The Golden Girl and All

by Ralph Dennis

  “You busy right now?” he asked.

  “Nothing I know of,” I said.

  “Can you come by my office … in say, an hour?”

  I checked my watch on the night stand next. It was right around ten o’clock. “Money in this or is it old home week?”

  “Money … not much but your usual. At least what Art Maloney said was your usual.”

  I took down his address and said I’d be there at eleven on the dot.

  Jack Smathers’ office was in one of those old buildings on Forsyth Street, one of the few that hasn’t been torn down to put up a new seventy floor hotel or a new office skyscraper. The entrance was through a staircase that ran right beside the Mellow Mood Bar, a place where at least half the day laborers from the area’s labor contractors cashed their checks and drank their beer. It wasn’t an impressive address.

  The hallway had almost no lighting and the narrow strip of carpet didn’t do much to deaden the squeaking board floor. I found Jack’s office and knocked and then pushed on in. There was a blonde girl behind the desk in the outer office and she looked like typing the whereases and the therefores had about rotted her mind. I gave her my name and watched as she got up and walked over to the door of the closed inner office. I got a good look at the rest of the machinery and I realized that it didn’t matter if brain rot got that part of her. The rest of her was going to be good for some years to come.

  She was gone just a few seconds. She came back and gave me the high grade dazzling smile. “You can go on in, Mr. Hardman.”

  I did. I knew Jack Smathers right away. He might have gotten a little older and he might have moved up to a better suit than the one he’d bought himself for graduation and job hunting. And he might have decided to wear his hair a bit fashionably long. But there wasn’t anything he could do with those jack rabbit years short of surgery. I knew I could pick him out of a crowd of 58,000 any Sunday at a Falcon game.

  The man with him was a few years younger than Jack and a hell of a lot younger than I was. He was in his mid to late twenties and he had that Ivy League tailoring look. Something vaguely Joe College in his dress and his manner. Oh, it was all proper and very neat but it wasn’t quite the business world yet. He had dark hair and an intense look on his almost girlishly slim face.

  Jack motioned me to a chair. “This is Edward Simpson, Jim.”

  I got a touch from the hand. It was a strong hand, but not a working hand. It was more like a tennis hand or a handball hand.

  “Mr. Simpson’s got a problem,” Jack said. “He has reason to believe that his ex-wife kidnapped his little girl and has her somewhere in Atlanta.”

  I looked at Jack and then over at Simpson. “Maybe you need the police rather than me.”

  “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Simpson said. And right away I didn’t like him. It was that slightly patronizing smile that meant I wasn’t to be offended if he had to show me up for the half-wit that I so obviously was. “In fact, it’s going to be rather difficult any way we handle it at all.”

  I looked over at Jack. Simpson wasn’t making much sense to me and I knew that, while Jack could spread dust and fog with the best of them in the courtroom, he’d been raised on a farm and if you asked him for a good country answer he could usually come up with one that even I could understand.

  “Mr. Simpson and his wife were divorced almost three years ago,” Jack said. “The little girl, Maryann, was around three then.”

  “A few months past three,” Simpson said.

  “The custody of the child was awarded to her mother at the time of the divorce. Two years ago he received a call from Atlanta. His ex-wife was in trouble and needed help. And she needed someone to take care of Maryann.”

  “What kind of trouble?” I asked.

  “A drug bust. Down in the tight squeeze area. Not at her apartment but the place of a friend. Tabs of acid in the refrigerator and about a pound of grass.”

  “I came down as quickly as I could,” Simpson said. “And I arranged for a lawyer to defend her.”

  Jack grinned at me. That meant he’d been the lawyer.

  “At the time it looked like Margaret might get a big jail sentence and she wanted me to take care of Maryann. In fact, she was so upset that she as much as told me that she wanted me to have custody of Maryann … for good.”

  Jack said, “Mr. Simpson has remarried, so there was no question about the kind of home he could give the child.”

  “What do you do?” I asked Simpson.

  “I’m finishing up my Ph.D. at North Carolina … in English. To tell the truth, this has come up at rather a bad time. I’m due to take my written exams in less than a week.”

  “At his ex-wife’s request, Mr. Simpson took Maryann back to North Carolina,” Jack said. “But, Mr. Simpson neglected to follow through on some good legal advice I gave him.”

  “I made a mistake,” Simpson said, “but the pressure of the degree program …”

  Jack cut him off. “Since the divorce was granted in Orange county in North Carolina, I advised him to go to court immediately and sue for custody of Maryann. Under the circumstances, the trial and such, I thought he had a very good chance of getting full legal custody.”

  “What happened to the ex-wife?

  Jack grinned and me. “She had a very good lawyer and she got off as a first offender with a year’s probation.”

  “That was two years ago?” I asked.

  Simpson nodded.

  “Have you heard from or seen her since then?”

  “She called Maryann several times and once she came up to Chapel Hill for a few days and spent hours at a time with Maryann.”

  “Did she say anything about wanting the child back?”

  “Not in so many words. But I could see that she did. I guess she knew I wouldn’t let her have Maryann without a court fight.”

