Vengeance Is Mine mh-3 Page 4

  They could make me a manager any day.

  Anton snapped off the lights and swiveled his head around.

  “Ah, yes. Now, sir, what can I do for you?”

  He was a tall, lanky guy with eyebrows that met above his nose and a scrimy little goatee that waggled when he talked and made his chin come to a point. “I’m interested in finding a certain model. She works here.”

  The eyebrows went up like •a window shade. “That, sir, is a request we get quite often. Yes, quite often.”

  I said very bluntly, “I don’t like models. Too flatchested.”

  Anton was beginning to look amazed when she came out from behind the props, this time with shoes on too. “Tain’t me you’re talkin’ about, podner.” An unlit cigarette was dangling from her mouth. “Got a light?”

  I held a match under her nose, watching her mouth purse around the cigarette when she drew in the flame. “No, you’re exceptional,” I said.

  This time she grinned and blew the smoke in my face.

  Anton coughed politely. “This, er, model you mentioned. Do you know her?”

  “Nope. All I know is that she was at the Calway Merchandising affair the other night.”

  “I see. There were several of our young ladies present on that assignment, I believe. Miss Reeves booked that herself. Would you care to see her?”

  “Yeah, I would.”

  The girl blew another mouthful of smoke at me and her eyelashes waved hello again. “Don’t you ever wear clothes?” I asked her.

  “Not if I can help it. Sometimes they make me.”

  “That’s what I’d like to do.”

  “What?”

  “Make you.”

  Anton choked and clucked, giving her a push. “That will be enough. If you don’t mind, sir, this way.” His hand was inviting me to a door in the side of the room. “These young ladies are getting out of hand. Sometimes I could...”

  “Yeah, so could I.” He choked again and opened the door.

  I heard him announce my name but I didn’t catch what he said because my mind couldn’t get off the woman behind the desk. Some women are beautiful, some have bodies that make you forget beauty; here was a woman who had both. Her face had a supernatural loveliness as if some master artist had improved on nature itself. She had her hair cut short in the latest fashion, light tawny hair that glistened like a halo. Even her skin had a creamy texture, flowing down the smooth line of her neck into firm, wide shoulders. She had the breasts of youth-high, exciting, pushing against the high neckline of the white jersey blouse, revolting at the need for restraint. She stood up and held her hand out to me, letting it slip into mine with a warm, pleasant grip. Her voice had a rich vibrant quality when she introduced herself, but I was too busy cursing the longer hemlines to get it. When she sat down again with her legs crossed I stopped my silent protests of long dresses when I saw how tantalizingly nice they could mold themselves to the roundness of thighs that were more inviting when covered. Only then did I see the nameplate on the desk that read JUNO REEVES.

  Juno, queen of the lesser gods and goddesses. She was well named.

  She offered me a drink from a decanter in a bar set and I took it, something sweet and perfumy in a long-stemmed glass.

  We talked. My voice would get a nasty intonation then it would get polite. It didn’t seem to come out of me at all. We could have talked about nothing for an hour, maybe it was just minutes. But we talked and she did things with her body deliberately as if I were a supreme test of her abilities as a woman and she laughed, knowing too well that I was hardly conscious of what I was saying or how I was reacting.

  She sipped her drink and laid the glass down on the desk, the dark polish of her nails in sharp contrast against the gleaming crystal. Her voice eased me back to the present.

  “This young lady, Mr. Hammer . . . you say she left with your friend?”

  “I said she may have. That’s what I want to find out.”

  “Well, perhaps I can show you their photographs and you can identify her.”

  “No, that won’t do it. I never saw her myself either. “Then why . . .”

  “I want to find out what happened last night, Miss Reeves.”

  “Juno, please.”

  I grinned at her.

  “Do you suppose they did. . .” she smiled obliquely, “anything wrong?”

  “I don’t give a damn what they did. I’m just interested in

  knowing. You see, this pal of mine . . . he’s dead.”

  Her eyes went soft. “Oh, I’m awfully sorry. What happened?”

