She turned to me and smiled, in a business-like way, and then the smile widened.
“Nate,” she said, standing, extending a hand. “It’s been a long time.”
She had pale, pale skin, translucent skin, with the faintest brown trail of freckles over a pert nose. She had a wide full mouth with cherry red lipstick, and big violet eyes. Her eyebrows were rather thick, unplucked, unfashionably beautiful, and she had a couple pounds of eyelashes, apparently real, and the whitest teeth this side of Hollywood. She looked about seventeen, but she was ten years older than that-a few laugh crinkles around the enormous eyes were almost a giveaway-and she had a very slim but nicely shaped frame. The hand she extended, in an almost manly fashion, had short nails with bright red polish, the color of her lipstick.
She was a stunning-looking girl, and in 1938, I’d slept with her once. Well. That was part of what we’d done together that night….
“Peggy,” I said, amazed. “Peggy Hogan.”
Her hand, as I grasped it, was firm and smooth and warm.
Her big grin, dimpling her slightly chubby cheeks, was one of amusement and pleasure.
“You’re still a private eye,” she said.
“You’re still a dish,” I noted.
“You told me I shouldn’t sleep with strange men.”
“I waited till the next morning to give you that advice, though.”
Her smile closed over those white teeth and settled in one dimple; she gestured to a chair, which I pulled up, and she sat behind her desk.
“I was a pretty wild kid,” she said, echoing her uncle’s words.
“I remember.”
“I never did sleep around much, Nate. You were one of a select few.”
“It was my honor. My pleasure, actually.” I felt awkward about this, but was immediately taken with this older version of the fresh young girl I’d once bedded and then lectured and sent on her way.
I’d met her at a party at a fifth-floor suite in the Sheraton. My boxer friend Barney Ross, who’d grown up on the West Side with me, and some other big shots in the sporting world were going to a wingding tossed by Joe Epstein, who ran the biggest horse-race betting commission house in Chicago. Epstein was an overweight, meek-looking little guy in his early thirties, with hornrimmed glasses and a disappearing hairline; but he was a sucker for the night life, and when he wasn’t hitting the local night spots he was throwing his own bashes.
Epstein had a girl friend who’d been around town since the World’s Fair in ’33. She’d danced a pretty fair hootchiekoo for a kid from the sticks-an Alabama girl with a sultry lilting accent and lots of chestnut hair and baby-fat curves and a full pouty mouth. Her name was Virginia Hill and she was looking pretty sophisticated these days, greeting Joe’s guests with a smile and giving them a look at a couple of yards of creamy white bosom; her clingy black gown didn’t leave much of the rest of her to the imagination, either.
“You’re Nate Heller, aren’t you?” Virginia had said, taking my hand. You could’ve camped out on this girl’s tits.
“Yeah. Surprised you remember me.”
“Don’t be silly,” she beamed. “You used to catch pickpockets at the fair.”
“You used to attract crowds,” I shrugged. “That attracts pickpockets.”
She walked me into the suite, a modern-looking job appointed in black and white, the furnishing running to armless sofas and easy chairs, on which were poised pretty girls in their early twenties, wearing low-cut gowns, drinking stingers and the like, waiting for male guests. Paul Whiteman music was coming from a phonograph, louder than a traffic jam.
“Afraid I never gave your girl friend Sally Rand much of any competition,” she said, talking over the music.
She was still holding onto my hand. Her hand was hot, a friendly griddle.
“Sally isn’t my girl friend,” I said. “Never was. We’re just pals.”
“That’s not what I hear,” she said, wrapping her accent around the words, making them seem very dirty indeed.
“Last I saw you, Ginny, you were a waitress at Joe’s Place.”
Joe’s Place was no relation to Joe Epstein: it was a one-arm joint at Randolph and Clark where the waitresses were pretty and wore skimpy skirts and V-neck blouses. A lot of men ate there.
“That’s where Eppy met me,” she said, finally letting go of my hand, her smile a self-satisfied one.
“I heard,” I said, with an appreciative nod for her accomplishment. “You been seeing a lot of him, huh?”
“He’s a wonderful guy, Eppy. A real genius.”
“Where did he find these girls? They look a little young and fresh to be pros.”
Barney and his pals were mixing with the quiff. Drinks and dancing and laughter. Loud men and giggly girls.
“Skilled amateurs,” she explained, walking me to a nearby bar, behind which a colored bartender in a red vest mixed drinks dispassionately. “Party girls.”
“Secretaries and business-college gals and the like, you mean.”
She nodded. “Get you something?”
“Rum,” I said.
“Ice?”
“No ice. No nothing. Rum.”
“Rum,” she said, shrugging, smiling, nodded at the bartender, who poured me a healthy snifter.
“Just girls who want a good time, huh?” I asked.
“Some of ’em might take some money if you forced it on ’em. Why?”
“Some of ’em look a little young to me. You can go to jail for having too much fun, you know.”
She shrugged. “Most of these girls have been around some. They all do some modeling on the side.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. For the local calendar artists. A friend of mine’s tight with the boys who run Brown and Bigelow, the St. Paul advertising firm?”
I nodded. “They put out all those calendars.”
“Right. Several of their regular artists are here in Chicago, and I scout up models for ’em.”