“She’s whistling in the dark. Greg has no use for her. None at all.” Lila threw back her head and laughed heartily. “But a woman like Vivian never dies of unrequited love. She’ll find another sucker soon.”
The pot, my mind told me, was calling the kettle blonde. Vivian Debevoise had telegraphed a simmering hate for Greg Wilkinson the last time I spoke to her. I had arranged a casual meeting with the blonde in the Cumber lunchroom. And Vivian had shown me her disgust with her former fat lover boy in words of two syllables. She was hell-bent for making a career out of her hatred for him. Her attitude and her almost strained projection of malice convinced me that this flaxen-haired siren wasn’t really selling Greg off yet. Her disgust with him was only a thing of the season. She loathed him because a competitor had grabbed him from right under her nose. But deep under her shining protestations of hate, a strong and permanent affection still burned with a steady glow. I had seen these blustery types before. One word from Greg and she’d be rolling over and playing things his way.
“Greg played with her for over a year,” I said. “You can’t drop a gal like Vivian after that kind of warm-up.”
“She’s dropped, all right.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, Lila.”
“Why not? She’s out of my league.”
“You have a broad and elastic league.”
“What do those fancy words mean, lover?” She draped herself over me on the couch. She fingered my chin. The touch of her hands was better than a warm bath. “Speak simple for Lila.”
“I was thinking of all the boys in your squad.”
“My boys?”
“Horace Kutner, for instance.”
“What about Kutner?” Her mobile face clouded with sudden annoyance. “And who told you?”
“I have scouts,” I said. “They report you had occasional outings with the king of Cumber’s.”
“Outings?”
“And innings, too.”
“Nasty minds,” she said savagely, digging her nails into my arms. “Kutner is an old and seamy wolf. He took me to the opera, sure. I had a few other dates with him, too. Naturally, I couldn’t turn him down. A girl in business has to make sacrifices for her career.”
“A girl in what business?”
“Now you’re being nasty again.” She lay up against me on the couch. She let her head fall gently on my shoulder. “But I like you that way, Stevie. I like you when you’re mad at me.”
She was punching it home for me. What a figure she had! Her pose was an inspiration for a sultan’s cave, a sultan with fussy tastes. Her blouse was suddenly unzipped, in just the right places. Her arms found my neck and I felt the sting of her nails as she dug in. She laughed and pulled me down to kiss her. It would be tough to resist her lips. From somewhere in her bedroom a clock chimed twice.
“Two o’clock,” I said.
“It’s getting awfully late, lover.”
“It’s never too late, is it?”
“You forget that I’m a working gal.”
She was whispering her dialogue close to my ear. Now she sat up and stretched lazily, telling me with her lithe body that she was getting a bit bored with the niceties of our little game. She stood and took my hand and the touch of her fingers sent the high voltage through me. I tried to be objective about her. I added her up in the sensible niches of my mind. No matter how I sliced her, she was an investment of $119.25. She had told me a few things about her casual relationship with Chuck Rosen. She might tell me more as time wore on.
Her ripe mouth smiled at me.
“A penny for your thoughts, Stevie.”
I didn’t collect the penny. My thoughts at the moment were mixed up in a broth of indecision about her. But she tugged at me again, with a subtle strength that brought me to my feet to join her in a slow march to her bedroom door.
$119.25!
CHAPTER 4
The next morning, Midge Doughty met me in the usual spot, a restaurant not far from the Cumber store.
“You look as though you did all right last night,” she said. “You’ve got suitcases under the bags under your eyes.”
“I didn’t get much sleep,” I said.
“Obviously.” Midge reached for a stray hair on my shoulder. She held it up and examined it critically. “The lady has real red hair?”
“A natural, all the way.”
“You should know.”
“Stop sounding like a detective, Midge.”
“Isn’t that what you want me to be?”
“Only in Cumber’s store,” I said. “Anything new on the big Christmas deal?”
