Don't Look Behind You Page 4

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  At the venerable Blue Ribbon Restaurant on West Forty-fourth, Velda and I sat in the bar at our usual corner table in a niche overseen by celebrity photos, a good number of whom seemed to be eavesdropping. I’d had the knockwurst plate, Velda a big shrimp salad, and now she was having a Manhattan while I took care of a Four Roses and ginger. She seemed so very businesslike in her gray tailored suit, yet still made every other female in the place look sick.

  We’d skipped the business talk during the meal, but now I handed her the two slips of paper with the hot-file leads.

  “I’ll look into them,” she said, giving the notes a quick advance scan before slipping them into her purse.

  I frowned at her little black leather shoulder-strap number. “Are you packing the .32?”

  The big brown eyes met my concerned stare coolly. “What do you think? If the next guy that tries for you isn’t a sharp shooter, I could take the slug. If you’ll excuse me sounding so sentimental.”

  I didn’t like having her in this at all, but I knew better than suggesting she get out.

  “We’ve had it quiet for a few years,” I said. “The mob guys are mostly new faces, and some of them are grateful to me for getting rid of their old bosses and giving them a path to the good life.”

  She was nodding. “I agree. Everybody’s first thought is that the list of those who want rid of Mike Hammer has to be a long one. But between the dead and the incarcerated, you don’t have that many enemies walking around at the moment.”

  “Those two leads I gave you are family members who just might be rough enough to go for the revenge angle. Listen, besides the one in your purse, how about re-upping the old blade in the thigh-sheath gimmick?”

  “And ruin my fashionable lines? Not on your life. If you’ll excuse the expression.”

  I sipped my drink. I knew this was a hopeless fight.

  I said, “You have a chance to look into our prospective client?”

  “Leif Borensen? No. But I did better than that.” She looked past me with a smile, and pointed a red-nailed finger. “I arranged for somebody in the know to drop by after dinner.”

  I glanced at the approaching figure, just another nobody at a glance, a man of average size in glasses and business suit, his face graced by a receding crew cut, but in reality one of America’s most popular, powerful syndicated columnists.

  Then I was on my feet grinning and we were shaking hands, Hy Gardner and me.

  “What brings you back to town?” I demanded cheerfully. “Seems like you just left.”

  He shrugged and took a chair between us. “Just because the Trib is dead doesn’t mean my column isn’t alive and well. A couple of Broadway musicals are opening this week, and I’m here to cover them.”

  “Where’s Marilyn?” Velda asked.

  Marilyn had been Hy’s secretary till they married a decade or so ago.

  “She’s too smart to head north this time of year,” Hy said. “I forgot how damn gray this city is! Marilyn’s back in Florida where the sun is shining and the water is blue.”

  Unbidden, head bartender George arrived to bring Hy a bourbon on the rocks. The two old friends exchanged a smile that said more than words, and George vanished.

  Velda explained to me, “Hy called this afternoon, to tell you he was in town, and I did what you would have done.”

  I grinned. “Gave him a job.” My eyes met the sly, sleepy ones behind the glasses. “So what can you tell me about Leif Borensen?”

  He gave me the kind of casual shrug that always preceded his most elaborate briefings. “He’s a big, blond, good-looking guy, kind of a Forrest Tucker or Sonny Tufts type. Gals love him and the feeling’s mutual. There are no smudges on his personal behavior. He was drafted during the Korean War, put his time in and was given an honorable discharge. Started out as an actor here in town. Came to the Apple from the Midwest and started landing secondary roles in plays and early TV. He even made it into my column a couple of times.”

  “Anything notable?”

  Hy shook his head. “Played a corpse on Climax who got to his feet too soon and walked out of frame. That got him some attention. The wrong kind, maybe… but at least I spelled his name right.”

  “So this was, what? Twenty years ago?”

  “Around then. There wasn’t a lot of call for walking corpses on TV, and his looks didn’t make up for a stilted delivery. He was landing stage parts based on his strong jaw and muscular physique, but he was strictly straight and lost his appeal with certain casting directors.”

