The Naked Typist sw-4

by Parnell Hall

  The Naked Typist

  ( Steve Winslow - 4 )

  Parnell Hall

  Parnell Hall

  The Naked Typist

  1

  Tracy Garvin folded up her glasses, put her hand on her hip and said, “There’s a young woman here to see you.”

  Steve Winslow looked up from his desk and frowned. When Tracy took off her glasses and folded them up, it usually meant she was annoyed at him. In this instance, Steve couldn’t imagine why. An unexpected client showing up and wanting to see him could hardly be considered his fault. Unless it was Judy Meyers, the actress who was Steve Winslow’s off-again, on-again girlfriend. That would explain it. Tracy Garvin’s attitude toward her was catty at best. But Tracy knew Judy. If it were her, she’d have said so.

  So what was it?

  Steve put down the paper he’d been reading. “What does she want?”

  Tracy shook her head. “She wouldn’t say. Only that it’s urgent and she wants to talk to you personally.”

  “All right. Show her in.”

  Tracy didn’t move.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Tracy took a breath. “I didn’t point out to her how lucky she was that she happened to come by this afternoon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If she’d come by any other afternoon this week you wouldn’t have been here.”

  “I know. I have a new passion. I’m learning to play golf.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “Tracy, what’s the problem?”

  Tracy took another breath. “The problem is you haven’t had a client in months. And not that there haven’t been any. You’ve just turned them all down.”

  “I have a client.”

  “Who?”

  “Sheila Benton. Her annual retainer pays for this office, pays your salary and gives me enough to get by. Basically, that is my law practice. Anything else is just gravy.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “The point is, there’s no gravy. The Jeremy Dawson case has been over for months. You haven’t had a client since.”

  “Is that my fault?”

  “As I said, it’s not that there haven’t been any. You’ve just turned them all down.”

  “I don’t defend drug dealers.”

  “They weren’t all drug dealers.”

  “No, there was that vehicular homicide. The boy did it. You think I should have got him off just ’cause his old man’s rich?”

  “No, but-”

  “Then there was the guy shot his wife because she was sleeping around. You think I should have gone to court and plead the unwritten law? Boom, boom, kill the harlot?”

  “No, but-”

  “Tracy, I haven’t been turning down clients just to give you a hard time. The problem is, there’s no work, so you sit in the office and read murder mysteries all day and it clouds your thinking. Real life isn’t like that. A case like Jeremy Dawson doesn’t come along every day.”

  “I know that.”

  “I know you know that. What I don’t know is why you’re bringing this up now.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well?”

  Tracy ran her hand over her head, pushed the long blonde hair out of her eyes. “Well, this woman-her name’s Kelly Blaine-I just know you’re going to turn her down.”

  Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Well,” Tracy said, “she did tell me a little about the case. I mean, generally.”

  “And?”

  Tracy bit her lip. “Well,” she said, “she’s a typist, and she was fired from her job.”

  Steve shook his head. “I don’t do management/labor disputes.”

  “I know that, I know that,” Tracy said quickly. “But there’s more to it than that. I gather she was also subjected to unwanted attentions.”

  “I don’t do sexual harassment either.”

  “I know that.”

  Steve looked at her, smiled, shook his head. “Tracy, we’re not communicating. I know you. You’re not really interested in sexual discrimination cases, either. You’ll pardon me, but you have a storybook mentality. For some reason this woman interests you. What is it?”

  “Well,” Tracy said, “for one thing, she’s barefoot.”

  Steve frowned. That was something. In New York City, no one goes barefoot. “Are you sure?” Steve said. “She couldn’t be walking the streets barefoot. Maybe she has her shoes in her purse.”

  “She hasn’t got a purse.”

  “No?”

  “No. And she’s wearing an overcoat.”

  Steve frowned. “An overcoat? In this weather?”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t take it off when she came in?”

  “No. And it’s too big for her, too. It’s a man’s overcoat.”

  Steve looked at Tracy sideways. “You set me up for this, didn’t you? All that preamble about there being no work and me turning clients down. That’s why you want me to take her case. There’s a punch line to all this, isn’t there?”

  Tracy grinned, nodded. “Yes, there is.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “I think she’s naked.”

  2

  Tracy Garvin held the door open as Kelly Blaine padded barefoot into the office and settled into the clients’ chair. She started to cross her legs, thought better of it, pulled the overcoat around her and smoothed it down over her knees.

  Steve Winslow had stood up to introduce himself when she came in, but so far she had avoided his eyes. Steve sat back down and sized her up.

  Kelly Blaine was an attractive woman, somewhere in her early twenties. She wasn’t at all what Steve had imagined. But that, he realized, was wholly based on Tracy’s statement that the woman might be nude. Steve’s mind had immediately leaped to topless dancers, nude models, hookers. He’d unconsciously been expecting a woman with exaggerated makeup, false eyelashes, heavy eye shadow, red lipstick, too much blush. A woman exuding blatant sexuality.

