Beauty Dies

by Melodie Johnson Howe

She lit another cigarette, cupping her hand over the match just as Jackie had. The cold wind of the streets was never far away.

  “‘Only God could love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair?’” I quoted.

  “And I’m not too sure about him.” Her lips carved out a smile. “That’s why I like Peep Thrills. The men need me.”

  “Until the curtain goes down.”

  She shrugged. “If it’s not that curtain, it’s another one. Or a door that closes. Or a hand that reaches out for another girl instead of me.”

  “So what kind of trouble are you in?”

  “Who said I’m in trouble?”

  “Your tears.”

  “I wasn’t crying.” She stared right into my eyes as if she had never seen water, let alone a tear.

  “Look, I’m tired of making dramatic exits, but I’m ready to walk if you don’t talk to me.”

  She blew smoke. “How did Jackie die?”

  “She was stabbed this morning, or, I should say, yesterday morning around eleven—across the street from the hotel.”

  Linda paused, running her finger along her lower lip. “Goldie loved her, at least she had that. Do you know who killed her?”

  “You tell me. Does Goldie use a knife?”

  There was only a slight movement of her lips as she pressed them together. I was suddenly aware of the shape of her head. Her skull. It was as if I could see that voluptuous curve of white bone beneath her thin, tight skin. I felt a chill.

  “He uses his fists. What does her death matter? Who’s going to miss her besides him?”

  “You’re not going to win the Humanitarian Award with that kind of an attitude.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. The men automatically turned, eyes following the curve of her body and neck. She stopped laughing and leaned forward, her eyes the color of cold cigarette ash.

  “Jackie was naïve. You may think that’s impossible for someone like her, but it’s true. She believed what anybody told her. She also believed her own lies. Her own dreams.”

  “Like what?”

  “That somebody was going to rescue her. One day she’d turn around and there would be the perfect father, the perfect mother, the perfect lover. The perfect family. I mean she called herself Jackie Kennedy Onassis Murphy, for God’s sake, and never saw the irony. Look, just take whatever she said with a grain of salt. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

  “With a grain of salt and five thousand dollars. You talk like you’ve been to two years’ worth of college.”

  “One.”

  “What happened?”

  “I needed money. I started working at Peeps for extra cash. It was more lucrative than studying English lit. What did Jackie tell you?”

  “She wondered why Sarah Grange would do a porno. You know Sarah, don’t you?”

  “She used to work at a little shop where some of us bought our outfits, if you can call ’em that. We became friends.”

  “Did she ever do porno videos for extra money?”

  “You’ll have to ask her. Was Jackie beat up?”

  “When she came to see Claire Conrad, she had a bruise on her cheek. You’re frightened, aren’t you?”

  Shrugging off my question, she asked, “Is Claire Conrad good?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does it matter to her who killed Jackie?”

  “It’s what she does. It’s her profession.”

  She gestured toward the BMW. “That’s mine. Nice, isn’t it?”

  “Very expensive. How can you afford it?”

  “I know where Sarah lives,” she said, not answering my question. “I’ll take you. But first I have to call and see if she’s awake.” She stubbed out her cigarette and stood.

  “They can bring a phone to the table.”

  “I want to talk to her in private. Wait here.” She moved through the room as if her body belonged to everyone else except herself. Even the guy at the bar who wanted to beat her up.

  I quickly crossed to the in-house phone on the bar and dialed the suite. Boulton answered.

  “It’s Maggie,” I said. “I’m in the bar with one of the girls from Peep Thrills. A Linda Hansen. I think she’s going to take me to meet Sarah Grange.”

  “Where does Sarah live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have your gun?”

  “Yes,” I lied. He had given me his mother’s gun in L.A. and he was partial to it.

  “Then Miss Conrad and I look forward to hearing what you have to tell us over breakfast,” he said stiffly. There was a pause. When he spoke again the English butler was gone. “Well done, Maggie.”

  “Thank you.”

  I asked the bartender for the bill and sat back down. The black BMW was still there. I was suddenly aware of the Toup’s date chattering behind me.

