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“Just stop imagining he was kissing you.”

“I can’t.” Peabody rubbed her lips together as Eve resealed the door. “And I can tell you, that one’s going to get me through the day and into the night.”

“You’ve got your own men now.”

“Not the same.” Peabody sighed as she trudged to Eve’s car. “Just nowhere near the same. Where are we going?”

“To see a stripper.”

“Tell me it’s a male stripper and my day is made.”

“You’re doomed to disappointment.”

Nancie lived in an attractive prewar building on Lexington. There were window boxes spilling with flowers on several of the upper levels, and a cheerful-faced uniformed doorman gave Eve a dazzling grin when she held up her badge.

“I hope there’s no trouble, Lieutenant Dallas, ma’am. If there’s anything I can do, you just let me know.”

“Thanks, I think we can handle it.”

“I bet he makes tons in tips,” Peabody commented as they entered the small, dignified lobby. “Great smile, nice butt. What else could you ask for in a doorman?”

She studied the lobby with its discreet name plaques, polished brass elevator, and attractive arrangement of spring flowers. “I never figured a place like this for a nude dancer. It’s more like what you’d think of for upper-level office drones and junior execs. I wonder what she makes a year.”

“Thinking of switching professions?”

“Yeah, right.” Peabody snorted as they stepped onto the elevator. “Guys are lining up to see me naked. Though McNab—”

“Don’t go there. I just can’t take it.” Eve hurried off the elevator on six, made a beeline for apartment C. She was relieved when the door opened promptly and cut off any idea Peabody might have harbored about finishing the statement.

“Nancie Gaynor?”

“Yes.”

“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. Can we come in and speak with you?”

“Oh, sure. This is about Taj.”

Nancie fit the image of the apartment. Tidy, attractive and pretty as a sunbeam. She was young, midtwenties by Eve’s estimation, and cute as a damn button with a curling mop of golden hair, doll-baby lips painted rosy pink, and huge green eyes. The buttercup-yellow skin suit she wore showed off her talent and still managed to look sweet.

She stepped back into the room on bare feet, leaving a faint trace of lilies in the air.

“I’m just sick about it,” she began. “Just sick. Rue called us all yesterday to tell us.” Those big eyes filled, swam like irrigated green fields. I just can’t believe something like this could happen at Purgatory.”

She made a helpless gesture toward a long, curving sofa covered in velvety pink fabric and an avalanche of shimmering pillows. “I guess we’d better sit down. Should I get you something, like to drink?”

“No, don’t bother. Do you mind if we record this conversation, Miss Gaynor?”

“Oh. Oh. Golly.” Nancie bit her pretty bottom lip, clasped her hands together between her truly spectacular breasts. “I guess not. Are you supposed to?”

“With your permission.” A stripper who said golly, was all Eve could think. Just when you’d thought you’d seen it all.

“Okay, gee. I want to help if I can. But we can sit down, right? Because I guess I’m a little nervous. I’ve never been involved in a murder case. I was questioned once, right after I moved here from Utumwa, because my roommate, she was an LC, and she’d let her license lapse, but I’m sure it was just an oversight. Anyway, I talked to the officer in charge of the licensing committee and all. But that was different.”

Eve just blinked. “Utumwa?”

“Iowa. I moved here from Iowa four years ago. I was hoping maybe to be a dancer on Broadway.” She smiled a little. “I guess girls move here thinking stuff like that all the time. I’m really a pretty good dancer, but well, so are a lot of other girls, and it can be pretty expensive to live here, so I took a job in a club. It wasn’t a very nice club,” she confided, blinking those big eyes. “And I was getting pretty scared and discouraged and thinking maybe I should just go back to Iowa and marry Joey, but he’s sort of a cluck, you know, and then Rue came in to catch my act and got me a job at this better club. It was nice,