I went back to the security office to use their phone. I called Hopkins’ number, but there was no answer. Next I called the hospital and was informed that Eddie Mapes had been treated and sent home. They were not at liberty to discuss his injuries with me. My last call was to Biel’s secretary again. I asked her to get me Louis Melendez’s address. She told me to hold on while she used the other line. I was on hold for about five minutes when she returned and gave me the address. It was in Manhattan, so I figured to stop in on the way home and check it out.
It was a rundown apartment building, a five story walk-up, Melendez’s apartment was on the third floor. I went up the creaking, vile-smelling stairway to his door and knocked. I put my ear to the door, but heard nothing inside. I knocked again, considered letting myself in, but at this point I really didn’t have justification for illegal entry into someone else’s apartment. I wasn’t sure he had anything to do with Penny Hopkins’ disappearance. I went down to talk to the super, an overweight, balding Puerto Rican who told me he hadn’t seen Melendez for days. He also told me he tried not to see any of the tenants for days. He minded his own business, he told me. I told him he was a credit to his community and left.
When I got back to my apartment in Chelsea I found a sink full of dirty dishes, remnants of what was to be a lovely breakfast. Apparently, Daphne’s mood had not improved by the time she finished her breakfast.
I filled the sink with hot water and dish-washing liquid and left the dishes there to soak.
Before changing for my date with a jockey, I searched through my desk and found what I wanted in a bottom drawer: a stack of old Playboy and Penthouse magazines. I discarded the Penthouses and leafed through the Playboys until I found the one I wanted. The issue was just barely two years old.
It wasn’t a centerfold, but it was enough. Brandy riding bare back, her breasts all but hidden by the horse’s head. Brandy in a stable, lying atop a pile of hay, her breasts tantalizingly hidden by shadow. They even showed the dark patch between her legs, but they never did give you a clear, unobstructed view of her breasts.
Were they too small?
Did they sag?
I hoped not.
What the layout of Brandy Sommers did show seemed to be very smooth and firm. Maybe she just wasn’t as uninhibited as she made herself out to be.
I read the text: she was five-foot one, ninety-eight pounds at that time, and twenty-one years old. She’d been a jockey for two years when the story was done, which made her a four-year veteran of the turf wars now. From what Sample told me, it seemed that she would do anything during a race in order to win it.
Or was that what he meant by telling me that she ‘rides hard’?
Maybe I’d find out, sooner or later.
Aside from all of this, just what did she know about Penny Hopkins?
I wouldn’t find out just hanging around here.
I showered and put on a leisure suit and was at her door a few minutes before eight. She was checked into the Royalton Hotel, apparently preferring to be in the middle of the city rather than close to the track.
Her main riding base had always been California, but I’d read an article on her which said that she wanted to try New York out. She was coming in on the tail end of the present racing season, and planned on staying for the winter racing. Most of the class jockeys either went to California to race at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, or to Florida, at Gulfstream and Hialeah. Not that she wasn’t a class jockey, she was, but there was plenty of money to be made in New York during the winter, especially with most of the good ones out of town. The real winter racing wouldn’t start for a few weeks yet, but she probably wanted to get the feel of the town first, make sure she was comfortable.
She had a cozy two-room suite. The Royalton has a touch of class, is not that expensive and, located on Forty-third (with another entrance on Forty-fourth) between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, it was near everything.
When she opened the door I almost didn’t recognize her.
Her dark hair was still straight, hanging just above her shoulders, but she seemed to have done something to it, something that added a little more body, more luster. (Congratulations, Great Detective, you’ve deduced that the lady had washed her hair.)
Her shoulders were bare, smooth and white. Her arms were also bare and I could see that there was no looseness to her upper arms. The fleshtone was firm. She was a strong girl, but then, to be a jockey, to be able to control a 1,200-pound animal, she would have to have strong hands and arms.
Looking at her now, however, wearing a green dress that showed her small breasts off to their best advantage, her tiny waist, her neck, her mouth touched up with lip gloss, her eyes — sexy brown eyes — adorned with just a hint of eye makeup, it was hard to believe that I was looking at one of the top jockeys — not just female, but one of the top jockeys — in the country.
“I know what you do for a living,” I told her, “but the way you look right now you could be one of the top fashion models in the country, not a jockey.”
