"Let's start with last night, Virginia. Where were you?"
"I was...out on a trick." She dropped her eyes again.
"Go on."
"It...was a hotel on Forty-ninth. Some john from out of town, I guess. Probably from one of the ships. He...he wasn't nothing, but he gave me a hundred bucks and I spent the night with him."
"Where'd you pick him up?"
"I didn't." She pointed to the guy on the floor. "He arranged the date like most of the time. He don't like me doing my own business." A touch of irony came into her voice. "I suppose I got to split with you too. Well, get it off him. He got it all now. Never even let me keep my percentage because I gave him some lip."
"You let anybody use your room?"
"Who the hell wants to use this dump?"
"I didn't ask that."
"No," she said.
I stepped over the guy on the floor. He was breathing heavily through his nose and a trickle of blood was dribbling down his chin. I opened the door of the closet. The same rack of clothes and suitcase was there that I had seen last night.
Virginia said, "You'd better blow, mister. He hates cops."
"Who is he, kid?"
"Lorenzo Jones. He used to fight."
"He's not doing so good right now."
"Just the same, he's mean. Don't think he won't look for you."
I bent over and plucked Lorenzo Jones' wallet from his pocket. He had five hundred and thirty bucks in it, a driver's license issued to himself giving the hotel as his permanent address and two tickets to the fight at the Garden next week. "Where's his room?"
Virginia made a disgusted grimace. "Who knows? He's got six girls in his string. Whoever's empty that night is where he stays. He won't pay for anything. He says he lives here. That's a lot of bull. He used to before he took on the other girls."
"Let's get back to last night again."
She sighed, squeezed her eyes shut and named the hotel, the room and the man as simply "Bud." He was middle-aged, dark, had a trace of an accent and a scar on his chin. Lorenzo Jones had met her at their usual place at eleven o'clock, told her where to go and she went. The whole arrangement had been customary as far as she was concerned except that Jones had bragged about how he had taken the sucker for a bundle. Remorsefully, she added, "You know something, mister? Two years ago I was getting two hundred bucks a night every time."
"These streets go two ways, kid. You don't have to stay around."
"Cut it out. Where the hell is there to go?"
I threw Lorenzo's wallet on the bed and reached down to jerk him to his feet. The voice from the doorway said, "Just hold it like that."
A pair of them stood there, one blocking the doorway with his body, the other slapping a billy against his palm suggestively. They were gutter punks trained in countless street brawls and the kind of predators who were turning the city into a shambles. They were in their late twenties, dangerous as hell because they liked what they were doing and were completely equipped for it.
The first one sensed what I was going to do and moved like a cat. Before I could get the .45 in my hand he was on me, swung the billy in a flat arc and I got my arm up just in time to deflect it. The thing caught me high on the shoulder and my whole arm went numb. He started a backhand swing when I chopped a short one up between his legs. He let out a breathless yell, but I hadn't caught him squarely enough and he was back again, cursing through his teeth. The other one came in from the door, launched a roundhouse right into my ribs, knocking me back against the bed and sending Virginia to the floor. He saved my neck because he knocked me out of the way of the billy, but I didn't have time to think about it.
Maybe they thought I was going to use my hands. They should have known I had been through the mill too. I braced myself, kicked out and smashed the second guy's face to a pulp with my heels, rolled, got to my feet, stepped into the clear and let the one with the billy make another try for me. He came in grinning, tried to fake me out and brought his arm around. I went under it, caught his forearm, threw him into a lock and went against the elbow joint with such leverage that the bone splintered under my fingers and the guy jerked like a crazy puppet with the agonizing pain that tore through his body. For one second his mouth opened to scream, then he went limp in a faint and I let him drop to the floor. The other one was on his hands and knees, trying to get up. I kicked him in the face again and he flopped back like a big rag doll.
Virginia Howell was crouched in the corner, hands pressed to her mouth, eyes great staring orbs of fear. There wouldn't be any use trying to talk to her now. I picked up my hat and looked around.
Lorenzo Jones was gone.
I went downstairs and when the desk clerk saw me coming, he turned pale. He didn't move when I grabbed his shirt front, didn't make a sound when I backhanded him across the mouth three times. He was caught short and was paying for it, hoping the others would be as easy on him. While he watched, I picked up the phone, called Pat and told him what happened. Everything was turning screwy and we'd want a pickup on Greta Service no matter what the excuse would be, and one on Lorenzo Jones, which would be easy to make stick. He told me to stand by to give the details to the squad car that was on the way, but I didn't have any intention of doing that at all. Those boys knew how to get what they wanted and the ones upstairs would still be here when they arrived.
In fifteen minutes I was supposed to meet Velda. She was going to have to wait. I went back into the rain, walked two blocks north along the curb, trying to spot an empty cab, finally flagged one down and had him take me to the Proctor Building.
The attendant in the lobby had just come on duty and told me the staff had already left for the day, but he was the same one who had been there last night and remembered me being with Dulcie. I told him she had asked me to get something from Theodore Gates' office, that it was damn important and somebody's head would roll if her wishes weren't complied with. He was so eager to please that he called his assistant in to watch the lobby and took me upstairs himself.
When we reached Gates' office I went directly to his rotary card file and spun it around to the G's. What I wanted was those symbols he had inscribed there and to get them translated. I thought I had missed her name and tried again, then a third times to be sure.
Greta Service's card was missing.
The attendant was watching me closely. "Find what you needed, sir?"
I didn't answer him. Instead, I asked, "Who's the receptionist on this floor?"
He thought a moment, then: "A Miss Wald, I believe."
"I want her home phone."
"There's probably a directory in the desk there." He went to the top drawer, pulled out a slide and ran his finger down it. "Here you are." He read the number off to me. I picked up theta phone and dialed it. After four rings a young voice answered and I said, "Miss Wald, I'm calling for Theodore Gates. Was he in the office today?"
"Why, yes, he was. He came in about ten, but canceled his appointments and left."
"Know where I can reach him?"
"Did you try his home?"
"Not yet."
"Then I don't know where he could be. You'll have to wait until tomorrow." I told her thanks and hung up. I found his home number, dialed it, let it ring a dozen times before I was sure there was nobody there, then hung up and jotted down his address.
"Will that be all, sir?"
"Yeah," I said. "For now."
Gates had a combination studio apartment in a renovated brownstone in the Fifties. Two other photographers occupied the building and apparently the one on the bottom floor was working because the lights were on and the foyer door open. I went inside, up the stairs to the second floor and pushed the buzzer to Gates' apartment.