The Body Lovers

Chapter 3

The file on Harry Service listed his sister Greta as next-of-kin. He had taken a seven-to-fifteen-year fall on that armed robbery rap a year and a half ago and at that time her address was listed as being in Greenwich Village. I never remembered her being at the trial, but when I went through the back issues of the paper there was one photo of the back of a woman in a dark coat squeezing Harry's arm after he was sentenced.

It was a little after two when Hy Gardner got to his office. He waved me into a chair and sat down behind his typewriter. "What's on your mind, Mike?"

"The Service trial."

"You did him a favor slamming him in the cooler. That way he won't make the chair. You're not trying to spring him now, are you?"

"Not me."

"Then what's the problem?"

"When he was sentenced there was a dame there to see him off. It may have been his sister. Your paper had a picture of her back, but that's all. If you know any of the photogs who covered the thing, maybe one of them might have clipped a shot of her face."

"Something doing?"

"She might be a witness in something else, but I want to be sure."

"I can check," he said. "Hang on."

Twenty minutes later a clerk came up from the morgue with two four-by-five glossies that showed her face. One was a partial profile, the other a front view. The last one was the best. The coat hinted at the fullness of her body and the wide brim of her hat didn't conceal a face that devoid of makeup was pretty, but with it could have been beautiful. They hadn't printed the picture because Harry Service's face was turned away, but the notation on the back of the photo named her as Greta Service, sister. Three others were identified as Harry's lawyer, the D.A. and the owner of the store he was trying to rob.

"Can I have this, Hy?"

"Be my guest," he said without looking up from his notes. "When you going to tell me about it?"

"It's just a little thing. Might be nothing at all."

"Don't con me, kiddo. I've seen you with that look before."

"Maybe I better not play poker."

"Not with me. Or Pat."

I got up and stuck on my hat. "So you want to come along?"

"Not me. I'm cleaning up here and heading for Miami. I know when to cut out. Write me about it when it's over."

"Sure thing," I said. "Thanks."

The Greenwich Village number was a weatherbeaten brownstone that was part of the old scene, a three-story structure that could have been anything once, but had been converted into studio apartments for the artists and writers set. Inside the small foyer I ran my fingertip along the names under the mailboxes, but there was no Greta Service listed. It wasn't surprising. In view of the publicity given her brother, she could have changed her name.

Now it was all legwork and luck. I pushed the first bell button and shoved the door open when the latch began to click. A guy in a pair of paint-stained slacks stuck a tousled head out the door and said, "Yeah?"

"I'm looking for a Greta Service."

He gave me a twisted grin and shook his head. "Now friend, that sure ain't me. I'm the only straight man in this pad. This is a dame you're talking about, ain't it?"

"That's what I was told. She lived here a year and a half ago."

"Before my time, feller. I've only been here six weeks."

"How about one of the other tenants?"

The guy scratched his head and frowned. "Tell you what...as far as I know that kookie bunch on the next floor moved in about four months ago. Student type, if you know the kind. Long hair, tight pants and loose, and I mean like loose, man...morals. Me, mine are lax, but not loose. They're real screamers up there. Odd jobs and checks from home to keep them away from home. If I was their old man..."

"Who else is there?"

He let out a short laugh. "You might try Cleo on the top floor. That is, if she's available for speaking to. She ain't always. They tell me she's been around a while."

"Cleo who?"

"It's whom, ain't it?" he said. "Anyway, who cares? I don't think I ever heard any other name."

"Thanks, I'll give it a try."

When he had ducked back behind the door I picked my way up the stairs to the second-floor landing and stood there a few seconds. Inside the apartment a couple was arguing the merits of some obscure musician while another was singing an accompaniment to a scratchy record player. It was only ten A.M., but none of them sounded sober. I took the guy's advice and followed the stairs up to the next floor.

I knocked twice before I heard the languid tap of heels come toward the door. It opened, not the usual few inches restricted by a guard chain women seem to affect, but fully and with a single sweeping motion designed to stun the visitor. It was great theatrical staging.

She stood there, hands against the door jambs, the light from the French windows behind her filtering through the silken kimono, silhouetting the matronly curves under it. Poodle-cut hair framed a face that had an odd, intense beauty that seemed to leap out of dark eyes that were so inquisitive they appeared to reach out and feel you, then decide whether you were good enough to eat or not.

For a second the advantage was hers and all I could do was grin a little bit and say, "Cleo?"

"That's me, stranger." Then the eyes felt me a little more and she added, "You look familiar."

"Mike Hammer."

"Ah, yes." She let a little laugh tinkle from her throat. "Me man on the front page." Then she let her hands drop, held one out and took my arm. "Come in. Don't just stand there."