  “So the show business background explains why he headed to Hollywood.”

  Hy nodded. “But he wasn’t getting cast out there much, either. Second cop from the left, third Indian from the right. He was barely scrounging out an existence when a rich aunt died and left him some dough and he started taking fliers in real estate. There were still bargains to be had in those days, and he did well. A production company he acquired as an offshoot of one land deal or another turned him into a producer, and for fifteen years, give or take, he’s been churning out drive-in fodder and doing well at it. You know, The Monster That Ate Cleveland, I Was a Teenage Zombie. Also some of those half-hour syndicated jobs that come on in the non-network slots before the news and after the Tonight Show. Private eye junk, mostly.”

  Velda smiled at that.

  I said, “And now he’s back in the big town.”

  Hy sipped bourbon and nodded again. “I hear he’s got the bug to be a real producer. The real Broadway deal. His fiancée, Gwen Foster… have you heard of her?”

  “No,” I said.

  Velda touched my sleeve. “Sure you have, Mike. She had one of the leads in that Dames at Sea revival we saw last year.”

  “Too many dames to keep track of in that,” I said with a shrug. “Is she any good, Hy?”

  “Very good. Beautiful singing voice, nice comedic touch, and a real stunner. She could go far. She has the genes for it.”

  At first I thought he said “jeans,” but then I got the drift. I snapped my fingers. “Martin Foster. Her father?”

  The late Foster had been one of the city’s most successful theatrical producers, right in there with David Merrick.

  Hy nodded. “But it’s not a nepotism situation. She’s really got it. And her daddy didn’t produce that revival you saw, either.”

  “Still,” I said, skeptical. “Connections.”

  “No, Mike,” Velda said. “She’s good. Very good.”

  “She may be rushing into this marriage,” Hy said, eyebrows climbing over his glasses.

  I frowned. “How so?”

  He asked Velda if she minded if he smoked a cigar; she said she didn’t, and he withdrew one of his typical Havana pool cues from an inside pocket like a passport.

  “Starting maybe four months ago,” Hy said, getting the cigar going, waving out a match, “Borensen and Gwen’s father were exploring mounting a new production, a musical version of an old Maxwell Anderson play, The Star Wagon. They were courting Johnny Mercer and had him within an inch of a contract. Then, two months ago… and you may remember this from the papers, Mike… Foster shot himself at his Long Island summer home.”

  “Anything suspicious about it?”

  Hy grinned and Velda smirked; they exchanged eye rolls.

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s just that you’re so predictable, man,” Hy said, and he finished off his bourbon. George was there with another before Hy had set it down.

  Velda said, “Mike, the autopsy said Foster was in an advanced stage of lung cancer. He was a who-knows-how-many-packs-a-day smoker. Maybe you should think about that.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” I said, and got out my Luckies and fired one up. But it only made her smile and shake her head a little.

  “When did you take those up again?” Hy asked.

  “I needed something to soothe my jangly nerves,” I said. “So Borensen and Gwen got to know each other when he and her fat
her were doing business, probably just a friendly, flirtatious bit that turned into something.”

  “It turned into something, all right,” Hy said. “An upcoming wedding. And Martin Foster was a very rich, successful guy, Mike. That bridal shower they want you for will be star-studded and diamond-studded, too.”

  “What’s the inside word on Borensen?”

  Hy shrugged again. “They say he’s tight with a buck and knows just how to squeeze a nickel. His pictures have made money because he doesn’t spend much on them. He racked up his fortune giving talented young guys a break and seasoned old pros much needed work. His TV shows, you’ve seen ’em, always star washed-up Hollywood guys, with just enough name value left to lend Borensen’s productions some credibility.”

  I grunted a laugh. “That just says he’s a good businessman. What about personally?”

  “He seems well-liked, as far as that goes. He keeps a low profile. Despite his acting background, he’s never given himself a role. His kind of producing hasn’t got him much attention anywhere but the Hollywood trades, and maybe those monster magazines the kids read.”

