This Dame for Hire (3 page)

I heard snippets of talk and radio music that wafted through doors as I made my way up the four flights. Cotten lived in 5C. I knocked.

In moments he opened the door and gave me a fast once-over. “Who are you and what do you want?”

The friendly type. I took my PI license from my pocketbook and flipped it open. Then I handed it to him.

He studied it. “So?”

“I have a few questions.”

“About what?”

“I’ll tell ya when I come in.”

“I have nothing to say.” He started to shut the door, but my foot was in place. I hated this part because it always hurt.

“Ya got nothin to say, ya can say no to my questions.”

He stared at me. Finally he opened the door, and I went in. He knew why I was there, but pretended not to.

Richard Cotten was taller than me by about five inches and had a full head of dark curly hair. He had coffin-cold blue eyes and a short straight nose. His complexion was pink, and his lips were thin. He wore dungarees and a white shirt, sleeves rolled up. His feet were bare.

“What kind of questions?”

“About Claudette West.”

“Is this never going to end?”

“Not until the killer is found.”

“I’m not the killer.”

“I know you’re not,” I said. I didn’t know this at all, but I needed to make nice with him. “I wanna learn more about her so I can find the killer.”

“Sit down.”

We both sat. Me on a clumpy chair, him on a sagging faded flowered sofa. The place was neat for a college student. No week-old plates of food littering the room. But books and papers lay scattered around.

Cotten reached for a coffee cup on the table and took a slug. He didn’t offer me anything to drink.

“How long did you date Claudette?”

“I didn’t just date her. We were engaged.”

This was news to me. “So how long?”

“Two years, four months, seven days.”

I noted this display of caring. “She have other boyfriends?”

“I told you we were engaged.”

“So why’d ya split?”

“Things end.”

“She break up with you?”

He waited a second. “Yeah. No. I mean, it was sort of mutual.”

“I didn’t have that impression.”

“Impression? Who from, the Wests? Did they hire you?”

I ignored all his questions. “Did you like Claudette’s parents?”

“Hated their guts.”

“Why?”

“They treated me like dirt.”

This didn’t surprise me. “How so?”

“It was like I didn’t exist when they were around. Neither of them ever said anything to me except hello and goodbye. I always knew why.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not of their class.”

“Claudette was a rich girl, wasn’t she?”

“I guess. Yes.”

“How’d you feel about that?”

“Feel? I didn’t feel anything about it.”

“You didn’t care if she was rich or not?”

“It got in the way sometimes.”

I asked him what he meant by that.

“I don’t have an extra dime. So sometimes she’d pay.”

“Sometimes?”

“A lot of times.”

“You didn’t like that?”

“No. It was awkward. But, hell. She wanted to do stuff all the time and knew I couldn’t afford to. So that way we didn’t have to sit home.”

“So ya
did
have some feelins about it.” I didn’t wait for an answer. “And you were gonna marry her?”

“I thought so until near the end. We started to get tired of each other, I guess. Thing was, I was sick of the money thing.”

“The inequality of your bankbooks?”

“Yeah.”

“And was she sick of it, too?”

“She never said.”

“I heard that you didn’t accept the breakup.”

“Did the Wests tell you that?”

I stood up. I hadn’t expected to get a confession or anything much out of him. I’d wanted to see what he was like and now I’d seen.

“Where are you going?”

“To see a man about a dog.” My pop had said that to me when I was a kid, and when he didn’t come home with the dog, I cried for days.

“That’s all you want to know? That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

I left.

On the street I made a few notes. I didn’t particularly like Cotten, but I didn’t despise him either. He was a zero. I suppose he could’ve killed his girlfriend in a fit of jealousy, but he didn’t seem to me to have real passion.

I wasn’t persuaded that he was the killer.

THREE

After I left Cotten’s I had a meat loaf sandwich at a favorite diner, then back to the office. Worked on some other small jobs and after that went to Smitty’s on Forty-sixth, the watering hole where I met Marty Mitchum.

I knew Mitchum would be there first cause a dame going to a saloon alone wasn’t duck soup. Most mugs got the wrong idea. Even here where I often met Mitchum.

