City of Secrets (15 page)

The Pinkerton walked back to the door, turning to face her with his hand on the knob.

“You sure you're OK, Miri? You not in over your head?”

“Quit worrying and go home. I'm fine.”

He took one more look around, eyes resting on the .22, then back up to meet her own.

“Keep your powder dry, kid.”

She heard the door click, his footsteps fading down the hall toward the elevator. Miranda looked down at the Chief pad, stomach rumbling. Six o'clock. She could squeeze out another hour before heading home.

The phone rang.

 

Thirteen

Miranda picked up the receiver. Silence.

She said nothing, stomach tight. Held her breath. Sometimes long-distance calls took a long time, operators plugging in lines from here to wherever the hell a call came from, except she didn't know who would be calling her long distance, and she'd had enough of Pacific Telephone & Telegraph and Cordoba tan Fords for one day.

Counted to five. Sounded like breathing on the other end, not heavy. Listening.

Miranda hit the receiver, kept it down. Counted to ten, started over.

Line sounded clear. Hit it a few more times until an operator came on.

“The call that just rang my number—I couldn't seem to connect. Can you tell me where it was from?”

“I'll try, Miss, just a minute.”

No use reporting trouble. You got more information if life and your phone service were just one swell party line and all that was on your mind was a missed phone call and who'd win
Major Bowes Amateur Hour
.

“Sorry, Miss—all I can get for you is the general exchange. It wasn't long distance—it was Fillmore.”

“Thanks.”

She replaced the receiver on the cradle and stared at the phone. Right about now she was supposed to run out of the building in a panic. Supposed to grab a taxi home, make sure the apartment was safe, run to a crowd, to somebody who could protect her from the big, bad bastards who were stalking her like a goddamn deer.

Fuck that.

Miranda opened her bag with a vicious twist, shaking out one of the Chesterfields. She lit it with the Ronson, which had risen to the top of the contents of her purse. Blew out a stream of smoke. Walked to the door, checked the lock. Walked to the old Wells Fargo safe, dialed the combination.

The door opened with a protesting squeak. Most of Meyer's money was on the top shelf. She reached toward the back, pulled out the Spanish .38 in the holster. Ignored Gonzales's fedora. Caught a glimpse of the pack of Chesterfields and the cigarette case she'd stowed last night.

She examined them while she walked to the desk. Took out the Black Cat Café matchbook that was still tucked into the cellophane. Opened it and read the words again.

“Mickey wants to see you.”

Sherith Israel was in the Fillmore exchange.

Maybe it was time to pay another visit to Mr. Flamm.

*   *   *

One more shot of Old Taylor, she told herself. One more cigarette.

She couldn't figure out what Flamm or anybody connected with the temple would want with her. Unless Pandora was killed for reasons that had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Unless the anti-Semitism was a cover-up.

But where the hell did that leave Annie Learner, about whom she still knew next to nothing?

Two murders, Duggan, and somebody shadowing her. Maybe wanting her dead. And she knew she needed to hurry, not much time left, but for what, she couldn't fucking say. Trust your goddamn instincts, Randy, never doubt yourself. Never doubt yourself.

She raised the Castagnola glass. Toasted the dull yellow glow of her office. Toasted the moth fluttering around the one light bulb in her desk lamp, singeing its wings in a never-ending attempt to touch the sun. Shot of bourbon hit the back of her throat and burned down slowly.

Unforgivably.

Poor goddamn Icarus-moth. Blind to the torn screen and the open window, no matter how many goddamn eyes it had, blind to the darkness of San Francisco, where the neon bar signs danced a pink-and-green rhumba, where the roulette wheel spun forever, gleaming like new-minted money. Where the seagulls cried for each other, high above the blanket that wrapped the City tight, where men who worked all night at the steel plant crawled into bed with tired wives, one smelling like sharp, shaved metal and oil, the other like dirty dishes.

The De Young sign across the street carved a slice of white light across the floor.

Miranda looked down at Allen's report and started to read.

*   *   *

The Musketeers were like a hundred other groups, all fire and brimstone in red, white, and blue. Names like Defenders of the Christian Faith and the Paul Reveres. Raised money from selling memberships, selling hate sheets, but mostly raised it from good citizens like themselves, businessmen with families who thought Roosevelt was the Antichrist.