  “Suicide, the cops said.”

  Juno folded her lower lip between her teeth, puzzled. “In that case, Mr. Hammer . . .”

  “Mike,” I said.

  “In that case, Mike, why bring the girl into it? After all . . .”

  “The guy had a family,” I cut in. “If a nosy reporter decides to work out an angle and finds a juicy scandal lying around, the family will suffer. If there’s anything like that I want to squelch it.”

  She nodded slowly, complete understanding written in her face. “You are right, Mike. I’ll see the girls as they come in for assignments and try to find out who it was. Will you stop by tomorrow sometime?”

  I stood up, my hat in my hand. “That’ll be fine, Juno. Tomorrow then.”

  “Please.” Her voice dropped into a lower register as she stood up and held her hand out to me again. Every motion she made was like liquid being poured and there was a flame in her eyes that waited to be breathed into life. I wrapped my hand around hers just long enough to feel her tighten it in subtle invitation.

  I walked to the door and turned around to say good-by again. Juno let her eyes sweep over me, up and down, and she smiled. I couldn’t get the words out. Something about her made me too warm under my clothes. She was beautiful and she was built like a goddess should be built and her eyes said that she was , good when she was bad.

  They said something else, too, something I should know and couldn’t remember.

  When I got to the elevators I found I had company. This company was waiting for me at the far end of the hall, comfortably braced against the radiator smoking a cigarette.

  This time she had more clothes on. When she saw me coming she ground the butt under her heel and walked up to me with such deliberate purpose that my eyes began to undress her all over again.

  “Make me,” she said.

  “I need an introduction first.”

  “Like hell you do.” The light over the elevator turned red and I heard the car rattling in the well. “Okay, you’re made.” She turned her grin on me as the car slowed up behind the steel doors. “Right here?”

  “Yup”

  “Look out, bub, I’m not the coy type. I may take you up on it.”

  “Right here?” I asked.

  up.

  I let out a short laugh as the doors opened and shoved her in. It could be that she wasn’t kidding and I hated audiences. When we hit the ground floor she linked her arm in mine and let me lead her out to the street. We reached Broadway before she said, “If you really need an introduction, my name is Connie Wales. Who’re you?”

  “Mr. Michael Hammer, chick. I used to be a private investigator. I was in the papers recently.”

  Her mouth was drawn up in a partial smile. “Wow, am I in company.”

  We reached Broadway and turned north. Connie didn’t ask where we were going, but when we passed three bars in a row without stopping I got an elbow in the ribs until I got the hint. The place I did turn into was a long, narrow affair with tables for ladies in the rear. So we took a table for ladies as far down as we could get with a waiter mumbling under his breath behind us.

  Both of us ordered beer and I said, “You’re not very expensive to keep, are you?”

  “Your change’ll last longer this way,” she laughed. “You aren’t rich, or are you?”

  “I got dough,” I said, “but you won’t get it out of me, girlie,” I tacked on.

  Her laugh made pretty music and it was real. “Most men want to buy me everything I look at. Wouldn’t you?” She si
pped her brew, watching me over the rim of the glass with eyes as shiny as new dimes.

  “Maybe a beer, that’s all. A kid I knew once told me I’d never have to pay for another damn thing. Not a thing at all.” She looked at me soberly. “She was right.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  The waiter came back with his tray and four more beers. He sat two in front of each of us, picked up the cash and shuffled away. As he left Connie stared at me for a full minute. “What were you doing in the studio?”

  I told her the same thing I told Juno.

  She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t sound right. Why would any reporter try to make something out of a suicide?”

  She had a point there, but I had an answer. “Because he didn’t leave a farewell note. Because his home life was happy. Because he had a lot of dough and no apparent worries.”

  “It sounds better now,” she said.

  I told her about the party arid what I thought might have happened. When I sketched it in I asked, “Do you know any of the girls that were there that night?”

