“No, not really,” I said. “I’d love to.”
I heard the soft footsteps of a housekeeper who walked past us on her way up the hall to answer the door.
“Well, then. That’s fine,” she said.
“But, I wonder if you might have a pen so you could…” I touched the letter. “I’m sorry to bother you…”
“Oh, surely I can. I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll go find one.”
She swished out of the room leaving me momentarily alone. I stood up and started looking around the room. The paintings on the wall were original oil paintings in the style of the French Impressionists. For a moment I wondered if they might be originals. I studied one very, very closely. Oh
Chapter 19
“Ahem.”
I jumped.
At the doorway to the chintz parlor stood a woman with steel gray hair clipped very short, just like a man’s. She wore a gray pantsuit, which perfectly matched her hair. Her sharp jaw and slender nose reflected a sense of beauty past, and I figured the woman to be in her mid-sixties.
“Yoo-hoo?” She made it a question. “Where’s Cath?”
I noticed her staring at my hand. I quickly pulled it back from the small, perfect Renoir. Her gaze moved down to the low tray table and rested on the antique mah-jongg chest.
“Holy Toledo. Is that Dickey’s?” she asked.
“Rosalie, doll.” Catherine Hill floated into the room in a swirl of green-silk fabric and a waft of Joy perfume. “Rosalie. Look what turned up on my doorstep.”
She was talking about the mah-jongg set, not me.
“Yes, I saw.”
Catherine Hill’s lovely voice went quite deep with what sounded like sorrow. She patted the rosewood case lightly. “We miss you Dickey boy.”
“And you have a visitor?” The woman looked at me with open curiosity.
Catherine cooed. “Madeline Beall, this is Rosalie Apple.”
“Nice to meet you, Beall.”
“It’s Bean, actually. Madeline Bean. Nice to meet you.”
“Bean?” Rosalie’s face took on a pained expression. “Oh, poor thing. Have you thought of changing it, dear?”
I shook my head.
“You should. I know names.”
“She really does,” Catherine Hill said, as she focused on the bottom of the letter I’d brought. She signed her name in large, loopy script.
A doorbell rang softly from afar, but neither woman moved a muscle to go and answer it. There was staff on call to perform that chore.
“You have heard of Rosalie Apple, of course,” Catherine Hill stated firmly.
I smiled, without a clue.
“Rosalie is my personal manager. Has been for years and years and years. The best.”
“Thank you, Cath. I’m putting that blurb on my tombstone.”
“Rosalie was also Dickey’s manager, for a time. But…”
“But!” Rosalie snorted.
“…but that didn’t work out. This was years ago, and even though Dickey left Rosalie, they remained the very best of friends, right up to the end of Dickey’s life.”
Rosalie Apple nodded. “I am the one who first called him ‘Dickey.’ That name made him accessible. America’s favorite young man. He came to me as Richard Lipinski. Imagine that!”
This was almost better than I could have hoped for. I, the little fly on the wall, was being treated to all these insider memories of one of the biggest names in old-time Hollywood.
I carefully chose my words. “This lovely old mah-jongg set of his has been through a lot. Would you like to know the strange story of where it was found?”
“What fun.” Catherine Hill sat down, tucking one short, plump leg under, getting comfy on the leaf-print sofa.
“Do you remember the last time either of you saw it?”
“Let’s see,” Catherine Hill said. “I think I remember that last time that Dickey brought it to one of our games. It must have been five years ago, at the very least. He started seeing that new girl around then, I think.”
“What was she called, again?” Rosalie asked.
“Quita,” Catherine answered.
“Quita McBride,” Rosalie repeated. “Now that’s a name.”
“Actually, it’s a very sad story,” I said. “She fell the other night, and I’m afraid she died.” I watched both women for reactions.
Catherine said. “In that accident? It was on the news.”
I nodded.
“I hadn’t heard that,” Rosalie said, startled. “She was very young, wasn’t she? I’m sure she was. Oh, dear.”
Catherine continued as if Rosalie had never interrupted. “After they met, Dickey stopped coming to our games regularly. Remember that, Rosalie? When Dickey stopped bringing his antique Chinese set?”
