Brass Rainbow Read Online Free PDF Page A

too.”
    â€œOkay, I know Paul Baron. That’s one out of four.”
    â€œDo you know what Baron wants with Weiss?”
    â€œI don’t even know if Paul knows the guy.”
    â€œYes you do,” I said. “I saw you with Weiss on Eighth Avenue last night.”
    â€œNo you didn’t,” she said, and walked away.
    I watched her go. She walked nicely in that leotard. I watched until she went through the door backstage. Then I paid and left.

5
    T HERE WERE PLENTY of Radfords in the telephone book, and enough Walter Radfords, but only one Walter Radford IV. Those numerals seemed to mean a lot to the Radfords. The address was Gramercy Park.
    I was in Mary’s Italian Restaurant just off Seventh Avenue when I looked up Walter Radford, and I stopped for some shrimp marinara. When I went out into the street again to find a taxi, it was dark and quiet and ten degrees colder since the snow had stopped.
    The taxi dropped me in front of a new and shiny building, all glass and red brick, that was not exactly on Gramercy Park although it had the address. The lobby was elegant but small, and there was no doorman. Walter Radford IV had apartment 12. I rode the stainless steel elevator to the third floor.
    There was no answer to my ringing. I looked up and down the empty corridor. The door had an ordinary spring lock, with enough gap between door and frame. I took out the stiff plastic rectangle I carry, slipped it between door and frame and against the lock, and pressed hard. I worked the rectangle. The lock gave with a click and I skinned a knuckle.
    Inside I switched on the light. The risk was worth not being taken for a burglar. It was a gaudy apartment of chrome, plastic and bad modern—designed without art and selected without taste. The main room was a mess, as if it was lived in by someone who was rebelling against his mother who had made him pick up his toys and dirty clothes when he was a boy. A poker table was strewn with cards, and a toy roulette wheel on the couch was surrounded by loose chips.
    I went to work looking through the chests, bookcases, table drawers, and the one desk. For what? Something to connect Walter Radford to Paul Baron or anyone else except Weiss. I didn’t find much: books about gambling; decks of cards; Playbills; dirty paper napkins with figures scrawled on them; letters that proved that the Radford-Ames family was large and that Walter had a lot of friends. From the way the letters read, the friends were from prep school and college and hadn’t changed much.
    There was a small, 7-mm. Belgian automatic in a drawer. It was loaded. There was a large address book filled, mostly, with the names of men and gilt-edged business outfits. Paul Baron’s name did not appear in the address book or anywhere else. I became hypnotized by the slow reading. The sound of the elevator jerked me out of it.
    I jumped to the light switch. Maybe it was someone for another apartment. It wasn’t. The footsteps stopped outside the door. I slid into the bedroom, behind the door.
    The outside door opened. The lights went on. A long pause.
    â€œWalter? Are you here, Walter?”
    A woman’s voice, low. I waited. She moved and a drawer opened. I heard her pick up the telephone. I pressed against the door to try to hear. I didn’t have to try. She spoke loud and clear:
    â€œI have a pistol. I am calling the police. You left marks on the rug. If you have no reason to be here, come out with both hands in front of you. If I don’t see your hands, I shoot.”
    Her voice was quiet, cultured and steady—a finishing-school voice. She didn’t sound scared. I was. There are a lot of dangers for a one-armed man. This was one of them.
    I said, loud, “I have only one hand. I’ll come out of the bedroom with my right hand out, my left shoulder forward.”
    I stepped out—nervous. I showed my left side.
    â€œSit down,” she said, looking at my