She gave me a rundown on yesterday’s activities, consulting a few random notes occasionally. Midge was smart. Midge was thorough. Chuck and I had hired her to run our office, not too long ago, when the pressure of business kept us on the outside for long gaps of time. But when Chuck died, I had her installed at Cumber’s in the guise of a general typist. It was her job to fill me in on details of the day-to-day routine up there.
“The Christmas promotion starts tonight,” Midge said. “Hold on to your hat, Steve. Kutner insists on the big party.”
“The damned fool.” Tonight’s party would introduce the Cumber Santa Claus to the press, radio and television. There would be photographers on hand to snap the Cumber Saint Nick for tomorrow’s morning papers. The idea was a masterpiece of promotion, fresh from the fertile brain of Greg Wilkinson. But no store detective could get excited about such a shindig. The party was being staged on the fifth floor of the store itself. It would be my job to patrol the brawl. And I was in no mood for playing snoop with a mob of drunken jerks.
“Everybody’s excited about the store Santa,” Midge said. “Wilkinson is being praised all over town for his big brainstorm. It’s the first time a department store Saint Nick has actually made his home in the store itself. That includes the works, living in his toy house from tomorrow morning until the last shopping day before Christmas.”
I whistled into my coffee. Kutner knew what I thought of Wilkinson’s idea. I told him my sentiments when he showed me the advance ads on the brilliant promotion scheme. The big headlines blared: SANTA LIVES—HE REALLY LIVES AT CUMBER’S! BRING THE CHILDREN TO VISIT HIM IN HIS REAL HOUSE AND WORKSHOP!
They had built a toy house for Santa. He would actually establish residence in Cumber’s, starting tonight at the party. They had built him a miniature household complete with parlor, bedroom and bath. The gimmick was a new “first” in department store history.
“Wilkinson,” I said, “is knocking himself out on this thing. Wonder where he got the idea?”
“Maybe it wasn’t Greg’s,” Midge said mysteriously.
“You’ve got some washroom gossip?”
“I’ve picked up a few sly rumors. Greg Wilkinson was discovered by Kutner, in Chicago. When Kutner was promoted to manage the New York store, he brought Greg with him. That was about a year ago. Since then Greg Wilkinson has blossomed into a fantastic promotion man.”
“He was nothing in Chicago?”
“He was just beginning there.”
“You’re trying to tell me that all of Greg’s ideas originate in the skull of Kutner?”
“That,” said Midge, “is what the girls are saying in the powder rooms.” Her blue eyes sparkled as she talked, enjoying this early morning intimacy with me. She had the face of an unsophisticated school girl. But there was plenty of know-how on a variety of subjects in her uncluttered little head. She would make a man an expert assistant in a variety of pastimes. “I’m a great believer in female gossip, Steve,” she said. “How about you?”
“Tell me more,” I said.
“I was thinking of the other protégés in the store,” Midge went on. “The place is crawling with them. Chester Carpenter, for instance, has made Lila Martin his protégé. He does all her creative work f
or her.”
“He doesn’t look the type,” I said.
“Watch your language,” Midge said.
“Chester still sees Lila on the outside?”
“Everybody sees Lila on the outside.”
“Everybody like who?”
“Everybody like Kutner, Wilkinson and Pettigrew.”
“Pettigrew?” I asked. “A late starter?”
“Late, but strong,” said Midge. “Larry Pettigrew’s built for competition. And he may win in the stretch. He’s Wilkinson’s assistant, a big hunk of man indeed. He was dropped into the job of assistant advertising director by old man Cumber himself. That means he’s a real threat to Greg’s job. They hate each other with a steady, burning flame.”
“What’s he like?” I asked. “I’ve never met Pettigrew.”
Midge broke him down for me. He was the virgin’s dream of delight, the tall, dark and handsome lad on the milk-white charger. He was equipped with a pretty face, complete with a thin and lecherous mustache and a perpetual tan by way of a home sunburn outfit. He would be clever, too. He would have to be clever to dream of filling the fat chair of Greg Wilkinson.
