Dance to the Piper Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn't doubt his memory. He'd been taught early the importance of remembering names, faces, facts, figures. When your teacher was your father and you adored your father, you learned. From years of practice rather than from natural inclination, Reed could hold three columns of figures in his head and tally each of them. Edwin Valentine had taught his son that a smart businessman hired the best accountants, then made certain he knew as much as they did.
    He hadn't forgotten the address or mixed up the numbers, but he was beginning to believe she had.
    The neighborhood was tough and seedy and rapidly getting seedier as he drove. A broken chair, with its stuffing pouring out the side, sat on the sidewalk. A group of people was arguing over ownership. An old man in an undershirt and shorts sat on a grimy stoop and chugged a can of beer. He eyed Reed's car owlishly as it passed.
    How could she live here? Or more to the point, he thought, why would she live here? Maddy O'Hurley had just come off a year's engagement in a solid show that had brought her a Tony nomination. Before that, she'd had another year as the second lead and understudy to the star in a successful revival of Kiss Me, Kate.
    Reed knew, because he'd made it his business to know. His business, he assured himself as he pulled to the curb in front of the building that corresponded with the numbers Maddy had given him. A woman who was about to embark on her third major Broadway show could afford to live in a neighborhood where they didn't mine the sidewalks at night.
    As Reed stepped out of his car he spotted a young hood leaning against a lamppost, eyeing his hubcaps. With a quiet oath, Reed approached him. He'd dressed casually, but even without tie and jacket he looked as if he belonged at the country club.
    "How much to watch it?" Reed began bluntly. "Instead of strip it?"
    The boy shifted his position and smiled with practiced arrogance. "Pretty elegant wheels you got there, Lancelot. Don't see many BMWs cruise through here. I'm thinking of getting my camera."
    "Take all the pictures you want. Just don't take anything else." Reed slipped a twenty out of his wallet. "Let's say you're gainfully employed. There's another ten if the car's intact when I come out. You won't get more by hocking the hubcaps, and this way all you have to do is take in the evening air.''
    The boy studied the car, then its driver. He knew how to size up an opponent and figure the odds. The flinty eyes were direct and calm. If he'd seen fear in them, the boy would have pushed. Instead, he took the twenty.
    "You're the boss. I got a couple hours to kill." He grinned and showed a painfully crooked front tooth. The twenty had already disappeared before Reed started toward the front door.
    Her name was on a mail-slot in what might loosely have been called a foyer. Apartment 405. And there was no elevator. Reed started up the steps to the accompaniment of squalling kids, ear-splitting jazz and the sweating Gianellis. By the time he reached the third floor, he was doing some swearing himself.
    When the knock came, Maddy was up to her wrists in salad. She'd known that he'd be on time just as surely as she'd known she wouldn't be. "Hang on a minute," she shouted, then looked around fruitlessly for a cloth to dry her hands with. Giving up, she shook what moisture she could from them as she walked to the door. She gave the knob a hard yank, then grinned at him.
    "Hi. I hope you're not hungry. I'm not finished yet."
    "No. I—" He glanced back over his shoulder. "The hall…" he began, and let his words trail off. Maddy stuck her head out and sniffed.
    "Smells like a cow pasture," she said. "Guido must be cooking again. Come on in."
    He should have been prepared for her apartment, but he wasn't. Reed glanced around at the vivid red curtains, the shock of blue rug, the chair that looked as though it had come straight out of a medieval castle. It had, in fact, come from the set of Camelot. Her name in pink