  “At any rate,” Jack said, “yesterday morning she picked up the child from in front of the elementary school in Chapel Hill and we think she flew down here with her.”

  “You check it out?”

  “A Mrs. Margaret Simpson and a Maryann Simpson were on the passenger list of a flight that landed here in Atlanta yesterday around eleven A.M.”

  “You know where she lives?”

  “That’s our problem,” Jack said. “We spent all of yesterday afternoon trying to find her through all of the usual ways. So far no luck.”

  “You tried phones, gas, electric, water?”

  “All those,” Jack said.

  “Then she’s changed her name or she’s living with somebody,” I said.

  “That’s it. Something like that. You think you can find her, Jim?”

  “Maybe.” I got up and stretched and looked at Jack and then at Simpson. “What happens if I find her? You kidnap her and take her back to North Carolina?”

  Jack shook his head. “That’s what Mr. Simpson wants me to let him do. I don’t think I can go along with that and stay in the Georgia Bar Association very long. So I’ve convinced him that this kidnap nonsense could go on for years if we don’t get it settled once and for all. We want you to find them so that we can institute a suit for custody.”

  “I’ll find them if they’re still in town,” I said. “That and just that. I won’t dig dirt for you to sue on.”

  “That was never a part of the deal,” Jack said. “Fifty a day?”

  “And some expenses.”

  “How long?”

  “If she’s been on drugs and still is, there’ll be ways to find her.” I thought about it a moment. “That way two or three days at the most. If she’s quit drugs it’ll take longer. Maybe a week.”

  “You need an advance?”

  I shook my head. Most of the time I’d insist upon an advance. Some of the time it was the only way to be sure I’d get paid. But I knew Jack and it didn’t seem necessary. Also I had a major part of the loot we’d made off with during our intrusion into the J.C. Cartway fight-robbery thing still left. It wa
s socked away in a shoebox in the back of my closet. That gave me a kind of independence that I liked. If I found I didn’t like this one I could always call Jack and tell him I was through with it. If I hadn’t taken his money he wouldn’t have any real bitch with me. “I’ll turn in my bill later.”

  “Hold the expenses down,” Jack said.

  I nodded at him and saw the trace of a grin. That was for the benefit of Simpson. So I decided that I’d go along with it. “Sometimes I have to buy information.”

  “Buy from the small-timers,” he said.

  All that didn’t seem to impress Simpson at all. He was staring at his watch and looking bored. He got up and moved around his chair and stood with his hands on the back of the chair. “If you think it will take two or three days there’s no reason for me to stay in town. I can be back within three hours of hearing from you.”

  “Fine,” Jack said. He got up and I remained seated. He gave me a questioning look.

  “I need a few more facts,” I said.

  Jack went out of the office with Simpson and I could hear him out in the waiting room telling Simpson that I was the best around, at any money, and we were very lucky they’d found me when I wasn’t busy. He also said that as soon as I found the mother and Maryann he’d start custody proceedings. At that time, he’d need another check from Simpson. Simpson said he’d have to deposit some more money in his checking account and that he would wait and write the check the next time he was in town.

  Jack saw him out the door and came back into his office shaking his head. He nodded in the direction of Simpson’s chair. “Fucking idiot. Couldn’t do what I told him to.”

  “Impressed me as an asshole too,” I said.

  “Thought he might.” Jack stood behind his desk. “What do you need from me?”

  “More facts on the girl. A better run-down. The kind you might not want to give me in front of the ex-husband.”

  “Didn’t remember you being this delicate.” Jack went over to the file cabinet in the corner of the room and got out a folder. He brought it back to the desk and sat down and opened it.

  “A picture of the ex-wife?”

  Jack reached into the desk drawer on his left and brought out a snapshot. “It’s not a recent one,” he said. He passed it to me.

  The girl was seated on a bench. It was probably on a campus somewhere. The building in the background seemed to belong on college or university grounds. She was a pretty girl and she wore her hair in a pageboy cut. She looked out at the camera with a solemn, unfriendly look.

  “What’s different?”

  “When I defended her, the hair was longer, far down her back. The face is thinner now, all the baby fat gone and she doesn’t wear make-up now, so she might seem plainer.”

  “I doubt that.” I put the photo in the breast pocket of my jacket.

  “What else?”

  “Everything you know about her.” I got out a pad and a squirreled a pen from the front of Jack’s desk.

  “Born in Reedsville, North Carolina on December 14th, 1947. That makes her twenty-five now. Father a dentist. Mother dead. Started at Women’s College at Greensboro … that’s U.N.C. at Greensboro now. Was seventeen when she entered. Was going to major in comparative literature. Her sophomore year met the idiot boy, Edward Simpson, at a party in Chapel Hill. Married him within a couple of months. Over Christmas vacation, I think. Dropped out of Women’s college and moved into student housing, got a job somewhere on campus. The child, Maryann, was born the following September.” He looked over at me. “You don’t have to count it on your fingers. I think she got pregnant the first time they screwed.”

  “Likely,” I said.

  “It went well for a time. About two years to be exact. Then Margaret got involved with another man, another graduate student named Hansen. From what Simpson said, this Hansen was a real fuck-up. A guy who was into grass and L.S.D. One of the types who never seemed to finish their degrees. Just hang around college towns forever. So, one day Margaret took the little girl and moved out on Edward and right into Hansen’s apartment.”

