by Ed McBain
“The eleventh,” Carella said.
“Yeah, that’s right. Well, that makes it longer than three weeks. Anyway, we’ve been looking for her all this time, and checking up on her past history, all that. What we found out is this. She flew here from KC.”
“She did?”
“Yeah, and you can guess the rest. She flew with this Circle Airlines. Now this can be sheer coincidence, or it can amount to something, I don’t know. But I thought I’d pass it on.”
“Yeah,” Carella said.
“It’s a long shot, I’ll admit it. Only there may be a tie-in.”
“How’d she fly?” Carella asked. “Luxury, Tourist?”
“First-Class,” Bartholdi said. “That’s another thing. They give them little bags to First-Class passengers, don’t they?”
“Yeah,” Carella said.
“Yeah. You know, this may be really far out, but suppose this dame vanished because she done some guy in? I mean, the hand was in a Circle Airlines…” Bartholdi let the sentence trail. “Well, I admit it’s a long shot.”
“We’ve run out of the other kind,” Carella said. “What’s Tudor’s address?”
The Creo Building was situated in midtown Isola, smack on The Stem, and served as an unofficial meeting place for every musician and performer in town. The building was flanked by an all-night cafeteria and a movie house, and its wide entrance doors opened on a marble lobby that would not have seemed out of place in St. Peter’s. Beyond the lobby, the upper stories of the building deteriorated into the lesser splendor of unfurnished rehearsal halls and the cubbyhole offices of music publishers, composers, agents, and an occasional ambulance chaser renting telephone and desk space. The men and women who congregated before the entrance doors and in the lobby were a mixed lot.
Here could be seen the hip musicians with the dizzy kicks and the tenor sax cases and the trombone cases discussing openings on various bands, some of them passing around sticks of marijuana, others lost in the religion that was music and needing no outside stimulation. Here, too, were the long-haired classicists carrying oboe cases, wearing soft felt hats, discussing the season in Boston or Dallas, and wondering whether Bernstein would make it at the Philharmonic. Here were the women singers, the canaries, the thrushes whose grins were as trained as their voices, who—no matter how minuscule the band they sang with—entered the arcade like Hollywood movie queens.
Here were the ballet dancers and the modern dancers, wearing short black skirts that permitted freer movement, their high heels clicking on the marble floor, walking with that peculiar duck waddle that seems to be the stamp of all professional dancers. Here were the strippers, the big pale women untouched by the sun, wearing dark glasses and lipstick slashes. Here were the publishers, puffing on cigars and looking like the Russian concept of the American capitalist. And here were the unsuccessful composers, needing haircuts, and here were the slightly successful composers carrying demo records, and here were the really successful composers who sang badly and who played piano more badly but who walked with the cool assurance of jukebox loot spilling out of their ears.
Upstairs, everybody was rehearsing, rehearsing with small combos and big bands, rehearsing with pianos, rehearsing with drums, rehearsing dances and symphonies and improvised jam sessions. The only thing that wasn’t rehearsed in the Creo Building was the dialogue going on in the lobby and before the entrance doors.
The dialogue of Charles Tudor may or may not have been rehearsed, it was difficult to tell. His small office was on the eighteenth floor of the building. Two tall, pale, buxom girls carrying hatboxes were sitting on a wooden bench in the waiting room. A short, rosy-cheeked, flat-chested girl was sitting behind a desk at the far end of the room. Carella went to her, flashed the tin, and said, “We’re from the police. We’d like to talk to Mr. Tudor, please.”
The receptionist studied first Hawes, then Carella. The two pale strippers on the bench turned a few shades paler. The taller of the two rose abruptly, picked up her hatbox, and hastily departed. The second busied herself with a copy of Variety.
“What’s this in reference to?” the receptionist asked.
“We’ll discuss that with Mr. Tudor,” Carella said. “Would you mind telling him we’re here?”
