Louise's Gamble

by Sarah R. Shaber

  ‘I’m so glad you and Orazio could make use of Sebastian’s tickets,’ she said. ‘What a shame to waste them. And Orazio has no friends here, few opportunities to go out socially.’

  ‘It was kind of him to ask me,’ I said. ‘I’m enjoying myself.’

  Lucia drew a gold compact and matching lipstick case from her sequinned evening bag and carefully touched up her face, flicking an invisible bit of something off an eyebrow.

  I followed her example, but with a plain powder compact and a drugstore lipstick.

  ‘Orazio is a nice boy,’ Lucia continued. ‘Not as well born as you might think from his education and manners. His father was in trade. I believe Orazio intended to practice law, until the Depression forced his father out of business.’

  ‘How sad for him!’

  ‘Yes. He and Sebastian became great friends at university. I didn’t want Sebastian to go, but his father encouraged him. Parents have so little control over who their children associate with at the universities.’

  I didn’t trust myself to respond to that, since I would give my right arm to go to college. Instead I focused on carefully outlining my lips.

  ‘After my husband died Sebastian took pity on Orazio’s financial predicament and engaged him as his private secretary,’ Lucia continued. ‘To help with managing the estate. I suppose he has done acceptable work. I have no say in estate matters at all. As Dowager Countess I now survive on a pittance.’ She snapped her compact shut and turned to me. ‘That’s a woman’s place in the world, I suppose,’ she said. ‘We have no head for such things. Our purpose is decorative and maternal.’

  I had my own ideas about that, but I didn’t say so.

  The rest room was next door to the Ladies’ Parlor, so I took a few seconds to peer inside. Compared to the other assembly rooms of the hotel, it was small, say twenty-five feet by thirty feet. It would easily hold several bridge tables and then some. When Lucia had played here the night of Alessa’s death she could have slipped out on the pretext of using the lavatory or getting a drink and had plenty of time to go upstairs to the Oneto apartment. I saw a bank of four elevators just a few steps away from the parlor and the lavatory.

  What intrigued me was that Sebastian, Lucia, and Orazio were all within shouting distance of each other and an elevator bank at the Seventeenth Street end of the massive hotel. Well away from the main lobby and the service areas, where more people gathered. Either one of them could have slipped away and gone upstairs and either forced Alessa to take an overdose of laudanum or, if she was in the coffee shop getting a sandwich, doctored her tonic. But why? I still didn’t see that anyone in the Oneto household had a reasonable motive for murder.

  And of course, despite Mayflower security, anyone who looked presentable could have entered the hotel, made his or her way to the Oneto apartment, knocked on the door, and been admitted.

  I despaired of ever knowing what had happened to Alessa. I wanted to give up and go home.

  But then Orazio found me loitering in the vestibule.

  ‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘you’re missing all the movie stars!’

  ‘I’m sorry I took so long,’ I said, taking Orazio’s arm. ‘I was chatting with Lucia in the ladies’ room.’

  We entered the Ballroom in time to see Hildegarde and Gene Kelley, dressed in a sailor suit, sing ‘For Me and My Gal’, followed by Mary Martin in a USO uniform crooning Cole Porter’s ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’.

  Thousands packed the Ballroom. I worried less about blowing my cover. It should be easy to avoid anyone I knew in this throng. I noticed Joan Adams with her crowd, jitterbugging away, and all we could do was wave at each other. We couldn’t have made our way through the mass of dancers to make introductions even if we wanted to.

  Speaking of jitterbugging, when the orchestra struck up another fast song Orazio and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  ‘This is a good time to eat,’ he said.

  ‘I agree! I’m starving.’

  The Presidential Restaurant, where I’d had dinner on Tuesday with Orazio, hosted the buffet. A vast banquet table occupied the center of the room. It groaned with gleaming silver chafing dishes, platters, candlesticks, vases of flowers, sterling tableware, and china. Bunting and flags concealed most of the dark paneling and patriotic decorations.

