It was behind a flimsy gypsum-board partition with a thin, jerry-built door. Red paint notified the unauthorized to Keep Out — Millett Enterprises, Inc. The door wasn’t open but it didn’t have to be for the voice inside to penetrate. I couldn’t hear what the speaker was saying until I nursed the knob around noiselessly, pushed gently.
It was Walch. On the phone. In no genial frame of mind. “... they pick him up around half past ’leven last night, gallopin’ up Park Avenuh with nothin’ on ’cept his shorts, screamin’ bloody murder... sure, he was schwocked to th’ scuppers... cop took him back up to the apartment where those cream puffs ’f yours put the snatch on his suitcases, his clothes, his cush... huh?”
The door was at one end of a storeroom cluttered with theatrical trunks, spotlights, piles of three-sheet posters showing the Incomparable Tildy doing a split, five feet above the ice.
The agent howled like a wounded weasel. “... it means a hell of a lot to me... th’ cream puff who held him while th’ other one made off with his stuff was still there, gettin’ her clothes on... cop hadda run her in, too, an’ of course she counters by swearin’ out a complaint Yaker tried to rape her... he couldn’t get Lanerd at the hotel so he called me at th’ club. I spent all night with th’ dumb creep, diggin’ up bail, gettin’ a legal eagle to work on th’ cream puff, hirin’ a doc to examine her, make sure she hadn’t been hurt... now lissen, I got enough snafus to straighten out, without... huh?”
I didn’t make any undue commotion crossing to the opposite end of the storeroom.
“... yes, goddam it, all night... they wouldn’t let him go until she made a statement denying her assault charge... deal we finally made at five this morning was, if he gets his clothes back — I hadda get one of my suits from the club for him — an’ the suitcases, he’ll forget about the money in his wallet, eighteen hundred smackers, a nice price for a cream puff, godsake... but she claims she don’t know how to contact her chum-bum, except through you... so they’re both to meet y’ there at six o’clock... now lissen!”
He did the listening, for the length of time it took me to get where I could see in the office. He was alone, sitting on the small of his spine in a swivel chair with one foot cocked up on top of a desk drawer. He wore a mauve jacket over a lime-tinted sport shirt. He heard me or saw me, the second I saw him.
“... hold everything,” he snarled at the phone, “somebody jus’ opened a manhole, a big stink blew in... I’ll call y’ back.” He slammed the receiver down viciously. “Why, damn you! Don’t you get enough key-holing in your own dump? You gotta come over here?”
“Where’s Tildy?” There were a dozen glossy-print photographs of her tacked up on the partition; on the desk beside a pair of rocker-blade skates, a bronze paperweight with the familiar twirled-out skirt and shapely legs!
“Where you won’t find her, bud.” He came up out of the chair, his face mottling. “Half a mind to mark you up good; takin’ her to the Brulard last night, you—”