The Naked Typist

9

Mark Taylor ran his hand through his curly red hair. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s perfectly simple,” Steve said. “The girl gave us a phony address and phone number.”

“That I understand. What I don’t understand is, what’s it got to do with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“The case is closed. You got a settlement. If she gave you the wrong address, what’s the big deal?”

“I don’t like to be played for a sucker.”

Taylor shrugged. “Well, there’s suckers and there’s suckers. You made sixteen grand on the deal. That’s not my definition of a sucker. A sucker is a guy who winds up out sixteen grand on the deal.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Maybe not for you. You’ve got Sheila Benton’s annual retainer to fall back on. You don’t have to sweat a rent increase-you just pass it along. Me, I’ve got to hustle for clients and foot my own bills. Lot of clients are deadbeats who disappear without paying- that’s a problem. A client who drops a hunk of change on me and then disappears is not a problem.”

“How about a client who pays you to do something illegal?”

“Hey, I don’t take that kind of work.”

“Neither do I. And that’s the problem.” Steve leaned back in his desk chair and ran his hand over his head. “This whole thing stinks from the word go. I mean, Jesus Christ, the girl comes in here and tells me a story about this old lecher who hired her to type naked. In the first place, she’s not the type of girl to do that.”

He shot a look at Tracy, who was sitting in, taking notes. She looked about to jump in. Steve held up his hand. “And let’s not go off on a tangent about who is the type of girl to do that. The point is, she wasn’t. But apparently she did. She’s up here in my office in an old overcoat with nothing underneath it telling a fantastic story that’s so bizarre it really shouldn’t be true.

“But it is. I go and check it out and everything’s exactly as she said. Plus, while Castleton and Danby deny the specific allegations, no one denies the fact that she was typing naked. But, rather than contesting her charges in any serious way, Castleton gives me fifty thousand dollars to sweep it under the rug. Case closed.

“Fine so far. Then the grandson shows up trying to reach the girl, it turns out the girl’s a phony, and what the hell’s been going on?”

“You got your money, what difference does it make?”

“Like I said before, I don’t want to be played for a sucker, and I don’t want to do anything illegal.”

“What’s illegal about it?”

“Come on, Mark. It’s a perfect scam. The whole thing reeks of it. I mean, you strip away all of the trappings and what you have here is your plain and simple badger game. An attractive young woman places a wealthy man in a compromising position and then demands money. It’s blackmail, plain and simple.”

Taylor frowned. “Well, when you put it that way.”

“How else can I put it? If the girl was legit, it’s one thing. The minute she’s bogus, what else can you think.”

“The way I understand it, Castleton set up the situation. He advertised for secretaries. He paid them to take their clothes off.”

“Right. And this woman heard about it and said, ‘Wow, here’s a way to make a hunk of change.’”

“But you acted in good faith.”

“Tell it to the Bar Association.”

“Well, if Castleton paid fifty grand to keep this quiet, he’s not going to make a stink now.”

“Great, Mark,” Steve said irritably. “Now you’re suggesting I blackmail him to keep quiet.”

Taylor rubbed his head. “Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t mind him, Mark,” Tracy said. “He’s just in a bad mood today.”

“Right,” Taylor said. “So that’s what you think now? That it was just a badger game?”

Steve sighed. “I would, except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“This is where the whole thing doesn’t make sense, and this is why I’m going crazy, and this is why I’m really in a bad mood today.”

“What’s that,” Taylor repeated.

“She didn’t get the money.”

“What?”

“The cash. The loot. The thirty-three grand. She didn’t get it. Castleton made the settlement out to me. I gave her a check for her share. Tracy called the bank this morning. That check hasn’t gone through.”

“So? That’s not unusual,” Taylor said. “If she deposited it at her bank, it could take five business days to clear.”

