A woman of thirty-two is wise, experienced, fulfilled, sophisticated, at the bloom of her beauty but with sufficient guile and knowledge to keep that beauty never looking more than twenty-five.
“How long have you been an actress?” I said.
“Off and on, since I was graduated from college, since I was twenty-two. Modeling and acting. At the beginning I did a good deal of modeling and a little acting. Later, it was a good deal of acting and a little modeling.”
“Now going all the way back, right to the beginning, did you ever pose for the kind of pictures—”
“No.”
“The kind of pictures that somebody could unearth and, now that you’re married, use against you for the purpose of blackmail?”
“No! Absolutely no!”
I leaned back in my chair and surrendered to confoundment. What in hell was she trying to pull and why? Sure there would be a fee, probably a handsome fee, but I was beginning to feel that I was in the middle of something, that I was about to be used but not for the purpose expressed. I don’t like to be used for purposes unexpressed no matter how handsome or ugly the fee. I lit a cigarette, dragged in smoke, and took one more shot out of her. I was determined. Fee or no fee, handsome or ugly, unless I received a satisfactory reply, I’d throw her the hell out.
I smiled and I said politely, “Mrs. Kiss, let’s forget the past and keep it in the present. You say you’ve been married for three years?”
“Yes.” And now the big brown eyes were alive and interested.
“In those three years, Mrs. Kiss, were you ever in circumstances wherein a picture or pictures could have been snapped—all unknowing to you—which might prove, er, embarrassing?”
The brown eyes had long lashes and now the long lashes fluttered and the brown eyes avoided my eyes. A faint glint of perspiration shone on her forehead but of course it was a hot morning. She clasped her hands in her lap, seemingly gently, but the blood was out of the fingertips.
I pushed it, without push. Quietly. “What say, Mrs. Kiss?”
“If you please . . . I . . . I’d prefer not to answer that.”
Better. Much better. Now it was in the groove and I was in the act and I knew why I was being used and I was willing to accept a fee. It was the age-old deal: hanky panky. A married lady had indulged herself in hanky panky. Hanky panky requires a partner. The partner had arranged for pictures and now he was maneuvering to make the hanky panky pay off. Sure she needed protection. Smart gal. If he was selling and she was buying, it was smart to bring an expert to consummate the deal, to pull in all the loose ends, to make it one deal, finished and final. Caveat emptor! Let the buyer beware! Smart gal, and smart to prefer not to answer. Why bleat the whole deal to the private richard before you know how bad the evidence is? A couple of night club photos drinking at The Stork could be explained away, without pay, and without incrimination. Let us wait and see before we bleat. Hanky had called to make the panky pay off, but a woman had called!
“You said,” I said, “it was a woman who called. Correct?”
“Yes. A private detective.”
Private detective. Smart, all around. It wasn’t a couple of drinking photos, hanky and panky slobbering drunk, grinning into a camera at The Stork. It was a real deal with all the trimmings.
“Who was the woman who called?”
“Marla Trent.”
“Stinks,” I said. “You’re all wet on the blackmail.”
“I . . . I don’t understand.”
“I know Marla Trent. You remember the recommendation Felix Davenport gave me? That recommendation goes double in spades for Marla Trent—from me. Marla Trent wouldn’t mix in blackmail, not on your life, or her life, or mine.”
“Please, Mr. Chambers, let’s go and find out.”
“You bet,” I said. “I’m quite anxious now because I’m curious. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”
“There’s nothing.”
My client was still under wraps, hoping against hope, but the glint of sweat on her forehead had now accumulated to beads. She stood up, opened her bag, and patted powder on her face. It was a hot morning.
FOUR
MARLA TRENT was Marla Trent Enterprises, 527 Madison Avenue, New York City. Marla Trent was a lady eye, the very tip of the top of the heap—the famous Private Eyeful. Marla Trent had no need to put her breast a foot forward to win, hands down and buttocks up, the accolade of Most Beautiful Private Detective In The World. Marla Trent was rich and successful, as were her clients. Marla Trent would as lief traffic with blackmail as a leaf would lief traffic with a whirlwind. Marla Trent was acute, astute, a beaut, and, of all things, a Ph.D., and with her figure yet. Marla Trent, in the preen of her teens, had once been runner-up to Miss America in Atlantic City, runner-up only because the dazed judges had not yet been ready to accept Juno as representative of the All-American Girl: Marla Trent stood five-six in stockingless feet and juttingly measured a justly proud 38-23-38 which is about as much woman as any man can dream to handle.
I admit to having dreamed but there had never been the opportunity to transfer the dream to reality. Marla Trent had always been the friendly enemy, the competition. Macy does not attempt to seduce Gimbel; nor Tiffany, Cartier; nor Lockheed, Boeing; nor Squibb, Parke Davis; etcetera all the way down to private detectives. There is a seemliness and a regard where mutual respect exists: the competition does not attempt to buck or pluck (or whatever rhyming word) the competition. I had worked in intimate concert with Marla Trent on intermittent and casual occasion but we had never worked in intimate concert for any length of time, to my regret.
Now at eleven o’clock Valerie Kiss and I presented ourselves at the spacious offices of Marla Trent Enterprises and I nodded to the receptionist, Miss Rebecca Asquiff, hatchet-faced and gimlet-sharp.
“Mrs. Kiss for Miss Trent,” I said.
“How do you do, Mr. Chambers,” gritted Rebecca. Miss Trent will be with you very shortly,” she said. “Please sit down.”
We sat together on a beautiful, custom-made, modern-type bench (modern-type means built for show but not for comfort) and as I wriggled to prevent the displacement of my coccyx, I said, “I’ll talk to her alone first. Sort of pave the way.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Chambers.”
A boy came out, tall and manly but more feminine than Rebecca Asquiff, and he smiled and said, “This way, Mrs. Kiss.”
“I’m Peter Chambers,” I said. “I’ll see Miss Trent alone first.”
“Well, she’s waiting in the library.”
That meant—why keep Mrs. Kiss sitting on a modern-type bench in the reception room when instead she could be comfortable in the library while you and Marla Trent talked in Miss Trent’s office?
We were led to the library which was a vast, cool, dim, book-lined room with an enormous mahogany library table and many mahogany
