call my answering service?”
“If it’s local.”
The first button on the telephone lit up when I lifted the receiver. I punched Line 2 and dialed the number for Gilda Productions.
The telephone rang in the reception area. Judy Yin stirred and withdrew to answer it. I laid the receiver on the desk and inspected the file cabinet. It was a standard bar lock, as old as the chastity belt. I had it open with my pocket knife in two seconds. Inside I found files. Not one of them was labeled WHERE I WENT.
Disappointed, I closed the drawers, jimmied the lock back the other way, and returned to the desk. Ms. Yin was still telling the telephone hello. I punched the button for Line I and hit redial. That was the line Catalin had used last, unless someone else had made a call from his office recently. On the second ring a woman’s voice, metal with a serrated edge, answered.
“Musuraca Investigations.”
I hung up just as Judy Yin came back. “Did you get your messages?”
I said I got one.
“That puts you one up on me,” she said. “There was no one on the other end.”
“Kids.”
She swung a hard glance around the office that stopped at the file cabinet. She went over to it and tugged at one of the drawers. When it didn’t budge she made a noncommittal little noise and turned my way.
“Ziggy’s Chop House on Livernois. Miss Mannering’s a little hostess there, or was when she left that number.” She gave it to me.
I didn’t bother to write it down. I knew Ziggy’s. I looked at Judy Yin. Her black eyes were bright with something close to anger. I didn’t think I was the cause. I said, “I get the impression that when Vesta makes it big, you won’t be going to the premiere.”
She moved a shoulder. “She’s an actress, or fancies herself one on the basis of a couple of cat-food commercials. In her book that puts her above us lowly telephone girls. Even if she does sling hash to keep up her car payments between feminine hygiene spots.”
“That’s kind of a big chip to still be carrying around two years later. See or hear anything of her since?”
“Not a thing, and neither has Mr. Catalin. For someone who’s not looking for him, you seem awfully interested in things he had the use of.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t looking for him.”
She tapped her teeth with a coral nail. They were good teeth, blue-white against ivory skin. “I don’t think I’d hire you, Mr. Walker. You have an attitude I wouldn’t care for in someone who was working for me.”
“It’s a handicap. I considered getting help to overcome it.”
“What was the decision?”
I shook my head.
She set the lock on Catalin’s door and pulled it shut behind us. Back in the reception area I watched her take her seat with a flashy kind of economy of movement she probably wouldn’t have used without someone watching. When I made no move to leave she lifted her brows at me.
“That insurance policy between Webb and Catalin,” I said. “Were you a witness, or did you just file it?”
“I don’t know anything about an insurance policy,” she said after a moment. “Is there one?”
“Search me. It was just a gag to get information I didn’t want to ask Webb about and make him mad enough to give me the boot. As arrangements go it’s standard among longtime partners: When one dies, the other benefits, and the business goes on.”
“If you’re suggesting something happened to Mr. Catalin and Mr. Webb was responsible, I can’t help you. He may not be the ideal employer, but that doesn’t make him Klaus von Bülow.”
“That kind of information is easy to get.”
“How nice for you.” She slid her eyes toward the door. I went after them.
My car didn’t want to start again. I smoked a cigarette while it got used to the idea, and thought about Musuraca Investigations. I knew Phil Musuraca; not personally or even by sight, but the way a hardworking gardener knows a destructive species of beetle. Where he had gone,
“If it’s local.”
The first button on the telephone lit up when I lifted the receiver. I punched Line 2 and dialed the number for Gilda Productions.
The telephone rang in the reception area. Judy Yin stirred and withdrew to answer it. I laid the receiver on the desk and inspected the file cabinet. It was a standard bar lock, as old as the chastity belt. I had it open with my pocket knife in two seconds. Inside I found files. Not one of them was labeled WHERE I WENT.
Disappointed, I closed the drawers, jimmied the lock back the other way, and returned to the desk. Ms. Yin was still telling the telephone hello. I punched the button for Line I and hit redial. That was the line Catalin had used last, unless someone else had made a call from his office recently. On the second ring a woman’s voice, metal with a serrated edge, answered.
“Musuraca Investigations.”
I hung up just as Judy Yin came back. “Did you get your messages?”
I said I got one.
“That puts you one up on me,” she said. “There was no one on the other end.”
“Kids.”
She swung a hard glance around the office that stopped at the file cabinet. She went over to it and tugged at one of the drawers. When it didn’t budge she made a noncommittal little noise and turned my way.
“Ziggy’s Chop House on Livernois. Miss Mannering’s a little hostess there, or was when she left that number.” She gave it to me.
I didn’t bother to write it down. I knew Ziggy’s. I looked at Judy Yin. Her black eyes were bright with something close to anger. I didn’t think I was the cause. I said, “I get the impression that when Vesta makes it big, you won’t be going to the premiere.”
She moved a shoulder. “She’s an actress, or fancies herself one on the basis of a couple of cat-food commercials. In her book that puts her above us lowly telephone girls. Even if she does sling hash to keep up her car payments between feminine hygiene spots.”
“That’s kind of a big chip to still be carrying around two years later. See or hear anything of her since?”
“Not a thing, and neither has Mr. Catalin. For someone who’s not looking for him, you seem awfully interested in things he had the use of.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t looking for him.”
She tapped her teeth with a coral nail. They were good teeth, blue-white against ivory skin. “I don’t think I’d hire you, Mr. Walker. You have an attitude I wouldn’t care for in someone who was working for me.”
“It’s a handicap. I considered getting help to overcome it.”
“What was the decision?”
I shook my head.
She set the lock on Catalin’s door and pulled it shut behind us. Back in the reception area I watched her take her seat with a flashy kind of economy of movement she probably wouldn’t have used without someone watching. When I made no move to leave she lifted her brows at me.
“That insurance policy between Webb and Catalin,” I said. “Were you a witness, or did you just file it?”
“I don’t know anything about an insurance policy,” she said after a moment. “Is there one?”
“Search me. It was just a gag to get information I didn’t want to ask Webb about and make him mad enough to give me the boot. As arrangements go it’s standard among longtime partners: When one dies, the other benefits, and the business goes on.”
“If you’re suggesting something happened to Mr. Catalin and Mr. Webb was responsible, I can’t help you. He may not be the ideal employer, but that doesn’t make him Klaus von Bülow.”
“That kind of information is easy to get.”
“How nice for you.” She slid her eyes toward the door. I went after them.
My car didn’t want to start again. I smoked a cigarette while it got used to the idea, and thought about Musuraca Investigations. I knew Phil Musuraca; not personally or even by sight, but the way a hardworking gardener knows a destructive species of beetle. Where he had gone,
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