I’d only driven a short time when my back began to hurt, so when I crossed the Verrazano Bridge I went straight to Victory Memorial Hospital for a patch job on my head and a set of X-rays. The doctor said that it must have been a muscle spasm brought on by some kind of stress, and had I done anything lately that might have strained it? I told him I had taken a header down a flight of stairs, at which time I had also received the cut on my head. I left with a small bandage on my head and a few pain killers in case the spasm recurred. I also had the doctor’s assurance that there was no permanent damage — that he could see.
Paul Lassiter lived in Valley Stream and that was where I was headed next. I was trying to decide what approach I would use on Lassiter’s wife when I said to myself, fuck it, I’ll go straight with it. I knew Lassiter would be at the track for a day of racing, so it was his wife I was going to see.
The Lassiters lived in a condominium in Valley Stream behind a large shopping center. I pulled up in front of the house and looked both ways twice before getting out of the car. Aware now that I had been followed to Hopkins’ house, I was fairly certain that I had not been followed from there, but it didn’t hurt to be extra careful.
As I approached the door I wondered what the hell I would say if Lassiter himself answered, but that was not likely. When Mrs. Lassiter came to the door I can’t say I was really surprised, because I didn’t have a preconception of what to expect, but it hadn’t been this.
“Yes, can I help you?”
She was tall, leggy, chestnut-haired, about twenty-eight by appearances. Her face was impeccably made up and quite sexy, her breasts were small, her waist slim and her hips also slim. She had a model’s look and carriage.
“Mrs. Lassiter?”
“That’s right. Look, if you’re selling something I really don’t have time to — ”
“I’m not a salesman, Mrs. Lassiter,” I assured her. I had none of my old business cards left, so I showed her my P.I.’s license and introduced myself.
“My name is Henry Po, Ma’am. I’m a private investigator.”
Her lined eyebrows went up. “A private investigator? What do you want with me?” Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously and she demanded, “Did my husband hire you?”
“No, ma’am, he didn’t,” I told her. If she’d had to ask that, then all was not right in the Lassiter household. “I’ve been hired by Benjamin Hopkins to find his daughter, Penny. He seems to feel that she’s missing.”
“Well, I’ve never met Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Po, or his daughter. I really don’t see how I can help and I really am in a hurry,” she told me, looking at her watch to help bring her point across.
“I’d just need a few minutes — ” I began.
“I don’t have a few minutes,” she snapped, then she seemed to reconsider her statement. “Look, I’ll make a deal with you. You drive me into the city and I’ll answer all your questions. I’m already late for a session.”
“You’re a model?” I asked.
“Yes, I am. Have you seen me?” she asked, hopefully.
“I thought you looked familiar,” I lied. She smiled happily and I added, “I’ll be glad to drive you.”
“That’s great, thanks. Just let me get my jacket and purse. Step inside,” she invited, and retreated into the house.
I stepped inside and watched her scurry around the living room. She was tall, at least five-eight and probably a little taller than me with the addition of heels. She had good legs, a nice ass and an obvious overabundance of nervous energy. Her movements were quick, clipped, and as she searched for her purse each movement was accompanied by an annoyed click of her tongue, or a muttered curse.
When she had everything she announced, “Okay, I’m ready, let’s go.”
I waited while she locked the door and then we got into my car. I saved my questions until we were on the Sunrise Highway, heading for the Belt Parkway There were shorter routes, but I wanted to make sure I had enough time with her. She was chattering on about the damned train always being late, so I figured she wouldn’t be familiar with all the auto routes to the city.
“Do you get to the track much, Mrs. Lassiter?” I asked.
“No, never, and since you’re giving me a ride you might as well call me Lisa. Your first name was … Henry?”
I nodded. “Or Hank, if you prefer.”
“I like ‘Hank’.”
“Fine. You don’t like going to the track?”
She made a face. “I hate horses, Hank. I know nothing about my husband’s business. I met him after his association with Ben Hopkins had come to an end, so I never met the old guy, although I’ve heard Paul speak of him often enough. Silly rivalry,” she commented. “Little boys, always competing.”
“And you’ve never met Penny Hopkins?”
She shook her head. “Never. I’ve also heard Paul speak of her, however. According to him she was a little pest who had a crush on him. A young girl, isn’t she?” she asked.
I fished her photo out of my inner jacket pocket, where it had gotten a little wrinkled due to my recent acrobatics. I handed it to her saying, “See for yourself.”
She took it and looked at it. Even astride the horse as she was in the picture, you could still see that Penny was not built like a “young girl.”
“That’s Penny Hopkins?” Lisa asked, and she started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing,” she answered, covering her mouth in an attempt to stifle the laughter. “I always thought Paul made much too much of a thing out of painting her as a pest. I imagined she was probably very pretty, but I never expected this. My, my, Paul must have had some fun with this one.”
