The woman on the couch wasn’t what I expected at all. She had a mature beauty only middle age can bring when nature cooperates with fashion demands and scientific treatment. A touch of gray added a silvery quality to hair that fell in soft waves around a face that held a gentle tan. Her mouth was full and rich, curved in a welcoming smile. She put the layout sheets on the coffee table and stood up, sensing my immediate approval of the way the black sheath dress encompassed the swell of her breasts and dipped into the hollow and flare of her hips.
But it was her eyes that got you. They were a bright, unnatural emerald green full of laughter.
“Miss McInnes?”
Her teeth sparkled white under her smile and she held her hand out. “Whatever did you say to Miss Tabor? She was absolutely terrified.”
“Maybe I’d better not repeat it.”
“She never even got your name.”
Her hand was firm and warm in mine, enthusiastic for the few moments she held it. “Mike Hammer,” I said. “I’m a private investigator.”
“Now that’s a novelty up here,” she laughed. “No wonder Miss Tabor was so upset. Haven’t I read about you?”
“Probably.”
She walked back to the couch and sat down, held out a box of cigarettes to me when I took the chair opposite her and lit us both with an ornate gold lighter.
“You’ve got me curious about your visit. Who’s being investigated?”
I blew out a cloud of smoke and took the photograph from my pocket. “Nothing spectacular. I’m trying to find this woman. Greta Service ... she’s a model.”
Dulcie McInnes took the photograph from my hand and studied it a minute. “Should I know her?”
“Probably not. She applied here for photographic work one time at Cleo’s suggestion and ...”
“Cleo?” Her head tilted with a gesture of interest. “She’s one of our finest contributors.”
“Think you may have some test pictures of her?”
“Undoubtedly. Just a moment.” She picked up the phone, pressed a button on the base and said, “Marsha? See if we have any photos of Greta Service in our personnel files. No, she’s a modeL Bring them up, please.”
When she hung up she asked, “Did she work for us?”
“Opinion is that Greta was, well ... a little too stacked for high fashion jobs.”
“Luckily for us we’re only concerned with the woman’s opinion. You men ... all you want is pin-ups.”
I looked at her and felt my mouth twist into a smile.
She threw back her head and laughed, her eyes sparkling in the light. “No, I’m not the high fashion type either, thank goodness. I’d hate to have to starve myself into a size six.”
“I don’t think that would help much either. When you’re endowed, you’re endowed. Don’t knock it.”
“Words like that rarely pass through these portals.” Her eyes were filled with a mocking challenge. “I assume you’re an expert on these matters.”
“I haven’t heard any complaints.”
Before she could answer there was a knock on the door and a tall, slim girl walked in with a folder, handed it to her boss and threw a nervous little glance toward me before she left. “You made quite an impression outside,” Dulcie McInnes said and handed me the folder after examining it.
Inside was a typed resume listing Greta Service’s statistics and qualifications. Her address was the one in the Village. Several news clippings from the garment industry’s trade papers showed her in various costumes with her face partially obscured by either a coat collar or wide-brimmed hat, and there were four composite photos with the Proctor Group stamp on the back.
Greta Service was all that was said about her. No dress could do justice to a body that was so obviously made for a bikini. There was no way of erasing the odd, sensual appeal of her face so beautifully framed by long jet black hair, and no matter how she posed, you got the impression she would rather be naked than in a dress of any price.
“You see it too?” she asked me.
“Lovely.”
“I didn’t mean that. She just isn’t a Proctor Girl. It’s one of the hazards of the business.”
I picked the best of the lot and held it up. “Can I have this?” “Certainly, if it will help. We keep the negatives on file downstairs. Occasionally we do have requests from certain manufacturers for this type, but not often.”
I rolled it up and slipped it in my pocket. “Think anybody here might know anything about her?”
