The Ledger Read online

  Christie smiled and nodded. “Yes. We were playing ring-a-levio. I had a great hiding place behind the shoemaker’s shop. Bobby ... Bobby somebody or other ...” Her eyes closed, strained for the memory. “Bobby found me and instead of rejoining the game, we started poking around in all the junk back there. There were all kinds of scraps of leather and ...” She smiled. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” Reardon told her to go on. “Well, I was trying to figure out what we could do with the scraps of leather and Bobby started getting very tense. Usually, he’d argue about anything I suggested first. And vice versa, of course.”

  Reardon nodded. “Where you were involved, of course.”

  “Well, he just kept agreeing with everything I said and I was getting a little suspicious. Then, all of a sudden, he just reached out with both his hands and held my head. I think his hands were on my ears. And smack. Right on the mouth.”

  “What did you do?”

  Christie grinned. “I belted him. Right on the nose. Poor Bobby.”

  “That’s my girl. How old were you?”

  “Ten, eleven. But you don’t have to feel sorry for him. He belted me right back. Then we got back into the ring-a-levio game and never mentioned the kiss.”

  “That was little girl, little boy stuff. How about when you were a big girl?”

  Christie shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

  “I wasn’t prying, Christie. I was just trying to place you. To find you in time. You’re a puzzle to me, Christie. Why does that seem to surprise you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because I guess I don’t really think you consider me very much of a mystery. I guess I don’t think you even consider me, very much.”

  “You know damn well that isn’t true.” Reardon pulled away from the wall. “I consider you, all right. Too damn much, in too damn many ways. I’m trying to put all the Christies together: I haven’t seen all of them yet, right? It’s incredible, what do you do, push buttons or something? You programmed? There, your chin is going up, eyes turning green: Christie number ... what? three? four?” His fingertip moved along her lips. “Now, the smile. What the hell does that smile mean? Are you taunting me? Go ahead, now you nibble on your finger: button number ... six: little girl. There’s one I haven’t seen clearly yet, Christie. Just glimpses, just hints, but then she disappears. Gets lost behind the little girl-tomboy-competent detective covering. It’s the most provocative Christie of all.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have the slightest idea of what you’re talking about.”

  “The hell you don’t.”

  Casey Reardon pulled her to him and his mouth was warm and her hands slid inside his suit jacket and their bodies held together. She began speaking, her voice almost lost against him.

  “You know why it mattered to me, Casey, don’t you? Because I shouldn’t have believed that you would have ... because I shouldn’t have believed you would have betrayed a child and ...”

  “Hey. Hey, Christie, come on now.” He sat on the top step and pulled her beside him. “So that makes two of us who aren’t perfect, right? I didn’t think you could have carried off the bit with the pictures; I even questioned your loyalty in the beginning of the investigation. I didn’t have enough confidence in you. And I should have.” Very casually, he threw it off. “When you love someone, you should have confidence in them, right? And you should have had confidence in me, right? So we were both wrong.”

  “Yes. I should have. And for the same reason.”

  Reardon sat very still, his hands clasped over hers. “Christie, it is very complicated with us. I wish to hell it wasn’t. It’s not just physical, not just chemistry. I’m not making any assumptions, am I?” She shook her head. “We both know there can’t be any promises made and kept. Not any public ones, anyhow. Maybe some private ones. Christie, I’ve tried to keep it from reaching this point. Because of you. Because of the particular girl you are ...”

  Christie Opara’s face was calm and still and serene. There was nothing guarded or hidden about her expression. “But we’re at this point, aren’t we?”

  Reardon stood up, reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a key with the hotel placket attached to it. He extended it to Christie. “I have a room on the tenth floor. No one upstairs knows about it. And it wasn’t calculated,” he added quickly, defensively, surprised by himself. “I just thought I might need to catch a few hours of uninterrupted sleep somewhere along the line.”

  “Why are you giving the key to me? You can open the door, can’t you?”

  His hand tightened on her shoulder and he shook her lightly. “Oh, hell, Christie. It would be so damn easy. Right now. And don’t you tempt me, or dare me, or whatever the hell that expression on your face means. You take the key.” He squinted at his wrist watch. “I have to leave for the F.B.I. office in about a half hour. I’ll be back in the hotel by ten, the very latest. That’ll give you a little time. To think. Damn it. You really use that smile, don’t you? Are you listening to me? Do you know what I’m telling you?”

  The smile moved across her mouth and she nodded. “I know what you’re saying.”

