Free The Chelsea Girl Murders by Sparkle Hayter

hairpiece industry and interviewed six bald guys with brain abscesses from a faulty hair-replacement system. But this wig took the cake and begged the obvious question: Why would anyone wear such a terrible and obvious toupee? Did he know how bad it looked? Of course, I was just assuming it was a toupee from the false look of it and the uncomfortable way it sat on his head. If it was his real hair, it was even more horrifying. It answered that age-old question: Can space monsters mate with earth women?
    Phil had borrowed a car to come in from Jersey, and had parked it down Seventh Avenue near Twenty-first Street. I walked him back to it. Before he got in, I said, “What about you? Are you going to stick around, move back into the building if they rebuild?”
    I’d waited until the last moment, not sure if I was going to ask at all, afraid I might hear an answer I didn’t want.
    â€œI don’t know, luv,” he said. “Have to see what Helen wants to do. She’s undecided.”
    Like a little kid, I watched him as he drove off until I couldn’t see the car anymore. I got this weird chill watching the car vanish into a blur of taillights—I don’t know if it was déjà vu or sera vu , but it wasn’t a good feeling. After it passed, I turned and walked back to the Chelsea.
    Rounding the corner to Twenty-third Street, I noticed that the man in the bad toupee was behind me. I speeded up because I was getting a vaguely menacing vibe from him, and not just because I’ve been menaced by wig-wearing people more than once. Something else about him spooked me.
    Speed-walking, and half-looking behind me as I did, I headed toward the hotel, and ran smack dab into a young man who was lurking in the grainy shadows between streetlights, next to the Capitol Fishing Tackle Store.
    It was the manboy. He had looked more impressive through the distorted fish-eye peephole than he did now. He looked about sixteen and kind of pathetic.
    â€œWhere have you been?” I asked. “Where’s Nadia? I thought she met up with you and you two had eloped.”
    â€œWe didn’t meet up. Do you know where she is?” He had the same accent as Nadia, which sounded kind of Slavic and kind of Central Asian. Couldn’t put my finger on it, but it landed somewhere between Pakistan and Germany.
    Meanwhile, the man in the bad toupee had walked past and vanished.
    â€œWell, obviously I haven’t heard from her, if I thought she was with you. You’d better come upstairs,” I said.
    He came in with me, looking around himself in a fearful manner. He was a nervous young man.
    â€œYou didn’t hook up with Nadia at all?” I asked.
    â€œNo,” he snarled.
    â€œWell, she’s gone. No sign of her anywhere. Where would she go?”
    â€œI don’t know. I thought you might know,” he said. He was acting very resentful and suspicious of me for some reason.
    â€œI don’t know her at all and we didn’t talk much,” I said. “I’ve had my own shit to look after. Someone was killed here last night.”
    He didn’t seem to hear this. “When did she leave?”
    â€œEarly evening, six, seven P.M . What happened to you? I saw you come into the hotel yesterday, but you never showed at the apartment.”
    â€œI didn’t know this was the right apartment, because you told me the night before it was the wrong apartment …”
    â€œSo you just wandered the hotel hoping to run into her?”
    He looked at me angrily.
    â€œLook, I’m sorry I sent you away the other night,” I said. “I didn’t know who you were or why you were here,” I said.
    â€œYes, and you made a lot of trouble for me and for Nadia,” he said. “You have no idea.”
    â€œWell, as I said, I’m sorry I sent you away. But no one in their right mind would let a strange man into their apartment, especially at four A.M .