Read The Fifth Script: The Lacey Lockington Series - Book One for Free Online Page A

toes, and she carried a large powder blue handbag, a beautifully harmonizing outfit that’d set her back a few shekels, if Lockington was any judge of female apparel and its accessories.
    She paused on the vestibule step, a hand on a hip, gazing around the area, a once-neat, quiet, middle-class neighborhood that had begun to follow the rest of the city down the drain. Her brief scrutiny completed, she entered the building and in a moment Lockington’s bell sounded. He squelched his cigarette before leaving his chair to open the door. He said, “Not today, ma’am—no magazines, please.”
    Her smile was quick, her upper lip curling over white teeth, one of which was attractively slightly out of line, Lockington noticed. She said, “Lockington—Mr. Lacey Lockington?” Her voice was husky, possibly a trifle too throaty for the slightness of her build, but Lockington liked it. It belonged, he thought, in a darkened bedroom between satin sheets— black satin sheets, and that got him to wondering if they’d ever manufactured black satin sheets. He decided that they hadn’t—black would prove too vulnerable to leakage and spillage. The lady at the door was repeating herself—“Mr. Lacey Lockington?”
    Lockington nodded, squinting quizzically at his visitor, and she went by him and into his apartment before he could stop her. She’d been quicker than a mongoose, and Lockington turned slowly from the door to face her. He said, “Lockington’s just an alias, you understand. Another is Jack the Ripper.”
    She threw back her head and laughed, a fetching mannerism in Lockington’s opinion—he’d always admired women who’d thrown back their heads when they’d laughed, especially when their laughs had been light and tinkly like the sound of a brook, as hers had been. She said, “Oh, really? My gracious, you must be terribly old !”
    Lockington said, “Right about now, you don’t know the half of it.”
    She said, “Perhaps not, but I learn rather quickly,” and Lockington took her word for it, watching her sit on the arm of his overstuffed chair. She didn’t sit —she perched there, long legs dangling, crossed at slender ankles—chorus girl legs, as Lockington saw them, delicate ankles—there was a fragile silver slave bracelet adorning one. “By the way, Mr. Lockington, may I come in?” she said, her lilting laugh floating through the shabby apartment.
    Lockington said, “Suit yourself,” kicking the door shut behind them and slumping on his sofa.
    She said, “Are your neighbors aware of your identity?”
    “Do they know that I’m Jack the Ripper?”
    “No, do they know that you’re Lacey Lockington?”
    “I’d imagine that they do—I’ve lived here for thirteen years.”
    “And they aren’t afraid?”
    “Of what?”
    “Of getting shot, of course.”
    Lockington sighed, fumbling for a cigarette in his robe pocket, finding one, firing it up. He raised his eyes to meet hers—they were large brown eyes, he observed, and they sparkled mischievously. He said, “Uhh–h–h, looky, ma’am, before this goes any further—”
    She threw up her hands, cutting him off. “I know, I know —who am I, what am I, what the hell am I doing here—right?”
    “This could be your day to play the lottery.”
    She was frowning—not severely—a semi-frown, Lockington would have called it. She said, “All right, I’m a whore—after a fashion.”
    “Out of want or out of need?”
    “What’s the difference? If you’re a whore, you’re a whore.”
    “That’s a rather unworldly opinion and you aren’t a whore.”
    “Well, not that sort of whore, for God’s sake!”
    Lockington blew smoke in her direction. “Honey, we’re all whores, every damned one of us. What sort of whore are you?”
    She avoided the challenge of his stare, her eyes dropping to study the bows of her pumps. She cleared her throat self-consciously. “Well, you see, Mr. Lockington, I say things that aren’t true—things