City of Secrets (7 page)

“What is it? Whaddya want?”

Fred muttered. “We was lookin' for Lucinda. This here's Miranda Corbie. She used to work for Sally 'cross the way—she's a lady detective.”

The blonde picked up a pack of Camels lying beside the worn cards, shook one out, and lit it with a match. Blew smoke out the side of her face toward the brunette, who stared at Miranda.

“Lucinda's out stuffin' her face with a burger. Come back in a couple hours.”

Miranda held the woman's eyes until the blonde made a noise and sat back down. The brunette took a step forward.

“You—you here with the cops, or what?”

Miranda shook her head. “The bulls want me out. Threatened my license.”

The blonde leaned back in the folding chair, robe gaping open, most of her breast showing. “Then why don't you listen to 'em, girlie?”

Miranda turned to Fred and made a motion with her head for him to leave. He withdrew, face red, last glimpse of the blonde. Miranda shut the door behind her, listened for the click.

“I'm here to help Pandora Blake.”

The blonde snorted while the brunette shook her head. “She's beyond help. Go home, lady. Nobody over here asked for you. Pandora can't use your goddamn charity, and Lucinda don't want it.”

Miranda took out a Chesterfield, slowly, deliberately, lighting it with the Majorette. She leaned against the door, watching the women, and blew a smoke ring. The blonde looked up at her, then dealt herself another hand of cards.

The brunette was staring again. “Wait a minute—I know you. You're the one who used to be an escort, right?”

She snapped her fingers, turned excitedly toward the blonde, who was trying to ignore both of them. “Sheila—she's OK. She got fired from Sally Rand yesterday. I heard the boys talkin' about it.”

Sheila dragged her eyes up to look at the younger woman, then back to Miranda. She glanced down, noticed her robe, and nonchalantly pulled the sides together. Yawned.

“So you're the broad who used to be an escort. Sound too high-class for the job, but I guess you didn't work the corner of Turk and Eddy, huh?” She rubbed out the Camel on the top of the card table, then flicked it with two fingers to the floor.

Miranda didn't answer. The brunette took another step closer.

“Why do you wanna speak to Lucinda?”

“Because she knew Pandora. Not many people did.”

The blonde snorted again. “Bullshit—I knew Pandora. I know who killed her, too.”

She looked up at Miranda expectantly while the brunette's mouth opened, then shut.

Miranda took out her wallet, withdrew five singles and another five. The blonde watched her with narrowed eyes.

“Loretta, you should leave. I got business with this lady.”

The brunette turned a frightened look on Sheila and gathered up an old
Photoplay
magazine spread out by the makeup bottles. Stuck her bare feet in a couple of ratty house shoes propped against the tattered dressing screen and slipped through the door, giving Sheila and Miranda last looks before shutting it.

Miranda dropped some ashes on the floor. “What do you know, Sheila?”

“How much you willing to pay to hear it?”

“How much do you want to stay alive?”

The woman opened her mouth and laughed, showing off a few missing teeth in the back. Got up to sit on Loretta's stool, studied her face in the mirror. Pinched her cheeks.

“I gotta go on soon, so don't waste my time. Nobody's gonna off me. I'm not a goddamn filthy Jew.”

“Was Pandora Jewish?”

Sheila started to rub Pan-Cake makeup on her forehead, her skin darkening to a tanned bronze. “I ain't tellin' you a goddamn thing, lady, unless you come across with some scratch.”

Miranda dropped the stick on the floor, crushed it with her pump. “You can either tell me or the cops. They'll call you up as a witness if you know anything. I'll give you five dollars, they'll slap you around. Your call.”

The blonde eyed her in the mirror. “What I got is worth fifty.”

Miranda's mouth twisted. “What you got, sister, isn't worth five bucks.”

The blonde rose in anger, facing Miranda. “Listen here, bitch—”

“No, you listen. I don't have time for you. I don't think you know a fucking thing beyond whatever truck driver is going to get drunk enough to be rolled for a blow job. You're a middle-aged slut with no prospects and no future, and if you weren't a piece of shit of a human being, I'd feel sorry for you. As it is, my pity extends to five bucks. Take it or leave it.”

