Design for Dying (20 page)

“Only last week I escorted her to her suite. No. I must insist you look again.” He punctuated his polite but forceful request with a tap on the counter.

The flustered clerk danced to his tune. “I'm sorry, sir. No Natalie Szabo.”

He had to be Armand Troncosa. I knew from the moment he'd entered the lobby. I felt a surge of pride, followed by a tidal wave of panic.
What now?

“Most distressing. Bring forth your manager, my dear. At once.” The would-be suitor laid the roses on the desk. The clerk reached for the phone. I seized my chance.

“Pardon me, sir.”

With some subtle adjustments, he transformed his expression from dissatisfied customer to that of a man happy to chat with a woman. Any woman. “Yes, miss. How might I assist you?”

“Don't think me rude, but I couldn't help overhearing—”

“Lil?”

I hadn't imagined that chill wind at my back. It was the revolving door again, admitting Esteban Riordan. Troncosa's man Friday looked dapper despite the suspicion in his eyes.

“Hello, Esteban. It's actually Lillian. Lillian Frost.”

Esteban positioned himself between me and his employer. I was viewed as a threat. “This is the woman I told you about.”

“Never. This cannot be the scatterbrained visitor you described.” Troncosa took my hand as if he held the deed to it and pressed his lips to my skin. I was dealing with an Olympic-caliber Lothario. “Lillian, not Lil, I am Armand Troncosa. You already know Esteban. And Natalie, too, I believe.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you. I regret I haven't met the princess.”

“No? Yet you use her name to try gaining entry to my home.” Troncosa glanced at Esteban, who nodded in confirmation.

“If I could explain?”

After a moment's consideration, Troncosa dispatched the hotel clerk with an arched eyebrow and proceeded to a settee. Esteban remained standing and vigilant. “Very well, Lillian,” Troncosa said. “You may explain.”

“Natalie and I have a mutual acquaintance. Ruby Carroll.”

“This other woman both you and the police mentioned to Esteban. Sadly, the name is unfamiliar to me.”

“Ruby Carroll was what she called herself professionally. Her right name was Roza Karolyi.”

Comprehension illuminated Troncosa's face as Esteban's head snapped around. “Natalya's cousin!” Troncosa spoke to Esteban as much as me. “I have not yet had the pleasure.”

“Natalie has spoken of her. The actress,” Esteban said.

“Then you are friends with my Natalya's family.” Troncosa started to smile, buoyed by this prospect. Then his face gave way to grief. “But Esteban tells me this Ruby has been in the newspapers. She is dead?”

I nodded. “She was murdered.”

Troncosa clenched his fists and made a keening sound, like a coyote's mournful cry. Esteban knelt by his side. “
¡Que tragedia!
” Troncosa said. “Then Natalya has suffered a great loss. My sympathies to you as well, Lillian. You wish to convey this sad news to Natalya?”

“She knows. I spoke to her by telephone a few days ago.”

“You did?” Troncosa said a few words in Spanish to Esteban, one of them being
policía
. “Please. I offer my total assistance. Avail yourself of me. What can I do?”

“You could tell me how you and Natalie met.”

Troncosa couldn't help grinning, already warming to the tale. “A chance encounter in a hotel bar. The unplanned stop that changed the course of my life. Natalya was there, alone, her beauty drawing the eye. Also her sadness. She joined our party. Slowly she revealed the story of what brought her to America. It is unfortunately a story we've heard too often in these troubled times. Conspiracies of hoodlums taking over the old regimes in Europe. Brigands masquerading as statesmen. Her family under threat, she fled with a few items of sentimental value and vowed to help her country from afar.”

“Did she speak much of her family in America?”

“Briefly. She did not wish to burden me with her troubles. I only know of Roza because I heard her recounting the poor girl's plight to a friend.”

“Addison Rice?”

“Yes! Is that why you seem familiar, my dear? Do you know Addison?”

“I've enjoyed his hospitality once or twice.” Okay, once. But I enjoyed it immensely.

