Slugfest db-4

by Rosemary Harris

  “You decide if you want to call him. Tell him I sent you. He’ll give you a price.”

  By this time I was less sociable and J. C. was perceptive enough to realize it, so she left soon after the cops did but returned minutes later with half a tray of pasta and the bottle of wine.

  “I can’t eat all this.”

  “Sure you can. Just don’t eat it all tonight. And I think you need the wine more than I do. Watch your back.”

  I would. I’d lost my appetite but not my thirst. I double-locked the door, put the ziti in the fridge, and poured myself a drink. I’d told Connie Anzalone that I’d help her choose an outfit for the Friday night reception, but I didn’t have the first clue what I’d be wearing so I started rifling through Lucy’s closet for something to borrow.

  New York closets were notoriously small and Lucy had rather ingeniously installed a drapery rod and curtain that partitioned two feet from one end of the bedroom, thereby creating a giant closet. Presumably this was done without the help of her former paramour, since the number of holes in each side wall rivaled the number of holes at the Alamo. Still, it worked, especially if you didn’t mind the occasional clump of dry wall. Maybe I’d be a really good houseguest and fill them in with Spackle.

  Some women were inordinately proud of their linen closets or china cabinets. Others had rows of shoes lined up in formation like some phantom Busby Berkeley routine. Lucy could rightly be proud of this closet. Her clothes were arranged by color and length. Skirts, dresses, and slacks were hung with boutique precision on matching flat, black velvet hangers for maximum efficiency. I thought of my closet in Springfield: T-shirts, sweatshirts, painter’s pants, and jeans folded in slightly listing stacks, the bulk of my work clothes from my previous life still in boxes and garment bags.

  I hadn’t had a nine-to-five job even when I worked in television, but occasionally I had to look professional and for me that meant jeans, boots, and a good jacket. It was all in the accessories. These days I was more likely to accessorize with a pair of nippers and Womanswork garden gloves than an Hermès scarf or pricey handbag, so shopping in Lucy’s closet would be fun—and free.

  Luckily we were about the same size. We even had the same coloring. Not that that mattered much. Ninety percent of the items in Lucy’s closet were black—she did, after all, live in New York and work in the media. Three items that weren’t black caught my eye. I put down the wineglass and stripped to my underwear to try on the first: a lilac one-shoulder number held together on the left side by sequined Velcro tabs. In its way, it looked fabulous. I could decorate the booth with lilacs from the Koreans and be color coordinated. But then I worried about the Velcro tabs opening and David having to duct-tape me back together, so I said no to the dress.

  On and off quickly was a beige lace sheath. Pretty but practically see-through. The third nonblack item was a sleeveless red dress, short and made of spandex. I flashed on Scarlett O’Hara being forced to wear a red dress to Miss Melly’s party after being caught in a clinch with Ashley Wilkes. And a brazen Bette Davis as Jezebel daring to wear red to the Olympus ball, even though uptight fiancé Henry Fonda warns she’ll be ostracized. “But this is 1854 … 1854!” Bette trumped Henry; I had to try it on.

  I wriggled into the dress and slipped off my panties to eliminate VPL, visible panty line. I went the whole nine yards with a pair of strappy stilettos. Jeez, the truckers at the Paradise Diner would have heart attacks if they saw me in this instead of my Old Navy tops and Columbia Sportswear bottoms. But could I really pull off this look? It was one thing to parade around in fancy dress in a fitting room or at home, quite another to go out into the world. I took a swig of wine for courage and did a modified runway walk in front of Lucy’s full-length mirror. It was ridiculous enough when rail-thin models did it but downright impossible for a normal-sized woman. Ah, that’s because we have thighs. I posed, I preened, I parted my lips and practiced looking lobotomized. I reached for the wine again with one hand on my hip, fingers splayed in the standard celebrity pose. Lucy’s phone rang. I imagined it was her telling me which purse to wear with the dress.

