“Start walking,” I said. I fell into step beside her and glanced down at her small, pretty face. Without the heavy makeup she had a face that once, I was sure, was sweetly pretty. It was still pretty enough, but a hardness had come into it. She wasn’t much more than twenty-five, I guessed.
“Sure you can trust me enough to take me to your place?” I asked, somewhat maliciously.
She glanced up at me.
“No, I’m not sure,” she said. “But I’ll chance it. I figure maybe as an American you might take it easy. Besides, there’s something different about you. You’re not the usual bum around here, and you’re not one of the tourists out for a cheap feel either.”
“I’m an artist,” I said. “A traveling painter. Since you’re not from exotic Athens, where are you from?”
“I’m from exotic Akron, Ohio,” she grunted. “I know the next question by heart, mister. What am I doing here?”
“Good enough guess,” I said. “What’s the answer?”
“Nothing glamorous, I can tell you that,” she said. “I was with a small troupe on tour. I met a guy here and got hooked on him. I stayed on with him when the troupe left. A little later, I found out that he never had any long-range plans for us. I found that out the morning after he cleared out, taking every cent I had with him.”
“And you’ve never heard from him since,” I supplied.
“How’d you guess?” she said bitterly. “I got a job at the Club Bedouin. It was the only place that would hire me without a permanent visa or a resident entertainer’s license. They’re not too fussy at the Club Bedouin, and it was a job and I was grateful. The old Turk that runs the place is all hands, but he’s harmless. I’ve been trying to save enough to get out of here.”
We had reached her place and she led me into a first-floor apartment, three rooms, but smaller than Karminian’s flat and considerably more run-down.
Athena flung off her coat and I saw the nice, firm shape of her body. Her legs, a little short in the calf, were shapely and youthful and attractive. The pink dress clung to her and there was no faint line of even a pair of bikini panties. I was certain now about the bra by the way her full breasts moved beneath the silk, swinging freely and tantalizingly.
“What’s your real name?” I asked.
“Aggie,” she said quickly. “Aggie Foster. God, I haven’t said it in so long it sounds funny to me.”
“All right, Aggie,” I said. “Where is your friend Karminian?”
I saw the suspicion leap into her eyes at once.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you want to know about Anton for? Who are you? I don’t even know your name.”
“I told you I’m an artist,” I said. “My name’s Glen, Glen Travis. Your friend Karminian bought a number of paintings from me through the mail, but he never paid me so I came down here to collect and found him gone. I want my money.”
She studied me, her gutter-perception working overtime to decide about me.
“You can believe me,” I said casually.
“I guess so,” she finally said. “I’ve never known an artist before but you ain’t exactly my idea of one. And you were handling Jimmy like a pro.”
“I used to box,” I said blandly. “I made money that way for my art lessons.”
She sat down in a deep chair and her dress rose up to mid-thigh as she crossed her legs.
I was thinking that she was a hell of a lot sexier and really better looking offstage than on. But whether she completely believed my story was unimportant. I didn’t swallow hers, yet.
“Where is Karminian?” I asked again. “I think you know.”
The sudden concern in her eyes was very real as she answered.
“No, I don’t, honest I don’t,” she said. “He just up and left. He told me he had to go unexpectedly, business, and that was the last I heard from him. I’m worried about him. Anton was the only nice thing that happened to me during the last year.”
I decided that perhaps she was telling the truth. She wasn’t clever enough to be that good a liar.
“You implied someone else was around asking for him,” I said. “Who?”
“Four men,” she said with a shiver. “Big bruisers with accents of some kind. They didn’t believe me, and they said they’d be back for me unless I started remembering. They scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t make them believe I didn’t know anything.”
I sat back and my mind was racing. It proved what I’d suspected. Karminian’s apartment hadn’t been ransacked by ordinary thieves. I had company in my search for him. But if I were going to track him down I’d need to know more about him.
Man, it was discovered long ago, is a creature of habit. Even in hiding, his basic behavioral pattern will emerge. He can change his hair, his name, his appearance and his friends but not his basic self. It was a truth known to every police force in the world.
“Your friend, Karminian,” I asked casually. “What was he really like? A lot of people seem to want him very much.”
I watched her eyes suddenly turn soft and sentimental and the hard edge of her face dissolved. In pensiveness, her youthful prettiness made a temporary comeback.
