The waiter cleared the fish and put down the salad, spinach leaves with raw mushrooms in a lemon and oil dressing. I took a bite. So-so. “I assume the films were what I used to call dirty movies when I was a kid.”
She smiled. “It is getting awfully hard to decide, isn’t it? They were erotic films. But of good quality, sold by subscription.”
“Black socks, garter belts, two girls and a guy? That kind of stuff?”
“No, as I said, tasteful, high quality, good color and sound. No sadism, no homosexuality, no group sex.”
“And Donna was in some?”
“She was in one, shortly before she left me. The pay was good, and while it was a lot of work, it was a bit of a change for her. Her film was called Suburban Fancy. She was quite believable in it.”
“What did you tell the man who came asking?”
“I told him that he was under some kind of false impression. That I knew nothing about the films or the young lady involved. He became somewhat abusive, and I had to call for Steven to show him out.”
“I heard this guy was pretty tough,” I said.
“Steven was armed,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “How come you didn’t have Steven show me out?”
“You did not become abusive.”
The entree came. Duck in a fig and brandy sauce for me, striped bass in cucumber and crabmeat sauce for her. The duck was wonderful.
I said, “You sell these films by subscription.” She nodded. “How’s chances on a look at the subscription list?”
“None,” she said.
“No chance?”
“No chance at all. Obviously you can see my situation.
Such material must remain confidential to protect our clients.”
“People do sell mailing lists,” I said.
“I do not,” she said. “I have no need for money, Mr.
Spenser.”
“No, I guess you don’t. Okay, how about I name a couple of people and you tell me if they’re on your list? That doesn’t compromise any but those I suspect anyway.”
There were carrots in brown sauce with fresh dill and zucchini in butter with the entree, and Patricia Utley ate some of each before she answered. “Perhaps we can go back to my home for brandy after dinner and I’ll have someone check.”
For dessert we had clafoutis, which still tastes like blueberry pancakes to me, and coffee. The coffee was weak.
The bill was $119 including tip.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS SUNSET when the plane swung in over the water and landed at La Guardia Airport. I took the bus into the East Side terminal at Thirty-eighth Street and a cab from there to the Holiday Inn at West Fifty-seventh Street. The Wiener schnitzel had been so good in Redford, I thought I might as well stay with a winner.
The West Side hadn’t gotten any more fashionable since I had been there last and the hotel looked as if it belonged where it was. The lobby was so discouraging that I didn’t bother to check the dining room for Wiener schnitzel.
Instead, I walked over to a Scandinavian restaurant on Fiftyeighth Street and ravaged its smorgasbord.
The next morning I made some phone calls to the New York Department of Social Services while I drank coffee in my room. When I finished I walked along Fifty-seventh Street to Fifth Avenue and headed downtown. I always walk in New York. In the window of F.A.O. Schwarz was an enormous stuffed giraffe, and Brentano’s had a display of ethnic cookbooks in the window. I thought about going in and asking them if they were a branch of the Boston store but decided not to. They probably lacked my zesty sense of humor.
It was about nine forty-five when I reached Thirtyfourth Street and turned left. Four blocks east, between Third and Second avenues, was a three-story beige brick building that looked like a modified fire station. The brown metal entrance doors, up four stairs, were flanked with flagpoles at right angles to the building. A plaque under the right- hand flagpole said CITY OF NEW YORK, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES, YORKVILLE INCOME MAINTENANCE CENTER. I went in.
It was a big open room, the color a predictable green; molded plastic chairs in red, green, and blue stood three rows deep to the right of the entrance. To the left a low counter.
Behind the counter a big black woman with blue-framed glasses on a chain around her neck was telling an old woman in an ankle-length dress that her check would come next week and would not come sooner. The woman protested in broken English, and the woman behind the desk said it again, louder. At the end of the counter, sitting in a folding chair, was a New York City cop, a slim black woman with badge, gun, short hair, and enormous high platform shoes. Beyond the counter the room L’d to the left, and I could see office space partitioned off. There was no one else on the floor.
Behind me, to the right of the entry, a stair led up. A handprinted sign said FACE TO FACE UPSTAIRS with an arrow. I went up. The second floor had been warrened off into cubicles where face to face could go on in privacy. The first cubicle was busy; the second was not. I knocked on the frame of the open door and went in. It was little
