Don't Look Behind You Read Free Page B

warn you about picking up the soap in the shower, doll?”
    “A guy could knock,” she said.
    “And then a guy would miss the sweetest surprises.” I pushed the door shut. “Besides, I’m a true connoisseur of the female form.”
    “I noticed.”
    “I think of it as living erotic art.”
    Her mouth pursed into an amused kiss. “Do you now?”
    I tossed my hat on her desk, slung my hip on the edge and picked up my mail. “Anything come in?”
    Velda tugged her skirt down, got back behind her desk and said, “A couple of bills, two checks and a referral from the Smith-Torrence Agency.”
    “Referral, huh?”
    “It’s in that stack there.”
    I sorted the envelopes and fingered out the agency one. “What’s with Smitty, anyway, calling me in? He knows I don’t handle auditing cases.”
    “Well, read it and see.”
    I yanked out the letter and glanced at it. “Hell, it’s six pages long and starts with his latest fishing trip. I wouldn’t want to read about my own fishing trip. Brief me.”
    Velda reached out, took the letter and selected the last page. “Smith-Torrence has a request for the kind of thing
they
don’t handle. Seems one Leif Borensen has security needs.”
    Sitting perched where I’d been when Woodcock came in yesterday, I glanced back at her and asked, “Where do I know that name from?”
    “You got me,” she said with a shrug. “I never heard it before, and haven’t had time to run a check.”
    “Don’t bother. If I decide to take this, Smitty will fill me in. Just give me the basics, baby.”
    She shrugged again. “Borensen’s somebody with money who’s getting married. He wants security in attendance at his fiancée’s bridal shower. It’s at the Waldorf.”
    I made a face. “If it’s a female shindig, you should take the gig.”
    Velda shrugged again. “Smitty says he needs a security man. I’d never pass the physical.”
    “Truer words.”
    She flipped a hand. “Anyway, if we’re talking high society, the gifts could be worth a small fortune and the gals in attendance might be swimming in jewelry, and not the paste variety. My guess is that we should both be working it.”
    Like I said, Velda was no mere secretary. She was a full partner in this firm. Some day I’d make her a full partner period.
    I swiftly scanned the paragraphs she indicated and let out a snort of disgust. “Why pass this on to me? If this guy Borensen wants to make a show of it, he’ll want uniformed guards. Burns or Pinkerton make those scenes. I’ll look like a damn clown in that circle.”
    She shook her head and grinned at me. “Quit being touchy about your obvious lack of class. If you’d read the letter, you’d see that the client doesn’t want to be ostentatious. He just wants somebody handy to avoid pilfering by the hotel staff and in the unlikely event of a robbery. Nothing you haven’t done before.”
    I said, “Back when I was scratching out a living, maybe.”
    “You’re not all that rich yet.”
    “Balls.”
    “See what I mean about your lack of class? Anyway, Smitty’s doing you a favor.” She nodded toward the bullet hole in the wall behind her, and gestured toward the faint red smear across the way, made by Woodcock’s insides. “Your recent surge of publicity gives you a stigma that may be off-putting to a certain breed of client.”
    “Where would I be,” I said, “without you to cut me down to size.”
    Her smile had something impish in it. “I’m the only person in town who would have taken a bet that you could have wiped that Woodcock character out the way you did—a guy with a gun in his hand, facing you down like that.” Her eyes grew grave. “Listen, Mike, I’m sorry about…”
    I swung around so I was sitting on the side edge of the desk now and rested my left hand against the top so I could lean in and face her. “Forget it, kitten.”
    “I put you in that spot. I can’t
believe
I left that door unlocked when I left.”
    “Your girl friend