  “Hello?” There was silence for a beat. “Is this the guy from the convention center? Are you calling about the bag?”

  There was a huge intake of phlegmy air and a gravelly voice said, “I prefer the red.” Click.

  It took me three full seconds to realize what had happened. I dropped the wine, kicked off the shoes, and ran downstairs to J. C.’s, banging on her door like a crazy woman. “Call nine one one, call nine one one!”

  Wilson and Vargas were back in less than thirty minutes. Once again, we received them in J. C.’s apartment, this time J. C. in her jammies, clutching her door bar, and me, barefoot and in a red spandex dress.

  “If we’d known you were dressing for dinner we would have stayed for the ziti.”

  Twenty-four

  Nothing could have induced me to sleep at Lucy’s that night. Not J. C.’s offer of protection with her all-purpose weapon. Not Wilson and Vargas, who’d assured me they’d check in every two hours even after their shift ended in the morning. I wasn’t the nervous type and it was true, nothing serious had happened. As if reciting from the manual, Vargas had said nine times out of ten prank calls were nothing more than bored kids getting their jollies.

  If he’d said nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand I might have liked the odds better, but I wasn’t going to get a good night’s sleep, wondering if I was the unlucky tenth time out of ten. I didn’t really think I’d be raped or murdered in Lucy’s bed, but I needed a good night’s sleep and that wasn’t going to happen if I had to keep one eye open all night.

  J. C. and the cops tried to talk me out of it. She even offered me a spot on her sofa—an enormous concession from someone who greeted most strangers with a bar in hand—and I was grateful but adamant. The cops agreed to give me a ride to the St. George Hotel. I threw some essentials and Lucy’s stilettos in a hard-sided suitcase with rotating wheels and an extending handle. I wasn’t about to give a Peeping Tom another girlie show, so I left the red dress on. It was quite a look with my own sensible Merrells.

  “Did you call us from this phone?” Wilson asked, as I finished packing.

  “No. Why?”

  Wilson pressed *69 on Lucy’s phone. He took out his pad and wrote down the number that appeared.

  “Worth a try,” he said, pleased with himself. He dialed the number, but there was no answer. He walked over to the window. “Come here,” he said. I felt a sermon coming.

  Lucy lived around the corner from a high-rise as big as one of those mammoth cruise ships with hundreds of little windows. If they’d wanted to, anyone from the fifth floor on up could see directly into Lucy’s bedroom, where I’d been sashaying in my underwear and practicing for my turn on the catwalk. In the sliver of street between the apartment house and a movie complex was another line of sight and a bank of pay phones backlit by the theater’s marquee.

  “It’s far away but could be one of those, too,” Wilson said, looking at the traffic coming out of the theater. “Easy enough to find out.”

  “I didn’t know there still were pay phones.”

  “Yeah. And there are still people who don’t have E-Z-Pass and know how to parallel park. Where are you from?” I wasn’t in the mood for that discussion again, especially since I had started the evening feeling like a savvy New Yorker and now felt like a rube.

  “Even if someone saw me, how would anyone out there know this number?” I asked.

  “Not hard to check the names on the mailboxes downstairs and figure out who lives where,” his partner said. “You said this wasn’t your place. Your friend in the habit of walking around in her … skivvies?”

  Lucy and I had been roommates some years back. I still cringe remembering the time she signed for a FedEx package in a teddy, cowboy boots, and a hat Garth Brooks would have been proud to wear. No doubt the FedEx guy remembered, too. I grew defensive on my friend’s b
ehalf. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “We’re just asking. That’s what we do. We’ll check to see if she’s ever filed a complaint. Technically, this is aggravated harassment.” He rattled off the rule book definition.

  “Off the record, there’s not much we can do. Your friend might consider curtains. Do you want us to file a complaint?”

