This Dame for Hire (9 page)

Mrs. S. pressed her lips together, and I saw a muscle jump in her cheek.

A nifty wrinkle was creeping in here, and I couldn’t resist.

“Yes. She said she was with him a few days ago.”

“How very interesting.”

“I thought so,” I said. I whispered, “Brooke said she might take him on a cruise this year.”

“A cruise?” She crinkled her brow and her eyes narrowed. Then she started giving me the fish-eye, so I thought I’d better clean things up. Maybe Brooke didn’t go on cruises.

Trying to sound giddy, I said, “Back to the Rockefeller party.”

“Hmmm?”

“I don’t know them very well, do you?”

“Very.”

“Oh, good. I was curious about one of them.”

She looked skeptical and curious at the same time but didn’t say anything like a normal person would. She just waited.

I could feel sweat starting under my arms and on my back. “A young man, maybe twenty or so. He was so nice to me. You see I felt a little faint, and he took me outside to get some air. When we came back in, I lost track of him and I so wanted to thank him. His name was Alec Rockefeller. Do you know him?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Alec you say?”

“Yes. Quite good-looking. Blond. Maybe six feet tall.”

“Miss . . . what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, but it’s Harriman.”

“Harriman?”

“A cousin,” I said.

“Distant?”

“Quite.” I smiled. “At any rate, I was asking about Alec Rockefeller. I believe he, too, is a cousin. Perhaps distant.”

“Yes. You were. And I was about to tell you that I know the Rockefellers very well . . . all of them. And I’ve never heard anyone mention an Alec.”

“But surely you met him at the party.”

“Surely I didn’t. I’m not in the habit of running around with twenty-year-olds, Miss Harriman.”

I couldn’t believe it, but she actually sniffed at the end of her sentence.

“Oh, I wasn’t running around with him, Mrs. Skeffington. He was simply courteous and helped me downstairs to get a breath of fresh air.”

“Nevertheless, Miss Harriman, I’ve known the Rockefellers for decades and to my knowledge, which is sizable, there isn’t now nor has there ever been anyone named Alec. Clearly he was making sport of you passing himself off as a Rockefeller.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear.” I tried to look as though I might faint, but I didn’t know how to fake that. I thought it was best to blow the joint. “I’m so upset, I must go.”

“Yes, you look quite peaked, Miss
Harr-i-man.
”

Definitely time to take a powder. I backed away, turned, and made for the door. As I was leaving I called over my shoulder, “Say hello to Mr. Skeffington for me; he’s such a lovely man.”

Before I closed the door I heard her reply.

“Yes, especially now that he’s dead.”

I ran down the stairs and out onto Fifty-seventh, where I took a right going east. Had to do it, didn’t ya, Quick, I said to myself. Always that one final thing that really gives the game away. Oh, well. What could she do to me anyway?

When I got to Fifth, I started downtown and didn’t stop until I got to Forty-third Street. I made my way to my office.

Birdie was doing her hunt and peck but looked up when I came in.

“What happened to you, Faye? Ya look like ya seen a ghost or somethin.”

“Wish I had.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I gotta think.”

I went into my office and closed the door, threw my coat and hat on the client’s chair, then sat down behind my desk.

My near catastrophe with Mrs. Skeffington made me feel a little shaky. Sometimes I didn’t know where I got the nerve. Woody would’ve been proud of me.

I lit one up and sat back in my chair. Mrs. Skeffington was only one source, and I knew I’d have to check out others, but I had the nasty feeling that she was right.

There
was
no Alec Rockefeller. So
who
was this considerate, charming young man? And
where
was he? And
why
did he say he was a Rockefeller? And
how
in Hades was I going to find him? And most of all, did
he
kill Claudette West?

TEN

I was running low on ration stamps, so I made myself a big salad with everything but the you know what. I had my date with Mr. Flynn at eight o’clock, but my mind kept scooching back to Alec Rockefeller. Or whatever his name was.