  “I’ve always wanted to open this restaurant. In Baltimore. Between the racetracks. Food and jazz. It would clean up.”

  “I can just see you standing in the doorway in a low-cut black dress.” Toup’s voice.

  “Is this a sexual fantasy or are we talking business?” The Date’s voice was edged with hurt.

  The bartender put down the bill. I wrote the tip and Conrad Suite on it. My hand shook. Fear?

  “Did you see Tom Jones?” It was the Toup.

  “No.”

  “That movie had one of the sexiest eating scenes in it.”

  “What made you think of that?” the Date whined.

  “Your idea for a restaurant.”

  These two had really developed the art of conversation. What was taking Linda so long? Maybe she bolted. Maybe the BMW wasn’t hers.

  “Did you see Flashdance?” It was the Date.

  “No.”

  “That had one of the sexiest eating scenes. You should’ve seen it when she bit into that lobster.”

  “But Tom Jones was the greatest,” the Toup countered.

  “Flashdance was the greatest of 1983.”

  “Tom Jones was the first.” A competitive edge had crept into the Toup’s voice.

  Where was the hope for men and women? I wondered.

  “He’s never turned me on,” the Date announced.

  “Who?”

  “Tom Jones. I can’t stand his voice.”

  “No, Tom Jones is the name of a classic novel. It was made into a movie.”

  I turned and looked at them. They were miserable. I hoped she got her restaurant. I hoped he got his orgasm. What did he do with his toupee? Leave it on the nightstand? Put it in a glass of water like false teeth? How could she? For that matter, how could he?

  “I’ve always loved Romeo and Juliet.” Oh, God, the Date. She was relentless.

  The men at the bar were looking at me. No, they were looking past me. I turned and saw Linda leaning against the BMW. She cocked her finger, beckoning me. The guys let out a few groans. My fear came back.

  As I left the bar, one of the guys commented loudly, “Now that’s what I call safe sex.”

  “Can we join you?” another asked derisively, then the three of them tittered like schoolgirls.

  I headed through the lobby and the revolving doors wondering when sex had ever been safe for a woman. Passionate, yes. Boring, yes. Fulfilling, yes. Unfulfilling, yes. But safe?

  I wished I had my gun.

  Nine

  LINDA WOVE IN AND out of traffic. The top was down, the heater blasting. The cold wind slapped at our faces and tugged at our hair. When she slammed to a halt at a stop light, I turned and studied her. Her mood had shifted. She was sullen and remote. The streetlights cast a waxen sheen on her pitted skin and turned her blond streaks a greenish color.

  “Did you ever do a porno with Jackie?” I asked.

  “A few.”

  “With Sarah?”

  “No.”

  “What happens when you do a video like that? I mean, who holds the camera?”

  “Sometimes the client. Some guys like to look at us through a camera. Th
ey even like to direct. I don’t know which excites them more, us or that they think they’re Oliver Stone.”

  “Is it always the client?”

  “Look, I don’t know who shot Sarah’s video. Why don’t you save the questions for her?”

  She threw the car in gear, cutting off one taxi and tailgating another. In Manhattan people gained or lost by inches.

  “Did you know that Sarah had a famous mother?” I talked over the wind, brushing my hair back from my face.

  “God, you don’t give up, do you?”

  “Did Sarah talk about her mother?”

  “Sarah and I’d go out drinking. She’d get drunk and babble about how her mother was once a famous model, how she was going to find her, and when she did she’d be famous and rich. She sounded just like Jackie, dreaming there was somebody out there to rescue her, love her, take her out of her shitty life.”

  I wondered if the candle I’d lit for Jackie was still flickering in the cold chapel of the church. “So you didn’t believe Sarah.”

  “Why should I? One night I’m over at her place. She pulls this cardboard box out of her closet and shows me all these fashion magazines from the sixties with Cybella on the cover. She told me her grandmother had collected them and given them to her so she’d always have a memory of her mother.” She shook her head at the sad image of a young woman saving a box of magazines. “She said they were her only connection to her mother.”

