by Julie Smith
They were dressed for a party, those people, the men in coats and ties and the women in silk dresses, showing lots of skin.
For a while, Elena was kept busy answering the door, while the other four served champagne, which is the only appropriate drink for a bordello. Every time Kandi swept by, she left a little cloud of tiny feathers in her wake, causing me to sneeze and miss an occasional note. But that, and the fact that working the pedals made it nearly impossible to preserve any semblance of decency—with that slit in my skirt—were my only hardships. Every now and then, someone brought me a glass of champagne, so I was in a wonderful mood by the time Parker arrived.
It was time for a break, so I took one. “Irma La Douce, I presume,” he said by way of greeting.
I got up and showed off. “Like my outfit?”
“What there is of it.”
“Am I fascinating?”
“Scintillating,” he said. “You look like a mill—I mean, at least three or four hundred.”
I put a hand on my hip and thrust my chest out. “I could give you a deal.”
“Rebecca!” said a female voice. It was Stacy, holding a silver tray loaded with full champagne glasses. “What is this—amateur hour?”
“Stacy,” I said, “this is Parker. My date.”
She gave us champagne and floated away. “One of your clients?” asked Parker.
“Uh huh. You can tell the whores by the length of their skirts.”
Parker looked horrified. “What’s the big deal?” I asked. “We were all wearing miniskirts a few—” I stopped because he was no longer listening. Apparently, the big deal wasn’t anything I said. It was something his eyes were following, something on the other side of the room. I looked, but all I saw was a knot of people taking drinks from a tray Kandi was holding.
Chapter Six
The cops offered Elena a terrific deal: they said they'd be convinced I wasn't a car thief if she'd come down to the Hall and pay her two hundred dollars worth of traffic warrants.
She told me to sit tight while she took a taxi to HYENA headquarters and borrowed money from the bail fund. I asked her if she'd look around for my purse and bring it along.
“I found it awhile ago,” she said, “and I realized you'd be locked out. So I sent Kandi to take it to you.”
“Did she phone when I didn't turn up?”
“Come to think of it, no. I guess she’s still waiting for you.”
* * *
“Rebecca, my dear, Elena said, “you looked stunning, but my God!” Jeannette von Phister, the founder of HYENA, pecked my cheek, and I turned to introduce Parker, but he wasn’t there. I figured he’d wandered off.
“Twenty-five dollars at Magnarama,” I said. “The whole outfit.”
Jeannette herself, in a decorous brown wool dress, looked, as always, like a well-groomed publicist. Though she called herself a “retired call girl,” there was a malicious rumor that she’d never turned a trick in her life.
“I just got here,” she said. “Elena asked me because I set it up—I wouldn’t say that’s procuring, under the circumstances, would you? Isn’t it a kick?”
“Especially for the likes of me,” I said.
Jeannette raised an eyebrow. “Come, now. You make a great-looking little hooker. Are we still having dinner tomorrow night?”
“Of course.”
“Seven-thirty,” she said, “at the Washington Square Bar and Grill. I’ve got a proposition for you.”
And she was off before I could make any witless jokes about propositions.
I looked around for Parker, but I didn’t see him, and I didn’t like the way a big blond guy was watching me, so I sat back down and started playing.
I tend to forget everything else when I’m playing, so I was in a sort of trance for about the next forty-five minutes, but it wasn’t so deep that I didn’t observe two things: The FDOs knew how to have a good time, and my clients were perfect ladies.
Some of the guests were excellent dancers and a good many of them had hollow legs, if the number of empty glasses was any indication.
As for the hostesses, they were equally gracious to guests of both sexes, and they did not behave in a bawdy or provocative way—which is more than I can say for a good number of the guests. Of both sexes.
When I stopped playing again, I made another stab at trying to find Parker. I didn’t find him, but for some reason it didn’t bother me. I don’t think it even entered my head that he’d leave the party without telling me why. I just assumed we were somehow missing each other.
