seven and stuck there. I gave up pushing the button after a while—Hoffman hadprobably left the door ajar—and found the fire stairs. I was breathing hard bythe time I reached the metal door that let out onto the roof.

I opened the door a crack. Except for somepigeons coohooing on a neighboring rooftop, everything outside seemed veryquiet. A few potted shrubs and a green plexiglass windscreen jutting out atright angles from the wall of the penthouse had converted a corner of the roofinto a terrace.

A man and a woman were sunning themselvesthere. She was lying face down on an air mattress with the brassiere of herBikini unfastened. She was blonde and nicely made. He sat in a deck chair, witha half-empty cola bottle on the table beside him. He was broad and dark, withcoarse black hair matting his chest and shoulders. He wore a diamond ring onthe little finger of his left hand, and had a faint Greek accent.

"So you think the restaurant businessis low class? When you say that you're biting the hand that feeds you. Therestaurant business put mink on your back."

"I didn't say it. What I said, the insurancebusiness is a nice clean business for a man."

"And restaurants are dirty? Not my restaurants. Ieven got violet rays in the toilets—"

"Don't talk filthy," she said.

"Toilet is not a filthy word."

"It is in my family."

"I'm sick of hearing about your family. I'm sickof hearing about your good-for-nothing brother Theo."

"Good-for-nothing?" She sat up,exposing a pearly flash of breast before she fastened its moorings. "Theomade the Million Dollar Magic Circle last year."

"Who bought the policy that put himover the top? I did. Who set him up in the insurance agency in the first place?I did."

"Mr. God." Her face was abeautiful blank mask. It didn't change when she said: "Who's that movingaround in the house? I sent Rosie home after breakfast."

"She came back maybe."

"It doesn't sound like Rosie. It sounds like aman."

"Could be Theo coming to sell me this year'sMagic Circle policy."

"That isn't funny."

"I think it's very funny."

He laughed to prove it. He stoppedlaughing when Earl Hoffman came out from behind the plexiglass windscreen.Every mark on his face was distinct in the sunlight. His orange pajamas weredown over his shoes.

The dark man got out of his deck chair andpushed air toward Hoffman with his hands. "Beat it. This is a privateroof."

"I can't do that," Hoffman saidreasonably. "We got a report of a dead body. Where is it?"

"Down in the basement, You'll find itthere." The man winked at the woman.

"The basement? They said thepenthouse." Hoffman's damaged mouth opened and shut mechanically, like adummy's, as if the past was ventriloquizing through him. "You moved it,eh? It's against the law to move it."

"You move yourself out of here."The man turned to the woman, who had covered herself with a yellow teriyclothrobe: "Go in and phone the you-know-who."

"I am the you-know-who," Hoffmansaid. "And the woman stays. I have some questions to ask her. What's yourname?"

"None of your business," shesaid,

"Everything's my business."Hoffman flung one arm out and almost lost his balance. "I'm detectiveinves'gating murder,"

"Let's see your badge,detective."

The man held out his hand, but he didn'tmove toward Hoffman. Neither of them had moved. The woman was on her knees,with her beautiful scared face slanting up at Hoffman.

He fumbled in his clothes, produced afifty-cent piece, looked at it in a frustrated way, and flung it spinning overthe parapet. Faintly, I heard it ring on the pavement six stories down.

"Must of left it home," he saidmildly.

The woman gathered herself together andmade a dash for the penthouse. Moving clumsily and swiftly, Hoffman caught heraround the waist. She didn't struggle, but stood stiff and white-faced in thecircle of his arm.

"Not so fast now, baby. Got some questions to askyou. You the broad that's been sleeping with Deloney?"

She said to the man: "Are you going to let himtalk to me this way? Tell him to take his hands off me."

"Take your hands off my wife," the man saidwithout force.

"Then tell her to sit down and cooperate."

"Sit down and cooperate," the man said.

"Are you crazy? He smells like a still. He'scrazy drunk."

"I know that."

"Then do something."

"I am doing something. You got to humorthem."

Hoffman smiled at him like a public

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009