Free If You Can't Stand the Heat (Kit Tolliver #1) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) by Lawrence Block Page B

really plenty.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “I’m afraid so. It’s not just the alcohol, it’s the time. I have to get home.”
    “I’ll walk you.”
    “Oh, that’s not necessary.”
    “Yes, it is. Whether it’s Hell’s Kitchen or Clinton, it’s still necessary.”
    “Well . . .”
    “I insist. It’s safer around here than it used to be, but it’s a long way from Minnesota. And I suppose you get some unsavory characters in Minnesota, as far as that goes.”
    “Well, you’re right about that,” she said. And at the door she said, “I just don’t want you to think you have to walk me home because I’m a lady.”
    “I’m not walking you home because you’re a lady,” he said. “I’m walking you home because I’m a gentleman.”

    The walk to her door was interesting. He had stories to tell about half the buildings they passed. There’d been a murder in this one, a notorious drunk in the next. For all that some of the stories were unsettling, she felt completely secure walking at his side.
    At her door he said, “Any chance I could come up for a cup of coffee?”
    “I wish,” she said.
    “I see.”
    “I’ve got this roommate,” she said. “It’s impossible, it really is. My idea of success isn’t starring on Broadway, it’s making enough money to have a place of my own. There’s just no privacy when she’s home, and the damn girl is always home.”
    “That’s a shame.”
    She drew a breath. “Jim? Do you have a roommate?”

    He didn’t, and if he had the place would still have been large enough to afford privacy. A large living room, a big bedroom, a good-sized kitchen. Rent-controlled, he told her, or he could never have afforded it. He showed her all through the apartment before he took her in his arms and kissed her.
    “Maybe,” she said, when the embrace ended, “maybe we should have one more drink after all.”

    She was dreaming, something confused and confusing, and then her eyes snapped open. For a moment she did not know where she was, and then she realized she was in New York, and realized the dream had been a recollection or reinvention of her childhood in Hawley.
    In New York, and in Jim’s apartment.
    And in his bed. She turned, saw him lying motionless beside her, and slipped out from under the covers, moving with instinctive caution. She walked quietly out of the bedroom, found the bathroom. She used the toilet, peeked behind the shower curtain. The tub was surprisingly clean for a bachelor’s apartment, and looked inviting. She didn’t feel soiled, not exactly that, but something close. Stale, she decided. Stale, and very much in need of freshening.
    She ran the shower, adjusted the temperature, stepped under the spray.
    She hadn’t intended to stay over, had fallen asleep in spite of her intentions. Rohypnol, she thought. Roofies, the date-rape drug. Puts you to sleep, or the closest thing to it, and leaves you with no memory of what happened to you.
    Maybe that was it. Maybe she’d gotten a contact high.
    She stepped out of the tub, toweled herself dry, and returned to the bedroom for her clothes. He hadn’t moved in her absence and lay on his back beneath the covers.
    She got dressed, checked herself in the mirror, found her purse, put on lipstick but no makeup, and was satisfied with the results. Then, after another reflexive glance at the bed, she began searching the apartment.
    His wallet, in the gray slacks he’d tossed over the back of a chair, held almost three hundred dollars in cash. She took that but left the credit cards and everything else. She found just over a thousand dollars in his sock drawer, and took it, but left the mayonnaise jar full of loose change. She checked the refrigerator, and the set of brushed aluminum containers on the kitchen counter, but the fridge held nothing but food and drink, and one container held tea bags while the other two were empty.
    That was probably it, she decided. She could search more thoroughly, but she’d