There was champagne at the bar, and I poured myself some. “Cheers,” said a male voice, and a glass clinked against mine. “You been in this business long?”
The voice belonged to a tall, broad man, probably in his late thirties but not very well preserved, the same man I’d seen watching me earlier. He had sandy hair and a face that missed being handsome because it was overly florid and a little on the mean side.
I saw no reason to go all fluttery and say I knew he wouldn’t believe it, but actually I was a Montgomery Street lawyer helping out a friend. So I lied. “Not very,” I said.
“I thought not. How'd you happen to get into this line of work?”
I told Elena’s story about the woman professor who’d taught her everything she knew.
The man laughed and offered his hand. “My name’s Frank. What’s yours?”
“Rebecca.”
“May I call you Becky?”
“AbsoLUTEly not. Never. Not if you paid me a thousand dollars.”
He leaned over and whispered, “How much would it take?”
“To get me to—oh. You mean to…”
He nodded.
I laughed, trying to recover my equilibrium. “The going rate’s a hundred dollars,” I said, as if I were used to saying it. “But this isn’t that kind of party.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s just a party. Music, dancing, champagne. That’s it. Didn’t you bring a date?”
“No.”
“Too bad. Some other time then.” I picked up my glass and sauntered back to the piano, perhaps swinging my hips the least bit more than strictly necessary.
It was getting late, and I thought something moderately quiet might be nice. I played “Sentimental Journey,” then “Cry Me a River.” But somehow a romantic mood didn’t fall like a mantle over the party, so I gave in and tried some livelier tunes. It was the right thing to do; those FDOs were in a mood to boogie.
Since Elena had told me the place was soundproofed, I packed up my inhibitions and played “Rock Around the Clock.” That was such a hit, I let loose with a spate of oldies-but-goodies that had every foot in the house tapping and most of them dancing. I was giving them a rest with “Blueberry Hill,” when I saw Parker come in the door. He looked strained and a bit unsteady. I was afraid he was ill.
The foyer was crowded with dancing couples, among them a rotund FDO and Kandi, entwined drunken-sailor-style. Kandi had her head on the fat chap’s shoulder, and her eyes may have been closed. I don’t know if she saw Parker or not.
Parker sunk a hand into the folds of Fatty’s neck and came up with Kandi’s wrist. She looked up, and he said something to her, but I couldn’t hear what it was. I heard her, though. She said, “Parker. What are you doing here?” She disentangled herself from Fatty as if he were a stuffed animal she was bored with, and led Parker out of my line of vision.
I heard both their voices, angry and getting angrier. I couldn’t distinguish the words, but I imagined the dancers could, so I stopped in the middle of “Blueberry Hill” and again swung into “Rock Around the Clock,” which is the loudest song I know.
And that’s when those fun-loving FDOs staged their adorable phony raid. You know what happened after that—I rescued one of California’s most prestigious perverts and wound up in the slammer.
Chapter Seven
Elena turned up to get me out just before 2 a.m., proved she was ac
tually Elena Mooney, Mustang owner, paid the $200, and I was a free woman.
She’d kept her taxi waiting. I was home in about seven minutes. A red Volkswagen was parked in my space, and Elena said it was Kandi’s. No one was inside it.
“She must have gone inside,” said Elena. “It’s been about an hour and a half since I sent her. Call me in the morning, and I’ll come get you and drive you back to get your car. It’s the least I can do.”
I gave her the keys to the Mustang and told her where to find it.
Stuck halfway into my mailbox slot, so that it could be easily extracted, was a folded piece of lined paper from a pocket notebook. I unfolded it and read: “R—US w/p. K.” I took it to mean “upstairs with purse” and mentally applauded Kandi for being so cryptic. This is always wise, I think, when leaving notes practically in public. The only thing was, if I hadn’t talked to Elena first, I wouldn’t have known who “K” was. But this was a quibble: she’d have identified herself through the intercom as soon as I rang the doorbell. I pressed the button to prove it.