“I doubt it,” she said. “Her application date was quite a few months ago and they interview girls daily down there. Women are such a common commodity in this business you can’t tell one from the other after a while. I remember getting Cleo’s note about this girl, but I passed it on to personnel to handle. She wasn’t the first Cleo submitted and we have used several others she suggested. Top-notch free-lancers like Cleo aren’t easy to find and they usually make a good choice. In this case, I imagine Cleo was doing a little wishful thinking. The Service girl would do better with one of the men’s magazines.”
“What’s the going rate with them?”
She shrugged, thought a moment and said, “Only a fraction of ours. Once a Proctor Girl, the sky’s the limit. Quite a few have wound up in Hollywood.”
I got up and pulled my coat on. “That’s it then. Thanks for your time, Miss McInnes.”
“Glad you came.” Her emerald eyes seemed to dance with my own. “It’s made for an enjoyable morning.” A tiny furrow creased her forehead. “Would you mind letting me know if you find her?”
“Sure.”
“It’s ridiculous, I know, but I get a maternal feeling about these girls. It isn’t a bit easy for them at all.”
She held out her hand and I wrapped my own around it. I squeezed too hard, but she didn’t wince and her own grip was firm and pleasing. “You’ll hear from me,” I said.
“Don’t forget.”
The receptionist made a frightened, crablike move to get out of the way when I stepped through the door, her face flushing again when I looked at her. Then she sniffed with indignation and faked ignoring me. She was the only one. The other few in the room looked at me with open curiosity, their eyes full of speculation.
I pushed the down button and waited, listening to the rush of air in the elevator well behind the door. The noise stopped and the doors parted sullenly. A swarthy man clutching a black attaché case stepped out, his sleepy eyes sweeping over me carelessly before he headed toward the reception desk. I got in and pressed the lobby button, picked up several employees and a few who were obviously models on the way down and reached the street smelling of assorted imported perfumes.
Sixth Avenue had lost its identity over the last ten years. It was an empire now.
The lunch crowd had left the Blue Ribbon Restaurant when I met Hy Gardner and we had the corner table in the bar to ourselves. I sat with my back to the wall while Hy dug out a sheaf of notes and laid them on the table while he fished for words. He looked like a guy who couldn’t scratch his itch and finally he said, “What the hell are you into now, Mike?”
“Ease off, buddy,” I told him. “Clue me in first.”
“Okay.” He sat back and shoved his glasses up on his forehead. “You’re on top of the Delaney kill, you had a contact with Mitch Temple before he was knocked off, then you were there with Pat at the apartment after Mitch was bumped and we couldn’t even get in.”
“Wait a minute ...”
“Quit dicing. One of the guys saw you take the side exit out.
But you wanted something on Greta Service and if you think I don’t think this is all part of one of your packages, you’re crazy.”
“Hy...”
“Look,” he interrupted, “my Miami trip is loused up, one of our own guys got killed and you’re playing footsies with me. Since when?”
“Can you cool it if I spell it out?”
“What am I, a kid? Man, after all we’ve been through...”
“All right, I’m not even sure there’s a connection.” I took five minutes and laid out the details for him while he jotted them down on the back of one of his papers. When I got done I said, “Make anything of it?”
“According to Harry Service his sister knew both the Poston and the Delaney girL Your report verified the Poston tie-in, anyway. In their business it wouldn’t be unusual—they probably have plenty of mutual friends. Dozens of them line up for one job and they’re always meeting at the agencies. So far as you know, Greta Service is around someplace and the only one worried is her brother, and that’s because he heard about the two deaths and the fact that his sister knew both of them.”
“Greta disappeared,” I said.
“Not disappeared,” Hy stated. “Her immediate whereabouts are unknown. You think that’s something new in this town? Hell, let a broad in that racket hook a guy who’ll keep her in minks and she’ll drop the old gang in a second. Since when do I tell you that?”
“You’re not, friend. I got the same picture. It’s just that I got a funny feeling about it.”
“Oh boy,” Hy said. “Oh, boy. I don’t even like you when you get that look. You’ll screw the works up for sure.”
“Maybe. What’s the news on Temple?”