  If I said no and there was a repeat performance, no report would exist of it ever having happened before so I said yes. It was a sharp reminder I no longer lived in the city. In Springfield, I could dance around buck naked and do nothing more than annoy the barred owl that lived in the hemlock forty feet from my deck. And if anything did happen, Mike O’Malley would be there in a flash. He’d probably station an armed guard in my driveway. I wouldn’t say I had my way with the Springfield police, but after three years and as many adventures, we took each other seriously. More seriously than these guys were taking me.

  The cops finished their report. By the time we pulled up to the St. George, it was close to eleven o’clock. J. C. had called ahead to book the room for me, and I assured her I’d be back the following night for reheated ziti—which everyone knows is better the second day anyway.

  Climbing out of a police cruiser, slightly disheveled, in a red spandex dress, leather jacket, and flats, I worried I looked like the paid entertainment at a precinct retirement party, but times had changed and the doorman had obviously seen worse, so he held the door as if I were the First Lady arriving for a charity function. I wheeled my suitcase toward the check-in desk.

  The hotel lobby was more crowded than I expected it to be at that hour, and I had to weave in and out of a few clusters of people I was sure were staring at me. Then I heard a familiar voice.

  “Not crazy about the shoes, but I like the red dress.”

  I shoved the extended handle on the wheelie down, grabbed the bag with both hands, spun around, and slugged the speaker on the side of his head with the full weight of my suitcase and all the torque in my body. People scattered in fear and the man staggered and dropped to his knees holding his head.

  “What the…”

  There was no blood, but Guy Anzalone was clearly shaken up.

  Twenty-five

  The doorman helped Guy to his feet. He no longer treated me as if I were the First Lady but possibly the deranged ex-lover of the man who was still shaking off a nasty blow to the temple.

  “You like the red dress, hunh?” I was still seething with the thought that Guy or one of his flunkies had been spying on me, and I was getting ready to deliver the coup de grâce directly to his knees with my sensibly clad tight foot. He saw it coming and sidestepped the blow.

  “Wait a minute. I’m sorry! The shoes are fine. It’s an interesting … look.”

  A suitcase to the head was clearly not the response Guy Anzalone expected to what he thought was a compliment. He seemed sincere. Could I have been wrong? I held up on my swing.

  He continued rubbing the side of his head. “Last time I make any comment about a woman’s shoes,” he muttered.

  The doorman quietly asked Guy if he “should call someone,” probably meaning the police. I closed my eyes and willed him to say no. Not three times in one night. I was starting to feel like a streetwalker rounded up every couple of hours. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Not if the lady agrees to have a drink with me to explain what just happened.” I had given more statements that night than a presidential press secretary. I looked at my watch. In twenty-three minutes the day would be over and I could start fresh all over again.

  I nodded and let him lead me to a booth not far from where we’d had drinks with Connie earlier this evening.

  “I’m surprised you’re still here. Where’s your wife?” I asked, once we sat down.

  “Now, that’s a mood killer. I was hoping you’d start with something like Gee, Guy, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else or Thank you, I’m glad you like the dress.” He called the waiter over. I ordered a light beer and he asked for a single malt. “No champagne?” he asked, when the waiter left.

  “I’ve had a rough day. I don’t feel very celebratory. So where is Connie?”

  “She’s upstairs, trying on outfits for tomorrow. There’s a club I like, near the river. Gentlemen’s club. I had a few drinks there and then came back here to tuck Connie in. I got an early appointment in Brooklyn, so I’m not staying in Manhattan tonight.” He eyed me from top to bottom, and even without his saying it, I could tell he really did like the red dress. Someone once told me all women should own one and I was considering a future purchase. “I could change my mind and stay in town if I had a compelling reason to do so.”

  Having just “tucked his wife in,” the man had stamina.

  “Wanna tell me why you gave me the love tap?”

  Unless Guy was a better actor than Ben Kingsley, he genuinely didn’t know about the anonymous call to Lucy’s. In fact, he was curious when I told him about it.

  “What exactly did the caller say? His specific words.” For the third time that night I repeated what had happened.