The girl pulled a face and pressed a stud in the phone on her desk. “Mr. Tudor,” she said into the mouthpiece, “there are a couple of gentlemen here who claim to be detectives. Well, they said they’d discuss that with you, Mr. Tudor. I couldn’t say, I’ve never met a detective before. Yes, he showed me a badge. Yes, sir.” She hung up.
“You’ll have to wait a minute. He’s got somebody with him.”
“Thank you,” Carella said.
They stood near the desk and looked around the small waiting room. The second stripper sat motionless behind her Variety, not even daring to turn the page. The walls of the room were covered with black-and-white photos of strippers in various provocative poses. Each of the photographs was signed. Most of them started with the words “To Charlie, who…” and ended with exotic names like Flame or Torch or Maja or Exota or Bali. Hawes walked around the room looking at the photos. The girl behind the copy of Variety followed him with her eyes.
Finally, in a very tiny voice that seemed even smaller issuing from such a big woman, she said, “That’s me.”
Hawes turned. “Huh?” he asked.
“With the furs. The picture you were looking at. It’s me.”
“Oh. Oh,” Hawes said. He turned to look at the picture again. Turning back to the girl, he said, “I didn’t recognize you with your…” and then stopped and grinned.
The girl shrugged.
“Marla? Is that your name? The handwriting isn’t too clear.”
“Marla, that’s it,” she said. “It’s really Mary Lou, but my first agent changed it to Marla. That sounds exotic, don’t you think?”
“Yes, yes, very,” Hawes agreed.
“What’s your name?”
“Hawes.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, no. Cotton is my first name. Cotton Hawes.”
The girl stared at him for a moment. Then she asked, “Are you a stripper, too?” and burst out laughing. “Excuse me,” she said, “but you have to admit that’s a pretty exotic name.”
“I guess so,” Hawes said, grinning.
“Is Mr. Tudor in some trouble?” Marla asked.
“No.” Hawes shook his head. “No trouble.”
“Then why do you want to see him?”
“Why do you want to see him?” Hawes asked.
“To get a booking.”
“Good luck,” Hawes said.
“Thank you. He’s a good agent. He handles a lot of exotic dancers. I’m sure he’ll get me something.”
“Good,” Hawes said. “I hope so.”
The girl nodded and was silent for a while. She picked up the copy of Variety, thumbed through it, and then put it down again. “You still haven’t told me why you want to see Mr. Tudor,” she said, and at that moment the door to the inner office opened and a statuesque brunette wearing heels that made her four inches taller stepped into the waiting room, bust first.
“Thanks a lot, Charlie,” she yelled, almost colliding with Carella to whom she hastily said, “Oh, pardon me, dearie,” and then clattered out of the room.
The phone on the receptionist’s desk buzzed. She lifted the receiver. “Yes, Mr. Tudor,” she said, and then hung up. “Mr. Tudor will see you now,” she said to Carella.
“Good luck,” Marla said to Hawes as he moved past the bench.
“Thank you,” Hawes said. “The same to you.”
“If I ever need a cop or something,” she called after him, “I’ll give you a ring.”
“Do that,” Hawes said, and he followed Carella into Tudor’s office. The office was decorated with more photographs of exotic dancers, so many photographs that both Tudor and his desk were almost lost in the display. Tudor was a huge man in his late forties wearing a dark-brown
suit and a pale-gold tie. He possessed a headful of short black hair that was turning white at the temples, and a black Ernie Kovacs mustache. He was smoking a cigarette in a gold-and-black cigarette holder. He gestured the detectives to chairs, and a diamond pinky ring glistened on his right hand.
“I understand you’re policemen,” he said. “Does this have anything to do with Barbara?”
“Yes, sir,” Carella said. “We understand that you were the gentleman who reported Miss Caesar missing.”
“Yes,” Tudor said. “You must forgive my rudeness when my receptionist announced you. I sometimes get calls from policemen that have nothing whatever to do with…well, something as serious as Barbara.”
“What kind of calls, Mr. Tudor?” Hawes asked.
