The Disappearance of Penny Read online

  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 n
ever 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.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I stopped at a phone booth to call my service. I wanted to see if there were any messages from Shukey. There weren’t, but there was a message from “Ray, the bartender,” saying he had some information for me. I didn’t know any bartenders named Ray, so it had to be the one at the track.

  Back across the bridge again, another dollar (toll) and it wasn’t even another day yet. How could people do that day in and day out?

  I drove back to the Downs and went right to the third floor of the clubhouse and the Turf Club Lounge. My friend “Ray” was on duty, but since it was a Sunday, and later in the day, so more people were ready to drink he was busier than when we last spoke. I went to the bar and ordered a beer.

  “Hey, I got a break coming in half an hour, you know?” he told me. “Play the five horse in the fifth race and then come back, okay?”

  “I thought you didn’t give tips?”

  “I don’t. I heard somebody say it looks good. Don’t go crazy, just play it, okay?”

  “See you in a while,” I told him.

  I went out and grabbed a program. The number five horse in the fifth race was called Twentieth Anniversary and he lost by about twenty lengths, but that was okay. I didn’t bet him.

  I don’t bet tips, guesses or what somebody says “looks good.”

  “No good, huh?” Ray asked me when I came back.

  “No problem” I assured him. “I didn’t play it. I don’t play horses anymore, especially hot tips.”

  “C’mon, we can sit over here,” he said, indicating a table in a corner that was apparently left open for employees.

  “I told you,” he insisted, “it wasn’t no tip. I don’t give tips.”

  “Okay, Ray, forget that. What’s this information you have for me?”

  He tried to look innocent by folding his hands and eyeing the ceiling. I took out a ten and extended it to him. When he made a grab for it I snatched it back.

  “It had better be worth it,” I told him, and then handed it to him.

  “You tell me,” he said, tucking the bill away. “I remembered something today?”

  Make me ask, I thought. “What?”

  “I remembered seeing Louie Melendez after Thursday.”

  I sat up straighter.

  “Where?”

  “Right here. He came runnin’ in here like somebody was chasin’ him. Man, was he filthy.”

  “What do you mean, he was filthy?”

  “Filthy, you know, dirty. Covered with dirt from head to toe, you know? He came runnin’ up to the bar and ordered a drink — in Spanish, yet. I hadda remind him to talk English, you know? When he finished it he looked around, scared like. Then he seemed to realize where he was and he took off again, like somebody was chasin’ him.”

  “How come you didn’t remember this yesterday?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “It slipped my mind.”

  “What day was this?”

  “Friday.”

  “What time?”

  He shrugged again. “Third race, I think.”

  Post time for the first race was one o’clock, with approximately half-hour intervals between races, that made it somewhere around two when he saw Melendez. Penny had left home at twelve.

  What had happened during those two hours that had frightened Louie Melendez?

  “Who does Melendez hang out with? Do you know?”

  “Not really, but I could probably find out for you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I took out another ten. “Do that, Ray, and have whoever it is get in touch with me, anytime. Got it?”

  “Got it, chief, “he assured me, tucking that bill away with the previous one. “What’s this all about?”

  I took out another five and gave it to him.

  “I figure that’s about forty bucks you’ve made off me up to now, Ray. If I hear from the guy Melendez hangs out with, that figure could easily double. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he answered enthusiastically.

  “Go back to work — and don’t give out any more tips.”

  “That wasn’t no tip,” he insisted, but I waved him away and he went, slightly indignant, but definitely richer than he had been before meeting me — even spiritually.

  Melendez was dirty?

  I got up and went to the bar.

  “Ray, did Melendez have any mounts that day?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know; but I can find out for ya.”

  “No thanks, it’ll be cheaper if I do it myself. See you.”

  A jockey friend of mine could check it out for me like Joey Importuno, Eddie Mapes —

  — or Brandy Sommers.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I stayed for the featured eighth, to watch Eddie Mapes ride the favorite. If he was feeling any ill effects from the experiences of the previous day, he showed none of them as he rode a beautiful race, took command at the head of the stretch and drew away for a six-length victory.

  I had placed Debby’s dollar bet and, since Eddie and the favorite paid $3.80 for every $2.00, I collected $1.90 for her. She had made ninety ce
nts profit.

  I wondered if I was going to be able to explain that to her.

  I wandered down to the security office and asked the gal there if I could use their phone again. I called Shukey’s number and got her service. I left her a message to come over to my place about eight o’clock that evening. Then I called my own service and asked if there were any messages.

  There weren’t.

  Brandy had a mount in the ninth race, a longshot called Pat’s Guy and it didn’t run that badly. She was gaining in the stretch and finished fourth, so both she and the horse made a little money. I went down to wait for her.

  I stood in the hall outside the jockeys’ room so she’d see me when she came down. When she did she called out, “Hi, Shamus.”

  “Hi, Brandy. You rode a nice race.”

  She made a face. “What a pig. I got the most I could out of him, though.”

  “He looked like he was closing pretty good,” I commented.

  She shook her head. “Wrong, detective, he was passing tired horses. He wasn’t going by them, they were backing up past him. You better stick to private eyeing.”

  I wondered what she’d say if I told her I wasn’t really a private investigator anymore. I mean, technically I was licensed, but I wasn’t really her kind of private eye.

  “I need a favor,” I told her.

  “Does that mean I get to work with you?” she asked eagerly.

  “Kind of. I need to know how many mounts, if any, Louie Melendez rode on Friday.”

  “This past Friday?”

  “Right.”

  “When do you need it by?” she asked.

  “I’d like to know by tonight. Give me a call when you get the information. You can leave a message with my service if I’m not home. Okay?”

  She smiled and I couldn’t interpret its meaning, but she said, “Okay I’ll talk to you later.”