by Ed Ifkovic
“It’s routine. Now stop this nonsense.”
He whined. “Do they think that I killed Dougie?”
That gave me pause. I tapped my fingers on the table, considering. “Did you?”
He cried out, “Christ, Miss Ferber, a low blow.”
“Then why this over-the-top panic, Mr. Boynton?”
The sound of a radio in the background. Men laughing nearby. “Well…I was…sort of…there. At Beekman Place. Mr. Coward’s place. Around the same time. I…”
My mind went blank. “I will meet the two of you.”
Late afternoon I sat opposite Corey and Kitty at the Taft Coffee Shop on Seventh Avenue, a large sunny room where the waitresses left you alone. Both Corey and Kitty were late, rushing in, flustered, bumping elbows, searching the tables for me. Sliding into the seat opposite me, Kitty grasped my hand, squeezed it, and mumbled, “Thank you.”
“For what?” I answered, unhappy. I pulled my hand back and buried it in my lap. My hasty gesture irritated Kitty, who frowned at me, but then forced herself to smile.
I signaled to a waitress, though Corey at first waved her away with the flip of his hand. “Not now,” he told her. But I persisted, and the waitress, narrowing her eyes at Corey, smiled at me, a look that commiserated and communicated—a nice middle-aged lady like you forced to put up with spoiled louts. I smiled back at her.
Despite both their panicky states, which I still didn’t quite comprehend, they were nattily put together. Corey had slipped off his Chesterfield overcoat and revealed a navy blue double-breasted suit with a creamy white silk necktie. Hair slicked back from his temples, parted sharply in the middle, so shiny his head seemed a polished museum piece. Immediately he lit a cigarette, closed his eyes in narcotic bliss, and seemed ready to fall asleep. Kitty wore the sleek expression of a Ziegfeld girl fresh from finishing school. She’d hung her velvet bouclé coat with the fox collar on a hanger but kept eyeing it, as though fearful someone lurking nearby would abscond with it. Dressed in a tight-waisted yellow dress with vague periwinkles dotting the fabric, with an oversized rhinestone brooch on her collar, she looked ready for high tea at the Ritz.
She looked around the eatery. “I’ve never been here before.”
Corey ignored her. “You know, Miss Ferber, everything started that night the four of us went to the automat. The night Belinda died. The four of us. That cursed excursion.”
“What are you saying?”
He looked into my face, fear in his eyes. “That…that fated night.” Corey blew a smoke ring across the table. “Because we were there, the police believe…I don’t know what they believe. But we were there. And now two of the four are dead.” His hand slapped the table. “Two.”
Kitty actually yelped, an unpleasant blurt of noise that sounded like a colicky baby spitting up milk. “I’m frightened, Miss Ferber.”
Perplexed, I watched the two of them. “I don’t understand your craziness. No one is accusing either of you.” I stared into their jittery faces. “Am I missing something here?”
“Two murders,” Corey said, and waited.
“Yes,” I said, angry, “I know how to count.”
The waitress put coffee on the table and Corey, grabbing his cup, gulped down the drink, smacking his lips. He nodded at the waitress. “Another.”
“Mr. Boynton,” I began, my eyes on him, though his own shifted, avoiding mine, “on the phone you mentioned that you were at Beekman Place. I don’t understand.”
His eyes blinked wildly. “That’s the problem. I told the police that. They’d find out anyway, right? They tend to force things out of you, you know. I’m not a stupid man.”
“That makes no sense.”
He sat back, looked impatiently for the waitress who was chatting with another customer at the counter. Abruptly, he snubbed his cigarette in the ashtray and pushed it away. I pushed it back at him, away from me, a move that confused him. “After you and Mr. Coward met me, and, you know, talked of my neglect of Dougie’s friendship”—Kitty swung around to look at his profile, question in her expression—“I felt a little squeamish. Maybe embarrassed. I don’t know. You shamed me, Miss Ferber. Mr. Coward, too.” A sliver of a smile covered his face. “I’m not used to that emotion.”
“I imagine.” My lips set in a thin line.
