“Couple hundred. She kept cash in the top dresser drawer. It was no secret hiding place, just where she kept it. I looked around some to see if she had any holdout money stashed anywhere, but I couldn’t find any. Didn’t turn up any bank-books, safe-deposit keys. Did you?”

“No.”

“Or any money? S’pose it’s finders keepers if you did, but I’m just asking.”

“No money. That’s all you took?”

“And a picture a nightclub photographer took of her and me. Couldn’t see any rightful reason to leave that for the police. Why?”

“I just wondered. You went there before the police picked you up?”

“They didn’t pick me up. I walked in voluntarily. And yes, I went there first, and it was before they got there, far as that goes. Or the couple hundred would have been gone.”

Maybe, maybe not. I said, “Did you take the cat?”

“The cat?”

“She had a little black kitten.”

“Right, she did. I never thought about the kitten. No, I didn’t take it. I would have put out food for it if I thought. Why? Is it gone?”

I said it was, and its litter box too. I asked if the kitten had been around when he went to the apartment but he didn’t know. He hadn’t noticed a kitten, but then he hadn’t been looking for one.

“And I was moving quickly, you know. I was in and out in five minutes. Kitten could have brushed against my ankles and I might not have paid it any mind. What’s it matter? Kitten didn’t kill her.”

“No.”

“You don’t think she took the kitten to the hotel, do you?”

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know why we’re talking about the kitten.”

“Somebody must have taken it. Somebody besides you must have gone to her apartment after she died and took the kitten out of there.”

“You sure the kitten wasn’t there today? Animals get scared when a stranger comes around. They hide.”

“The kitten wasn’t there.”

“Could have walked out when the cops came. Doors open, kitten runs out, goodbye kitty.”

“I never heard of a cat taking its litter pan along.”

“Maybe some neighbor took it. Heard it meowing, like they do, and didn’t want it to go hungry.”

“Some neighbor with a key?”

“Some people exchange keys with a neighbor. In case they get locked out. Or the neighbor could have got the key from the doorman.”

“That’s probably what happened.”

“Must be.”

“I’ll check with the neighbors tomorrow.”

He whistled softly. “You chase down everything, don’t you? Little thing like a kitten, you’re at it like a dog at a bone.”

“That’s the way it’s done. Goyakod.”

“How’s that?”