  “What did Simpson do about this?”

  “From what he said, very little. He just waited out the year and got a divorce on the one-year separation grounds.”

  “And right after that she moved to Atlanta?”

  “Almost on the same day the divorce was granted,” Jack said.

  “With or without Hansen?”

  “Without, from what Simpson said. Just her and the kid.”

  “When she was busted, was she living alone or with somebody?”

  “Living with a guy named Al Connor. Worked with the state welfare department.”

  “Was he busted too?”

  Jack shook his head. “She’d gone to the other apartment without him. In fact, he didn’t know where she’d gone.”

  “Ready to dump him too, huh?”

  “Might be,” Jack said.

  “Where was she living then?”

  Jack checked the folder and gave me an address on Eleventh Street. I wrote it down. “You see her after the trial?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Well,” I said, grinning at him, “it wasn’t much of a question when I first asked it, but it’s getting better all the time.”

  “You bastard,” he said.

  “So you were doing her too?”

  He shrugged. “It was hard not to.”

  “How long?”

  “A week or two,” he said. “It started right after I got her off. Maybe women clients get a thing for their lawyers the way they fall in love with their psychiatrists.”

  “What happened?”

  “I really don’t know. Nothing I know of. One day it was good and the next day it wasn’t.”

  “Any guesses?”

  “The one I guess a man always makes in a situation like that,” he said.

  “Another man?”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “You check it out?” I asked.

  “Of course not.” He sounded offended.

  “Come on, Jack. You’re a fact person. You’d check it out until you knew for sure. You couldn’t stand not being sure.”

  “The day after she chopped me a guy moved in with her.”

  “Where was she living then?”

  “The same place on Eleventh Street.”

  “What happened to Al Connor?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “He moved out while the trial was going on.”

  “Who was the guy moved in with her?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the truth. Something of a hood. Real hard looking kind of a guy.”

  “You ever see her again?”

  He shook his head. “I wrote it off. Called it pussy and tried to treat it that way.”

  “Liked her, huh?”

  “She’s quite a girl. It’s hard to talk about but there was something in her … well, it’s just hard …” There was a kind of choked quality to his voice and that told me the rest of it.

  I decided to let it go. “What kind of work can she do?”

  “She was working at Rich’s until the drug bust. After that I’m not sure. She was getting support from Simpson. Worked for a time at one of the hip dress shops down on the Strip, around the tight squeeze area.”

  “Which one?”

  “Some kind of unisex place. Not sure what that means. Not sure which one. Must be five or six of them down there.”

  I put the pad in my pocket. “How’s Simpson with money?”

  “His second wife had a bit of a bundle. I’m not sure how she feels about the way he’s spending it, but so far the purse is open.”

  “I’d like to use Hump Evans on this. He knows some people I don’t and he can ask some questions I can’t. With him maybe I can cut the time down.”

  “All right. I don’t think Simpson’ll bitch. If he does I’ll run it into my fee and pay Hump out of that.”

  “I’ll see if I can find him.” I
went to the door and opened it.

  “Keep in touch,” Jack said.

  I couldn’t resist it. I turned back to him. “How’s your wife, Jack?”

  “Ignorant of all this,” he said.

  I nodded and went past the blonde secretary. Giving her my goodbye look I wondered what else May Smathers was ignorant of.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Hump didn’t answer his phone. Just on a guess I drove over to the Westend Health Spa. The last couple of months he’d been working out there regularly. I’d tried once or twice to find out why he’d gone that routine after years of seeming not to worry about it. So far all his answers were evasive

  The attendant said yes, Mr. Evans was in. He’d send word back right away. It was a twenty minute wait during which I had a hell of a time convincing the attendant that I wasn’t interested in a trial membership, not even ten visits at a dollar a visit. He said some fine words about “getting back in shape” as if he believed that once I had been.

  Hump came out looking polished and buffed. He’d spent some of his windfall from the J.C. Cartway fight-robbery on some new threads. He was wearing a maroon and white striped double-knit jacket and a pair of sky-blue flared pants. The black boots looked like glove leather.

  I gave him a long up and down look. I didn’t say anything. Hump waved at the attendant and came over to me. “What’s up, Jim?”

  “Too early for a beer?”

  “No.”

  We stopped out in front of the Spa, in the center of the parking lot. “And I’ve worked up an appetite, too,” Hump said.

  We settled on the Fisherman’s Inn, a place about a mile from the Spa. Hump tailgated me all the way over there.

  I sipped a beer and watched Hump work through two dozen raw oysters. He was down to the last two when I finished spreading the job offer out for him. He shook a dot of Tabasco on the center of each oyster and capped the bottle.

  “You short of money already, Jim?”

  “Not yet.” I grinned at him. “Didn’t spend my money on fancy duds.”

  “Wouldn’t fit you anyway,” Hump said.

  “It’s not the money, so I guess I’m bored. Sleeping late gets old fast and after I’m up it’s a matter of counting time until the first drink. After that it’s downhill.”