  We picked up our plates and silverware and progressed down the table, helping ourselves to lobster mousse with Normandy sauce, broiled filets of beef, sliced guinea hen, asparagus, scalloped tomatoes, rissole potatoes, broiled mushrooms, and sautéed soft-shelled crabs.

  When I got to the end of the buffet table I noticed Enzo standing there, looking uncomfortable in Mayflower livery. His white-gloved hands hung stiffly at his side.

  ‘Hullo, Enzo,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Overtime,’ he answered, gesturing over the gleaming tables. ‘Watching the silver.’

  ‘Lord knows there’s plenty to watch over,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘we will lose a few spoons tonight, but nothing more, I hope.’

  By now our plates overflowed.

  ‘Just think,’ Orazio said as we found two adjacent chairs where we could sit together, ‘in Britain people are eating creamed herring pie and fried bread.’

  ‘Sounds nasty,’ I said. ‘Do you think it will come to that here?’

  ‘No,’ Orazio said. ‘America has more resources, but food shortages will get worse. We should enjoy a good meal while we can.’

  ‘Dessert?’ Orazio asked, after we emptied our plates.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ I said.

  ‘Coffee, then?’

  ‘Please.’

  A waiter spirited away our plates before Orazio returned, and I felt gloom settle over me. This evening was so stunning, and Alessa had missed sharing it with Sebastian. Would miss the rest of her life – miss returning to her beloved Sicily and miss having children. What a waste. I was so sure she hadn’t killed herself; why would she deprive herself of her future? Yes, her life as a refugee was challenging and difficult, but Allied forces were poised to take Sicily on the way to Italy; why would she have despaired now?

  But if Alessa had been murdered, I was nowhere close to finding out who’d killed her and why. Sebastian, Orazio, and Lucia’s alibis leaked like sieves, but their motives were shaky. And as for opportunity, the woman lived in a vast hotel! Wasn’t it more likely that an unknown person, who’d simply walked into the Mayflower and up to her apartment, had killed her? Someone who knew about our operation? And wasn’t it likely that that person had made off with the information she’d brought back with her? How could I find out though? I didn’t even know her brother’s name to warn him! Turi was short for Salvatore, but what was his surname? How many Salvatores worked on the New York docks? It was impossible!

  If someone had murdered Alessa, he or she would get away scot-free.

  I felt a headache coming on, and I wished I could run out of the front door of the hotel, climb into a pumpkin coach, go home, and go back to work on Monday and file index cards with no memory of Alessa or my pathetic foray into espionage.

  ‘My dear,’ Orazio said, setting down our coffees and a piece of coconut pie, ‘are those tears?’

  ‘A few,’ I said. ‘I’m not preoccupied with Alessa’s death, Orazio, I just can’t help thinking of her.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I understand. Tell me, when we are done here, shall we go up to the apartment and catch our breaths? Get away from the crowd and the noise? After a rest we can return to the dancing if we like.’

  ‘Yes, let’s,’ I said. Now was my chance to search Alessa’s room.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Orazio turned his key in the lock and opened the apartment door. ‘I don’t know if anyone else is home,’ he said, ushering me inside. ‘Lina?’ he called out. ‘Sebastian?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Orazio said. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’ He
vanished into the kitchenette.

  I sank on to the sofa gratefully. All that dancing, plus dealing with my fears of getting caught, had worn me out. According to the ormolu clock on the mantle, it was past eleven. It felt like two in the morning to me.

  Orazio carried a tray into the living room and set it down on the cocktail table. A wonderful coffee odor arose from an odd contraption on the tray, a sort of jar with what looked like a piston fitted into it.

  Orazio saw my puzzlement. ‘It’s a French press,’ he said. ‘Makes the best coffee in the world. And uses less coffee than one of your percolators.’

  He poured coffee into the simple cups that were part of the standard equipment in a Mayflower kitchenette.

  ‘Lucia finds it so difficult to adapt to such primitive housekeeping,’ Orazio said. ‘I think that’s why she goes out to tea with her friends so much, so she can eat off china and silver.’

  ‘What happened to the Onetos’ property?’ I asked.

