I said, “Never mind that. Describe Evelyn.”
“Red-head, wide innocent-looking blue eyes, twenty-three, a hundred and seventeen pounds; thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six.”
“What’s she got you haven’t got?”
“She didn’t ask me to be present when my husband was taking inventory.”
“You seem to be pretty familiar with the dimensions.”
“Why not? She had everything published when she was Miss American Hardware at the Hardware Dealers’ Convention last year.”
“What was she doing in hardware?”
“She wasn’t in hardware. She was a bookkeeper for an importing company.”
“What was she doing as a car hop?”
“That was after the hardware. She was looking for impressionable men who had, or could get, money. She found Standley. She’s retired now.”
“You have any idea where they are now?”
“If I did I wouldn’t be paying you.”
“What am I to do if and when I find them?”
“Just tell me.”
I turned to Elsie. “After I leave, wait three minutes,” I said. “Open the door a crack to see if anyone’s in the corridor. If the coast is clear, go back to the office. If Bertha wants to know anything, act like a clam.”
I swung back to face Hazel Downer. “You follow Elsie out,” I said. “Take the elevator to the main floor. Go down the block to the big department store. The ladies’ room has two entrances. Go in one and out the other. Be sure you aren’t followed.
“Every day at noon leave your apartment. Try not to be followed. Go to a pay phone booth and call Elsie in my office. Make your voice as harsh as you can. Say this is Abigail Smythe and tell Elsie to be sure the last name is spelled with a y and an e and where is the deadbeat you married I’m supposed to be locating for you.
“Elsie will tell you where to meet me if I have anything new. When you dial the number, be sure no one is watching.
“You got all that straight?”
She nodded.
I opened the door and walked out.
Sergeant Sellers was halfway down the corridor coming toward me.
“It takes you a long time,” he said.
“Bertha’s time,” I pointed out. “That’s the only way I can get even with her. Thank you for your interest in what I do.”
“Where you going now?”
“Out.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Sure thing. Come along.”
He rode down in the elevator with me.
“I wouldn’t want you to get any ideas,” he said. “Remember, smart guy, I’m going to bust this case wide open. Do you get me? I’m going to bust it wide open.”
“That’s nice,” I said.
“I don’t need any help.”
“I know,” I told him. “In the bright lexicon of youth there is no such word as fail.”
“What the hell’s a lexicon?” he asked.
“A Greek dictionary,” I told him.
“Someday,” he told me, “you’re going to get hurt.”
“I’ve already been hurt.”
“Worse,” he said.
I saw him looking at the cigar stand.
“Come on down the block with me,” I said. “There’s a good-looking blonde at the cigar counter down there. I’m going to shake dice with her for the cigars. I’ll give you a couple.”
“You and your women,” he said.
“You and your cigars,” I told him.
He walked along with me. I stuck the house for cigars. I gave him half. I hated to contribute them but I couldn’t afford to have him see Hazel Downer when she left the building. Sometimes you have to give the other guy the breaks.
Chapter 2
The public relations counsel who had engineered publicity for the National Hardware Association was Jasper Diggs Calhoun. Everything about his offices was arranged to impress visitors with the idea that they were entering the presence of a DYNAMIC PERSONALITY.
The attractive secretary, with lots of curves showing through a tight-fitting dress, had an expression of demure innocence on her face which had been carefully cultivated. It made her look as though she had no idea the curves were showing.
“Can you tell me what you wished to discuss with Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Lam?” she asked, her wide blue eyes looking at me with naive innocence.
“An interesting problem in post-public relations,” I said.
“Post-public relations?”
“That’s right.”
“Can you explain what you mean by that?”
“Certainly,” I said. “I can explain it in a very few words — to Mr. Calhoun.”
I gave her a smile.
She got up from behind the desk and walked around it so that I could see how her dress fitted in the back. It fitted. She vanished through a door marked J. D. CALHOUN — PRIVATE, and within a few minutes emerged to say, “You may go in, Mr. Lam. You have no appointment but Mr. Calhoun will endeavor to shuffle his other appointments so he can see you. He has just returned from luncheon and he has several appointments; however, he’ll see you.”
“Thank you,” I said, and walked in.
Calhoun sat behind his desk, leaning slightly forward, an attitude of dynamic energy about him. His lips were carefully held in a straight line. The small mustache had been trimmed so that it emphasized the look of determination which was as synthetic as the expression of innocence on the face of his secretary.
He was broad-shouldered, somewhere in the thirties, with dark hair, dark eyebrows and piercing gray eyes.
“Mr. Lam!” he exclaimed, getting up and extending his arm as though he was shooting his hand at a mark.
I put my hand in his and arched the knuckles so that his squeeze didn’t make me wince. I could tell he was a chronic hand squeezer. It showed his dynamic personality.
“How are you, Mr. Lam? Sit down. My secretary said you wanted to discuss a problem in post-public relations.”
“That’s right.”
“What is it?”
I said, “You public relations men do a lot of thinking. You dream up some terrific ideas. The ideas are used and then forgotten. That’s a waste of good material. In many instances there are opportunities to get good publicity out of things which might be termed the aftermath.”
“Such as what?” he asked.
“Oh, generally,” I said, waving my hand around the office and looking at the photographs on the wall, “any of your ideas. Now, here’s something interesting. This is quite a photograph.”
Calhoun yawned and said, “You may think so, but in this business, bathing beauties and models are a dime a dozen. We use cheesecake in our business.”
“Just why do you use cheesecake?” I asked.
He said, “Look, I’m too busy to give you lessons in the public relations business. Generally, if we’re selling something that has no eye appeal we try to attract the reader’s interest in terms of cheesecake.
“That’s why you see new models of automobiles photographed alongside girls in bathing suits or good-looking models with tight-fitting skirts and nylons. We have them by the dozen. That particular photograph you’re looking at shows the contestants who were vying to win the thousand-dollar cash prize and the title of Miss American Hardware. That was publicity for the hardware convention at New Orleans a few months ago. I handled all their publicity.”
“They’re good-looking babes,” I said.
“Yeah,” he repeated in a bored voice, “they’re good-looking babes — so what?”
“Who won?”
“Contestant Number Six,” he said.
“Now, there’s something that would be interesting,” I said. “That’s what I mean by post-public relations. I’ll bet Contestant Number Six would interest the American public. She was a girl working as a waitress someplace or—”