one from Binky. I was afraid if I gave Flannagan Binky’s name and number, he (Flannagan) would screw up my possible meeting with him (Binky) tomorrow, and then the names of Gray’s friends-or, most importantly, his enemies-at the Actors Studio would be lost to me forever.

When he had finished taking notes about Gray’s telephone messages, I told Flannagan about my trip to the Mayflower to see Aunt Doobie, giving him a full description of the man who was registered in room 96 as John Smith. Then, continuing to relate the events in the order in which they occurred, I told him about seeing Rhonda Blake and Baldy at the Vanguard, reporting that Baldy had asked the bartender a bunch of questions about me, then departed with Rhonda in a black limousine.