Sheila backed up into the makeup counter. Sank to the stool, eyes venomous.

“Some do-gooder. How the hell do you know what we go through? Who the hell are you to judge?” Her breath came out in tattered heaves, and she grasped at the robe, pulling it tight. Dropped her eyes, dropped her voice.

“All right. Five bucks.”

Miranda counted out five singles, laid them over the blue-backed cards. Sheila eyed the money greedily but didn't get up.

Miranda said. “What do you know?”

“Terrell Jacobs' place. One of the animal trainers. Name's Henry Kaiser.”

“What about him?”

She walked over and picked up the money, sat back on the stool, and faced Miranda. “He's a fucking bastard, is what he is. A beater.”

“Did he beat Pandora?”

“She went out with him. Came to work with bruises for the next week. They stopped when she quit seein' him.”

“How long ago was this?”

Sheila shrugged. “I don't know. Coupla months ago, maybe. She was smart enough so's it only took once.”

Miranda nodded. “Thanks. I'll be back later to see Lucinda.”

“She don't know any more than—”

“Then she won't get any more than you did.”

“You're some cheapskate bitch.”

Miranda turned back from the door, looked up at the blond woman. Spoke softly. “Fuck you, Sheila. And the eight goes on the nine of clubs.”

She closed the door behind her and met Loretta's eyes.

 

Six

The brunette stared at her, half in awe. She was at least ten years younger than Sheila.

A tinny radio was playing “All the Things You Are” from behind one of the other doors. Miranda was sick and fucking tired of the breathless hush of evening.

“Well, Loretta? Got anything to tell me?”

The younger woman glanced down the hallway. From around the corner by the stage, a few whistles and whoops signaled appreciation for whatever model was posing.

She whispered. “Did Sheila tell you about—about Henry?”

“Yeah. When did you go out with him?”

Loretta looked down at the cement floor, kicked at a piece of pink chewing gum.

“Last year. Right before we closed up. He was workin' the Monkey Speedway part-time then, still with the Christy Brothers Circus.” She glanced at Miranda, looked away again. “I tried to warn Pandora.”

“And she didn't listen.”

The girl nodded. Suddenly pulled down the terry-cloth robe from her left shoulder. “He left me with this.”

The skin on her shoulder was puckered and scarred, a scaly pink.

Miranda put out a finger, touched it gently. “What did he do?”

“Tried to—to brand me. I thought he was playing around.”

“Jesus.” Miranda took a deep breath, pulled the girl's robe back over her shoulder. “Thanks, Loretta.”

The brown-haired girl looked at her anxiously. “You won't tell, will you? I'm just—I'm so ashamed.…” Her lip quivered while she wiped the tears with the back of a Pan-Caked hand.

“I won't say a word, but don't ever let some sonofabitch hurt you and blame you for it.”

The girl nodded, sniffling. She murmured. “My real name's Ethel.”

Miranda patted her on the other shoulder. “Ethel, do you know if Pandora was Jewish?”

Large brown eyes flew open, surprised. “They said she was.”

“Who's ‘they'?”

“Oh, I don't know. Ben, the barker. We heard that's why she was killed, so she had to have been, right?”

“Does anyone work here who hates Jews?”

“Sheila hates everybody, says Jews and Communists are running the world. I don't know. I hear a lot of people talking about it. Some of 'em say President Roosevelt is a Jew. That don't mean they like Hitler any better. And it don't mean they would've killed Pandora just 'cause she was one.” She looked up. “I'm sorry, Miss Corbie. I can't help you. Sheila and me think Henry did it, 'cause he's mean enough.”

She shuddered, brushed past Miranda. “I'd better go in.”

Her hand was on the knob, but she paused and faced Miranda again. “Lucinda really was Pandora's friend. If anybody knows anything, it's Lucinda. She won't talk to us.”

“Where can I find her?”

Ethel/Loretta shrugged. “Maybe at the Ron de Voo Restaurant, down the Gayway. She tries to get dates to take her there.”

She was still clutching the
Photoplay
from earlier and flipped through the pages. “Lucinda's kind of pretty, like Pandora was. Tries to look like Dorothy Lamour.” She pointed to a photo of the actress.

Miranda slipped the five-dollar bill into the fold of the magazine. “Thanks.”

