The Disappearance of Penny Read online

  I waited until she had walked the length of the hall and disappeared through a door before I turned and left. Ronnie Sample came out of the jockeys’ room at that moment and we went upstairs together.

  As we reached the top he turned to me and said, “I’d be careful with Brandy, Mr. Po. She rides hard and she rides to win, but she never rides fair.”

  “I’ll remember,” I told him. “Thanks.” When he started to walk away I called him back.

  It was mostly curiosity that made me ask, “Is Eddie Mapes downstairs yet?”

  “He’s in the hospital.”

  “The hospital?” Aiello hadn’t laid a glove on him, unless he had suffered some unseen, internal injury. “What happened to him?”

  “The sixth race,” he told me. “He was the jock thrown from his horse.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  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?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sample had been right when he’d warned me that she rode hard, even though he may have had something else in mind.

  When we gravitated to the bed in the other room, we fell on it with her on top and, if she rode her races the way she rode me that night, I wondered why she didn’t win every race by at least twenty lengths.

  “Why did you wear that particular dress?” I asked her later.

  “I wanted you to see me in something other than riding silks,” she confessed.

  “I think you look just fine in riding silks, lady, “I told her. “In fact, I think you’d look fine in just about anything.”

  She kissed me for that and said, “Look, Hank, I want you to understand something. I approached you originally because I heard you talking to the other jocks. I heard them say you were a private detective — ”

  “Investigator,” I corrected. “Detective is a police department rank.”

  “Okay, have it your way. What I’m trying to say is — ”

  “If I was fat and sweaty we wouldn’t have gone any further than the hall outside the jockeys’ room. 1 understand, Brandy. Initially the attraction was my occupation, but from that point on my natural charm and raw animal magnetism took over, right?”

  She laughed and slapped me on the stomach.

  “Something like that,” she agreed.

  “So okay,” I said, “now we know where we stand. I always wondered what it would be like to go to bed with a jockey.”

  We both laughed at that and kissed again. Everything was very nice and cozy and then I had to ask, “Could we talk about Penny Hopkins, now?”

  She made a face and rolled over on her back. I stared at her firm little breasts with their large, brown, still tense nipples.

  “You seem to have a one-track mind,” she told me.

  “Us private eyes have to finish what we start,” I teased her, using my Bog-art voice.

  “Shit,” she said, then, “Penny Hopkins is a twit. She makes like she’s little Miss Innocence, all round eyes and clasped hands. She has all the guys drooling over her.”

  “Does she put out?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. A lot of the guys talk, you know, but I think it’s just bullshit.”

  “What about Louie Melendez?” I asked.

  She laughed. “That little queer is crazy about her. It’s the funniest thing.” Then she caught herself and admitted, “Well, it’s not really funny, but you know what I mean.”

  “I know,” I assured her.

  “Understand, I’m not jealous or anything. She doesn’t have anything, or anyone, that I want — except maybe a few inches,” she added ruefully, looking down at her own bosom.

  “Any more than a mouthful,” I started to say, but she interrupted me with, “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I just can’t stand that act of hers. She’ll turn a guy on, and then tune him out.” Shaking her head she added, “I’m sorry. but that’s wrong. It’s a bad game to play.”

  “What do you know about Paul Lassiter?”

  “Ah, now there’s a man she can’t turn on and off at will. Everybody believes the rumor that they’re ‘an item’, but since I can see past her obvious charms,” she said, making a face, “I can see that that relationship is all in her mind. He just plays along with her to piss her father off, but he doesn’t care for her. He’s big, he’s handsome and he thinks he’s God’s gift on earth for all women — ”

  “Has he ever come on to you?”

  “Oh, he tried — once. Offered me a ride on Bold Randy if I’d give him a ride in return.”

  “You could have reported him for that.”

  She shrugged and her breasts moved nicely.

  “I didn’t want to cost Randy a race. He’s a nice horse, an inquiry might have laid him up for a while. I couldn’t do that to him.”

  “You really love these animals, don’t you?”

  She nodded and a faraway look came into her eyes.

  “I think they’re the most beautiful animals in the world, the most beautiful creatures on earth, especially when they’re in motion.”

  “I agree, although I’ve never seen you run so I can’t compare.”

  “You’ve seen me ride, though, haven’t you?” she asked.

  “Sure, once or twice. I’m not really into betting horses.” Which was absolutely true. I used to bet a little, but when I started working for the N.Y.S.R.C., I felt it might be a breach of ethics to bet on horses when I was in a position of possibly getting inside information.

  I guess it’s my ethics that will keep me from ever being wealthy.

  “Did yo
u ever bet on me?”

  “Hell, no, “I told her, feigning a look of shock at the very idea.

  She propped herself up on an elbow and looked down at me.

  “I didn’t like the sound of that,” she told me. “What’s wrong with betting on me?”

  “Well, for one thing you only know one way to ride: on the lead. How many races can you expect to win wire to wire?”

  She smirked at me and asked, “Would you like me to show you why I like to ride on the lead?”

  “I’d love to know, “I answered, and the next thing I knew I was being kicked off the bed. I went down hard on the floor and shouted, “Hey!”

  “Watch and learn, Private Eye,” she instructed me.

  She took the two pillows from the bed and put one on top of the other. I leaned my chin on the bed and watched her.

  “Now watch closely,” she told me. She mounted the pillows as though they were a horse, her back to me. Then she hiked her bare behind up in the air, as if she were standing in the irons, practically wiggling her butt in my face and asked, “If you were a jockey and you were riding behind this,” she asked, wiggling her ass further, “would you be thinking about winning some dumb old race?”

  You know something, she had a point there.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was late when I left Brandy’s, but she had given me the names of a few places most frequented by jockeys and horsemen and I wanted to try out a few that night.

  I also didn’t want to spend the rest of the night with Brandy, because I liked her too much for someone I had just met that day. Bad form for a confirmed bachelor.

  I picked out about five places I could hit while working my way down to my apartment on West Eighteenth Street and Eighth Avenue.

  The fourth one I hit was a singles bar called THE PLACE, on Ninth Avenue.

  It was a fairly large club, with three bartenders working the bar at all times. I had never been there, but had heard a lot about it.

  I asked all the bartenders about Penny and they admitted, with that familiar faraway look in their eyes, that they remembered her. Two did not remember her name and none knew her well at all. She was just physically the kind of person you would remember seeing. None of them had seen her for days.