  Her laugh was a little deeper this time. “Golly, no, at least not to talk to. You see, the agency is divided into two factions, more or less . . . the clotheshorses and the no-clotheshorses. I’m one of the sugar pies who fill out panties and nighties for the nylon trade. The clotheshorses couldn’t fill out a paper sack by themselves so they’re jealous and treat us lesser paid kids like dirt.”

  “Nuts,” I said. “I saw a few and they can’t let their breaths out all the way without losing their falsies.”

  She almost choked on her drink. “Very cute, Mike, very cute. I’ll have to remember all your acid witticisms. They’ll put me over big with the gang.”

  I finished the last of the beer and shoved the empties to the edge of the table. “Come on, kid. I’ll take you wherever you want to go then I’ll try to get something done.”

  “I want to go back to my apartment and you can get something done there.”

  “You’ll get a slap in the ear if you don’t shut up. Come on.”

  Connie threw her head back and laughed at me again. “Boy oh boy, what ten other guys wouldn’t give to hear me say that?”

  “Do you say that to ten other guys?”

  “No, Mike.” Her voice was a whisper of invitation.

  There wasn’t an empty cab in sight so we walked along Broadway until we found a hack stand with a driver grabbing a nap behind the wheel. Connie slid in and gave him an address on Sixty-second Street then crowded me into the corner and reached for my hand.

  She said, “Is all this very important, Mike? Finding the girl and all, I mean.”

  I patted her hand. “It means plenty to me, baby. More than you’d expect.”

  “Can I . . . help you some way? I want to, Mike. Honest.”

  She had a hell of a cute face. I turned my head and looked down into it and the seriousness in her expression made me nod before I could help myself. “I need a lot of help, Connie. I’m not sure my friend went out with this girl; I’m not sure she’ll admit it if she did and I can’t blame her; I’m not sure about anything any more.”

  “What did Juno tell you?”

  “Come back tomorrow. She’ll try to find her in the meantime.”

  “Juno’s quite a . . . she’s quite a . . .”

  “Quite,” I finished.

  “She makes that impression on everybody. A working girl doesn’t stand a chance around that woman.” Connie faked a pout and squeezed my arm. “Say it ain’t so, Mike.”

  “It ain’t so.”

  “You’re lying again,” she laughed. “Anyway, I was thinking. Suppose this girl did go out with your friend. Was he the type to try for a fast affair?”

  I shoved my hat back on my head and tried to picture Chester Wheeler. To me he was too much of a family man to make a decent wolf. I told her no, but doubtfully. It’s hard to tell what a guy will or won’t do when he’s in town without an overseer or a hardworking conscience.

  “In that case,” Connie continued, “I was thinking that if this girl played games like a lot of them do, she’d drag him around the hot spots with him footing the bill. It’s a lot of fun, they tell me.”

  She was getting at something. She shook her head and let her hair swirl around her shoulders. “Lately the clotheshorses have been beating a path to a few remote spots that cater to the modeland-buyer crowd. f haven’t been there myself, but it’s a lead.”

  I reached over and tipped her chin up with my forefinger. “I like the way you think, girl.” Her lips were full and red. She ran her tongue over them until they glistened wetly, separated just a little to coax me closer. I could have been coaxed, only the cab jolted to a stop against the curb and Connie stuck out her tongue at the driver. She made a wry face and held on to my hand just to be sure I got out with her. I handed the driver a bill and told him to keep the change.

  “It’s the cocktail hour, Mike. You will come up, won’t you?”

  “For a while.”

  “Damn you,” she said, “I never tried so hard to make a guy who won’t be made. Don’t I have wiles, Mike?”

  “Two beauties.”

  “Well, that’s a start, anyway. Leave us leave.”

  The place was a small-sized apartment house that made no pretense at glamour. It had a work-it-yourself elevator that wasn’t working and we hoofed it up the stairs to the third floor where

  Connie fumbled in her pocket until she found her key. I snapped on the light like I lived there permanently and threw my hat on a chair in the living room and sat down.

  Connie said, “What’ll it be, coffee or cocktails?”

