MODELS FOR MURDER Read online

  Private Detective Stories, August, 1945

  MODELS FOR MURDER

  By W. T. BALLARD

  What grim motive was behind the terroristic frightening of those beautiful New York models,

  and behind the murder that accompanied it? I, Austin Gardner, had two dangerous reasons

  for wanting to find out . . . .

  IMMY WABASH said; “I’m telling you,

  blow a fuse. To hear you tell it, this tomato is Austin, this gal is something. You can

  super-extra. I’d almost think you were gone

  J take your million-buck models and throw on her if I didn’t know that you regard women them all together and you ain’t got nothing

  as strictly from hunger.”

  that can touch her.”

  He grinned, the red climbing up his

  I regarded him with amusement. He was a

  pinched cheeks until it reached his oversized

  funny little guy with red hair and the sharpestears and colored them. “I wouldn’t know

  pointed nose I’ve ever seen. A photographer,

  about that.” He’d lowered his voice. “You see,

  and a good one, he preferred to freelance

  the way I feel about this Mary . . . all I want to rather than take a job, although he could have

  do is sit and look at her, like you would look

  commanded an excellent salary.

  at a statue or something.”

  “I like to take pictures of what I want, the

  “Bring her around,” I said. “We could use

  way I want to take them,” he told me once,

  something like that. Most of the girls

  and I believed him.

  nowadays have been walking around in

  “Take it easy, Jimmy,” I said, winking at

  moccasins so long that they shuffle like an

  Henry Graylord, my agency manager. “You’ll

  Indian.”

  PRIVATE DETECTIVE STORIES

  2

  He grinned. Henry Graylord said in his

  His face lighted when he saw me and he

  worried voice, “Now, Austin, don’t be hasty.

  pulled a big old-fashioned hunter-case watch

  This girl probably just fell out of that tree that from the pocket of his sagging vest.

  grows in Brooklyn. If you have Jimmy bring

  “Hi, Austin. Where you headed?”

  her in, she’ll get big ideas and—”

  I said that I was going home. I was tired of

  “She wouldn’t come anyway,” said arguing with girls. To those of you who see Jimmy. “I don’t get it. I told her I knew you—

  the photographs of my models on advertising

  kind of building myself up, you know—and

  or magazine covers, it may seem that it would

  she acted sort of scared.”

  be fun to argue with some of the models once

  “Maybe,” said Henry slowly, “she belongs

  in awhile, but when you put in eight hours, six to this model association. If so, we don’t want days every week, coping with their

  any part of her.”

  temperament, satisfying their whims,

  I swung my chair around to look at him.

  temporizing with advertisers, photographers

  “Model association? What’s that? Do any of

  and the like, you get very tired of women.

  our girls belong?”

  “Look,” he said in his small, eager voice.

  He shook his head. “It isn’t that kind of an

  “It’s early, not four-thirty yet. They’re having association. In fact, I think it’s some kind of a little show for some out-of-town buyer down

  racket. The cheaper jobbers and ready-to-wear

  at Ivor’s Misses Ready-to-Wear and Stylish

  houses that have one and two girls are Stouts. That Mary Ingersoll that I was telling bothered. I was talking to a friend of mine in

  you about. She’s working down there. You

  the trade the other day. It seems he has to hire can get a look at her without her knowing.”

  the girls they tell him to—or something might

  I shook my head. “Ixnay.”

  happen to his business.”

  “Please, Austin . . . tell you what I’ll do.

  “Nuts.”

  I’ll handle those Radferm pictures you’ve

  Henry shrugged and looked appealingly

  been after me to take, if you’ll come down. It

  toward Jimmy Wabash. “Austin’s so used to

  won’t take half an hour. . . . Hey, taxi!” His

  being the head of the great Gardner Agency

  arm had gone up and signaled a passing cab

  that he can’t imagine anyone who isn’t afraid

  which slid to a stop before us.

  of him.”

  Jimmy had the door open, was shoving me

  “It isn’t that,” I said. “It’s just that that

  inside and giving the driver a Twenty-second

  kind of talk doesn’t make sense. Sure, I know

  Street address. I shrugged and settled back in

  there are chiselers around town who would

  the seat. It was easier to go along than it was move into anything that looked like they could

  to argue.

  squeeze a dime out of, but those girls,

  The building before which the cab stopped

  modeling in the ready-to-wear trade, aren’t

  was an old one, housing a succession of lofts

  making enough to attract any kind of a rat.

  and small show rooms. The one on the third

  Someone’s been kidding you. Now, you both

  floor into which Jimmy piloted me was no

  get out and let me work.”

  different from a hundred others scattered

  through New York’s sprawling garment

  HEY went and I proceeded to forget all

  center.

  ab

  T out Jimmy and this Mary Ingersoll. I Around the showroom were scattered a probably would never have thought of the

  half-dozen buyers from little chains of ready-

  name again if Jimmy hadn’t been waiting at

  to-wear shops from all across the country. It

  the bus stop three nights later when I paused

  was no different from crowds that you could

  in the hope of picking up a cab.

  see at one of these places any time a new line

  MODELS FOR MURDER

  3

  was being shown, but the girl who came

  But Jimmy caught my arm. “Wait a

  through the far door was decidedly different.

  minute, Austin. Don’t go.”

