“It’s been a long time.”
“Not really. I’ve been reading about you.”
“Hasn’t everybody?”
Madaline Stumper stood up and held out her hand to me. No matter who she had working for the agency, they could never touch her. Her grip was firm and warm, mocking sincerity in her hello. Beneath the black dress she was a woman of physical beauty rarely seen any more. High breasts that dared you with every curving line, taut stomach muscles that ebbed and flowed like a tide into generous thighs that held a fluid, hungry stance unknowingly deliberate, a gesture she had ever since she was a kid.
I let go her hand and dragged a chair up with my foot, waited until she sat down and slouched into it. “You’re looking damn good, kid.”
She let the grin go wide a moment. “What a choice of words. The other day the president of A.T.P. took an hour to tell me the same thing.”
“I haven’t got the time.”
“You never did,” she said.
“So I wasn’t much for words.”
“Just fighting,” she smiled languidly. “Was it for a good cause?”
“I thought so at the time.”
“And now?” she asked purposely.
“Time marches on. We all change.”
Her eyes flashed with that look again and there was a sadness there. “It’s too bad. Maybe some things can’t be helped.”
“Maybe they can.”
“Oh?”
I watched her a good ten seconds, then asked, “Ever know a redhead named Mildred Swiss?”
“I read the papers.”
“I didn’t ask you that.”
“Regan...”
“Just say yes or no.”
“Can it be that simple?”
I knew what she was getting at. I pulled out my wallet, let it dangle open so she could see the pinholes in it and the impression that my badge had made against the leather after so many years of being compressed there. I said, “Let me put it this way. I know about the agency and I know about the sideline. If I wanted to I could probably break the thing, but there’s never been a demand for it so I’m not pushing. If we got on you there would be so much hell to pay with the pressure that would come on from the power circles it wouldn’t be worth the effort. I’m not here officially and frankly, I don’t give a damn what you do with your time and energy. It’s a sophisticated world these days, they tell me. Nobody gets the scarlet letter pinned on any more and what used to be condemned is currently condoned. Maybe it will get better and maybe it will get worse. It isn’t my job to buck the trend. I just do what I’m told to do and do it damn well. At the moment I’m trying to do something on my own. I asked you a question. It doesn’t go down in the files and I’m not saving up information until later.”
“You are a wordy bastard after all, Regan.” Her mouth opened and she laughed at me pleasantly. “All right, yes. I knew her. She didn’t work for me.”
“True, kid?”
“True, Regan.”
“How did you know of her?”
Madaline shrugged and pushed back a wave of raven hair from her face. “Things come to me. One has to know the competition even if they’re small operators. I can make out quite a list like her from memory.”
“Whore?”
“Not the usual variety. She was on call with the Mays setup until the District Attorney broke it, then she was seen around working independently.” She frowned, then added, “Not really working at it... more like she was looking for something solid.”
“Marriage?”
Madaline nodded noncommittally. “Inwardly, they’re all like that, I think.”
“What about you?” I prodded, grinning.
Her eyes held steadily on mine. “I thought about it once. It would never have worked. I’ve seen too much of the raw thing.” The black deep was there again before she looked away.
“Anything work for the Swiss girl?”
“Not that I know of. She settled into an apartment and was kept on the side by Ray Hilquist.”
“The bookie?”
Madaline bobbed her head. “Confidante of millionaires. Probably the biggest in the area until he died in that accident.”
I didn’t bother telling her that it wasn’t an accident. It looked that way because it was planned that way and no evidence could prove differently, but to a pro the thing smelled of murder and the books were still open on it. High finance bookie operations were syndicate business and somewhere along the line Ray Hilquist had soured out.
“What was she doing before she died?” I asked her quietly.
Again, that little shrug. Madaline said, “I didn’t follow her career. She probably passed on into other hands.” She turned her head and looked at me, a funny expression on her face. “I can ask around,” she said. “Shall I?”
I got up and put on my hat, unconsciously hitching up the service revolver that wasn’t there any more. “I’d appreciate it,” I said. I walked to the door, stopped and turned around. “Lunch sometime?”
Madaline grinned at me like she did the time I took the guys off her back. “I’d appreciate it,” she repeated in my own solemn tones.
On Saturday George Lucas met me outside the building where they had the departmental hearing with that same crooked grin and handed me the large manila envelope holding the five thousand dollars somebody had made me a present of for the favor of committing murder. “We had it made, buddy.”
“The commissioners didn’t think so.”
“Okay, so you’re on suspension until the details of the missing Marcus files are cleared up. At least they’re only attributing it to negligence. The most you can get is a reduction in grade and a beat in the wilderness.”
“Five grand isn’t worth it.”
“You forgot my ten percent.”
“So deduct it.” I held the package out.
He didn’t touch it. “I already did,” he laughed. “Now can we get down to business? How about some chowder at Vinnie’s?”
A cab took us there and Vinnie gave us a table at the back of the room. We were the only ones in the place. I was wondering if Jerry Nolan would show up, but it was still a little early for him.
George held out his package of butts and I shook my head. He lit one up for himself and sucked in a haze of smoke. “How was the plant made in your apartment, Pat?”
“No trouble. Commercial type lock. Whoever got in used a key.”
“Who has access to yours?”
I grunted at him and rubbed the stubble on my jaw. “I went all over that. Two possibilities. Somebody had a regular passkey that bonded locksmiths use or an impression was made from my own. It’s on the same ring as my car keys and when I park it and use a department car I forget the damn things sometimes.”
George’s eyes half shut. “Argenio?”
“Why not?”
“You think he’d go that far?”
I shrugged, thinking about the way he hated my guts. “He wouldn’t be the first one.”
“That puts him on the take.”
All I did was look at him.
“Nobody’s ever laid anything on him,” he said.
“Argenio smells bad,” I told him.
“Say it slowly.”
“He enjoys the rough stuff. I’ve seen him deliberately... oh, hell.”
“Go on.”
“It’s nothing I can explain.” I stared across the table at him. “Remember Welch, the cop on the south side we called the Dutchman?”
“How can I forget him.”
“So he killed six or seven guys. Line of duty stuff, but he enjoyed it. Later he went too far with his pleasures and wound up doing time. Argenio’s like that.”