“Oh, you know. A show is closed down someplace, and some of my girls are in it, and immediately the police make an association. I only find employment for these girls. I don’t tell them how to observe the rules of propriety.” Tudor shrugged. His speech was curious in that it was absolutely phony. He spoke with the clipped precision of an Englishman, and one received the impression that he chose his words carefully before allowing them to leave his mouth. But the elegant tones and rounded vowels were delivered in the harshest, most blatant city accent Carella had ever heard. And the odd part was that Tudor didn’t seem at all aware of the accent that stamped him as a native of either Isola or Calm’s Point. Blithely, he clipped his words immaculately and seemed under the impression that he was a member of the House of Lords delivering a speech to his fellow peers.
“I really am not responsible for whatever acts my clients wish to concoct,” Tudor said. “I wish the police would realize that. I am a booking agent, not a choreographer.” He smiled briefly. “About Barbara,” he said. “What have you heard?”
“Nothing at all, Mr. Tudor. We were hoping you could tell us a little more about her.”
“Oh.”
Tudor uttered only that single word, but disappointment was evident in it, and disappointment showed immediately afterward on his face.
“I’m sorry if we raised your hopes, Mr. Tudor,” Carella said.
“That’s all right,” Tudor said. “It’s just…”
“She meant a lot to you, this girl?”
“Yes,” Tudor answered. He nodded his head. “Yes.”
“In a business way?” Hawes asked.
“Business?” Tudor shook his head again. “No, not business. I’ve handled better strippers. Am handling better ones now. That little girl who just left my office. Her name is Pavan, got here from Frisco last July, and has just about set this metropolis on fire. Excellent. Absolutely excellent, and she’s only twenty years old, would you believe it? She has a long future ahead of her, that girl. Barbara was no child, you know.”
“How old is she?”
“Thirty-four. Of course, there are strippers who keep performing until they’re well into their fifties. I don’t know of any performers, or of any women for that matter, who take as much pride in their bodies as exotic dancers do. I suppose there’s an element of narcissism involved. Or perhaps we’re looking too deep. They know their bodies are their fortunes. And so they take care of themselves. Barbara, though she was thirty-four, possessed…” Tudor stopped short. “Forgive me. I must get out of the habit of using the past tense in speaking about her. It’s simply that, when a person leaves, disappears, that person is thought of as being gone, and the tongue plays its trick. Forgive me.”
“Are we to understand, Mr. Tudor, that there was something more than a strict business relationship between you and Miss Caesar?”
“More?” Tudor said.
“Yes, was there—”
“I love her,” Tudor said flatly.
The room was silent.
“I see,” Carella said.
“Yes.” Tudor paused for a long time. “I love her. I still love her. I must keep remembering that. I must keep remembering that I still love her, and that she is still here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Here. Somewhere. In this city. She is still here.” Tudor nodded. “Nothing has happened to her. She is the same Barbara, laughing, lovely…” He stopped himself. “Have you seen her picture, gentlemen?”
“No,” Carella said.
“I have some, I believe. Would they help you?”
“Yes, they would.”
“I have already given some to the Missing Persons Bureau. Are you from the Missing Persons Bureau?”
“No.”
“No, I didn’t think you were. Then what is your interest in Barbara?”
“We’re acting in an advisory capacity,” Carella lied.
“I see.” Tudor stood up. He seemed taller on his feet, a man bigger than six feet who walked with economy and grace to the filing cabinet in one corner of the room. “I think there are some in here,” he said. “I usually have pictures taken as soon as I put a girl under contract. I had quite a few taken of Barbara when she first came to me.”
“When was this, Mr. Tudor?”
Tudor did not look up from the files. His hands worked busily as he spoke. “January. She came here from Kansas City. A friend of hers in a show there recommended me to her. I was the first person she met in this city.”
“She came to you first, is that correct, Mr. Tudor?”
“Straight from the airport. I helped her get settled. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her.”
“Straight from the airport?” Carella asked.
“What? Yes. Ah, here are the pictures.” He turned from the files and carried several glossy prints to his desk. “This is Barbara, gentlemen. Bubbles Caesar. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
Carella did not look at the pictures. “She came straight from the airport, you say?”