“I never remember anything anymore,” Rosalie said. She wore a pair of reading glasses on a golden chain around her neck and she pulled them up onto her nose and looked more closely at Dickey McBride’s old mah-jongg case. “I have a terrible memory, you know that. It could have been five years or ten years, don’t ask me.”
“Well, that’s rather interesting,” I said. “My partner bought Mr. McBride’s old house up on Wetherbee Drive. It turns out that this mah-jongg set was hidden behind one of the walls. It had been plastered up in an old fireplace.”
“You’re joking,” Rosalie said.
“Fancy that,” said Catherine Hill.
“But this is the part that gets really odd…”
Both women leaned forward. I wasn’t sure it was because of the suspense of my story or just the fact that their hearing wasn’t as good as it once was. I spoke up a little more clearly, just in case.
“Just the other day, a man came along from out of nowhere. He knocked me down and grabbed this mah-jongg set and ran.”
“Oh, good heavens!” Rosalie said, clutching the front of her gray blazer.
“Terrible! The street crime these days. It’s the homeless! No one does a thing about them.” Catherine Hill shook her head sadly and turned to her old friend with an added comment, “I simply won’t go out on the streets anymore. And neither should you.”
“Luckily,” I said, “they recovered this lovely old antique mah-jongg set. I wondered if you know if this set has any value?”
Rosalie looked surprised. “I don’t think you could get very much for an old Chinese mah-jongg set, do you, Cath? It doesn’t have all the tiles we use in the American version. It’s rather pretty, of course. But as to real value, I don’t know.”
“Maybe a few hundred dollars?” Catherine said, guessing.
“It is a shame this man got away,” I continued. “A few other items that he took are still missing…a book bound in red leather and a…”
But I was not to get a chance to finish my thought, for just then we were interrupted by the arrival of two more women.
“Hello, Rosalie! Hello, Cath!”
Catherine Hill turned her gold-turbaned head, instantly bestowing all her attention on the newcomers. “Darlings. Come in and meet someone.”
Damn.
I had been leading up to the red book all along.
The new arrivals brought with them clouds of yet two more strong perfumes. As they kissed the air and traded greetings, their sweet scents mingled and I had a few seconds to look them over.
One I recognized instantly as Silver Screen star Eva James, still blond, still slender, with skin pulled so tightly over her celebrated cheekbones that her facial expression was now rather permanently set in a look of startled amusement. She’d been a huge star in the days of the giant MGM musicals, and I felt myself flush.
Beside her stood a buxom woman wearing a wildly printed big shirt. She also had a familiar face, but in this case it was an extremely wrinkled one. I had to stare for a minute, but then it struck me. Oh, my goodness. It was Helen Howerton. She’d done hundreds of B movies, all of them forgettable, but rose to fame playing the faithful secretary on that old fifties TV series,
Mike Heller, Private Eye. Her shiny lacquered hair was a shade of bottle black that was startling against her pale wrinkled face. It looked like a hard-shell beehive with a tiny flip at the ends.
Amid the tumult and the laughter, the subject of Dickey McBride and the theft of the mah-jongg case had been dropped cold.
Instead, Catherine Hill began introductions once again. Everyone seemed eager to check out the new girl. It was a heady feeling. Inside this movie star’s castle, clucked over by her movie-star friends, I’d suddenly become the center of attention.
“Girls! Girls! You must meet Madeline Beall.”
My guardian angel can always be counted on to kick a little sand of reality into my starry eyes.
And no, I didn’t correct Catherine Hill again. I didn’t want to annoy her, frankly. She was too up. I was Catherine Hill’s toy du jour, and she loved to see all the fuss I generated. As she introduced each woman, she reeled off an abbreviated bio of each.
Eva James, slender to the point where she might have proved useful to med students cramming for their skeletal anatomy exams, was, Catherine announced in mellifluous tones, “…an Oscar-winner for Two on the Town.”
“I loved that movie,” I piped up in a pretty gush.
