3: The Face Of The Startled Lady
IT WAS FOUR-THIRTY in the morning and graveyard cold. The dim gorge of Seventieth Street was empty. No lights were in the windows of the Chalfonte or the Bradford apartment houses; Dorb's corner drug store was locked and dark; and in the whole long block there was no sound except our footfalls on the cement sidewalks and the purr of the motor of Colt's limousine, as Neil McMahon, our sleepless and many-scarred chauffeur, thrust the stick into gear.
The suitcase of bones was at our feet and I could hear the pieces rattle as the car plunged west on Seventieth Street, turned sharply south into West End Avenue, heading downtown to Cherry Hill Place, wherever that was. I had never heard of it before, until Colt gave the curt direction to Neil McMahon; having g