“A splendid man, Addison. A captain of industry and true connoisseur of character. Natalya tried to flee his party when I first took her there, certain she would find it a bore. But she and Addison became fast friends. Unlike me, Addison is able to appreciate beauty from afar.”

He took my hand and rested it on the burgundy brocade of the couch between us. “You do not know me, Miss Frost. I am aware some view me as nothing more than a wastrel. A … Latin lover, as the films made in your fine city say. For too long a time, that is exactly what I was.”

His eyes took on a faraway cast as Esteban bowed his head in shared shame. I waited for my scoffing instinct to kick in and was astonished when it didn't. Troncosa seemed completely ridiculous and utterly sincere at the same time. Los Angeles, I was learning, was thick with such people.

“I do not exaggerate when I say meeting Natalya altered me to my core. Troncosa, who would have one rendezvous at lunch, another at dinner, a third before the sun rose. Who vowed never to become serious about any woman! I dedicated myself to Natalya. An old soul, a melancholy spirit, a refugee. I like to think each time we meet, Natalya feels stronger, more able to carry on. She not only showed me my life needed purpose, she provided it as well. When I am in the presence of Natalya, all other women disappear.” He released my hand and looked me square in the eye. “This is why she must become my wife.”

I required a moment to capture my breath. “You and Natalie are to be married?”

“It is my deepest wish, and the reason I am here with you now. We arranged to meet at seven thirty tonight. I hope to hear Natalya formally accept my marriage proposal. My second, I should say. The first occurred within days of our meeting and was an impulse, a surprise even to myself. Natalya knew this and gracefully held me at bay. But her discretion only strengthened my resolve. Before my trip I asked Natalya for her hand again. She already had much on her mind. She has been approached about a film career and is toying with the notion even though the business, for all the pleasure it gives, is filled with jackals and scoundrels. She told me she would visit friends in San Francisco, consider her future, and give me her answer upon my return. I rushed here at once to receive her reply.” Hence the date on the puzzle piece. Troncosa glanced around the lobby for Natalie but there was only the clerk, her face turned away.

It was a sad story. Bringing red roses to a cold hotel lobby anticipating a princess only to wind up on a sofa with a girl who sold garters for a living.

“Natalie sent Addison a letter from San Francisco,” I said. “But no one has seen or heard from her since she called me a few nights ago. The police haven't been able to find her.”

“Surely they do not harbor suspicions that Natalya might be involved in her cousin's fate.” Troncosa's voice carried the sound of a glove slap across the face. His ferocity unnerved me into silence. All at once he was on his feet, stalking the slick tiles, unleashing great torrents of Spanish. Esteban responded in kind, his body language serving as translation.
Stay calm. Everything is fine.

I finally regained my voice. “I'm not the police. All I know is they want to talk to her. I don't suppose you have a photograph of Natalie? That would be a great help.”

“Of course. I could not possibly travel without a reminder of her.” He removed a slender ostrich billfold from his jacket. “My Natalya,” he said, handing me a three-by-five photograph.

It had been taken candidly in a nightclub, the subject caught off guard but willing to play along. The regal bearing I'd heard about registered on film, the eyes beneath the dark hair swept forward in a sophisticated style projecting both haughtiness and an impish amusement. She wore a silver lamé gown that captured the flashbulb's light and saucily threw it back.

I'd seen the gown before, in Ruby's suitcase. I'd seen the regal bearing before. I'd seen the princess before.

There are moments when time stands still and you notice the world more sharply, in minute detail. I looked up from the photo and the lobby seemed brighter, more solid than it had before. Troncosa's eyes shone with greater intensity and I discerned the individual hairs of his mustache quivering as his lips parted to pose a question.

“Is she not beautiful?”

Not only was she beautiful, she was Ruby.

I answered with all honesty. “She is.”

 

21

WHEN GENE STRODE
into the Normandie Park I extricated myself from conversation with Troncosa and Esteban, the photograph of Troncosa's beloved still in my hand. It took an inordinate amount of time to traverse the lobby thanks to the give in my knees and a sudden trepidation about the universe in general. Reality had been turned so inside out that I half expected gravity to be on banker's hours. Once safely across the floor, I pulled Gene behind a grove of potted palm trees.