This is required, as I’m sure you remember from the previous lecture. Needless to say, one neither needs to have loved the specified movie, nor even have seen it to gush thus. However, in the case of Two on the Town, I had and I did. This was one of the real kicks of meeting genuine Hollywood royalty. All the de riguer little niceties were startlingly sincere.
“That,” Catherine continued, “was the first time Eva had costarred with Donald O’Connor and, we always tell her this—Eva stole the picture.”
Rosalie picked up the tale. “Donald never forgave Eva and wouldn’t costar with her again until Louie Mayer made him.”
The four women giggled.
“Oh girls.” Eva said, shushing them. But you could tell Eva James was pleased. She stood, smiling her tight-skinned smile, and demurred. “This is old news: 1959.” And then Eva turned to me, and added, “I was only nineteen at the time.”
Rosalie Apple brushed her hand through her short gray hair and said, “Let’s not give the dates, dear. We all can add.”
Indeed we could. By that math, when Eva James starred as a showgirl in High Kicks of 1943, she would have only been three.
And then Catherine Hill turned to introduce Helen Howerton. “Helen, here, is what is known as a fabulous utility player.”
“Well, Cath, really. I starred in Mike Heller for twelve years.” Helen straightened her silk blouse, with its mad pattern of mice and cheese. I detected just a hint of touchiness.
“Yes, of course you did. You are a big TV star, darling, which everyone knows, but I’m talking about the really marvelous work you did in pictures dear.”
“Three Emmys,” Helen added to herself, “and seven nominations.”
“Yes, dear. Yes. But what I was going to say was that you were simply the best sidekick the Big Screen ever had.”
Miss Howerton had played the good-buddy roll in countless movies, including the very popular Heavenly Girls films. Catherine and Helen had played American girls at a Catholic boarding school in Paris, always in some new fix. Cath Hill was always the lead, the young ingenue, while Helen played her poker-playing, freckled, thrill-seeking sidekick.
“I recently rented The Heavenly Girls in the Forbidden City, actually.”
All eyes turned to me.
“It was fantastic.” Required.
They smiled.
“Well, isn’t that old mah-jongg case familiar!” Helen said, giving her black beehive hairdo one gentle pat.
“Isn’t that Dickey’s?” Eva asked.
Amid the loud exclamations, Catherine Hill spoke softly. “Dickey cherished this set, and he wanted me to have it after he was gone.” That theatrical trick of lowering her voice to a whisper was effective. I swear, I could be picking up dozens of acting tips if I was ever so inclined, just watching all these elderly divas peck at one another.
Eva James, blond and cool, looked at me with open curiosity. “Don’t tell me this is Dickey’s last wife. Not how I remembered her at all. Or had he gotten a newer one that I hadn’t been aware of?” Her hand went to her throat and caressed a strand of pearls that were large enough to be gum-balls.
Catherine Hill shouted above the clamor of the other ladies as they set to squabbling and correcting one another and chastising the new ones. “No, no. Now let’s not go picking on poor Dickey again. He was my oldest friend. We started at MGM together when we were just kids. He was a charmer, which was why everyone loved him. He was gorgeous, too.”
Hot dog. We were back to talking about McBride.
“Yes,” Catherine continued, “he was a rake and a scoundrel, but he was also our friend. We played mah-jongg together for close to forty years. And no one here should throw stones.”
“We always had fun gambling with Dickey,” said Helen, the early TV star, “even if he did take my money. What do I care, ducks? I get residuals forever.” She gave me a big wink with one false-eyelashed, elderly eye. “Eva never liked losing, though, did you?”
“Nonsense. Dickey was great fun.” The tall, thin, blond former song-and-dance star shook her head, setting her drop diamond earrings to swinging. “Dickey and I were practically engaged at one time. I got a ring out of him, anyway.”
“Enough chitchat,” Rosalie said. “Let’s play mah-jongg. The sooner we play, the sooner we eat, and I’m starving.”
“Yes, me too,” said Helen.
Rosalie eyed Catherine. “What is it going to be today, Cath? Deli?”