“Huh-uh,” she said, shaking her head. “Couldn’t be.”
“Why not?”
She held her hand out in front of her, palm down, and said, “I’m too short. C’mon in.”
She stepped back to allow me to enter, then shut the door behind us.
“Very nice,” I said, letting her think I meant the suite.
“It’s comfortable. Where are we going to eat?” she asked.
“A little place I know, “I told her. “Quiet, good food and an occasional celebrity.”
“Like me?”
“Modest, too, huh?” I asked. She smiled demurely. “You ready?”
“Just let me get my jacket,” she said. She put on a jacket that matched the dress and we left.
We went to a little restaurant/bar I know of on First Avenue and Fifty-second Street and, even though it was the middle of the dinner rush, were seated immediately. The fact that there were only two of us helped.
The waitress came over and asked if we wanted a drink before dinner.
“Brandy?”
“Brandy?” the waitress said, preparing to write it down.
“No, no,” I corrected her, “that’s the young lady’s name.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, laughing, and stood with pen poised.
“I’ll have a glass of white wine,” Brandy told me.
“I’ll have a Coke,” I told the waitress, and she went off to get the drinks.
“Coke?” Brandy asked me. “What kind of private eye drinks Coke?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are a private eye, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Uh, does the success of this date depend on my being one?” I asked her.
“C’mon, are you?”
Actually, technically speaking, I was. I still had my P.I. license, so I said, “Yes. I am a ‘shamus’,” and why did she want to know.
“I’ve never met a real one. This is fascinating.” She was like a kid who’d just met Santa Claus — or The Fonz.
“Have you met phony ones?” I asked.
“Fictional,” she told me.
“Oh, I get it. You read mysteries.”
“Private eye fiction,” she corrected. “Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Race Williams, Mike Hammer, Lew Archer, guys like that. But up until today I had never met a real private eye. This is great.”
“Well, I hope I’m not a disappointment,” I told her.
“Well, you’re not all that big, or tough-looking — you are good-looking, though,” she was quick to say, to ease the blow. “But, Coke?”
“I take a beer now and then,” I admitted reluctantly. She laughed and put her hand on mine.
“You’re nice to put up with this,” she told me.
“Actually, I’m the one that’s fascinated,” I told her.
“By what?”
“A lady jockey.”
The waitress came with our drinks and we went from there into dinner and then coffee, all the while discussing our respective occupations.
I elaborated a little, I admit, for her benefit, but it was a very pleasant dinner, with absolutely nothing said about Penny Hopkins.
When I brought her back to her apartment, I wished I didn’t have to bring up the question of the missing girl, but I didn’t really have a choice.
“Shall I call down for something?” she asked. “Not for me, thanks. Brandy?”
“Yes?”
“You said you could tell me something about Penny Hopkins.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, you did. Were you serious, or did you just use that and your feminine wiles to lure me up here?”
“I admit, I did ask you up here because you were a private eye. I was interested in meeting you for that reason.”
“That’s why you lured me up here?”
“Why do you keep saying ‘lure’?” she asked. “Did I lure you up here?”
I nodded. “On false pretenses, it seems.”
This was what I was afraid of. I didn’t want to ruin what had been a nice evening.
“What false pretenses?” she demanded.
“You said you might be able to help me find Penny Hopkins.”
“And is that the only reason you came up here?” she returned.
She had me there. “Well, I — ”
“Besides, I can tell you some things about Penny Hopkins that no one else can tell you.”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s a cock tease.”
I smiled. “And what would you know about being a cock tease?” I asked sarcastically.
The anger in her response startled me. She stood up and stamped her foot.
“I am not a cock tease, Henry Po! If I was I would come on to you and then turn it off when you got hot.” She reached behind her, undid something and the dress slid down around her ankles.
“If I were going to tease you, would I do this?” she asked, punctuating the question with a kick that sent the dress flying at my head.
Playboy had not prepared me for anything like this.
Her breasts may have been small, but they were as firm as the rest of her and beautifully shaped, like round little melons. Her nipples were large and penny brown. She had an athlete’s body, firm, smooth and well-toned.
“Well, what have you got to say?” she demanded.
“They don’t sag at all,” I asked, “do they?”