No one answered, so I figured she was asleep. Since there’s a little overhang in the entryway where the mailboxes are, I wasn’t getting wet, but it was two-thirty and I wanted to go to bed. I rang a lot more times—more than I needed to, because I was getting damned impatient. But still nobody answered.
There was nothing to do but ring the other doorbells until someone answered. I’d probably wake someone up, but it couldn’t be helped. I pressed the manager’s bell first. It’s her job to be inconvenienced.
Her voice was husky over the intercom: “What is it?”
“Mrs. Garcia, it’s Rebecca Schwartz. I’m locked out. Could you buzz me in?”
“Oh Lord. Okay, come to my apartment for your key. I’m too tired to meet you at yours.”
“It’s okay. I have an extra key on the doorsill. All you have to do is buzz me through the gate.”
She did, and I said thanks, but she didn’t answer.
I’m foolhardy enough to keep a key on my doorsill because I have a tendency to lock myself out when I go to the garbage chute. It’s not the safest thing in the world, but I feel like an idiot having to beg Mrs. Garcia to let me in my own apartment, so I’m willing to take the chance.
I decided I’d probably wake up everybody in the building except Kandi if I banged on the door. I’d use the extra key and if I scared her, it was too bad. I felt for it and unlocked the door. Even though the lights were on, I reached automatically for the light switch to the right of the door. I did it even though I could plainly see that someone had ransacked my house and left Kandi dead on my Flokati rug. The mind is a funny thing.
Kandi was lying half-on and half-off the rug, with one leg kind of folded under her and the other stretched out under the aquarium stand. Her hair and my rug were stained and so was the base of my Don Quixote statue, which had been tossed carelessly on the rug, apparently after serving to bash Kandi’s brains out. (I meant that figuratively—there weren’t any brains in view. If there had been, I know for a fact I’d have screamed, which I didn’t.) I suppose Kandi must have fought for her life because a lot of fluffy apricot feathers had settled on the rug and on my two white sofas. I think I hated the feathers most of all. They reminded me of something: a cat Gary and I had kept that came and went as it pleased through a cat door. More than once, we came home and found feathers all over the living room. That was the cat’s way of showing us he’d made a kill. I hadn’t had much experience with death, but I associated feathers with it.
A few books had been torn from my bookcase, my purse and Kandi’s had been emptied on the coffee table, and the sofa pillows were on the floor. That was about all there was to the ransacking. There aren’t many secret crannies in my living room.
Now, as I have mentioned, I did not scream. But I wasn’t altogether brave and true about the situation either. I probably should have gone and felt Kandi’s pulse to make sure she was dead. But I didn’t; I just assumed she was.
After absorbing death and ransacking, my quicksilver brain hopped right on to the next subject: the whereabouts of the murderer. He might still be in the apartment, and it wasn’t big enough for both of us.
Although it’s Mrs. Garcia’s job to be inconvenienced, I didn’t go to her apartment. I went to Tony Larson’s. I did this not because he is a man and she is a woman, but because he lives next door. I figured no murderer would have the chutzpah to sashay out my door with me banging and hollering right outside. If he was there, I’d have him trapped.
I banged and hollered. Tony came to the door still wrapping some sort of Japanese robe around him that came to about mid-thigh. I had thought he might still be up, since he’s a bartender and the bars don’t close until two. As it turned out, he was and so was his date; they just didn’t have any clothes on.
Apparently, Tony grasped the urgency of the situation, because he didn’t complain that I’d halted Cupid on his appointed rounds and he didn’t comment on my outfit. He put his arms around me and I let him. Just for a second. Then I got down to business:
“There’s a dead woman in my apartment.”
“Christ,” said Tony and started out the door, but I caught him.
“Wait, Tony. She’s been murdered. I don’t know if anyone’s in there or not. Have you got a gun?”
“Yeah. Wait here.”
