“No appointment needed,” I said, smiling at her, wondering why she was so seductively cheerful; most women who come into a private detective agency are nervous and/or depressed, as their business is generally divorce-oriented. What the hell. I showed her into my office.
She took the chair across from the desk, but before I could get back behind it, she said, “Would you mind closing the door?”
“Nobody’s out there,” I said.
She smiled; no teeth this time. Sexy and wry. “Humor me, Mr. Heller.”
“Consider yourself humored,” I said, and shut the door, and sat behind Sapperstein’s desk.
“I’d like you to find something for me,” she said. Hands folded in her lap, in which a small black purse also resided.
“And what would that be?”
“A certain book.”
“A certain book.”
“A diary.”
Okay. I was awake now.
“A diary,” I said. “Yours?”
“No, Mr. Heller. Must we be coy?”
“You’re the one in the tight dress.”
“You’re an amusing fella.”
“In a tight dress I am. I’m a pip in spike heels.”
“Estelle Carey’s diary, Mr. Heller. A thousand dollars, and your assurance that you’ve made no copies.”
I cracked my knuckles. “You see, that’s why I never got in the blackmail business. There’s no way to prove to the customer that you’ve given ’em the only copy of the goods.”
Her smile seemed just a touch nervous, now. “We’d trust you. We hear you’re a man of your word.”
“Who told you that?”
“A certain Mr. Nitti.”
“Gee, I wonder which Mr. Nitti you might be talking about. I’m coy? Who are you, lady?”
No smile at all. “I’m someone who wants to recover Estelle Carey’s dairy. We’ve asked around. We know you have it. We know you bought it. If you’re intending to sell it to the press, we’ll top their best offer. If you’re planning blackmail, we’d advise you against it. You made an investment; I’m here to help you make a killing on it. But if you refuse, well, then, there are killings and killings, aren’t there?”
“Fuck you.”
She stood and she came around the side of Sapperstein’s desk and sat on the edge of it and hiked her dress up, legs open a hair, if you’ll pardon the expression; showgirl, all right.
“That could be arranged,” she said.
I thought about it. Sally was gone again, and this girl had long legs and everything else that went with it; and she smelled like some exotic faraway place. She was also wearing the first pair of black panties I’d seen since I got back in the States-except for one strange guy at St. E’s. I could always boff her and then tell her to go to hell. I was born in Chicago.
“What do you say, Mr. Heller?”
“Get your butt off my desk.”
She stood; she was clutching the little purse tight in one hand.
“You’re a stupid man.”
“You’re a smart bitch. So what? Go away.”
“Name your price.”
“No price! Get the fuck out of my office! If you got a gun in that little purse, I wonder if it’s as big as the one in my desk drawer.” Which from where she was standing she could see my hand was down in.
She sighed. “You’re foolish to prolong this. You won’t get a better price out of us by making us wait.”
“Who’s ‘us’? You and the Outfit?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
“Lady, I burned the goddamn thing.”
She winced. “What?”
“I burned it. I was hired by a client who didn’t want to be embarrassed by its contents, so I fucking burned it.”
“No one would be that stupid.”
“I wasn’t born that stupid, I admit. I worked at it for thirty-some years. Now get the hell out of here. Go away.”
She smiled, only it was more of a sneer. “Why would you even say such a thing? Burned it my ass.”
Her ass indeed. Part of me still wanted her; she was a real doll. And in black panties. I bet her bra was black, too. Fortunately, I was thinking with my higher-up head at the moment. Tempered by a sick heart.
“I just learned one of my business partners was killed in the war,” I said. “So I’m in a particularly lousy mood today. No mood at all to be fucking around with this chickenshit conversation. I’m about to get up from this desk, take that purse and the gun you must have in it away from you, and kick the living shit out of you. I haven’t knocked a woman’s teeth out since my second wife left me, by the way, so I’m going to really enjoy this.”
Her eyes and nostrils flared; she obviously didn’t know what to make of me, or my nonexistent wives.
But she said, “I’ll be back.”
And left.
The door in the outer office was slamming shut as I dialed Drury at his Town Hall office; caught him going out the door to get lunch.
“I’m going to describe a woman to you,” I said.
“This sounds like fun.”
“It might be fun. That’s what the male spider thinks, anyway, when he crawls in the sack with a black widow.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Get an earful of this, and then tell me if it matches up with any of your Carey case suspects.”
I described her, seamed stockings to pillbox hat, and he said, “That would be so nice to come home to…only you may be right about that black widow spider. That sounds very much like Olivia Borgia, John Borgia’s wife.”
“Borgia? That name sounds familiar. Or am I just thinking about famous women not to go out for cocktails with.”
I didn’t mention to Bill that the Borgias had turned up in the diary, albeit briefly; mentioned as friends who’d stopped over a few times. No sexual escapades. Whatever the Borgias thought was in that diary, wasn’t. Or hadn’t been. It was ashes now, after all.
“John Borgia’s an Outfit guy who’s been around for years,” Drury was saying. “Don’t you remember, I mentioned him to you as one of our Carey suspects. He looks a little like Sonny Goldstone, only no glasses. He’s about fifty. An old pal of Dago Mangano’s; connected to Nicky Dean.”
“Wasn’t there something about a kidnapping, back around ’38?”
“Yeah, only it was ’37. Some ex-pals of Dean and Mangano grabbed Olivia and held her for ransom. The guys that did it turned up dead in a ditch. Poor bastards snatched the snatch to get even with Borgia, word was-it was for revenge more than dough; these were some guys Borgia had fired at the 101 Club. Which was where Olivia worked, by the way.”
“Twenty-six girl?”
“At one time. Also a would-be nightclub singer. Why, Nate? What’s this all about?”
“She was just in my office.”
“What? What for?”
“She wanted to know if I had Estelle Carey’s diary.”
“You? Why would she think you had Estelle Carey’s diary?”
“Yeah, it’s nuts, isn’t it? I told her I didn’t have the thing, and she went away. Only she didn’t believe me. She said she’d be back.”
“I didn’t even know she was in town. We’ve been looking for her, and her husband, from the start. I appreciate the tip, Nate. Every radio car in town will be alerted.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“If they did this, Nate, if they were the last guests your friend Estelle entertained, then there can be no doubt it was an Outfit hit.”
“Meaning you’ll expect me to be a good citizen and testify against Nitti.”
“That’s right. Anything else you need? I got lunch to catch.”
“Actually, there is. Some bad news. Frankie Fortunato was killed in action.”
“Aw, shit.”
“Guadalcanal.”
“Hell, the papers say we ran those slant-eyed bastards right off that island!”
“We did. It just wasn’t free.”
We both hung up, and then for a while I sat there staring out the window, where the service flag with Frankie’s star hung.
Then around one, Olivia Borgia’s promise to return lingering in my brain like a bad taste, I went next door and got the nine millimeter out of my bottom desk drawer and the shoulder holster too and took my coat off and slung it on. Guadalcanal was over. But there were always battles to be fought.