“Rosalie,” Catherine said, playing the hurt hostess to nice effect, “You love deli. We always have deli. It’s a tradition.”
“It’s cheap,” Rosalie countered.
“Excuse me,” I said. Time to speak up if I wanted to stay in the game. “Look, why don’t I make lunch? I’d really love to cook for you.”
The group stopped squabbling and turned their attention to me.
I had moved to Plan B.
Like the X-Men or Wonder Woman or Kreskin, I have a special power. No one refuses the free services of a gourmet caterer. I hope I don’t seem immodest, but food is primal stuff. I can use my powers for good or evil. I choose good. And I still felt there was something these ladies could tell me about Dickey McBride and his red bound book that might be useful.
“Would you let me cook for you?”
“Now this is more like it,” Eva said, smoothing a ring-covered hand back over her blond bob. “What a relief. Cath orders the same damn deli platter from Nate and Al’s every damn time.”
There, settled.
Had Honnett tried to question these women about the red book, not only would he get nowhere, but I very much doubted any of them would even admit knowing McBride. The interrogation tools of a cop were limited. It was like trying to tap open the shell of a soft-cooked egg by wielding a sledgehammer. Honnett himself admitted he’d never get anything.
But my tools were of an entirely different sort.
Catherine Hill gave me a rather shrewd look. “Well, Madeline. What a lovely idea. Quite nice. We eat lunch in one hour.”
“Great.”
“But do tell us,” Helen Howerton said, “what’s for lunch?”
The group quieted down, waiting.
“How about a Wild Cherry Fettuccine with shredded duck and wilted mustard greens?”
“Oh!” Catherine Hill’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Someone may have to wake up Minnie for this feast.”
“Divine!” Catherine’s manager, Rosalie Apple, stood up and clapped her hands in happiness.
I was encouraged and went on. “To start, a salad of hearts of romaine with roasted corn and avocado and a garlic-lime vinaigrette.”
“Yum!” Eva James stood up on her long, if elderly, dancer’s legs and joined the applause.
“Lovely,” chimed in Mike
Heller’s gal Friday, Helen Howerton, joining the others in an ovation to food, glorious, food.
And so, with such a ridiculously easy bribe, I was able to stay at the party. I only hoped I could string the courses out long enough to find out more about Dickey McBride and the book I felt was the root of so much that had yet to be explained. With enough good food, and enough time, I was de-
Chapter 20
“Five bam. Mah-jongg. Ha!”
The last ivory tile clacked down hard on top of Eva James’s red-plastic tray. At that point, she pushed several other groups of tiles from the lower edge of the tray up on top, exposing her winning hand.
“That stinks,” Rosalie Apple said, folding her arms over her gray blazer. “I was looking for one lousy three dot. And Eva had all four.”
“Be a big girl, honey,” Helen Howerton said. She lightly patted her hardcoat black hair to make sure, perhaps, it was still shellacked down. “Eva won. Pay up.”
I stood at the door to the billiards room. The women were seated at the far end of the long room at a mahogany game table, swearing and moaning at the money that they now owed Eva. They passed around the little circular plastic coins that represented winnings. These colorful gaming chips had holes in the center, which were kept on pegs at the end of each woman’s tray.
“Lunch is ready whenever you like,” I announced.
“Hallelujah.” Rosalie yelled, scraping back her chair. “We’re all saved.”
One by one, the elderly mah-jongg divas picked up their drinks and ashtrays and reading glasses, and whatever, and made their way out of the billiards room and down the long hall to the rear of the house. The luncheon had been set up in Catherine Hill’s formal dining room with its lush view of the grounds in back.
While I had been busy in the kitchen, Catherine’s maid, Sonia, had joined me. I considered Sonia my sister in crime, of course. Sonia had been the one who gave me the heads-up about the proper day and time I could expect to find the mah-jonggers at the house. And as I stir-fried the shredded duck and finished off the soup, Sonia stuck by my side in Catherine Hill’s amazing kitchen. She insisted on helping, and I enjoyed her company. I had suggested she set the dining room table for four, not wanting to be too forward.
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