"Yeah. She's missing and Harry's worried. Tell me, have you seen him in prison?"
"Twice. I went up there on other business and took the time to say hello."
"He mention anything?" I asked him.
"Only that things were fine, his sister came to see him often and he was working toward a parole. You can't always tell, but he seemed convinced that crime was more trouble than it was worth. In fact, he even asked about you. Once he called you a 'nice bastard' because you could have killed him and didn't."
I stuck a butt in my mouth and lit it. "There's an odd factor here, you know?"
"The way Harry Service contacted you?"
"He could have gone through you."
Harney let out a grunt and shook his head. "You know those guys, Mike. I represent the law. Face it, in your own peculiar way, you don't. With your reputation you're closer to being one of their own kind. I can see his point. Now, what can I do to help out?"
"Get a line on Greta Service and buzz me." I grinned a little and added, "I'll split the fee when Harry gets out."
For a few seconds Harney studied my face. "You got more going than Harry Service, haven't you?"
"I don't know. There's a possibility. At least we can wrap up this bit for Old Harry."
"You don't owe him anything."
"He asked me for a favor."
A small twitch of humor touched the corner of his mouth.
"You tough guys are all alike."
"Will do?" I asked.
"Will do," he said.
Greenwich Village is a state of mind. Like Hollywood. There really isn't such a place left any more. It exists in the memories of the old ones and in the misconceptions of the new ones. It's on the map and in the vocabulary, but the thing that made Hollywood and the Village has long since gone and thousands prowl the area where they once were, looking for the reality but finding only the shadow.
A few landmarks are still around the streets do their jig steps and the oddball characters wrapping up their life on canvas or in unpublished manuscripts are attractions for the tourists. But the city is too big and too fast-growing to contain a sore throat and coughed-up phlegm. The world of commerce has moved in, split it with the beatniks who clutched for a final handhold, and tolerates it because New York still needs a state of mind to retain its image while the computers finally take over.
For those who lived there, night, like Gaul, was divided into three parts. The realists occupied it early, the spectators came to browse during the second shift, then the others waited for the all-clear to sound and came out of the dream world to indulge their own fantasies.
I sat in a smoke-shrouded bar nursing a highball, watching the third stage drift in. Since midnight I had been buying the bartender a drink every third round and the last hour he had been getting friendly enough to pour me a legitimate jolt and spend time down at my end growling about the type of trade he had to put up with. After a couple paid for beer in nickels and pennies he came back, mopped down in front of me, moving my bills out of the way and said, "What are you doing here? You're from uptown, ain't you?"
"Way uptown."
"This place gives me the creeps," he said. "I shoulda stayed with the Department of Sanitation. My old lady didn't like being married to a garbage man. Now look. I serve garbage to garbage. Damn, what a life."
"It's tough all over."
"You looking for action?"
"That I can get uptown."
His eyes ran over my face. "I seen you before. You with the Vice Squad?"
"Hell no."
"Too bad. You'd have a ball in this place only you'd never have jail room." He stopped and squinted at me. "Where did I see you?"
I flipped one of my cards out of my coat pocket and held it out.
"Ain't that something," he said. "I knew I seen you someplace. What's with this joint?"
"The end of the road, looks like. I've been trying to run down, Greta Service all night."
"So why didn't you ask?"
"You know her?"
The guy hunched his shoulders and spread his hands out. "She used to come by here some. Lived a few blocks over, I think. She in a jam?"
"Not that I know of. Her brother wants to locate her."
"The one who got pinched? Hey...you were on that job, weren't you?"
"I nailed him. Now he wants me to find her."
"Boy, she ain't been around a while. She moved outa her pad down here, but came back sometimes for hellos. Went native once."
"What?"
"You know, hanging on the arm of some gook with a funny hat. He wasn't no American. The guy had bucks and shelled it out, but when she started mixing it with some of her old friends he made her cut out."
"Recognize him?"
The guy picked up the bar rag and mopped at nothing in particular. "Hell, who knows from who around here? They all look alike. Most of that type are down at the Flagstaff anyway. I don't pay no attention to nobody nohow. Stay out of trouble like that."
"Ever see her with anybody else?"
"Couple of times she was with the dykes what come in, only in this joint that ain't unusual. She'd sit with some of the local kids for a few drinks sometimes. Can't say I ever seen her with anyone special except that gook." He picked up my glass, built me a fresh drink on the house and set it down in front of me. He let me taste it, nodded approvingly, and said, "Come to think of it, I stopped by Lew Michi's place after I closed up here and she was with some good-looking dame and one of those foreigners then too. This one didn't wear a gook hat, but he was real native."
"How's that?"
He made another gesture with his hands and said, "You know, dark like, maybe one of those Hindoos or something. They was having a pretty good time, laughing and talking. That was some broad she was with, a real doll. Plenty expensive, too. Some of them tourists come down here dressed like a party at the Ritz."
"Remember when that was?"
The bartender frowned, reached back in thought and told me, "Long time ago. I don't remember seeing her after that at all. Guess she moved out."
I finished the drink and slid a couple of singles across the bar to him. "Not much I can do here then. Thanks for the talk."
"No trouble. Come back any time. Some nights this place gets real jumpy."
I grinned at him. "I bet."
Outside, the night people were rendezvousing on the corners, ready to swing into the usual routine. Headquarters was a bar or a restaurant where they could sip coffee or a beer and talk interminably about nothing anyone else could understand.
A couple of squad cars cruised by slowly, the cops scanning faces, checking each place for trouble before going on. Nobody paid any attention to them at all. I reached Seventh Avenue, turned right and walked south a block toward a cab stand ready to call it a night.
Then I saw Cleo sitting at the end of the bar on the corner and pushed in through the door and sat down beside her.
"Hello, big man," she said without looking up from her paper.
"Got eyes in the back of your head?"
"Nope. Just good peripheral vision." Then she folded the paper with a throaty chuckle and flipped it aside. "You're still haunting our house."
"It's not like the old days, Cleo."
"Things change. Find out anything about Greta?"
"Not much. She didn't leave much to start from." I waved the bartender over and told him to bring me a Four Roses and ginger ale. "You ever know who she worked for?"
Cleo gave me a small negative shake of her head. "She was registered with most of the agencies. I know she got jobs here and there...at least enough to support herself. Most of them were with the garment industry, modeling for the trades. You really have to hustle to make a buck in that business. I sent her up to see Dulcie once..."
"Who?" I interrupted.
"Dulcie McInnes, my boss. Super fashion editor of the Proctor Group. Money, society, international prominence among the fashion set who buy three-thousand-dollar gowns. Greta got her interview, but it ended there. Her appearance was earthy rather than ethereal and the Proctor girls have to be gaunt, long-necked and flat-chested. Greta photographed like a pin-up doll."