Chicago Confidential

She was only nineteen years old, whereas I was not a teenager. I could barely remember having been a teenager. I was a well-preserved forty-five years old — ruggedly handsome, I’ve been told, with reddish brown hair going gray at the temples, six feet carrying two hundred pounds, chiefly scar tissue and gristle — with precious few bad habits, although my major weakness was sitting across from me with its legs crossed and its breasts staring right at me.

“We broke up at the start of the summer,” she said breathlessly, leaning forward; she smelled good — not perfume, but soap... I made it as Camay. “Paul went off to ROTC — he’s in the reserves — and he kept writing me letters. I never answered them.”

“This was in Dallas?”

Her hands were folded in her lap; lucky hands. “Yes. We were both at the university there. Freshmen. We’d dated in high school. Paul wanted to get married, but I wasn’t ready. Anyway, a month or so after he went off for training, I headed out here.”

The muffled voices of ops making phone calls — credit checks mostly — and others working typewriters — detailed reports made billing clients easier — provided an office-music backdrop for our conversation.

I asked, “You didn’t tell your ex-boyfriend where you were going?”

“No. I didn’t tell him I was going anywhere. Heck, I wasn’t even answering his silly letters. And I gave my mother strict orders not to tell Paul where I’d gone.”

“But she must’ve spilled the beans, Miss Palmer. Or maybe a friend of yours told Paul where—”

She shook her head and the brown hair bounced. “No. He found out when he was home on leave, and saw my picture in the paper.”

“Why was your picture in the paper?”

Her smile was a lush explosion; her whole face went sunny. “Why, don’t you think I’m pretty enough to have my picture in the paper?”

Her shoulders were back, her chin up, the submarine hull threatened worse than ever.

“I think you’re a lovely young woman... but papers need a reason, or anyway an excuse, to run a picture, even of a pretty girl like you — so why’s a Los Angeles picture of Vera Palmer running in a Dallas paper?”

“I’m in a beauty contest. I’m one of the twenty finalists.”

Seemed Miss Palmer had registered at the Daily News to enter the Miss California contest. Naive, she hadn’t brought along an 8" by 10", and a news photographer, overhearing this, had volunteered to shoot her picture — he even fronted five bucks for her to go buy a bikini.

“He was so nice,” she purred. “So generous.”

“Yeah, sounds like a real philanthropist.”

The News had run a story about the guileless girl who had wandered in to enter the Miss California contest, and how the News had helped her out by buying her a swimsuit and taking a photo... which the paper ran. And the wire service picked up.

She shrugged. “I don’t know what’s so special about a picture of me in a bikini.”

Despite her wide eyes, I was starting to understand that she knew very well what was special about her, in or out of a bikini.

“Paul,” I said, getting her back on track.

“Paul,” she said, with a nod. “Last week Paul caught up with me... He follows me around campus, shows up at the rehearsals for my play, calls my room.”

“Are you in a dorm?”

“Yes, at the MAC.”

“The MAC?”

“That’s short for Masonic Affiliates Club or Clubhouse or something. It’s a student activities center. They have several dorms there. It’s also where we’re rehearsing the play. I’m in a play. I’m a drama major.”

I should’ve known — scratch a college girl out here, find a starlet. Still, she seemed so fresh, so sincere...

“You can ask my two roommates,” she was saying, “ask the girls if Paul hasn’t been a pest.”

“Has he gotten physical?”

She frowned. “I wouldn’t have sex with him again for a million dollars.”

“I mean, has he hit you?”

“He’s grabbed me.” She turned her palms up and I could see small bruises on her inner forearms.

“We can get a court order,” I said.

“What?”

“A restraining order, where he can’t come within a hundred feet of you.”

“No! No, I don’t want to involve the authorities. That’s why I came to you, Mr. Heller.”

“I understand you requested me, specifically?”

“Yes, I read about you in the newspapers.”

I’d had coverage, locally, when I’d been involved on the fringes of the notorious Elizabeth Short murder, the so called Black Dahlia slaying. Other cases of mine over the years had hit the national wire services, too; I was a minor celebrity myself, even if I didn’t look good in a bikini.

“Well,” I said, “you’re lucky to find me. Usually I’m in the Chicago office.”

“Will you take my case?”

“First you better tell me what it is you want me to do. Scare him, hurt him, what?”

She shook her head, eyes tightening in a frown. “I don’t really want him hurt. I was... fond of him, once.”

“Okay. What, then?”

“Just protect me. Talk to Paul... He’s pretty tough, though. He’s a soldier.”

I smiled. “That’s okay. I used to be a Marine.”

“Ooooo, really?” The “ooooo” had been a sort of squeal. “I love men in uniform.”

“Except for Paul.”