Hotline to Murder

looked a question at Shahla. This couldn’t be the Chameleon.
    Shahla saw his face and pressed the Mute button. “This is part of his act,” she said. “It puts us off guard.” Into the receiver she said, “I’m not busy. You can talk to me.”
    “Well, this problem is kind of embarrassing. There’s a girl who lives next door. She’s in high school. She has tattoos.”
    The caller paused and Shahla prompted, “She has tattoos?”
    “Yes.”
    Another pause. Shahla pressed the Mute again and said, “Sometimes you even have to drag it out of the masturbators.” And to the caller, “Have you seen them?”
    “I was talking to her one day. She mentioned that she had tattoos.”
    Another pause. This time Shahla waited him out, while making circles in the air with her hand, a gesture meaning, let’s get on with it. Tony stifled a laugh.
    “I asked her where her tattoos were. She said she’d show me one.”
    Pause. The Chameleon—Tony was certain by now that it was the Chameleon—was really milking this.
    Shahla said, “And did she?”
    “Did she what?”
    “Show you her tattoo.”
    Shahla cradled the phone on her shoulder and put out her hands, palms up, in a gesture of supplication. Tony almost laughed again.
    “She told me to look out my window at ten o’clock that evening. My window faces her bedroom window. When I did, she had her drapes open. I saw her undress. When she took off her bra I saw the tattoo. It’s on her breast.”
    “So what happened then?”
    “I watched until she closed the drapes. Now I look out my window every evening, but her drapes are always closed. I can’t get anything done. I’m obsessed with her tattoo.”
    “But you haven’t been able to see it again.”
    “No. What do you think I should do?”
    “Would you like to see another tattoo?”
    Tony frowned. Shahla put her finger to her lips. He wanted to end the call, but something in her demeanor prevented him from disconnecting it.
    Shahla broke the silence saying, “I’m a high school girl, and I’ve got a tattoo. Would you like to see it?”
    Tony was almost positive that Shahla did not have a tattoo. More silence followed while he hoped that the Chameleon would hang up, as he had done before.
    “Where is it?”
    The Chameleon was hanging in there and not hanging up. Tony was pulled in two directions, wanting to protect Shahla on the one hand and wanting to see if she could hook him on the other.
    “It’s on my butt. I would have to take down my jeans to show it to you.”
    Now who was making the obscene call? Tony started to say something. Shahla put up a hand and stopped him.
    The Chameleon said, “When you said before that you’d meet me, a man came instead.”
    He remembered her name, or at least her Hotline name—Sally. Now he would surely hang up.
    Shahla said, “I’ll come alone. I really want to see you.”
    “The man drove a Porsche. What kind of car do you have?”
    Shahla pressed the mute button and looked at Tony. “What should I tell him?”
    “Uh…tell him you have a black Toyota Highlander.”
    Shahla got back on the phone and repeated the information.
    “Can you come to El Segundo tonight?”
    “Yes.”
    Silence. They scarcely breathed. Had she hooked him? Or would the next sound they heard be the click of a disconnect?
    Shahla pressed the Mute again and said, “Should I ask him where to meet him?”
    Tony shook his head and put a finger to his lips. He knew that their only chance was to say nothing. Seconds passed. A whole minute. It was the longest minute of their lives. Tony gave a couple of head-fakes. Shahla fiddled with her hair.
    The caller said, “Meet me at Zook Sheeting at 11:30.” He gave an address. Then he said, “Ring the bell at the front door. I’ll know if you’re alone because there are surveillance cameras trained on the outside of the building.”
    “Will you be the only one there?” Shahla asked.
    “Yes.”
    The caller hung up before she could say anything else. Tony and Shahla looked at each other. Then Shahla jumped up from her chair and threw her arms around his neck, almost knocking his chair over.
    “We know where he works,” she cried. “We know where he works.”
    “Good job,” Tony said, grimacing as her leg hit his bad knee. “We can give that information to Detective Croyden, along with the panties.”
    Shahla leaned over him with her hands on his shoulders, her face close to his. She said, “He’d better not screw it