The Body Lovers Page 4

  “Background on Helen Poston and Maxine Delaney. I thought you’d want it. They’re mostly newspaper clips, but they cover as much as the police have. I reached some people in the Poston girl’s home town who knew her ... the school superintendent, the principal, two teachers and the man who sold her a used car. She had a good reputation as far as her work was concerned, but I got the impression that teaching wasn’t her main ambition in life.”

  I glanced up from the folder and stared at her. “Like how?”

  “Nothing definite ... it was an impression. The car salesman was the one who put his finger on it. You know the type ... a real swinger ready to sound off about anybody. He was the one who said he’d like to see her in a bikini. She bought the car to make a trip and seemed pretty excited about getting away from the home town and all he could think of was a small-town teacher in a big city having a ball away from the prying eyes of the school board. I said I was doing a feature story on her and he made sure I spelled his name right.”

  “And Maxine Delaney?”

  “I called Vernie in L.A. and he checked with the arresting officer who picked her up. His opinion was that she was one of the lost tribe who inhabit the movie colony with stars in their eyes until disillusionment sets in, then she didn’t give a damn any more. Bob Sabre reached the Chicago outfit she posed for and said they didn’t bother with her because she didn’t project. Nice face and body, but she lacked that intangible something. She still thought she was a star and played it that way.”

  “Two of a kind,” I said.

  “There’s a similarity.” She pinched her lower lip between her teeth a moment, then said, “Mike...”

  “What?”

  “I can see the green on the redhead, but that black didn’t fit the blonde Poston girl. She wasn’t the type.”

  “They change when they hit the big town, kid.”

  “Everybody said she was extremely conservative.”

  “That was at home. There weren’t any eyes watching her here.”

  “Could there be a connection?”

  “If there is, it’ll come out. Right now I want you to check all the charge accounts at the better stores and see what you can get on Greta Service. She might have left a forwarding address with their billing departments. I can’t see a dame giving up charge accounts or lousing up her credit if it can be avoided.”

  Velda grinned up at me. “You going to leave a forwarding address?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “yours. I’ll call in later.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Only because I love you, baby.”

  “Oh boy,” she said quietly and reached for the phone.

  Donald Harney had an office on the ninth floor of the Stenheim Building, sharing space with three other lawyers who hadnt made the high-income cases yet. The legal library was all secondhand and it was plain that any attempt at putting up a front was a lost cause a long time ago. The community receptionist told me to go right on in and I pushed through the door to his private cubicle. through

  Harney didn’t stand on ceremony in his own back yard. He sat there in his shittsteeves with a pencil over his ear editing a brief, shoved his hair out of his eyes and got up for a handshake. Our last meeting at Harry Service’s trial had been short, on the witness stands, and then only for a few perfunctory questions regarding his arrest. It had been a plea of guilty and his concern was getting Harry off with as light a sentence as possible.

  When he sat back relaxed he said. “What brings you here, Mike ? My client bust out?”

  “‘Harry isn’t the type,” I told him. “He’d rather sweat out a parole. Look ... I’d like some facts about him.”

  “It’s still privileged information.”

  “I know, but it concerns the welfare of your client ... and mine.” I grinned at him. “Funny as it sounds, Harry asked me to do him a favor.” I held out the note he had sent and let Harney read it over, then tucked it back in my wallet.

  “How’d he get that to you?”

  “Guys in stir can think up a lot of ways. Know anything about his sister?”

  Harney squinted and swung in his chair. “Harry’s case was assigned to me by the court. He didn’t have any funds to provide for a defense. The trial lasted three days only because the prosecution was trying to tie Harry into a few other unsolved robberies. The last day his sister appeared out of nowhere, damn well upset, too. Apparently they had been pretty close in their earlier days, then split up after their parents died and hadn’t kept in touch.”

  “It was too late to do anything then.”

  Harney shrugged and nodded. “She seemed to blame herself ... a sort of maternal instinct coming out. When they were kids he was quite a hero to her. Later he helped her out financially when she was off working.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She never said. Anyway, the day Harry was sentenced she told him she was going to make sure they never had to worry again, that she’d get things ready for his release ... you know, the usual emotional outburst.”

  “Was it?”

  Harney gave me a puzzled look. “Well, she seemed serious enough, but I’ve been through those situations before. It sounds good at the time, but how the hell can a dame alone do all that?”

  “There are ways.”

  “Which brings us up to why you’re here.”

  “Yeah. She’s missing and Harry’s worried. Tell me, have you seen him in prison?”

  “Twice. I went up there on other business and took the time to say hello.”

  “He mention anything?” I asked him.

  “Only that things were fine, his sister came to see him often and he was working toward a parole. You can’t always tell, but he seemed convinced that crime was more trouble than it was worth. In fact, he even asked about you. Once he called you a ‘nice bastard’ because you could have killed him and didn’t.”

  I stuck a butt in my mouth and lit it. “There’s an odd factor here, you know?”

  “The way Harry Service contacted you?”

  “He could have gone through you.”

