This Dame for Hire (4 page)

“I happen to know you saw him today.”

“How do ya
happen
to know that?” I sat down on my chair next to the telephone table.

“I saw you go into his building.”

“Mr. West,” I said, “are you followin me?”

“No.”

“Then how do ya explain that ya saw me go into Cotten’s buildin?” I blew smoke through my nostrils like Joan Crawford.

“I was . . . I . . . was watching his building.”

My place had once been the parlor floor of a town house. I looked up at my high ceiling and admired the carved cherubs in the corners of the molding. Then took in my red velvet draperies on either side of the two huge windows that faced Grove. I was waiting for West to explain. So I looked around some more. It was a big room with two sofas and three chairs. Also a folded table that I dragged out when I had company to dinner. Bookcases stuffed from top to bottom lined one wall. And the right-hand front corner was empty. Waiting. As soon as I had enough money saved I was gonna buy a piano. I loved to tickle the ivories. And I wasn’t a bad canary either. No June Christy, but I could do a good rendition of “As Time Goes By” if requested. Even if it wasn’t. The silence on the line finally got my goat.

“So you wanna tell me why you were watchin Cotten’s buildin?”

“I always watch it,” he said.

I didn’t know what to make of that. “What do ya mean,
always
?”

His voice got stronger as though he was affirming his rights. “I go there and sit in my car, and when Cotten comes out I follow him.”

“You have to stop that, Mr. West.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, if Cotten catches ya, he can sue for harassment. For another, ya got
me
now. Ya have to back off. Anyway, what do ya think you’re gonna gain by spyin on the kid?”

“I don’t like how you said that.”

“Said what?”

“The kid. As if you think he’s some poor maligned person.”

I tried not to sigh into the phone. I wasn’t sure I could work with this guy. “Mr. West, I don’t think anything of the kind. Now if you want me on this case you’re gonna have to leave things like surveillance up to me.”

“How will I know you’re doing your job?”

“Ya won’t. Ya’ll have to trust me.
You
hired me, Mr. West. I didn’t come to you.”

“All right. But tell me, what did you think of Cotten?”

“I don’t have a real feel for him yet.”

“But you could see that he’s guilty, couldn’t you?”

This couldn’t go on. “We’ll stick to the agreement and I’ll call ya tomorrow night.”

“Can’t you tell me that one thing?”

“No. Do ya still want me on this case?”

There was a long pause. “Yes.”

“Fine. I’m gonna hang up now, Mr. West. Good night.” I gently replaced the receiver.

I sat there staring at the spot where my piano was gonna go. This case was gonna be hell. I had to do something to get Porter West out of my way. It was too much to think about now. I needed to eat my nice piece of fish so I could get to my charlotte russe.

FOUR

The next morning I decided to skip the office and interview the next person on my list. I’d given her a jingle the night before, so she was expecting me at ten. I’m an early riser, so I had to cool my heels till it was time to go. But I didn’t mind. I’d gone to my downtown news dealer, and the wait gave me a chance to enjoy two cups of joe while I read the
Daily News
and the
Herald Tribune.

At nine-fifteen I figured I could leave to get to the Murray Hill area on the East Side in the Thirties by ten.

My neighbor across the hall, Dolores, was sweeping the floor in front of her door. Even though we had a janitor, Dolores did this every day. She was about seventy-five—no one knew for sure—and she wore a blonde wig. We could only guess why. It wasn’t a good one and was always slipping down over her forehead, making her look wacky. Well, that’s what she was. Wacky but nice.

Her face was long, and she had drooping brown eyes underscored by folds of skin the size of tea bags. And her mouth was always lipsticked above the line of her thin upper lip. She was wearing an emerald green blouse and a flame red rayon crepe A-line skirt. For Dolores this was subtle.

We exchanged greetings, and then I recklessly asked her how she was.

“Oy,” she said, and leaned on her broom handle.

I knew I was in for it.

“Between the aches and the pains I don’t know which is worse. One ache goes then comes a pain. Pain goes, ache comes back.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Have I seen a doctor? she asks. Is the Pope Catholic? You want I should name them for you?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“Wasserman, Mayer, Jessel, Ca—”

“Dolores, I believe you.” Stopping her this way, I felt I had to ask the obvious next question. “What was the diagnosis?”

