This Dame for Hire (6 page)

I picked up West’s, fanned them out like a poker hand, and felt myself starting to steam. I looked at Birdie’s scratching of the times and saw that they’d come in fifteen-minute intervals.

I went out to talk to her. We didn’t have an intercom, something I kept meaning to get.

“Birdie, tell me why ya didn’t put all of West’s calls on one sheet?”

“Well
you
got up on the wrong side of the bed, dincha?”

“Give it a rest. Why didn’t ya do it?”

“Ya never told me to do it that way, Faye.”

Her eyes were filling, and I knew I couldn’t take that. Besides, I
was
being a grouse. “Okay, okay.”

“Who ya really got a beef with, Faye?”

“Porter West for one. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. What did he say when he called?”

“Just asked for you, and when I told him ya wasn’t in he’d ask me the time.”

“And?”

“And I’d tell him.” She shrugged her padded shoulders.

“Then what?”

“Then he’d make a snortin sound and hang up.”

“Every time?”

“Yup.”

“Didn’t say what he wanted?”

“I’d tell ya if he said something else, Faye.”

“Yeah. Sure you would. I know that.”

She took out a lace handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. I felt like a brute.

“My makeup mussed?” she asked.

“No. It’s perfect. I’m sorry I yelled.”

“That’s okay.”

“Nah. It’s not okay. You’re the best secretary a girl could have, and I don’t wanna lose ya.”

“Ah, Faye. I’m in for the long haul. Don’t worry.”

“Still and all, Bird, I had no call to treat ya that way.”

She smiled and nodded, and I smiled, then started toward my office.

“Faye? I got a phone number for Brian Wayne. In fact, eight of them.”

“Eight?”

“That’s how many was in the directory.”

“You write them down?”

“Yeah. Here.”

“Thanks, kid. And the next time West calls tell me.”

Back at my desk I lit a Camel and went over the addresses and phone numbers of the Brian Waynes. A wild guess told me he didn’t live on Sutton Place, but I didn’t scratch it out . . . just put a question mark next to it. I did the same with the one in Harlem. I settled on one in the Village. I knew I didn’t have to do it this way cause I could go to the college and ask to see him. But I wanted to stake him out a couple a days before I met him.

I heard the phone ring, and Birdie picked it up. Then I heard the
click-clack
of her heels on the floor as she came toward my office. She rapped once and opened the door.

“It’s him,” she said.

I nodded my thanks and picked up the horn. “Hello,” I said, like I didn’t know who it was.

“It’s about time,” West said.

“Beg your pardon?”

“I’ve been calling you all day and you’re never there.”

I stubbed out my cig and lit another.

“Are you there?” West asked.

“I’m here and I’m tryin to cool down.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Mr. West, first ya shouldn’t even be callin me, unless ya got a hot tip. Do ya?”

There was silence at the other end. Then he coughed.

“Well, do ya?”

“No. But why haven’t you been in your office?”

“I don’t solve crimes in my office, Mr. West. This is not a job where I come in nine to five. I’m out on the streets, gettin the poop, trackin down leads, doin interviews. Get it?”

“Who have you interviewed besides Cotten?”

“This isn’t the deal we cut, Mr. West. I agreed to call ya once a day . . . at the end of my day startin tonight. But you’ve called me ten times already today. Not to mention last night. Now either we stick to that plan or you get another PI, and I can tell ya right now, nobody’s gonna agree to your terms.”

Silence.

I waited.

Finally, he said, “You have no idea what this is like.”

He sounded so pitiful my heart went out to him. I softened my tone. “No, I don’t know what it’s like. But it must be terrible.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. West, I couldn’t possibly know what you’re feelin cause I don’t have kids. But I can imagine. It’s one of the reasons I took your case. Even so, we gotta have ground rules, and you gotta stick to them and let me do my job.”

“Yes.”

“I promise to call ya every night and like I told ya, that’s not somethin I usually do. And I’ll add this. If somethin bowls me over I’ll let ya know right away. How’s that seem?”

“That . . . that seems fair.”

