by John Roeburt
“Naturally,” she drawled. “Who’s going to guard you? Seriously, Cole, what does he want a detective for?”
I described the phone call for her and admitted that I had no idea what the old man wanted.
“Unless,” I added, “it has something to do with the heir apparent. Although in that case, a lawyer would seem more in order.”
“Bradley, isn’t it?” she mused.
“Yeah. Little, virile Bradley.”
“You should talk.”
Obviously, this trend of thought could get dangerous, so I got up and joined her at the corner of the desk. Her tiny waist fit perfectly inside my hands.
“If you don’t want me virile, kitten,” I said into her hair, “you better change your perfume or something.”
I nibbled on her lower lip, the one that’s always pouting, and she slid her arms around my neck, pressing herself softly against me. “So who’s complaining?” she whispered.
At first her lips were soft against mine; soft and moist and delicious. Then the searching started, like always, and my brain got fogged as we sort of merged. Toni’s got a little moan she uses whenever we clinch like that, and it plays hell with my hormones.
She pulled her lips away just short of the inevitable and snuggled her cheek against mine. Her fingers were little spiders on the short hairs at the back of my neck.
“I’ll forget about shopping if you’ll forget about your client,” she whispered. “Let’s go home.”
I didn’t know whether she meant hers or mine. And actually, who cared? But being the conscientious, greedy, young investigator I am, I raised my head and shook it, sadly. Sometimes I frighten me.
“No good,” I sighed. “Duty calls and all that jazz. I’ve got a date with eighty million dollars in less than an hour and neither wind nor rain nor—”
“Forget it,” she said, stepping back and rearranging what my hands had done to her clothes. “I know when I’m licked. I really do have to go shopping anyway.”
“It figures,” I sneered. “You’d probably never get to buy a thing if it wasn’t for me. What with your nasty mind and all.”
I ducked her left jab and got our coats from the tree. By now, Ahmad Jamal was spinning around the turntable, so I shut him off and we left the office.
Toni decided the Jag could cool it’s wheels for awhile. She drove me downtown in her pink T-bird. I don’t think she ran more than six red lights on the way. Finally, I was deposited in front of the Harding Building.
I kissed her and got out. The rain had settled down to an all-day drizzle and the street looked shiny and slick.
“Dinner?” she asked through the window.
“Right. I’ll pick you up at eight.”
She blew me a kiss and screeched away from the curb, cutting off a big Greyhound bus.
I shook my head and crossed to the big, ornate entrance of the Harding Building.
CHAPTER TWO
I had to run the gamut of three secretaries and a stacked receptionist before I finally got to my old friend, Miss Trossett. Sure enough, she was about sixty; spindly, gray, and competent. Her immaculate, prudish appearance looked very prim and proper. I had a vision of her checking beneath her bed every night—hoping…
“Mister Neal is busy at the moment,” she explained. “As I told you on the phone, he has a very busy schedule this morning and your appointment had to be squeezed in. You did say eleven-thirty?”
I looked at my watch and it told me I was early. I told Miss Trossett I understood perfectly and took a seat. For eighty million dollars I could wait.
At exactly 11:30 Mr. Neal’s door opened and a little man in a homburg came out carrying a briefcase. Miss Trossett buzzed inside and returned to me with a smile, proving I was right about the false teeth, too.
“Mister Neal will see you now,” she announced.
Alistair Neal was waiting for me behind a teakwood desk that made my mahogany job look like an orange crate. The office was a little smaller than a football field with an inch thick, white rug crawling majestically from wall to wall.
“Come in, Mister Winters,” he invited, and I couldn’t help listening for an echo.
Alistair Neal looked like a character out of Dickens. He was as tall as I with a bony, concave thinness that made him seem even taller. His hair was thick and white, neatly combed without a part, and his face had a craggy, wrinkled look about it that suggested a lifetime of worries. His nose was a large, hooked beak beneath a pair of piercing gray eyes.
