Ghost of a Chance by Kelley Roos Page A

screamed.
    Jeff turned and fled.
    When I caught up to him, he was standing outside the Waldorf, trying to light a cigarette. His hands were trembling. He didn’t see me until I was at his side. He recoiled, fell back a step, then recognized me. He fell back three more steps, recoiled some more.
    “My God,” he said.
    He tried to say something else, but he could only moan softly. His attitude irritated me just a little.
    “Call a cab,” I said coldly.
    “You need an ambulance. What happened to you?”
    “I’ll explain everything in the cab.”
    “Haila, at least take off those horrible glasses.”
    I took them off.
    “No,” Jeff said, “put them back on.”
    “Here’s a cab. Get in.”
    I held the door open for Jeff, helped him through it. I told the driver to take us up Park Avenue. Jeff leaned forward and spoke earnestly to him.
    “Buddy,” he said, “believe me. I never saw this woman before in my life. I’m doing a favor for a sick friend.”
    Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I said, “Shut up.”
    “Haila!” Jeff shouted. “What the hell happened to you?”
    “This,” I said, “Is a disguise.”
    While I wiped that disguise off my face and put on the one I used every day to fool my husband and friends, I told Jeff how things were with me. He wasn’t annoyed that I had so stupidly let Joyce outsmart me. The narrowness of my escape left him too weak for that. He patted my knee; I moved the other one over to be patted, too, but Jeff was looking out through the rear window.
    I said, “Joyce never caught up with me. He isn’t following us now.”
    “Haila, you’d better go home.”
    “Why?”
    “I think it would be better if you went home.”
    “No! Darling, maybe Joyce was just trying to scare me.”
    “Sure,” Jeff said. “That’s all.”
    “But I won’t let anything like that happen again. And, Jeff, I did find out something. The time. Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
    “That was good going, Haila, but…”
    Jeff was looking out the back window again.
    “Darling,” I said, “you’re the one with the jitters, not I. Nobody is following us. I know I shook Joyce.”
    Jeff looked at me. “Joyce picked you up when we separated,” he said. “Somebody else followed me.”
    “Somebody else… you mean there were two of them? They ganged up on us! Jeff, who is yours, what does he look like? Have we seen him before?”
    Jeff shook his head. “I haven’t even spotted mine yet, Haila. I don’t know who he is.”
    “Then how do you know he’s following you?”
    “Haila,” Jeff said, “I wish you’d go home. I wish you’d let me handle this. In a little while I’m going down to Headquarters and see Hankins again and—”
    “Jeff, what’s happened? Something’s happened!”
    “Yes.”
    “You weren’t going to tell me.”
    “No, but… look, Haila. They killed Frank Lorimer when he got in their way. Joyce would have done the same thing to you.”
    “Hut how can you be so sure?”
    “Because,” he said, “they’ve already tried to get me.”
    “Jeff…”
    “They took a shot at me.”
    “Jeff!”
    “I’d rather not tell you how close it was.”
    “The stinkers.”
    “See, Haila, that’s why I want you to go home. The bad company you’re keeping is making you use bad language.”
    “Jeff, when did it happen, how?”
    “As soon as I was sure Joyce wasn’t following me, I went on to Tollman’s Stable myself. When I came out someone was up on a roof across the street. Fortunately, it’s awkward carrying rifles around town. It was a tough shot for a revolver. I dug the bullet out of Mr. Tollman’s floor. Maybe Hankins would like to see it.”
    “Don’t show it to me. I don’t want to see it.”
    “I wish you’d go home, Haila.”
    “No,” I said. “I won’t unless you do.”
    Jeff was silent. He was trying to think of a way to ditch me. I didn’t give him a chance. I said, “Did you learn anything at the stable?”
    “I talked to old