Marty was sitting at the bar facing the door, the tail end of a cigar clenched between his choppers. He wore his hat perched on the back of his head, a thatch of straight brown hair hanging over his forehead like stubborn bangs.

He saw me, got up, and walked my way. Janes weren’t allowed to sit at the bar even with an escort. You’d think this was some swank place or something.

“Faye, good to see ya.” He pecked me on the cheek. “Let’s get a table.”

I followed him to the rear of the joint where we took our seats in a scrappy red leather booth.

Mitchum’s brown eyes were red-rimmed like he was tired or hungover. His navy blue suit jacket had seen better days, and his wide patterned tie was pulled down, loose at the neck. The stogie in his mouth wasn’t lit, but he kept it there when he talked, giving him a tight-lipped expression.

“Hey, I didn’t ask. You want somethin to drink?”

“Sure. I’ll take a manhattan.”

“Right back,” he said and slid out.

After I lit up I looked around. From where I sat I could see most of the place. There was sawdust on the floor, and the bar itself was long and curved, the customers two deep, noisy and boozy. From other times I knew they were mostly cops, but even if I hadn’t been told I would’ve known. There was something about bulls that reeked of the law no matter where they were or how they dressed.

“Here ya go, Faye,” Marty said, and put the cocktail glass in front of me. “So how’s tricks? Ya hear from Woody?”

“Yeah. A letter came last week. He’s in the thick of it, and ya could say he isn’t exactly a happy boy. You wanna write to him?”

“Nah. I ain’t good at that sort a thing, Faye. You write and tell him I said hello.”

“Sure.” I took the first sip of my manhattan and felt the warm alcohol go down my gullet. Tasty. “How’s Bridgett?” She was Marty’s wife.

“Bridgett’s Bridgett.” He looked away from me, and I knew it was cause he had a chippy on the side. Marty, like all the rest, thought nobody knew. Everybody did.

I didn’t want to torture him, but the natural next question was to ask about his kids, so I did.

“Marty Jr. is gettin to be a big guy, and Catherine’s smart as a whip. Takes after her mother, I guess.” He chuckled, took another swig of beer. “How about you? Any big lugs knockin on your door?”

“Not lately. Anyway, I don’t have time for romance.”

“Oh, come on, Faye. You can tell me. A skirt like you ain’t gonna be alone for long.”

“In case ya haven’t noticed, Marty, most of the guys my age are over there.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Why so glum?”

“Ah, I just wish I was younger so I could give them Krauts and Nips a piece a my mind.”

Marty was about forty, I guessed. “Be glad you didn’t have to go. It’s no picnic over there, says Woody.”

“You wouldn’t understand, Faye.” The bags under his eyes seemed to get darker.

“Yeah, maybe.” He was right. There was something about men that made them want to fight this war. Me? I was glad I was a girl so I didn’t hafta go. But guys felt differently about it.

We both worked on our drinks. I stubbed out my cig.

To break the silence I said, “I got a new case, thought ya might be able to gimme some dope on it.”

“Ya know I will if I can.” He looked relieved that I was changing the subject. “What’s the deal?”

“Claudette West. Remember?”

“Sure thing. Wasn’t on it myself, but I know guys who were. You been hired by who? The parents?”

I could tell Marty cause he was my friend. Any other law I’d keep my trap shut.

“I need to know if there were any other suspects beside the boyfriend, Cotten. And I wouldn’t mind anything else you might come up with.”

He leaned across the table to light my cig, but didn’t torch his cigar. “Ya want the autopsy?”

“Might as well.”

“Sure thing.” He slapped his forehead with a meaty hand. “Hey, I’m just rememberin, you found the body, didn’t ya?”

“That’s right.”

“So, this is like a personal thing with you, right?”

“I didn’t think so, but maybe it’ll turn out that way. I mean, I hadn’t thought much about it the last couple a months till the parents walked in my office. At first it was all I could think about. It’s not somethin that happens to a gal every day.”

“Yeah, that must’ve been lousy for ya.”

“No picnic. I usually don’t have anything to do with dead bodies. People come to me for other things. Even if it’s a murder case, it’s after the fact.”

“Yeah.”

“So when do ya think you’ll be able to get some dope on this?”

