The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  “Does your wife know about Georgie?”

  “Not exactly. She knows that I have . . . friends on the side, but she doesn’t know about Georgie . . . specifically.”

  “All right,” O’Farrell said, “go on.”

  “The contest kicks off with a gala event taking place at the Atlantic City Yacht Club on Friday. Among others, my wife will be there. I want you to escort Georgie.”

  “Be her date?”

  “Er, as it were, yes – and protect her.”

  “We’ve never met— ”

  “I will take you to her apartment on Beekman Place for an introduction,” Balducci said. “After that it will be up to the two of you to plan your Friday evening.”

  “Mr Balducci,” O’Farrell said, “today is already Wednesday and I haven’t got a thing to wear.”

  “On top of a thousand-dollar fee,” Balducci said, taking the comment completely seriously, “I will buy you a new wardrobe and pay all other expenses for the night. I would send you to my tailor, but there’s no time, so you can simply shop in the best men’s stores available.”

  O’Farrell was a man who enjoyed good clothes. He knew where to shop. Even while still in the employ of the New York City Police Department he used to dress better than any other detective – regardless of rank – leading to speculation that he was on the take. It was only the fact that everyone knew how scrupulously honest he was that kept anyone from believing that.

  “All right,” O’Farrell said. “When and where do I meet the young, uh, lady?”

  “Tonight, if you’re free,” Balducci said. He leaned forward and placed a slip of paper on the desk. “Come to that address at eight p.m. I’ll make the introductions.”

  O’Farrell leaned forward and picked up the paper, glanced at it, then put it in his shirt pocket.

  “I’ll need an advance.”

  “Of course,” Balducci said. He took a wad of cash out of his pocket. No checks, no paper trail.

  “Five hundred now? And a hundred for clothes?”

  “Better make it two for clothes,” O’Farrell said.

  Balducci didn’t hesitate. He peeled off seven-one-hundred dollar bills and placed them on O’Farrell’s desk.

  “Will that do?”

  “That’s fine.” O’Farrell left the cash where it was.

  “I’ll see you tonight, then.”

  “I have some more questions.”

  Balducci stood up. He shot his cuffs and looked at his watch. “I’ll answer the rest of your questions tonight. Right now I have another appointment.”

  O’Farrell walked his new client to the door.

  “Eight o’clock, then,” Balducci said, and left.

  After Balducci was gone O’Farrell picked up the seven one-hundred-dollar bills and rubbed them together. He turned and looked out his second floor window down to Fifth Avenue, where a chauffeur was holding the back door of a Rolls Royce open for Vincent Balducci. He probably should have asked for more money. A guy who rides in a Rolls and is dizzy for a young dame probably wouldn’t have squawked about it.

  3

  O’Farrell presented himself at the Beekman Place address at seven-fifty-five. He paused out front to look up at the place. It was only five storeys, but Beekman Place was not an inexpensive address. Each apartment was occupied by money – or, as in this case, paid for by someone with money.

  He was wearing one of the new suits he’d bought that afternoon. It was September and the weather was still mild so he’d bought one brown linen and one blue pinstriped. He was wearing the linen. The pinstriped was for the night at the Yacht Club.

  The young doorman announced him and he was allowed up to the third floor. When he rang the doorbell, the door was opened by Balducci, himself. O’Farrell had been expecting a butler, or at least, a maid.

  “Come in,” the man said. “Georgie is still getting dressed.”

  O’Farrell entered and closed the door behind him. He followed Balducci down a short hall until they entered a plushly furnished living room.

  “I’ve made a pitcher of martinis,” his host said. “Would you like one?”

  “Sure.”

  “Olive or onion?”

  “Olive, please.”

  Balducci poured out two martinis, put olives in both, and then handed one to O’Farrell.

  “I was expecting a servant to answer the door,” the detective said. “Maid’s night off?”

  “No servants,” Balducci said. “It’s bad enough the doorman knows me and see me coming here.