She started laughing again.
“I beg your pardon?”
She put the picture on the seat between us and said, “I’m sorry, this must sound terrible to you, but the fact of the matter is that my husband and I lead very separate lives. He’s much older than I am, you know.”
Which wasn’t strictly true. As a model it was her business to look younger than she actually was, so I figured if she looked twenty-eight, she must have been at least five or six years older than that. That would make her only nine or ten years younger than her husband.
Not that much of a gap at all.
“Obviously,” I answered diplomatically, which pleased her.
She put her hand on my arm — suggestively, I think the word would be — and added, “He has his friends, Hank, and I have mine. Would you like to be my friend?”
“We’re already on a first-name basis, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” she replied, almost whispering, rubbing her hand up and down my arm, “so we are.”
I changed the subject.
“So then you really wouldn’t mind if your husband was having an affair with Penny Hopkins?”
“Dear man,” she said, squeezing my biceps, “I wouldn’t mind it at all, but I doubt it. You have to understand Paul. He doesn’t have affairs, per se. If he were a woman they would say he ‘sleeps around.’ Paul has this incredible ego thing when it comes to women. He feels they can’t resist him, and nine times out of ten he’s right.”
It was a funny question to ask the woman who married him, but I said, “Were you number ten?”
That started her laughing again.
“Oh, dear me, no. He got to me, too, that’s why I married him. It wasn’t until after we got married that I got over him.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Six years, but I’ve been over him for five — and don’t ask me why I don’t divorce him. That’s none of your business,” she told me, then touched my arm again, as if to soften the blow of the remark, and added, “yet.”
“As for number ten,” she continued, “That one really pissed Paul off. It was a lady jockey and he offered her a ride on Bold Randy for a roll in the hay. She told him to take his hay and stuff it.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“How could I not?” she answered, “although there’s been so many I usually don’t. This one was different, though. She’s very well known and very controversial. Her name is Brandy Sommers.”
That much was true, at least. Brandy herself had mentioned that.
“She really struck a blow for women when she bruised Paul’s ego,” she added.
I really couldn’t believe this guy. Did he actually go home to his wife, brag about his conquests and complain about his failures?
And what about Lisa?
Did she do the same thing?
What about her claim of never having met Penny? All models were aspiring actresses. Was she doing a number on me?
“Just how much of a pest did your husband insist that Penny Hopkins was, Lisa?” I asked.
She opened her lovely mouth to answer, and then stopped short.
“Do you suspect Paul of having something to do with her disappearance?”
“I don’t suspect anyone, Mrs. Lassiter. I’m just looking for some answers.”
“You must have thought that I, as the jealous wife, had something to do with it, also. We’re your two suspects, her lover and her lover’s wife. Isn’t that so?”
She didn’t seem at all alarmed at the possibility.
“There are a lot of possibilities, “I admitted.
She turned in her seat to face me. “Hank, Paul has never had to do harm to any of his girls in order to get rid of them — although I’m not saying he isn’t capable of it.”
“Is Paul a violent man?”
She hesitated before replying, “He has been, on occasion.”
“Has he ever struck you?”
“Once or twice, nothing really drastic. Actually, I really shouldn’t have mentioned it at all.” It was supposed to be an off-hand comment, but her tone and manner said she’d mentioned just as much as she had intended to.
Was she setting him up?
Shifting suspicion off herself?
When we entered the city she directed me to a studio on Fifty-seventh Street between Madison and Park avenues. I stopped in front and she hesitated before getting out.
“I hope I’ve helped you,” she said, fumbling in her purse for a pen and a piece of paper.
Actually, she’d confused the shit out of me. One moment she sounded like she was defending him, the next like she was setting him up.
“You’ve been very cooperative. I hope nothing has been said to offend you in any way,” I told her.
She laughed at that.
“Oh, no, I found this entire conversation fascinating, and I’m very happy to have met you, Hank. I enjoy making new friends.”
She finished writing whatever it was she was writing and took my right hand between her two hands, pushing the piece of paper into my palm. Her fingers were cool on the back of my hand.
“Call me sometime if you think I can be of any further help — with anything at all, okay?” Her smile was dazzling and I couldn’t help but wonder if those were her real teeth, or just caps.
I hoped they were real.
“I will,” I promised.
“Bye-bye,” she said, and got out of the car in a flash of nylon thighs. She trotted to the door of the studio and turned and waved before entering.
If she was doing a number on me, boy, she was doing it very well.
Only I wasn’t buying it completely. Something struck a wrong chord, and I was going to find out what it was.
I wondered how Shukey was making out with Aiello.