"Gold digger?"
"What an archaic term," Cleo told me. "No, not quite that. She just was determined to get money. Several times she said she had enough of scraping by. It was there to be had if you looked hard enough." Cleo slid off the stool and stretched elegantly, the sheer silk of the kimono pulling taut across the skin beneath it. "She was a determined kid," she said. "She'll make it somehow."
"But how?"
"Women have ways if they want something badly enough. There are always hidden talents."
"Yeah, sure," I said.
"Cynic."
"Anybody around here who might know where she'd be?"
She gave me a thoughtful look and said, "Possibly. I'd have to ask around some."
"I'd appreciate it."
Cleo grinned at me. "How much?"
"What're you asking?"
"Maybe you'd like to pose for me."
"Hell, I'm not the still-life type," I said.
"That's what I mean," she said impishly.
I got up with a laugh. "I'm going to squeal to your boss."
"Oh, you'd like her."
"Dames," I said. I walked to the door and turned around. Cleo still had the window at her back and the shadow effect of her body was a tantalizing thing. "I'll check back later," I told her.
"You'd better," she said.
The R. J. Marion Realty Company on Broadway owned the Village building Greta Service had occupied. The receptionist introduced me to a short, balding man named Richard Hardy who handled the downtown rentals and after he waved me to a chair and I explained what I wanted he nodded and said, "Greta Service, yes, I remember her, but I'm afraid I can't help you at all."
"No forwarding address?"
"Nothing at all. We held her mail here for a month before returning it to the senders, hoping she might notify us, but there was no word whatsoever. Incidentally, this isn't exactly uncommon. Some of the tenants down there are, well, peculiar. They come and go and sometimes don't want anyone to know where they've been."
"Any of that mail here now?"
"No...but it wouldn't help anyway. It was mostly bills from some of the better stores, a few from model agencies and a lot of circulars. Her rent and utilities were paid up, so we didn't think much of it."
I thanked the guy, left him to a desk full of paperwork and went down to the street. New York still had her gray hat on and the air had a chilly smell to it. I edged to the curb side and followed the crowd up to my corner and headed toward the office.
Velda was on the phone when I walked in. She finished talking and hung up. "How'd you make out?"
I gave her what information I had and picked up a couple of folders from her desk. "What's this?"
"Background on Helen Poston and Maxine Delaney. I thought you'd want it. They're mostly newspaper clips, but they cover as much as the police have. I reached some people in the Poston girl's home town who knew her, the school superintendent, the principal, two teachers and the man who sold her a used car. She had a good reputation as, far as her work was concerned, but I got the impression that teaching wasn't her main ambition in life."
I glanced up from the folder and stared at her. "Like how?"
"Nothing definite...it was an impression. The car salesman was the one who put his finger on it. You know the type...a real swinger ready to sound off about anybody. He was the one who said he'd like to see her in a bikini. She bought the car to make a trip and seemed pretty excited about getting away from the home town and all he could think of was a small-town teacher in a big city having a ball away from the prying eyes of the school board. I said I was doing a feature story on her and he made sure I spelled his name right."
"And Maxine Delaney?"
"I called Vernie in L.A. and he checked with the arresting officer who picked her up. His opinion was that she was one of the lost tribe who inhabit the movie colony with stars in their eyes until disillusionment sets in, then she didn't give a damn any more. Bob Sabre reached the Chicago outfit she posed for and said they didn't bother with her because she didn't project. Nice face and body, but she lacked that intangible something. She still thought she was a star and played it that way."
"Two of a kind," I said.
"There's a similarity." She pinched her lower lip between her teeth a moment, then said, "Mike..."
"What?
"I can see the green on the redhead, but that black didn't fit the blonde Poston girl. She wasn't the type."
"They change when they hit the big town, kid."
"Everybody said she was extremely conservative."
"That was at home. There weren't any eyes watching her here."
"Could there be a connection?"
"If there is, it'll come out. Right now I want you to check all the charge accounts at the better stores and see what you can get on Greta Service. She might have left a forwarding address with their billing departments. I can't see a dame giving up charge accounts or lousing up her credit if it can be avoided."
Velda grinned up at me. "You going to leave a forwarding address?"
"Yeah," I said, "yours. I'll call in later."
"Thanks a lot."
"Only because I love you, baby."
"Oh boy," she said quietly and reached for the phone.
Donald Harney had an office on the ninth floor of the Stenheim Building, sharing space with three other lawyers who hadn't made the high income cases yet. The legal library was all secondhand and it was plain that any attempt at putting up a front was a lost cause a long time ago. The community receptionist told me to go right on in and I pushed through the door to his private cubicle.
Harney didn't stand on ceremony in his own back yard. He sat there in his shirtsleeves with a pencil over his ear editing a brief, shoved his hair out of his eyes and got up for a handshake. Our last meeting at Harry Service's trial had been short, on the witness stand, and then only for a few perfunctory questions regarding his arrest. It had been a plea of guilty and his concern was getting Harry off with as light a sentence as possible.
When he sat back relaxed he said, "What brings you here, Mike? My client bust out?"
"Harry isn't the type," I told him. "He'd rather sweat out a parole. Look...I'd like some facts about him."
"It's still privileged information."
"I know, but it concerns the welfare of your client...and mine." I grinned at him. "Funny as it sounds, Harry asked me to do him a favor." I held out the note he had sent and let Harney read it over, then tucked it back in my wallet.
"How'd he get that to you?"
"Guys in stir can think up a lot of ways. Know anything about his sister?"
Harney squinted and swung in his chair. "Harry's case was assigned to me by the court. He didn't have any funds to provide for a defense. The trial lasted three days only because the prosecution was trying to tie Harry into a few other unsolved robberies. The last day his sister appeared out of nowhere, damn well upset, too. Apparently they had been pretty close in their earlier days, then split up after their parents died and hadn't kept in touch."
"It was too late to do anything then."
Harney shrugged and nodded. "She seemed to blame herself...a sort of maternal instinct coming out. When they were kids he was quite a hero to her. Later he helped her out financially when she was off working."
"What did she do?"
"She never said. Anyway, the day Harry was sentenced she told him she was going to make sure they never had to worry again, that she'd get things ready for his release...you know, the usual emotional outburst."
"Was it?"
Harney gave me a puzzled look. "Well, she seemed serious enough, but I've been through those situations before. It sounds good at the time, but how the hell can a dame alone do all that?"
"There are ways."
"Which brings us up to why you're here."