Dial Me for Murder (18 page)

“Cut it out, Paige,” Dan said, getting annoyed. “You have no reason to be upset. I’m
working
, not playing—and you know it.”

“Well, couldn’t you knock off early and—”

“No, I couldn’t.” His breathing was heavy and his voice was stern. “I have a job to do, and I’m not leaving here until it’s done.”

The vocalist began singing the song’s familiar chorus, and a portion of the audience chimed in.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” I asked.

Dan was an avid interrogator, but he didn’t like being questioned himself. “Can’t say,” he grunted. “It depends on how things go here tonight. And how much your lousy mood improves.”

The singer and the musicians brought the song to an explosive, drum-rolling, cymbal-crashing finish, and the audience broke out in wild applause.

“I’m sorry I doubted you, Dan,” I said, eager to make amends. “Please forgive me. I’m not myself. I’ve been out of sorts all day. Chalk it up to loneliness, exhaustion, and a hangover that just won’t quit.”

“Forget about it, babe,” he said, granting me an immediate pardon. (Dan can be very understanding—sometimes.) “I miss you, too. And I’m itching to take your temperature.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

“Come hell or high water. It’ll be late, though. Look for me around midnight.”

Not until after we’d hung up did it dawn on me that the song the band had been playing was “Love on the Rocks,” and the man who’d been singing it was Tony Corona.

 
“ABBY!” I CRIED, LEAPING BACK ACROSS THE hall and into her kitchen like a demented kangaroo. “The most incredible thing just happened! I was talking to Dan on the phone, and listening to the music in the background, and Tony Corona was singing ‘Love on the Rocks’!”

She looked up from her place at the table and stared at me as if I’d lost my marbles. “What’s so incredible about that? That song is number two on the charts, right under “Rock Around the Clock.” They play it on the radio all the time.”

“It wasn’t on the radio, it was live!”

“You mean a live
broadcast
,” she said, convinced that I was confused and making a fuss over nothing.

“No!” I shrieked, flailing my arms in the air for emphasis. “I mean a live performance—in person!”

“Oh?” She raised one eyebrow and curled her lips in a big fat smirk. “Tony Corona was singing his hot new hit in your boyfriend’s living room?”

By this point I really
was
losing my marbles. “Okay, let’s start over again,” I said, heaving a big sigh and flopping down in the same chair I’d been sitting in before. “I’ll take it from the top, but you have to shut your mouth and listen. No interruptions.”

Abby kept on smirking, but—wonder of wonders!—she didn’t say a word.

“Dan’s working tonight,” I began, “and he called me from a place he wouldn’t identify, where he’s spying on some mobsters. All I could find out from our conversation was that the place is uptown. I kept him on the phone as long as I could, though, listening hard to the background noise, trying to figure out where he is. I’m pretty sure he’s in a big nightclub or someplace like that, because I heard people laughing, chatting, and ordering drinks, and music playing, and a man singing, and an audience cheering and clapping. The song being sung was “Love on the Rocks,” and the singer was none other than Tony Corona. Live and in person. I’m certain of it.” I sat back and smugly crossed my arms over my chest. “So, what do you think about that, Pat?”

She was still smirking. “Am I allowed to speak now?”

“Please do,” I urged, eager to get her reaction to this incredible, mind-blowing coincidence.

“Dan’s at the Copa,” she said.

And that was all she said.

“What?” I screeched. “The Copacabana? Are you kidding me? How the hell do you know that?” The last of my marbles dropped out of my head and rolled across the floor.

“I read it in the papers.” Her tone and demeanor were dispassionate, but she looked pleased with herself nonetheless.

“They said Dan was going to be at the Copa tonight?” I sputtered. (Look, I
know
that was a really dumb response, but give me a break, okay? It’s hard to hit the mark when all your shooters are gone.)

“No, silly! They said
Corona
was going to be there. He’s headlining for two weeks. Two shows a night, three on the weekends. He opened last Saturday.”

“Oh,” I said, staring down at the tabletop in shame. How could I—Manhattan’s champion news-sniffer and column-clipper—have missed this all-important announcement?

“And kingpin Frank Costello owns the joint, you know,” Abby continued, “so it’s crawling with gangsters. You dig what I’m saying? All the pieces of the puzzle fit.” Her smirk changed into a smile. “Dan is on stakeout at the Copa.”

