This made him even angrier. He’d need Karmen Brown’s money and more if he was going to keep his head above water. And that white fool just kept on grinning, his head like a wobbling tenpin begging to fall down.

Leonid handed the money to Bilko, who counted it slowly while the white goon licked his ragged lips.

“I think you should tip us for havin’ to come all the way up here to collect, Leon,” the white man said.

Bilko looked up and grinned. “ Leon don’t tip the help, Norman. He’s got his pride.”

“I knock that outta him right quick,” Norman said.

“I’d like to see you try it, white boy,” Leonid dared. Then he looked at Bilko to see if he had to take on two at once.

“It’s between you two,” the black capo said, holding up one empty hand and one filled with Leonid’s green.

Norman was faster than he looked. He laid a beefy fist against Leonid’s jaw, knocking the middle-aged detective back two steps.

“Whoa!” Bilko cried.

Norman ’s frayed lips curved into a smile. He stood there looking at Leonid, expecting him to fall down.

That was the mistake all of Leonid’s sparring partners had made at Gordo’s gym. They thought the fat man couldn’t take a punch. Leonid came in low and hard, hitting the big white man three times at the belt line. The third punch bent Norman over enough to be a sucker for a one-two uppercut combination. The only thing that kept Norman from falling was the wall. He hit it hard, putting his hands up reflexively to ward off the attack he knew was coming.

Leonid got three good blows to Norman ’s head before Bilko pushed him away.

“That’s enough now, boy,” Bilko said. “That’s enough. I need him on his feet to get back out on the street.”

“Take the asshole outta here then, Bilko! Take him outta here before I kill his ass!”

Dutifully Bilko helped the half-conscious, bleeding white man away from the wall. He pointed him at the door and then turned to Leonid.

“See you next month, Leon,” he said.

“No,” Leonid replied, breathing hard from the exertion. “You won’t be seeing me again.”

Bilko laughed as he led Norman toward the elevators.

Leonid slammed the door behind them. He was still in a rage. After all his pay he was still broke and hard-pressed by fools like Bilko and Norman. Gert wouldn’t take his calls and he didn’t even have a bed that he could sleep in alone. He would have killed that ugly fool if it wasn’t for Bilko.

Leonid Trotter McGill let out a roar and kicked a hole in the paneled veneer of his nonexistent receptionist’s cubicle wall. Then he picked up the phone, called Lenny’s Delicatessen on Thirty-fifth Street and ordered three jelly doughnuts and a large cup of coffee with cream.

He called Gert again but she still wasn’t answering.

It was a small office on the third floor above a two-story Japanese restaurant called Gai. There was no elevator so Leonid took the stairs. Just those twenty-eight steps winded him. If Norman had fought back at all, Leonid realized, he would be broken and broke.

The receptionist weighed less than ninety-eight pounds fully dressed and she was nowhere near fully dressed. All she had on was a black slip trying to pass as a dress and flat paper sandals. Her arms had no muscle. Everything about the girl was preadolescent except her eyes, which regarded the bulky P.I. with deep suspicion.

“Richard Mallory,” Leonid said to the brunette.

“And you are?”

“Looking for Richard Mallory,” Leonid stated.

“What business do you have with Mr. Mallory?”

“No business of yours, honey. It’s man-talk.”

The young woman’s four-ounce jaw hardened as she stared at Leonid.

He didn’t mind. He didn’t like the girl; dressed so sexy and talking to him as if they were peers.

She picked up a phone and whispered a few angry words then she walked away from her post into a doorway behind her chair, leaving Leonid to stand there at the waist-high barrier-desk. In the mirror on the wall Leonid could see through the window behind his back and out onto Madison Avenue. He could also see the swelling on the right side of his head where Norman had hit him.

A few moments later the tall man with a sparse mustache strode out. He wore black trousers and a tan linen jacket and the same uncomfortable expression he had on the photograph in Leonid’s pocket.

Leonid hated him too.

“Yes?” Richard Mallory said to Leonid.

“I’m looking for Richard Mallory,” Leonid said.

“That’s me.”

The P.I. took a deep breath through his nostrils. He knew that he had to calm down if he wanted to do his job right. He took another, deeper breath.

“What happened to your jaw?” the handsome young man asked the amateur boxer.

“Edema,” Leonid said easily. “Runs on my father’s side of the family.”

Richard Mallory was stymied by this. Leonid thought that he probably didn’t know the definition of the word.

“I want to talk business with you, Mr. Mallory. Something we can both make money on.”

“I don’t see what you mean,” Mallory said with the blandest of bland expressions on his face.

Leonid produced a card from his breast pocket. It read:

Van Der Zee Domestics and In-Home Service Aides

Arnold DuBois, Agent

“I don’t understand, Mr. DuBois,” Mallory said, using the French pronunciation of McGill’s alias.

“Du boys” Leonid said. “I represent the Van Der Zee firm. We’re just establishing ourselves here in New York. We’re from Cleveland originally. What we want is to get our people in as domestics, care for the aged, dog walkers, and nannies in the upper-crust buildings. All of our people are highly presentable and professional. They’re bonded too.”

“And you want me to help you get in?” Mallory asked, still a little leery.

“We’ll pay fifteen hundred dollars for every exclusive presentation you get us in for,” Leonid said. By now he had forgotten his dislike of the receptionist and Mallory. He wasn’t even mad at Norman anymore.

The mention of fifteen hundred per presentation (whatever that meant) moved Dick Mallory to action.

“Come with me, Mr. DuBois,” he said, pronouncing the name the way Leonid preferred.

The real estate agent led the fake employment agent down a hall of cubicles inhabited by various other agents.

Mallory took Leonid to a small conference room and closed the door behind them. There was a round pine table that had three matching chairs. Mallory gestured and they both sat down.

“Now what is it exactly that you’re saying, Mr. DuBois?”

“We have a young girl,” Leonid said. “A pretty thing. She sets up a small table in the entry hall of any building you say.

She talks to the tenants about all the various types of in-home labor they might need. Somebody might want an assistant twice a week to help with filing and shopping. They might already have an assistant but still need somebody to walk their pets when they’re away. Once somebody hires one of our people we’re confident that they will hire others as needs arise. All we want is your okay to install the young lady and we pay you fifteen hundred dollars.”

“For every building I get you into?”

“Cash.”

“Cash?”

Leonid nodded.

The young man actually licked his lips.

“If you can guarantee us a lobby in an upscale building, I can pay you as early as tonight,” Leonid said.

“Does it have to be that soon?”

“I’m an agent on commission for Van Der Zee Enterprises, Mr. Mallory. In order to make a profit I have to produce. I’m not the only one out here trying to make contacts. I mean, you can call me whenever you want, but if you can’t promise me a lobby by the end of today then I will have to go farther down my list of contacts.”

“But-“

“Listen,” Leonid said, cutting off any logic that Richard Mallory might have brought to bear. He reached into his pocket and brought out three one-hundred-dollar bills. These he placed on the table between them. “That’s one-fifth up front. Three hundred dollars against you finding me one lobby that I can send Arlene to tomorrow morning.”