So Nude, So Dead by Ed McBain Page A

about dinner jackets?” Ray said. Sanders chuckled and pulled the door shut. The latch clicked and they started down the stairs together.
    * * *
    Two minutes.
    Just up the steps, knock on the door.
    Massine would open it. He’d go in, and Massine would give him the eighth. He wondered if he should pay for it. Maybe not. Maybe he could scare Massine again, and keep his money for another fix when he needed it.
    He climbed the steps quickly, his heart thudding against his rib case. Heroin, his mind sang. Heroin.
    He stopped outside Massine’s door and knocked quickly.
    He waited for an answer, the sweat beginning to ooze out all over his body. He knocked again, then tried the door knob. The door swung open slowly. Massine was sitting in an armchair, facing the window.
    Ray closed the door quickly. “Did you get it?” he asked, his eyes bright, his tongue wetting his lips.
    Massine didn’t answer.
    Ray banged a fist into his open hand. “Did you get it?” He walked in front of Massine and looked down at him.
    Massine looked right back, but he wasn’t seeing anything. There was a neat little hole right between his eyes, and it dribbled blood down along the side of his nose and over his mouth.
    Ray stared at the drummer.
    “Massine? Mass—”
    He was dead.
    The heroin. What about the heroin? Ray glanced quickly toward the door. He should stay and look for it. A cold sweat broke out over his body.
    Suppose the police—
    He shook his head, and a sob wrenched through his chest. He wanted to weep, and he bit his lip to hold back the tears. So close. He’d been so close, so close, so close.
    And then the fear raked his spine and he ran for the door, not looking back at the dead man staring out the window.

Chapter Eight
    He let the phone ring. Please be home, he thought.
    “Hello?”
    “Hello, Babs?” His voice came out in a rush.
    “Yes?”
    “I tried to get you before. You weren’t—”
    “Who is this?”
    “Ray. Ray…” He stopped short, trying to remember what last name he’d given her. “Ray,” he repeated weakly.
    “Oh, hello!” Her voice became smooth, syrupy.
    “I’ve got to see you, Babs. You’re the only one who can—”
    She laughed a rising laugh, and somehow the sound irritated him. “Slow down, honey,” she said. “You sound like a machine gun.”
    “I’ve got to see you,” he repeated slowly.
    “Well, I’ve got a dinner engagement, Ray.” Her voice was apologetic now.
    “So late?”
    “It’s only eight-thirty, honey.”
    “Well, Jesus, can’t you break it?”
    “I’m afraid not.”
    He clamped his jaws together, ready to hang up.
    Her voice came to him again. “I can see you later, Ray.”
    “When?”
    “I’ll try to beg off early. Ten, ten-thirty.”
    “Can’t you make it sooner?”
    “I’m cutting it awfully close as it is.”
    A new thought came to him. “What about the Trade Winds? Aren’t you singing tonight?”
    “No,” she said. “Kramer didn’t think it would look good for the band to appear the same night Eileen’s murder was announced. He’s arranged for a substitute band.”
    “Oh. All right, I’ll see you at ten, then.”
    “Fine.”
    “Babs?”
    “Yes?”
    “Where shall I meet you?”
    “My place,” she said. There was a long pause. “That all right with you?”
    “Yes. Yes, that’s fine.”
    “We’ll dance.”
    “I wanted to talk to you, Babs. I’m—”
    “We’ll talk, too.”
    “All right.”
    “I’ll see you later then. Bye.”
    “So long, Babs.”
    He held the receiver to his ear long after he heard the click on the other end. Then he hung it back on the hook and sat in the booth.
    A man walked by the glass door, and Ray glanced over his shoulder quickly. He was getting the jitters, all right. It was beginning to get him, the hunted feeling. He’d feel better when he could talk to someone. Ten o’clock, she’d said. That would be fine.
    He thought of Charlie Massine sitting in the armchair, the crimson trail of blood