“And he began to drool,” Midge continued, “just as soon as he laid eyes on Lila.” She sighed sorrowfully. “What’s that gal got that I can’t get?”
“You’ve got it. But Lila uses it, baby.”
“You think she used it on poor Chuck?”
“Chuck must have burned his bearings over her.”
We brooded together for a while. It was always the same whenever Chuck’s name came up. He had walked into a nest of trouble on what should have been a fairly safe assignment. Oscar Cumber had hired us to check on a minor crime wave in his stores. The last theft was classic, a big enough haul to make the headlines on a national scale. Somebody had heisted over a half-million dollars’ worth of baubles out of the jewelry Department. And that was why Chuck went in alone, to ferret and search out clues on the inside of the great store.
And that was why Chuck had been pushed off the penthouse terrace.
He was obviously more than halfway home. His last letter to me said so: I’m almost in, he wrote, In more ways than one! I’ve got some important threads on the outside of the store. But one of them leads right back to Cumber’s and a man named Sigmund Hess—
Hess was an ex-jewelry buyer, now on leave of absence from the store because of illness. Hess had disappeared from his brownstone residence a few weeks ago. Off on a vacation? Nobody knew, and the details of making a skip-trace locate on the man would take much time and energy. Midge had nothing to give me on Chuck’s theories about Hess. He was an annoying element in the case, a man of mystery who must be found and questioned. I made a mental note to check him further. But there were other, equally annoying innuendoes in Chuck’s last letter to me.
“—and the whole Advertising Department, wrote Chuck, seems to be a hotbed of intrigue. I wish you could meet some of the queers. The only little bird who sings sweet is my Lila. Lila Martin. You’d enjoy her, Steve. She and I could be setting up something really permanent soon, if I can get rid of the hot competition. She’s a cultured gal who likes what I like—”
A cultured girl? The memory of last night stabbed me back into the world of reality. Something special? Lila was as special as a rigged bargain sale, as special as a phony buck. Lila was a deluxe whore, a career concubine who would barter her body for any small step up the ladder.
“Anything special you want me to do today?” Midge’s voice broke through the fog for me. “It’s getting late. I’ve got to be punctual or they’ll fire me.”
“Keep your beautiful eyes wide open,” I told her. “I want as much information as I can get.”
“I’ll do my best, Steve.”
We parted on the street and I entered the store by way of the main entrance, mingling with the early-morning shoppers who roamed the aisles. I made the seventh floor by easy stages, listening to the muted strains of Christmas music flooding the giant store on the way up. They were starting the propaganda for the festive season early, warming up the customers for the big events to come. But the sound of Jingle Bells aroused no joyful mood in me. I was on the landing of the seventh floor now. And across the hall was the terrace penthouse, the home of the executives at Cumber’s. And from this terrace, Chuck Rosen had been pushed to his doom.
I kicked the glass door open. The girl at the reception desk looked up from her job at the big window. She was putting the last few colored globes on a small tree over there.
“Merry Christmas,” she smiled.
“You’re rushing the season,” I said.
“Cumber’s always starts early. Gives people more chance to buy merchandise, didn’t you know?”
The door to Kutner’s office was closed. From inside, I could hear the sharp, strong ring of his voice. He had the type of delivery that made him sound like an army general. Matter of fact, Kutner looked like a general.
“The general,” I said. “I have a date with him.”
“Mr. Kutner? But he’s busy with Mr. Wilkinson now.”
“Tell him Steve Conacher’s here.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t interrupt now,” she said. “They’re busy discussing the last details of the big party tonight. It’s going to be a gala event.”
“Gala shmala,” I said. “Tell Kutner he has a date with me.”
“I couldn’t interrupt—”
I pushed open Kutner’s door and walked in. The tableau was something out of a cornball television show. Horace Kutner stood behind his big mahogany desk, frozen as he glared at me. Greg Wilkinson turned from the leather chair in which he squatted. He fixed me with a baleful eye. He was smiling a sour smile.
