Vengeance Is Mine

I threw in another nickel and spun the dial. Connie was home. She would be glad to see me no matter what the hour was. My voice had a rasp to it and she said, “Anything wrong, Mike?”

“Plenty. I’ll tell you about it when I get there.”

I set some sort of a record getting to her place, leaving behind me a stream of swearing-mad cab drivers who had tried to hog the road and got bumped over to the side for their pains.

A guy had his key in the downstairs door so I didn’t have to ring the bell to get in. I didn’t have to ring the upstairs bell either, because the door was open and when Connie heard me in the hall she shouted for me to come right in.

I threw my hat on the chair, standing in the dull light of the hall a moment to see where I was. Only a little night light was on, but a long finger of bright light streamed from the bedroom door out across the living room. I picked my way round the furniture and called, “Connie?”

“In here, Mike.”

She was in bed with a couple of pillows behind her back reading a book. “Kind of early for this sort of thing, isn’t it?”

“Maybe, but I’m not going out!” She grinned and wiggled under the covers. “Come over here and sit down. You can tell me all your troubles.” She patted the edge of the bed.

I sat down and she put her fingers under mine. I didn’t have to tell her something bad had happened. She could read it in my eyes. Her smile disappeared into a frown. “What is it, Mike?”

“Jean Trotter . . . she was murdered tonight. She was killed and thrown off the bridge. It was supposed to look like suicide, but it was seen.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“God, when is it going to stop, Mike? Poor Jean . . “

“It’ll stop when we have the killer and not before. What do you know about her, Connie? What was she like . . . who was this guy she married?”

Connie shook her head, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders. “Jean . . . she was a sweet kid when I first met her. I-I don’t know too much about her, really. She was older than the teen-age group of course, but she modeled clothes for them. We . . . never did the same type work, so I don’t know about that.”

“Men . . . what men did she go with? Ever see them?”

“No, I didn’t. When she first came to work I heard that she was engaged to a West Point cadet, then something happened. She was pretty broken up for a while. Juno made her take a vacation and when she came back she seemed to be all right, though she didn’t take much interest in men. One time at an office party she and I were talking about what wolves some men are and she was all for hanging every man by their thumbs and making it a woman’s world.”

“Nice attitude. What changed her?”

“Now you’ve got me. We sort of lived in different parts of the world and I never saw too much of her. I know she had a good sum of money tied up in expensive jewelry she used to wear and there was talk about a wealthy student in an upstate college taking her out, but I never inquired about it. As a matter of fact, I was very surprised when she eloped like that. True love is funny, isn’t it, Mike?”

“Not so funny.”

“No, I guess not.”

I put my face in my hand, rubbing my head to make things come out right. “Is that all . . . everything you know about her? Do you know where she was from or anything about her background?”

Connie squinted at the light and raised her forefinger thoughtfully. “Oh . . . think . . .”

“Come on, come on . . . what?”

“I just happened to think. Jean Trotter wasn’t her right name. She had a long Polish name and changed it when she became a model. She even made it legal and I cut the piece out of the paper that carried a notation about it. Mike . . . over there in the dresser is a small leather folder. Go get it for me.”

I slid off the bed and started through the top drawer until Connie said, “No . . . the other one, Mike.”

I tried that one too but couldn’t find it. “Damn it, Connie, come over here and get it, will you!”

“I can’t.” She laughed nervously.

So I started tossing all her junk to the floor until she yipped and threw back the covers to run over and make me stop. Now I knew why she didn’t want to get out of bed. She was as naked as a jaybird.

She found the folder in the back of a drawer and handed it to me with a scowl. “You ought to have the decency to close your eyes, at least.”

“Hell, I like you like that.”

“Then do something about it.”

I tried to look through the folder, but my eyes wouldn’t stand still. “For Pete’s sake, put something on, will you!”

She put her hands on her hips and leaned toward me, her tongue sticking out. Then she turned slowly, with all the sultry motion she could command, and walked to the clothes closet. She pulled out her fur coat and slipped into it, holding it closed around her middle. “I’ll teach you,” she said. Then she sat in a low boudoir chair with her legs crossed, making it plain that I could look and be tempted, but that was all, brother, that was all.

When I went back to pawing through the folder she let the coat slip open and I had to turn my back and sit down. Connie laughed, but I found the clipping.

Her name had been Julia Travesky. By order of the court she was now legally Jean Trotter. Her address was given at a small hotel for women in an uptown section. I stuffed the clipping in my wallet and put the folder in the dresser drawer. “At least it’s something,” I said. “We can find out the rest from the court records.”

“What are you looking for, Mike?”

“Anything that will tell me why she was important enough to kill.”

“I was thinking . . .”

“Yeah?”

“There are files down at the office. Whenever a girl applies for work at the agency she has to leave her history and a lot of sample photos and press clippings. Maybe Jean’s are still there.”

I whistled through my teeth and nodded. “You’ve got something, Connie. I called Juno before I came up, but she wasn’t home. How about Anton Lipsek?”

Connie snorted and pulled the coat back to bare her legs a little more. “That drip is probably still sleeping off the drunk he worked up last night. He and Marion Lester got crocked to the ears and they took off for Anton’s place with some people from the Inn about three o’clock in the morning. Neither of them showed up for work today. Juno didn’t say much, but she was plenty burned up.

“Nuts. Who else might have keys to the place then?”

“Oh, I can get in. I had to once before when I left my pocketbook in the office. I kissed the janitor’s bald head and he handed over his passkey.”

The hands of my watch were going around too fast. My insides were beginning to turn into a hard fuzzy ball again. “Do me a favor, Connie. Go up and see if you can get that file on her. Get it and come right back here. I have something to do in the meanwhile and you’ll be helping out a lot if you can manage it.”

“No,” she pouted.

“Cripes, Connie, use your head! I told you . . .”

“Go with me.”

“I can’t.”

The pout turned into a grin and she peeked at me under her eyelashes. She stood up, put a cigarette between her lips, and in a pose as completely normal as if she had on an evening gown, she pushed back the coat and rested her hands on her hips and swayed over until she was looking up into my face.

I had never seen anything so unnaturally inviting in all my life.

“Go with me,” she said, “then we’ll come back together.”

I said, “Come here, you,” and grabbed her as naked as she was and squeezed her against my chest until her mouth opened. Then I kissed her good. So good she stopped breathing for long seconds and her eyes were glazed.