Fairchild dropped Tiffy’s hand and laid both of his on the table. “My friend is very emotional, but she realizes she was out of line at the art gallery. Don’t you, Tiffy? Tiffy?”
Tiffy had retreated behind those empty eyes again. Now her head sank over her folded arms until smooth curls dusted the table.
“You’ve upset her.” Fairchild sniffed. “I really think it’s time for you to leave.”
Oh, no, it wasn’t. McKenna had one more card up his sleeve. “Dolan,” he said, holding up a finger in a prearranged signal.
The sergeant moved an ash tray and a couple of the empty martini glasses. Then he rummaged in his coat pocket and withdrew a folded, light green paper, slapping it down and spreading it out on the tablecloth.
“Read,” McKenna ordered Fairchild.
The isolationist made a show of donning gold-rimmed glasses and took his time perusing the flier. Tiffy kept her head lowered. The gold beads on her clutch bag flashed in the light as she turned it over and over. McKenna kept an eye on her, and let her know it. If he could just figure out what made this broad tick, he’d know how to play her.
“So”—Fairchild sneered, looking up—“an announcement for one of my many speaking engagements. What about it?”
“That dinner meeting covers the time of Arthur Shelton’s murder.”
“Ah, well.” He sat back and spread his hands as if that ended the matter.
“But you weren’t there.” McKenna kept his voice flat.
“Wasn’t I?” He waved away a shapely cigarette girl proffering her loaded tray.
“Nah. You never showed—your supporters were very disappointed.”
Fairchild’s hands played among the silverware, a twisted napkin, the eyeglasses he’d removed. “Well, I give so many speeches. It’s hard to remember each individual one. I suppose something must have prevented me.”
“What?”
“What?”
“Yeah. What prevented you?”
Fairchild’s fingers were practically dancing now. A bead of sweat formed where silver hair met forehead. “Well…perhaps you’d do better to ask my wife. She keeps tabs on our calendar better than I do.”
Sure, thought McKenna. “I’d like to hear your take on it. Now.”
“Ah, well—what night was it again?”
“December fifth. The Friday before Pearl Harbor.”
While Nigel Fairchild wrinkled his brow like a kid reciting his times tables, Tiffy sprang to life once more. She raised her head, smoothed her hands over her cheeks and stared at the sheet of green paper.
“What are you asking? The Friday before Pearl Harbor?” Her voice was brittle, and she turned to Fairchild. “That was last week. Don’t you remember, darling? I wanted to hear Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club. You were angry. You had some boring old dinner to go to, but I made you take me up to Harlem instead. Remember what I promised you…?” She whispered in Fairchild’s ear, and his face went dark red.
“Remember, darling?” she went slurring on, seemingly oblivious to his embarrassment. “We met Muffy and Rodger there, and we all got so stinking pissed? We didn’t get home until noon, and Marge was so fucking mad. Don’t you remember, darling?” She whipped her head around and stared challengingly at McKenna. “Muffy and Rodger certainly will.”
Shit! McKenna thought. Sounded like Fairchild might have an alibi for the night of Shelton’s murder. But the operation at the Stork Club didn’t have to be a complete loss. With an ambiguous smile, McKenna returned Tiffy De Forest’s stare. He had her pegged now. This babe ran on thrills—men and drugs and breaking all the rules. And money, but that went without saying.
Her pinpoint pupils were beginning to widen in those cornflower blue eyes—she’d soon need another fix. Very soon. So—she liked older men, did she? He reached across the small table top and ran his fingers along her bare arm. “You are so lovely, aren’t you?”
With a flutter of eyelids, she set her beaded bag on the table and placed her carmine-tipped fingers on his wrist.
McKenna smiled appreciatively.
“Grab it, Patsy,” he said, and Dolan made a snatch for the beaded bag.
Chapter Sixty-one
Alicia sat cross-legged on the bed beneath a poster of anarchist labor leader Emma Goldman, her unbound hair forming a dark mane around her pale face. Louise sprawled on the divan. “Has Professor Pritzker been able to help your friend?” Alicia asked, biting into an apple.