She remembered a drunk in the Moderne one night. New Deal—Jew Deal, get it, lady? Goddamn Roosevelt, he cried, he's the Red Jew Antichrist, he and his butt-ugly wife, goddamn nigger lover.
You kiss the niggers and I'll kiss the Jews, and we'll stay in the White House as long as we choose.
… Thigh-slapper, that one, until the ice cubes in her bourbon wound up in his face.

She sipped the Old Taylor, reading the rest of Allen's notes. The Musketeers were founded in '34, like so many of their ilk. By two professionals, dentist Dr. Hugh R. Parkinson and Samuel Brogdon, construction company owner, and described themselves as a patriotic service organization.

Patriotism and service—for the right people, of course.

These were men who dressed in ties and boasted about knowing the vice president of the bank branch, men who made sure their wives had a Negro maid. Men who played bridge with their neighbors and sold insurance policies. Who attended church every Sunday.

Solid, middle-class Americans. Contributing five and ten dollars a month to Father Coughlin and his brand of Social Justice. Men who swear by Henry Ford and
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
railing against Hollywood and Harry Hopkins and how the WPA is full of pansies and Reds.

Keep America for Americans, they brayed. Buy Gentile. Stay out of the Jewish war.

Miranda traced the leather on the holster of the .38 lying next to her. She'd seen where it could lead.

Spanish Republicans blown apart by Italian bombs.

Chinese women raped until they bled to death.

Black men hanging from moss-covered oak trees, calling card of the Invisible Empire, and Jews stripped of humanity. Stripped of life.

She sat back in the desk chair, gazing at the thin sheets of paper.

*   *   *

Her stomach was growling with hunger by the time she reached the apartment. Walked up the four flights, thick green carpet muffling her footsteps, old briefcase heavy with the .38.

Yellow light in the hallway was dim. She bent down to the keyhole.

Hair still there. No scratches, no signs.

She exhaled, took out her key, opened the door. Flipped on the light.

No footsteps in the baking soda.

Stepped gingerly over the white powder, setting the briefcase and purse down on the sofa. Locked and bolted the door, shoes tracking the white powder. Walked into the kitchen, opened the icebox.

Nothing except spoiled milk. Forgot to leave the bottle for the milkman again.

Miranda sighed, opened the cabinet, poured herself a small shot of Four Roses in a milk-glass coffee mug. Wiped her mouth, walked back into the living room.

The phone rang.

Double ring, wall phone on the kitchen, one in the bedroom. About a half second out of sync.

She reached toward the wall phone. Waited until midtrill, picked it up.

Faraway silence. As far away as the Fillmore exchange.

She drew a breath. “If you've got business with me, get it fucking done.”

Click on the other end.

Silence.

*   *   *

Miranda wore the backless silk she bought at Magnin's last month, spring green to contrast with her hair. Velvet gloves up to her elbows, matching purse.

Raphael looked her up and down, gave her a grin.

“
Bellissima.
Good to have you back, Miss Corbie. You, how do you say it, jazz up the joint.”

She smiled. A stockbroker from the society column leaned against the velveteen ropes behind Raphael, mouth open, gazing at her, waiting to get permission to walk through the chromium double doors of the Club Moderne. His crimped and manicured date elbowed him in the stomach, head of the fox stole flying in his face.

Miranda lowered her voice. “Joe's in tonight, right? Thought he might be up at the Mark, listening to Benny Goodman with everyone else.”

The thin, high-cheeked Italian held his hand to his mouth, laughed wordlessly.

“No,
mia cara
. Joe's in the back, making money. That's the only sound he likes to hear. Well, one of them.” He winked at Miranda, bowed, and made an elaborate gesture with his arm for her to proceed.

The gleaming door swung shut slowly, without a sound. She heard the stockbroker complain and Raphael's smooth, polished voice telling him he'd have to wait.

Joe Merello knew how to run a nightclub. Make it swank, make it exclusive. Make the debutantes and shipping heirs beg to get in every night, Rolls-Royces, Grahams, and Cadillacs parked by a valet two blocks away in a garage, where plenty of light kept the rats in the corners and Joe made two dollars per car in profits.