“Good. Now listen, I’ve been out there talkin and gettin leads, but I don’t have anything to tell ya yet. And even if nothin else happens today, I’ll phone ya tonight like we agreed.”

“All right. I’ll wait for your call then.”

“Fine. I better go now.”

“All right.”

“Goodbye, Mr. West.”

He mumbled a goodbye, and I hung up. I took a drag of my butt, then squashed it in my ashtray. I felt sorry for the guy, but I hoped I’d gotten through to him.

I went back to the Brian Waynes and dialed the one in the Village. A woman answered.

“Hello,” I said. “Is this the residence of the Brian Wayne who teaches at NYU?”

“Who’s calling?”

I made up a name.

“And who are you?” she asked.

“I’m an old friend. We went to the same high school. Haven’t seen each other in a dog’s age. So is he there?”

Silence.

“Is this Mrs. Wayne?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Do I have the right phone number?”

“You do.”

I smiled. Got it on the first try. Hardly ever happened. “Is your husband there, Mrs. Wayne?”

“No.”

“You know where I can find him?”

“He’s probably at the university.”

“Probably?”

“Brian doesn’t live here anymore.”

“I see.”

“I doubt that,” she said.

I didn’t tumble to her cue. “How long has he been livin elsewhere?”

“I don’t have to talk to you, so I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait. It’s true ya don’t have to talk to me, but could ya tell me where he’s livin now?”

She didn’t answer, and I thought she was gonna hang up, but after a few seconds she said, “I have no idea.” Then she
did
hang up.

No two ways about it, I’d have to go to the school on Washington Square. Since he was a literature professor that was the branch where he was most likely to be found.

I returned my friend Janice’s call, and we made our usual plans to meet at Chumley’s in the Village. Anne wasn’t home and neither was Marlene Hayworth. I hoped she wasn’t gonna cancel my meeting with Gregory Flynn that night.

I heard the phone ring again, and Birdie shouted: “Faye, it’s Marty Mitchum.” Who needed an intercom when Birdie had a voice like Betty Hutton?

I picked up.

Marty said, “I got some dope, Faye.”

“Shoot.”

“Funny the Wests didn’t tell ya about it.”

“Tell me about what?”

“What was in the autopsy report.”

He was getting under my skin. “What was in it?”

“Claudette West was three months pregnant.”

The image of the Wests in my office came back to me. Especially the way he almost imperceptibly shook his head at his wife when I asked if there was anything else I should know.

“Marty, ya sure the Wests knew about this?”

“Oh, they knew, all right. That guy, Mr. West, leaned on Glenn Madison to tell him the whole thing.”

Madison was an assistant to the coroner. It wasn’t anything he’d make up.

Marty said, “I wish we had a way to know who the father was.”

“Yeah. That might give us our killer. Well, there isn’t a way. Did ya find out anything else?”

“There was this other monkey they liked for a few secs.”

“Brian Wayne?”

“Yeah, how’d ya know?”

“I got other sources, Marty.”

“Yeah? Like who?”

I shouldn’t have said that. It made him jealous, and I didn’t want to push him away. I quickly tried to fix it up. “Like the papers.”

“Oh.” He sounded relieved. “So ya know he was her teacher then?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Ya gonna have a sit-down with him?”

“Soon as I can. You got anything else?”

“Ain’t Claudette havin a bun in the oven enough?”

“It’s a doozy all right.”

“Okay, then. I get anything else I’ll phone ya.”

“Right. And thanks, Marty.”

“Yeah,” he said and hung up.

Claudette West pregnant. And the parents knowing all along and not telling me. These were significant things. I supposed that Cotten was the father, but ya never knew. Maybe there was a mystery man in the cast of characters. Did the Wests know who the father was? That would have to wait till later. Right now I wanted to talk to Brian Wayne. The hell with staking him out.

After looking in the phone book I picked up the horn and dialed the university. I got an operator.

“Brian Wayne,” I said.

“I’ll ring him. Hold on, please.”

I didn’t. But now I knew for sure where to find him.

SEVEN

New York University’s buildings were on the north side of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. At the bottom of Fifth Avenue was the so-called entrance to the park, where the Washington Arch stood. It was a copy of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe.