  I could see the Met Life building that used to be the PanAm building squatting over the street like a giant weight-lifter pressing tons of cement and steel.

  “One day,” Linda continued, “Sarah comes to me and says she met a woman who knew Cybella. Then I don’t see her around anymore. Couple of months go by and I open a magazine and there she fucking is. And there is a picture of her mother. I was impressed. I mean, my mother is a drunk. God knows where she is now, probably with a bottle somewhere on the Coast. Where’s yours?”

  “With a rosary in Versailles, Ohio.”

  Swerving left, she tossed her head back and laughed. I pressed my hands against the dashboard. We sped down one of those side streets that suddenly turns the city quaint, even at night. The East River lay at the end of it. I could feel its dark damp presence the way you can feel a dark basement at the bottom of the stairs. And again I felt fear. I decided a gun is very much like a rosary. Clutching one in your hand, even if you didn’t believe in it, gave you a sense of security.

  She made a quick right and jerked to a stop in front of a large old building. The wind suddenly stopped. My hair felt like it didn’t belong to me. I looked at the address. One Bedford Place.

  “Posh, very posh,” I said.

  Linda’s face was a shadow. Only her lips, glistening a garish blue-pink, were defined in the dim lights. “Yeah, some people have all the luck. It’s her mother’s apartment.” She opened the car door and swiveled her long legs around.

  A doorman let us in. Linda told him Sarah Grange was expecting us. He checked this out on the telephone, then nodded toward the elevator. But I was looking at a stairway that curved down into the middle of the gracious lobby. The steps were marble and the banister was mahogany. Prim stiff-backed chairs were grouped near the stairs like nuns waiting in silent judgment. I walked over to the stairwell and looked up. The stairs spiraled toward the dome-shaped ceiling. The banister twisted past each floor like a highly polished serpent.

  “What are you doing?” Linda asked.

  “This must be where Cybella jumped.”

  She hesitated.

  “You do know Cybella killed herself?” I asked.

  “So? This is a society that doesn’t like to see a lot of aging women. We turn into jokes, fag hags, or just get lost.”

  “Sometimes I think men like us better than we like ourselves.”

  “That’s real radical. But I think we like men better than we like ourselves. I know it for a fact.” Her face hardened with memory.

  We took the elevator to the tenth floor. Linda knocked on apartment 10C and Sarah Grange, in tight jeans and a white silk shirt, opened the door. Her left hand clutched a blue dress. Her right hand rested on her slim hip. She had long dark hair and no split ends. Her skin was flawless, legs long and graceful. Eyes, nose, high cheekbones, and chin were all perfectly balanced. She was the kind of woman that with looks alone could stop a conversation, a train, a wedding, a heart. When you looked at her, it didn’t matter that beauty was only skin-deep. She was about twenty-two and I immediately disliked her.

  “Shut the door,” she commanded, flipping a few thick strands of her lush dark hair back over her shoulder. She moved into the living room with an elegant disdain for having to make a physical effort.

  It was a large, wide room with a picture window framing the blackness that was the East River. It was decorated with the benign taste that only a lot of money and a decorator can buy. Yellow silk love seats faced one another near a fireplace. Striped chairs mingled with ones covered in a flowered chintz. Crystal lamps wore saucy silk shades. A small round table draped in fringed brocade held a collection of crystal paperweights. Its mate displayed a collection of hand-painted porcelain boxes. Other objets d’art were scattered around the room. It was like being in a gift shop. Over the white-painted mantel was a black-and-white blowup of the Bonton photograph of Cybella and Sarah.

  Through an opened door near the fireplace I could see an unmade bed. On top of the bed was a suitcase.

  “Leaving town?” I asked.

  “Nora Brown’s furious with me. She wants me to move in with her tomorrow so she can keep an eye on me.”

  “What does she think you’re going to do?” Linda asked.

  “Obviously another porno video,” Sarah said sarcastically.

  “Sorry about your mother,” I offered.