“Oh, yes,” Louise replied. “I don’t know how he did it, but we’ve been to Ellis Island twice.” She was leafing through the pages of a book that lay open beside her. “The man’s a steam hammer. Nothing stops him,” she continued. “He just doesn’t seem to care about…” She spread her hands wide in bafflement.
“He’s not afraid of anything—is that what you’re trying to say?” The tart scent of fresh apple suffused the air.
“Well, yes. I mean…he’s going up against the United States government! In wartime!”
Alicia laughed. “And mano a mano as my Puerto Rican friend says. He’s got a reputation for fighting tyranny in any form—and thriving on the battle.”
“Tyranny?” Louise felt the word awkward on her tongue, as if she’d never before had to pronounce it aloud. “I never thought of the US government in that light…”
“Really?” Alicia, brow furrowed, looked at her as if she were some sort of alien species. “Why not?” She shook her wiry curls in disbelief. “Slavery? The Indian wars? Didn’t you ever take a history class?”
Louise felt as if she were getting in over her head. “Well, no. Not since high school—except for the history of nursing, of course. But—” she said, clearing her throat, “back to Mr. Pritzker. I’ve never met anyone like him before.”
Eyes narrowed, Alicia cautioned, “Watch it, Louise. Pritzker’s a mensch, but…he is a man. And you,” she continued, “are a very attractive woman.”
Louise sat up abruptly and arranged her face. “I didn’t think you’d be such an old granny, Alicia,” she replied. “I know how to take care of myself around men.”
“Okay, but…this particular man marches to his own drummer…” Alicia looked as if she had something more to say.
“No,” Louise responded, a little too forcefully, “enough about that. I came up here to ask you what we can do for Helda.”
“Oh, the poor woman! She’s beside herself with worry…too jumpy to cook even…That meal!” Alicia made a gagging sound.
Louise laughed. “Some of those leftovers must have been a week old! As soon as I smelled that big chunk of sauerbraten, I snatched the bowl off the table, ran out back and threw the stinking stuff in the garbage can. She didn’t even notice.”
“Louise!” Marion called up from the second floor hallway, her drama-school voice projecting through the thick door. “You up there?”
Louise jumped up from the divan and opened the door. “What is it?”
“You’ve got a phone call. Says her name is ‘Professor Lillian Bridges.’” Marion captured the professor’s patrician tones exactly.
Oh, dear. Louise should have called the woman right away after Abe had let her know about the moving van arrangements. It was just…well, Louise realized she didn’t relish talking to her again. Miss Bridges was a complicated lady, and Louise didn’t quite know how to take her. But she was an old friend of the Oakleys. And willing to risk harboring Masako’s paintings from the authorities. That was the important thing.
“Be right down,” Louise called.
Chapter Sixty-two
Cat piss! Cabby tried not to breath. Cat piss, sour milk, and rotten eggs. Jeez! The crap she had to deal with for a story!
Okay, so, even in this pricey neighborhood, it stank. Get over it!
Checking around to make sure no one was w
atching, Cabby squeezed between a bread delivery truck and the corner of a building and started down a second narrow alley. If she had her bearings right, the kitchen entrance to the Stork Club ought to be right in the middle of the block.
Before she’d crossed Fifty-third and turned east, she passed the lighted show windows of Saks Fifth Avenue. On the other side of Fifth, the illuminated towers of Saint Thomas’ Episcopal Church shone reassuringly monumental.
Yeah, quite a neighborhood indeed. Everything wealth could buy: God, Couture, and Sin all jammed into one square acre of city real estate.
A few yards ahead, a cone of yellow light swept the dark alley. She pulled up short. A guy wearing a work jacket over a white bib apron stepped out of a door. He carried a wire delivery basket, the kind fitted out for loaves of bread. Of course—the truck at the head of the alley had said Heitzman’s Blue Ribbon Bakery. Here was her chance.
She hailed him as he passed by. “Hey, buddy. Ain’t that the Stork Club?”
He looked her over. “Who wants to know?”