  ‘The houses, the vineyards and orchards, the sulfur mines, they all still belong to Sebastian,’ he said. ‘He’ll repossess them after the war. Now, of course, he has no income from them; they’ve been appropriated by the Nazis. The estate’s capital, which supports them now, was deposited in Switzerland by Sebastian’s father. As to the houses themselves, I expect they have been looted.’

  ‘That’s too bad,’ I said.

  Orazio shrugged. ‘Lives are more important than possessions. The Sicilian people are desperate.’

  ‘When the Allies occupy the island, life will be better.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  I kicked off my shoes, curled my feet up under me on the sofa, and sipped my coffee. To my relief Orazio showed no signs of seducing me. There were women spies working for OSS who were willing to sleep with men to get information, but I wasn’t one of them!

  Which made me wonder about Myrna. What was she doing with Colonel Melinsky? The coincidence concerned me. Myrna worked for OSS, or she wouldn’t have been at ‘The Farm’ with me. It was possible that they’d simply met at work. Melinsky could afford tickets to the ball, and Myrna was a gorgeous woman. Why shouldn’t he ask her out? I couldn’t imagine any other reason they would be at the ball.

  I lingered over my coffee as long as I could. Orazio finished his.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he asked as he took a cigarette out of a silver box on the cocktail table and held it up.

  ‘Not at all,’ I said.

  ‘Would you care for one?’

  ‘No, thanks. Smoking makes my throat sore.’

  Orazio lit his cigarette. I decided I had until he finished smoking it to figure out how to search Alessa’s room. How to get back into the bedroom area of the apartment? It seemed too obvious to ask to use the bathroom.

  ‘Would you like to powder your nose before we go back downstairs?’ Orazio asked, crushing the butt of his cigarette out in an ashtray.

  ‘Yes, thank you, I would,’ I said. I couldn’t believe my luck. Almost made me believe in Providence.

  ‘If you go through that door,’ he began, gesturing towards the door to the bedroom hallway.

  ‘I know the way,’ I said. ‘I used Lucia’s bathroom at the memorial service.’

  Once in the hallway I closed the door and made sure it latched. I was still in my stocking feet to keep from making noise. I opened the door to Lucia’s bathroom and closed it. I didn’t know what Orazio could hear in the living room, but I wanted to make it sound like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. On the way back from Alessa’s room I’d slip in the bathroom and flush the toilet.

  Alessa’s and Sebastian’s door was open. Inside, the room looked much like it had when I’d seen it on the afternoon of Alessa’s memorial reception. It was clear that Sebastian slept alone now. The table next to his side of the bed held a carafe and water tumbler, reading glasses, an open book, and a wadded up handkerchief. Alessa’s side table held only a lamp.

  It looked as though Sebastian had begun to clean out her things but he hadn’t gotten very far. Poor man. I don’t suppose his mother was much help to him. It wouldn’t be easy for Lina, either.

  Alessa’s closet door was open, revealing her clothes. I noticed a Saks garment bag hanging inside. Her ball gown for tonight. I felt tears begin to form and ruthlessly suppressed them. Alessa was dead. I doubted I would ever know how or why.

  My job now was to try to find the letter I hoped she had brought back from New York.

  Her knitting bag still sat on the floor under the desk.

  It couldn’t be that simple, could it? Quickly and quietly I pulled the bag out from under the desk and riffled through it. I found a skein of wool, several pairs of knitting needles, and an almost completed pair of fingerless gloves.

  In a side pocket where Alessa kept her patterns I discovered a small, stiff rectangle. I felt almost light-headed as I pulled an envelope identical to the two previous ones Alessa had given me from her bag.

  This was it. I’d found it. Alessa’s death hadn’t been in vain!

  For second I was overwhelmed. Then I realized I had to get back to the living room and Orazio before he became suspicious.

  I stuffed the envelope into the bodice of my dress and got to my feet, turning to the door.

  Orazio stood there, leaning against the door jamb, with a revolver in his hand.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I stared at Orazio’s revolver.

  ‘Like it?’ he said. ‘It’s an old Beretta. Custom made, leather grip, engraved. Sebastian’s, of course.’