  O’Farrell understood.

  “Ah,” Balducci said, looking past him, “here’s Georgie now.”

  O’Farrell turned. He didn’t know what he’d expected to see, but Georgie took his breath away. She was tall and slender, but with a proud thrust of breasts. Her dark hair was piled high atop her head, leaving her pale shoulders bare in a powder blue gown that bared both shoulders, but was high-necked. Since 1919 hems had been rising and, currently, it was not unheard of for them to be six inches from the floor – affording a nice view of ankle – but Georgie’s gown was full length. It was her eyes, however, that really got O’Farrell. They were violet, the most amazing color he’d ever seen, and they were great big eyes. When she blinked he thought he could feel it inside.

  She was pretty enough to be a Ziegfeld girl. O’Farrell wondered why Balducci didn’t just use his pull to get her that job, rather than put her in some silly pageant?

  “Georgie, this is Val O’Farrell, the private detective I hired to protect you.”

  “To hide me, you mean,” she said, tightly. She was smoking a cigarette, took a moment to remove a bit of tobacco from her tongue with her thumb and pinky while appraising O’Farrell. Flashes of light on her fingers attested to the fact that Balducci didn’t mind sharing his love of diamonds. He still had his rings on. “Well, he’s big enough for me to hide behind.”

  “I just want him to protect you, darling,” Balducci said.

  O’Farrell suddenly realized how dressed up the two of them were and what it meant. Balducci’s suit easily cost five times what his own new suit cost.

  “Are you folks going out to dinner?” he asked.

  “We all are,” Balducci said. “I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to get acquainted.”

  “Don’t let him fool you, Mr Detective,” Georgie said. “He just wants to use you as a beard, that way if anyone sees us together he can say I was your date. He’s become an expert at hiding me.”

  “Georgie . . .”

  “Oh, all right,” she said, “I’ll be a nice girl. Mr O’Farrell, would you care to join us for dinner?”

  “Well, I don’t—”

  “Please,” she said. “Vincent will be paying the bill.”

  “Well,” O’Farrell agreed, “when you put it that way . . .”

  The only chink in Georgie Taylor’s beautiful armor was her voice. It was high pitched, almost a whine, and marred what was otherwise a perfect picture. O’Farrell knew nothing about how this beauty pageant was supposed to be run. He wondered if it called for the girls to actually speak?

  Dinner was a tense affair at a nearby restaurant that O’Farrell suspected was below Balducci’s usual dining standards. Even Georgie had lifted one side of her lips and sniffed when they entered. For his part, O’Farrell found his steak delicious.

  For a dinner where they were supposed to be getting acquainted – actually, he and Georgie – Vincent Balducci did most of the talking. O’Farrell spent more time looking at Georgie than listening to his client.

  Later, when they returned to the apartment house on Beekman Place, Balducci stopped in the lobby and said, “I’m not coming up.”

  “Why not?” Georgie asked.

  “Because you two need to talk,” Balducci said. “I want you to spend some time together and really talk, this time.” He turned to face O’Farrell. “Georgie has all the details about the party at the Yacht Club Friday night. I won’t see you again until t
hen. I’ll, uh, have my wife with me, so if we come face to face we will just be meeting. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “My dear,” Balducci said. He leaned over to kiss Georgie but she imperiously presented him with nothing but a cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Yes,” she said, quietly. Then she looked at O’Farrell. “Well, come on, then.”

  The building had an elevator, but Georgie preferred to walk, which O’Farrell had discovered on their way down. He, in fact, had a distrust of elevators and had walked up when he first arrived. This was something he had shared with his friend, the great Bat Masterson. Masterson, a legend of the old west, now lived in New York and not only had a column in The Morning Telegraph, but was a Vice-President of the newspaper. In his mid-sixties, the old western lawman still had more faith in a horse than an elevator, and almost never used a telephone if he didn’t have to. O’Farrell liked to think of himself as someone who had been born too late. He should have been with Bat on the streets of Dodge City, with a gun on his hip.

