She was worth looking at. There was no top to the dress. It was cut low across her chest and hugged each breast separately like hands reaching around from behind her. She sat away from the desk so nothing would be in the way of anybody caring for a look at her legs. The dress was black. It had to be black to set off the platinum of her hair. It had to be jersey to stick to her the way it did. Her legs were crossed, but they had to be that way to give somebody in the benches a charge when she uncrossed them.
I walked over to the desk and said, “You ought to move the clock.”
Her face came up from the cards she was filing still creased with the effort of trying to remember the alphabet. “Pardon me?”
“Nobody’s looking at you.”
“Me?”
“The legs. The bosom. They’re the biggest and best in town. Nobody’s looking. They’re all watching the clock.”
Her eyes ran up the wall to the clock then checked with her wrist watch. “The clock’s right,” she said.
“Skip it. I want to see Lenny.” Such a body going to waste under a brain like that.
“Oh. I am sorry, but you’ll have to wait. You... said Lenny?”
“That’s right.”
“A friend of his?”
“I could be. ”
She scowled again, trying to concentrate on the next question. “If it’s business then you’ll...”
“It isn’t business, beautiful.”
“Oh. Then you’re a friend. Well, I’ll tell him you’re here. Name?”
I told her. She picked up the phone, waited until the connection was made, then told somebody a Mr. McBride was outside. Behind me the drone of the voices stopped, waiting to see if I was going to get the busy treatment.
They were disappointed. The blonde nodded solemnly at the phone and hung up. “Mr. Servo will be glad to see you. Immediately, that is.”
“I’d sooner stay here and look at you.”
“But Mr. Servo said.
“I know. He’d see me.” I got another frown, then her face brightened. She finally got the point. It sure was a pity.
I stepped inside the little gate and on in through the door marked Private. There was another receptionist inside too. This one was a big joker who sat with his chair tipped back against the wall chewing on a cigar. His thumbs were hooked under his arms and the handle of a billy stuck out his pocket.
He said, “Go on in,” and pointed to the only other door leading off the room.
I went in.
The room was a good thirty feet with windows on two sides and whoever decorated the place must have had a blank check in his hand. The throne was a big, flat mahogany desk, almost in the center and the king was perched on the end of it.
He was quite a king. These days they made them in chalk-striped suits and a fresh shave. They made them smooth-looking with dark eyebrows and hair starting to silver up at the temples. They made them with two guys parked in leather upholstered chairs to make sure the king stayed safe.
Lenny Servo sat there looking at me with a face that was trying hard not to show any expression. I said, “Hello, sucker,” and grinned at the way his mouth pulled tight and his nose showed white streaks along the side.
The weasel-faced punk in the chair couldn’t seem to believe his eyes. He got up slowly, smoothed the creases out of his green gabardine suit and let his hands dangle at his sides. They were shaking. His eyes were black little slits over his thin lips and he said, “You son of a bitch, you.”
The other guy just sat there and watched, trying to make out what it was all about. That made two of us.
Lenny’s voice was a pleasant, low-pitched snarl. It was velvet, but if you looked under the velvet you saw the teeth. “Sit down, Eddie,” he said. “Mr. McBride came to see me, remember?” He never stopped staring at me with those quizzical eyes of his.
I could feel it in the room, whatever it was. Hate. Or fear maybe. Pure, blind emotion, whatever it was. It had Lenny tight as a bow even if he didn’t show it. The way everybody was watching me you’d think I was a freak. I stuck a butt in my mouth, lit it to give them time to take a good look and when I thought they had enough I hooked a chair over with my toe and lowered myself on the arm of it. I blew out a mouthful of smoke that drifted right into Lenny’s face without ever letting go the grin.
The guy he called Eddie cursed again.
I said, “I’m back, pal. You know why I came back?”
A little muscle moved high up on his cheek. It did something to the comer of his mouth and he started to smile. “Suppose you tell me.”
“Where is she, Lenny?”
The smile went away. “That’s something I’d like to know too,” he said.
He shifted position on the desk. I grinned even bigger. “You’re a slob. I wonder what the hell she ever saw in you.”
The insult didn’t faze him a bit. He didn’t turn red or anything. He just looked at me. But he was the only one it didn’t bother.
The little guy couldn’t stay put any longer. He charged out of it and if Lenny hadn’t swung his foot out he would have come for me. His eyes were big wide things in a face that was all sucked in and he breathed in tight little gasps. “Lemme take him, damn it! Lemme do what I said I’d do to him!”
Lenny shoved him gently with his foot. “In due time, Eddie. Mr. McBride understands that, don’t you, Mr. McBride?”
I took another drag on the butt and looked down at the punk. Just for kicks I reached out, grabbed him by the arms and threw him all the way across the room. He slammed into the chair, knocked it over and took an ash tray along with him.
Nobody said a word. Nobody even breathed. For a minute it was like a tomb in there and when Servo’s face came back to mine it was a nasty dead white. “Tough, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You forget very fast, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
He slid off the edge of the desk, looked at me until he got his voice back. “You should have stayed away. You really should have.”
I played it right up to the hilt. It was a brand-new game and I didn’t know the rules, the players or the score, but I sure was having fun. I said, “I want Vera, Lenny. If you got any idea where she is at all, you better produce her quick. You know what’ll happen if you don’t?”
Lenny didn’t get it. He was the king and nobody spoke to him like that. The other guy with the knife scar on his face got it though. His mouth hung open and he watched the two of us like a farm boy at his first burlesque. Lenny’s breath was hot in my face. “McBride...”
I hit him then. It chopped his words off in the middle and spun him around the corner of the desk. He grabbed, hung on, then slid to the floor. I threw the butt on the top of the desk and walked back out. The gorilla was still there in his chair still chewing on his cigar. He was grinning until he saw me. It was a sure bet he thought I was the one getting pushed around inside.
“You shoulda been there,” I told him. “It was fun.”
He was still thinking about it when I opened the door to the outer office. The benches were empty and the blonde was shrugging her bare shoulders into a bolero jacket that put her in the decency class again. She saw me and smiled. “Finished?”
“For now I am. You going home?”
Her eyes went to the clock. It was an even five. “Uh-huh.”
“Swell. I’ll walk you down.”
“But I have to tell Mr. Servo...”
“Whatever you have to tell him, he won’t want to hear, sugar.”
“Oh, you’re wrong. I always...”
“Mr. Servo is sick,” I said gently.
“Sick? He’s never sick. What’s wrong with him?”
“He just had the crap kicked outa him. Coming?”
Her eyes got a little cloudy, but she didn’t say anything until I took her arm and walked her outside. Going down the stairs she said solemnly, “You’re in an awful lot of trouble, Mr. McBride. You know that?”