She rose and left the room; I thought I heard something off to the right. Like somebody moving around in the next room. There were six or eight rooms in this flat, at least. From the sound I heard, maybe she was taking in boarders. Or maybe some of her girls were staying here with her.
She returned with ice water for me and coffee for her; she didn’t seem to feel the heat, despite her almost wintery apparel.
“What’s your interest in Polly, Mr. Heller?”
“It has to do with a job I’m on. Nothing criminal, I assure you; Polly’s not in any trouble. Not…legal trouble.”
“What other kind is there?”
“Oh, well—there’s man trouble.”
“I’ve heard of that,” she allowed, sipping her coffee.
“Is Polly married, Anna?”
“She was. To a policeman in East Chicago.”
“A policeman?”
Anna nodded. “She met him when she was working for me.”
“At the Kostur Hotel?” That was where Anna ran her brothel, in Gary; there’d been an infamous speakeasy and gambling casino in the basement, called The Bucket of Blood. Shootings and stabbings were commonplace, though Anna was known to run a clean, straight house upstairs.
“Yes,” Anna admitted. “At the Kostur.”
“That’d be a few years ago. Polly looks pretty young to have worked for you at the Kostur, what, eight years ago?”
“She looked even younger then.”
“I bet she did. How’d she happen to meet a policeman?”
Now Anna
“Sorry. That was dumb. So she married a policeman.”
“Yes.”
“And it didn’t last.”
“It didn’t last.”
“Could you describe him for me?”
“Why? Mr. Heller, you’re really overstepping—”
“Please. Humor me. There’s no harm in it.”
She sighed. “He’s a tall man, rather lean. Brown hair, with a bald spot. Not unpleasant to look at.”
That didn’t sound like my client.
I hadn’t taken the brunette waitress back at the S & S too seriously when she said Polly was divorced; after all, my client had told me his wife was working under her maiden name, and—particularly if she was running around on him and possibly even hustling—she very well might not be spreading around the fact that she was married.
I tried again. “Her husband’s name wouldn’t have been Howard, would it?”
“No,” Anna said. “Keele. Roy Keele.”
“And they were divorced only a few months ago?”
“That’s right.”
My client had told me he and Polly had been married over a year. So much for the notion that my traveling salesman might be her second husband, on the rebound from Keele.
“Tell me,” I said. “Has she had any steady boyfriends?”
“Yes,” Anna said, nodding. “Several. Lately, one who calls himself…” And she paused here, as if what followed would be significant. “…Jimmy Lawrence. Says he works at the Board of Trade.”
“Gold-rim glasses, pencil mustache, kind of medium build? Nice dresser?”
She kept nodding, seeming suddenly vaguely troubled. “That’s him.”
“Who before that?”
She touched a finger to her cheek, thinking. “I believe—I’m not sure, mind you—I believe it was a traveling salesman.”
That was more like it. Now I could begin to make sense of this.
“Was his name Howard? John Howard?”
“I don’t know. I never knew his name. Why don’t you ask Polly?”
“That would be awkward, at least at this point. The traveling salesman, is he a blond man, also with wire glasses and mustache?”
“Why, yes.”
“Physically a bit similar to this Jimmy Lawrence?”
“I suppose. Why?”
“Nothing. I had a client who lied to me, is all. A man who said he was a husband when he was really just a jilted boyfriend. Who was afraid no self-respecting private detective would take on his case, if he weren’t the girl’s spouse.”
“He doesn’t sound like he’s from Chicago.”
“No,” I said. “He just passes through here, obviously.”
I stood.
“Thank you, Anna. And thanks for the ice water.”
“Are you going to talk to Polly?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why? I’ve finished the job I was hired to do. And I’ve answered the questions that had my curiosity up. You needn’t show me out, and thanks again….”
She reached out and touched my hand; her touch was warm, her hand was trembling. Trembling! This cool cucumber was trembling….
“Why, Anna,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, her face impassive, but her hand still trembling against mine. “Please—sit down. I’d like to talk to you. I need to talk to someone, and…you would do nicely. You’re almost a policeman, after all.”
I sat down.
Her dark eyes seemed very soft, then, and compelling; this big attractive woman had the ability to seem strong one moment, vulnerable the next—like many madams, she’d got out of hustling herself early enough to hold onto her looks; but had hustled long enough to remember how to push a man’s buttons.
Leaning forward in her chair, hands folded in her lap, she said, “You spent a night with Polly once.”
“In a manner of speaking. I was drunk, and I hadn’t been with a woman in a long time…I’d had some of that
My effort to lighten this conversation wasn’t having much effect: Anna’s ready smile was nowhere to be seen.
“She liked you,” Anna said.