  “Coffee first,” I told her. “I didn’t eat lunch. If you got some eggs put them on too.” I reached over the arm of the chair into a magazine rack and came up with a handful of girlie mags that were better than the post cards you get in Mexico. I found Connie in half of them and decided that she was all right. Very all right.

  The smell of the coffee brought me into the kitchen just as she was sliding the eggs onto a plate and we didn’t bother with small talk until there was nothing left but some congealed egg yolk. When I finally leaned back and pulled out my deck of Luckies she said, “Good?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Will I make somebody a good wife?”

  “Somebody.”

  “Bastard.” She was laughing again. I grinned back at her and faked a smack at her fanny. Instead of pulling away she stuck it out at me so I laid one on that made her yowl.

  We had the cocktails in the living room. The hands on my watch went around once, then twice. Every so often the shaker would be refilled and the ice would make sharp sounds against the metal surface. I sat there with a glass in my hand and my head back, dreaming my way through the haze. I ran out of matches and whenever I put a cigarette in my mouth Connie would come across the room with a light for me.

  A nice guy who was dead.

  Two shots gone.

  One bullet and one shell case found in the hall.

  Suicide.

  Hell.

  I opened my eyes and looked at Connie. She was curled up on a studio couch watching me. “What’s the program, kid?”

  “It’s almost seven,” she said. “I’ll get dressed and you can take me out. If we’re lucky maybe we can find out where your friend went.”

  I was too tired to be nice. My eyes were heavy from looking into the smoke that hung in the air and my belly felt warm from the drinks. “A man is dead,” I said slowly. “The papers said what the cops said, he died a suicide. I know better. The guy was murdered.”

  She stiffened, and the cigarette bent in her fingers. “I wanted to find out why so I started tracing and I found he might have been with a babe one night. I find where the babe works and start asking questions. A very pretty model with a very pretty body starts tossing me a line and is going to help me look. I start getting ideas. I start wondering why all the concern from a dame who can have ten other guys yet makes a pass at a guy who hasn’t even got a job and won’t buy her more than beer
and takes her eggs and coffee and her cocktails.”

  Her breath made a soft hissing noise between her teeth. I saw the cigarette crumple up in her hand and if she felt any pain it wasn’t reflected in her face. I never moved while she pushed herself up. My hands were folded behind my head for a cushion and stayed there even while she stood spraddled-legged in front of me.

  Connie swung so fast I didn’t close my eyes for it. Not a flat palm, but a small, solid fist sliced into my cheek and cracked against my jaw. I started to taste the blood inside my mouth and when I grinned a little of it ran down my chin.

  “I have five brothers,” she said. Her voice had a snarl in it. “They’re big and nasty but they’re all men. I have ten other guys who wouldn’t make one man put together. Then you came along. I’d like to beat your stupid head off. You have eyes and you can’t see. All right, Mike, I’ll give you something to look at and you’ll know why all the concern.”

  Her hand grabbed her blouse at the neckline and ripped it down. Buttons rolled away at my feet. The other thing she wore pulled apart with a harsh tearing sound and she stood there proudly, her hands on her hips, flaunting her breasts in my face. A tremour of excitement made the muscles under the taught flesh of her stomach undulate, and she let me look at her like that as long as it pleased me.

  I had to put my hands down and squeeze the arms of the chair. My collar was too tight all of a sudden, and something was crawling up my spine.

  Her teeth were clamped together. Her eyes were vicious. “Make me,” she said.

  Another trickle of blood ran down my chin, reminding me what had happened. I reached up and smacked her across the mouth as hard as I could. Her head rocked, but she still stood there, and now her eyes were more vicious than ever. “Still want me to make you?”

  “Make me,” she said.

  Chapter Four

  We ate supper in a Chinese joint on Times Square. The place was crowded but nobody had eyes for the meal; they were all focused on Connie including mine and I couldn’t blame them any. If low-cut gowns were daring, then she took the dare and threw it back at them.