He went to his hall closet and came back with a hunting rifle. I unlocked my door and we went in, tiptoeing. But we might as well have marched in combat boots, because Tony lost his cool when he saw Kandi.
“Christ,” he said again.
“There’s only four places to hide,” I said. “The kitchen, the bedroom closet, the hall closet, and the bathroom. Go over near the piano so you can cover me and the door to the hall while I look in the kitchen.”
He did, and I stepped gingerly to the kitchen counter and peeped over it. There was no one there. I let him do the rest of the place alone, so I’d be free to sound the alarm if he got into any trouble. He didn’t.
“There’s no one here,” he reported. “But the rest of the place is pretty well ransacked too. And there’s a pair of rubber kitchen gloves lying on your bed. Come to my house and we’ll call the cops.”
At Tony’s, a pretty young woman, by now decently clad in jeans and a sweater, was pouring brandy into three snifters. “I could hear you from the bedroom,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” I said, reaching gratefully for a snifter, “but at least no one’s there.”
“Rebecca, this is Marilyn. She’ll show you where the phone is,” said Tony, and he left to put on some clothes.
Sitting down in a beanbag chair, I let Marilyn bring me the phone. My mother would have been proud of the way I handled it. I dialed “0” and asked for the number of the San Francisco police, and then I dialed the number. “I’d like to report a murder, please,” I said, as calmly as if I were ordering something from Saks.
The police officer gave me something called “communications,” and I repeated my request.
They asked me for my name, phone number, and address. I told them I was next door and gave them Tony’s number and address, which was a good thing because they called right back to make sure I wasn’t a crank.
When that was done, I asked Tony if I could use the bathroom and Marilyn if she had a hairbrush I could borrow. They both said yes.
Alone, I took off Elena’s turban and my make-up and brushed my hair into its accustomed professional do.
“That’s better,” Tony said. “You looked like a ten-dollar hooker. Where have you been, anyway?”
“Playing the piano in a whorehouse.”
“Okay, be snotty.”
“Honest. The dead woman worked there.”
“No kidding? She’s a hooker?”
“No and yes.”
“Who killed her?”
“I don’t know. I got no idea how I’m going to explain any of this to the cops, much less to my mom. Or where I�
�m going to sleep tonight.” I shivered. “Not over there.”
“I could give you the key to my apartment,” said Marilyn. “I’m going to stay with Tony.”
“No thanks. I think I need company. I’d better call my sister.”
I dialed Mickey’s number in Berkeley. Her nogoodnik boyfriend answered, “Whaddaya want?” But he wasn’t being rude because it was 3 a.m. He always answers like that, the way some people say, “Kelly’s Brickyard.”
I said, “Mickey. Now.”
“She ain’t here.”
“Alan, I am in no mood for jokes. Now.” He put her on.
“You tell El Creepo,” I said, “that when someone calls at three a.m., it is undoubtedly an emergency and no time to play games.”
“What emergency?”
“A lady of doubtful virtue is dead on my Flokati rug, and I would like you to get your shapely tush across the Bay Bridge fifteen minutes ago.”
“Shall I bring a vat of acid to dispose of the body?”
“Mickey, I’m serious.”
“Christ. One of your clients?”
“Yes.” This wasn’t strictly true, but it was close enough.
“Do Mom and Dad know?”
Tony’s buzzer went off. “Mickey, the cops just got here. Will you get on the stick? And leave Kruzick where he is.” She hung up without saying good-bye.
The cops were not homicide inspectors but uniformed officers from a radio car, come to make a “preliminary investigation.” It seems the police never take your word for anything. They looked at Kandi without touching her—so maybe I really didn’t do wrong by failing to take her pulse—and called an ambulance. One of them stayed with the body, and the other one took me back to Tony’s.
“Look,” I asked him, “how long is this going to take?” I was worried about imposing on Tony and Marilyn.
“Can’t say. An hour or two, probably. Maybe more.”
“Can I go back to my apartment, then?”
“Afraid not.”