“But I didn't ask—”

“Consider it a contribution to stenography school.”

Her mouth opened and gaped at Miranda. “How did you know I want to be a stenographer?”

“You're practicing shorthand, aren't you?” Miranda pointed to the margins of the open
Photoplay
.

The girl smiled, her eyes and mouth falling back into tired lines as she drew the terry cloth around herself.

“Yeah. Funny way to make money. Thanks, Miss Corbie.”

“Be careful, Ethel.”

Miranda watched as the girl slipped behind the door.

First Lucinda. Then Henry.

It was going to be a long night.

Miranda clutched her purse, reassured by the outline of the .22.

*   *   *

The Ron de Voo sat at the far end of the Gayway on the south side, over by the shooting galleries and the snake show, close to Jacobs's animal exhibit and Henry Kaiser. The crowd in the long, narrow building was thick and chummy and loud, swing music strident, chatter brittle and trying too hard, wanting the blue and yellow neon words to live up to their promise before it was two
A.M.
and time to go home alone.

“We Three, My Echo, My Shadow and Me” floated above the chatter, skinny little Frank Sinatra singing for Tommy Dorsey and sounding about twelve. Miranda pushed her way past the music and through a curtain of blue gray smoke to the counter, where she threw a dime at a dishwater blond waitress with bags under her eyes and bought two rolls of Pep-O-Mint Life Savers. Unwrapped them quickly and popped two candies in her mouth at once. Leaned against the glass and surveyed the crowd. Tried not to think about a Chesterfield.

She still looked like an old twenty-five, but hell, new fucking wrinkles every day, and Nielsen told her the tobacco speeded it up, whatever magic cream or tonic she lathered on her body not holding back time, not keeping her from old-lady age and a bent back. And she was tired of the yellow tint to her skin after a long night at the Moderne, voice harsh and raspy, no breath for the San Francisco hills.

Face and body and license. All she had. All she was.

We three … we're all alone, living in a mem-o-ry … my echo, my shadow and me …

All she wanted.

Miranda reached across the chrome-and-Formica counter. Grabbed a toothpick and rolled it between her fingers. Thirty-five was two years ahead, whole goddamn world might be dead by then. But she didn't want to go out needing a Chesterfield.

Looked over the crowd, light dim and cloudy through the smoke. Corner table. Under a painting of what was trying hard to be an ocean sunset.

The woman threw her head back and laughed, coral lipstick, dark makeup, long, tapered nails to match the shade. Wearing one of those sarong-type evening dresses sold through the Montgomery Ward catalog to housewives who would never go near the South Seas and looked nothing like Dorothy Lamour, but who craved glamour and hoped their husbands would do more than roll over and grunt on a Saturday night.

Pretty in a cheap way. She'd be out of a job in a year or two, once the tits started to sag and the thighs got a little thicker. Desperation oozed around the orchid-colored sarong like Hawaiian dew, and she laughed again, manicured hand draped on the broad shoulder of a younger man.

He was tall, very well built underneath a too-loose and too-cheap suit, loud tie with yellow stripes, blue shirt stained with ketchup. About twenty-three, twenty-four. Nice-looking kid, red face crumpled, eyes sad. Cheeks a little hollow.

Miranda pushed her way past two sailors, brushing off the incidental hand on her ass with a jab of the toothpick. Shoved the dwindling Life Savers in the side of her mouth with her tongue.

“You're Lucinda? From Artists and Models?”

The dark-eyed woman quit trying to smolder the kid with how languid she was and breathed out a Kool, smoke slightly mentholated. Poured on a
Romance of Helen Trent
voice.

“And who is asking?”

Miranda grabbed an empty chair from a table hidden behind a potted palm frond, sitting down before the kid could figure out he was supposed to stand up.

“Miranda Corbie. I'm a private investigator.”

The woman's high penciled eyebrows rose. She flicked some ash in the small glass tray. The young man leaned forward, eager.

“You say you're a private detective?”

“Yeah. I used to work security for Sally Rand.”

The brunette pointed her cigarette at Miranda. “You're the one who got canned.”

“Yesterday. After Pandora was killed. The brass wants everything kept quiet.”