  “Why are you so interested?” I asked. I thought about Fat Frank and Cookie. Was watching me part of their assignment in looking after Mrs. Anzalone? “Did you have me followed?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  That was not a satisfactory answer. He finished his drink and the waiter hovered. I was suddenly conscious of not having eaten dinner and my growling stomach gave me away, but the hotel’s kitchen was closed. Guy offered to take me to Mulberry Street to a place he claimed made the best gnocchi in the city, but I didn’t see myself explaining to Connie the next day how I happened to go out for a midnight snack with her husband who should have been on his way to Brooklyn. I declined and continued plowing through the nuts.

  “So did you?”

  “Have you followed? That’s ridiculous. You’re a nice girl. Woman. Bit of a violent streak, but that’s not a deal breaker.” He was still flirting, but it was a soft sell. Not enough to make me nervous.

  “So what does the Tumbled Stone King do when he’s not tumbling stone?” I asked.

  He had other interests and investments, as Connie had said, but he was vague and that contributed to the feeling that some of what Guy Anzalone did wasn’t on the up-and-up.

  After ninety minutes, half a beer, and two bowls of nuts, Guy convinced me that he and no one in his employ had called Lucy’s, and I eventually apologized for braining him with my suitcase. The weapon in question, sitting on the floor next to our table, reminded me I still hadn’t checked in.

  “Listen, I’m exhausted. I am extremely sorry for striking you with my bag. As bizarre as this sounds, I have a date to go shopping with your wife tomorrow, so I really should get to bed. Alone.” That got a rise out of the couple at the next table who clearly found our conversation more interesting than their own.

  “You sure I can’t tuck you in, too?”

  By this time I didn’t even think he was serious. It seemed to be the only way he knew to speak to a woman. I stood up to leave and had to pull down the hem of the red dress, which had ridden up to midthigh. “Let me call Connie. If she says yes, I’ll go.” I fished around in my jacket pocket looking for my cell, even though I knew I wouldn’t be making the call.

  “All right, forget it. Go upstairs. Besides, if you stay any longer I might wind up owning another weirdo garden ornament.”

  “They’re not garden ornaments. They’re art. And it’s an investment. Yours is going to appreciate dramatically.”

  “Yeah, yeah, like souvenir coins and Lladro and all that other crap she has around the house. I get it.”

  We still hadn’t discussed delivery. I figured since it involved manly issues, like trucks and shipping, it would be his domain and not hers.

  “Give me your cell number,” I said, “that way we can work out the shipping details.”

  He hemmed and hawed and deferred to his wife, which was a first in my lim
ited experience with this couple.

  “You don’t need to call me. And if I want to talk to you, we know how to reach you.”

  Did they? I didn’t remember giving either of them my number. And I did remember J. C’s earlier advice—“Watch your back.” And I felt Guy Anzalone watching it, too, as I walked away.

  Twenty-six

  There were almost as many Starbucks stores in New York as there were Korean grocers, but the old-time diners and coffee shops were a dying breed, forced out of existence by the purveyors of designer lattes, which took a full minute to order and another five to get. All things being equal, I went with the small businessman.

  Connie and I had planned to meet at Andrew’s Coffee Shop not far from the Wagner Center and equidistant from the St. George and Lucy’s apartment, where I’d assumed I’d be waking up. Even though I’d slept at the hotel, I thought it best to stick to the original plan so I wouldn’t get sucked into spending more time on this mission of mercy than I’d planned.

  One of the best things about diners in New York (and maybe everywhere) was the dessert case. Gleaming with chrome like Airstream trailers, some were tall with revolving shelves. Others were horizontal and big as meat lockers, only instead of carcasses they held towering carrot cakes, strawberry shortcakes, éclairs, napoleons, seven-layer cakes, coconut cream pies, chocolate cakes with a half inch of icing between the layers and even more on top, and white cakes so artfully decorated all that was missing was the happy plastic couple on top. They were shrines to butter and sugar.