True Crime

“You’re a client,” I managed. “It wouldn’t be ethical.”

“Ethical? In Chicago? I think I’ve made it plain I find you attractive. And there’s worse-looking women in town than Sally Rand.”

“So I hear.”

She blew a smoke ring. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Why, ’cause you’re a star? I met famous people before.”

“Did you ever sleep with any?”

“Just Capone. He snores.”

She laughed; it was high-pitched, very feminine. But there was a core of strength in the little dame, no question.

“So my millionaire’s a faker, huh? Easy come, easy go. I guess I didn’t want to quit show business, anyway.” She sighed and turned back to the mirror. “How old are you, Heller?”

“Twenty-eight.”

Her electric fan whirred; streamers tickled the air.

“I’m almost thirty,” she said. “How long can I take my clothes off for a living?”

“From the looks of you, a good long time.”

She had been around, though, even if it didn’t show. She’d been a cigarette girl and a chorus girl, a dancer in a Gus Edwards Revue, an extra in the silents, a Hollywood Wampus Baby Star, which led to a contract with De Mille, though when sound came in she was dropped. She was a has-been of twenty-eight when she made her overnight success after fourteen years in show business by dressing as Lady Godiva for a Fine Arts Ball at the Congress Hotel on the eve of the world’s fair.

Now she was peeking out from behind fans and bubbles, when she wasn’t in and out of court—which of course created the publicity that kept her hot.

“My real name is Helen, you know,” she said. “Helen Beck. But very few people still call me Helen.”

“Would you like me to?”

“I’m thinking about it.” She began brushing her hair. Her other hair, the blond wig on the dressmaker’s dummy, was blowing a bit in the electric fan’s breeze. “Do you know where I got my name?”

“Off a Rand McNally map?”

“You’ve read the newspaper stories, then.”

“Who hasn’t? You’re better known than the First Lady.”

“And a damn sight better looking.”

“Yeah, but so am I.”

She turned and smiled and looked at me. “Why are you still here?” She said this with no nastiness.

“I don’t know.”

“Are you thinking about making a pass at me?”

“Maybe.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You’re not a client, anymore.”

“Does that make it kosher?”

“It could.”

She stood and the robe slipped to her waist. Her breasts were very beautiful. She was powdered white, for the stage; talcum powder. She smelled good; she smelled like a great big baby.

I went over and kissed her.

It was a nice kiss, but something was missing. She looked up at me with those long lashes and sad blue eyes.

“What is it, Nate? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, moving back. “Maybe I better go.”

“It’s that actress of yours.”

“You—you know about her?”

“I know a lot of things. She left you. Went to Hollywood. You don’t owe her anything.”

“We still write.”

“Do her letters keep you warm at night?”

“Not particularly. But in this weather, who needs it?”

“Maybe you do. Come and kiss me again.”

I thought about it a second, then did.

It was better this time.

“You need a new girl,” she said, and enfolded me in her arms.

“Maybe I need a new actress,” I said into her neck. Her sweet, talcum-smelling neck.

She pushed me away, gently, keeping me within her arms. Her eyes, her smile, were knowing and yet gentle, very gentle.

“I’m just a Missouri farm girl,” she said. “Scratch most any actress, and that’s what you’ll find. We’re not special. Just playing at being special.”

“Shush, Helen.”

The floor was wooden but her silk robe was cushion enough.

Now all I needed was another client.

2

He was waiting outside my office door, hat in hand.

My office was at the dead end of a hall on the fourth floor of the building on the corner of Van Buren and Plymouth, just a stone’s throw from the exclusive Standard Club. But don’t get the wrong idea: it was also just a healthy spit away from a couple of flophouses. Chicago’s an open-minded place—bums and bankers, whores and debutantes, crooks and cops. There’s room for everybody, here. Just don’t ask me to sort out who goes in what slot.

The building my office was in was full of marginal businesses and second-rate doctors and third-rate lawyers and possibly one first-rate detective who deserved better. So if anybody shlepped up three flights and stood outside my office, he was either a bill collector, a process server or a potential client. Walking down the corridor, the wood-and-mostly-glass walls of offices on either side of me like a tank I was a fish in, I studied this bird and tried to sort out his slot.

He was a pale blond man with a darker blond mustache, immaculately groomed in a tailored brown suit with a yellow-and-brown bow tie. The hat in his hand was straw, with a chocolate band; he had a thin, rather pointed nose and eyes the color of slate behind wire glasses. He looked rather harmless, and from the way he stood, head bowed a bit, he seemed shy, even a little timid. Which either made him a client, or a process server. Process servers study looking timid, you know.