  “Thank you.” The coffee-colored eyes, not as deep or as haunting as Cybella’s, peered at me suspiciously. Her face showed no sign of grieving but there was a tightness around her eyes and mouth. She tossed the dress into the bedroom, where it landed on the floor, then sat on one of the love seats. Uninvited, I sat in one of the yellow and white striped chairs. The silk fabric felt as cold as a marble slab.

  Still standing, Linda looked awkward, as if the furniture were not for her use. She leaned against the picture window. In her black dress, framed by the black sky and river, she merged more with the cold darkness than with the lamplit radiance of the room.

  “It must be tough to leave a place like this.” Linda lit a cigarette, again cupping her hand around the flame. She blew a long curve of smoke.

  “I hate it here. None of it’s mine. Everything’s Cybella’s. You don’t need to stay, Linda. I can handle it.” Sarah waved a hand against the cigarette smoke, then turned to me. “What was your name again?”

  “Maggie Hill.”

  “Maggie can get a cab back to her hotel,” Sarah said to Linda.

  Linda shrugged. “See you around, Maggie.”

  “Wait a minute. Where were you yesterday morning around eleven?” I asked, sounding like a real detective.

  Another hard smile formed. “At home. In bed. Alone. I work late. Why don’t you ask Sarah where she was?”

  “I was here. Alone. Why?” Sarah demanded.

  “That’s when Jackie was murdered. You forgot to tell me about that, Sarah,” Linda observed dryly.

  “Well, I had a lot on my mind. Nora screaming at me about the video, telling me my career was on the line, that what I had done could ruin her in the business. I mean, God, you’d think I robbed a bank. And it’s not like I knew Jackie. We did a porno together, we didn’t become best of friends. I told you to leave,” she said to Linda.

  It was hard to read these two women. Each seemed to be hiding—one behind her street sexuality and the other behind her passive beauty. As Linda left, Sarah pulled her knees up and put her arms around them, giving herself a good hug.

  “You know, when I was trying to find work as a model, the people who w
ere the nicest to me were the secretaries and the assistants.”

  “Is that why I’m here—because I’m Claire Conrad’s assistant?”

  “Nora doesn’t want me to speak to Claire Conrad without her being there.”

  “Is she afraid you’re going to say something you shouldn’t?”

  The dark eyes grew defensive. “No, but I thought maybe you and I could have a talk, see where things really stand.”

  “Okay.” I leaned back in my chair and waited for our talk. Sarah hugged herself a little tighter.

  “See, I’m still having trouble figuring out why this is such a big deal.”

  “You mean, besides the fact that Jackie was murdered?”

  “Let’s be practical. Sometimes terrible things happen to girls like her. I’m always warning Linda to be careful.” She curved her long legs into a lotus position. “Now a lot of models, if they’re honest, did a porno when they were scuffling.” She rested her hands, palms upward in the curve of her legs, and began to sway her head from side to side stretching her long neck. “God, this is all making me so tense.”

  I have no tolerance for women who just can’t sit with their feet on the ground like the rest of us. I’m always waiting for these adored creatures to wrap a leg around their necks and strangle themselves. “So you think you’re a politically correct slut.” That stopped her from swaying her head back and forth.

  Sarah started to say something but thought better of it. Instead, she smiled as if she’d just won a beauty contest. “I was hoping that you could somehow convince Claire Conrad not to show the video to St. Rome.”

  “If it’s no big deal, why worry about him?”

  “It’s no big deal to me. But he may think differently, especially if it were made public.”

  “Because of the red dress?”

  “Red dress?”

  “The one that Jackie was wearing.”

  “That was some cheap thing she brought with her. St. Rome’s already heard about the video because you called Blanchard Smith. But he hasn’t seen it. We’re doing a shoot tomorrow and I’m going to have to face him.” She uncurled her legs, gave me an exasperated look. “He’s going to be furious. But Nora will get him under control. I helped bring the guy back. Nobody was wearing his stuff until Nora put me in one of his outfits. Still, it would be easier for me tomorrow if he hasn’t seen the video.”