Free Design for Dying by Renee Patrick

don’t. I know where you work. I know where you live, all by yourself.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t hurt me.” It sounded more like a question than I had intended.
    â€œYou. Your friends. I even know people who know people back in New York. That’s where you’re from, right? Uncle Danny? Aunt Joyce?”
    Content with the effect his words had on me, he took his time fitting his hat on his head, pausing to inspect his reflection in the nearby gilt-edged mirror. He stepped aside to let a customer pass, the very picture of gentlemanliness. I didn’t start breathing again until he and his thugs were on the escalator. And even then, I kept the breaths shallow.

 
    8
    A CAR DOOR slammed behind me. So much for the shortcut sparing me the reporters still barnacling Mrs. Lindros’s house.
    â€œYou live in the Lindros shack, sweetheart?” He was a tall man with hair like cut straw. His features clustered in the center of his face as if conspiring against his ears. He gestured at the house’s kaleidoscopic walls. “What’s with the paint job? Guess you don’t mind. You don’t have to look at it.”
    â€œI don’t have any comment for the press.”
    â€œNot even for Beckett of the Register ?” The sunlight did his cheap suit no favors. The fabric seemed to change color as he inched closer. “Give, sister. Tell me something about this Carroll dame.”
    â€œSure. She didn’t think much of men who lingered on sidewalks.” I sidestepped him and continued toward the house.
    â€œThat’s not what I heard.” Beckett kept pace. “How ’bout her pal Natalie Szabo? Ever heard of her?”
    Szabo . At least I’d gotten Natalie’s surname out of the exchange. I walked faster. New York fast. “Here’s my statement,” I hollered over my shoulder at him. “Blow it out your ear.”
    â€œI’ve already got that quote,” Beckett yelled back as he gave up the chase. “From multiple sources.”
    Mrs. Lindros was replanting her desecrated flower beds. I didn’t interrupt her. Nothing was going to sway me from my multiple missions, not even the divine scent of cinnamon wafting from the kitchen.
    Vi was in her attic room, doing her nails with the door ajar. When I knocked she started like a little girl caught rooting in her mother’s makeup bag, blond hair flying. “Lillian! I didn’t even hear you come up the stairs.”
    â€œI ran into your friend Tommy Carpa today.”
    â€œHe’s not my friend. He’s my boss.” She added the finishing touches to her pinky. “Did you see him at the police station? They picked him up at the club last night. It was some ruckus.”
    â€œNo. He came to Tremayne’s for a little midday threatening. That I-know-where-you-live stuff doesn’t play as well over the phone.”
    â€œThreaten you? Tommy would never do that.”
    â€œWould and did. Somehow he knew I was the person who gave his name to the police.”
    â€œMaybe the detectives told him.”
    â€œThey want to get information from him, not hand it over. Plus Tommy knew all about my trip to Paramount and meeting Edith Head.”
    Vi waved her hands. I thought she was drying the polish until she burst into tears. The instinct to rush to her side and comfort her was so overpowering I clutched the doorjamb to remain in place.
    â€œYou’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s just … you should have seen him last night. He was so upset. He said the police wouldn’t care because Ruby was a nobody. I wanted him to know that wasn’t so. I started telling him about you and I guess everything came out.” The swing shift arrived at the waterworks, and Vi started crying harder. “I try to help and I make things worse.”
    I felt my death grip on the door frame loosening, so I dug in my fingernails. Vi in dolorous waif