Too Darn Hot (6 page)

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“You two together?”

“That’s right. What of it?”

“
You
I can see going down there, but not her.” He pointed at Claire.

“Thanks, buster. Now get this thing rollin.”

He grabbed the stick and the doors closed. Under his breath he grumbled, but I didn’t try to hear him. I took Claire’s hand and squeezed. She gave me a smile that came and went like payday.

The elevator stopped. “Morgue,” the old guy said.

We got off to the grumbling of Handsome, and we turned right. I opened a big door and there was Powell, pacing in front of a girl sitting at a desk.

I introduced Claire and Powell, and I watched while the grizzled detective turned to jelly just meeting this babe. What was wrong with men?

I took it upon myself to tell the girl that we were there to see Glenn Madison. She buzzed him on one of those things I hadda get and in a few minutes he came out in his white coat.

When I introduced him to Claire, it was easy to see he was also keen on her right away. This was ridiculous. I didn’t think I wanted Johnny to meet this skirt. We all followed Madison back through a dark corridor and stopped at big steel double doors.

“It’s going to be very cold inside, Miss Turner.”

“That’s fine. I could use some cold air.”

Suddenly she was talking in a tiny voice, almost a whisper. I hated dames that did this. But both guys looked like what she said, and how she said it, was more important than Roosevelt’s infamy speech.

We went inside. The room had metal gurneys all lined up with sheets covering bodies. Good thing. I didn’t want Claire put off before we got to our John Doe.

Madison walked us down the right side of the room and stopped at a corpse with number 2831 on his toe tag.

“Are you ready, Miss Turner?”

He didn’t bother asking the old shoe. Me.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be ready for this.”

“You’ll be just fine, Miss Turner. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Oh, brother.

“Ya want I should hold yer hand, Miss Turner?” Powell asked.

“No, thank you,” she said.

This was getting revolting.

“Okay,” Glenn said. “Here we go. I’m going to pull this back enough for you to see his face. All right?”

Claire nodded.

He slowly peeled back the sheet and when the guy’s face was fully exposed Claire gave a gasp and started to crumble. Powell caught her.

SIX

G
lenn Madison had taken over and I watched while he carried Claire Turner out of the morgue room to his office, where he placed her in a chair and called for a gurney.

Powell picked up some papers from the desk and started fanning her with them.

“You think that’s necessary?”

“The little girl passed out,” Powell said.

“It could be her heart,” Glenn said.

Claire opened her eyes. “Charlie.”

“Would you like some water?” Glenn asked.

I always wondered what water was supposed to do in cases like this.

“No, thank you.” She put her face in her hands and began to cry.

Helplessly, Powell looked at me. I shrugged.

“Glenn, ya better stop that gurney from comin down here.”

“What gurney?” Claire asked.

“I thought maybe you should be admitted,” he said.

“Admitted?” She eyed him like he was screwy. “I’m just so relieved. I expected it to be Charlie.”

“You mean it wasn’t?” I asked.

“I’d better cancel.” Glenn picked up the phone and turned his back to us.

“Miss Turner,” Powell said, “ya know who the stiff is?”

She looked shocked at his use of the word
sti f,
and he caught on real fast.

“I mean, the corpse, the body, the guy on the slab. Can ya ID him?”

“I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

Powell and I looked at each other. We knew we were behind the eight ball again.

“I gotta get back to work,” Claire said. She stood up and turned to me. “You’ll keep looking for Charlie, won’t you?”

“The police are on this case, Miss Turner,” said Powell.

“Yeah, finally. Nobody paid any attention to me when I reported him missing.”

“You didn’t come to me. I’m on this case now.” Powell shot her what was supposed to be a smile, but looked more like he was in rigor.

“Wait a minute. What case is that?” Claire said.

“This case. Who the . . . the gentleman is.”

“I don’t give a damn who he is. I just wanna find Charlie.”

“Claire, if we can find out who this guy is, it might help us track down Charlie,” I said.

“Did it ever occur to ya, Quick, that Ladd mighta bumped off our John Doe?” Powell said.

“Hey. What’re you tryin to pull, you big lug?” Claire said. “Charlie wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Powell didn’t realize he’d put his hoof in his mouth because he came back with, “That’s what they all say.”

Course he was right but that wasn’t the point.

“Claire, I’ll stay on this thing as long as ya want.”

“Thanks, Faye.”

“Listen,” Powell said. “You better stay outta my way, Quick. I find ya interferin with
my
case, I’m gonna lock ya up.”

He marched out and didn’t look back.

“Is that true, Faye?”

“Nah. He’s just blowin smoke.”

She looked at her wristwatch. “Oh, God, I gotta go.”

“I’ll walk you to a cab, Miss Turner.”

What a turkey Madison was turning out to be.

“Ya don’t have to do that, Glenn. I’m leavin, too.”