This time I let my own eyes do the feeling. They ran up and down the length of her asking questions of their own.

Cleo laughed again, knowing what I meant. "Don't mind my costuming. I'm doing a self-portrait," she said. "It does kind of rock you at first though, doesn't it?"

"Pretty interesting," I agreed.

She gave a disgusted toss of her head. "Men like you have lived too long. Nothing's new. I could slaughter you." She grinned again and ran her fingers through her hair. "But you should see what it does to the other kind."

"I don't know the other kind."

"Naturally."

She led me inside and slid up on a wooden bar stool in front of an easel while I looked around the room. Unlike most of the village pads, it was a completely professional setup. The windows and skylight were modern and cleverly arranged for maximum efficiency, wall shelves stocked with every necessity, and on the far end, equipment for engraving and etching stretched from one side to the other.

Every wall was covered with framed pictures, some original art, others black and white or full color glossy reproductions. Every one bore the simple signature, Cleo.

"Like them?"

I nodded. "Commercial."

"Hell yes," she told me. "The loot is great and I don't go the beatnik route. I don't expect you to recognize them...you don't look the type to read women's fashion magazines, but I happen to be one of the best in the field."

I walked over to the easel and stood beside her. The picture she was painting would never make any family magazine. The face and body were hers, all right, but the subject matter was something else. Even unfinished you knew what she was portraying. She was a seductress for hire, promising any man anything he could possibly want, not because money was the object, but because she desired it that way herself. It was a total desire to please and be pleased, but whoever succumbed to the lure was going to be completely devoured with the excesses she could provide to satisfy her own pleasures.

"How about that," I said.

"You got the message?"

"I got the message," I repeated. "Still life."

"Drop dead," she smiled.

"It isn't commercial."

"No? You'd be surprised what some people would buy. But, you're right, it isn't commercial...or rather, not for sale. I indulge myself in the hobby between assignments. Now, you didn't come up here to talk art."

I walked over and eased myself down into a straight-backed chair. "You ever know Greta Service?"

There was no hesitation. "Sure. She lived downstairs for a while."

"Know her well?"

She shrugged and said, "As well as you ever get to know anybody around here. Except for the old-timers, most are transients or out-of-towners who think the Village is the Left Bank of New York."

"What was she?"

"An out-of-towner. I forget where she came from, but she was doing some modeling work and moved into the Village because it seemed the thing to do and the rent comparatively cheap."

Casually, I asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Me," Cleo smiled, "I like it. I guess I read too many stories about the place years ago too. Right now I'm one of the old-timers which means you've been here over ten years. Only thing is, I'm different."

"Oh?"

"I make money. I can support my habit of fine foods and a big bar bill. Around here I'm an oddball because of it. The others dig my hobby but sneer at my crass commercial works, yet they still take the free drinks and stuff their pockets as well as their stomachs whenever I toss a neighborhood soiree up here." She glanced at me seriously. "What's with this Greta Service?"

"A friend wants to locate her. Got any ideas?"

Cleo thought a moment, then shook her head. "You know about her brother?"

I nodded.

"Not long after that she moved out. As far as I know, she never said a word about where she was going. Her mail piled up in the box downstairs, so apparently she never left a forwarding address."

"How about her friends?"

"Greta wasn't exactly the friendly type. She was...well, remote. I saw her with a few men, but it wasn't like...well, whether she cared they were there or not. I did get an impression however. Unless they were wealthy, she wasn't interested."

"Gold digger?"

"What an archaic term," Cleo told me. "No, not quite that. She just was determined to get money. Several times she said she had enough of scraping by. It was there to be had if you looked hard enough." Cleo slid off the stool and stretched elegantly, the sheer silk of the kimono pulling taut across the skin beneath it. "She was a determined kid," she said. "She'll make it somehow."

"But how?"

"Women have ways if they want something badly enough. There are always hidden talents."

"Yeah, sure," I said.

"Cynic."

"Anybody around here who might know where she'd be?"

She gave me a thoughtful look and said, "Possibly. I'd have to ask around some."

"I'd appreciate it."

Cleo grinned at me. "How much?"

"What're you asking?"

"Maybe you'd like to pose for me."

"Hell, I'm not the still-life type," I said.

"That's what I mean," she said impishly.

I got up with a laugh. "I'm going to squeal to your boss."

"Oh, you'd like her."

"Dames," I said. I walked to the door and turned around. Cleo still had the window at her back and the shadow effect of her body was a tantalizing thing. "I'll check back later," I told her.

"You'd better," she said.