  Harney let out a grunt and shook his head. “You know those guys, Mike. I represent the law. Face it, in your own peculiar way, you don’t. With your reputation you’re closer to being one of their own kind. I can see his point. Now, what can I do to help out?”

  “Get a line on Greta Service and buzz me.” I grinned a little and added, “I’ll split the fee when Harry gets out.”

  For a few seconds Harney studied my face. “You got more going than Harry Service, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a possibility. At least we can wrap up this bit for Old Harry.”

  “You don’t owe him anything.”

  “He asked me for a favor.”

  A small twitch of humor touched the comer of his mouth. “You tough guys are all alike.”

  “Will do?” I asked.

  “Will do,” he said.

  Greenwich Village is a state of mind. Like Hollywood. There really isn’t such a place left any more. It exists in the memories of the old ones and in the misconceptions of the new ones. It’s on the map and in the vocabulary, but the thing that made Hollywood and the Village has long since gone and thousands prowl the area where they once were, looking for the reality but finding only the shadow.

  A few landmarks are still around; the streets do their jig steps and the oddball characters wrapping up their life on canvas or in unpublished manuscripts are attractions for the tourists. But the city is too big and too fast-growing to contain a sore throat and coughed-up phlegm. The world of commerce has moved in, split it with the beatniks who clutched for a final handhold, and tolerates it because New York still needs a state of mind to retain its image while the computers finally take over.

  For those who lived there, night, like Gaul, was divided into three parts. The realists occupied it early, the spectators came to browse during the second shift, then the others waited for the all-clear to sound and came ou
t of the dream world to indulge their own fantasies.

  I sat in a smoke-shrouded bar nursing a highball, watching the third stage drift in. Since midnight I had been buying the bartender a drink every third round and the last hour he had been getting friendly enough to pour me a legitimate jolt and spend time down at my end growling about the type of trade he had to put up with. After a couple paid for beer in nickels and pennies he came back, mopped down in front of me, moving my bills out of the way and said, “What are you doing here? You’re from uptown, ain’t you?”

  “Way uptown.”

  “This place gives me the creeps,” he said. “I shoulda stayed with the Department of Sanitation. My old lady didn’t like being married to a garbage man. Now look. I serve garbage to garbage. Damn, what a life.”

  “It’s tough all over.”

  “You looking for action?”

  “That I can get uptown.”

  His eyes ran over my face. “I seen you before. You with the Vice Squad?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Too bad. You’d have a ball in this place only you’d never have jail room.” He stopped and squinted at me. “Where did I see you?”

  I flipped one of my cards out of my coat pocket and held it out.

  “Ain’t that something,” he said. “I knew I seen you someplace. What’s with this joint?”

  “The end of the road, looks like. I’ve been trying to run down Greta Service all night.”

  “So why didn’t you ask?”

  “You know her?”

  The guy hunched his shoulders and spread his hands out. “She used to come by here some. Lived a few blocks over, I think. She in a jam?”

  “Not that I know of. Her brother wants to locate her.”

  “The one who got pinched? Hey ... you were on that job, weren’t you?”

  “I nailed him. Now he wants me to find her.”

  “Boy, she ain’t been around a while. She moved outa her pad down here, but came back sometimes for hellos. Went native once.”

  “What?”

  “You know, hanging on the arm of some gook with a funny hat. He wasn’t no American. The guy had bucks and shelled it out, but when she started mixing it with some of her old friends he made her cut out.”

  “Recognize him?”

  The guy picked up the bar rag and mopped at nothing in particular. “Hell, who knows from who around here? They all look alike. Most of that type are down at the Flagstaff anyway. I don’t pay no attention to nobody nohow. Stay out of trouble like that.”

  “Ever see her with anybody else?”

  “Couple of times she was with the dykes what come in, only in this joint that ain’t unusual. She’d sit with some of the local kids for a few drinks sometimes. Can’t say I ever seen her with anyone special except that gook.” He picked up my glass, built me a fresh drink on the house and set it down in front of me. He let me taste it, nodded approvingly, and said, “Come to think of it, I stopped by Lew Michi’s place after I closed up here and she was with some good-looking dame and one of those foreigners then too. This one didn’t wear a gook hat, but he was real native.”

  “How’s that?”

  He made another gesture with his hands and said, “You know, dark like, maybe one of those Hindoos or something. They was having a pretty good time, laughing and talking. That was some broad she was with, a real doll. Plenty expensive, too. Some of them tourists come down here dressed like a party at the Ritz.”

  “Remember when that was?”

  The bartender frowned, reached back in thought and told me, “Long time ago. I don’t remember seeing her after that at all. Guess she moved out.”

  I finished the drink and slid a couple of singles across the bar to him. “Not much I can do here then. Thanks for the talk.”

  “No trouble. Come back any time. Some nights this place gets real jumpy.”

  I grinned at him. “I bet.”

  Outside, the night people were rendezvousing on the comers, ready to swing into the usual routine. Headquarters was a bar or a restaurant where they could sip coffee or a beer and talk interminably about nothing anyone else could understand.

