Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

laughing. When I did, it made me all the madder, and I struggled twice as hard and got just as nowhere.
    It wasn’t anything like a cat and mouse, really. I was completely wrong about that. But have you ever seen a cat stalk a moth? He just stares at it first, unnerving the moth so it flies into a corner somewhere. Then the cat stares some more, having a swell old time, practically chuckling. Meanwhile, the moth flutters frantically, describing the same parabola over and over again, hitting its head against the sides of the corner. I don’t know why it never thinks of just flying up, but it doesn’t. Maybe the cat hypnotizes it. Anyway, when the cat is good and bored with all that, it just raises one dainty paw effortlessly—so fast you’ll miss it if you blink—and swings the paw down on the moth’s rear end. The moth’s head protrudes from underneath the paw, and the cat smiles at it. I have watched cats do this, and though they do not show their teeth, I guarantee you that they smile.
    After that paw is down, of course, it’s good-bye, moth; but hope springs eternal in the lepidopteran breast. It keeps right on struggling. This is about the point where Frank and I were when the telephone rang.
    His hands tightened like chains on my arms. I gasped, realizing the hopelessness of the situation. It was an effort to speak, but I did it. “Let me answer it.”
    He just kept me in that bruising grip, not saying a word. The phone rang five times and stopped.
    Frank pushed me roughly aside and sat up. The interruption seemed to imbue him with a new sense of immediacy, as if he realized it was to his advantage to dispatch me as quickly as possible and get out of there. “Are you expecting anyone?” he asked.
    I didn’t want to say “no,” because that would give him confidence, but on the other hand, if I said I was, he’d probably just unholster his gun and shoot without further ado. I opted for “no,” which was the sad truth.
    Then I started playing for time. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” I asked. He nodded. My heart doubled its speed. “How did you get in, anyway?”
    “You made it easy—by leaving a key on the doorsill.”
    “How about the downstairs gate?”
    “I just kept ringing doorbells until some trusting soul let me in without asking who I was.”
    “I see. Is that a trick you learned at the police academy?” He was leaning back on the sofa, apparently relaxed. But he was watching me. I was trying to think of some way to even the odds. But without much success. Without the Don Quixote sculpture, which the police had taken, I didn’t see anything that might make a suitable weapon.
    He answered my question. “So you know. I knew you’d find out sooner or later.”
    I nodded. “You realized it when you read that I’m a lawyer for HYENA. Or did you catch my act on the telly?”
    He didn’t answer, but I had already formed an opinion: I doubted he could read. I kept at him. “I defend a lot of prostitutes, and you probably arrest a lot of them. We were bound to run into each other. And I was bound to realize you don’t make nearly as many arrests as you could, right? George’s girls have nothing to fear from you, do they? Or are you George?”
    That was the situation as I saw it. I was about to get blown away for knowing too much, like some minor character in a movie. I didn’t really know why I was copping to it all, except that I didn’t want to get killed without confirming the reason why. He looked mean, but he didn’t answer, and all of a sudden I started to giggle. It was like that moment at the bordello when all I could think of was, “Cheezit, the cops!” It occurred to me that he ought to say, “Cut the crap, sister.” But he didn’t.
    He took out the gun again and held it on me while he walked over to the left-hand asparagus fern, as he had seen me do when I came in. He fished out the bundle and threw it over to me. “Count it.”
    “It’s all there,” I said. “Just like the last time you saw it.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Kandi stole it from you, didn’t she? And hid it before you could get here. You got in the same way you did tonight and killed her when she wouldn’t tell you—”
    “How much is it?”
    “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
    He walked over to me and poked my ribs with the gun barrel again. I was almost getting used to it. His face had run the gamut of colors in a sunset and was now the shade of my