Vengeance Is Mine

I told her the same thing I told Juno.

She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t sound right. Why would any reporter try to make something out of a suicide?”

She had a point there, but I had an answer. “Because he didn’t leave a farewell note. Because his home life was happy. Because he had a lot of dough and no apparent worries.”

“It sounds better now,” she said.

I told her about the party arid what I thought might have happened. When I sketched it in I asked, “Do you know any of the girls that were there that night?”

Her laugh was a little deeper this time. “Golly, no, at least not to talk to. You see, the agency is divided into two factions, more or less . . . the clotheshorses and the no-clotheshorses. I’m one of the sugar pies who fill out panties and nighties for the nylon trade. The clotheshorses couldn’t fill out a paper sack by themselves so they’re jealous and treat us lesser paid kids like dirt.”

“Nuts,” I said. “I saw a few and they can’t let their breaths out all the way without losing their falsies.”

She almost choked on her drink. “Very cute, Mike, very cute. I’ll have to remember all your acid witticisms. They’ll put me over big with the gang.”

I finished the last of the beer and shoved the empties to the edge of the table. “Come on, kid. I’ll take you wherever you want to go then I’ll try to get something done.”

“I want to go back to my apartment and you can get something done there.”

“You’ll get a slap in the ear if you don’t shut up. Come on.”

Connie threw her head back and laughed at me again. “Boy oh boy, what ten other guys wouldn’t give to hear me say that?”

“Do you say that to ten other guys?”

“No, Mike.” Her voice was a whisper of invitation.

There wasn’t an empty cab in sight so we walked along Broadway until we found a hack stand with a driver grabbing a nap behind the wheel. Connie slid in and gave him an address on Sixty-second Street then crowded me into the corner and reached for my hand.

She said, “Is all this very important, Mike? Finding the girl and all, I mean.”

I patted her hand. “It means plenty to me, baby. More than you’d expect.”

“Can I . . . help you some way? I want to, Mike. Honest.”

She had a hell of a cute face. I turned my head and looked down into it and the seriousness in her expression made me nod before I could help myself. “I need a lot of help, Connie. I’m not sure my friend went out with this girl; I’m not sure she’ll admit it if she did and I can’t blame her; I’m not sure about anything any more.”

“What did Juno tell you?”

“Come back tomorrow. She’ll try to find her in the meantime.”

“Juno’s quite a . . . she’s quite a . . .”

“Quite,” I finished.

“She makes that impression on everybody. A working girl doesn’t stand a chance around that woman.” Connie faked a pout and squeezed my arm. “Say it ain’t so, Mike.”

“It ain’t so.”

“You’re lying again,” she laughed. “Anyway, I was thinking. Suppose this girl did go out with your friend. Was he the type to try for a fast affair?”

I shoved my hat back on my head and tried to picture Chester Wheeler. To me he was too much of a family man to make a decent wolf. I told her no, but doubtfully. It’s hard to tell what a guy will or won’t do when he’s in town without an overseer or a hardworking conscience.

“In that case,” Connie continued, “I was thinking that if this girl played games like a lot of them do, she’d drag him around the hot spots with him footing the bill. It’s a lot of fun, they tell me.”

She was getting at something. She shook her head and let her hair swirl around her shoulders. “Lately the clotheshorses have been beating a path to a few remote spots that cater to the modeland-buyer crowd. f haven’t been there myself, but it’s a lead.”

I reached over and tipped her chin up with my forefinger. “I like the way you think, girl.” Her lips were full and red. She ran her tongue over them until they glistened wetly, separated just a little to coax me closer. I could have been coaxed, only the cab jolted to a stop against the curb and Connie stuck out her tongue at the driver. She made a wry face and held on to my hand just to be sure I got out with her. I handed the driver a bill and told him to keep the change.

“It’s the cocktail hour, Mike. You will come up, won’t you?”

“For a while.”

“Damn you,” she said, “I never tried so hard to make a guy who won’t be made. Don’t I have wiles, Mike?”

“Two beauties.”

“Well, that’s a start, anyway. Leave us leave.”

The place was a small-sized apartment house that made no pretense at glamour. It had a work-it-yourself elevator that wasn’t working and we hoofed it up the stairs to the third floor where

Connie fumbled in her pocket until she found her key. I snapped on the light like I lived there permanently and threw my hat on a chair in the living room and sat down.

Connie said, “What’ll it be, coffee or cocktails?”

“Coffee first,” I told her. “I didn’t eat lunch. If you got some eggs put them on too.” I reached over the arm of the chair into a magazine rack and came up with a handful of girlie mags that were better than the post cards you get in Mexico. I found Connie in half of them and decided that she was all right. Very all right.

The smell of the coffee brought me into the kitchen just as she was sliding the eggs onto a plate and we didn’t bother with small talk until there was nothing left but some congealed egg yolk. When I finally leaned back and pulled out my deck of Luckies she said, “Good?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Will I make somebody a good wife?”

“Somebody.”

“Bastard.” She was laughing again. I grinned back at her and faked a smack at her fanny. Instead of pulling away she stuck it out at me so I laid one on that made her yowl.

We had the cocktails in the living room. The hands on my watch went around once, then twice. Every so often the shaker would be refilled and the ice would make sharp sounds against the metal surface. I sat there with a glass in my hand and my head back, dreaming my way through the haze. I ran out of matches and whenever I put a cigarette in my mouth Connie would come across the room with a light for me.

A nice guy who was dead.

Two shots gone.

One bullet and one shell case found in the hall.

Suicide.

Hell.

I opened my eyes and looked at Connie. She was curled up on a studio couch watching me. “What’s the program, kid?”

“It’s almost seven,” she said. “I’ll get dressed and you can take me out. If we’re lucky maybe we can find out where your friend went.”

I was too tired to be nice. My eyes were heavy from looking into the smoke that hung in the air and my belly felt warm from the drinks. “A man is dead,” I said slowly. “The papers said what the cops said, he died a suicide. I know better. The guy was murdered.”

She stiffened, and the cigarette bent in her fingers. “I wanted to find out why so I started tracing and I found he might have been with a babe one night. I find where the babe works and start asking questions. A very pretty model with a very pretty body starts tossing me a line and is going to help me look. I start getting ideas. I start wondering why all the concern from a dame who can have ten other guys yet makes a pass at a guy who hasn’t even got a job and won’t buy her more than beer and takes her eggs and coffee and her cocktails.”

Her breath made a soft hissing noise between her teeth. I saw the cigarette crumple up in her hand and if she felt any pain it wasn’t reflected in her face. I never moved while she pushed herself up. My hands were folded behind my head for a cushion and stayed there even while she stood spraddled-legged in front of me.