Sometimes on Sundays, when I wasn’t on a case, I’d go to the park with the
New York Times
and sit on the grass or a bench and peruse the paper.

I wouldna minded taking a load off right then so I could watch the citizens making their way to and fro, but I had work to do.

An information desk was right inside the main building, and a gal with cantaloupe-colored hair and a pair of horn-rims sat behind it. If there hadn’t been a war on, a guy woulda been sitting there. I wondered what would happen to all these gals when the boys came home.

“Help you?” she said.

“Yeah. I’d like to see a teacher here, name of Brian Wayne.”

“What department?”

“He teaches literature.”

“That would be the English department,” she said.

“Yeah. Right.”

She rustled through some pages in a binder. “Is Dr. Wayne expecting you?”

The “doctor” didn’t escape me. “No.”

“Can I ask what this is about?”

“No.”

She looked up. Her baby blues behind the glasses were all aflutter. “Well, you can’t expect me to let you see him without knowing the nature of your call, can you?”

I didn’t like doing this, but I could see I didn’t have a choice. I reached in my bag, pulled out my wallet, and showed her my PI license.

“What’s that?”

I told her.

“You’re the police?”

“No. I’m a private investigator. I need to see Wayne to discuss a student of his.”

“
Dr.
Wayne,” she said, her mouth going into a prissy pout.

“Yeah. Him.”

“Well, I suppose since you’re official you can see him without an appointment.”

“Thanks,” I said.

After she rummaged through another binder she told me he wasn’t teaching at the moment and gave me the floor and room number where I could find him.

The elevator man was about a hundred years old. He’d lose his job, too, when the boys came back. He had a face like a beat-up Buster Brown shoe, with eyebrows like John L. Lewis, and his blue uniform draped his frame like he was a human hanger.

I told him which floor, and we were off. He drove that thing like it was a hot rod. When we stopped at my floor, he jolted it so much that I’m pretty sure I left the ground for a second.

He opened the doors and we were about two feet above the floor. I cracked a smile, but he didn’t move to close the doors and try for a better landing.

“You expect me to jump?” I asked.

“Do as you please,” he said.

“I’m not jumpin.”

He shrugged. “You want to go back downstairs?”

“No. I want you to get this thing even with the floor.”

“I suppose I can try.”

If he hadn’t been so old I woulda popped my cork. “Yeah. Try, please.”

He shut the doors, heaved a huge sigh, and grabbed the stick that made it go.

I don’t know how many times we bounced, but when we finally made our landing and the doors opened, the space between elevator and floor was about six inches.

“Good enough for you?” he asked.

I wanted out, so I stepped up to the floor. I turned back to face him. “I just want ya to know that was the worst elevator ride I’ve ever had and I consider the whole thing a hijackin.”

“Good for you,” he said and closed the doors in my face.

I guess he knew he had his employers by the short and curlies and if I reported him nothing would happen. The hell with it.

I looked both ways to see how the numbers were going and took a left. When I got to Room 504, I put my ear against the wooden door and listened. There was muffled sound, but I couldn’t make it out. So I knocked. The sounds from inside stopped. I knocked again.

“Yes, who is it?” said a male voice I took to be Wayne’s.

I told him who I was.

Another silence.

“Dr. Wayne?”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m with a student now.”

“I’ll wait,” I said.

“Well . . . well, all right. We’ll just be a moment.”

“That’s okay. I got all day.” I wanted to be accommodating so he’d be more willing to answer some questions.

I couldn’t help hearing some strange sounds from inside, like they were rushing around or something. I wanted to believe it was the gathering of books and papers.

Not too much time passed before the door was unlocked (that it was locked struck me as strange) and the good doctor and his student stood in front of the closed door.

She was a babe in the woods and had what they called a pert little nose. Her hair was blonde, and her lips were cherry-colored. She wore a red-and-white-checked dress with a scalloped collar. In her arms, crossed in front of her, she balanced a large black notebook with two other books stacked on top. Her pretty face had a rosy hue, and she never once looked at me.

“Thanks for your help, Dr. Wayne.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Bergman.”