An Old Friend Of The Family (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 3), Fred Saberhagen [best large ereader .txt] 📗

hips. She had a green-eyed pixie face, with an upturned, freckle-sprinkled nose that made her look so young that statutory jailbait was the first thought—or anyway the second—that sprang into Joe’s police-trained mind. But she could have been six months or a year past eighteen.

    “Craig?” Her voice was still soft but Joe could tell now, watching her sober face, that there was intense anger driving it. “Where did you put my clothes?”

    Walworth gave Joe a look that seemed to be meant as an appeal for man-to-man solidarity in this situation. Then, shaking his head, the host walked out of the room in the direction the girl had come from.

    Now looking at Joe, the girl in the green towel, announced, in a different though still distant voice: “My name is Carol.”

    “I’m Joe.”

    “Joe, could I ask you to give me a lift? It won’t be very far.”

    “Sure. I’ve got a car.”

    Carol continued to look at him, as if daring him to try to say something about the towel. He had nothing funny available, even if he had wanted to try. He walked over to one floor-to-ceiling window and looked out through the thick protective glass at the Drive twenty stories below, a strip of snowbound park beyond, and then the winter-blackened lake, a rim of white snow and broken ice extending outward from the shore a hundred yards or so. A very dull December day. What was it, Wednesday?

    He would try to pump the girl a bit before he decided whether to come back to Walworth, or to give Walworth’s name to Charley Snider, or just what to do.

    In about one minute Walworth was back in the room, carrying an armful of assorted garments. Wordlessly Carol accepted these, meanwhile maintaining her towel’s position carefully. Then she went out the way that she had come, silent pink feet sinking into carpet. Her legs were very nice.

    Walworth paced the floor, showing no inclination to say anything more to Joe. Once he stopped to pick up a stray bottle, take a drink from it and grimace. All right, Joe told him silently, you’ve answered my question. You’ll find out about it if I decide your answer doesn’t stick.

    Before Joe had begun to expect her, Carol was back in the living room with them, wearing boots and jeans and a carefully faded, expensive-looking shirt: what the wealthy wear when they want to look like they don’t care. She went straight to the guest closet, took out a hip-length ski jacket, went through its pockets, came up empty.

    “My money?” she demanded then, of Walworth’s back.

    He turned right around, not having to pause for an instant. “What d’you charge?”

    That stung enough to show for just a moment in her face. “I mean the money that was in my pockets when I came in here last night.”

    “I don’t know.” He glared at her brutally. “Look around for it, if you want. Or if you don’t want to miss your ride, come back later and maybe it’ll have turned up.”

    “For eight dollars I’m not going to stay here long enough to look around.” She pulled her jacket on, turned to Joe. “Not for eight hundred. Can I have that ride now?”

    Wishing he could think of comebacks that quickly, Joe just managed to have the door open as she reached it. A last glance back as they went out showed Walworth picking up a bottle again.

    “Don’t like him, do you?” Joe remarked, when they had ridden the elevator halfway down.

    “Not at a second look.” Carol’s manner had relaxed a little as soon as they got out of the apartment. “Met him last Friday for the first time. Oh, he can come on very strong and decent when he tries. Then last night—that was something else. I’d rather not talk about it.”

    “Sure.” The elevator delivered them. The gray-haired doorman smiled and nodded. Joe led her out to the Rabbit in the drive.

    She said: “I don’t know what your business with him was, but I got definite vibrations that you don’t like him either. Which is why I took a chance on asking for a ride.”

    “You’re right, I don’t like him. So, where shall the ride be to?”

    “The Art Institute, if it’s not out of your way. I hear a girl can pick up a better class of man there than in the bars.”

    “I suppose they might be better educated, anyway.” He pulled out of the drive and melded into traffic gently, heading south.

    After two blocks Carol said: “No, I don’t want to pick up men. One stab at that was plenty, I’m going to have to think of something, though, being entirely out of money.”

    “I’m not trying to be funny when I say, how about Travelers Aid? Really. You do have the look of someone who’s some distance from home, and they’ll help you wire someplace for money. Or I’ll advance you a loan myself. But it’ll have to be small.”

    “I’m afraid—” Carol’s voice cracked suddenly in the middle, and she had to start it over. “I’m afraid sending out wires isn’t going to do me any good. Thanks for the offer of the small loan. I may just accept. Could we start out with a coffee someplace?”

    “Joe’s Coffee Shop and Breakfast Bar is open. That’s my place, which is not terribly far. Or we can go public if you like.”

    “Joe’s place sounds fine. It’s got to be a lot nicer than the one I just got out of.”

    He turned west for two blocks, then back north. “I’m a little out of the high rent district, as they say.”

    There was a legitimate parking spot open only half a block from