I knew I’d have to find this kid, but I didn’t have the vaguest of where to start. I had no address or phone number or the right name. I’d have to ask West if he remembered anything. I thought Myrna had given me all the info she knew. Still, sometimes there were things a person didn’t know they knew until their mind was jogged. I could call Porter now with my report and ask him some questions. I wouldn’t tell where I got the name.

I took my salad to the phone table and dialed.

Porter answered. He was naturally excited cause he hoped I had some hot news, but I told him right away I had a question instead.

“I’d like ya to tell me about Alec Rockefeller.”

There was a moment of silence and then he said in a pinched voice, “Where did you get that name?”

“I don’t reveal my sources even to my client.”

“I never heard of such a thing.”

“How many PIs have ya worked with?” I knew the answer and took a healthy helping of salad.

“That’s not the point.”

My mouth was still full, but I tried talking through the lettuce. “Stanner pwactith.”

“What’s that?”

I swallowed. “I said standard practice.”

“Did my wife give you his name? And don’t tell me you can’t reveal that.”

I decided on an outright lie. “No, she didn’t. Now, can you tell me somethin about this guy?”

He made some grumping noises cause I wouldn’t tell him how I got the guy’s name. He gave me the same hogwash Myrna had dished out. So I put it to him that there was no such person.

“But I met him,” West said.

“You met someone, but not Alec Rockefeller.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s my business to find out these things, Mr. West. The problem is that I don’t have anythin to go on except a physical description of the boy. I need ya to remember somethin else about him. Anythin.”

“Are you saying the lad I met was
not
a Rockefeller?”

I couldn’t be sure if he was in a stew cause he’d been snookered or that it was a bitter pill to swallow that his dead daughter had been courted by a fraud. I thought the second reason would fit him best.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin. He wasn’t who he said he was.”

“But how can you be sure?”

Definitely the second reason. “You’ll have to trust me on this. It’s part of my job to find out these things. Now, do you remember anything special or revealin about sonny boy?”

He was silent, and I took the opportunity to shovel in more rabbit food.

Finally he said, “I’m so upset I can’t think.”

“So when ya get over the shock, can ya put on your thinkin cap and give it a whirl?”

“Yes, yes.” He hung up.

I was caught off base with that one and replaced the phone. I hoped he wasn’t gonna give Myrna the third degree cause I wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand up under something like Porter West being high and mighty. I thought of calling back, disguising my voice, and asking for Myrna so I could warn her, but I didn’t think that would wash.

I thought about Claudette. She was shaping up to be a mystery in herself. Her mother didn’t know she was pregnant, and there were all of these men in her life. All different types. Brian Wayne, Richard Cotten, the so-called Rockefeller, and the father of her baby, who may or may not be another guy. Claudette, it seemed, kicked up her heels a lot, to say the least.

I finished my salad, dumped the dish and fork in the sink, made a quick rest stop, then grabbed my coat, hat, gloves, and pocketbook and was out the door.

While I was locking up, a newish neighbor from upstairs came down into the hallway, and I wasn’t fast enough to escape. Not that there was anything really wrong with Jim Duryea, but I was in a hurry and not in the mood.

“How are you, Faye?”

“Just fine, Jim. You?”

“My mother’s coming to visit.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” He looked like he’d been beaten with a cat-o’-nine-tails. “Or is it?”

“She’s a lovely woman.”

“But?”

“I was wondering, Faye. Do you think you could meet her?”

This was coming from left field. Why would Jim Duryea want
me
to meet his mother? We’d never even been on a date. He was a man in his forties and not my type. And it wasn’t only cause he combed his hair from the bottom of the right side over to the left to disguise his baldness. Although that didn’t endear him to me.

I hardly knew what to say. “Are you havin a party or somethin?”

“No, it’s not that. I just thought you’d like each other.”

“Oh, I see.” But I didn’t.

He brightened up. “Then you’ll do it?”

“When is she blowin in?”

“Tomorrow. But I thought the night after that you could come to dinner.”

I wanted to give an outright no, but he looked so pathetic that I sashayed around.

“You know my work, Jim, so I can’t make real firm plans. Somethin might come up, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint ya.”

“Could we say it’s tentative then?”

“Sure.”