  Georgie opened her door with her key and marched right to the sideboard. She was dragging her mink stole behind her and just let it drop to the floor. O’Farrell bent, picked it up and deposited it on a chair.

  “I need a drink,” she said. “Join me?”

  “Why not, but if you don’t mind I’ll have bourbon.”

  “A man after my own heart,” she said. She poured bourbon over some ice cubes in two glasses and handed him one. She sipped herself, clunked the glass against her teeth and eyed him over the rim.

  “After this we could go to the bedroom and fuck our brains out,” she offered. “Or we could take the drinks with us and go in now.”

  “Somehow,” O’Farrell said, “I don’t think that’s what your boyfriend had in mind when he said he wanted us to get better acquainted.”

  “You don’t think so?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “Why else do you think he sent us up here alone? Come on, I saw the way you were lookin’ at me in the restaurant.”

  “We’re supposed to talk about Friday night,” he said, “about the beauty pageant.”

  “Beauty pageant,” she said. She held her glass tightly and let her other arm swing loosely about. He didn’t remember how many drinks she’d had at dinner, but she certainly seemed drunk now. “What a crock! What a stupid idea. Marching around in bathing suits while a bunch of lecherous old men decide who the winner will be.”

  “I wasn’t aware that the contest would be judged by a panel of old men?”

  “Oh, it’s not, but you know what I mean.” She finished her drink and poured herself another.

  “You don’t think you can win?”

  She turned around quickly, sloshing some bourbon onto her wrist. She took a moment to lick it off, a move O’Farrell found particularly erotic, especially since she kept those violet eyes on him the whole time. He shifted his legs, his position in his chair, but it didn’t help.

  “Of course I can win,” she said. “I’ve got the looks, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  “I just don’t have the voice,” she said, candidly. “I’m no dummy, I just sound like one. I know that when the contestants start to speak – to answer questions – my voice is going to be a liability.”

  O’Farrell was impressed. The girl had no illusions about herself or, apparently, her situation.

  “And Vincent doesn’t love me,” she said. She wiggled the fingers of one hand at him, the light playing off the sparks. “He owns me, like one of these diamonds. It sounds odd. He just wants to have me on his arm to show me off, but then he never takes me out. I can’t explain it. All I know is he’s not here tonight and I really want it. Whataya say?”

  “Look, Georgie—”

  She did something with the top of her dress and it fell to her waist. Her breasts were beautiful round orbs with tight pink nipples. She would not have made a good Ziegfeld girl, after all. Too big. She stared at him with those big violet eyes and poured the rest of her bourbon over her bare chest. One ice cube fell to the floor while another disappeared into her dress.

  Why not? he thought, coming to his feet. When would he ever get a chance like this again? He had to find out where that second ice cube had gone.

  4

  They spent the next morning getting acquainted over breakfast because they really didn’t do much talking during the night. When O’Farrell asked her about the doorman she told him not to worry. The doorman liked her and wouldn’t say a word to Balducci about O’Farrell staying the entire night.

  “So who would want to hurt you?” he asked her over steak and eggs at a diner around the corner. He was wearing his linen suit again, but had left the silk tie off this morning, preferring to stow it in his jacket pocket. Georgie was wearing an angora sweater with a pin in the shape of the letter “G”, and a skirt with a fashionable six inch hem. The sweater molded itself to her breasts. Her golden hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing as much make up as the night before and looked much younger. But those eyes . . . made up or not, they popped.

  “That’s another one of Vincent’s fantasies,” she said. “Nobody wants to hurt me. I don’t need a bodyguard – although I certainly needed you last night, didn’t I?” She ran her toe up his leg.

  “Just answer the question and stop playing footsie under the table, young lady.”

  “Ooh, Daddy,” she purred, “scold me some more.”

  Somehow, after spending the night with her, her voice didn’t seem quite as whiney or annoying. She sure had more than enough other qualities to make up for it – although some of those qualities certainly would not be seen by the judges.

