with the chore he had undertaken on behalf of a young lady. Not officially anyhow, not yet. He hung up and hurried to his car.
CHAPTER THREE
1.
The low building diagonally across from Bryant Park wore an outdoor sign on its brow that showed a shapely girl in a swim suit. The building, a pygmy in a skyscraper jungle, housed an odd variety of enterprises. Its directory listed, in part, a gypsy tea room, a check casher, a match-your-pants service, an Atheistic Pamphlet Press, a gold buyer, a schatchen, a diamond setter, a detective agency. The last, operated by a plump thirty-second-degree Mason, and a universally respected fellow to boot, was Devereaux’s destination.
The gold lettering on the door read: “Solowey Detective Agency.” Devereaux smiled a secret, reverent smile as he took hold of the doorknob. Private detective Sam Solowey wore his badge like a clerical frock. A tolerant man, with the outlook of a psychiatric social worker, Solowey used his agency as an avenue to people and life.
The moon-faced, balding Solowey looked like a laughing Buddha. He was shoeless, and a giant toe peeked through a hole in one stocking. He wiggled his toe, greeting Devereaux, and put down his open copy of Variety.
“Still around, eh?” Solowey said.
Devereaux nodded glumly.
Solowey chuckled. “You were in a big hurry to see the world.”
“Have your joke, huh? Then let’s get down to cases.”
“I’ve had my joke.” Solowey stepped into his shoes. “Now cases?”
“Job of research mainly. Do it yourself, or put a man on it. I want you to check into a girl’s parentage. Discreetly.”
“Who’s hiring me?”
Devereaux hesitated. “I’m hiring you.”
Solowey stared at him shrewdly. “You, the retired detective! Come, I’ve got a first-aid kit in the washroom.”
“I’m all right.”
Solowey shook his head. “The hair should be cut away and the wound cleaned.”
“First get a pencil.”
“Go ahead, talk.” Solowey held a pencil over a scratch pad.
“The girl’s name is Jennifer Phillips. She’s twenty. Martin Phillips is supposed to be her father.”
Solowey’s eyes grew round. “The Phillips?”
Devereaux nodded. “Find out where he was born, when married and to whom, what offspring if any. Everything. Is the assignment clear?”
“That much, yes.” Solowey’s lips pursed. “He is supposed to be her father, you said?”
“The girl thinks he’s not, but with nothing actual to go on.” Devereaux stopped. An involuntary wave of anger was surging through him. He felt Solowey’s shrewd eyes reading his face, fathoming the depth of his emotion.
“You have a deep personal concern,” Solowey observed quietly.
Devereaux nodded darkly. “From the girl’s account, and what I guessed, the man’s a sybarite, unnatural, an obscene and gilded pervert.” His voice grated. “He pressed courtesan negligées on her at fourteen, whores’ perfumes at fifteen.”
Their eyes met and Solowey said, “It lends body to the rumors I have heard about Phillips.”
“Rumors?” Devereaux’s brows lifted.
Solowey nodded. “Ugly rumors, of a kind with those that circulate about distinguished people. The many of them, of course, are false and malicious.”
“Skip the tolerance preamble,” Devereaux said impatiently. “What’s the word on Phillips?”
“Homosexual.”
Devereaux frowned but said nothing.
Solowey quit the room, then came back with scissors and a first-aid kit. “Sit,” he commanded. The plump detective’s hands worked busily. “You didn’t report this assault on you.”
Devereaux laughed. “Where do you hide your crystal ball?”
“Your insistence on discretion.” The plump detective added pointedly, “The Solowey Agency license covers you.”
Devereaux smiled his appreciation. “Odd thing is my retirement’s still verbal. Final papers won’t come through for thirty days. But thanks. It might be smarter to be your boy at that.”
Solowey put the shears down, and commenced dabbing at the head wound with a wad of alcohol-soaked cotton. “Devereaux,” he said in mildly chiding tones, “you should confide in a man you esteem enough to come to for help.”
“In strict confidence,” Devereaux stipulated, after a reflective pause.
Solowey’s moon face went up and down solemnly.
2.
TAKE YOUR FORD BACK HOME, the sign said. Devereaux read it, then over again. It was a half mile away, across the city rooftops.
The Japanese manservant pattered up to the white-lacquered, wrought-iron terrace table, removed an emptied plate, and set a plate of berries down.
“Set another demitasse, Sato,” the diner said softly, and resumed eating. After each completed mouthful, the diner looked up to scrutinize his visitor, while a scowl gathered over his eyes.
The face was pulpy, and here in the sun the raw flesh underneath burned through as if covered by but one layer of skin. It was sick-looking, degenerated by too many powders, creams, too much care.
Sato pattered in, set a cup before Devereaux, then poured for both of them from a gleaming silver pot. Phillips pushed the emptied plate of berries away, grasped his cup, and gestured abruptly at Devereaux. The detective raised his cup and sipped. Sato came to clear the table in quick, efficient movements.
“Brandy, Sato,” Phillips ordered.
Sato left with a trayful of soiled dishes, and Phillips sat back in that little ritual of siesta usual to gourmands with faulty digestion. Devereaux’s eyes patiently searched out the Ford sign.
“Devereaux, you said your name was?” Phillips began at last, as if finally disposed to curiosity.
“Johnny Devereaux.”
“And you’re a policeman?” He said it as if it was a vexatious and incomprehensible thing.
Devereaux nodded smilingly.
“Go ahead,” Phillips said in a discouragingly flat tone, as if it now devolved upon Devereaux to prove his sheer right to existence.
“Shouldn’t
