I looked at my watch. "Well, if it does, it starts now." I finished my beer, flipped Eddie for the drinks, won the toss and told him so long. At one o'clock on the nose I walked
into The Chimes, got a disapproving stare from the Maitre d' until I asked for Mr. Dorn's table, then his professional subservient attitude returned with a fawning nod and he bowed me to a table in a hand-carved, oak-paneled booth on the dais-like section of the main room that was obviously reserved for only the most select clientele.
Most actors would like to age into a man like William Dorn. A few have, but only a few. He was tall and lean with a tanned, rugged face and intelligent eyes under a thick shock of wavy hair streaked with gray. When I took his hand he had a strong, sure grip and I knew he wasn't as lean as he looked. Suddenly I felt like a slob. He was one of those guys who could look good in anything and I knew why the amused woman, with the hair so raven black it was darker than the shadows she sat in, could be so much at ease with him.
"Mr. Hammer," he said in a pleasantly deep voice, "William Dorn, and may I present Miss Renée Talmage."
She had held out her hand and I took it gently. "A pleasure," I said.
"Very nice to see you, Mr. Hammer." Her smile broke around a set of even gleaming white teeth and she added, "Please sit down."
"Miss Talmage is head of accounting at Anco. Have you heard of us?"
"Just this afternoon."
"Don't let it bother you, Mr. Hammer. Our business is not one that goes in heavily for publicity and promotion. Care for a drink before lunch?"
"Rye and ginger'll do," I said.
The waiter hovering behind me took the order and disappeared. I pulled Dorn's wallet from my pocket and handed it to him. He took it, flipped it open and scanned his credit cards and held it up to show Renée Talmage. "Now that is efficient police work. Imagine."
"Strictly accidental, Mr. Dorn." I pushed a receipt and my pen across to him. "Mind signing for it?"
"Not at all." He scrawled a signature in the proper place and I folded the receipt back into my pocket.
He said, "In a way, it's a shame to put you to all the trouble. I've already canceled the credit cards, but my driver's license and club cards are really the valuable items."
"Sorry you didn't get your money back too. It rarely happens, though, so feel lucky you even got anything."
"Yes, I do. Very. There's a matter of a reward that I mentioned."
"A check to the Police Athletic League will do nicely, Mr. Dora."
For the first time Renée Talmage leaned out of the shadows. She was even lovelier than I had taken her to be. I figured her age in the early thirties when a woman was at her best, but it was almost impossible to pin it down accurately. "Mr. Hammer ... your name is very familiar."
I had to give her a silly grin. "Yeah, I know."
"Are you ..."
I didn't let her go any further. "Yeah, I'm the one," I said.
Dorn let out a little laugh and gave us both a quizzical look. "Now what is this all about? Trust Renée here to come up with something odd about even the most complete stranger."
"What she means, Mr. Dorn, is that I'm not with the police department at all. I'm a licensed private investigator who gets into enough trouble to make enough headlines to be recognized on occasions, which, funny enough, is good for business but hell on the hide occasionally. It was a guy I once knew who had your wallet among others. I located them and I'm paying my last respects by getting them back where they came from."
Dorn recognized the seriousness in my voice and nodded. "I understand. Quite long ago ... I had to do something similar. And this person you knew?"
"Dead now."
The drinks came then and we raised our glasses to each other, two Manhattans against a highball, tasted them and nodded our satisfaction and put them down. Renée Talmage was still looking at me and Dorn gave me another chuckle. "I'm afraid you're in for it now. My bloodthirsty co-worker here is an avid follower of mysteries in literature and films. She'll press you for every detail if you let her." He reached over and laid his hand on her arm. "Please, dear. The man was a friend of Mr. Hammer."
"It doesn't matter," I said. "I have more than one friend with an illegal pastime. Too bad it caught up with him. So far it's tabbed as murder that came out of an attempted robbery."
"Attempted?" Renée Talmage leaned forward, the interest plain on her face.
"They never got what they went after. The money was all banked, squirreled away in a neighborhood account."
"But the wallets ..."
"Discarded," I told her. "With a guy like him it would be too chancy to risk using credit cards. He just wasn't the type to own one."
"And that's your story," Dorn said to her. "I think we can talk about more pleasant things while we eat.."
"Spoilsport," she grimaced. "At last I have a chance to talk to a real private cop and you ruin it." She looked at me, eyes twinkling. "Look out, Mr. Hammer, I may deliberately cultivate you, regardless."
"Then start by calling me Mike. This Mr. Hammer routine gives me the squirms."
Her laugh was rich and warm. "I was hoping you'd ask. So then, I am Renée, but this is William."
Dorn looked at me sheepishly. "Unfortunately, I never acquired a nickname. Oh, I tried, but I guess I'm just the William type. Odd, don't you think?"
"I don't know. Look at the trouble our last Vice President had. He had to settle for initials. At least you look like the mister belongs there."
We ordered then, something in French that turned out to be better than I expected, and between courses Dorn drifted into his business. He had started out during the war years assembling radar components under military contract, developed a few patentable ideas and went on from there. He admitted freely that World War II, Korea and the Vietnam thing made him wealthy, but didn't hesitate to state that the civilian applications of his products were of far more benefit than could be accrued by the military. Hell, I didn't disagree with him. You make it whenever and however you can. Separate ethics from business and you get a big fat nothing.
Apparently Renée Talmage had been with him for ten years or so and was a pretty valuable asset to his business. Several times she came up with items of interest that belonged more in a man's world than a woman's. Dorn saw my look of surprise and said, "Don't mind the brainy one, Mike. She does that to me sometimes . . . the big answers from those pretty lips. I pay her handsomely for her insight and she hasn't been wrong yet. My only concern is that she might leave me and go in business for herself. That would be the end of my enterprises."
"I can imagine. I got one like that myself," I said. At two thirty I told them I had to split, waited while Dorn signed the tab and walked to the street with them. Someplace the sun had disappeared into the haze and a bank of heavy, low clouds was beginning to roll in again. I
offered to drop them off, but Dorn said they were going to walk back and gave me another firm handshake.
When Renée held out her fingers to me her eyes had that sparkle in them again and she said, "I really am going to cultivate you, Mike. I'm going to get you alone for lunch and make you tell me everything about yourself."
"That won't be hard," I said.
Dorn had turned away to say hello to a foursome that followed us out and never heard her soft, impish answer. "It will be, Mike."
I got back to the office and picked up the mail that had been shoved through the slot in the door and tossed it on Velda's desk. For five minutes I prowled around, wondering why the hell she didn't call, then went back to the mail again. There were bills, four checks, a couple of circulars and something I damned near missed, a yellow envelope from the messenger service we sometimes used. I ripped it open and dumped out the folded sheet inside.