Mickey Spillane - The Body Lovers

Pat nodded agreement and rubbed his eyes.

"Okay," I said, "so he remembered the file he had on Greta listing her with the Howell dame. Who knows what kind of photography he was doing? Half the pornography made is done in those joints. He got up to his office but the damage had already been done. He lifted the card out of the rotary file too late. Greta didn't want to be found, Gates didn't want her found, and when I did, Greta cut out. She could have contacted Gates and he took off when he saw things coming apart."

"I can punch holes in that," Pat said.

"But at least it's a place to start. And it gets us back to Mitch Temple. He was interested in the Delaney and Poston deaths too. He recognized somebody and followed him, somebody who was buying a white negligee."

Pat held up his hand. "That hasn't been proven."

"Screw the proof. Let's guess a little and see what we have. Now two things could have happened. Either the person Mitch saw and followed recognized him and backtracked Mitch to his apartment, or Mitch pulled a stupid trick. We know he tried to call Norm Harrison and missed him. We know he poked around in the morgue looking for a photo to confirm his suspicions. Supposing he decided to make a direct inquiry to the one he was after to bring him out into the open?"

"That's pretty damn dumb."

"Not if he thought the guy was too big to try the direct approach. He underestimated the opposition, but it could have paid off. Don't forget, he was waiting to see Norm Harrison. He could have expected it to be him at the door that night."

"And what have you got so far, Mike?"

"Everything's related so far. From the girls, to Mitch, to Greta, to Gates, to Jones, to Ali Duval. It's stretching it pretty thin, but one thing holds it together...the thing that started the whole ball rolling...those negligees. If that one factor was removed, if those girls had been dressed differently, we never, would have been where we are. That is, until Harry Service got into the act."

"Mike," Pat said seriously, "do you realize that we haven't anything tangible to go on? Take the guy you so nicely knocked off..."

"And you get the other part of the picture," I said. "He had a contact with somebody in a big car. A chauffeur-driven one. Ali has a contact with someone in a big limousine. Now there's one thing that's been running throughout this business since I first got on it. I keep hearing the word gook kicked around. They told me that in the Village about Greta Service being seen with one. Jones calls Ali a gook. They called Orslo Bucher a gook. We have a foreign ship in port, Ali spotted by Jones as working some kind of racket and if it weren't for a couple of plain old American girls involved I'd say we had some kind of international intrigue going."

"You're going," Pat said. "You're not happy until you make a mess of everything."

"Yeah, then explain your interest in the way those girls died, old buddy. You were pretty sure you had something, or are you still on the sex-fiend kick?"

"It seems a little more logical than the web you're trying to weave."

"Does it?"

Pat grimaced and filled the cups again. "Let me tell you something else, Mike. This afternoon we get another possible. You remember the Corning case about three years ago?"

"No."

"Well, it was kept pretty quiet. He committed six sex murders, all mutilations and pretty messy. He was caught and sent to a state institution for the criminally insane. After two and a half years of being a vegetable, he suddenly regained his senses and escaped. They got him in an abandoned house, but rather than surrender he burned the place down around himself. That's what they thought. There wasn't much of the corpse left to get a positive identification. This afternoon we get a call from someone who knew him well who said he saw Corning right here in the city. Now...if you want to know if I'm on a sex-fiend kick, maybe I am."

"You'll still keep Gates on the wanted sheet, though?"

"We can do that."

"What about the poison angle on the Poston kid?"

"The M.E. is making that his project. He's tracing sources. If something shows we'll follow that line too. Just so you can't say we're not covering every route I'll see what Interpol has on Ali Duval and have them pick up anybody in a fez who isn't a Shriner."

"What're you so nervous about, kid?" I grinned.

Pat gave me a pointed stare and said, "If you had those papers breathing down your neck the way I've had you would know why."

"You do it when a cop gets killed," I reminded him.

"That's different."

"Not for those guys. Besides, nothing's been printed yet."

"Only because they haven't turned up something either, but it's coming. If something doesn't break damn soon they'll cut loose at the department, then the action starts." He put his cup down on the table and tilted back in his chair. "Incidentally, your buddies with the papers put a squeeze on the D.A. All you'll be required to give in court is a reasonable explanation."

"Nice of them."

"Maybe they're just saving you to be a goat too in case it all falls apart."

"One goat's enough. I'll let it be you."

"Great. Thanks."

I grinned at him, slapped my hat on and said good night. He had enough troubles for one day.

When I got back to the hotel there were four messages in my box to call Velda at a number in Bradbury. I got up to the room, shucked my coat and had the operator put me through. The place was a motel outside of the town and her room didn't answer, so I said I'd call back and hung up. I waited an hour and tried again. She still didn't answer so I lay back on the bed and snapped the light off.

At two-thirty she called me back, jarring me out of a sleep.

"Mike?"

"Here, kid. Go ahead."

"Look, I don't know whether this means anything or not, but this morning I made a contact in the bus station."

"Who was it?"

"Just a girl. She was in the ladies' room crying and I tried to find out what was wrong. When she finally got past the tears and started talking, she said she was stranded in town and had no way back to New York."

"Hell, that's a sucker story, honey. How many times...?"

"Will you listen!" I lay back on the bed and told her to go ahead. She was always picking up wet birds in the street anyway. "I took her outside and bought her some coffee and let her spill it. She was brought out here last night by some man she met in a bar downtown when she was a little high. He said he was going to take her to a real party that would make New York look like a playground. On the drive out he said he worked at one of the embassy retreats and knew how they could look in on the whole show.

"Driving out she started to sober up and her new friend didn't look so good to her any more. His talk scared her to death. Twice he stopped the car and tried to make a play for her, but both times other cars coming made him drive on. She fought him off, but couldn't get away. He kept telling her his boss really knew how to make a woman come around. All you had to do was hurt them enough and there wasn't anything they wouldn't do, anything at all. By this time she was nearly hysterical. He got to Bradbury, stopped for gas, but didn't have money to pay the attendant so he left his watch for security and said he'd pick it up tonight. That was as much as she heard. While he wasn't watching she got out of the car and ran for it, but she left her purse in the car and had no way to get it back."

"Didn't she ever hear of the Travelers Aid Society?" I said.

"Quit being funny," Velda told me. Her voice had an angry bite to it. "Anyway, I gave her fifteen dollars so she could get cleaned up--she spent the night sleeping in the bushes--and she was to meet me at the bus station later and point out the man when he came to reclaim his watch."