I nodded. “No retractions, kid.”
“Good. We did well, the doctor and I.”
“How about Woody Ballinger’s goons?”
For a second I thought I had played it wrong, then she kinked her lips in a tiny smile and her eyes lit up again. “I asked around,” she said. “You were right, you know.”
I reached up and slipped my hat off casually, and held it in front of me. “Will you get dressed?”
I got that grin again. “I asked around about more than Woody Ballinger.” Once more I got that provocative, tilt-headed glance. “I didn’t think you were so sensitive.” Then she sway-walked over to me and held out her hand. “Can I take your hat?”
“Don’t be smart-ass,” I said. “Just make me a drink.”
“They were right.” She stepped back and looked at me with feigned wide-eyed amazement. “They were really right.”
But she made the drinks, a long cooler for me and a short one for herself, and sat down opposite me in all that colorful nudity and crossed her legs like she was at a tea party in a Pucci dress and let me have the full impact of that little eye in her navel that never blinked and just looked at me with an unrelenting stare.
“Uncomfortable?” she asked flippantly.
But age has its benefits and experience its knowledge. I tossed my hat on the couch and grinned at her. “Nope.”
Her smile turned into a mock frown. “Damn, I hate you older men. You have too much control. How do you do it?”
“Science, kitten.”
“Impossible.”
“See for yourself.”
“I do but I don’t believe it. How can I turn you on again?”
“By quitting the damn hippie talk and answering some questions.”
Heidi raised her glass and tasted it, her eyes on mine. “One favor deserves another.”
“Where’s Carl and Sammy? And Woody?”
Her glass stopped just short of her mouth. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But...”
“I told you to pass the word along”
“Mike... I told them what you said.”
“No reaction? No nothing? You aren’t the type of broad they pick up at a bar and not one they leave alone. Those damn slobs can buy tail or crook a finger and it’ll come running out of their stables for them. You’re a class broad and for you they’ll give an excuse. They were both on the make the other night and the way they were pushing they wouldn’t just bust out of a date. Where are they, Heidi?”
Her fingers were stiff around the glass and she had tucked her lower lip between her teeth, looking at me intently. “Mike ...”
“Think,” I said.·
“Sammy... he ... well, he wanted to see me again and we, well, we sort of made a date, but he called and said it would have to wait.”
“Why, honey? Girls don’t let a guy off the hook that easily.”
“Woody wanted him to ... do something. He couldn’t cancel it.”
“Has he called again?”
She nodded, glanced at her drink, then put it down. “Today. An hour ago, I guess.”
“Where was he?”
“He didn’t say. All he told me was that he’d see me tonight. His job would be done then.”
“Where’d he call from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Damn it, think!”
“Mike ...”
“Look,” I told her. “Remember back. Was he alone? Quiet?”
“No,” she said abruptly. “It was noisy, wherever he was. I could hear the tooting.”
“Tooting?”
“Well, it was like two toots, then while we were talking, three toots.”
“What the hell is a toot?”I asked her.
“A toot! You never heard a toot? A horn toot. No, it was a whistle toot. Oh, balls, I don’t know what was tooting. It just tooted. Two, then three.”
“Heidi ...”
“I’m not drunk and I’m not high, damn it, Mike...”
“Sorry.” I let a little grin seep out. How the hell can you get sore at a naked dame four feet away who was so excited she even forgot and uncrossed her legs like she had a dress on. “He say when he was going to see you?”
“Just tonight.” She saw the look on my face and frowned too. “If it helps ... he said he’d call me today sometime to let me know when.”
“There are a lot of hours in the day, kid.”
“Well, I got mad and said I’d be gone all afternoon and if he wanted to call me it had better be before noon.”
I looked at my watch. Noon was an hour away. And in an hour anything could happen. “Let’s wait,” I said.
Heidi grinned and picked up her drink again. The eye in her navel seemed to half close in its own kind of smile and never stopped watching me. She got up with studied ease, little muscles rippling down her thighs, her breasts taut and pointed and came across the few feet that separated us. Very gently she sat down on my lap.
“Hurt?”
“No,” I said.
“Ummmm.” Heidi finished the drink and tossed the empty glass on the sofa, then turned around, her hand behind my neck. “I really don’t want to see Sammy anyway, Mike.”
“Do it for me.”
“I owe you more than that.”
She squirmed and the glass almost fell out of my hand. She was all sleek and sweet smells and the heat from her body emanated in all directions like some wild magnetic force. Her hand found mine and pressed it against her stomach and all the concerted thought I had had for what was happening outside started to drift away like smoke in an updraft and her mouth kept coming closer and closer, the lips rich and red and wet.
But the phone rang, that damn, screaming, monstrous necessity with the insistent voice that demanded to be answered.
I had to push her to her feet, put her hand on the receiver and wait another second until the shock of the change registered sadly in her eyes.
“Get it,” I said.
She picked up the phone, my ear close to hers at the receiver. “Hello?”
The voice was partly hoarse, a muffled voice trying to be heard over some background noise. “Heidi?” Something rumbled and I heard three short faraway sounds and knew it was what she had called toots.