Hy pulled his glasses down on the end of his nose and peered at me over them. “You don’t hit one of us that easily. It gets everybody edgy and we have too many inside sources we can work. In our own way we’re like cops. News is where the trouble is and we’re right there. Right now everybody is in the field on this assignment and little things are drifting in the cops never even heard about.”
“Like what?”
“Mitch was around too long not to keep a daily record. Bobby Dale dug it up in his personal effects in the office. The only thing hot he had going was the Poston and Delaney tie-in. He left a page full of speculation about that, including Pat Chambers’ request through you to lay off running it.”
“Don’t blame Pat for that.”
“I’m not. But it didn’t stop Mitch from pushing the angle. He hit every damn store he could find who sold negligees like the ones those kids wore and spent over three hundred bucks making purchases in various ones. The boxes started arriving at the office the day he was killed.”
“What came of it?”
“He found something that killed him, that’s what. The day he was knifed he was all excited about something and spent a full hour in the morgue file going through stock photographs. He didn’t pull any or there would have been a record of it and the attendant there didn’t notice what section he was working in so we can’t point it up from there.”
“Any record of that?”
“It either happened too fast or he was too excited to put it down.”
“That doesn’t fit him at all.”
“I know. Dale said he kept a private reference on him at all times.”
“Nothing like that was found on the body.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. The position he died in was reaching for his coat. All he grabbed was that handkerchief, but he could have been trying to protect those papers. Whoever killed him simply lifted the stuff.”
“But they couldn’t be sure he didn’t make a duplicate copy,” I reminded him.
“It was a chance they took and it paid off. Right now everybody’s backtracking Mitch’s movements and something will show sooner or later. One thing we just found out was that Mitch made four calls to Norman Harrison, the political columnist on his paper. Norm wasn’t home and his answering service took the message to call back. Mitch died before he could reach him. Ordinarily, Mitch and Norm rarely saw each other, so the request was kind of odd.”
I went to say something, but Hy held up his hand. “Wait, that isn’t all. The day he was poking around in the morgue file Mitch sent a note by messenger to a man named Ronald Miller. He’s an engineer for Pericon Chemicals in their foreign division. We contacted him in Cairo and he said Mitch wanted to see him on an important matter, but he was leaving for Egypt that day and couldn’t make it. He didn’t have any idea of what Mitch wanted, either. Their relationship was normal ... they had served in the army together, got together occasionally and Mitch reviewed a couple of books this Miller wrote on his experiences in the Far East.”
“It make sense?”
“I pulled the books from the library and went through them. One was an adventure novel and the other a technical travelogue. Neither sold very well. There wasn’t a single thing in either one that fits this case.”
“How long ago did he write them?”
“About ten years back.”
“Nothing new since then?”
“No. Why?”
“Maybe he was intending to write another one.”
“So what?”
“He could be an authority on something by now,” I said.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know yet. How much of this has Pat got?”
“Everything. We’re cooperating right down the line.”
I grinned at him. “Late enough to get a head start, but cooperating.”
“We’re in business too,” Hy agreed. “We still know the law on withholding evidence.”
“And you decide what’s evidence?”
For the first time Hy let a smile break through. “You ought to know, Mike. Now, where do you go from here?”
“Looking for Greta Service.”
“Still on that kick.”
“It’s the only one I got.”
“Suppose it leads to Mitch?”
“He was my friend too, Hy.”
“Yeah. Maybe you’re right. It’s better if we cover all the angles. There’s no reason for anybody else to take it from that end except you. I hope you come up with something.”
I took the photo of Greta Service from my pocket and held it out to Hy. “Your bunch can help out. How about running off a batch of these and passing them around. Somebody might spot her around Manhattan. And get the original back to my office. I’d like an excuse to see that McInnes doll again when I hand it back.”
Hy nodded and grinned. “Not that it’ll do you any good, kid. She’s class and you don’t fit in that kind of company. You’d have to wear a monkey suit and there wouldn’t be any place to hide that damn gun you carry.”