  “Georgie,” O’Farrell said, moving his leg, “be serious.”

  “I am serious,” she said. “Nobody wants to hurt me. Vincent thinks everyone wants what he’s got. Well, if no one knows he’s got me, what’s the problem?”

  “Someone must know,” O’Farrell said, “somebody who works for him but knows when to make excuses for him.”

  “Sure, they know he’s got someone,” she said, “but not who it is.”

  “Look,” O’Farrell said, “Balducci is paying me to protect you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “And more, I think,” she said.

  After breakfast O’Farrell walked Georgie back to her building and said he had to go home to change.

  “Aren’t you afraid someone’s gonna attack me?”

  “I think what Vincent wants is for me to escort you to the beauty pageant, and protect you,” O’Farrell said, “starting with the party at the Yacht Club. So I’ll pick you up here – what time is the party?”

  “The festivities start at three,” she said. “I’m supposed to be there at noon, though.”

  “Noon?”

  “I’m part of the show, after all,” she said, archly.

  “How many contestants are there?”

  “There were supposed to be a lot, but we ended up with just twelve. Some folks – sponsors – are really upset about it.”

  “Twelve beautiful girls, huh?” O’Farrell said. “All right, then I guess I’ll pick you up here at ten. I assume Balducci will supply transportation?”

  “He’ll have an automobile here to take us over to New Jersey. Probably a Rolls.”

  O’Farrell made a face. He still preferred horses, but it was a long way to Atlantic City.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you then.”

  “What about tomorrow?” she asked. “Don’t you want to see me tomorrow?”

  “I don’t think—”

  She came closer to him.

  “After everything we did to each other last night you can wait two days to see me?”

  “Hey, Georgie,” O’Farrell said, “you’re the one who said that what we did last night was just sex.”

  “Well, yes,” she said, touching his lapel, “but it was good sex, wasn’t it?”

  “It was great,”
he said, “fabulous. You’re a wonderful gal, but you belong to my client.”

  “That didn’t seem to bother you last night?”

  “Last night I gave in to bourbon and a pair of gorgeous . . . eyes.”

  She smiled. “You think my . . . eyes are gorgeous?” she asked, pausing suggestively exactly where he did.

  “You know they are.” Behind Georgie, O’Farrell could see the doorman watching him. A different one today than last night, but another young man, this one eyeing Georgie appreciatively – not that O’Farrell could blame him.

  “You sure this doorman is not on Balducci’s payroll?”

  “I’m this sure,” she said. She slid her hands around his neck and gave him a kiss that could have melted the soles of his shoes. Her tongue fluttered in his mouth and she bit his bottom lip lightly before stepping back and smiling at him.

  “Okay,” she said, wiggling her fingers at him, “see you the day after tomorrow, Lover.”

  5

  But Friday, when he went to pick her up, there was no answer at the door. He went down to ask the doorman if he’d seen Georgie Taylor that morning. This was the same doorman who had watched her kiss him goodbye the other day.

  “No, sir,” the man said. “I haven’t seen her today, at all.”

  O’Farrell studied the man for a moment, then took a ten out of his wallet.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Henry, sir.” Henry was a young man in his late twenties. He was eyeing the ten in O’Farrell’s hand hungrily.

  “Tell me, Henry, has Miss Taylor had any visitors since I was here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not Mr Balducci?”

  “Well, yes sir,” Henry said. “He came by last night. I didn’t know you meant him.”

  “Did he stay the night?”

  “No, sir,” Henry said, “He left after a few hours.”

  “Okay . . . anyone else?”

  “No, sir,” the doorman said. “She hasn’t had anyone else upstairs since you left the other morning – uh, except for Mr Balducci.”

  “Did she go out at all since then?”

  “Oh, yes sir,” Henry said. “I saw her go out yesterday. She did some shopping and came home with a few bags. She stayed in after that – at least, as long as I was on duty.”