I tossed the papers in the receptacle outside the elevator, then walked down the corridor of the old Hackard Building to my office, and opened the door.
No day can be all bad. This one blossomed like a rose in sunlight because Velda was bent over filing papers in the lower drawer of a file cabinet with her back toward me, standing with that stiff-kneed dancer’s stance, feet together, and no woman in the world has legs like she has. Those calves and thighs, and the lush globes they led to, came from an era when women were fully-fleshed and the posture she was maintaining would be damn near obscene if it weren’t unintentional. And what this big luscious brunette could do to a simple white silk blouse, a black pencil skirt and nylons was sheer sexual alchemy.
She heard me, glanced around and stood up quickly, almost having the decency to blush. Almost.
I said, “Didn’t anybody ever warn you about picking up the soap in the shower, doll?”
“A guy could knock,” she said.
“And then a guy would miss the sweetest surprises.” I pushed the door shut. “Besides, I’m a true connoisseur of the female form.”
“I noticed.”
“I think of it as living erotic art.”
Her mouth pursed into an amused kiss. “Do you now?”
I tossed my hat on her desk, slung my hip on the edge and picked up my mail. “Anything come in?”
Velda tugged her skirt down, got back behind her desk and said, “A couple of bills, two checks and a referral from the Smith-Torrence Agency.”
“Referral, huh?”
“It’s in that stack there.”
I sorted the envelopes and fingered out the agency one. “What’s with Smitty, anyway, calling me in? He knows I don’t handle auditing cases.”
“Well, read it and see.”
I yanked out the letter and glanced at it. “Hell, it’s six pages long and starts with his latest fishing trip. I wouldn’t want to read about my own fishing trip. Brief me.”
Velda reached out, took the letter and selected the last page. “Smith-Torrence has a request for the kind of thing they don’t handle. Seems one Leif Borensen has security needs.”
Sitting perched where I’d been when Woodcock came in yesterday, I glanced back at her and asked, “Where do I know that name from?”
“You got me,” she said with a shrug. “I never heard it before, and haven’t had time to run a check.”
“Don’t bother. If I decide to take this, Smitty will fill me in. Just give me the basics, baby.”
She shrugged again. “Borensen’s somebody with money who’s getting married. He wants security in attendance at his fiancée’s bridal shower. It’s at the Waldorf.”
I made a face. “If it’s a female shindig, you should take the gig.”
Velda shrugged again. “Smitty says he needs a security man. I’d never pass the physical.”
“Truer words.”
She flipped a hand. “Anyway, if we’re talking high society, the gifts could be worth a small fortune and the gals in attendance might be swimming in jewelry, and not the paste variety. My guess is that we should both be working it.”
Like I said, Velda was no mere secretary. She was a full partner in this firm. Some day I’d make her a full partner period.
I swiftly scanned the paragraphs she indicated and let out a snort of disgust. “Why pass this on to me? If this guy Borensen wants to make a show of it, he’ll want uniformed guards. Burns or Pinkerton make those scenes. I’ll look like a damn clown in that circle.”
She shook her head and grinned at me. “Quit being touchy about your obvious lack of class. If you’d read the letter, you’d see that the client doesn’t want to be ostentatious. He just wants somebody handy to avoid pilfering by the hotel staff and in the unlikely event of a robbery. Nothing you haven’t done before.”
I said, “Back when I was scratching out a living, maybe.”
“You’re not all that rich yet.”
“Balls.”
“See what I mean about your lack of class? Anyway, Smitty’s doing you a favor.” She nodded toward the bullet hole in the wall behind her, and gestured toward the faint red smear across the way, made by Woodcock’s insides. “Your recent surge of publicity gives you a stigma that may be off-putting to a certain breed of client.”
“Where would I be,” I said, “without you to cut me down to size.”
Her smile had something impish in it. “I’m the only person in town who would have taken a bet that you could have wiped that Woodcock character out the way you did — a guy with a gun in his hand, facing you down like that.” Her eyes grew grave. “Listen, Mike, I’m sorry about...”
I swung around so I was sitting on the side edge of the desk now and rested my left hand against the top so I could lean in and face her. “Forget it, kitten.”
“I put you in that spot. I can’t believe I left that door unlocked when I left.”
“Your girl friend had a doctor’s appointment and needed your support. You were distracted, and you’re human. I said forget it and I mean forget it.”
She touched my hand. “I appreciate that, Mike. I’m supposed to be as professional as you are, and—”
“Honey, stop. How did that come out, anyway? With your friend, Karen?”
Her big brown eyes were pearled with tears; her lush, red-lipsticked mouth went crinkly with a smile. “It was benign. She’s all in the clear.”
“That’s great. That’s fantastic to hear.”
The emotional moment over, Velda smirked up at me. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me how this played out.”
“I should be dead,” I admitted. “He was a contract man with a long list of kills. Somebody paid him to lay me out, but he got chatty and gave me a window.”
I told her the rest of the story, including what Pat had come up with on Mr. Woodcock, formerly of Chicago, formerly not shot to shit.
When I finished, her brow creased with suspicion and she said, “Mike — are you into something I don’t know about?”
I shook my head.
Her eyes narrowed. “Then... any ideas what this could be?”
“Not a one.”
“You wouldn’t kid a girl.”
“Sure I would. But I’m not.”
She gave me a humorless smile. “Well, you don’t seem very damn worked up about it.”
“That’s close to what Pat said.” I picked a loose cigarette from my coat pocket and held a match to it.
“I wish you hadn’t started that up again,” she said with a mild frown.
“What, smoking? You think this is what’s gonna kill Mike Hammer? You shouldn’t have told me I was getting a paunch. These coffin nails are my diet pills.”
“It does seem like it helped fake out that hitman. A glass ashtray in the head can daze a person.”
“Damn straight.” I blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, then said, “A lot of guys would pay to have me dead sooner than cigs can make me that way, kiddo. Some I helped send up might be out by now and getting the loot together to pay for the job. A relative of somebody I knocked off could feel it’s his duty to take care of me before he kicked his own pail over. Maybe it’s a longtime grudge deal. Hell, I don’t know and I don’t give much of a damn. I’m no kid any more, and if there’s any survival pattern needed here, I picked up on it a long time ago. This is a pretty stinking goddamn world when you consider our end of the business, but if somebody wants to pay to bump me, then he’d better have one piss-pot of money to put on the line.”