  I pulled myself together and concocted a lie as quickly as I could. ‘What on earth are you doing with that?’ I asked. ‘I know I’m snooping, but a gun is hardly necessary. I surrender, OK?

  ‘I knew you’d lead me to it,’ he said. ‘I didn’t dare search myself, and I had no idea where to look. Her knitting bag – I should have realized!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘I apologize for coming in here – it’s inexcusable, I know – but I saw the open door, and I wanted something to remember Alessa by. It’s a knitting pattern she wrote out.’

  ‘Don’t insult me,’ Orazio said. ‘That’s a letter from Alessa’s bastard brother. Her bastard Mafioso capodecina brother. With information for the OSS. I want it. Give it to me.’

  So Turi was Alessa’s asset!

  ‘No,’ I said, stupidly determined. ‘It’s none of your business.’

  Orazio pointed the gun directly at me.

  ‘You can’t shoot me; someone will hear the gunshot,’ I said. ‘How would you explain?’

  Orazio laughed. ‘All the apartments nearby are empty. The rich people who live in them are downstairs at the ball. And the hotel is solidly built, a shining example of capitalism.’

  ‘Orazio,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what concern this is of yours, but I promise you that this letter contains information that’s critical to the war effort.’

  ‘I have my sources, too. I’m a member of the Italian Communist Party. We have spies of our own on the New York City docks. We know the Mafia is working for the United States government.’

  ‘You followed Alessa to her last meeting with Turi!’

  ‘No. How stupid would that be? She might have recognized me. It was one of our agents.’

  ‘The Mafia is keeping the New York docks safe from Nazi espionage. How can you object to that?’

  ‘The Mafia does nothing without compensation! Luciano and his fellow criminals will expect a reward after the war. What do you think it could be? Could it be Sicily?’

  ‘That’s not important now. We have to win first.’

  ‘It’s important to me! The only good thing Mussolini did was expel the Mafia! If those hoodlums return to Sicily after the war, the Sicilian people will be back under the thumbs of criminals – when they’re not working themselves to death for people like Sebastian in his olive groves and his sulfur mines! The only chance we have to be free is if the Mafia stays out of Sicily forev
er!’

  Orazio was so angry he trembled.

  ‘And for someone like me . . .’ he said. ‘I’ll have to work for someone like Sebastian for the rest of my life. I despise him! He’s useless for anything but reading poetry. But rich nonetheless! And his mother, my God, what a harpy. She bribed me with a diamond bracelet to tell me the contents of Sebastian’s will!

  Orazio drew back his fist and slammed it into a wall mirror next to the door. It splintered into tiny pieces, showering his shoulders with shards of glass. I found myself crouched behind Alessa’s armoire.

  Orazio was angry enough to commit murder, I could see that. And he’d had the opportunity to doctor Alessa’s tonic, while Alessa was at the coffee shop eating her sandwich. He must have killed her to keep her from giving me the name of the Mafia sleeper she’d brought back from New York.

  I kept my mouth shut. Orazio must not know I suspected him or I’d never leave this apartment alive. I didn’t see that I had any choice but to give Orazio what he wanted. But still I hesitated.

  ‘Give it to me, and I’ll let you go,’ he said. ‘I swear. You’ll tell your masters that your operation failed. That will be the end of it.’ Some of the anger faded from his face. He lowered the gun slightly.

  I tried to reason with him. ‘This one bit of information won’t seal Sicily’s fate,’ I said. ‘But it will protect countless convoys and lives. You want the Allies to invade Sicily to free it, don’t you?’

  Anger built up in him again. I could see his shoulders shake.

  ‘Give it to me,’ he said, ‘or I will shoot you. I will.’

  I believed him. I drew the envelope from my bodice and handed it over to him.

  ‘At last!’ He tucked it into his pocket. ‘Now,’ he said, waving the pistol, ‘let’s go.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘You didn’t believe me when I said I’d let you go, did you? Stupid woman.’ He grabbed me with his left hand, pulled me to him, so that his face was close to mine, the gun at my head. ‘We’re going to the sub-basement,’ he said. ‘No one will be there to help you.’