“Yes... please...”
“Okay, I’ll be parked down the street from your place in a half hour. I’ll have the dimmers on. You’ll see me.”
She was saying good-by when I hung up.
It didn’t take me long to get there. Both sides of the street were lined with heaps from battered pickups to flashy convertibles, out-of-state license plates predominating. A black Buick was pulling away from the curb and I slid into the slot it left.
I still had fifteen minutes to go, so I dragged out the butts and lit up. The second one was down to my fingers when a shaft of light hit the sidewalk as the door to the house opened. Venus in a tailored suit was framed there for a brief second before the door closed and the darkness swallowed her again.
Her heels made little tapping sounds on the pavement as if they were keeping time with some inaudible music. I switched the dimmers on and off twice then left them on and watched her walk into their soft glow. When she was opposite the car I pushed the door open and waited.
Then Venus with her heavenly aroma slid in next to me and plucked the butt out of my fingers for a last drag before flipping it out the window. “I feel like a schoolgirl,” she smiled.
“Sneak out?”
“More or less.”
“Sorry if I interrupted something.”
“Oh,” her eyes slanted a little and grinned at me, “it wasn’t that important. As a matter of fact, I was looking for an excuse to get away when you called.” She leaned over and turned the switch on the radio, then fiddled with the dial until the throbbing beat of a symphony filled the car. “The Philadelphia... mind?”
“Not at all.”
Venus was quite a woman. Quite. Red light de luxe but loved her symphonies. She sat with her head back on the seat, her eyes half closed, breathing in every note.
I let her listen to the last of it. Fifteen minutes of sitting there not saying a word until only the echo was left then I shut it off. She dreamed on for a minute longer before her head came up and another smile leaned in my direction. “You’re a pleasure to be with, man.”
I said thanks kind of dryly, waited, then: “You didn’t come out to listen to that, did you?”
This time she laughed deep in her throat and without any kind of coyness slid her hand under mine. “You don’t know much about women, do you?”
“Enough, I guess.”
“I said women.”
“Is there a difference?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Then I guess I don’t know much.” She didn’t know how much truth was in that statement. You don’t learn much in just a few years. Not even a lifetime.
“You’re about to learn, man,” Venus grinned. Her hand squeezed mine just enough so I’d know exactly what she meant. Not that it was necessary. The devil had been there in her voice and her eyes warming me with the thought. She reached for the cigarettes in my pocket without taking her eyes from mine. “Not now of course,” she added. “Later. In style.”
“Of course,” I tried to say knowingly.
It sounded like a croak.
She pulled the dash lighter out, held it to the tip of her cigarette a moment and stuck it back. Through the smoke she said, “You wanted to know about Vera West.”
The warm feeling I had went away. Fast. “That’s right.”
“Everybody wants Vera, don’t they?”
“Jack tell you?”
She nodded. “I didn’t learn much until he did. The girls were a little afraid to talk about it, but I gathered that they had been approached by several men and quizzed.”
“Who?”
“The men weren’t identified. Frankly, I believed the girls when they said they didn’t know them, but from what was said, the men weren’t exactly strangers in town.”
I mulled it over a minute and she anticipated my next question. “No description. The girls were tanked at the time and weren’t paying any attention to the men. They... see a lot of men, you know.”
“Yeah, but hell, why pick on them? How would they know about Vera?”
“One,” she told me softly, “happened to be a girlhood friend of Vera’s. The other happened to be a pet flame of Eddie Packman’s when Vera and Servo were making a big thing of it. At the time they were quite friendly.”
“You question them?”
“Without any results. When Vera went she went completely. Nobody seems to know what happened to her.”
“Any chance of her being... dead?”
“You know...” her lip went under her teeth momentarily, “I thought of that and would’ve considered it a possibility if it hadn’t been for one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Servo didn’t break with Vera like he did with the others. It was the other way around. In fact, Lenny Servo was pretty upset about it from what I heard. He had it pretty hard for that girl. Later, of course, he acted like it was all his doing. The guy’s neck-high in pride especially where women are concerned. No, I don’t think Vera’s dead at all. I think she disappeared of her own will.”
“Why?” I asked.
“That’s something I haven’t figured out yet. If she had something on Lenny and proposed to use it she certainly wouldn’t have gone off like that. That is, if she was smart enough to protect what she had so Lenny couldn’t touch her. No, I don’t think that was it at all. She had another reason for leaving.”
“She could have been afraid of somebody,” I said.
“Maybe, but it would have had to be Lenny. Nobody else could scare her into leaving.”
“Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders eloquently. “Lenny Servo is still boss in this town and as long as you’re on his side nobody bothers you. Lenny would take care of them quick. Certainly if someone was after her for some reason she would have told Lenny and that would have ended it right there.”
She was right. She had it down pat, every bit of it, and it all made sense. I flipped my butt out the open window and stared at her. “There’s only one catch to it.”
“There is?”
“Don’t you see it?”
“Well... no.”
“Maybe Lenny isn’t the boss.”
Her lips parted in a faint sarcastic smile. “Man, you just don’t know Lenny Servo.”
“No, but I will, chicken, I will. In fact, I’m very anxious to know Mr. Servo. It’s going to be one of the big moments of my life. The second big moment.”
“What’s the first?”
“Finding a crumb named Eddie Packman”
“Brother,” she whispered, “have you got a case.”
“Like to come along?”
“I’d love it, man, just love it. I’m really interested in finding out whether you’re a jerk or not.”
“And if I’m not?”
“Then you’ll find out what a real woman’s like. In style of course.”
This time I said, “Of course,” and it didn’t come out a croak. I kicked the starter in and pulled away from the curb. Behind me a little coupé grabbed the space before my fenders cleared the car in front. Business was good tonight.
Down at the comer I made a U-turn and headed back toward town. My lovely zombie turned her head questioningly in my direction and asked me, “Where are we going?”
“To a place called the Ship’n Shore. Know where it is?”
“Umm. We’re really going fancy. Stay on the River Road. You can’t miss it. That where you expect to find Eddie Packman?”
“Maybe.” I switched the radio back on again, only this time no symphony. Just a nice sexy rumba instead. “By the way, what do I call you?”
She looked at me sleepily. “Oh, any pet name will do.”
“Don’t you have a real one?”
“I did, man. That was a long time ago.”
“Okay, Venus.”
“Okay, man.”
“The name is Johnny. Johnny McBride.”
“Okay, Johnny.” Her eyes touched my face speculatively a second and something like a grin pulled at her mouth. “I’m in fast company, aren’t I?” She mused. “I thought there was something familiar about you. That picture in the paper didn’t do you justice.”