He ignored that, though he twisted his head to the side and shot a sidelong glance at me. “I thought—okay, join all of you for dinner. An evening at Chambord’s sounded—desirable. Fishing in my pocket for matches, I found Mr. Coward’s card. His address. I thought it a good sign, if you know what I mean. You mentioned Beekman place. Six o’clock. Drinks and all. It sounded—civilized. I have friends who live at Sutton Place, just a stone’s throw away. I debated, changed my mind, but finally thought—why not? Make Dougie feel good.”
“So altruistic.”
“Please don’t patronize me, Miss Ferber.”
“I didn’t realize that was what I was doing.”
He tightened his face. “I imagine you always know what you’re doing. Every step of the way.”
Kitty was making a face that I couldn’t interpret. Repeatedly, she glanced toward the door.
“So you caught a cab?” I prompted.
“So I caught a cab, we got stuck in midtown traffic, the snow picked up, chaos, but I arrived there in time to discover a commotion. The street was blocked off. Police cars everywhere. Chaos. The wail of a siren. Flashing lights. A nightmare scene. I had the cabbie back away, take me home. I had a bad feeling about everything. Of course, I didn’t know anything, but, you know, I had this…my gut instinct. Just too many cops swarming the street. In the morning I read the papers.” He started to cough, reached for another cigarette. “I was there.”
“So was I,” I answered. “And I didn’t kill poor Dougie. Neither did Noel. If what you’re saying is true, neither did you. The police will investigate.”
He broke in. “That’s the point. Investigate. My name will be splashed all over the papers. The wretched Daily News. The four of us started out in that automat, and now I’ll be on the front page of the tabloids. Do you know how this looks?”
I sat back. “Stop fretting, Mr. Boynton.”
Kitty had been fiddling with the buttons on her dress but now jumped in, impatient with Corey’s ramble. “You don’t understand, Miss Ferber. There is a reason someone killed Belinda and Dougie.”
My eyes got wide. “What are you saying? That someone will go after you—or Mr. Boynton?”
“Preposterous,” said Corey, rolling his eyes.
She turned to face him. “Is it?”
“But there’s no reason to believe that—” I began.
“How do you know?” she screamed.
Nearby, a table of women stopped to watch us. A waitress, approaching with a coffee pot, took a step back.
I folded my hands into my lap, watched the two as they squirmed in their seats. “I don’t know. But tell me, the two of you, what exactly do you think is going on? There’s a reason I’m sitting here. Something is not being said here.”
My question stunned them into silence, and for an awkward moment we fiddled with our cups, drummed fingers on the table, glanced around the restaurant.
Corey started to speak but stopped. “I…nothing. My mind’s all foggy.”
“Tell me the truth. Why would anyone kill Dougie?” I asked bluntly.
Corey’s voice was low, hesitant. “That’s all we’ve been talking about. You know, he must have known who killed Belinda.”
I looked into his face. “Didn’t you tell me you thought Dougie might have killed her in anger? In a jealous rage?”
He stammered, “I don’t remember saying that.”
“I do.”
A helpless shrug. “Well, yeah, true. Dougie was crazy with jealousy. Do you know how many times I had to
listen to his fears about Belinda’s fidelity? Over and over, ad nauseum, frankly.”
“But you were the one who whispered to him in the automat that she was planning on leaving him for a richer guy, no?”
He looked away. “I don’t remember that.”
“I do.” I ran my fingertip around the rim of the coffee cup. “Did Dougie know you didn’t like Belinda?”
My question stopped him cold. “I thought her…a floozy, if you must know. I told Dougie that. A schemer. A money-grubber. Growing up a rich boy, I met so many girls who saw dollar signs when they batted their eyelids at me.”
“But Belinda was in a position to make her own money, no?”
Sharp, nasty. “I don’t really care. Lord, her weasel brother, that …that Jackson—we all know this is true—maneuvered the meeting with Cyrus, which led to Tommy Stuyvesant, then to Dougie. A chain of fools, one after the other.”
“Dougie? A fool?”
He hesitated. “A misguided fool. Perhaps that’s what I mean. Yes, I told him that. Somebody had to. Inexperienced in the ways of love, Miss Ferber. I kept warning him. Be careful. Yes, she’s beautiful and talented, but beware. Girls like her…”
“Yet he didn’t listen to you.”