  I didn’t need the tug which Jimmy Wabash

  I turned back and as 1 did so a squat man

  gave my coattail to know that this was the girl came through the fitting-room door. He was

  we’d come to see. I watched her instinctively,

  so broad that he seemed to be almost as wide

  as a trainer might size up a horse. Models

  as he was tall. His face was broad and flat, and were my business, after all.

  his eyes protruded a little as if someone had

  She was beautiful, but to me that was of

  squeezed his neck too tightly.

  secondary importance. It was the way she

  “Get out of here.” He was talking to the

  walked, the little extra touch that she gave to girl, his voice so low that it barely reached my the clothes she wore.

  ears.

&nb
sp; A little difference is big in models.

  I took a step forward and he snarled at me,

  “Keep out of this, Bud,” and putting out a

  HE outfit she was modeling was cheap

  thick hand, shoved against my chest.

  an

  T d badly designed, but on her it looked I hit him without thinking about it. I have as if it might have come from Sak’s. She wore

  never liked being pushed around, and I

  almost no make-up, yet her skin looked as

  certainly didn’t like this squat man. I hit his smooth and soft as a peach.

  jaw, and it was like hitting a piece of iron,

  “What did I tell you!” Jimmy whispered

  sending pain back along my arm in knifelike

  gleefully. “Some dish, what?” Before I could

  waves. He put his head down and bored in. I

  stop him, he’d stepped forward and caught the

  sensed rather than saw the heavy arms,

  girl’s arm as she was about to disappear clutching out at me, and knew that if he ever through the door to the fitting room. He led

  folded me into their bearlike grip, he would

  her, protesting, toward where I stood and I felt smash my ribs and perhaps shatter my spine.

  every eye fin the room turned in our direction.

  I danced away from him. I’d boxed in

  As they reached me, Jimmy was saying,

  college but I’d not had on gloves since. I

  “Snap out of it, sugar. This is Austin Gardner.

  realized anyhow that this was more than a

  His agency is almost as large as the Powers

  boxing match, much more. This squat man,

  outfit. You can’t afford to miss a chance like

  charging toward me with his guttural half-

  this.”

  animal noises, was a killer. I could see it in his I could tell by her face that his words

  popped, red-rimmed eyes.

  excited her, but under the excitement there

  I had to stop him, and it had to be with my

  was something else that seemed very like fear.

  fists. I concentrated on the man before me,

  “I . . . I’m not supposed to talk to anyone,” she forgetting the startled buyers, the girl and

  said.

  Jimmy Wabash. He kept rushing me, his big

  I stepped to meet them. This girl intrigued

  arms swinging, but it wasn’t the blows I

  me. Mostly I have to fight shy to keep from

  feared. I feared that he’d back me into a

  meeting them. Here was one who hesitated at

  corner, and wrap those arms around me.

  meeting me.

  My fists thudded against his head and

  “How do you do?” I said as Jimmy face, battering it into a red smear. An ordinary introduced us. “I wonder if you’d be interested man would have fallen, but this grotesque

  in calling at my office in the morning. It’s

  creature kept coming. One of his eyes was

  on—”

  closed and blood from a cut over the second

  “Oh, but I couldn’t.”

  eye ran down to blind him partly.

  I stared at her. “Well, in that case,” I

  This helped. If he could have seen clearly I

  started to turn away.

  don’t think I’d have ever escaped. As it was, I PRIVATE DETECTIVE STORIES

  4

  can take no real credit for knocking him out. It

  “At the moment he won’t wreck

  was Jimmy Wabash who ended it, and the

  anything,” I said. “We’re lucky if he isn’t

  weapon he used was a bronze statuette of a

  dead.”

  model which sat in a little niche between the

  “You can’t kill him,” the lavender-shirted

  windows.

  one moaned. “Oh, that this should happen to

  me.” He swung about and went tearing away

  OW long it was between the man’s first

  into the cutting room.

  ch

  H arge and the cracking blow against the

  I looked at Jimmy. “What is this, a den of

  back of his head which put him down, I’ll

  lunatics? Is the guy dead?”

  never know.

  “He breathing.”