The R. J. Marion Realty Company on Broadway owned the Village building Greta Service had occupied. The receptionist introduced me to a short, balding man named Richard Hardy who handled the downtown rentals and after he waved me to a chair and I explained what I wanted he nodded and said, "Greta Service, yes, I remember her, but I'm afraid I can't help you at all."

"No forwarding address?"

"Nothing at all. We held her mail here for a month before returning it to the senders, hoping she might notify us, but there was no word whatsoever. Incidentally, this isn't exactly uncommon. Some of the tenants down there are, well, peculiar. They come and go and sometimes don't want anyone to know where they've been."

"Any of that mail here now?"

"No...but it wouldn't help anyway. It was mostly bills from some of the better stores, a few from model agencies and a lot of circulars. Her rent and utilities were paid up, so we didn't think much of it."

I thanked the guy, left him to a desk full of paperwork and went down to the street. New York still had her gray hat on and the air had a chilly smell to it. I edged to the curb side and followed the crowd up to my corner and headed toward the office.

Velda was on the phone when I walked in. She finished talking and hung up. "How'd you make out?"

I gave her what information I had and picked up a couple of folders from her desk. "What's this?"

"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 hadn't 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.

Harney didn't stand on ceremony in his own back yard. He sat there in his shirtsleeves 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 stand, 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 corner 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 out 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 corners, 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. "Uhuh, 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 you'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."

"Brother rat, with an attitude like that, you can't miss. Cleo just can't stand indifference. How'd you ever meet her?"

"Looking for Greta Service. She lived in the same building."

The guy gave me a surprised glance. "Greta? Good grief. She's long gone." His eyes ran up and down me. "She give you the brush too?"

"Never even met her."

"That's good. Guys flipped for that one and she wouldn't go the route. A few hearts are still bleeding around here. Sol saw her once uptown but she shook him loose in a hurry. Didn't want anything to do with her old buddies."

"Who's he?"

He indicated a lanky kid in a red plaid shirt curled up against the wall, chin propped in his hands while he contemplated the trio whanging out the folk songs. "Wait a minute, I'll go get him."

Sol Renner turned out to be a sometimes-writer of ads and captions for the women's trades and had met Greta Service through a mutual account. My story was that I had a message from a friend who had a job lined up for her, but Sol grimaced and told me to forget it.

"She didn't need a job when I saw her last. She was coming out of a fancy restaurant with some joe, all decked out in furs and diamonds and all I got was a quick 'hello, glad to see you' and out. I asked her if she heard about Helen Poston, but she just gave me a funny look and nodded, then got into a cab."

"Helen Poston?"

"Yeah. Crazy kook drowned herself. She and Greta did a couple of jobs for Signoret Fashions where I worked and kind of hit it off like dames do. Guess they were friendlier than I thought. So I boo-booed. She sure picked herself a beauty, though."

"Who?"

"Greta," he said. "The duck she was with was a Charlie Chan type, short, dark and dumpy with b.b. eyes and a mustache. He hustled her in the cab in a hell of a hurry."

"Got any idea where I could find her?"

He grinned and said, "Try New York."

"Great. Maybe some of the others might know?"

"Ixnay. I'm the only one around here who saw her. The kid's found her mark. My guess is she doesn't want to be disturbed. Anyway, she's not with the working masses any more, that's for sure."

The singers got started on a new theme about war and I finished my drink. Cleo was cornered in the alcove by two straggly-haired kids sucking on beer bottles, trying their damndest to make man talk. I eased them apart; smiling so as not to hurt their feelings and took Cleo's arm.

"Time to go, sugar."

One of the kick grabbed my hand and said, "Hey!" indignantly, so I wrapped my fingers around his forearm and squeezed a little bit. "Yes?"

My smile showed all the teeth and he read me right. "Nothing," he said, so I let him go. Cleo forced back a laugh and hooked her arm under mine and we headed for the door.

"Big man," she said. "Big, big man. Come home for coffee. I have something to show you."

I kicked the door shut and she flowed into my arms, her mouth a wild little volcano trying to pull me into its core. Deliberately, she took my hand, pressed it against the warmth of her belly, then forced it up to cup her breast. Beneath my fingers she hardened, her body twitching spasmodically, pressing against me in a plain language of desire.

Very gently I pushed her away and held her hands in mine. Her eyes were full of soft fire, lovely and wise, her lips moist and trembling. She looked at me for a long second, then said, "No coffee?"

"Rain check?"

She smiled ruefully and touched my face with her fingertips. "How can you do this to me, big man?"

"It isn't easy?"

"The next time I'll make it real hard for you."

"Shut up," I grinned.