This Girl for Hire (2 page)

When we reached Long Beach, the rain stopped and the wheels of Mark's car whined dismally on the slick pavement. I listened to the sound for a long time and then said, “Sure, I feel bad about Herb Nelson. I feel partially responsible that he's dead. Wouldn't anybody under the same circumstances?”

Mark kept his eyes on the windshield-wiped panorama of street lights that faintly illuminated Anaheim Street in Long Beach. “Honey, why don't you get out of this business? What are you trying to prove?”

“What do you think?”

“So your father was murdered! That's no reason to keep banging your head against the wall!”

I jerked around in the seat as if I felt the same bullet which had ended Hank West's career in a dirty Los Angeles back alley. “You've got a lot of guts to tell me what I ought to do—where I ought to get off! Sure, I'm a woman! I act like a woman, think like a woman, look like a woman, but I'm mixed up in a rotten dirty business that men think they own by right of conquest! But you've never stopped to consider that half the crimes in the United States today are committed by women—and half of those committed by men are provoked by women. So where does that leave you? In a business operated seventy-five percent by females! All right, so you don't think I'm nice. What are you going to do about it?”

Mark looked at me with the contemptible
expression of a man who hates himself because he doesn't understand why he likes something he thinks he should hate. “The only thing nice about you,” he said hotly, “are your legs. You should have been a chorus girl.”

The left-handed compliment bounced off me like buckshot off a fleeing watermelon thief. It went just far enough in to hurt. “Thanks,” I murmured. “If the opportunity ever arises, I'll take advantage of it.”

“I'm sure you will,” Mark said, spinning the wheels and pulling to the curb outside my office.

I opened the door and stepped out, a jolting angry step that rang on the cement. Mark followed me up the stair way to the third floor. At the end of the hall was a glass door with the words,
H. WEST, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR
painted in gold-leaf serif letters.

Mark gestured at the door. “You see, you don't even have the guts to let 'em know you're a woman before they walk in.”

“I'm not in this business for my health,” I said, inserting my key into the lock.

“What are you in it for?” Mark demanded hotly.

I didn't bother to answer. I was in this business for a lot of reasons, many of which he knew but refused to accept. I was tired of being accused, insulted and pushed around for doing a job men considered wrong for a woman.

The office was cold and damp. A brassiere hung out of an open desk drawer where I'd left it during a quick change earlier in the day.

Mark casually walked over
and lifted the article of clothing up. “What kind of business did you say you were running?”

I slammed the door. “You want to know something, Lieutenant?” I said. “I'm going to find the person who murdered Herb Nelson, and when I do I'm going to take that piece of underwear and wrap it around your big thick neck!”

Mark threw down the bra and a grin spread across face. “That's a deal!” he said.

H
ERB
N
ELSON'S BRUTAL MURDER MADE BIG HEADLINES
the next morning. The Los Angeles press called it, “The worst crime since the Black Dahlia!”

One of the major newspapers handled the story
pictorially with two pages of photos, including one gruesome posed shot of Herb Nelson's blood-stained hand clutching his Academy Award Oscar.

Rain continued to pour from the stormy sky, filling the gutters. After breakfast I called Fred Sims, an old friend of mine who was a reporter on the
Long Beach Press-Telegram
. Fred walked with a cane, but still managed to cover every inch of mayhem committed in Southern California. He said he was going to have break fast at a hamburger joint on the Pike and asked me to join him for a cup of coffee.

We sat under a badly worn awning while Fred munched on a sandwich. Finally, he muttered, “Herb Nelson was a client of yours?”

“Yeah.”

“You got an exclusive story
for me?”

“Nope.”

Fred pulled his lean, slightly bent frame around in his seat. He had deep, steel-gray eyes that ate through a person like acid through a piece of tin. “Well, what do you want?”

I created a few half-gestures that were reminiscent of a tired seagull about to set down on the water for a rest. “I hate to admit it, but I need some advice, Fred.”

He grinned, lifted up his cane and took a practiced sight, one eye narrowed on the careening, empty roller-coaster cars in the distance.