We shook hands and sat down.
He cleared his throat and balanced a gold pencil between his fingertips.
“I sincerely hope I didn’t inconvenience you by asking you to drop by,” he began.
I smiled my think-nothing-of-it smile.
“Not at all, sir.” I assured him.
“Well, then. I suppose you’re wondering why you are here.”
“I must admit I’m a little curious.” I smiled.
He seemed hesitant about starting the interview.
“You were recommended to me by an old friend who assures me that you have a reputation for discretion.”
That seemed to be as good a place as any to begin so I encouraged him with a nod.
“What I desire from you,” he went on, “is of a strictly confidential nature and I cannot stress that enough before we start. As you probably know, I am worth a great deal of money and whatever I or any member of my family does is highly susceptible to publicity. This is what I hope to avoid.”
“Anything said between a client and myself is considered nobody’s business but ours,” I told him.
“Fine. Now to get on with why I requested this appointment with you.”
He tapped the pencil softly against a manicured fingernail, apparently searching for the right words.
“I’m sure you are aware that I have a son.” He paused. “Bradley is not—shall we say—unacquainted with the newspapers. You have undoubtedly run across his name once or twice. He is my only son. My only offspring, in fact, and although I am not always pleased with his choice of—recreation, he is my son and I’ll do anything I can to keep him out of trouble.”
He stared across the desk at me expecting, I suppose, some appropriate comment on this noble display of paternal compassion.
“Of course,” I managed.
“At the present, my son is involved with a girl named Louise Parks. She works as a stenographer for a realty company here in the city and seems to have completely captivated Bradley’s interest. I am certain that this woman is nothing more than a tramp whose sole interest is money, but I have been unable to convince Bradley of this.”
“You’ve talked to him about her?”
“Yes. But as I said, she seems to have him under a spell of some kind and he will listen to nothing I have to say. I hired a tracer to follow them and he reported seeing Bradley give the girl money on several different occasions. I even offered to buy the girl off, through an intermediary, of course, but she flew into a rage and flatly refused. Naturally, she is holding out for a wedding ring; and I intend to stop that at all costs. She has poisoned my son’s mind to the point where I am very much afraid she will get her wish if we don’t act immediately.”
“I see, and this is where I come in?”
“Yes. I don’t care how you do it, but I want irrevocable evidence that this girl is a mercenary tramp whose sole interest in my son is money. I am convinced that this woman is of the same promiscuous type to whom Bradley usually becomes attached, so it shouldn’t be difficult for you to secure evidence to this effect.”
I played with my stingy-brim under the desk for a minute, thinking.
“Mister Neal,” I said, “I don’t know who recommended me to you, but I’m afraid whoever it was gave you a blurred impression of the type of case I usually take. What you have in mind is, in effect, a simple job of snooping. I had looked forward to working for you, but I’m afraid this is just not my type of assignment.”
Neal studied me for
a minute over that 18-carat pencil of his before answering.
“On the contrary,” he said finally. “The party who recommended you made it a point to advise me of everything he knew about you, including your ethics and your fee.”
He pulled out the center drawer of the desk and extracted what looked like a check.
“This is your retainer, Mister Winters,” he said, and handed it across.
It was a check all right—made out to me for the amount of five thousand dollars. My usual fee for assignments much more difficult than the one he was offering was about one fifth that amount.
I sighed and ogled the pretty zeros. Meet Cole Winters; professional snoop.
“Mister Neal,” I said, knowing damn well my martyred expression looked pretty silly, under the circumstances, “paternal solicitude such as yours cannot be denied. You have bought yourself a boy.”
Neal smiled at me for the first time, pleased with his accurate opinion of human nature.
“Very good. If your investigations result in the termination of my son’s liaison with this woman the amount on that check will be doubled.”
I dropped my stingy-brim.