  Kelly Blaine was none of that. Her makeup, if any, was light and natural. Her brown hair was cut short and stylish, conservatively so. But looks, Steve knew, could be deceiving. His own secretary, with sweater and blue jeans and long blonde hair falling in her face, looked more like a college student than a legal secretary. And he, in T-shirt, corduroy jacket and blue jeans, with shoulder-length dark hair, looked more like a refugee from the sixties than a lawyer.

  Kelly Blaine looked up at him and their eyes met. He could see doubt in hers. Steve was used to that. He was not used to women sitting in his office barefoot in an overcoat.

  “Miss Blaine, is it?” Steve said.

  “Yes.”

  He motioned to Tracy Garvin, who drew up a chair and sat down. “My secretary tells me you were fired.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is that what you want to see me about?”

  “Partly.”

  “That’s good, because I don’t do management/labor disputes.”

  “This isn’t a dispute.”

  Steve smiled. “It was an amicable firing?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Would you care to explain?”

  Kelly Blaine took a breath. “All right. I was working for Milton Castleton.”

  “Who is that?”

  She frowned. “You’re an attorney and you’ve never heard of Milton Castleton?”

  “I haven’t been an attorney long. And I have an unusual practice. Basically, I handle one client.”

  She frowned. “But aren’t you the one? The one who got the Dawson boy off?”

  “Occasionally I make exceptions. Jeremy Dawson was one of them.”

  “Fine. Then I�
�m asking you to make one in my case.”

  “I’m not promising anything, but I’m willing to listen. Now,” Steve said, “I’m who you thought I was-whatever that means. I’ve never heard of Milton Castleton-whoever he is. If that makes a difference to you, you should go see someone else. I don’t do corporate work. I don’t do management/labor. I don’t do domestic hassles. If I take on a case, it’s generally murder. If this case is the result of you being fired, it probably won’t interest me, and I tell you that in advance. If you want to tell me about it, I’m here and I’m willing to listen. But if you just want to get me on the defensive by making me feel inadequate for not knowing who Milton Castleton is, frankly you’re wasting your time and mine.”

  Kelly Blaine drew herself up, stuck out her chin. “That’s not it. You’re who I want. You fight for the little guy. The rest doesn’t matter. I couldn’t go to another law office anyway. They’d laugh me out of there.”

  “Why?”

  She ran her hand over her face. “Because it’s bizarre. The whole situation’s bizarre.”

  Steve shifted impatiently in his chair.

  She held up her hand. “Okay, okay. But first off, you don’t know who Milton Castleton is. Well, he’s rich. Stinking rich. He’s a wealthy industrialist. Castleton Industries. That’s how you would have heard of him. Anyway, he’s retired now-he’s close to eighty-and his son runs the business.”

  “Who’s his son?”

  She waved it away. “Stanley Castleton. But that’s not important. Anyway, Milton’s an old man. He’s retired and he’s writing his memoirs.”

  “His memoirs?”

  “Yeah. Apparently in his day he was quite a character. Aside from being a cutthroat businessman-and he was certainly that- he was something of a rake hell. Women, booze, gambling. Lots of messy affairs involving court actions-paternity suits, breach of promise, named correspondent in half a dozen divorces.”

  “And you worked for him,” Steve said, gently urging her to the point.

  “That’s right. As I said, he was writing his memoirs. I was hired as a secretary to type them.”

  “Oh, so you were working with him on the memoirs?”

  “No. Actually, I never met the man.”

  Steve frowned. “What?”

  “I never met him. I was hired by his business associate. Or business manager, or personal manager, or whatever. That was never quite clear.”

  “You’re saying you transcribed his notes but you never actually met him?”

  “Not his notes. His dictation. He dictated onto microcassettes. I typed them up.”

  “Where? At your apartment?”

  “No. At his.”

  Steve took a breath. “I’m sorry, but this is really not making any sense.”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “That’s ’cause it is so bizarre. That’s why I couldn’t go to another lawyer. I worked in his apartment. That was the arrangement. But I never met the man. I had my own office. His business associate let me in and let me out. I never even knew if Milton Castleton was actually there.”

  “And you were fired,” Steve prompted.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Today. This afternoon. Just now.”

  “And you came straight here.”

  “Yes. Well, I have to explain the situation. And it’s not easy. As I said, I never met Castleton, never knew when he was there. But I assume he was, because that was the whole idea.” She took a breath. “I had my own office. There, in his apartment. It was right next door to his office. But there was no connecting door. There were separate entrances-which is why I never saw him. His business associate, Phil Danby his name is, let me in in the morning. I’d go into my office. I’d close and lock the door. I’d be alone. The notes to be transcribed would already be on my desk. I’d take them and type them up. All straightforward and professional.”