  “When I come back to the hotel, I’ll go directly to my room. If you’re not there,” he said shortly, “the key will be in the suite. Leave it on the coffee table, near the flowerpot or whatever that goddamn thing is.”

  “What about if I am there?”

  Reardon studied the grin and reached with both hands, deliberately placed them on her ears and gave her a fast, hard kiss. “If you are there, Christie, don’t play games with me.” He dropped his hands, shook his head. “There goes your chin up. Are you daring me, or something?”

  “Who, me? ‘Never make a dare, never take a dare.’ ” She frowned for a minute. “And what do you mean ‘don’t play games with me’?” She did a close imitation of his tone. “Why not, Casey? Games are fun.”

  He turned her toward the staircase and pushed her lightly. “I’ll let you know which games are fun. Come on. Up to the sixteenth floor.”

  They stopped at the top landing but didn’t touch. They could hear voices coming from the hotel hallway Waited a moment, then Reardon reached for the doorknob, felt her touch on his hand as he pulled the door open. He caught a quick glimpse of her face as the light of the hall caught her: it was young and flushed and happy. And beneath the radiance, he sensed a seriousness,

  Stoner Martin and Marty Ginsburg emerged from the suite; Stoner waved a paper at Reardon, then waited patiently for him to walk down the hallway.

  “I guess I still have some time to catch up on my sleep, Mr. Reardon,” Christie said. “I guess I’ll go to my room.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “Christie.” He hadn’t meant to call her back, but she turned, expectantly. Tensely, he asked, “Christie, will you be there, in my room, when I get back?”

  She shrugged and pitched her voice low. “Ya never know, Mr. Reardon. Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Reardon watched her walk down the hall, stop at her door and glance back at him.

  “Fresh little bastard,” he said softly to himself.

  A Biography of Dorothy Uhnak

  Dorothy Uhnak (1930–2006) was the bestselling, award-winning author of nine novels and one work of nonfiction.

  Uhnak was born in New York City, where she attended the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Before she turned to writing, Uhnak spent fourteen years as a detective with the New York City Transit Police Department, where she was decorated for bravery twice. Her memoir, Policewoman (1964), chronicles her career in law enforcement, and was written while she was still on the force.

  The Bait (1968), Uhnak’s first novel, won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel, and introduced NYPD detective Christie Opara, who appeared in Uhnak’s next two novels, The Witness (1969) and The Ledger (1970). All three novels were adapted for television and eventually became the series “Get Christie Love!” starring Teresa Graves. U
hnak followed the Opara trilogy with Law and Order (1973)—a novel about three generations of Irish American police officers—which earned critical praise and was considered her breakout novel. Next came The Investigation (1977), another blockbuster. Both of these were also adapted for television.

  Uhnak has been credited with paving the way for authors such as Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Patricia Cornwell, and many others who write crime novels and police procedurals with strong heroines. Additionally, she was hailed by George N. Dove as “an experimental writer who . . . tried new approaches with each undertaking.” Her books have been translated into fifteen languages. Uhnak died on Long Island in 2006.

  Dorothy Uhnak, around age one.

  Uhnak, age four, holding a childhood pet.

  A teenage Uhnak pictured with Mildred Goldstein, her only sister. Throughout her youth, Uhnak enjoyed doing odd jobs at the 46th Precinct station house on Ryer Avenue in the Bronx, near her family’s home.

  Sixteen-year-old Uhnak at the beach, around 1946.

  Uhnak, age twenty-four, poses with her husband Anthony “Tony” Uhnak. (Photo courtesy of Harold Ellis.)

  A feature on Uhnak in the American Electric Power Company’s CURRENT magazine, following the release of her second book, The Bait. “It’s been a fantastic year,” Uhnak said. The Bait went on to win a 1969 Edgar Award.

  Uhnak with Police Chief Thomas O’Rourke, in a photo taken during the ceremony promoting her to detective in the New York City Transit Police Department. Uhnak would keep this title for fourteen years.

  Uhnak poses in front of Scottish wards at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens—one of the largest world’s fairs to ever be held in the United States.

  Uhnak pictured with her husband, Anthony; mother, Josephine Goldstein; and daughter, Tracy.

  Uhnak with her daughter, Tracy, and husband, Anthony.

  Uhnak and her mother, Josephine, at her daughter’s wedding in 1987.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1970 by Dorothy Uhnak

  cover design by Kelly Parr

  978-1-4532-8354-7

  This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

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  EBOOKS BY DOROTHY UHNAK

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