She said, “You usually hear people walk into houses, but our front door’s a half-mile away.”

“We’ve been here a year, and you’re still cracking jokes.”

“I live in the Taj Mahal. That takes some getting used to.”

Pete straddled a chair. “You’re nervous.”

Gail slid her chair away from him. “Well… as extortionists go, I’m the nervous type. What’s the man’s name today?”

“Walter P. Kinnard. He’s forty-seven years old, and he’s been cheating on his wife since their honeymoon. He’s got kids he dotes on, and the wife says he’ll fold if I squeeze him with pictures and threaten to show them to the kids. He’s a juicer, and he always gets a load on at lunchtime.”

Gail crossed herself-half shtick, half for real. “Where?”

“You meet him at Dale’s Secret Harbor. He’s got a fuck pad a few blocks away where he bangs his secretary, but you insist on the Ambassador. You’re in town for a convention, and you’ve got a snazzy room with a wet bar.”

Gail shivered. Early a.m. chills-a sure sign that she had the yips.

Pete slipped her a key. “I rented the room next door to yours, so you can lock up and make it look good. I picked the lock on the connecting door, so I don’t think this one will be noisy.”

Gail lit a cigarette. Steady hands-good. “Distract me. Tell me what Howard the Recluse wanted.”

“He bought Hush-Hush. He wants me to find him a stringer, so he can pull his pud over Hollywood gossip and share it with his pal J. Edgar Hoover. He wants to smear his political enemies, like your old boyfriend Jack Kennedy.”

Gail smiled toasty warm. “A few weekends didn’t make him my boyfriend.”

“That fucking smile made him something.”

“He flew me down to Acapulco once. That’s a Howard the Recluse kind of gesture, so it makes you jealous.”

“He flew you down on his honeymoon.”

“So? He got married for political reasons, and politics makes for strange bedlellows. And my God, you are suuuch a voyeur.”