A breathless voice from inside. 'Who is it?'

'It's me, Kim Nesbit. For chrissake let me in.'

228.

The door was unlocked, then flung wide, and Victoria, who had begun undressing, now in her bra and petticoat, reached out to catch Kim before she could fall.

'Miss Nesbit, I hadn't expected -' Victoria gasped, busying herself trying to support Kim and keep her on her feet.

T must talk to you - got lot to tell you - got to talk,' Kim mumbled. 'Got a lot to say about Ed - Ed Armstead - the way he told me - told me he was running people's lives - making news - maybe with a gang. I don't know - and trying to have someone killed, his psychiatrist, who was becoming suspicious - Geez, kiddo, I'm drunk. Got to admit it. Drunk as h.e.l.l. Lemme sit down.'

Victoria helped her off with her fur coat and led her to the sofa, which had just been converted into a sofa bed for the night. Victoria lowered her to a sitting position on the side of the bed. 'Let me get you some coffee,' said Victoria. 'Will you drink black coffee?'

'Anything,' sighed Kim.

'Just sit right here. Let me go in the kitchen and prepare some instant coffee. Just wait. I won't be more than a few minutes. I'll be right back.'

Victoria studied her visitor. Then, rea.s.sured, she pulled on her robe and disappeared into the kitchen.

Kim sat swaying on the edge of the bed, her hands pushing back her flaxen hair, pressing her temples, covering her eyes.

She wanted to close her eyes, rest, rest forever. She fell on the bed, raised her legs onto the bed, squirmed backward until the back of her head found the softness of the pillow and her body was stretched out p.r.o.ne. Lying there on her back, she tried to resist sleep, but immediately surrendered.

Eyes closed, she drifted into darkness.

Not even the silent opening of the apartment door dispelled the darkness.

The front door continued opening wider, and the figure of a man appeared quietly, sidling sideways into the room with practiced agility.

In a split second he had surveyed the room. His catlike gaze came to rest on the figure lying stretched out on the sofa bed. There she was, at last. The blonde on the bed.

A looker, yet. He was tempted to rape her first. But that would be unprofessional, a self-indulgence.

He had pride in his profession, a job to be done quickly and perfectly.

It was too easy, really.

On his noiseless tennis shoes, he moved gracefully to the foot of the bed. His right hand touched the metal in his pocket. He brought out the Walther P-38 and the bulky silencer, put them together, released the safety catch, circled his forefinger around the trigger, and lifted the gun above the foot of the bed. His right arm went straight out, the gun an extension of his right hand.

He pointed the gun at the center of the blonde's white forehead.

He tugged at the trigger.

Swoosh.

She gave a convulsive jerk - the impact, he knew - and lay still, very limp and very still.

229.

He arced the P-38 down by ten inches, the aim lower, and shot her in the heart.

For good measure. It was fun anyway. The second shot had drawn blood, which was seeping through her sweater.

He turned, glided away, slipping through the crack in the door, vanishing behind the neatly shut door.

From the kitchen, Victoria appeared, cup of coffee and saucer in hand, brow knit at what she thought had been some kind of unusual sound.

The room was as before. The door closed. Relieved, she turned to Kim Nesbit, stretched out on the sofa bed.

At first she did not understand.

And then she did, reeling backward against the wall, letting the coffee cup and saucer drop from her shaking hand.

She tried to find her voice. Only a gurgle and nausea rose in her throat.

She retreated from the deathbed and began screaming. She stumbled to the door, screaming, and into the hallway, screaming at the top of her voice.

Outside the windows and beyond the balcony of Edward Armstead's office on the sixth floor of the Armstead Building, the gray of earliest morning was giving form to the skysc.r.a.pers across Park Avenue.

At the publisher's desk, Armstead behind it, Dietz in front of it, the pair were having their first hot coffee of the new day. Armstead, lounging in his swivel chair, the latest morning edition of the New York "Record laid up against his crossed knee, was reading the story on page three.

'You had to run it, I guess,' he said.

It was not a question, but Dietz chose to answer it. 'We had to run it,' said" Dietz. 'It would have been awkward and suspicious if we hadn't.'

Armstead dipped his head in a.s.sent. 'You're right.' He finished the story and cast the newspaper aside. 'A discreet job.'

'We tried to bury it.'

Armstead shook his head. 'Poor Kim. How could Pagano's guy have botched it so badly?'

'It's understandable,' Dietz reasoned. 'He'd been given an a.s.signment. He'd never seen the intended victim before. He'd been told, "Get the blonde who lives in that apartment." So he went in, got the blonde - the wrong blonde - while the real one was in the kitchen.'

'Which still leaves some work undone.'

'I'm afraid so.'

'Where is our Victoria Weston?'

'She disappeared from the apartment. No idea where she went.'.

'We'll have to find out, Harry.'

'We will, Chief 230.

Armstead emptied his cup of coffee. 'What.in the h.e.l.l was Kim doing in'her apartment anyway?'

'I don't know. Again, I'm sorry about the mistake.'

'I am - and I'm not,' said Armstead, standing up. 'She must have gone there to talk. She probably never got the chance.' He smiled and started to unwrap a cigar. 'Looks like luck's on our side all the way.'

Hannah Armstead had already been awake, sitting up in bed removing her hairnet, and reading the story in both newspapers, when the nurse came in to tell her that her physician was on the phone.

