The tail, that morning of July fifth, led him directly to the Peabody railroad station. Willis had not anticipated this. He hastily parked the police sedan alongside the red MG and followed Lucy into the waiting room. He hoped to get to the ticket window in time to overhear her destination, but she was just turning away from the counter as he entered the waiting room. He didn’t know whether she’d be heading north or south. South led to the city. North led to the next state and then beyond and beyond and beyond. For all he knew, Lucy Mencken could be heading for Canada, or the North Pole, where she planned to sell bootleg whisky to the Eskimos. Willis shrugged and went to the magazine stand, where he bought a copy of Manhunt. Under guise of reading the magazine, he watched Lucy Mencken.
He was amazed by the number of men she fooled. Surely it did not take a detective to know what the baggy linen suit concealed. Surely John Doe could look at her face and detect sensuality despite the severe hairdo and the absence of makeup. And yet, hardly a man in the waiting room turned for a second look at her. Even when she sat and crossed her legs—and there was, for a moment, the flash of thigh, the exalted glimpse of well-turned knee and calf, before her hand lowered the skirt like a linen curtain—none of the men in the waiting room seemed to care very much. Willis shook his head sadly. We are raising a generation of unobservant, impotent robots, he thought. Thank God for Meyer Meyer, Sire.
He could hear a train in the distance. Lucy Mencken looked at her watch, and then rose from the bench. Willis followed her onto the platform. She was, then, taking the southbound train. The last stop would be the city. Was that her destination, or would she get off at one of the stations along the line?
The train roared into the station, hissing steam, sounding its horn. A rush of air caught at Lucy’s skirt. She backed away slightly, holding the skirt about her legs in a completely feminine gesture. She boarded the train and went directly to a smoking car. Willis followed her, and sat across the aisle and several seats behind her. When the conductor came around, he bought a round-trip ticket to the city. Then he sat back and read his detective magazine, glancing up every now and then to make sure Lucy had not moved.
She did not move until the train reached the city. Then she rose and disembarked.
This is great, Willis thought. We send a tail out to Peabody, and she leads the tail back to the city. Women, women.
He did not enjoy being back in the city. The city was a hell of a lot hotter than the exurbs had been. He cursed his bad luck, and stuck with Lucy Mencken. She caught a cab just outside the station. Willis got into the cab behind hers. He flashed his shield and told the cabbie not to lose her. The cabbie did not. Lucy Mencken’s cab cut through the crosstown traffic heading toward the River Harb. It pulled up in front of an office building on Independence Avenue in midtown Isola. Willis paid his hackie and went into the building after her. He had to run across the lobby in order to get into the same elevator with her.
She wore no perfume. He was standing close enough to her to detect that. He was standing close enough to see that her eyes were a clear blue flecked with tiny chips of white. He was standing close enough to see that her nose was spattered with freckles, and he suddenly wondered if she had originally been a farm girl.
“Eight,” the elevator operator said.
Lucy stepped forward. Willis stepped forward with her. The doors slid open. Lucy stepped into the corridor. Willis waited until she was out of the car, and then followed. He made a great show of studying the numbers on each door he approached, as if he were looking for a specific office. Lucy walked directly to the end of the hall, opened a frosted-glass door, and entered. Willis waited a decent interval, and then went to the end of the hall. The lettering on the door said:
806 PATRICK BLIER Photographers’ Representative
Willis moved away from the door. He walked back to the elevator banks, and then flipped open his pocket pad and jotted down the number and name that had been on the door. He rang for the elevator and went down to the lobby. He checked the building to make sure there was only one entrance, and then went to the phone booths from which he could watch the elevators. Rapidly he dialed Frederick 7-8024.
“Eighty-seventh Precinct, Sergeant Murchison,” the voice answered.
“Dave, this is Willis. Is Hawes upstairs?”
“Hold on a second, Hal. I’ll check.”
Willis waited.
“Eighty-seventh Squad, Detective Hawes,” Hawes said.
“Cotton, this is Hal.”
“Hi. How’s the tail?”
“Fine. You should see it.”
“Pretty?”
“A diamond, once you chip away the coal.”
“Where are you?”
“In the city.”
“Where’s she?”
“1612 Independence Avenue. That’s below the Square, midtown. She’s in Room 806 with a quote photographers’ representative unquote named Patrick Blier. Shall I hit him or maintain the tail?”
“Stay with her, Hal. Buzz me when she leaves, and I’ll go down to see him.”
“I’ll leave the message with the desk,” Willis said. “I won’t have time to exchange cordialities or I’ll lose her. She travels like a bunny.”
“Okay. I’ll ask Dave to let me know as soon as he gets your call. Stay with her, Hal.”
“I’d love to,” Willis said.
“You horny bastard.”
“Horny? I’m red-blooded.”
“I’m tired-blooded,” Hawes said. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Patrick Blier, Photographers’ Representative, was a bald man with a hooked nose. The first impression he gave was of a giant bald eagle. He sat behind his desk in a cubbyhole office the walls of which were covered with photographs of girls in various stages of dress and undress. A metal plaque on his desk announced the fact that he was Mr. P. Blier, in case anyone should accidentally think he was Miss or Mrs. P. Blier. To further eliminate doubt, Patrick Blier wore a transparent sports shirt, short-sleeved, and his chest was matted with thick black hair. His arms curled with the same black hair. A lesser man might have cracked under the pressure of all that hair everywhere but on the head. Patrick Blier didn’t seem to care. He was bald, so he was bald. So what?
“So what do you want?” he asked Hawes when he stepped into the office.
“Didn’t your receptionist tell you?”
“She said a detective was here. You a city cop or a private eye?”
“City.”
“I get a lot of private eyes. They want my clients to take pictures for divorce cases. I explain to them that I ain’t in the habit of breaking down bedroom doors. Private eyes are disgusting. Ain’t nothing sacred? What do you want?”
“Some answers.”
“You got the questions?”