I went down the corridor to where a bunch of typewriters were banging out a madhouse symphony and asked one of the stenos where I could find Ellen Scobie. She told me that she had gone out to lunch at noon and was expected back that afternoon, but I might still find her in the Nelson Steak House if I got over there right away.
It took me about ten minutes to make the four blocks and there was Ellen in the back looking more luscious than the oversize T-bone steak she was gnawing on.
She saw me and waved and I wondered what it was going to cost who to get hold of that file on Toady Link.
It made nice wondering.
Chapter Seven
She was all in black, but without Ellen inside it the dress would have been nothing. The sun had kissed her skin into a light toast color, dotting the corner of her eyes with freckles. Her hair swept back and down, caressing her bare shoulders whenever she moved her head.
She said, "Hello, man."
I slid in across the table. "Did you eat yourself out of company?"
"Long ago. My poor working friends had to get back to the office."
"What about you?"
"You are enjoying the sight of a woman enjoying the benefits of working overtime when the city budget doesn't allow for unauthorized pay. They had to give me the time off. Want something to eat?"
A waitress sneaked up behind me and poised her pencil over her pad. "I'll have a beer and a sandwich. Ham. Plenty of mustard and anything else you can squeeze on."
Ellen made a motion for another coffee and went back to the remains of the steak. I had my sandwich and beer without benefit of small talk until we were both finished and relaxing over a smoke.
She was nice to look at. Not because she was pretty all over, but because there was something alive about everything she did. Now she was propped in the corner of the booth with one leg half up on the bench grinning because the girl across the way was talking her head off to keep her partner's attention. The guy was trying, but his eyes kept sliding over to Ellen every few seconds.
I said, "Give the kid a break, will you?"
She laughed lightly, way down in her throat, then leaned on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. "I feel real wicked when I do things like that."
"Your friends must love you."
"Ooh," her mouth made a pouty little circle, "... they do. The men, I mean. Like you, Mike. You came in here especially to see me. You find me so attractive that you can't stay away." She laughed again.
"Yeah," I said. "I even dream about you."
"Like hell."
"No kidding, I mean it."
"I can picture you going out of your way for a woman. I'd give my right arm to hear you say that in a different tone of voice, though. There's something about you that fascinates me. Now that we have the love-making over with, what do I have that you want?
I shouldn't have let my eyes do what they did.
"Besides that, I mean," she said.
"Your boss has a certain file on Toady Link. I want a look at it."
Her hands came together to cover her eyes. "I should have known. I spend every waking hour making myself pretty for you, hoping that you'll pop in on me and when you do you ask me to climb up a cloud."
"Well?"
"It's... well, it's almost impossible, Mike."
"Why?"
Her eyes drifted away from mine reluctantly. "Mike, I..."
"It isn't exactly secret information with me, Ellen. Pat told me about the D.A. getting ready to wrap Link up in a gray suit."
"Then he should have told you that those files are locked and under guard. He doesn't trust anybody."
"He trusts you."
"And if I get caught doing a thing like that I'll not only lose this job and never be able to get another one, but I'll get a gray suit too. I don't like the color." She reached out and plucked a Lucky from my pack and toyed with it before accepting the light I held out.
"I only want a look at it, kid. I don't want to steal the stuff and I won't pass the information along to anybody."
"Please, Mike."
I bent the match in my fingers and threw it on my plate. "Okay, okay. Maybe I'm asking too damn much. You know what the score is as well as I do. Everything is so almighty secret with the D.A. that he doesn't know what he has himself. If he'd open up on what he knows he'd get a little more action out of the public. Right now he's trying to squelch the big-time gambling in the city and what happens? Everybody thinks it's funny. By God, if they had a look behind the scenes at what's been going on because of the same gambling they condone they'd think twice about it. They ought to take a look at a corpse with some holes punched in it. They ought to take a look at some widows crying at a funeral or a kid who was made an orphan crying for his father who's one of the corpses."
The cigarette had burned down in her fingers without being touched, the long ash drooping wearily, ready to fall. Ellen's eyes were bright and smoky at the same time; languid eyes that hid the thoughts behind them.
"I'll get it for you, Mike."
I waited and saw the richness of her lips grow richer with a smile.
"But it'll cost you," she said.
I didn't get it for a second. "Cost me what?"
"You."
And that thing on my spine started crawling around again.
She reached out for my hand and covered it with hers. "Mike... you're only incidental in the picture this time. It's the only way I'll ever be able to get you and it's worth it even if I have to buy you. But it's because of what you said that I'm doing it."
There was something new about her, something I hadn't noticed before. I said, "You'll never have to buy me, Ellen."
It was a long minute before I could take my eyes off her face and get rid of the thing chasing up my back. The waitress dropped the check on the table and I put down a bill to cover them both and told her to keep the change. When we came out of the booth together the guy across the room looked at me enviously and Ellen longingly. His lunch date looked relieved.
We went back to the street and got as far as the bar on the corner. Ellen stopped me and nodded toward the door. "Wait here for me. I can't go back upstairs or somebody's likely to think it peculiar."
"Then how are you going to get the file out?"
"Patty--my short and stout roommate, if you remember--is on this afternoon. I'll call her and have her take them when she leaves this evening. The way my luck runs, if I took them any earlier he'd pick just this day to want to see them."
"That's smart," I agreed. "You know her well enough so there won't be a hitch, don't you?"
She made an impatient gesture with her hand. "Patty owes me more favors than I can count. I've never asked her for anything before and I had might as well start now. I'll be back in about ten minutes. Stay at the bar and wait for me, will you?"
"Sure. Then what?"
"Then you're going to take me to the races. Little Ellen cleans up today."
I gave her my fattest smile and jingled a pocketful of coins. "Pat told me about that. You're not going to be selfish about the thing, are you?"
"I think we're both going to have a profitable day, Mike," she said impishly. She wasn't talking about money, either. I watched her cross the street and admired her legs until she was out of sight, then went into the bar and ordered a beer.
The television was tuned to the game in Brooklyn and the bets were flowing heavy and fast. I stayed out of the general argument and put my beer away. A tall skinny guy came in and stood next to me and did the same thing himself. A kid came in peddling papers and I bought one before the bartender told him to scram and quit annoying the customers.
But it didn't do any good. The guys on my left were arguing batting averages and one poked me to get my opinion. I said he was right and the other guy started jawing again and appealed to the tall skinny guy. He shrugged and tapped his ear, then took a hearing aid out of his shirt pocket and made indications that it wasn't working. He was lucky. They turned back to me again, spotted my paper and I handed it over to settle the argument., The one guy still wouldn't give in and I was about to become the backstop of a beautiful brawl.