He scoffed, “No, obviously. He kept running to me, so in love but unable to understand what was happening. And you see where it got everyone. Of course, I didn’t anticipate his marrow-deep jealousy of every little move she made. Christ, the green-eyed monster that ate his soul.”
“It doth mock the meat it feeds on,” I added.
Kitty got wide-eyed. “What in the world are you two talking about?”
“Friendships,” I said to her.
She rolled her eyes.
I deliberated what to say next. Then, quickly, “Did Dougie know you also disliked him?”
A shocked voice that broke at the end. “How can you say that?” He spoke through clenched teeth.
I turned to Kitty who was unhappy with the drift of the conversation. Every minute or so she looked toward the doorway. Escape? Trying to ignore us, she’d taken a compact from her little Bienen-Davis silk purse—she’d placed it on the table so I’d notice and admire it—checking her lipstick. But her face closed in as she ran her tongue over her crimson lips, spotted a smear of lipstick stuck to a front tooth.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” I addressed her severely. “You seem very unhappy.”
“I’m frightened. Not unhappy,” she pouted.
“But I don’t understand—why frightened? That’s irrational. You and Mr. Boynton were background players in this horrible little drama. A chattering Greek chorus in the wings, dipping into scenes with gossip and ill-timed advice. The stars of the play are both dead, yet you think the play is still going on.” I pulled my tongue into the corner of my cheek. “The understudies are no longer needed.”
“It is going on,” she said. “Nothing will be over until the murderers are caught.” Her voice trembled. “I sort of understood Belinda’s murder.” A quick, nervous glance at Corey. “I mean, all the sniping at each other, the reconciliations, lovey-dovey, sickening really, the sloppy cooing that led to—to murder. In some stupid way that made sense—love gone awry, you know. The stuff of stories from the days of cavemen on.” She interlocked her fingers. “Yes, maybe. But Dougie’s murder?” She shivered. “That scares me. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe it does make sense. Maybe it’s connected with Belinda’s murder.”
Kitty squirmed. “Lord, if it isn’t.” Again, her voice broke. “Maybe there is something we don’t know.” She started to sob. “I want to go to Hollywood. I should have left days ago. A new life there. None of this craziness.”
Corey breathed out, melodramatically. “Yeah, land of cocaine and naked starlets.” He grinned. “I read Hollywood Tatler. Fatty Arbuckle and gold-plated roadsters.”
I ignored his rambling. “Tell me, Kitty, what you know about the man Belinda was leaving Dougie for? What do you know? You mentioned him to me. No one has a name. He may figure in this, too.”
She avoided eye contact. “I don’t know anything.”
“But you must have talked about it with Belinda, no? Even with Dougie?”
“He”—she pointed at Corey—“he talked about it with Dougie. I kept my mouth shut.”
“But you and Belinda did chat about it.” I watched her closely. “For one, all the stories about builder Wallace Benton. You were the one who told me she had her sights on another man.”
She fidgeted in her seat, looking over my shoulder. “Not really. It’s just the rumors you hear. Friends at Tommy’s Temptations. Backstage gossip. Lots of talk—stupid. There was even talk of William Paley of CBS. His attention. He does like pretty young things. Big-time, powerful men in this city. People talk.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t true,” I suggested.
She got adamant. “Of course, it was true. Belinda was ready to move on.”
“How did you know that?”
She faltered. “It’s just that…girlfriends pick up on things like that. Little things said, suggestions, hints.” She laughed. “Powder room chatter.”
“Did Belinda actually ever tell Dougie she was leaving him?”
She waited a long time. “No.” She whispered, “I don’t know.”
“Did Dougie ask her?” I looked at Corey.
His stony eyes told me the answer.
I got dizzy as I watched the two of them, both refusing to look at each other. “It seems to me that the star-crossed couple was plagued by jealousies other than theirs.”
“And what does that mean?” A flash of fire from Kitty.
Corey whispered into Kitty’s neck. “Why are you so riled, Kitty?”