“Oh. Sure.”

“I gotta get crackin on the case of Miss Turner’s missin boyfriend.”

Glenn’s face fell like a collapsible summer chair. I wondered where he’d been through all this. At least he got my drift and we left.

Outside, I said, “So, Claire. Yer parents speak to Lucille more than you do?”

“They don’t speak to her, either.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’ll have to ask them.”

“Okay, I will.” It was clear she was clamming up about this particular angle. I changed the subject.

“Does Lucille work?”

“Yeah. In a bookstore in Newark. She’s the brainy one.”

“I need the info on that. And for yer parents, too. You understand, don’tcha?”

“I guess. Yeah, sure.”

She knew this stuff without looking in her little book. That figured for her parents, but Lucille’s work number? She’d had to look up her sister’s home phone.

“I really gotta go now.”

I hailed a cab. She got in.

“You’ll keep me posted, won’t you? Oh, are you comin over to get the picture?”

It was late now and I had stuff to do before my date with Johnny. “I’ll have to get it tomorrow.”

“Okay. Bye.”

I watched the cab drive away. What a mess. I’d been sure it was Private Ladd in the wardrobe. Open and shut, I’d thought. So who was the John Doe and why was he in Ladd’s closet? Nothing was making a whole lotta sense.

I crossed the street and went back to the coffee shop. The guy behind the counter was big and hairy. His sleeves were rolled up so I could see what might pass for a weaving experiment.

“Could I use yer phone?”

“You wuz in here before, wuzn’t ya?”

“Yeah.” I pointed to the booth where we’d sat.

“With the tomato, huh?”

“I was with another girl, yeah.”

“She wuz somethin.”

“She’s taken.”

“Too bad.” As if he was God’s gift and Claire would jump at the chance to do a two-step with him.

“Guess yer outta luck. So could I use yer phone? I’m only callin across town.”

He motioned me behind the counter where the phone was. I dialed Birdie and asked if there were any important messages. There weren’t.

“What about the Ladds?”

“I found em. Want the number?”

“You bet.” I grabbed a napkin and wrote it down. “And George Cummings?”

“Got it.”

I wrote that down, too. “Good work, Bird.”

“Mercy bucow.”

I told her I was going home and she could leave.

“Thanks,” I said to the counter guy.

“Anytime. Hey, is that dame’s boyfriend a soldier by any chance?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I wuz wonderin if you’d put a word in for me.”

I almost thought I heard wrong. “Listen, buster. I wouldn’t put in a word for you with Whistler’s mother.”

“Who’s she?”

“So long.”

“Hey. Whazza matter wit you? I let ya use my phone and everything.”

I didn’t hang around to find out what
everything
was.

My crib was in Greenwich Village on Grove Street near Bleecker where carts lined a couple of blocks offering the freshest vegetables, fruits, and fish in town. I shopped there almost every day for my dinner, but tonight I was going out with Johnny.

Dolores, my neighbor across the hall, was sitting on the top step trying to cool herself with a hand fan.

“Oy, what a stinkin day, Faye. This must be what hell’s like.”

“Ya been sittin out here long?”

“I had my work to do, then I came out.”

Dolores had a need to sweep the hall every day even though we had a janitor who did that. Course he didn’t do it
every day.
She also wiped down the frame of her doorway and washed the two big windows in her apartment that looked out on the street.

And she wore a wig. It was different colors on different days, and always askew. Nobody in the neighborhood knew why she wore any of them and it wasn’t something you could ask her about. She also went heavy on the makeup and wore mismatched clothes. Checks with stripes or polka dots, yellow with purple.

I took a closer look at her fan. “Where’d ya get that, Dolores?”

“World’s Fair.” She spread it out completely and held it open for me to see.

It said: 1904 WORLD’S FAIR. THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

“I guess ya missed that one, didn’t ya?” She gave me one of her big smiles, and a wink.

“I went to the one here in 1939.”

“Yeah. That was a beauty, too. But for me, bubele, the one in St. Louis was the best. Oh, the lights on the water at night.”

No one knew how old Dolores was but I figured she musta been somewhere in her thirties when she went to the fair. Who did she go with? I wanted to ask but I had to get ready for my date.

“I’d like to hear all about it sometime, but I need to get dressed.”

“Ya got a date with that nice detective goy boy?”

“Yeah.”

“When are ya gettin married?”

“Married?” Even the word gave me the jimjams.

“Ya heard a the institution, ain’tcha?”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get married.”

“Ha. Ya say that now. But wait.”

“For what?”

She nodded over and over like she had a special secret.

“I gotta go, Dolores.” I hoped she wouldn’t still be sitting out there when Johnny arrived. I was afraid she’d grill him about marriage.

“You go. Dress nice.”