Hand on one hip, she pasted on her perkiest smile. “Just a girl who wants to surprise her boyfriend.” The guy would’ve been halfway good looking if it hadn’t been for his acne-pitted cheeks. “He’s one of the waiters, and it’s his birthday.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s the Stork, but don’t expect to get past the goon on the kitchen door. They’ve been having union trouble, so he’s really on the ball.”
Oops, she hadn’t prepared for that. But this guy had been admitted, hadn’t he? Sure he had, because he looked like he belonged. “Hey, I got a deal for you, buddy. A dollar for your apron and basket.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me.” She fished a dollar bill out of her purse and held it up. Lunch would be bologna and mustard sandwiches for the next week.
“A buck, huh?” He hustled out of his jacket and reached behind to untie the apron strings. “Look, sure I’ll sell you the apron, but I’ve gotta hang onto the basket. It’d come out of my pay.”
“Okay, fifty cents then.”
“Uh-uh, sister. You want my apron, it’s a buck.” With a shit-eating grin, he dangled the stained length of fabric just out of her reach.
The big jerk! If she wasn’t in such a hurry, she’d show him how to bargain. But, who knew how far McKenna had gotten with Fairchild? So, a buck it was. Trotting down the alley, Cabby cinched her tweed coat in tight and pulled the apron over her head.
What now? Searching her bag for more inspiration, she turned up a plaid scarf, slicked her curls down with spit, and tied the scarf peasant-style behind her neck. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, so it was easy to make out a wooden fruit crate on top of an ashcan across the way. Moving quickly, she lined it with old newspaper, mashed the lid down and approached the Stork’s back entrance.
Okay, just grab a few deep breaths and march right in. Easy to say, but her knees were shaking. Her first outside assignment in journalism class had been to interview some minor government functionary about a new park. Even when Cabby had produced her Hunter College identification card, his witch of a secretary hadn’t believed a girl could be a student reporter. It wasn’t until the old bat had called the college that Cabby got in.
She had learned something that day: she had to have twice the brass and double the hustle of her male colleagues. Now, she took in a lungful of oxygen and pulled the door handle.
The muscle-bound guy in the black turtleneck didn’t give her a second glance. Toting her fruit crate, she proceeded down a long corridor and turned a corner. Noise and heat told her the working kitchen was on her right, so she ditched her crate and apron in an empty storage room on the left. The dining room was up a flight of stairs so narrow that waiters slipped past each other sideways. Whoever planned this joint, it hadn’t been anyone who’d ever served food for a living.
A bald-headed waiter on the stairs was too harassed to challenge her, but, as she entered the smoke-hazed dining room, a captain made a beeline in her direction. She’d fluffed up her hair, loosened her coat, and pulled down her neckline, but she was still one of the few women in the huge dining room not wearing evening attire. “The ladies’ lounge, if you please,” she intoned in her poshest Upper East Side voice. After an uncomfortable pause, he directed her and then retreated to soothe a red-faced man complaining about an overdone filet.
What with the smoke and the lights and the music, Cabby couldn’t see anyone she knew. Where was McKenna? Surely he hadn’t concluded his business with Fairchild. That silver-haired old buzzard wasn’t likely to roll over like a lap dog, and the homicide detective was as stubborn as they come. Time to get moving.
Slowly, and with her most jaded expression, she circled the room. Was that Rita Hayworth? Oh, my god!
Then, from a nearby corner, sounded a woman’s shrill complaint. A blonde in a sleek white dress jumped to her feet, drawing all eyes, including Cabby’s. Tiffy De Forest! Flushed, hysterical, waving her arms. Gotcha! Cabby started in her direction.
But what was going on? Tiffy swung at Nigel Fairchild with a beringed fist. “Get out of my way,” she screeched in a voice that could shatter glass.
McKenna jumped up and stretched his bulk across the table, making a grab for the screaming woman. She easily twisted away. Then the other cop was on his feet. Cabby could see a dainty gold bag in his meaty hand.
Tiffy’s purse? Why?