“From which one?”

“The one ya liked best.”

“I hated them all. Age, they said. Decrepitude. It should be expected. Why I want to know? Do they give me a sensible explanation? No. So I’ll live with the pain, the aches. What can a girl do?”

“I’m sorry you feel so bad.”

“Eh, it’s nothing.”

I felt like saying my own “oy.” “I gotta go, got an appointment.”

“You got a big case, maybe?”

“Maybe,” I said, opening the front door. “You take care, Dolores.”

“Zay gezundt,”
she said.

Now I was gonna be late, so I walked to Seventh Avenue and hailed a hack I couldn’t afford.

There was an alley called Sniffen Court off East Thirty-sixth between Lexington and Third. About ten brick carriage houses were sheltered behind a locked iron gate. They’d been converted into residences some time in the late 1920s. I’d never gotten past that gate, and I was all keyed up about finally going inside one of the houses. Marlene Hayworth, the dame who appeared after I found Claudette West’s body, called one of them home.

She buzzed me through the gate. There were horsemen sculpted into the rear wall of the alley as though they were plaques. The other plugs who lived in the court had all put some type of plant or bush by their doors. The street itself was made up of different-sized stone blocks that had cracks in them here and there.

Miss Hayworth lived halfway down the alley in a two-story building with a rounded door and mullioned windows. I used the brass knocker, and about thirty seconds later she opened up.

I hadn’t taken her in on the night of the murder, so I was surprised by her looks. She was a stunner. Exactly like the other Miss Hayworth, she had red locks flowing round an oval face with big brown eyes, long lashes, and a slash of burgundy mouth. She wore a colorful silk kimono and black fabric open-toed slippers.

“Hello, Miss Quick. Come in.”

I did.

The living room was all white, which incidentally set off the owner’s hair, from sofa to chairs to plush carpet, and I didn’t like to walk across it. Miss Hayworth sensed this.

“I presume you wiped your feet.”

Now that I reflected on the subject I realized I had, which I told her. “But should you want, I’ll remove my shoes.”

“Not necessary. Take a seat. Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“No thanks.”

Her kimono swished sweetly as she sashayed to the couch. I settled for a wing chair.

She said, “I presume you want the details about my being where I was at the time I was there.”

I secretly hoped she wouldn’t keep saying “presume.” “That would be helpful.” I had wondered what a broad of this caliber was doing alone on Bleecker and Thompson streets at about eleven that night.

She took a cigarette from her white case, put it into an ivory holder, then lit it with a Zippo. A jarring combination. She offered me one, but I declined, got my own out of my pocketbook, lit it with a match.

Hayworth blew out a long smoke stream and said in her melodious voice, “I’ve been through this with the police, of course.”

“Yeah, but I’m not workin for them.”

“Who’re you working for?” She crossed her legs in a splash of silk.

“Can’t say. So, tell me, Miss Hayworth, how did you happen to be there?”

“I was coming from a friend’s apartment, and I practically fell over you.”

“A friend’s apartment?”

“Yes. My friend lives on Thompson in a walk-up,” she said, and pursed her lips in distaste.

“This man is your boyfriend?”

“Who said it was a man?”

“Wasn’t it?” I realized then that this little fact hadn’t been in the papers.

“Is that important?”

“Might be.”

“Why?”

“You might need an alibi.”

“For what?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about this.”

“Thought about what? I’m not sure I like your implication.”

I wasn’t sure I liked
her.
“You bein the second to come across her body, well, you could be a suspect.”

“But I’m not. No one has ever thought that. The police certainly didn’t.”

“Yet. It’s all new from here, Miss Hayworth. See, I gotta look at everythin again, and take a new perspective. So I might have to talk to your boyfriend.”

“Mr. Flynn is not my boyfriend. We’re just good friends.”

“Mr. Flynn?”

“The man I was visiting. Gregory Flynn.”

“Not much of a gentleman, is he?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Lettin a lady leave by herself. Not gettin a taxi for ya.”