“I will.” I went through the front door and into the vestibule. There wasn’t much in my mailbox except a few bills. I opened the inside door and went to my apartment.

Zachary came sidling up to me, mewing. He was only a few months old. After Cedric died I waited over a year before getting Zach. He was a black cat with a white diamond on his forehead.

I leaned down and petted him. “Yer gonna eat in a minute.”

My place was basically two big rooms with a small kitchen between them. The WC was off the kitchen. The apartment had been the parlor floor of a town house once upon a time. The living room had high ceilings with ornate moldings around them and carved cherubs in the corners. Two large windows looked over the street, and I’d hung red velvet draperies that I closed at night.

It was a big room. I’d put two sofas in there and three easy chairs, with a table folded up against a wall that I used for dinner company. Mahogany bookcases lined one wall and were beginning to strain at the seams. The right front corner was empty cause I was saving my pennies for the piano I was gonna put there. I could itch a mean ivory and I had pretty good pipes, too. You wouldn’t say I rivaled Billie Holiday, but who did?

I’d been nervous about telling Johnny what the empty space was waiting for, but he didn’t laugh or think it was silly. Far from it. He was always trying to get me to sing. I told him I would when I got the piano. Well, maybe.

I put down Zachary’s food.

Then I got the long-distance operator and gave her the Ladds’ number. There was no answer. I was relieved. Telling parents their son was missing wasn’t any can a corn. I’d try again the next day cause I knew I’d be getting home too late from my date to call then.

Now it was time to take a bath and change clothes.

Johnny and I didn’t stay to see the second picture. We both loved
This Is the Army.
George Murphy was one of my favorites and I liked the way Frances Langford sang.

Holding hands, we walked from the Loews on Second Avenue. Johnny had a big hand and I had a small one. He was always saying he was afraid mine would get lost in his.

He was tall and lanky and had a long face with deep-set brown blinkers, a regular nose, and a full mouth—not one of those slits a lotta men have. All in all he was a good-looking guy. But that wasn’t his main attraction for me. Not that I had anything against handsome men.

What I liked most about him was his kindness. Some detectives, like Powell, hafta put on a show about how tough they are, but Johnny never did that. I had no doubt that he
was
tough, but he didn’t have the need to act that way. I also liked his sense of humor, his smarts, that he read novels, and the way he treated me.

We talked about the movie while we walked and before I knew it we were back at my apartment. He usually came in for a coffee or a nightcap, but he had an early-morning meeting with his captain.

He saw me to the vestibule and we kissed for a long time. When we broke apart he said, “Faye, there’s something I want to say.”

My heart did a jitterbug. After that kiss I didn’t think he wanted to split up, but you never knew. Marriage passed through my brain and that was worse. I wanted to tell him to save it for a rainy day but I knew I couldn’t do that.

“What’s that, Johnny?”

“I’m not quite sure how to say this.”

“Then don’t say it.” Lily-livered, that was me.

“But I want to.”

“Okay.” Behind my back I crossed my fingers on both hands.

“I think we should stop dating other people.”

You coulda knocked me over with a cat’s whisker. What other people? Maybe he was dating, but I wasn’t.

I knew I had to say something so after a mo I said, “I didn’t know you’d been datin a lot, Johnny.” That was dumb.

“I haven’t. I thought you might be.”

“Me? Me?”

“You don’t have to sound like it’s an impossibility.”

“It’s just that it’s so far from the truth. I never gave datin another guy a thought.” I didn’t add that they weren’t lined up around the block, cause in my heart of hearts I knew if someone had asked me I wouldn’t have gone anyway.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

Saying what he had out loud made our romance more serious. My knees knocking together told me I was scared, but I also knew this was what I wanted.

“I’d like that,” I said.

“Good. Now you’re mine.”

Uh-oh. “And yer mine,” I said.

“That’s what I meant. We belong together. To each other.”

I hoped that’s what he meant.

“You’ve made me very happy, Faye.”

I smiled up at him. He leaned down and kissed me. A sweet kiss.

“I’d better go now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

We said our good nights and he waited while I opened and closed the inside door. Once in, I turned and we waved to each other. I watched him go down the steps.

When I got into my apartment, Zachary was there to greet me, mewing and winding himself around my ankles. I got rid of my pocketbook and picked him up.

“Guess what, Zach? We’re goin steady.”

The phone rang, Zach flew, and I went over to the telephone table and sat down before I answered. What if I picked it up to hear Johnny’d changed his mind? Then I realized there hadn’t been enough time for him to get home. I reached for the horn.

It was Marty Mitchum.

“I didn’t wake ya up, did I, Faye? I’ve been tryin ya all night.”

“I just got in. What’s up?”

“I heard ya didn’t identify your John Doe.”

“Right.”

“Here’s what I found out. All the clothes in the duffel fit Ladd. The stuff in the wardrobe, too.”