have a pretty good inside track on the Torn gal, both of them being on the police beat. Trouble was, they had to suppress most of it and they were pretty disgusted. Anyway, Eddie mentioned Billy Mist and pointed him out. He was over at the bar and: I turned around to look at him. About then he happened to turn around too, caught me watching him and got the wrong slant on things. He left his drink, came over and handed me the slimiest proposition I ever heard right out in the open. What I told him no lady should repeat, but Eddie and his pal got a little green and I thought the Mist character would pop his buttons. Eddie didn't say much after that. He finished his coffee, paid the check and out they went.'
I could feel my teeth showing through the grin. My chest was tight and things were happening in my head. Velda said, 'Easy, chum.'
I spit the cigarette out and didn't say anything for a minute. Billy Mist, the jerk with the duck's-tail haircut held down with a pound of grease. The tough guy who took what he wanted whenever he wanted. The uptown kid with the big money and the heavy connections.
When I got rid of the things in my head I squinted at her across the table. 'Kitten, don't ever say I'm the guy who goes looking for trouble.'
'Bad, Mike?'
'Bad enough. Mist isn't the type to forget. He can take anything except a slam at his manhood.'
'I can take care of myself.'
'Honey... no dame can take care of herself, including you. Be careful, will you?'
She seemed to smile all over. 'Worried, Mike?'
'Certainly.'
'Love me?'
'Yeah,' I said, 'I love you, but I go for the way you are and not the way you could look if Mist started working you over.' I grinned at her and slapped my hand down over hers. 'Okay, I'm not the romantic type this early and in this place.'
'I don't care.'
She sat there, tall and straight, the black pageboy hair swirling around her shoulders like a waterfall at night with the moon glinting on it. Broad-shouldered, smooth and soft-looking, but firm underneath. She always had that hungry animal quality about her, eyes that drank everything in and when they looked at me seemed to drain me dry. Her mouth was expressive, with full, ripe lips that shone wetly, a crimson blossom that hid even white teeth.
I said it again and this time it sounded different and her fingers curled up over mine and squeezed.
A guy like me doesn't take the kind of look she was giving me very long. I shook my head, got my hand loose and went back to the report she had compiled.
'Let's not get off the track.' Her laugh was a silent thing, but I knew she felt the same way I did. 'We have three names here. What about the other three?'
Velda leaned across the table to see where I was pointing and I had to keep my eyes down. 'Nicholas Raymond was an old flame apparently. She went with him before the war. He was killed in an auto accident.'
It wasn't much, but to pick up details like that takes time. 'Who said?'
'Pat. The police know that much about her.' 'He's really going all out, isn't he?'
'The next one came from him too. Walter McGrath seemed to be another steady she was heavy on. He kept her for about a year during the war. She had an apartment on Riverside Drive then.'
'He local?'
'No, from out of state, but he was in the city often.' 'Business?'
'Lumber. Gray-market operations on steel too. He has a police record.' She saw my eyebrows go up. 'One income-tax evasion, two arrests for disorderly conduct, one conviction and suspended sentence for carrying concealed weapons.'
'Where is he now?'
'He's been in the city here for about a month taking orders for lumber.'
'Nice.' She nodded agreement.
'Who's this Leopold Kawolsky?'
Velda frowned, her eyes turning a little darker. 'I can't figure that one out. Eddie tapped him for me. Right after the war Berga was doing a number in a nightclub and when the place closed down there was a street brawl that seemed to center around her. This guy knocked off a couple of men giving her a hard time and a photog happened along who grabbed a pic for the front page of his tabloid. It was pure sensationalism, but the picture and the name stuck in Eddie's mind. The same thing happened about a month later and one of those kids who snap photos in the night clubs caught the action and submitted it for the usual pay-on-acceptance deals. That's how Eddie remembered who the girl was so well.'
'The guy, honey... what about him?'
'I'm coming to him. From the pictures he looked like an exfighter. I called the sports editor of a magazine and he picked the name out for me. Kawolsky fought under the name Lee Kawolsky for a year and was looking pretty good until he broke his hand in training. After that he dropped out of the picture. Now, about a month and a half after the last public brawl Lee was hit by a truck and killed. Since there were two deaths by cars in the picture I went into the insurance records and went over them carefully. As far as I could tell, or anybody else for that matter, they were accidents, pure and simple.'
'Pure and simple,' I repeated. 'The way it would have to look.'
'I don't think so, Mike.'
'Positive.'
'Good enough.' I ran my eyes over the copy of the medical report, folded it before I finished it and tucked it back into the envelope. 'Brief me on this thing,' I said.
'There really isn't much. She appeared before Dr. Martin Soberin for an examination, he diagnosed her case as extreme nervousness and suggested a rest cure. They mutually agreed on the sanitarium she was admitted to, an examination there confirmed Dr. Soberin's diagnosis and that was that. She was to stay there approximately four weeks. She paid in advance for her treatment.'
If ever there was a mess, this was it. Everything out of place and out of focus. The ends didn't even try to meet. Meet? Hell, they were snarled up so completely nothing made any sense.
'How about this Congressman Geyfey?'
'Nothing special. He was seen with her at a couple of political rallies. The man isn't married so he's clean that way. Frankly, I don't think he knew anything about her.'
'This keeps getting worse.'
'Don't get impatient. We're only getting started. What did Pat have to say about her?'
'It's all in writing. Probably the best parts they're not telling. Except for her connection with Evello she didn't seem to be out of the ordinary for a kid with her tastes. She was born in Pittsburgh in 1920. Her father was Swedish, her mother Italian. She made two trips to Europe, one when she was eight to Sweden, the next one in 1940 to Italy. The jobs she held didn't pay the kind of money she spent, but that's easy to arrange for a babe like that.' 'Then Evello's the connection?'
'Evello's the one,' I said. She looked at my face and her breathing seemed to get heavier. 'He's here in New York. Pat'll give you the address.'
'He's mine then?'
'Until I get around to him.'
'What's the angle?'
'An approach. Better arrange for a regular introduction and let
him do the rest. Find out who his friends are.' Only her eyes smiled. 'Think I can pull it off?' 'You can't miss, baby, you can't miss.'
The smile in her eyes got bigger.
'Where are you carrying the heater, kitten?'
The smile faded then. It got a little bit cold and deadly. 'The shoulder rig. Left side and low down.'
'Nobody'd ever notice, kitten.'
'They're not supposed to,' she said.
We finished eating and went back into the daylight. I watched her get into the cab the way she had got out and when the hack turned the corner I could feel the skin on my shoulder crawl thinking about where she was