“How old are you, Honey?” he asked.

“Twenty-eight. Now come on, Fred, let's not kid around—”

“You want my advice?”

“Well sure, but—”

The crippled newspaperman lowered his cane and rapped it on the cement “Look, I don't have time to kid with you or anyone else. Now do you want my advice or not?”

He sounded like a soldier I'd read about during the war who refused to quit in the face of tremendous odds and led an infantry assault with his leg practically blown off. The soldier's name had been Fred Sims, and he hadn't changed a bit. He still refused to listen to any one or wait for an answer. “Go to Hollywood,” he said.

“What?”

“Close up your office for a couple of weeks. Go to Hollywood and get a job.”

“What for?” I demanded.

Fred chewed on some soggy potato
chips, then shoved the plate away. “You want to find Nelson's murderer, don't you?”

“Of course—”

“What do you measure, Honey?”

“What?”

“What do you measure?”

“Where?”

He smiled, got up and with the aid of his cane, circled my chair. “Everywhere,” he said pointedly.

“What's that got to do—”

“Answer my question!” he barked stubbornly.

I groaned. “38-22-36. Five feet five. One hundred and twenty pounds. Normal childhood diseases. No dimples. Small birthmark on inside of right thigh. Parents both dead. No known living relatives.” I stood up and snapped him a salute. “Anything else, General?”

“Yeah, can you act?”

“Of course not I've never been on a stage in my life.”

“That doesn't matter. With your taffy-colored hair, blue eyes and baby-bottom complexion, you ought to set Hollywood on fire with your looks alone.”

“Thanks, pal,” I said, “but who would hire me? There must be a thousand real-live dolls living in Hollywood and starving. It's a great idea. Sure, if I could get into the studios through the actor's entrance instead of through the private eye's keyhole, I'd probably land something fast. But without experience I wouldn't get past the casting desk.”

Fred wiped his eyes with the back of his
hand. “Yeah, ‘I guess you're right. Well, it was a good idea while it lasted. Would have made a great story. Terrific headline. Succulent Shamus Shucks Stiletto for Stardom.”

“Very funny.”

We started back toward town, Fred's metal-tipped cane cracking hollowly on the cement. Thoughts about Herb Nelson's blowup at Television Riviera drummed the same rhythmic cadence in my head. Was the killer affiliated with Bob Swanson's TV show? Was he the director, the producer, the cameraman?”

Sunlight broke through brightening the dull sky as Fred turned off down Ocean Avenue. He grinned, threw me a kiss and vanished in the mid-day crowd.

I continued on to my building, climbed the two flights of stairs and tried the doorknob. It wouldn't budge. The office door was never locked during the day, but apparently I'd been careless this time and snapped the latch on my way out to see Fred.

I rummaged futilely in my bag for the key. Then, recalling that one of my office windows opened onto the fire escape, I went downstairs, around to the alley and climbed up the metal staircase to the third floor.

The window was open just wide enough for me to squeeze through on my stomach.

When I got inside and turned around, the cold ugly snout of a gun was pressed squarely between my eyes.

Looking up the barrel of a loaded revolver is an experience not many people have the opportunity to put into words. For a long instant I was speechless.

Then I managed to say something
which didn't make any sense at all, except that it was the truth. “I—haven't paid my insurance premium this month.”

“What do you want?” a male voice snapped.

“I might ask you the same question. This is my office.”

“Your—” the voice stopped. What are you talking about? This is H. West's office. He's a private detective.”

“He was,” I said, “until somebody did what you look as if you're planning to do.”

“You mean there is no H. West? He's dead?”

“That's right,” I said. “I'm his daughter. The name's Honey. I'm running the business now.”

The revolver lifted up, and the hand that was holding it tossed the weapon on my desk. I focused in on a short dark mustache, a large hooked nose and a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses. “I—I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't know. I thought you were somebody else.”

“Who were you expecting?” I asked, trying to shake off the tingle in my spine.

“Bob Swanson. He's trying to kill me.”

“Bob Swanson? The TV actor?”