“So,” he continued, unaware that my eyes, though staring at him, were seeing nothing but dollar signs. “I suppose you’ll want a little background. The first thing I want you to do is approach this Parks woman again with another offer of money. I am sure she will refuse as before, but as it would simplify things if she would accept, I think it is worth another try. If she refuses, of course, you will have to revert to the plan I have already outlined.
“Miss Parks is a habitué of a dingy little place down in Greenwich Village, somewhat sagaciously called the Cloistered Id. It’s one of those coffee-house bars that harbor weird assortments of neurotic people. She is there with my son almost nightly, so you can see the depths to which she has already dragged him. I suggest you start there unless you have a better plan.”
I told him I didn’t and thanked him for the information. He gave me a snapshot of Bradley and Louise Parks, and the interview seemed to be over.
It ended like that and I left the office with the big check burning holes in my wallet. I salved my irked ego by buying it a double Scotch in the first tavern I passed.
* * * *
I stopped at the office after lunch, ignoring an assortment of clothing bills that some well-meaning postman had dropped through the mail slot, and called my answering service to check in. The bills could wait until later, especially with Neal’s check in my pocket. But nevertheless, I firmly decided that something had to be done about this clothing habit of mine. I’m addicted to a passion for clothes that while keeping me natty, also keeps me broke. Clothes and Toni Dahl are about the only real penchants I have. Besides money, I mean.
Remembering my dinner date with Toni, I called her apartment and left word with the maid that the dinner was off. It wasn’t the best way to tell her, but Toni can get pretty ferocious about let-downs, and it would be much less hazardous breaking the news by proxy.
I deposited Neal’s check on the way to my apartment and felt smugly solvent as I unlocked my door.
My landlord is a shake-down artist who thinks I’m a millionaire, but my pad is cozy so I don’t complain much about his inflated rent. I’ve got three rooms and a bath, all done in a sort of modern African motif. The ebony masks on the living room walls and the crossed spears and shield in the bedroom have caused more than one overnight guest to hesitate at the foot of the bed, especially if there happens to be an Afro-Cuban beat coming from the Hi-Fi, but it gives the pad an atmosphere—and I dig it. Sue me.
I’ve got a painting over the fake fireplace in the living room that’s sort of weird; but it, too, adds to the decor, I think. It’s a large oil done in darkly garish abandon of a beautiful coffee-skinned Zulu girl, intriguingly naked, doing a fertility dance with a pair of shrunken heads.
I showered and changed into a sport coat and slacks, and built a tall one from the bar stashed behind the potted palms in the corner of the living room. I found an LP by Herbie Mann, and settled back in my favorite chair with a cigarette.
The soothing flute, plus the effects of the hot shower, lulled me nicely, and I let my mind wander to this morning’s chat with Neal.
The assignment seemed simple from where I sat. With luck, I could wind the whole thing up within a week. All it involved was a bit of shadowing on my part and an indiscreet slip or two from the girl. Even the area I had to move in was to my liking. The Cloistered Id was mid-center Greenwich Village, surrounded by espresso houses and jazz cellars. I just might catch one of those good, little-known combos while I made the rounds.
CHAPTER THREE
I parked the Jag in the darkness across from the Cloistered Id and sat for a minute, eyeing the place.
It was a downstairs club; small and intimate, with a lopsided black sign indicating its name. From across the street, I could see it was crowded, but a small place was easy to fill.
I left the Jag and ambled over.
A baritone saxophone moaned at me from the juke box in the rear as I entered. It was beatnik night, with a tangled jumble of goatees and Harpo Marx haircuts everywhere. I got a drink and a blank stare from the redhead behind the bar, and sipped it as I scanned the crowd.
I spotted my lovebirds in a booth at the rear without any trouble. They matched the picture in my pocket. I picked up my drink and squeezed through the crowd toward them.
They were sitting opposite each other, probably playing kneesies under the table, and devouring each other with candid eyes. Their fingers were coyly entwined on the table and they seemed completely oblivious to the clamor around them. Two untouched beers sat at their elbows.