  “You smell an opportunist, Hy? Is he gold-digging that girl?”

  The columnist’s smile was small but hugely cynical. “Look, Mike, Gwen Foster’s rich and beautiful and talented. What’s not to love? But Borensen’s already got plenty of dough. On his own terms, he’s a hell of a success. What he doesn’t have is that glow of show business royalty that the Foster name can bring him.”

  I blew smoke skyward. “So where is this headed? Maybe he produces a successful Broadway musical with his talented bride, sells the movie rights to a big Hollywood studio, and finagles a producer spot for himself. And suddenly he’s climbing.”

  “It’s the American way, Mike,” Hy said with a grin.

  I shook my head. “If only I could find a rich, talented, beautiful woman.”

  Velda kicked me under the table.

  “Well,” I said, wincing just a little, “it all sounds vaguely sleazy to me, but we can use the bread. Velda, first thing tomorrow, set up a meeting for me with our esteemed social-climbing producer. I think we’ll let him produce a thousand dollars for Hammer Investigations.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The apartment building was one of those old stately places on Park Avenue in the East Sixties. Central Park nestled outside of it like a huge countryside estate behind its endless stone fence. From the rows of windows, the park’s rolling slopes would make a pretty sight sometimes, traffic flowing through the greenery, people strolling the pathways. After dark it wouldn’t seem so pretty any more, but nobody in the stately building would give a damn, because they couldn’t see what went on down there anyway, among the lesser classes.

  The day had a nice Indian summer feel to it and I’d left my coat and hat behind. I looked very modern, all hatless and decked out in my one Brooks Brothers suit, a nice shade of gray with black flecks.

  I told the doorman Mr. Borensen was expecting me and cooled my heels while he confirmed it over the interphone, and when he told me twelve D, I said thanks and trooped across a marble-floored lobby no fancier or larger than a hotel ballroom to a bank of elevators and punched the button.

  To supplement Hy filling me in last night, Velda had done a good job this morning of running a further check on our prospective client. It wasn’t a necessity, but if there was anything shaky in his background, we’d know what angles needed covering. A source at the LAPD and another at the recently formed Producers Guild of America backed up Hy’s briefing and filled in a few blanks.

  Apparently the motion picture business had dominated Borensen’s time in the sunshine state, but not with the kind of success that really made you somebody in Movieland. He had stayed on the outer fringes of that money game until he lucked into his land development scheme and parlayed his modest inheritance into the kind of loot that could attract more. Add that to his upcoming nuptials to a very rich young woman, and he was ready to go into major production.

  Leif Borensen was rich now and there sure as hell wasn’t anything wrong with being rich, even if it meant hiring somebody like me to keep the poor people at bay.

  The elevator hissed to a stop and I stepped off into that wonderful world where money could rent digs with a huge private foyer complete with running waterfall and a hidden electronic system that announced you to a beautiful blonde who bounced out and asked, “Mr. Hammer?”

  She was a stunning, lightly tanned thing in a white ribbed sleeveless sweater and cherry-red slacks with matching wide big-buckled belt and a rather silly-looking, oversize puffy cap. A little slimmer than I like them, but I understood how a guy could overlook that. And she had the kind of delicately feminine features that made Audrey Hepburn look like she just wasn’t trying.

  Before I could answer, she held out her hand and her red lipsticked kiss of a mouth said, “I’m Gwen Foster, Mr. Hammer—Mr. Borensen’s fiancée.”

  I took the hand and kept it as long as I could get away with. “Nice to see you, Miss Foster. Of course, I’ve seen you before.”

  Light blue, blue-eye-shadowed eyes got big and bright, framed by large individually separated lashes. “Oh?”

  “On stage. Dames at Sea last year. You made quite an impression.”

  Okay, it never hurts to butter up the client’s wife, even the “almost” variety.

  “Very kind of you, Mr. Hammer. Please come in. Leif is waiting for you inside.”

  Not right inside, though, because she walked me into and through a high-ceilinged foyer bigger than my apartment, with more marble flooring, a crystal chandelier looming, and a staircase at left sweeping up like it was on its way to have Loretta Young come down.