I knew Abby was right. And if I had used my brain for just two of the ten minutes preceding her revelation, I would have put the pieces of the puzzle together myself. Though I hadn’t been aware that Corona was playing the Copa, I
had
known— from firsthand experience—that Mafia boss Frank Costello was the secret owner of the famous nightclub (a little nugget I’d dug up while working on my first murder story). And since Dan had told me, just last night, that he needed to “track down and question some of Frank Costello’s boys” . . . well, you get the picture. I could have—in fact,
should
have—put two and two together.

“I’m such an idiot,” I said.

“No, just a nitwit,” she teased.

“It’s good you saw the promos in the papers.”

“Glad to be of service.” With an exaggerated air of authority, she rose from her chair, tossed her ponytail over the opposite shoulder, and propped one hand on her jutting hip. “So, what’s next on the agenda, Brenda? I’m assuming you’ve got a plan.”

“Well, no, not really. I guess I need to—”

“Get your mojo working!” she jumped in, finishing my sentence for me. “You can’t catch a murderer by sitting around like a blob in my kitchen! You know what I think?” she said, eyes beaming like oncoming headlights. “I think we should get all dolled up and go to the Copa tonight. We can get there before the second show ends. Then we can sneak backstage, corner Corona in his dressing room, pretend we’re big fans, and ask him a lot of probing personal questions. Stuff like that probably happens to him all the time, so he won’t have a clue what we’re up to.”

“
We?
” I croaked, shuddering my shoulders and shaking my head. “Forget about it, Abby! I will not—under any circumstances—let you get involved in this mess. It’s too dangerous.” I lit another cigarette and spewed the smoke out in an obstinate huff. “Besides, I can’t possibly go to the Copa tonight.
Dan’s
there. And he would spot me for sure. And if he finds out that I’m working on another unsolved murder case, he’ll murder
me.
”

“Okay, then we’ll go tomorrow night.”

There was that word again.

“
We
are not going anywhere. I’m working this case alone. I promised Sabrina.”

“Oh, come on, Paige! You need me. You know you do. We’re a team, you dig? We’re Ozzie and Harriet, Martin and Lewis, Lucy and Ethel. We’re peanut butter and jelly!”

She was using the term
we
again, but I was beginning to like the sound of it. Playing detective was a lonely game, and Abby could be very good company (when she wasn’t being a pain in the butt). She had been a big help to me in past investigations, and—by clueing me in that Corona was playing the Copa—she was
already
helping me with this one. And I had to admit that descending on Corona in his dressing room would be a heck of a lot easier and safer than trying to ambush him in his private suite at the Plaza.

“Okay, okay!” I caved in. “We’ll join forces and hit the Copa tomorrow night. Seems like a pretty good plan. Except for one thing: We can’t go on our own. They won’t let us in without a male escort.”

“No problem,” she said. “I’ll make Jimmy go with us. After tonight, he owes me one.”

“Do you have something for me to wear?”

“Does a cat have whiskers?” Abby was a fiend for fashion, and she loathed my mail-order wardrobe, and she had closets— actually a whole
room
—full of fabulous clothes and costumes. She had dressed me up for previous uptown sleuthing excursions, and I could tell from the wicked gleam in her eye that she couldn’t wait to do it again.

“Hold on a second, Ab,” I said, suddenly realizing our pretty good plan had a pretty big hole in it. “There’s one more problem. How the hell are we going to get reservations? The Copacabana on a Friday night? It’s next to impossible. And with Tony Corona on the bill, you
know
they’re all booked up.”

“Booked, shmooked,” she said, sounding an awful lot like Lenny’s mother. “There are ways to get around these things.”

“Oh, yeah? Exactly what do you propose we do?”

“Don’t worry, Murray. I’ll think of something.”

Chapter 18

I STUBBED OUT MY CIGARETTE AND LOOKED AT my watch. It was almost midnight. (Time also flies when you’re
not
having fun.) “It’s getting late, Ab,” I said, yawning between syllables. “I’m so tired I can’t see straight. Let’s continue this dialogue over coffee in the morning, okay?”