“Mr. Conacher,” he said, “gets in all over.”
“What’s the meaning of this?” Kutner bellowed. “Can’t you see you’re interrupting an important meeting?”
“I had a date with you,” I said. I looked at my wrist watch slowly. “The date was for ten. It is now ten-fifteen.”
“The girl outside told you to wait,” Kutner said angrily.
“I don’t listen to girls, Kutner.”
“Throw the bum out,” Wilkinson said to his cigarette.
“Out!” said Kutner. He leaned across his desk and showed me his beet-red face. He pointed at the door with the histrionics of an experienced actor. “You’ll have to wait, Conacher.”
“I’m staying,” I said, and sat down.
“Fire the bum,” Wilkinson said.
“A good idea,” Kutner shouted.
I said: “A good idea, if you can do it.”
“I’m doing it, Conacher! You’re fired!”
“In the pig’s valise,” I said. I lit a cigarette and flipped the match at Kutner. He stepped back and away from it. He was angry now. It was good to see him burn. I watched him come around his desk and stand over me. When I saw that he was ready to explode, I said: “Nobody fires me but the man who hired me. That man is Oscar Cumber. He hired me to stop the wave of heists in this dump. I’m staying on for that—and other reasons, Kutner. Even if Cumber fired me, I’d stay on. You know why? Because I’m sticking around to catch the bastard who threw my partner off your terrace.”
You could have cut the silence into small slices and nibbled it for toast. Kutner snaked his eyes at Wilkinson. Wilkinson shrugged and said nothing. Kutner returned to his spot behind the desk, rubbing his hands as if to return the blood to them. He was a skinny tycoon, a caricature of a big executive, thin and bony in the frame. His keen and hawklike face adjusted to its usual show of deadpan authority. He squinted at me unbelievingly. He always squinted in an emergency. This was because the old crud was too vain to wear his glasses at all times. He’d rather go blind than put anything on his handsome pan. He was proud of his regal face. He lifted a silk handkerchief to his nose and blew a
mighty blast. Then, because he wanted to see me clearly, he put on his pince-nez glasses.
“Well,” he said grudgingly. “I did want to talk to you, at that, Conacher. Sit down.”
Wilkinson eased his larded frame out of the chair. “I’ll see you later, Horace,” he said. “This little man frightens me to pieces.”
“Don’t fall off the terrace,” I said.
Kutner stood near the window, staring out at the cool gray clouds beyond the Empire State Building. Against the morning sky, his sharp profile seemed suddenly weary, heavy with an old man’s worry. He was scowling at some personal image, somewhere off in his inner horizon. When he turned my way, however, he was back in character, the commanding general of the vast Cumber store. He sat behind the desk, a picture of the gentleman of distinction, garbed in trim clothes that made him look like a character in the fancy liquor ads.
“Your boy Wilkinson is a stinker,” I said. “I hate his guts.”
“Now, now,” said Kutner. “None of that, Conacher.”
“How did he feel about Chuck Rosen?”
“Feel?” Kutner asked himself. “Greg had no strong sentiments about your partner, one way or the other.”
“You and Wilkinson discussed such things?”
“Greg Wilkinson is a close friend of mine.”
“That’s your headache,” I said. “But I’ve been doing a bit of snooping ever since I got here, Kutner. I’ve dug up a couple of interesting facts about your close, intimate friend, Wilkinson. I’ve got me a hell of an interesting angle. Last night.”
“An angle?” Kutner removed his glasses and massaged the edge of his nose delicately. “What kind of an angle?”
“Lila Martin.”
I dropped it for what it was worth. Kutner found it hot enough to fumble. He got up and aimed his watery eyes at the Empire State.
“What about Lila Martin?” he asked the Empire State.
“Greg Wilkinson’s still nuts about her, isn’t he?”
“You’ll have to ask Greg that.”
“You didn’t know that he was playing her?”
“We never discussed it.”
Kiss and Kill Page 3