  She bit her lip, lowered her eyes. “Except for one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I typed them nude.”

  Steve blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I was nude. When I came in to work, I’d take off my clothes, hang them in the closet, sit down and start typing.”

  Steve found himself at a loss as to what to say next. He took a breath. “I see,” he said. Which was hopelessly inadequate on the one hand and not true on the other. “No, actually I don’t. What was the point? I mean, if you were alone, locked in this room … why were you supposed to do that?”

  “There was a window. Between the two offices. You know, one-way glass. On my side it was a mirror. The other side, from his office, you could see through.”

  “You mean-”

  “Yes. He could sit at his desk and watch me type.”

  “As well as anyone else who was in his office.”

  “No. That was specified. There would not be business meetings with him saying, ‘Oh, have you seen my secretary,’ if that’s what you’re thinking. That was made very clear. It would be just him.”

  “And you agreed to this arrangement?”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you done anything of the kind before? Posed as a nude model, for instance?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you agree to this?”

  “I resent the question.”

  “What?”

  Kelly Blaine stuck out her chin. “I resent that. You sit there taking a high moral tone. What do you make-two, three hundred bucks an hour? You know what I make as a typist? Ten to fifteen. For this job I got paid a hundred bucks an hour. It was work and I took it. If you want to sit there being high and mighty, making moral judgments, well, I know whose side you’re on, I might as well leave. The fact is, I took the job. You really want me to justify why?”

  Steve held up his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. But you must admit, this whole thing is very unusual. I’m a human being. I’m naturally curious and I’m trying to understand the situation. Which, frankly, isn’t easy.” Steve smiled. “We have a peculiar situation here. You’re touchy, embarrassed and defensive on the one hand. I’m intrigued, embarrassed and tentative on the other. We’re both of us walking on eggshells. As a result, we’re getting absolutely nowhere. So, let’s try to set that aside and discuss this as if it were a normal, ordinary business deal, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “At any rate, you agreed to this employment?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you start work?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “You’ve been working there for two weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same routine every day?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you never saw your boss, this Castleton fellow?”

  “No.”

  “How did you get the job?”

  “I answered an ad.”

  “What ad?”

  “In the New York Times.”

  “They advertised this in the Times?”

  “Yes.”

  “As what?”

  “Under ‘Help wanted, female.’”

  It was with an effort that Steve suppressed a grin. “Did the ad specify the requirements of the job?”

  “No.”

  “Or the rate of pay?”

  “No. It just said, ‘salary negotiable.’”

  “So you answered the ad and what happened?”

  “I went for an interview.”

  “Who was the interview with?”

  “Phil Danby.”

  “Where was it?”

  “There. At the apartment.”

  “You didn’t see Castleton then?”

  “No. As I said, I’ve never seen him.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Danby explained the requirements of the job.”

  “And you took it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine,” Steve said. “That was two weeks ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “You started wor
k immediately?”

  “The next day.”

  “Did you have a contract?”

  “Contract?”

  “Yes. A written contract. With the terms of your employment.”

  “No.”

  “How were you paid?”

  “In cash.”

  “You trusted him to pay cash?”

  She shook her head. “No. It was in advance.”

  “Paid how?”

  “On a daily basis. When I’d get to work in the morning there’d be an envelope on my desk with my name on it. In it would be my wages for the day.”

  “Which was?”

  “Eight hundred dollars. A hundred bucks an hour for eight hours.”

  “Then you were fired?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “I told you. Today. Just before I came here.”

  “Were you paid for today?”

  “Yes, of course. Or I wouldn’t have started typing. I came in this morning as usual. The envelope was on my desk. I took the money, put it in my purse. Then I went to work.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I was sitting at my desk, typing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the door opening.”

  “I thought it was locked.”

  “It was. But of course they had the key. Stupid, but I never thought of that. I mean, I’d locked the door, no one had ever tried to open it-I thought, fine, the door’s locked. But of course you can open it from the outside with a key.”

  “And someone did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Phil Danby.”

  “This ever happen before?”

  “No. Never.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I looked up and the door was opening. I hadn’t heard it. I hadn’t heard the click of the lock because I had my ear phones on, transcribing.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was shocked. Terrified. I ripped the headset off, scrunched down at the desk behind my typewriter. Tried to cover myself. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.”

  “Go on.”

  “The door opened and Phil Danby came in. I couldn’t believe it. I screamed at him, ‘Hey, get out of here!’”

  “What did he do?”

  “He acted like he hadn’t heard me. He just stood there a moment, then he turned and closed the door.”