Mickey Spillane - The Body Lovers

"Mitch Temple told me. That's why he was reaching for that white handkerchief in his pocket. Not for anything else he had." Hy shoved his glasses up on his forehead and stared at me hard. "I don't get it, Mike."

"Velda spotted it first," I told him. "Green for redheads, black for blondes. What color dame would look best in white?"

After a moment Hy said, "A brunette or black-haired doll."

"Like Greta Service," I added.

There was a pattern coming out now. All it took was for that first piece to fall in place. Pat might have put his finger on it after all. Police records were spotted with psycho types who would go to any extremes to satisfy their own strange desires. They could be as devious as a snake and harder to track down. They could weave their own schemes into such fantastically intricate designs that there seemed to be no beginning nor end of the confusion. It wasn't so much a pattern as a suggestion of one, but it was there.

I said, "How much of this has Pat got?"

"His own squad made the same rounds. If they got different answers that's their tough luck."

"How long do you expect to sit on it?"

"Until we get one step further," Al told me. "Norm Harrison got back from Washington today where he was covering the latest Senate subcommittee investigations. He was going to go through all his papers to see if Mitch dropped a note to him after he couldn't reach him by phone. There was a mail chute in Mitch's apartment house, so it's a possibility."

Hy lit his cigar and blew the match out through a cloud of smoke. "I'm going to see him tonight. He's covering a political bash one of the U.N. members is giving for a newly admitted country. One of those splinter groups from Africa we're supporting. You want to go along?"

"Why me?"

"Because you're in this as deep as we are and damn well know it. We're not passing up any chance of missing an angle on Mitch's death even if we have to play along with you."

"Thanks, pal," I grinned. I looked at Al Casey. "And you?"

"Back to those files. I think I know the system Mitch used in going through them. It wasn't alphabetical. If I can find the last folder he hit we'll narrow it down pretty well. Even if something's missing, we can check it against the negative files." I pushed back from the table and got up. "Okay, buddy, I'm with you."

The town house of Gerald Ute was a newly restored three-story building just off Fifth Avenue opposite Central Park. My own knowledge of Ute came from sketchy newspaper accounts and on the way over Hy briefed me on his background. He owned several flourishing corporations that had expanded into the multimillion-dollar class since 1950, but he himself hadn't erupted onto the social scene until his wife decided Chicago was too restrictive for their new position and coerced him into a move to New York. She lasted a year before she made him a widower, but Ute had gotten to enjoy the high life of society circles he could afford and he widened his activities so that he was everything from patron of obscure arts to unofficial host to visiting dignitaries.

Apparently Ute was smart enough to stay out of the political jungle, though on several occasions his influence was used to mollify ruffled feathers among the U.N. members he cultivated. His activities didn't seem to interfere with his businesses, which were still climbing on the big board in the Stock Exchange, and at sixty-two, he was pretty well out of the scandal class.

The muted sounds of a string quartet floated through the rooms against the background of quiet murmuring. A butler took our hats and behind him the guests were gathering in small groups, waiters circulating with trays of champagne glasses. There was little formality. Most of the men were in business suits, a few in black ties, while the women fed their vanities in Paris originals winking with diamonds.

Gerald Ute knew the value of good public relations. I saw Richie Salisbury who usually covered the Washington beat, Paul Gregory whose "Political Observations" were featured in a national magazine and Jean Singleton who usually handled the foreign news coverage. Ute was talking to Norman Harrison when we walked in, stopped long enough to come over and say hello to Hy and be introduced to me.

For all of his years, he was still ruggedly handsome, though starting to bulge out at the middle. He had the sharp eyes of the shrewd speculator that could laugh at locker-room jokes or cut ice if they had to. When they focused on mine they were reading me like a computer being programmed and he said, "Mr. Hammer. Yes, you've made some headlines recently."

"Accidentally," I said.

"But good for business." He dropped my hand and smiled.

"Sometimes."

"It's too bad I can't write half the things I know about him," Hy put in.

"Why don't you?"

Hy let out a laugh. "Because Mike might decide to write a biography and I'd be in it. How's the party going?"

"Fine, fine. It's just a welcoming thing for Naku Em Abor and his party...getting him acquainted with the city and all that. People will be drifting in and out all evening. Suppose I introduce you around."

Hy waved him off. "Don't bother. I know everybody anyway. If I don't, I will."

"And you, Mr. Hammer."

Before I could answer Hy said, "Don't worry about him, Gerald. You never know who this guy is buddies with."

"Then let me introduce you to our hostess for the evening." He walked between us to the nearest couple, a woman in a black strapless gown that flowed over her body like a silvery fluid who was talking to a small oriental in a tuxedo. He said, "My dear...if you have a moment..."

She turned around, her hair still glinting like a halo, eyes twinkling and touched so that they seemed to turn up at the comers, and when they looked at me, widened with pleasure and Dulcie McInnes said, "Why, Mike, how nice to see you here!"

Hy nudged Gerald Ute with his elbow and whispered, "See what I mean?"

Our host laughed, presented James Lusong, talked for a few moments, then the three of them went back to the others, leaving me with Dulcie and a glass of champagne.

"From fashion editor to hostess," I said.

"Our advertisers appreciate the association." She took my arm and steered me through the crowd, nodding to friends and occasionally introducing me. I saw Hy to one side speaking quietly to Norm Harrison, but couldn't overhear what they were saying. "It adds class to our publications," Dulcie told me.

"It won't if you're seen with me," I said.

"Ah, but you add excitement. Society girl on safari with white hunter."

"That doesn't make for healthy relationships."

Her fingers squeezed my arm and she grinned up at me. "No, but interesting ones, After you left the office there were all sorts of speculation going on. I rather thought our employees read only the more gentle periodicals, then I find they like sensationalism too. You seem to have supplied it for them. A few discreet questions and I learned a lot about you."

"I'm surprised you'll still speak to me, Miss McInnes."

"You know women better than that," she said. "And the name is Dulcie. Now...satisfy my curiosity...Since you weren't on the guest list, how did you make it here?"

"Power of the press. Friend Hy Gardner was invited and dragged me along. Not that I'm much on these bashes, but we have an appointment later."

"Any friend of the press is a friend of Gerald's. I'm glad you made it. Anyone here you'd like to meet?"

In four different spots around the room, men were clustered in a tight, circle, laughing occasionally, talking with that odd intensity they developed when the nucleus of the circle was a pretty woman. "Maybe the Proctor Girls," I suggested.

Dulcie poked me with her finger. "Uh-uh. They're just eyewash. Besides, they're too young for you."