Strip for Violence | Page 9

when it happened.
Little lower and it would have ploughed through me."
"If it hit the bottom pane, then it must have come up, from the street," I
said, brightly, pulling up the blinds. He had a nice view, nothing around
but open lots and private houses. I could see the Empire State from his
window, and part of the Hudson and New Jersey.
Will said, "The view is worth walking all them stairs. Hey, want to see
something real good?" He took an old pair of binoculars out of a desk

drawer, handed them to me and pointed to a tennis court about six
blocks away. The glasses were powerful, I could plainly see a girl in
white shorts banging a tennis ball against the side of a small house. She
had her back to me, but her legs were lean and muscular, and her small
breasts jumped against her T-shirt.
"Man, you should see the broads there on a Sunday," Will said,
winking like a school boy. "That one you see now, she's there all the
time."
"Nice-looking dish," I said, scanning the rest of the area. "Any building
or excavating near here?" He said no and as I turned to give him the
glasses, I saw part of a pink housecoat in the doorway. Thelma was
listening hard.
Ê
I asked the routine questions, to make it look like I was working and
again he told me the bunk about it only being curiosity on his part. As I
was leaving, Thelma asked if I wanted tea and cake. I told her no, and
Will said to be careful not to lose the sliver of rock. I assured him it
was in my office safe, but when he mentioned the stone Thelma looked
sick and worried.
It was a little after two-thirty when I returned to the office. I couldn't
make Will and his wife, they didn't look the type to be mixed up in
anything shady. Anita was reading a true detective magazine. She
asked if I'd read about this gal working behind a soda counter who
recognized Public Enemy No. 3 by this wart he had on his pinky? Got a
reward of two thousand--"
"Forget it," I said, giving her the sliver. "Knock off for the day and
snoop around Will Johnson's place. Some open lots around there, see if
any of the rocks look like this sample. Ask around if anybody else got
their windows busted. Check with the weather bureau as to what kind
of a day it was a month ago... unless it was real sunny he wouldn't have
the blinds down in the middle of the afternoon."

"This assignment is jazzy as all get-out!"
"Look Humphrey, or are you Robert Ryan this afternoon? The guy is
paying us, we give him a day's work at least. I'm going to hunt for this
Lodge babe, will stop back here before I go home. Call me at six. And
grow up--life isn't all cream puffs and excitement."
She screwed up her cute face at me, pointed to my cheek. "You
shouldn't walk around with lipstick there."
"Where?"
"Here." She kissed me hard on the cheek, pulled away and laughed. She
dropped the rock in her bag and walked out--her hips waving goodbye.

9
I WASHED UP, stopped for coffee and a sandwich, then drove to the
last known address of Marion Lodge, a fairly clean rooming house on
West 22nd Street. The owner vaguely remembered her, thought she had
moved to some place on West 67th Street. There, I had to show her
picture to a dozen candy store and newsstand people before one of
them remembered Marion lived in a house down the block. This was a
real flea-hive, stinking of insecticide and the blowsy old bag who ran it
stunk from a lot of other things. It was a small apartment house that had
been made into rooms and she said she had seen too many people come
and go to recall any. A couple of bucks acted as a refresher course:
Marion had fallen behind in her rent, been locked out. A month later
Marion had sent the back rent and a truck called for her two suitcases.
"Don't know why she bothered, nothing in them but cheap rags and...
What? Aw, how do you expect me to remember the name of the
trucking company? Some big truck all painted a baby blue..."
At a bar I got a handful of dimes and started calling the various moving
companies in the phone directory, asking what color their vans were
painted. A buck-twenty later I struck pay dirt. The rest was easy--the
company kept records and I found Marion had moved up in the

world--to a high-priced brownstone on East 71st Street.