Staring at the two of them as they talked and exchanged furtive glances at each other, each one intent on impressing me, something happened to me: my head started to spin, crazily, waves of sudden flashes that stunned me. For a moment I closed my eyes. It was as if I’d entered a long tunnel. Distant voices echoed and clashed—then silence. I watched Corey and Kitty, but nothing came out of their mouths, though their lips moved. A silent movie, without dialogue lines. Panicked, I leaned forward, but nothing helped. Something was not being said, despite their moving mouths, their animated shoulders, their flickering eyes. Something—I stopped: these two, puppets performing for me.
Rattled, I shook myself out of the trance.
“Are you all right?” Corey asked.
I said nothing.
Kitty added, “You look like you seen a ghost.”
I found my voice. “I may have.”
They looked at each other. Corey shrugged and turned to me.
“Miss Ferber,” Corey said, “we brought you here to ask for your help. With the police.”
I stood up, fumbled with my purse and dropped some bills onto the table, struggled into my coat. Two sets of hostile eyes glared at me.
“Then you’ve wasted an hour of your afternoon. Goodbye.”
They shot glances at each other, flummoxed. “I don’t follow.” From Corey.
I rushed out of the restaurant.
Outside, light-headed, I buttoned my coat. A sharp wind swept the street and I turned my head away. Ice pellets pinged my face. I took a few steps, stopped, and idly gazed at the window display of a haberdashery. I had trouble moving—my head pounded. What had just happened? When I looked back to the sidewalk, I got alarmed—swarms of faces coming at me, moving, moving, faces red from the cold, hooded faces, scarves wrapped around faces. Hidden faces. Coming at me: staring through me.
I couldn’t budge.
Something had happened in that restaurant. I felt it to my core. What? Corey and Kitty, two selfish people, privileged leeches, swept with petty jealousies and their own dim confusions. Something had been said to me back there. Walking away,
I rushed through their words, but nothing came to me. Truth, I suddenly thought. Is anyone telling the truth in this story? Corey and Kitty—they’d written their own diabolical scripts and plugged hapless Dougie and Belinda into them. But for what gain?
What had Jackson Roswell told me? Something about myths. Legends? Truths? Lies? The words of Chauncey Waters, that actor who’d disappeared out of Manhattan. What had he said? Jackson created a life for her and was furious when she wouldn’t live it. Half-truths. Personal agendas, vicious desires. Other people orchestrate your life—a selfish act. What had I missed?
Dizzy, I drifted up the sidewalk.
At the corner, not paying attention, I bumped into a man perched over an upturned trash barrel and found myself staring into his weathered face. A surprisingly kind face, I realized, this fortyish man with an unshaven chin, watery hazel eyes, and untrimmed hair under a battered felt fedora. An expensive hat. But a crumpled Brooks Brothers pinstripe suit jacket, baggy, torn at the elbow.
He didn’t say a word as he watched me right myself.
I fumbled in my purse and handed him the only quarter I could find. At first I had no idea what he handed me, but his grimy hand held out a cold-stung tangerine, small, blackened, hard as a golf ball. Numbly I dropped it into my pocket.
I stepped away.
“Thank you,” he said to my back.
I looked back to catch his eye. He was smiling at me. His cold lips trembled.
A whisper. “No one believes that I had a life before this.”
Chapter Nineteen
No one believes that I had a life before this.
I wrestled with the man’s troubled face all night long. Before this…a life no one knew about. A new life created for you. Sleeping fitfully, I startled myself awake and thought: Everything is a lie at some level. But then my mind roiled with confusion: what does that mean? What had I missed? Words, words, words. Shakespeare’s lovely litany. Words that are—Lies, lies, lies. The modern Manhattan landscape.
Lies.
Jealousy. A horrible thing.
I needed to make a few phone calls, including Noel who was methodically packing his bags for Cleveland. “Darling,” he said into the receiver, dragging out the word so that I smiled, “when I arrived in America weeks ago on the Empress of Britain I had two dozen steamer trunks. Unloading the ship looked like a scene from a Cecil B. De Mille epic, nubile slave boys at the ready. I lost a perfectly wonderful blue smoking jacket that was given me by Somerset Maugham.”