She scowled. “You can’t leave now! We’re just getting started. Have you forgotten about Sabrina?”

“Huh?” I didn’t get what she was driving at.

“You have to brief me on Sabrina,” she insisted. “She’s the queen bee in this hive of hornets, and—other than the fact that she’s a high-society madam who manages a stable of high-priced call girls—you haven’t told me a damn thing about her!”

“That can wait until tomorrow,” I said, rising to my feet and picking up the lavender list from the table. “I’m too tired to—”

“Sit down, Paige!” Abby leapt out of her chair and snatched the list out of my hand. “Sabrina gave you plenty of information about Melody and Brigitte and Candy in these notes,” she said, unfolding the list and flapping it in front of my face, “but do you see anything here about
her
? She didn’t write a goddamn word about herself.”

“But that’s because she—”

“Oh, hush! I’m not an idiot. I
know
why she didn’t want to put anything about herself in writing. What I
don’t
know is all the stuff she told you but didn’t write down. I’m not a mind reader, you know! And if you don’t sit tight and give me all the dope right now, I’m gonna go nuts wondering about it all night. I’m talkin’ insane, Duane.”

“Can’t you just—”

“No! I can’t! I need you to give me the lowdown on Sabrina this very minute! You know how I am.”

Abby was right. I
did
know how she was—which meant I knew enough to sit down and start dishing out the details before she worked herself up into one of her snit fits (a sure to be noisy and unseemly process that would delay my bedtime indefinitely).

“Oh, all right!” I snapped, giving in and flopping back down in my chair. “Have it your way.” (As if there could ever be any other way.) “But you’d better make me some coffee, or I’ll fall asleep at the wheel.”

“Good idea,” she chirped, twirling over to the kitchen counter. “I’ll brew some java while you tell me about Sabrina.

“I can tell you only what she told me,” I grumbled, “and as soon as I’m finished, I’m going home to bed!”

“So who’s stopping you?”

“Sabrina was born into an affluent family,” I began, talking fast, hoping to wrap the story up as quickly as possible. “She was raised by governesses and educated in Switzerland. She was a debutante, a pampered beauty, a social butterfly who dated lots of wealthy young men. And now—according to Sabrina—many of those young men are rich, powerful, and influential
older
men, and some of them are her clients. I’d say Sam Hogarth and Oliver Rice Harrington belong to that fraternity.”

“Well, that’s pretty damn interesting,” Abby said, pausing, blinking, obviously savoring the scandalous possibilities. “But it’s not the whole story, Rory. What I want to know is
how
it happened. I mean, how and why did Sabrina become a madam to begin with?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?” she said, turning the flame on under the percolator. “Didn’t you ask her about it?”

“No, it wasn’t my place.”

“What?” she said again, only this time it was more of a screech. She spun around, stared me in the eye, propped her hands on her hips, and cried, “It wasn’t your
place
?! How could you be such a boob, Paige? Don’t you have any chutzpah? The woman runs a whorehouse, for Pete’s sake, and you’re worried about your stupid
place
?”

“It’s an escort service, not a whorehouse.”

“Oh, excuse me!” she said, sarcasm seeping out of every pore. “The last time I checked, call girls and whores were the same thing. And prostitution, by any other name, was still a crime.”

“Yes, but I don’t believe it
should
be,” I said, thinking of all the desperate young women who peddled their flesh because that was the only thing of value that they had.

“Don’t change the subject!” Abby blustered. “We’re talking about
you
now. You and your fearful, self-conscious ways.”

She was starting to tick me off. “I’m not fearful, I’m cautious,” I said, keeping my voice low and my emotions under control (for once). “There’s a big difference between the two. And I’m not self-conscious, either; I’m self-aware. Also modest, polite, and reserved—which is more than I can say for
some
people.”

“Oh, stuff it, Paige! That’s a crock, and you know it. You’re as modest and reserved as Milton Berle with a lampshade on his head.” She took two cups out of the cabinet and plopped them down on the counter. “You know what? This is a really stupid argument, and I refuse to take part in it.” (She had, apparently, forgotten that she was the one who
started
it.) “All I want to know is how you could spend a whole afternoon talking to the madam of a brothel—excuse me,
escort service
—without asking her how she got into the racket.”