The girl was cute, in the pert, winsome sense of the word and quite different from either the photographer’s effort I was carrying or the mental image I had of her. She was a trifle plump, but sexily so, with a small, heart-shaped face that looked very serene and open, at least at the moment. Her auburn hair was short, unruly, and curly. She was wearing a gray dress with buttons down the front and a Peter Pan collar. She looked alarmingly like the stenographer she was supposed to be.
Bradley Neal looked like anything but the playboy he was supposed to be. As I reached the booth and got a look, it was obvious where his reputed magnetism for the opposite sex lay. In his wallet.
He was about five-feet-eight, skinny, nervous and hungry looking. His face was a study in sallow-cheeked anemia with dull blond hair. Without his father’s money, his sex life would have taken an entirely different turn.
Neither of them looked up until I was hovering over them, and even then it was with obvious reluctance at leaving each other’s eyes.
“Hi.” I smiled. “My name’s Winters. May I sit down? I have a message.”
They studied me for a minute, and I slid in next to the girl while they thought it over.
Neal bristled instantly.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded. “Who are you, Mister?”
“A friend,” I assured him. “A friend of daddy’s.”
“A goddamn spy!” he spat. “Get going before I throw you out!”
She squeezed his hand.
“Brad, please.”
“Please, nothing. The old man sent this creep to snoop on us—and I won’t take it! Are you leaving, Mister, or do I help you?”
“Softly, sweetheart,” I cautioned. “You’re not built for the job. Simmer down and drink your beer before it gets flat.”
His pale blue eyes locked with mine for a second, proving he wasn’t afraid; but he didn’t move to evict me, either.
The girl caressed his fingers soothingly. “He’s right, hon.” She sighed. “There’s no need to make a scene. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
“I don’t want to hear anything,” he snapped. “Everything’s been said already.”
She turned to me. Her eyes were a fascinating green.
“What’s your message?” she asked.
<
br /> “Well, I—” I smiled at her.
“Shut up and get out of here!” Neal yelled, suddenly coming to life again. He looked accusingly at the girl. “Are you going to listen to this creep?”
I wasn’t going to be too many more creeps. “Brad, if you’ll just—”
“Tell her your story, snoop. I’m leaving!” He left the booth and lunged through the crowd toward the door, without looking back.
“Brad!” she said, but he had already melted into the crowd. She looked at me and I could feel her hurt.
“Satisfied?” she glared.
“Touchy, isn’t he?”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Winters. Cole Winters. Or ‘creep’, if you like.”
“Mister Winters, I have an idea why you’re here, and you’re wasting your time. Mister Neal’s tried this before.”
“I know. But just for the record, who’s kidding whom?”
“Pardon?”
“Your indignation’s frayed at the edges, Miss Parks.”
Two pink spots rose on her cheeks and the green of her eyes deepened.
“If you’ll excuse me, Mister Winters, I’d like to leave now.”
“Okay, okay. You be nice and I’ll be nice. I just want to talk to you. All right?”
She relaxed a little and nodded.
“All right. What do you want to talk about?”
“Mister Neal and his latest offer.”
“Mister Winters, I just told you—”
“I know. You refused. And it’s Cole. Now, why?”
“Why what?”
“Why refuse? He’s offering you a tidy little sum just to forget his son. Would that be so hard to do?”
“Mister Winters—”
“Cole.”
“Mister Neal’s offer’s insulting. Brad and I are in love, and we’re going to be married. Does that answer your question?”
“Sure. Now let’s try it a different way. Neal’s offer is peanuts compared to the bundle you’d get your hands on as Bradley’s wife. Ergo; no deal with the old man.”
She surprised me. Just like that, without warning, two tears appeared at the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks. Either she was Academy Award material or I was way off base. I frowned and lifted her chin with my finger. Her eyes were swimming.
