The Naked Typist

“Right. I mean, the guy came here looking for her. If he knew how to find her, he wouldn’t have done that. So he obviously doesn’t know how to find her. But twenty-four hours later he’s meeting her in a bar.”

“Maybe he found her through his grandfather.”

“He claimed he didn’t want his grandfather to know about it. Acted embarrassed about the whole thing. That’s just what he claimed, but still. Say he went to his grandfather’s, wanted to look up Kelly Blaine’s address in the records. That wouldn’t do him any good either.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause she gave me a phony name and address, it’s a cinch she gave Castleton one too. So the grandfather wouldn’t know how to find her any more than the grandson would.”

“So maybe she called him.”

“Grandpa?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah, that’s the only explanation. But if she did that, the question is why? She’d been fired from her job, she’d gotten a settlement. If she couldn’t cash the check, that was too bad, but it wasn’t Castleton’s fault and there was nothing he could do about it.”

“Maybe that’s it, though,” Taylor said. “Maybe she wanted him to make good with cash.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Tell him the check was worthless to her, she wanted her settlement, she wanted him to make good with thirty-three grand in cash.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“Well, she had him in a pretty embarrassing position.”

“ ‘Had’ is the operative word. We’d made a settlement. He had a signed release letting him off the hook.”

“Signed with a phony name,” Taylor pointed out.

“True, but still binding,” Steve said. “Castleton entered into the settlement in good faith. He can’t be held accountable if my client’s actions are fraudulent.”

“Maybe he didn’t know that.”

Steve waved it away. “Even so. I mean, give me a break. The girl rings him up and says, ‘I’m not really Kelly Blaine and I tricked you on the settlement and I want more money,’ and Castleton says, ‘Fine, why don’t you go for drinks with my grandson.’”

Taylor frowned. “I see your point.”

Steve threw up his hands. “It’s a fucking nightmare. Nothing makes sense. I got a respectable young woman prancing around naked in front of a one-way glass for the benefit of a lecherous octogenarian who can’t get it up anymore but who still likes to look. I got a horny grandson running around looking for her who hasn’t got a prayer of finding her but who does just like that. And I got a fifty-thousand-dollar cash settlement that nobody seems to want.”

“Right. So what does it all mean?”

Steve took a breath, blew it out again. He shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea. And that, Mark, is what is really pissing me off.”

13

Tracy Garvin was in a bad mood when Steve Winslow walked into the office the next morning. “You’re late,” she said accusingly.

Steve frowned. He was not in the best of moods himself. “Yeah, so?” he said.

“Mark Taylor’s called three times already. Wants to see you right away.”

“Oh yeah? What about?”

Tracy’s eyes blazed. “He wouldn’t say.”

Steve couldn’t help grinning. No wonder she was pissed. Mark Taylor had some information she wasn’t going to hear till he got there, and he was late.

“Oh,” Steve said. “Is he coming down?”

“No, he’s hanging on the phones again. He wants you to stop up.”

“Anything happening here? Any calls?”

“No. Just Mark. Absolutely nothing is happening here.”

Steve grinned. “Okay, you win. Put the answering machine on and let’s go.”

Mark Taylor was grinning from ear to ear when they walked in. “Hi, Steve. Hi, Tracy. Sorry to hold out on you, but I had to be the one to tell him.”

“Tell me what?”

“We found her?”

“You’re kidding.” *

“Nope. I got you one naked typist, as ordered. Signed, sealed, delivered.”

“Where is she?”

“Apartment on East Eighty-eighth Street.”

“She there now?”

“Yeah.”

“Son of a bitch. How the hell’d you do that?”

Taylor shrugged. “Easy as pie. And lucky as hell, to tell the truth. When Marcie lost them last night, I sent a man to stake out David Castleton’s building. It was a long shot-the way things stood, I didn’t think there was a chance in hell the guy’d get her up to his apartment. But it was too obvious a play to pass up. So I staked a man out in front of the building, and sure enough, ten-thirty they come walking up together large as life and go in.”

“No shit.”

“None. An hour later the girl comes out alone and my man tails her home.”

“And it’s her? I mean, there’s no chance it’s the wrong girl?”

“Well, there’s a chance it’s not your client. We didn’t have a picture to go on, just a description. But it’s the same girl he picked up in the bar, all right.”

“How do you know that?”

Taylor grinned. “Marcie Keller. The girl takes her job seriously. She knew she’d fucked up, and she felt bad. So when I sent her home last night she went out to David Castleton’s apartment. She didn’t know I’d assigned a man to it, though she could have figured it out if she’d thought about it. Anyway, she went out there on her own ’cause she knew she’d fucked up and she wanted to get out of the doghouse. So she went out there and ran into my man.”

“What happened?”

“He told her to relax, he had it covered, go home and forget about it. She wouldn’t hear of it. Said she was the only one who’d seen the girl, and if she showed up, she should be there to make the I.D. Anyway, they wound up staking out the place together, and she was there when Castleton showed up with the girl at ten-thirty.”

“Jesus Christ. She follow her home, too?”

“Sure. She stayed there until the girl came out, and the two of them followed her to her apartment.” He shook his head. “That’s when they had a falling out. Marcie and my guy, I mean. This guy, Dan Fuller, figures he found the girl and got her address, that’s the assignment, they should phone it in and go home. Marcie won’t hear of it. What if she doesn’t live there, she’s calling on a girlfriend and ten minutes after they leave she comes out again? Dan argues with her but it’s no go-Marcie’s blown it once, she’s not gonna blow it again, and the long and short of it is Dan hangs it up and Marcie sits there all night watching the apartment.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all.”

“Why didn’t she phone in and ask for instructions?”

“Switchboard’s closed that time of night. Service picks up, and they’ll ring me if it’s an emergency. Marcie doesn’t figure it’s an emergency, just routine. Actually, she couldn’t bear to ring me at midnight to tell me she’d