“I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow. Good enough?”

“You betcha,” I said.

My flop is a two-room apartment on Grove and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village. This was another reason why the case had piqued my interest. I’m close to Seventh Avenue, and I’d found her body on the other side of town near Seventh.

We don’t have a lot of murders in the Village since prohibition was lifted, although we still have a rep for other nutty goings-on. Even during these war years, the Village was a haven for bohemians of all types. And the notion of free love lingered like a fading fragrance.

I liked living down here cause of the attitudes most people had. No judgments. And you didn’t have to wear your glad rags all the time. Most weekends, when I did my chores, I wore a sweater or blouse with my gray gabardine slacks. I figured if Katharine Hepburn could wear them, so could I. But I wouldn’t dream of going uptown decked out that way.

When I got off the subway at Christopher and Seventh Avenue, I walked to Bleecker, where the pushcarts lined the street. They were filled with the freshest vegetables, meats, fish, everything you’d want. So I shopped daily cause it was so close to where I lived. Between the carts and people it took some skill to move along the street.

I felt like having a nice piece of fish, so I made my way to Dom’s cart near Jones.

“Hello, lady,” Dom said. “You lookin good.”

“Hey, Dom, thanks.”

“You want some flounder? Sole?”

“Flounder.”

“For you and your boyfriend or justa you?”

He always asked this even though I’d told him I had no boyfriend.

“Just me.”

“Okay. I pick a good piece for you.”

And he did, as always. I handed him my ration book.

“How’s the family?”

“I hear from my boy overseas who fights the war.” He beamed. “The others good, too.” He pulled the stamps from the book.

Dom was proud of Thomas, who was serving his country, America. The
others
were five more and his wife. Neither Yolanda nor Dom were citizens, but all the kids had been born here. He handed me the wrapped fish in a paper bag and gave me back my book.

I thanked him and went down the street to Herman’s to get my vegetables, string beans and a fresh cuke to add to my lettuce at home. I tried hard not to go into the pastry shop, but something sucked me in like magic. I bought a charlotte russe. When I was little, I would always get one on Saturdays. I still couldn’t believe I could have one any time I wanted. And I wanted one a lot of times. So I was set.

I made my way along Bleecker till I came to Grove, where near the corner I climbed the stone steps to the big front door. They say Hart Crane, the poet, lived here. He killed himself in ’32. Most people think he did a Brodie from the Brooklyn Bridge cause he wrote about it, but it was from a steamer ship on his way back from Mexico. Truth is, most people didn’t think about Hart Crane at all.

In the foyer I opened my mailbox. I had some bills and a copy of
The New Yorker.
It was the only magazine I subscribed to. I confess once in a while I’d pick up a copy of
Photoplay
or
Movie Mirror
at Stork’s, but I couldn’t afford to subscribe to more than one magazine. So I’d spend my evening reading
The New Yorker
and listening to the Red Skelton show.

I opened the second door and went to my apartment, which was on the first floor. I could hear the phone ringing, so I juggled my packages and shoved in the key.

I got to it on the fourth ring.

“Miss Quick?”

I couldn’t believe it. “Hold on,” I said.

I wanted to get the fish in the fridge. When that was done, I picked up the receiver again.

“Yeah?”

“This is Porter West.”

I knew who it was, and I was already boiling. “How’d ya get this number, Mr. West?”

“The phone book.”

Well, sure. There weren’t too many Faye Quicks in there; in fact, there was only me. “What can I do for ya?”

“I wanted to know what you thought of Cotten?”

“We made an agreement that
I’d
call
you
tomorrow night.” As I was saying this, it dawned on me he
knew
I’d seen the guy. Was he following me?

“When we made that agreement, you said you’d have nothing to report by tonight. That’s changed,” West said.

“What’s changed?” I reached into my pocketbook and pulled out my pack of Camels and matches.

“Well, you . . . I mean . . . I didn’t know then that you were going to meet with Cotten.”

“And how do ya know now?” I stuffed a cig in my mouth, lit it, and pictured myself like a cartoon with steam coming out of my ears.

West was silent.

“Well?” I took a healthy drag of my cig, and right away felt better. Calmer.