“Then take it off immediately!” he said.
I didn’t bite. I just sat there, glowering at Mario and saying nothing, waiting for him to deliver the rest of his typical (i.e., sexually suggestive and incredibly stupid) gibe.
“I need to borrow it for a while,” he said, shooting Mike a wicked glance, then leaning down over the top of my desk till his nose was just inches away from mine. “It’s colder than a witch’s you-know-what outside, and my you-know-whats are freezing!”
Mike burst out laughing, but I didn’t crack a smile. “Oh, really?” I said, staring down at the big stack of proof sheets on my desk and shuffling the pages around. “Then you should have worn your flannel bra.”
Mike laughed even louder, but Mario turned quiet and put on a long face. He could make ’em, but he couldn’t take ’em-and I knew he wouldn’t rest until he’d made me pay for the comeback, lame though it was. “What’s that you’re reading?” he soon asked, wrinkling his bumpy nose and pointing toward the pile of proofs in my hand. “A new Paige-Turner?”
This was another of Mario’s typical routines. Whenever he couldn’t think up something funny to say, he called attention to my funny name. And my funny career goals.
“These are the proofs for the next issue,” I said with a sniff, deciding to ignore the name game and play it straight. “Take a look at the production schedule. We’re up against an urgent deadline. You have to do the cover, and I have to do the backyard paste-up. Today.”
“Oh,” Mario said, at a momentary loss for words. He didn’t like it when I talked seriously about work. There was a brief lull in the conversation, and then-frantic to regain control of the situation-Mario turned himself around, lifted the hem of his overcoat up over his rear end, and thrust the seat of his gray flannel slacks in my direction. “Hey, baby! How’s about pasting up m y backyard instead?”
Now, really! I ask you! Was this any way for a full-grown man-a City College graduate, a married Catholic, a successful professional in the field of illustrative and commercial art-to act? And how was I-a well-educated but decidedly dirt-poor twenty-eight-year-old widow trying to make her own way in the perilous male-dominated world of publishing-supposed to respond?
As far as I could see, there were only two courses of action open to me: I could kiss him on both cheeks, or kick him in the pants.
Determined (okay, desperate) to keep my job, I chose to kiss instead of kick. “Maybe later, big boy,” I said, doing my best imitation of Eve Arden (which meant I probably looked and sounded more like a drunken Thelma Ritter). “I’m too busy to play in your backyard right now.”
Mario was satisfied. My demeanor had been sufficiently obsequious and flirtatious. He gave me a slick, triumphant smirk, hooked his hat and coat on the rack, and then swaggered down the aisle toward his desk in the rear, across the way from Lenny’s.
Copying all of Mario’s movements (including the swagger), Mike followed closely on his cohort’s heels, stopping at his own desk in the middle of the room. He sat down in his squeaky swivel chair and lit up a Lucky. “I trust you’re not too busy to bring me some coffee, doll,” he said, blowing smoke out of his freckled nose and leering at me across the seven or eight feet of space that separated our cheek-to-cheek work areas. “I need a warm-up, too.”
Warm this! I fumed to myself, keeping my outward appearance under frigid control. Pretending that I was Lauren Bacall’s much cooler, more collected sister, I slowly straightened my stocking seams and leisurely combed my fingers through my thick, wavy, shoulder-length brown hair. Then I bit the bullet and got up to get the coffee.
THE PHONE CALL CAME IN AT 11:25 THAT morning.
I had finished the required newspaper clipping and story editing and proofreading, and was just starting to work on meeting the backyard paste-up deadline. Brandon Pomeroy-the editorial director of the magazine and the primary plague of my pitiful professional existence-had made his way into the office a few minutes before, and was sitting straight as a stick at his desk across the aisle from mine, smoking his pipe and fingering his mustache, looking petulant and arrogant as always. He was just biding his time, I knew-counting the minutes till he could go out for his three-martini lunch.
When the phone rang Pomeroy lurched and spun around to face me, making frantic gestures with his pale, aristocratic hands. “I’m not here!” he sputtered. “Tell whoever it is I’m in a meeting.”
“Daring Detective,” I said, answering the call in my usual upbeat manner.
“Is Paige Turner there?” The voice was tense, troubled and masculine. “Could I speak to Paige Turner, please?”
I didn’t know who it was. And from the anguished tone of the caller’s voice, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “Who’s calling, please?” I asked, keeping my own identity to myself. “And may I ask what this call is in reference to?” Ever since my near encounter with the icebox at the city morgue, I’d become as jittery and self-defensive as a Hollywood screenwriter during the McCarthy hearings.
“My name’s Catcher,” the voice said. “Terence Catcher.”
I still didn’t know who it was.
“Is Paige Turner there, please?” he asked again. “I really need to talk to her.”
“Then you’ll have to tell me what you need to talk to her about.” I wasn’t taking any chances. The last stranger who’d insisted on having a phone conversation with me had been a sex-crazed killer.
“Look, I don’t have time for this. Is she there, or not?” The man’s anguish had turned to exasperation. “Tell her I was an Army buddy of her late husband’s. We were in Korea together. ”
My heart stopped beating and hurled itself against the wall of my chest. “Bob?” I croaked. “You were a friend of Bob’s?”
“That’s right. We were in the same outfit.”
I could hardly breathe. I felt dizzy and devastated-the way I always felt whenever my dear departed husband’s magnificent smiling face came flashing back into my consciousness.
“Is this Bob’s wife I’m speaking to?” Terence Catcher asked. “Are you Paige Turner?”
“Yes,” I said, still struggling for air. And equilibrium.
“Thank God!” he said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be working there anymore and I wouldn’t be able to find you.”
Deep breath. “I’m in the book.”
“Yes, I know. I tried you at home, but there was no answer, so I figured you went to work. And I couldn’t wait till tonight to talk to you.”
“But how did you know where I work?”
“Well, Bob mentioned it once, but I also knew it from the letters.”
“What letters?”
“Your letters to Bob.”
I stiffened. “How do you know what my letters to Bob said?”
“He showed them to me. All of them.”
What?!!! I felt bewildered and betrayed. Why on earth had Bob let this man read my letters? They were so emotional, so intimate-so personal. How could he have shared them with somebody else?
“Look, don’t be upset,” Terence Catcher said, proving he could read minds as well as other people’s mail. “I can explain everything-but not on the phone. I need to see you. Now. When do you get off for lunch? Will you meet me someplace? I’d like to talk to you about Bob, and there’s something else I want to discuss with you, too.”
I was hooked but still hesitant. What if the “something else” he wanted to discuss with me was something I didn’t want to know? “Sounds complicated,” I said, “and I only get an hour for lunch. Can’t we meet tonight, after I get off from work?”
“I won’t be here tonight. I’m going back home to Pittsburgh and my bus leaves at three-thirty.”
Oh, great. Another urgent deadline. “All right,” I said, heart ticking like a time bomb. “I’ll meet you at Horn & Hardart’s, on the corner of 42nd and Third, in twenty minutes. I’ll be the brunette in the red beret.”