Marie was working hat check tonight, sympathizing with the new cigarette girl. She brightened when she saw Miranda.

“Miri, sugar—it's been ages! I thought you'd be at the Fair, runnin' your fingers up Weissmuller's chest.”

The cigarette girl, black-haired, about eighteen, wearing spangled shorts and matching halter, sighed. “You got a way to keep hands off, sister? I'm bruised all over.”

“Keep one lit, and use it—on their hands.”

The girl adjusted the tray around her neck and grinned. “I like the way you think.”

She headed back through the phony marble columns to the dining and dance floor, wobbling on high-heeled spectator pumps that looked too small for her feet. Miranda turned to Marie.

“Bente and Rick are meeting me tonight—but I need to talk to Joe before they get here. Is he in the back?”

The blond girl shrugged. “I think so, Miri, but you know Joe. He could be anywhere. In the back with Vicenzo, in his office counting receipts, or in the secret hideaway with his new canary. I think he's watching the roulette wheel, but Clark'll know for sure. How you been? Everything all right? You look good.”

“Thanks. I'm OK. Working on an investigation—got fired from the Island.”

“What? Sally would never—”

“Wasn't Sally—it was Dill and the rest of them. Got a little too close to a murder.”

Marie pressed herself against the edge of the counter, blue eyes large enough to show where the liner wasn't straight.

“That Pandora Blake murder?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Was she a Jew?”

Miranda said sharply, “Where did you hear that?”

The blonde shook her head, took a step back. “Don't get testy, sugar, I'm not asking anything new. It wasn't in the papers, but you know—I hear things, working the counter. And people have been talking about this Pandora girl and the other one, what's her name—the Emporium clerk—”

“Annie Learner.”

“Yeah—that's the one. Anyway, there's talk they were killed because they were Jewish.” She lowered her voice again on the last word. Looked around, then back to Miranda. “Goddamn shame if you ask me. Too much of this going on, and we don't need San Francisco to turn into little Berlin.”

Miranda met Marie's eyes. Put her hand over the hat check girl's, squeezed it.

“Thanks. Would you call me if you overhear anything important, any names or people who knew either of them?”

Marie looked down at the counter, straightened out the tip basket. Her face was solemn.

“I certainly will.”

Miranda looked at her again, leaned forward impulsively, and whispered in her ear.

“Be proud of who you are, Marie. Joe won't care.”

The blonde's hand shook as she moved it up to touch her lipstick, eyes filling, wide with surprise.

*   *   *

Clark seated her by her favorite palm tree at table twelve, where she could watch the few patrons who couldn't get in to see Benny Goodman applaud the thirty-five-year-old boy tenor. The band tried to swing into a Goodman tune, “Lilacs in the Rain,” and a nervous redhead with big tits and a small voice grabbed the microphone.

Clark clicked his heels together in Teutonic precision, tuxedo spotless, hair just a little thinner.

“Shall I seat your companions when they arrive, Miss Corbie?”

“Yeah, Clark, thanks. Doesn't look like much of a house.”

His mouth turned down in half a frown. “It's not much of an orchestra. The usual, or any special requests?”

“The usual, please. And a Singapore sling.”

He raised his well-manicured eyebrow. “Not a blue fog?”

She shook her head. “If Jorge's working, can you send him over? My friend Bente—”

Clark rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know. Jorge moves with the grace of a matador. Unfortunately, he's resisted my every attempt to expand his repertoire. Will you be joining Vicenzo this evening?”

Miranda checked her watch: 8:25. “I'll eat first. Thanks, Clark. And one more thing—would you change these twenties for a single bill?” She opened her pocketbook and handed him five twenties from Meyer's retainer.

He nodded and spun around neatly, heading for the kitchen. Miranda's hands were trembling, and her head hurt like hell. She opened her cigarette case and took out a Chesterfield.

Lit the stick with one of the matchbooks on the table. Inhaled, eyes closed, feeling the gaze of the married man two tables down fastened on her décolletage. She opened her eyes again, met his. He cleared his throat, reddened, and turned to his wife.