In the Midst of Death by Lawrence Block Page A

resulted from the charges that woman brought against him. It could all put us in something of a delicate position. We didn't do anything, you know, but the publicity can hardly work to our advantage."

    I nodded. "AboutBroadfield ," I said. "Did you see him often?"

    "Not very often.He worked directly with Mr.Prejanian ."

    "Did he ever bring anyone to this office?A woman?"

    "No, he was always alone."

    "DidPrejanian or anyone from this office ever meet him elsewhere?"

    "No, he always came here."

    "Do you know where his apartment was?"

    "Barrow Street, wasn't it?" I perked up at that, but then he said, "I didn't even know he had an apartment inNew York , but there was something about it in the newspaper, wasn't there? I think it was someplace inGreenwich Village ."

    "Did Portia Carr's name ever come up?"

    "That's the woman he murdered, isn't it?"

    "That's the woman who was murdered."

    He managed a smile. "I stand corrected. I suppose one cannot jump to conclusions, however obvious they seem. No, I'm sure I never heard her name before that item appeared in Monday's newspaper."

    I showed him Portia's photo, torn from the morning's News. I added some verbal description. But he had never seen her before.

    "Let me see if I have it all straight," he said. "He was extorting money from this woman. A hundred dollars a week, I believe it was?
    And she exposed him Monday, and last night she was murdered in his apartment."

    "She said he was extorting money from her. I met her and she told me the same story. I think she was lying."

    "Why would she lie?"

    "To discreditBroadfield ."

    He seemed genuinely puzzled. "But why would she want to do that? She was a prostitute, wasn't she?

    Why should a prostitute try to impede our crusade against police corruption? And why would someone else murder a prostitute inBroadfield's apartment? It's all very confusing."

    "Well, I won't argue with you on that."

    "Terribly confusing," he said. "I can't even understand whyBroadfield came to us in the first place."

    I could. At least I had a good idea now. But I decided to keep it to myself.

Chapter 6
    I stopped at my hotel long enough to take a quick shower and run an electric razor over my face. There were three messages in my pigeonhole, three callers who wanted to be called back. Anita had called again, and a police lieutenant named Eddie Koehler.And MissMardell .

    I decided that Anita and Eddie could wait. I called Elaine from the pay phone in the lobby. It wasn't a call I wanted to route through the hotel switchboard. Maybe they don't listen in, but then again maybe they do.

    When she answered I said, "Hello. Do you know who this is?"

    "I think so."

    "I'm returning your call."

    "Uh-huh.Thought so. You got phone troubles?"

    "I'm in a booth, but how about you?"

    "This phone's supposed to be clean. I pay this little Hawaiian cat to come over once a week and check for bugs. So far he hasn't found any, but maybe he doesn't know how to look. How would I know? He's really a very little cat. I think he must be completely transistorized."

    "You're a funny lady."

    "Well, where are we without a sense of humor, huh? But we might as well be reasonably cool on the phone. You can probably guess what I called about."

    "Uh-huh."

    "The questions you were asking the other day, and I'm a girl who reads the paper every morning, and what I was wondering was, can any of this lead back to me? Is that something I should start worrying about?"

    "Not a chance."

    "Is that straight?"

    "Absolutely.Unless some of the calls you made to find things out can work back toward you. You talked to some people."

    "I already thought of that and sealed it off. If you say I got nothing to worry about, then I don't, and that's the way Mrs.Mardell's little girl likes it."

    "I thought you changed your name."

    "Huh? Oh, no, not me. I was born ElaineMardell , baby. Not saying my father didn't change it a while back, but it was already nice andgoyish by the time I