  “We’re so pleased you’ve agreed to provide some protection at my shower,” she said, leading the way briskly. The red trousers revealed a nicely shaped, full bottom despite her slender frame. Detectives notice these things.

  “I haven’t actually said yes, Miss Foster. I need to speak to your fiancé first.”

  She came to an abrupt stop and I almost bumped into her, which would have been fun but embarrassing.

  We were in the midst of a hallway that was like an airport runway with an Oriental carpet. Several more chandeliers hovered and the paintings around us in their gilt-edged or sometimes modern frames were an eclectic array, everything from Renoir to Picasso. The baroque furnishings hugging the walls seemed expensively antique.

  She faced me and retrieved my hand and held it in two of hers. “Oh, I hope you will say yes to the job. I’m counting on it. I’d be so disappointed if you said no.”

  Those blue eyes were the color of a waterfall-fed pool that I wouldn’t have minded jumping into.

  “Are you expecting trouble, Miss Foster?”

  Her smile made her peach-blushed apple cheeks go even bigger and her teeth were perfect and white, God and a dentist collaborating beautifully.

  “No, not at all. I don’t expect a daylight robbery at the Waldorf, for pity sake. Leif seems a little paranoid about that, but… it’s just that I’ve told my girl friends you’ll be guarding the festivities, and they are very excited. Especially the older ones.”

  I winced. “I was going to guess I was a little before your time. You’ve confirmed it.”

  Red blush worked its way up under the peach. “No, I’m sorry, so sorry… it’s just—they told me some wild things about you. Way-out things. They said when you were a young man… younger man… you used to fill the headlines with the most outrageous escapades. Like something out of an old Bogart movie.”

  I smiled. “All Bogart movies are old, Miss Foster.”

  Still, that was a kind of nice compliment, a little left-handed but nice. Of course, Bogart never racked up my body count.

  She deposited me at a doorway. She had never let go of my hand. Her touch was the damnedest thing—warm and cool at once.

  “Leif’s just inside,” she said.

  “Are you joining us?”

  “
No. I’m a modern girl, but I know when it’s man-talk time.”

  Maybe there was hope for this new generation after all.

  But I pressed: “I’m a little surprised you’re not going to be part of the meeting, Gwen. And it’s Mike.”

  “Hi Mike. Why’s that?”

  “Well, why meet at your place, if you’re not going to be part of the discussion?”

  “Oh. I see. I hope you won’t be shocked, but after Daddy’s death, I asked Leif to move in here with me, and he said yes.”

  If she got to know me better, she’d learn I didn’t shock quite so easily.

  “You know, I knew your father,” I said.

  The eyes widened again. Were those spaced-apart lashes fake? I didn’t care. They made blue sunflowers out of those eyes.

  Very interested, she asked, “Were you friends with Daddy?”

  “That overstates it. Friendly acquaintances even overstates it. But we each knew who the other was, and if we were in the same place would at least say hello and sometimes chat. Very charming guy. I admire his success. Nice man.”

  She gave me half a smirk. “Not everyone who did business with Daddy would agree. He gave his stars fits, directors, too. Do you know what Anthony Newley said about Daddy?”

  “No.”

  “‘Will Rogers said he never met a man he didn’t like. Well, Will Rogers never met Martin Foster.’”

  We both laughed a little at that.

  “I miss him,” she said, letting the sadness show in that lovely face. “At first I was so… so mad at him. But he must have been in a lot of pain.”

  There was nothing to say to that, but, “How are you holding up, Gwen?”

  “All I can say is, Leif’s been a real boon in all this. I don’t know where I’d be, or how I’d have begun to deal with this thing, without him.” She gave my hand a final little squeeze. “Now, go on in there, Mike.”

  She bounced off, the cute red-clad bottom bidding me a friendly goodbye. Half-way down the cavernous hall, she looked back and called out, echoing a little, “Don’t worry about getting lost. I’ll be back to collect you!”