“Hello ... Sammy?” she asked.
Then there was another voice that said, “You crazy!” and the connection was chopped off abruptly.
Heidi let the phone drop back into its cradle, her face puzzled. “It was him.”
“Somebody didn’t want him making a call,” I said.
“I heard those toots again.”
“I know. They’re blasting warnings around construction sites. Three of them was the all-clear signal.”
“Mike ...”
I reached for my hat, feeling the skin tight around my jaws. “He won’t be calling back, Heidi. Not right now.”
Someplace things were coming to a head and here I was fiddling around with a naked doll, letting her wipe things right out of my mind. I picked up the phone, dialed my office number and triggered my recording gimmick. One call was from a West Coast agency wanting me to handle some Eastern details for them, the other was from a local lawyer who needed a deposition from me, and the third was from William Dorn who wanted me to call him as soon as possible. I let the tape roll, but there was nothing from Velda or anybody else. I broke the connection, waited a second, then dialed Dorn’s office. His secretary told me that he had been trying to reach me, but had gone to a meeting in his apartment thirty minutes ago and I should try him there. She gave me the number and his address and hung up. When I dialed his place the phone was busy, so I gave it another minute and tried again. It was still busy. I said to hell with it, hung up and slapped my hat on.
Heidi had made herself another drink, but none for me. She knew it was over now. I said, “Tough, kitten. It might have been fun.”
She took my hand and walked the length of the corridor, then turned and stood on he
r toes, all naked and beautiful, and reached for my mouth with hers. I let my hands play over her gently, my fingers aching with remorse because there wasn’t time to do all the things I wanted to do with her.
Gently she took her mouth away and smiled. “Another day, Mike?”
“Another day, Heidi. You’re worth it now.”
“I think it will be something special then.”
My fingers squeezed her shoulder easily. “Dump those bums of Woody’s.”
“For you, Mike, anything.” She stepped back two paces, an impish grin teasing her mouth, and did something with her stomach muscles.
That nutty eye that was her navel actually winked at me.
The doorman in the towering building on Park Avenue was an old pro heavyweight decked out in a blue uniform trimmed with gold braid that was too tight across his shoulders and his face was enough to scare off anybody who thought they could cross those sacred portals without going through the elaborate screening process that was part of the high rent program.
He half-stepped to intercept me when I came through the glass doors and I said, “Hi, Spud. Do I say hello or salute?”
Spud Henry squinted at me once, then stepped back with a grin that made his face uglier but friendlier and held out a massive paw to grip mine in a crushing handshake. “Mike, you old S.O.B.! How the hell are you?”
“Back to normal when you let go my hand.” I laughed at him. “What’re you doing here? I thought you had saved your money.”
“Hell, man, I sure did, but try retiring around that old lady of mine. She drives me bats. All the time wants me to do somethin’ that don’t need doin’. Take the garbage out. What garbage out? Who cares, take it out. Paint the bathroom. I just painted the bathroom. The color stinks. Get those kids outa the back yard. Whatta ya mean, get ’em out, they’re our kids. Man, don’t never get married. It was easier fightin’ in the ring.”
“How many kids you got, Spud?”
“Twelve.”
“How old’s the youngest?”
“Two months. Why?”
“Some fighting you do.”
Spud gave me a sheepish grin and shrugged. “Well hell, Mike, ya gotta take a rest between rounds, don’t ya?” He paused and cocked his head. “What you doin’ up this way? I thought you was a side-street type.”
“I have to see William Dorn. He in?”
“Sure. Got here a little while ago. He got a crowd up there. Some kind of party?”
“Beats me. What’s his apartment?”
“Twenty-two, the east terrace. Real fancy place. Since when you goin’ with the swells?”
“Come on, Spud, I got a little class.”
“That’s big class up there, Mikey boy. Man, what loot, but nice people. Big tippers, always polite, even to me. Just nice people. When the last kid was born he gimme a hundred bucks. One bill with a fat one-zero-zero on it and it was like the days back in the Garden when they used to pay off in brand-new century notes. You want me to announce you?”
“Never mind. He called me. I didn’t call him.”
“Take that back elevator. It’s express. Good to see you, Mike.”
“Same here. Tell the missus hello.”
I got off at the twenty-second floor into an elaborate gold-scrolled and marble-ornamented vestibule that reeked of wealth only a few ever got to know, turned east to a pair of massive mahogany doors inlaid with intricate carvings and set off with thick polished brass fixtures. I located the tiny bell button set into the frame, pushed it and waited. No sound penetrated through the doors or walls, nothing came up from the street and I didn’t hear anything ring. I was about to touch it again when bolts clicked and the door opened and William Dorn stood there, a drink in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.
His surprise was brief, then he pulled the door open and said, “Mike... good to see you. Come in. I didn’t know you were on the way up.”
I didn’t want to get Spud in a jam so I said, “I slipped by the doorman while he was busy. Sneaky habit I can’t get out of.”