  A couple of squad cars cruised by slowly, the cops scanning faces, checking each place for trouble before going on. Nobody paid any attention to them at all. I reached Seventh Avenue, turned right and walked south a block toward a cab stand ready to call it a night.

  Then I saw Cleo sitting at the end of the bar on the corner and pushed in through the door and sat down beside her.

  “Hello, big man,” she said without looking up from her paper.

  “Got eyes in the back of your head?”

  “Nope. Just good peripheral vision.” Then she folded the paper with a throaty chuckle and flipped it aside. “You’re still haunting our house.”

  “It’s not like the old days, Cleo.”

  “Things change. Find out anything about Greta?”

  “Not much. She didn’t leave much to start from.” I waved the bartender over and told him to bring me a Four Roses and ginger ale. “You ever know who she worked for?”

  Cleo gave me a small negative shake of her head. “She was registered with most of the agencies. I know she got jobs here and there ... at least enough to support herself. Most of them were with the garment industry, modeling for the trades. You really have to hustle to make a buck in that business. I sent her up to see Dulcie once....”

  “Who?” I interrupted.

  “Dulcie McInnes, my boss. Super fashion editor of the Proctor Group. Money, society, international prominence among the fashion set who buy three-thousand-dollar gowns. Greta got her interview, but it ended there. Her appearance was earthy rather than ethereal and the Proctor girls have to be gaunt, long-necked and flat-chested. Greta photographed like a pin-up doll.”

  “Tell me something,” I said. “How much do these kids make?”

  “If you’re one of the top twenty you can climb into the fifty-thousand-a-year bracket. Otherwise you stay in the crowd, squeeze out a hundred or two a week for the few years nature lets your face stay unwrinkled and hope for a break or somebody who wants to marry you.”

  “How about you, kid?”

  Cleo gave me another of those deep chuckles and said, “I made my own breaks and when it comes to men, well, after two sour early marriages, I’ll take them when I want them.”

  “You’ll fall.”

  “It’ll take a guy like you to do it.” She reached over and pinched the back of my hand. “I’m the aggressive type, watch out.”

  I tasted the drink and put it down. “Think Greta could have lit out with some guy?”

  She made a wry face and shook her head. “Greta had more on her mind than men, I told you. She was the money type and had enough to attract it.” She paused and picked up her drink. “How far are you going to go to locate her?”

  “Beats me, kid. She had a pretty big head start.”

  “Look, there’s one thing about the city ... pretty soon you bump into someone you know. Maybe some of the gang around here might have seen her. If it means that much to you we can tour a few of the places she played in.”

  “I’ve had enough gin mills for one night.”

  Cleo finished her drink and slid off the stool with a rustle of nylon, a funny little smile playing around her mouth. “Uh-uh, big man. Little Greta had peculiar tastes. The oddball intellectuals were more to her liking.”

  “Lead on,” I said.

  If there was a host, nobody pointed him out. Introductions were a casual affair of no last names and preoccupied acceptance. The smell of weed mixed in the tobacco smoke that hung in the air like a gray smog and a few were already flying away into a dream world on something stronger.

  Cleo and I drifted around the fringes a few minutes before she leaned over and whispered, “The weekly gathering of the clan, big man. Greta made the meetings pretty often. Some of them would have known her. Go ahead and cruise. Maybe you’ll come up with something. Give me a nod when y
ou’ve had enough.”

  Most of the two dozen crammed into the apartment sprawled on the floor listening to the pair strumming guitars on the window seat. A cropped-haired girl in tight jeans sang a bitter song against the world with her eyes squeezed tight, her hands clenched in balled fists of protest.

  I gave up after the second time around and joined the two guys at the makeshift bar back in the kitchen and made myself a decent drink for a change. An empty fishbowl beside the bottles was partly filled with assorted change and few lone singles, waiting for contributions to help pay the freight. I dug out a five, dropped it in and the guy with the beard grinned and said, “Well, well, a banker in our midst.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “We salute thee. That denomination doesn’t appear very often around here.”

  I winked at him and tried the highball. “Nice party,” I said.

  “Hell, it stinks. It was better when we had that horsy belly dancer up for laughs.” He tugged at his beard and grimaced. “You dig this gravy?”

  “Nope.”

  “You didn’t look like the type.”

  “I can give you the first ten lines of ‘Gunga Din,’ ” I said.

  He let out a short laugh and took a long pull from his beer bottle. “I must be getting old. Guys like you are easier to read. Me, I’m scratching thirty-four and still going to college, only now the freshman cap doesn’t fit too well and I’m beginning to think that maybe my old man was right after all. I should have gone into the business with him. When you get that attitude, the kick is gone.” He paused reflectively. “Maybe I’ll start off with a shave.”

  “Try a haircut too.”

  “The freshman cap wouldn’t fit,” he laughed. “How’d you make it here?”

  “Cleo brought me.”

  “Ah, yes. The lady of the loins. Some great stories are told about that one, but methinks it’s all talk. Not a Simon around who wouldn’t want to sample her pies. You tried it for size yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ha. That’s a different answer. Anyone else would have happily lied about it. Intend to?”

  “I haven’t thought about it.”