He grinned like a baby getting his first taste of sugar.

“Oh, thank you, Faye. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

I felt like a heel cause I knew I was gonna get out of this.

“Jim, please don’t count me in. I’ve got a big case and anythin could happen.”

“I know, I know. But that you
might
be able to is so . . . so helpful. You’ll never know.”

“Okay. Good. I gotta run now.”

“I’ll walk out with you. I need to buy a pack of Luckies. Which direction are you going in?”

The call I’d gotten from Marlene Hayworth had changed my meeting with Flynn from his apartment to the Caffe Reggio on MacDougal Street.

“I’m goin to MacDougal,” I said.

“I’ll go to Seventh Avenue with you.”

I thanked my lucky stars that wasn’t far.

The Reggio was about halfway down MacDougal between Third and Bleecker streets. It was a small coffee place and real authentic. Italians ran it, and the espresso was the best in the Village. So were the cannolis.

Over the entrance it had a rounded green awning, like a hood, and the wood around the big windows was painted a brighter shade of green.

Inside the tables had marble tops and the café chairs were wrought iron with round leather seats. At the back was a huge brass espresso machine on the counter and a glass-front case featured the desserts.

It was always pretty crowded, but I found a table for two in the middle of the room. Our appointment was for eight, but I was fifteen minutes early as always. When I was meeting somebody I was interviewing, I liked to get there first.

I put my pocketbook on the table, shoved my gloves in my coat pocket, hung it and my hat on the wooden rack in the corner with everybody else’s, then took my seat.

The people at surrounding tables weren’t tourists cause out of towners didn’t seem to know about the Reggio even though it had been on this very spot since 1927. Still, I knew one of these days the word would get out. For now I enjoyed the locals, and some of them seemed to live here. They were the ones I saw every time I dropped in, like a couple I knew by name, Veronica March and Charlie Peck. They were a happy duo. He was an artist and she kept trying to be an actress, but so far she’d only had one role as a vanilla ice-cream cone. We all went, and she did a good job.

I once went back to Charlie’s studio with them so he could show me his pictures. I couldn’t make head or tail of them. They weren’t white on white, but they might as well have been for all they said to me. I liked people in my pictures, and his were abstract. I couldn’t read the story in his paintings, but I said I liked them. Why not? I didn’t see any reason to hit a person where they lived.

Veronica and Charlie were sitting across the room from me, and we waved back and forth.

And there were others I knew. A couple of the men wore berets, but the women in here were hatless. Another reason I knew none were tourists. Like me they took them off when they got inside. You’d never catch a tourist without her hat on, inside or out.

Maria, the waitress, came to my table. Over her blue skirt she wore a small white apron tied around her waist.

“Hello, Faye. What can I get you tonight?”

“I think I’ll have a cappuccino. How’s Oscar doin?” He was in the navy.

“He’s okay, I guess. I haven’t heard from him lately. About ten days, so I guess that isn’t anything to get the jumps about.”

“The mails are slow.” I was thinking of my friend Jeanne, who heard from her boyfriend about once a month even though he wrote more often. Then sometimes she’d get ten letters all at once.

“Sure. I know that. Like I said I’m not jittery or anything. You meeting someone?”

“Yes. He should be here soon.”

“
He,
huh?” She gave me a big smile.

“Business,” I said.

“Aw, heck. I’ll get your cap.”

Seemed like everybody wanted me to have a boyfriend. Not that I’d mind, even though I swore I wouldn’t until the war was over. But it sure wasn’t gonna be Jim Duryea.

The door opened, and I knew right off it was Gregory Flynn. He looked like he belonged here the way I’d look like I belonged at the 21 Club.

He was a tall gent with a build that went with it, and he wore a gray topcoat and a gray fedora that he removed the second he was through the door. He had salt-and-pepper hair. Very distinguished.

I put my hand up, and he came over to the table.

“Miss Quick?”

“Yes.”

“I realized as I entered that we hadn’t made any arrangements on how to recognize each other.”

“Yeah, that’s right, but I figured it was you.”

“Really?”

He unbuttoned his coat, and I pointed at the coatrack.