“Yes. Most of these pictures—”
“Was she carrying any luggage?”
“Luggage? Yes, I believe so. Why?”
“What kind of luggage?”
“A suitcase, I believe. A large one.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was she carrying a small, blue overnight bag?” Hawes asked.
Tudor thought for a moment. “Yes, I think she was. One of those small bags the airlines give you. Yes, she was.”
“Circle Airlines, Mr. Tudor?”
“I don’t remember. I have the impression it was Pan American.”
Carella nodded and picked up the photographs. The girl Barbara “Bubbles” Cesare did not seem to be thirty-four years old, not from the photographs, at any rate. The pictures showed a clear-eyed, smiling brunette loosely draped in what seemed to be a fisherman’s net. The net did very little to hide the girl’s assets. The girl had assets in abundance. And coupled with these was the provocative look that all strippers wore after they’d ceased to wear anything else. Bubbles Caesar looked out of the photographs with an expression that clearly invited trouble. Studying the photos, Carella was absolutely certain that this was the identical look which Eve had flashed at Adam after taking her midday fruit. The look spelled one thing and one thing alone and, even realizing that the look was an acquired one, a trick of the girl’s trade, Carella studied the photos and found that his palms were getting wet.
“She’s pretty,” he said inadequately.
“The pictures don’t do her justice,” Tudor said. “She has a complexion like a peach and…and a vibration that can only be sensed through knowing her. There are people who vibrate, gentlemen. Barbara is one of them.”
“You said you helped her get settled, Mr. Tudor. What, exactly, did you do?”
“I got a hotel for her, to begin with. Until she found a place of her own. I advanced her some money. I began seeing her regularly. And, of course, I got a job for her.”
“Where?”
“The King and Queen. It’s an excellent club.”
“Where’s that, Mr. Tudor?”
“Downtown, in The Quarter. I’ve placed some very good girls there.
Pavan started there when she came here from Frisco. But, of course, Pavan had big-time quality, and I moved her out very fast. She’s working on The Street now. A place called The String of Pearls. Do you know it?”
“It sounds familiar,” Carella said. “Miss Caesar was not big-time in your opinion, is that right?”
“No. Not bad. But not big-time.”
“Despite those…vibrations.”
“The vibrations were a part of her personality. Sometimes they come over on the stage, sometimes they don’t. Believe me, if Barbara could have incorporated this…this inner glow into her act, she’d have been the biggest ever, the biggest. Bar none. Gypsy Rose Lee, Margie Hart, Zorita, Lili St. Cyr, I tell you Barbara would have outshone them all. But no.” He shook his head. “She was a second-rate stripper. Nothing came across the footlights but that magnificent body and, of course, the look that all strippers wear. But not the glow, not the vibrations, not the…the life force, call it what you will. These only came from knowing her. There is a difference, you understand.”
“Was she working at The King and Queen when she disappeared?”
“Yes. She didn’t show up for the show on February twelfth. The owner of the club reported this to me as her agent, and I called her apartment. She was living at the time with two other girls. The one who answered the phone told me that she hadn’t seen her since early that morning. I got alarmed, and I went out to look for her. This is a big city, gentlemen.”
“Yes.”
“The next morning, the thirteenth, I called the police.” Tudor paused. He looked past the detectives and through the window where the rain dripped steadily against the red brick of the Creo Building. “I had bought her a necklace for Valentine’s Day. I was going to give it to her on Valentine’s Day.” He shook his head. “And now she’s gone.”
“What kind of a necklace, Mr. Tudor?”
“A ruby necklace. She has black hair, you know, very black, and deep brown eyes. I thought rubies, I thought the fire of rubies…” He paused again. “But she’s gone, isn’t she?”
“Who owns The King and Queen, Mr. Tudor?”
“A man named Randy Simms. Randolph is his full name, I believe, but everyone calls him Randy. He runs a very clean establishment. Do you plan to call on him?”