Her view was suddenly cut off by a man’s broad shoulders. Many of the Stork’s patrons were out of their seats, babbling, gesturing wildly, responding to the domestic drama at the Fairchild table as if a bomb had hit the nightclub. In that one moment, the recent tensions—the gut-wrenching attack in Hawaii, the day’s war declarations—broke out in a panicky communal fever.
Cabby braced herself and started toward Fairchild’s corner. But the crowd resisted her efforts, pushing her back.
The captain burst through—“Ladies and gentlemen! Please!” The Greek maitre d’ and a trio of waiters followed hard on his heels.
Cabby dove in behind them. Then—ooof!—a drip in a tuxedo entangled his arm with hers. He yelled out, “Tiffy, darling, I’m coming! I’m coming!” But Tiffy’s hero was so plastered he spun himself and Cabby both smack into a tray of éclairs and pastries.
Cabby hit the floor, and a sharp pain sliced through her wrist. Oh, shit! It hurt like hell. But, by god, she wouldn’t let it stop her. What a story: “Fairchild in Brouhaha at Stork Club.”
Spattered with sticky cream filling, she crawled one-armed through a sea of fancy skirts until she found an empty chair to push up on. Above the hubbub, she heard McKenna’s voice booming, “Stop, Madam. Not another step. That’s a police order!”
On her feet again, hand dangling uselessly, Cabby saw Tiffy. Twisting like a pale eel, the woman clambered over several chairs and pushed past scandalized diners. Gold glinted from her right hand. She’d regained her purse and was making for the passage to the kitchen stairs.
“Stop that woman!” McKenna yelled.
Cabby popped onto tiptoe. McKenna and the other cop were hemmed in behind a wall of bodies. They’d never reach Tiffy before she escaped down those stairs. But she—Cabby’s heart beat faster—she was only a few steps away!
Having played plenty of vacant-lot football with the neighborhood boys, she knew exactly what to do. With a mammoth lunge, she tackled Tiffy by the legs.
The aging debutante fell like a sack of potatoes, arms and legs sprawling. The beaded bag she’d clutched so tightly bounced over the carpet and popped open in front of Cabby’s nose. A rainbow of bright yellow, red, and blue pills spilled across the floor, followed by a syringe and a half-filled glass vial.
Cabby grabbed for the bag, clutched it, Tiffy shrieked obscenities and yanked. The pain in the younger woman’s right wrist flared white hot. Over the crowd’s intoxicated gi
ggles and McKenna’s barked orders, the orchestra launched into “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Or was that simply Cabby’s imagination as she lapsed into a brief, pain-free unconsciousness?
Chapter Sixty-three
Masako stood by the barred window looking out. Behind her she heard the women readying themselves for their narrow cots: tears, wailing, the quiet sharing of confidences in an alien language. Harsh, unprovoked laughter from an Italian girl in a magenta sweater. In broken English, a recipe for Jell-o salad.
Before her she saw the silent statue with its heavy arms, its legs immobile beneath the copper robes.
She stared and stared, willing her arms, her legs inflexible, insensible like those of Lady Liberty. Her heart, anesthetized.
Chapter Sixty-four
Friday, December 12, after midnight
On the sidewalk outside Mount Sinai Hospital, Cabby stamped her feet and knocked her knees together, trying to coax some circulation into her frozen extremities. The blue-black sky was too cold to be hazy, and streetlights threw out sharp-edged electric halos. An ambulance swung in behind her, red lights ablaze and siren wailing. Two orderlies wrestled a stretcher out of the back hatch, but Cabby didn’t give them more than a glance. She’d had enough excitement for one night and wanted nothing more than to curl up in her own warm bed.
Thank god! Here was McKenna pulling up under the canopy in the unmarked police sedan.
The old guy had been real nice. He hadn’t fussed anything like what she’d expected, and he’d allowed her to cover Tiffy De Forest’s arrest and subsequent transfer to the tender care of the vice squad. Nigel Fairchild had escaped arrest for now, but, as Tiffy’s suspected conduit to drug suppliers, he was sure to come in for some tough questioning. Cabby would love to see that pompous ass get the third degree.
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