  He fell forward onto his face, and I

  “Then let’s call an ambulance and get out

  thought that he was dead. I wasn’t certain that of here. We don’t want to be mixed up in a

  I wasn’t either. My chest felt as if it were

  brawl in police court.” I looked toward the

  circled by a band of iron which would not

  girl, whom I’d forgotten, and found that she

  allow me enough air in my tortured lungs. My

  was staring down at the battered man on the

  arms were so weary that I could hardly hold

  floor.

  up my puffed, broken hands.

  “Look, sister, who is he?”

  Jimmy was excited. “Did he hurt you,

  She raised her eyes. They were big and

  Austin? Boy, did you hit him with everything

  very dark and the most beautiful I’d ever seen.

  in the book!”

  “He’s . . . Bobo.”

  “Everything but a statue,” I said wryly. “It

  I lost my temper. After all, I’d taken

  seems that’s what it takes. Lucky you were

  something of a beating myself. Every muscle

  around to swing it.”

  in my body ached. “Bobo! Bobo? What is

  His mouth twisted. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t

  this?”

  seem to move, couldn’t get going.”

  “He runs the association.”

  “You came through in the pinch,” I said,

  I said, “So what? You act as if you were

  feeling one cheek where one of the squat

  scared to death of him. My girls belong to a

  man’s wild blows had nearly laid the bone

  union and they—”

  bare. “That was like fighting an ox. We ought

  “This is different.” She was whispering as

  to buy his contract and put him in the if she were afraid that someone would hear Garden.”

  her. “We . . . we can’t quit. Something would

  Someone seized my arm, and I thought for

  happen, acid would be thrown. It happened to

  a moment that the ox had friends who wanted

  one girl. . . .”

  to carry on the fight. I swung around, ready.

  Instead I found myself facing a little guy in a STARED at her, not believing my ears, but

  gray pin-point stripe suit. His shirt and tie

  II had to believe the fear that was mirrored

  were lavender and matched. His hair was in her face. It was a real, a living thing that sleek and very black and he looked worried.

  gave her a tragic quality hard to describe.

  “What have you done? What have you

  “Look,” I said, and my voice was softer,

  done?” He was treating my arm as if he for I found that I suddenly had the impulse to thought it were a pump handle.

  put an arm around her shoulder, to comfort

  I shook him loose. “Take it easy.”

  her, to tell her not to be afraid. “This is utterly He was almost crying. “Bobo won’t let me

  silly. If everything that you say is true, all we operate. “He’ll wreck the place, he’ll—”

  have to do is to call the police, to tell them

  I judged that the man on the floor was

  what you know, and Mr. Bobo will go away

  Bobo.

  for a lo
ng, long time where he won’t throw

  MODELS FOR MURDER

  5

  any acid or anything else.”

  It still didn’t ring any bell until I read on

  “No, no. I don’t dare. I can’t talk to the

  down and found Jimmy Wabash’s name. Then

  police.” She was crying openly now. “They’d

  I looked up with a start.

  get the other girls if I did.”

  “When? How?”

  “Who would?”

  Graylord said, “It’s all there.” He was a

  “I don’t know. That’s the trouble. We’ve

  big man, soft and good-looking in an over-

  never seen them, never seen anyone but stuffed sort of way, and his face glistened a Bobo.”

  little now in the shaft of morning sun. “His

  I looked helplessly at Jimmy.

  sister heard an awful racket about one-thirty in He said, “We can’t leave her here. That

  Jimmy’s dark-room. She tried to get in, but

  ape will kill her when he comes to.”

  the door was locked, and she called the police.

  “If he ever does.”

  When they arrived they broke down the door

  “He will,” said Jimmy. “No bronze was

  and found Wabash’s body. He’d been beaten

  ever cast that would crack that skull. I’ll take to death.”

  her home with me. I’ve got a sister up in the

  I started, and a picture of the squat Bobo

  Bronx. In the morning, we’ll decide what to

  leaped into my mind. “A girl,” I said. “Does it do. Will you give her a job?”

  say anything about a girl?”

  I nodded. “Why not? With some training,

  Graylord looked at me as if I had suddenly

  and—”

  gone crazy. “Why, yes, it seems that Jimmy

  “See?” said Jimmy, putting his arm around

  brought a girl home with him last night,

  Mary Ingersoll’s slender shoulders. “You’ve

  according to his sister. They put her in the

  got nothing to worry about, baby. Six months

  spare room, but when the police looked, she

  with the Gardner Agency and you’ll be a big

  was gone.”

  shot. You’ll laugh at muggs like that Bobo.”

  I swore under my breath and reached for

  She shuddered. “I can’t go. I—”

  the telephone, thought better of it and grabbed

  “You’re going,” he said, peeling off his

  my hat.

  own topcoat and throwing it around her

  Graylord said sharply: “You have

  shoulders. “You’re okay now, baby, nothing