After only smoking it halfway down, Marlene stubbed out her butt in a black Stork Club ashtray. I said, “I
presume
you lifted that from the club?”

“Mr. Billingsley gave it to me.”

I happened to know that this was a lie as Sherman Billingsley was notoriously cheap and everyone stole his ashtrays. I heard he bought them by the carload knowing what he knew. But I could understand that a high muckety-muck like her didn’t wanna be lumped in with the hoi polloi.

“You’re good friends with Sherm?” I asked.

“Are you?”

I smiled. I didn’t know why I was pushing this; I didn’t care if she had light fingers. I let it go. “What about Mr. Flynn?”

“Mr. Flynn is very much a gentleman. It so happens I told him not to walk me to a cab. I pride myself on being independent. Don’t you?”

She got me there. “I suppose I can understand that. So, you left his apartment a few minutes before you bumped into me and the body of Claudette West?”

“That’s correct. As you may remember I screamed into the night.”

I did remember, but I thought that was a dramatic way of putting it.

“So then I asked ya to call the coppers and ya did. Where did ya call from?”

She put a new cigarette in her holder and fired up again.

“I ran back up to Mr. Flynn’s apartment, and we phoned the police. That was it. As you know they met you and me on the street five minutes later.”

“Guess I’ll have to see Mr. Flynn, too.”

“Why? He can tell you less than I.”

“That right?” I put out my cig in an ashtray near me.

“There’s no need to interview Mr. Flynn.”

“You have a reason to be scared of that?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“What you’re going to do with the information, Miss Quick.”

“You can call me Faye. What I do with the info? I don’t tell anybody about it, that’s what ya mean.”

“I suppose it is.”

“Mr. Flynn has a wife?”

“He does.”

“Ya tellin me the coppers kept their mouths shut, didn’t inform Mrs. Flynn?”

“That’s right.”

I started to question this, but then I realized what was what and why it hadn’t been in the papers. “So Mr. Flynn has friends in high places.”

“You could say that.”

“I just did.”

“Mr. Flynn is an important man.”

“And his home isn’t really that apartment on Thompson Street, correct?”

“Correct. It’s what he calls his home away from home.”

So the married Mr. Flynn kept a setup in the Village. I wondered if Hayworth was his only guest or if from time to time he saw another skirt or two. Idle musings.

“How often do you see Mr. Flynn at that address?”

“What bearing could that possibly have on the murder?”

“Did you know Claudette West?”

“No. Of course not. Why would I know such a girl?”

Now that got my interest. “What kind of girl is that, Miss Hayworth?”

“I would think that would be obvious.”

“It’s not.”

“Well . . . a girl who gets herself murdered, of course.”

I almost laughed. So it was already becoming Claudette’s fault she got herself killed. But I didn’t say anything. I needed info from this dame, so best keep my opinions to myself.

I took out my pad and pencil. “What’s Flynn’s address?”

She clutched the neck of her kimono. “You wouldn’t go to his house, would you?”

“How else am I gonna question him?”

“Can’t you see him at the apartment?”

“But he doesn’t live there, ya said.”

“I can arrange for you to see him there.”

“Okay. When?” I was a little let down that I wasn’t gonna see where Flynn officially parked his slippers. But a girl had to take what she could get.

“I’ll call him later.”

“How about ya call him now.” I raised one eyebrow, which always got people moving.

“All right,” she said.

Hayworth rose and swished her way from the room. I noticed there was a phone on a table near the door, but knew she didn’t want to talk in front of me.

I lit another cig while I waited. I wanted to get up and poke around, but it didn’t seem worth it cause she could be back in a few secs. And she was.

“All right, Miss Quick, he’ll be there tonight at eight.”

“Thanks.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope. I got what I need . . . for now.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ya never know what might turn up, Miss Hayworth, ya never know. I’ll find my own way out. S’long.”

FIVE

When I hit the bricks again, I found a phone booth and gave my pal Anne Fontaine a jingle. I had a feeling she might be helpful on this case. She was home and said she’d meet me downtown at a used-book store on Fourth Avenue. This time I took the subway.