The car stopped at 12. She made a slight movement and he snapped, “Stay where you are.”

The door opened and closed. She said in a small voice, “It is true, you know.”

His eyes jumped to the lights. The car was slowing for an unexpected stop at nine. He moved over into the doorway. The door slid back to show an overweight lady in an elaborate hat.

He said brusquely, “We’ve had an accident. Next car.”

Her coquettish smile vanished as she looked down. Melnick’s long legs had jackknifed under him, and he looked as though he had been flung down violently from a great height. One entire side of his face was covered with blood. The woman’s mouth came open. The bandit stabbed angrily at the Close button, and the door obeyed him.

He made a scornful noise. “Give the lady some smelling salts. Now relax. I hardly ever smack a doll with a. 45 when we haven’t been introduced. I’ve got to dump this bastard. Then I’ll tell you what I want you to do. Just do me one favor, and maybe you’ll catch your plane.”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“I may have picked up a tail. I had that feeling. Let’s not hurry walking out of here. Like we’re husband and wife and I’m taking you to dinner. We’ll walk over to Central Park West and pick up a cab. I’ll let you get out after a couple of blocks, and you can forget the whole thing.”

“All right, I shall try.”

“Do better than try, baby. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

The little giveaway muscle was jumping again in his cheek. They were passing the fourth floor. He punched for three, and when the car stopped he looked out carefully, then dragged the unconscious man to the corridor. Melnick’s arms and legs seemed totally uncoordinated, as though they were fastened to his body with cotter pins. She found herself thinking, oddly, of a line from Macbeth, a play she had studied in her last year at the lycee: “Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?” Melnick’s face was so bloody that it might have been flayed. His clothes were sodden. He groaned heavily as the man responsible for his wound kicked his foot out of the doorway so the door, would close.