'I gave him a full report,' the nurse said. 'He was very pleased. He prefers that you eat as little as possible today, but if you are really hungry and want breakfast -'

'I want breakfast,' Hannah said.

'The doctor would like to speak to you.'

'Very well. Help me out of bed first, and help me with my dressing gown. Roll up the wheelchair.'

Once she was settled in her wheelchair and the nurse had gone to prepare breakfast, Hannah picked up the phone.

'Congratulations,' the doctor said. 'You're on your way to a full recovery. You'll be fine.'

'Was it ptomaine?'

'Possibly. There was a poisonous substance in the porridge. Whether the fault of the manufacturer or some boric acid -you had some in the kitchen for c.o.c.kroaches - got into the mix by mistake,. I, can't say. If you would like us to pursue it further -'

'Never mind.'

'I can come by and have a look at you later.'

'Don't bother. I feel fine. I'll spend the day resting and sleeping.'

'Well, that would be best. You just take it easy. If there's the slightest problem, any distress, call me. Otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow definitely.'

'Tomorrow, yes.'

'Incidentally, Mrs. Armstead, I rang up your husband before calling you. He'd been so upset yesterday. But just now I was able to rea.s.sure him that the prognosis was for a perfect recovery. He was rushing out of town, but told me he'd be seeing you before he leaves. Anyway, I was glad to give him the good news. He was quite relieved.'

I'll bet he was, thought Hannah.

'Thank you, doctor,' she said.

After hanging up, Hannah reread the story in the Record. Onetime Broadway musical comedy star, Kim Nesbit, slain by an unknown intruder. Next, Hannah reread the story in the Times, front page and more explicit. Blond feature player in many Broadway musicals of two decades ago, Kim Nesbit, was mysteriously shot to death in a friend's brownstone apartment last night. Police theorized that she had been awakened from a nap by the entry of a burglar, and he had killed her.

The princ.i.p.al backer of Miss Nesbit's lavish musicals had been the late Ezra J. Armstead, founding giant of Armstead Communications.

231.

Neither newspaper acknowledged the presence in Miss Nesbit's life of Edward Armstead - in one instance, Hannah thought, the omission had been deliberate, in the other, through ignorance of the truth.

But Hannah knew the truth.

She put aside her newspapers as the nurse set the spa.r.s.e breakfast tray before her.

With one eye on the time, she munched her soft-boiled egg and drank her tea. A few minutes after finishing breakfast, Hannah took up the remote control and turned on the morning television news.

Stoically she withstood coverage of a West Virginia mining disaster, and suffered through preparations being made for President Thomas Callaway's flight to the meeting with the British prime minister in London tomorrow morning. After the commercials there was the top of the loyal city news, and Hannah came forward in her wheelchair. The old brownstone apartment building on West Seventy-third Street, scene of a tragedy last night. Shots of the small studio apartment inside rented by a Manhattan newspaperwoman, Victoria Weston. A grisly closeup of the bloodstained bed. A montage of still photographs of the late Kim Nesbit in some of her Broadway roles. The questioning of a New York City police detective on the killing... no clues, no nothing, dead end on a death. A fleeting attempt at interviewing the occupant of the apartment, Miss Victoria Weston, a pretty young thing but absolutely ashen as she left the scene of the murder with two policemen.

Dissolve to the opening of a new day-care center in Harlem.

Hannah pressed the b.u.t.ton of her remote control unit and blanked out the television screen.

Victoria Weston.

Hannah swung her wheelchair around and rolled it to the head of her bed. Her fingers felt underneath her pillow until they touched the folded piece of paper. She withdrew it, unfolded it, and once more read the cryptic message that had been left for her last night: 'I work for your husband. Must see you privately about him. Utmost importance. Please don't let him see note or my name. Thanks. Victoria Weston.'

The pretty young woman who was employed on Edward's newspaper. The young woman in whose apartment Edward's mistress had been murdered last night. The young woman who had tried to see Armstead's wife last night.

Please don't let him see note or my name.

A young woman who was afraid of Edward Armstead.

A young woman who wanted to hear something or tell something about him.

Utmost importance.

Hannah rang the kitchen and summoned the nurse.

When the st.u.r.dy nurse stood at attention before her, Hannah said, 'Helga, I don't need you anymore today. You can go home now.'

'Mrs. Armstdad,' the nurse protested, 'I've only just begun the day. Doctor's orders were -'

'Never mind what the doctor's were. I spoke to him. He said if I did not need you, I could send you home. I won't need you anymore today. I have a friend on the way over, and she'll look after me until bedtime. You'll be paid for the rest of the day. Thanks, Helga, thanks for everything.'

232.

'If you say so.'

T say so.'

Hannah sat listening, and ten minutes later when she heard the nurse departing and was certain that Helga was gone, she rolled her wheelchair to the telephone.

She dialed the number that Victoria Weston had left for her.

Not unexpectedly, the voice answering the telephone in the apartment was that of a policeman.

'Officer Flaherty.'

'I'm a friend of Victoria Weston's. I'd like to speak to her.'

'She's not here, madam. She's temporarily moved out.'

'Can you tell me where I can reach her?'

'I'm sorry, not permitted, madam. My instructions are to take any messages for Miss Weston. She'll'