Dorn laughed and closed the door. From the other room a subdued murmur of voices blended into a monotonous hum. I could see the backs and shoulders of a dozen men in quiet conversation and when one looked around I spotted Teddy Finlay with Josef Kudak beside him and a few feet away the six-foot-six beanpole from the Ukraine who made all those anti-U.S. speeches in the United Nations last month. This time they all seemed to be pounding at one nail with no disagreement for a change.
“Didn’t mean to break in on your party,” I said.
“Business meeting,” Dorn told me. “Glad you could come. Let’s go into the library where we can talk. Care for a drink?.”
“No thanks.”
He folded the papers in his hand and stuffed them in his pocket. “This way.”
The library was another example of class and money. It was there in rare first editions and original oils, genuine Sheraton furniture giving obeisance to a great Louis XIV desk at one end of the room that nestled there like a throne.
“You ever read all those books?” I asked Dorn.
“Most of them.” He waved me to a chair. Before I got comfortable he asked, “What happened to Renée?”
“She got creased by a bullet.”
Dorn nearly dropped his drink. His mouth pulled tight and I saw his shoulders stiffen. “She didn’t tell me ...”
“Don’t worry, she’s okay.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing I’m going to talk about right now. Why?”
“She .. well, she’s important to me, damn it. Right now we have a big expansion move on and...” He looked at me, shook his head and glanced down at his hands that were clasped together too tightly. Finally he looked up. “It might be better if you said what you were thinking, Mike. I’m a callous person so wrapped up in business and finance that nothing else matters. Nothing is expected to interfere with those vital affairs.”
“Don’t sweat it, William. She’ll be okay.”
“Is she...”
“Just a crease. She was real lucky. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you about it.”
“Renée can keep a confidence, even from me. I knew she was with you, but it was unlike her to ...”
“It was justified Hell, doesn’t she ever get sick?”
“Never.”
“A dame got to get her period once in a while. That’s usually a good excuse.”
“Not with Renée. She treats... commerce, let’s say, almost as I do. You’re the first one she ever took an active interest in.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I said.
For a second a flash of annoyance creased his eyes, then disappeared into a wry smile. “You may be right. I’ve heard that before.” He picked up a pencil and tapped it against the polished wood of the desk. “Mike... do me a favor.”
I nodded.
“Check on her. She won’t answer the phone and I’d rather not bother her after what you just told me.”
“Be glad to.”
“And Mike...”
“If it can be avoided, don’t expose her to ... well, anything more in your line. I’d appreciate that.”
“I didn’t expose anybody. It just happened. She wanted to see how we lived on the other side of the tracks. I could have told her it could be just as rough where she came from too because I’ve been on the other side of the bridge myself. Nobody ever seems to learn anything, do they?”
The seconds ticked by while he looked at me, finally nodding agreement. “And you, Mike. Do you ever learn?”
“Always something new,” I said. I got up and took a last look at all the money that surrounded me. “I’ll check in on Renée for you. She’ll be fine, so quit worrying.”
Dorn held out his hand and I took it. “Sorry you couldn’t get me at the office. I didn’t mean for you to go out of your way. I guess it really wasn’t that important after all.”
“No trouble,” I said.
; He walked me to the door and behind me the hum of voices had grown louder. One was edgy and hoarse, but I recognized it as Crane’s from the State Department. The one he was talking to said, “Nyet, nyet!” then subsided while Crane finished talking. I said “So long” to Dorn at the door, took the elevator back down again and looked for Spud. He was gone, and a tall kid with a sad face had replaced him. He had his hair tucked under the back of his visored cap and didn’t look happy about it. They probably even made him shave off his beard. He couldn’t have run off a Bowery panhandler.
Rain. Someday they’d cover New York like the Astro-dome and you wouldn’t have to worry about it. The computers had predicted partly cloudy and had sat back in their oiled compartments with all the whirring and clacking, giving off with mechanical laughter at the idiots who had believed their programming. The smart one knew the city. Never predict New York. Never try to outthink it. The damn octopus could even control the weather and when it wanted everybody to be miserable, everybody was miserable.
I looked up at the tops of the buildings and watched the gray blanket of wet sifting down to slick the streets and fog the windows, wondering why the hell I didn’t get out like Hy Gardner did. A cab pulled up and disgorged a fat little man who threw a bill at the driver and trotted across the sidewalk to the protection of the building entrance and before the elderly couple frantically waving at the cabbie from the comer could make the run, I hopped in and closed the door. The driver saw my face in the rearview mirror and didn’t try for the Sweetest Cabbie of the Year award. I gave him Renée’s address and sat back while he pulled out into the traffic and U-turned at the comer to head north.
The ends. Why the hell don’t they meet? It wasn’t all that complicated, just a simple rundown of a lousy pickpocket who lost his haul to an honest guy who tried to keep him straight and killed to get it back. A lousy pickpocket who had hit the wrong pockets and now there were others looking for him too, but why? What did Woody Ballinger have to lose? Heidi Anders had a compact with her life wrapped up in white powder in a false bottom. She would have done anything for a single pop of the junk and damn near did until I creamed her out. Now it was Woody trying to beat me to Beaver.
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