“But it won’t.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the address is phony, the phone number’s phony, you can bet the name Kelly Blaine’s phony, too. That’s almost a sure thing, because when I picked up her purse there was no wallet in it, just a change purse. You can see why. She didn’t want anyone to know who she was, and she didn’t have any driver’s license, credit card, what-have-you, in the name Kelly Blaine. And if Kelly Blaine’s an alias and she’s got no I.D. for it, there’s no way in hell she can cash that check.”

Taylor frowned. “That’s right.”

Steve shrugged. “So there you are. That’s what’s driving me crazy. Here’s a perfectly straightforward, simple scam that went off without a hitch except for one thing. The person who pulled it off didn’t get any money. I, on the other hand, am sitting on the whole fucking fifty grand.”

Taylor chuckled. “An embarrassment of riches. Well, that’s a new one. Okay, I get the picture. The only thing I don’t understand is, what do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to have Kelly Blaine in my office by four o’clock this afternoon.”

Mark Taylor stared at him. “What?”

Steve grinned. “Just kidding. You can’t do that. That’s the problem. There’s absolutely nothing to go on. So forget finding the girl. I’ve had Tracy type up her description just in case your men should happen to bump into her. But that’s a slim chance at best. Yeah, run down the name Kelly Blaine, but I know you’re gonna come up empty. No, the only lead right now is Castleton. I wanna know how he got in this mess, and why he paid off so easily. Start to work on him. Also David Castleton-that’s the grandson. And Stanley Castleton-that’s the son, now running the business. Though, from what the grandson told me, he’s a figurehead and granddad is still the one pulling the strings.

“Also Phil Danby-that’s Castleton’s right-hand man. Milton Castleton, I mean. Go to work on him too.”

“You want these guys followed?”

“That isn’t necessary. Basically, I just want information. How you get it is up to you. Consider you got a free hand.”

“That’s pretty broad. What, specifically, do you want?”

“I want the dope on these guys. I want the dope on Castleton Industries. Look for anything that might give me a lead to my client. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Worse than that, ’cause the needle I’m looking for may not exist. Right now, I just want data. Somewhere in it maybe I’ll find a clue as to why this girl did what she did.

“One other thing. Maybe I’ll get a lead as to someone who might have been running her.”

“Running her?”

“Yeah. Suppose it’s a badger game like I said, but the girl isn’t the principal, she’s only a pawn in the game. Someone programmed her to set Castleton up.”

Taylor frowned. “Set him up for what? A settlement check he can’t cash?”

“That may not have been the idea, Mark. The idea may have been to put Castleton in an embarrassing position in order to gain some leverage. I may actually have scotched that plan by rushing in and getting an immediate settlement.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, either. The girl came to you. She sent you to Castleton. She agreed to the settlement. In fact, from what you said, she would have settled for less. If settling would have scotched the deal, why would she agree to it?”

“I don’t know, Mark. That’s the problem. The whole thing makes no sense at all. That’s why I need the information. First off, I’d like to find my client-which is probably next to impossible. Barring that, I want all the information I can get.”

“This is getting to be a bad habit with you,” Taylor said.

“What’s that?”

“Not knowing who your client is. Remember the Bradshaw case?”

“That was different.”

“How so?”

“In that case I never met my client. All I had was an anonymous letter. Here, I’ve sat with my client, talked with her face to face, and I still don’t know who she is.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. You got that description?”

Tracy passed over a sheet of paper. “Right here.”

Taylor took it, read the description, whistled. “Some plum assignment. My men will be falling all over themselves to be the first one to find her.” He cocked his head, grinned. “This is not a bad description, Tracy, but don’t you think ‘generously endowed’ is a trifle euphemistic?”

Tracy gave him a look. “You expect me to put ‘big tits’ in a memo?”

Taylor raised his eyebrows and fluttered his fingers in front of his mouth as if he had a cigar. “You can put ’em anywhere you like.”

Steve groaned. “Jesus Christ.”

“My Groucho that bad?” Taylor said.

“Frankly, yes. But not as bad as this damn case.” Steve shook his head. “And I’ve got a feeling it’s only gonna get worse.”