Parnell Hall: The Naked Typist

“Yeah. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Maybe you got the number wrong.”

Tracy gave him a look.

Steve shrugged. “I’m sorry, but it happens.”

“I didn’t get the number wrong.”

“Well, maybe she gave it to you wrong.”

“Exactly,” Tracy said. “And if she did, that’s interesting.”

Steve smiled. “Tracy, everything doesn’t have to be a mystery. You gotta remember, the girl was really hassled. She’d just had a traumatic experience. It wouldn’t be that unusual if she just happened to juggle a couple of numbers.”

“Come on. You don’t know your own phone number?”

“Maybe it’s the area code.”

“What?”

“Maybe she’s got a seven-one-eight number but she didn’t give you the area code. So you’re dialing a two-one-two number and of course it’s wrong.”

Tracy shook her head. “No. Her address is Manhattan.”

“Where is it?”

“East Seventy-seventh Street. If that’s where she lives,” she added.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, the phone number’s wrong, what if the address is too?”

Steve smiled. “I think you’re really stretching.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, we’ll know soon enough. You mail the letter?”

“Yeah. But I don’t think we should wait for it.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Well, it’s just across town. Why don’t I run out there?”

“Now?”

“Hey, like we got anything else going on here?”

Steve sighed. “No, we certainly don’t. All right, look, I’ll take a run over there.”

“I don’t mind doing it.”

“I know. But if she’s there, I should be the one to talk to her.”

Tracy bit her lip. “Oh.”

Steve grinned. “All right, you win. As you say, there’s nothing going on anyway. Put the answering machine on and close up the office. We’ll run over on the way home.”

They went out and hailed a cab on Broadway. Tracy started to give the cabbie the address, but Steve interrupted, saying, “Seventy-seventh and Third.” When he did, she grinned and he felt sheepish. And annoyed. From past experience, when on a case Steve was loathe to give a cabbie the exact address he was going to, in case someone wanted to trace his movements later. He’d done that now out of force of habit, though there was no need to, just calling on Kelly Blaine. Tracy Garvin’s grin told the story. As far as she was concerned, his fudging the address certified that however much he might protest to the contrary, he was treating the affair as a mystery and using all due caution.

Which pissed him off. As far as he was concerned, the Kelly Blaine affair was not a mystery. Just a mundane management/labor dispute, which never would have interested him at all if the woman hadn’t been naked. So here he was, seduced by sex, doing a lot of things he normally wouldn’t be doing.

Though really, of course, Steve’s feelings were just like Tracy’s. He wanted this to be a mystery. Anything to get out of the boring, deadly office routine. The problem was, unlike Tracy, he was realistic enough to know that it wasn’t. In all likelihood, Kelly Blaine would be home, receive the news that Milton Castleton’s grandson wanted to date her with predictably mixed emotions and be left trying to decide whether or not she wanted to do it. Which was entirely up to her, was none of Steve’s damn business and would put an end to this affair for once and for all.

They pulled up at Third Avenue and 77th. Steve paid the driver, and he and Tracy got out.

“What’s the number again?” Steve asked.

“Two-twenty-one.”

“Okay. That’s the uptown side of the street. Let’s go.”

“Bet you dinner she’s not there.”

Steve shook his head. “Bad bet. This time of the day, she’s probably out.”

“Okay. Bet you dinner she doesn’t live there.”

“On your salary?”

“I’ve been meaning to speak to you about that.”

“You picked a bad time. Aside from Kelly Blaine, business isn’t brisk.”

“No shit. I take it you’re ducking the bet?”

“I didn’t say that. You wanna bet, you’re on.”

“Deal.”

They walked up the block.

“Okay,” Steve said. “There’s two-eleven. Two-fifteen. Two-seventeen. It’s gotta be that building over there.”

It wasn’t. That building over there was 219.

Two-twenty-one was a parking lot.

Mark Taylor ran his hand through his curly red hair. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s perfectly simple,” Steve said. “The girl gave us a phony address and phone number.”

“That I understand. What I don’t understand is, what’s it got to do with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“The case is closed. You got a settlement. If she gave you the wrong address, what’s the big deal?”

“I don’t like to be played for a sucker.”

Taylor shrugged. “Well, there’s suckers and there’s suckers. You made sixteen grand on the deal. That’s not my definition of a sucker. A sucker is a guy who winds up out sixteen grand on the deal.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Maybe not for you. You’ve got Sheila Benton’s annual retainer to fall back on. You don’t have to sweat a rent increase-you just pass it along. Me, I’ve got to hustle for clients and foot my own bills. Lot of clients are deadbeats who disappear without paying- that’s a problem. A client who drops a hunk of change on me and then disappears is not a problem.”

“How about a client who pays you to do something illegal?”

“Hey, I don’t take that kind of work.”

“Neither do I. And that’s the problem.” Steve leaned back in his desk chair and ran his hand over his head. “This whole thing stinks from the word go. I mean, Jesus Christ, the girl comes in here and tells me a story about this old lecher who hired her to type naked. In the first place, she’s not the type of girl to do that.”

He shot a look at Tracy, who was sitting in, taking notes. She looked about to jump in. Steve held up his hand. “And let’s not go off on a tangent about who is the type of girl to do that. The point is, she wasn’t. But apparently she did. She’s up here in my office in an old overcoat with nothing underneath it telling a fantastic story that’s so bizarre it really shouldn’t be true.

“But it is. I go and check it out and everything’s exactly as she said. Plus, while Castleton and Danby deny the specific allegations, no one denies the fact that she was typing naked. But, rather than contesting her charges in any serious way, Castleton gives me fifty thousand dollars to sweep it under the rug. Case closed.

“Fine so far. Then the grandson shows up trying to reach the girl, it turns out the girl’s a phony, and what the hell’s been going on?”

“You got your money, what difference does it make?”

“Like I said before, I don’t want to be played for a sucker, and I don’t want to do anything illegal.”

“What’s illegal about it?”

“Come on, Mark. It’s a perfect scam. The whole thing reeks of it. I mean, you strip away all of the trappings and what you have here is your plain and simple badger game. An attractive young woman places a wealthy man in a compromising position and then demands money. It’s blackmail, plain and simple.”

Taylor frowned. “Well, when you put it that way.”

“How else can I put it? If the girl was legit, it’s one thing. The minute she’s bogus, what else can you think.”

“The way I understand it, Castleton set up the situation. He advertised for secretaries. He paid them to take their clothes off.”

“Right. And this woman heard about it and said, ‘Wow, here’s a way to make a hunk of change.’”