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I was left, sitting alone in the living room again playing “Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple” with my hands. They were out in the kitchen for five minutes, Christine crying, and the other girl trying to sympathize. Then they came back into the living room. I didn’t have to be told who the other girl was. She was Christine’s sister. I’d have bet a pint of wine on it.
    She had the same blonde hair. She wore it long, flowing to her shoulders. She had the same excellently boned face, the same startlingly high cheekbones, the straight regal nose, the hard blue eyes. Her mouth was almost too perfectly formed, a gracefully curving upper lip and a full pouting lower lip. She was slightly smaller than her sister, but she still added up to a very big girl. Her throat swept sharply to her rising breasts, caught in a cheap white sweater; a narrow waist pulled in abruptly, bound constrictingly with a black leather belt; the hips flaring out below that, childbirth hips covered with a black skirt taut over firm thighs and good legs. She was no older than twenty-two, and I figured she had at least ten years on her sister. She studied me with unmasked distaste. This was a girl who was used to men, and she didn’t like them bearded and rumpled. She made me feel as if I should run to take a bath. I didn’t.
    “This is my sister, Laraine,” Christine said.
    I stood up. “How do you do,” I said. “I’m Matt…”
    “Sit down before you fall down,” Laraine said.
    “Laraine!” her sister said sharply.
    “Are you turning your living room into a flophouse?” Laraine said.
    “This man is here to…”
    “I don’t care why he’s here,” Laraine said. “I know his kind. He should be ashamed of himself.”
    “Please forgive my sister.”
    “I can take care of myself, thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry I offended you, young lady,” I told Laraine.
    “Matt Cordell, the big private eye!” Laraine said. “Look at him! A bum! Nothing but a flophouse bum.”
    “That’s right,” I said.
    “What do you want? Why’d you come back to the East side?”
    “To find a killer, it seems.”
    “Do you expect to find him here?”
    “Maybe. Where were
you
all day?”
    “What!”
    “You heard me.”
    “Are you trying to say…?”
    “I’m not trying to say anything. Somebody killed Dom Archese. I don’t know who. A woman can pull a trigger as well as a man. That’s the wonderful thing about guns. They’re great equalizers in more ways than one. So where were you?”
    “Working at the five and ten.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “On Third Avenue.”
    “What time did you leave work?”
    “At five.”
    “Dom could have been killed any time between two and six. Where’d you go after work?”
    “Home. To my apartment.”
    “Alone?”
    “Laraine lives alone,” Christine said. “Our parents are dead, and we’re the only two children. We lived together until I got married.”
    “When was that?”
    “Four years ago.”
    “What difference does it make?” Laraine said sharply. “Are you saying I shot Dom?”
    “Did you?”
    “Why would I?”
    “This is ridiculous,” Christine said.
    “All right, let’s skip it. I was leaving anyway. For Johnny’s sake, you’d better not mention to the police that I was here. It won’t help me, and it might hurt him.”
    “All right,” Christine said.
    “Nice meeting you,” I said. “Both,” I added, and I walked out of the apartment. I was going down the steps when I heard the voice behind me.
    “Mr. Cordell!”
    I stopped. I turned. Laraine was coming down after me. She walked with the swift sureness of a tall and pretty girl. She raised her straight black skirt as she came down the steps, dropping it when she reached me. She had long legs, and a tight skirt doesn’t help with steep steps.
    “What do you want?” I said.
    “I want to apologize,” she answered.
    “What for?”
    “For lacing into you.”
    “It’s understandable,” I told her. “Your