Mickey Spillane - The Body Lovers

"So did I."

"Brief me," I said.

"She had six hundred dollars in charges she had been paying off monthly. She cleaned them all up at once with cash payments, didn't draw on any more purchases and never left a forwarding address. One woman in the credit department knew her from when she was a saleswoman and waited on her. From what she hinted at, Greta Service was wearing finer clothes than the store supplied. Where were you last night?"

"Working." I synopsized the details of last night for her, emphasizing the relationship Greta Service had had with Helen Poston. Velda made a few notes on a scratch pad, her face serious. "Want me to follow it up?"

"Yeah, ask around her neighborhood. They'd remember a suicide, all right. Lay on a few bucks if you have to grease anybody. As far as they're concerned, you're a reporter doing a follow-up yarn. Just be careful."

"Like you?" She gave me a poke with her elbow.

I looked up at her and a teasing smile was playing with the corner of her mouth. "Okay, I won't bug you," she said. "Only you could have put on a clean shirt without lipstick on the collar?"

"I'm a show off," I said.

"What you are, chum. Sometimes I could kill you." She refilled my cracked cup from the quart container and asked, "What do you think?"

"A pattern's showing. Greta came up with money from some area. It looks more like she found a sponsor than a job."

"That's what the credit manager suggested. Did you check the m.p.'s with Pat?"

"No good. Who'd report her missing? Harry came directly to me. From now on it's legwork around probable places she might spend time in."

"Would they recognize her from that photo Hy gave you? It isn't very good."

"No, but I know where I can get a better one," I told her.

Velda picked up her coffee and sat on the arm of the chair beside me. "And I'll do the work while you carouse...is that it?"

"That's what I got you for, baby," I said cheerfully.

"You're asking for it," she growled back. "All this for a con."

"It goes further than that. Has Pat called?"

"No, but Hy has. He washed out the Miami trip for a few days to do a couple of features on Mitch Temple. You'd better buzz him."

"Okay." I finished the coffee and reached for my coat. "I'll check in this afternoon."

"Mike..."

"What, kitten?"

"It's those negligees..."

"Don't worry, I didn't forget. Mitch Temple wasn't killed for nothing. Pat'll run that lead right into the ground. When he has something I'll know about it."

The Proctor Group was located in the top half of a new forty-story building it had just built on Sixth Avenue, a glass and concrete monument to commercialism with the sterile atmosphere of a hospital.

Dulcie McInnes was listed on the lobby directory as Executive Fashion Editor with offices on the top floor. I got in the elevator along with a half dozen women who eyed me speculatively and seemed to pass knowing little glances between them when I pushed the top button.

It was a woman's world, all right. The decor was subtle pastels, the windows draped with feminine elegance and footsteps were muted by the thick pale green carpeting. Expensive oil paintings decorated the walls of the reception room, but something seemed to be missing.

The two harried little men I saw scuttled around like mice in a house full of cats, forcing badgered smiles at the dominant females who wore their hats like crowns, performing their insignificant tasks meticulously, gratefully acknowledging the curt nods of their overlords with abundant thank you's. What was missing were the whips on the wall. The damn place was a harem and they were the eunuchs. One looked at me as if I were a peddler who came to the front door of the mansion, was about to ask me my business when he caught the reproving eye of the receptionist and drifted off without a word.

She was a gray woman with the hard eyes and stem mouth of the dean of a girls' school. Her expression was one of immediate rejection and no compromise. She was the guardian dog at the portals of the castle, not there to greet, but to discourage any entry. Her suit had an almost military cut to it and her voice held a tone of total hostility.

"May I help you?"

Help? She was wanting to know what the hell I was doing there in the first place.

"I'd like to see Dulcie McInnes," I said.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Nope."

"Then I'm afraid it's impossible." The dismissal was as fast as that. To make it more pointed, she went back to sorting her mail.

Only she had the wrong mouse this time. I walked to the side of the desk, leaned over and whispered in her ear. Her eyes went wide open almost to the point of bursting, her face a dead white, then a slow flush began at her neck and suffused her cheeks and the stammer that came out of her mouth had a little squeak to it.

"Now," I said.

Her head bobbed and she tried to wet her lips with a tongue just as dry. She pushed back from the desk, got up and edged around me nervously and stepped inside the door marked Private beside her. In ten seconds she was back, holding the door open timorously to let me in, then closed it quickly with a short gasp of horror, when I grinned at her.

The woman on the couch wasn't what I expected at all. She had a mature beauty only middle age can bring when nature cooperates with fashion demands and scientific treatment. A touch of gray added a silvery quality to hair that fell in soft waves around a face that held a gentle tan. Her mouth was full and rich, curved in a welcoming smile. She put the layout sheets on the coffee table and stood up, sensing my immediate approval of the way the black sheath dress encompassed the swell of her breasts and dipped into the hollow and flare of her hips.

But it was her eyes that got you. They were a bright, unnatural emerald green full of laughter.

"Miss Mclnnes?"

Her teeth sparkled white under her smile and she held her hand out. "Whatever did you say to Miss Tabor? She was absolutely terrified."

"Maybe I'd better not repeat it."

"She never even got your name."

Her hand was firm and warm in mine, enthusiastic for the few moments she held it. "Mike Hammer," I said. "I'm a private investigator."

"Now that's a novelty up here," she laughed. "No wonder Miss Tabor was so upset. Haven't I read about you?"

"Probably."

She walked back to the couch and sat down, held out a box of cigarettes to me when I took the chair opposite her and lit us both with an ornate gold lighter.

"You've got me curious about your visit. Who's being investigated?"

I blew out a cloud of smoke and took the photograph from my pocket. "Nothing spectacular. I'm trying to find this woman. Greta Service...she's a model."

Dulcie McInnes took the photograph from my hand and studied it a minute. "Should I know her?"

"Probably not. She applied here for photographic work one time at Cleo's suggestion and..."

"Cleo?" Her head tilted with a gesture of interest. "She's one of our finest contributors."

"Think you may have some test pictures of her?"

"Undoubtedly. Just a moment." She picked up the phone, pressed a button on the base and said, "Marsha? See if we have any photos of Greta Service in our personnel files. No, she's a model. Bring them up, please."

When she hung up she asked, "Did she work for us?"

"Opinion is that Greta was, well...a little too stacked for high fashion jobs."

"Luckily for us we're only concerned with the woman's opinion. You men...all you want is pin-ups."

I looked at her and felt my mouth twist into a smile.

She threw back her head and laughed, her eyes sparkling in the light. "No, I'm not the high fashion type either, thank goodness. I'd hate to have to starve myself into a size six."