The man with the mustache had curly black hair and he ran his fingers through it nervously. “Yeah, the very same. My name's Aces—Sam Aces. I produce his show.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I—I need help. No kidding. Somebody followed me from L.A. Even came into this building. That's why I locked the door. I figured when H. West came back he'd use a key. Then you appeared at the window and I got all shook up, grabbed
the gun and—”

“Why do you think Swanson wants to kill you?”

Aces nervously lit two cigarettes and handed me one of them. “He'd like to get me out and produce the show himself.”

“There must be an easier way!” I said suspiciously.

“I own the rights to the show. Besides, I got a long-term contract with WBS-TV. He couldn't budge me any other way. He's tried to poison me twice.”

I drew a mental picture of the TV star, Bob Swanson. He was the athletic type with a round boyish face and muscular arms. “I've watched him on television,” I said. “He doesn't strike me as the poison type. A golf club in a dark alley, maybe. He could always say he was having a couple of practice shots and didn't see you.”

Aces blew a few smoke rings. Then he said, “Two weeks ago I was working late in Studio Sixteen. I thought everyone had gone home hours before. Suddenly old B.S. came staggering in out of nowhere with a couple of drinks in his chubby little fists. He said he'd been around the corner at a bar called the Golden Slipper lapping up a few when he thought about poor old Sammy back at the studio. He handed me a drink. It was a screwdriver. That's all I ever drink. Anything with orange juice. So I faked a healthy swallow and sent him on his merry way. The next morning I had the contents of that glass analized. It was loaded with four grains of white arsenic.”

“Did this report reach the police?” I demanded.

“Yes,” Aces said quickly. “Naturally I didn't cooperate when I learned Max Decker, the owner
of WBS-TV, had been with Swanson when that drink was ordered.”

“You don't think Decker—?”

“I don't know,” Aces said, stubbing out his cigarette. “Max has never been fond of me. So you can see what would have happened if I'd spilled my story to the police. They'd have brought Decker in, too. Max wouldn't like that sort of thing. If I couldn't have proved absolutely it was Swanson who loaded that drink—long-time con tract or not—Decker and B.S. would have killed me in the TV field.”

“You would have been killed, period, if you'd downed that screwdriver,” I said.

“Yeah, I know, and that's what brings me here. Last night we did a live Swanson show themed around a bathing-beauty contest. The winner was supposed to be signed to a six-week contract. But we couldn't get together on the choice. Before the show we held the judging in Decker's office. Max liked one, B.S. liked another and me, well, hell, I didn't really care just so we got the show on the road. I got pretty nervous so I went downstairs to a little juice bar on the first floor. I ordered my usual when B.S. suddenly appeared. We got into an argument about the judging and I guess I wasn't watching him too closely. Next thing I knew he'd gone back up to the studio, leaving me with the ultimatum that if I didn't bring a winner up in five minutes he'd person ally knock my brains out. So I gulped down the orange juice and rushed upstairs. I folded up right in the middle of Decker's office.”

I said, “You figure Swanson slipped something in
your drink during the argument?”

“That's what I don't know. Ann Claypool, one of the bathing-beauty contestants, grabbed a glass of milk and forced some down my throat. I was sick as a dog for a few minutes, then I felt fine.”

“Did you feel stomach pains after drinking the orange juice?”

“I felt something,” Aces said, “but I don't know whether it was really pain or just in my mind.”

“But the milk,” I said. “It caused a reaction.”

“I'm allergic to milk. It makes me deathly ill.”

“Did you know Herb Nelson?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, growing solemn. “I was a good friend to Herb Nelson. We worked together years ago when I was producing at Metro. In fact, I was the guy who dug up the script that won him an Academy Award.”

“What caused the argument last month when Herb tore up the studio at Television Riviera?”

Aces didn't hesitate. “Swanson, as usual. I hired Herb for a bit part—an old broken-down comedian. He needed work bad and was drinking pretty heavy. Well, old B.S. bitched when he saw what a tremendous actor Herb was. He criticized Herb, changed his part, made a fool out of him. Herb finally blew his top. He told old B.S. off and then started wrecking the set. We had to call the cops.”