“This better be good. Edith Head is sending me on more calls than Central Dispatch. Something about European numbers? I recognize Esteban Riordan, so I'm guessing that's Troncosa finally showing his face. Tell me you didn't spill what little we've learned.”

“I've had more important things to keep from him.” I presented the photograph to Gene.

“This is Ruby, isn't it?”

“It's also the photo of Princess Natalie that Troncosa has been carrying next to his heart.”

Gene stared at me, then angled the photo toward the light as if it might yield new secrets. “Damn it. Goddamnit.”

“I can't get my head around any of this. Who called me pretending to be Natalie? Who sent that letter to Addison?”

“Rice has some explaining to do. Guzzling iced tea, yapping about Ruby
and
Natalie. Lying the whole damn time.”

“You think he was lying?”

A charitable word for Gene's look was incredulous. “Frost, he talked about them like they were separate people.”

“I'm afraid he thinks they were.”

“You honestly believe he was hoodwinked?”

“Yes. I do. Because what he's saying is so absurd. If Addison was going to lie, why admit he knew Ruby in the first place? He didn't have to volunteer that.”

Gene frowned. “You're saying genius inventor duped by starstruck kid from Ohio? Sorry, I'm not buying it.”

“You've got it backwards.
Addison
is the starstruck one. He's the perfect audience. That's how Ruby got away with it. That, a new hair color, and six months' distance.”

“Then did Ruby set out to bamboozle Rice? Was he the turkey in this shoot?”

“No idea. I only know Addison's going to be mortified.”

“One millionaire at a time. What did you tell Troncosa when you saw the photograph?”

“Nothing. I've been in shock. Troncosa's been talking about polo. Is the word ‘chukkers' or ‘chukkas'?”

“How should I know?” Gene peered through the trees like he was on safari. His game huddled close, Esteban's head low, Troncosa's eyes tracking every motion in the room in hope of sighting Natalie rushing toward him. I felt unwell.

“Shall I introduce you?” I asked Gene.

“You'd better. This is going to get uncomfortable in a hurry, so we should get started.”

*   *   *

TRONCOSA SUGGESTED A
table at the Normandie Park's bar, assuring us it poured a serviceable Sidecar. Gene countered with the police station, and Troncosa consented at once. “Official business demands an official setting.”

After dispatching Esteban on an errand unknown, he got into Gene's car, surrendering the rear seat to me. Whether out of gallantry or a need to feel he wasn't under arrest, I couldn't say.

A quiet ride ended at a quiet squad room, the four detectives on duty eyeing each other over penny ante poker hands. Gene planted me in a chair near his desk then whisked Troncosa to an interview room, to shatter his heart in privacy.

I snagged a newspaper off a nearby desk. Mrs. Roosevelt made a valiant attempt to interest me with her column but her visit to an experimental sawmill couldn't hold my attention. I was about to ask to be dealt into the card game—Uncle Danny had taught me a few tricks—when Esteban arrived carrying a manila envelope.

“Lillian. I'm pleased we have this opportunity to speak.” His voice implored me for forgiveness. “You understand it was not my place to tell you anything about Armand and Natalie when you came to the house the other day.”

“I'm sorry I tried to deceive you.”

He hoisted the envelope. “Another photograph of the princess. Armand asked me to retrieve it for the detective.”

The photo showed a smiling Ruby—correction, Natalie—snuggled under Troncosa's arm in a different nightclub. She was in the white Sophie Lang gown, the one she would die in. My only thought was that she must have hated wearing it a second time.

“They look so happy,” I said.

“But of course. They are in love.”

They are in love.
I had to remind myself that as far as Esteban knew, the affair continued. He had no inkling that Natalie had perished the same night as Ruby.

“How long have they been seeing each other?”

“Almost eight weeks.”

“That's pretty fast for a marriage proposal.”

“Two, as Armand told you. For him, eight weeks is an eternity.”

“Is he really that much of a ladies' man?”

“He was until he met the princess. He was quite bereft when she spurned his first offer of marriage.”

“But Armand got right back up on the horse.”