Scarlet Night (31 page)

“Five hundred dollars! There’s five thousand dollars’ worth of hardwood floors in the place.”

“And not a trace of a bus skid on them. The operative word, Miss Julie, is condemned. To some, if I may be irreverent, it can mean salvation. Mind now, there is nothing truly sinister that I detect, but then if there were it wouldn’t surface in an inquiry as limited as mine. And let me hasten to add, I should not wish to go further with it myself. My motives are always suspect, and whatever’s afoot might go awry.”

“I understand,” Julie said, which she didn’t. She knew Romano’s wealth, his underworld reputation; she knew he was called “the king of porn,” films of that ilk having once intrigued him; but she also knew that he had not left his penthouse home for years, that his art collection was famous, his manners impeccable, and his person—to her—a total mystery. He was chortling at his own turn of phrase.

“I’m very grateful to you, as usual,” Julie said.

“Any time. Come to lunch soon, Miss Julie.” And he was gone, his abruptness on the phone always putting her in mind of a magician’s vanishing act.

JULIE BEGAN THE STORY
“I never promised you a Rose Garden, only a ten thousand dollar prize,” and wrote it to Butts’ own style. He simply begged to be written as he spoke. She devoted a brief final paragraph to the property, all questions—which were more effective than answers—so if Tony chose, he could simply drop it off. She concluded, “Might it not have become a city garage or a learning site? But the Garden of Roses rises again as it fell, a gaudy citadel of dance.”

Tim Noble checked in to drop his “items” in the copy box. He offered Julie tickets to an off off Broadway opening in the Bowery. She declined and gave one more polish to her piece and felt that it was good. She slipped it through the slot of the box on Tony’s desk. You could put things in but you couldn’t get them out without the key that Tony carried on a ring at his belt. Somebody, probably Tim, had pasted a legend above the slot:
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

When she got home, all the messages with the telephone answering service were for Jeff, save one from Mary Ryan. Julie phoned her and learned that the friends of Jay Phillips were invited to call at the Murray Funeral Home on Second Avenue the following evening and that there would be a Mass at noon on Saturday.

“I’m thinking of going over to Murray’s,” Mrs. Ryan said. “He was always good to me—five dollars every Saturday night when he had a show in the house where I worked. Would you like to go along?”

“Well, yes,” Julie said. “I would.”

“There’s a lovely pub next door called The Galway Bay. Maybe we could have a bite together first.”

“I’ll buy you dinner,” Julie said.

“On the expense account?”

“Why not?” Julie said, although there was one good reason why not: she didn’t have an expense account.

She answered those of Jeff’s calls that required answers and declined two dinner invitations that, in politeness, were extended to her even in his absence. She then cleaned house and drew the living room drapes. She was unlikely to entertain in Jeff’s absence, and she’d been getting pretty good at it, so long as he did the cooking. He seemed to have been away a lot longer than twenty-four hours.

Buy
Lullaby of Murder
Now!

Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and a recipient of lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic. The author of seventeen crime novels, including the Mrs. Norris Series and the Julie Hayes Series; three historical novels; and numerous short stories; she has served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and is a founder of Sisters in Crime.

Born in Chicago in 1916, she grew up on farms in Wisconsin and Illinois and graduated from college into the Great Depression. She found employment as a magic-show promoter, which took her to small towns all over the country, and subsequently worked on the WPA Writers Project in advertising and industrial relations. During World War II, she directed the benefits program of a major meatpacking company for its more than eighty thousand employees in military service. She was married for forty-seven years to the late Harry Davis, an actor, with whom she traveled abroad extensively. She currently lives in Palisades, New York.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1980 by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Cover design by Tracey Dunham

978-1-4804-6044-7

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com