Come Hell or Highball (14 page)

“Oh, very well,” Berta said.

The sliding door stopped, halfway shut.

Berta bent over and drew up the hem of her dress to reveal a portion of her woolen-stockinged, bowling-pin calf.

“Berta!” I said.

The man chuckled. “Lady, I can tell you ain't one to go around flashing your gams at the drop of a hat. I can see you're desperate. Besides, we need some variety down there. All them flappers is starting to look the same.” He slammed the little window shut and opened the door.

We were in.

We walked along an ill-lit corridor and down a rickety staircase.

“Are you certain this is quite safe, Mrs. Woodby?” Berta asked.

“I'm pretty sure it's not.” I pushed open the door at the bottom of the stairs.

We entered a raucous, crowded, low-ceilinged cavern that reeked of cigarettes, spilled gin, and sweat. A bar stood off to one side. Slick-haired men in suits buzzed around flappers in short, sparkly dresses. Bartenders rattled shakers, ice clinked, girls shrieked with laughter. Mismatched tables and chairs were packed with more people bobbing their heads to the music, smoking, and chattering. A dance floor, twisting with perspiration-glossed bodies, filled the space in front of the stage, where a jazz band wailed out a tune.

Berta and I would've looked like a couple of nervous nanny goats, standing there by the door, if anyone had paid us a bit of notice. But no one did.

No one, that is, except Ralph Oliver.

He sat at a table by himself, hunched over a drink in a teacup, and staring at me from beneath a furrowed brow.

My belly did a flip.

“Ah,” Berta said over the ruckus. “So that is why you are tarted up so. You knew the Irish detective would be here.”

The possibility
had
crossed my mind. “I'm not tarted up. And how was I to know he'd be here?”

“Perhaps because he was eavesdropping upon our conversation with the perfume girls this afternoon?” Berta toddled toward Ralph's table.

I followed her. “You saw him?”

“I am not blind. Thad Parker says that a private detective has eyes on the back of his head.”

“You do know that Thad Parker's not a real person, right?”

By the time we reached Ralph's table, he was grinning.

I tossed my beaded clutch on the table and dropped into the chair kitty-corner to his. “Care to fill me in on the joke?” I shimmied out of my coat.

“Oh, nothing. You're kinda cute, that's all.”

I gave him a withering look and flagged down the waiter, a short black fellow in a red waistcoat. “Highball, please. On the double.”

“I shall have an orange blossom,” Berta said. “With more blossom than orange, if you please.”

“That's got gin in it,” I said to her.

“Do you think you invented drinking, Mrs. Woodby?” Berta said.

 

15

After the waiter left, Ralph scooted his chair around the corner of the table so he was right next to me.

He wore evening clothes. They were threadbare, but the black and white made him look
just
a touch too handsome for such close quarters. His ginger hair was slicked up and over with brilliantine. His forehead was a little weathered, like he'd spent time working outside. By the looks of those sturdy shoulders, I'd have said in farming or construction. And on his right temple was a two-inch-long, deep, white scar.

He caught me studying it. “Shrapnel,” he said over the hubbub. “France.”

That was all he needed to say. The Great War had mangled half the young men you saw on the street. Those, that is, who'd been lucky enough to make it back home.

“Is that scar why you've always got your hat tipped down?” I asked.

“Nope. The tipped hat's for the ladies.”

Ralph Oliver was nothing but a bee in my bonnet. But who
was
he, exactly? At Wright's, I'd worried he was working for the murderer, but now I almost wondered if he was working for Uncle Sam. And why, oh
why,
did I find the sight of his big square hand fiddling with that chipped teacup so mesmerizing?

“Where are you from, Mr. Oliver?” I asked.

“That's not something I like to say.”

“Why not?”

“How come you don't like to say you're from Scragg Springs?”

I frowned.

“Come on, kid. Lighten up.” He gently chucked my chin.

I felt a bit melty. Good golly. I hadn't even started drinking yet.

“By the way,” Ralph said, “you look gorgeous tonight.”

Melty? Heck, I was practically a puddle on the floor.

He leaned his forearm on the table and turned to look at me more closely. “I've gotta say, I'm a little surprised you turned up at this joint.”

“Well, Mr. Oliver,” Berta called from across the table, “we are not surprised to find
you
here. You follow us like the little lamb after Mary.”

“It's a bad habit you've got, Mr. Oliver,” I said.

Ralph leaned in still closer. “Oh, I've got worse habits than that.”

“I shudder to think.” Actually, I felt kind of feverish.

“Listen, you two,” Ralph said, slouching back in his chair. “I came here tonight because I worried that if you were crazy enough to show up—which I guess you are—you could be getting yourselves behind the eight ball.”

“Oh, come off it,” I said.

“This is an illegal establishment. There is, course, always the possibility of police raids. I can just imagine what the society page in the paper would have to say about you being collared in a raid, Mrs. Woodby.”

“You read the society page? Not … the column by Miss Ida Shanks?”

“I read a lot, Mrs. Woodby.”

The waiter arrived with our drinks. I grabbed my highball and took a gulp.

“The possibility of police raids aside,” Ralph went on, “there's the dirty little fact that this place, like every underground jazz and booze joint in town, is run by gangsters. Including one real prominent gangster I think you know.”

“I don't consort with gangsters,” I said. “I've never met one in my life!”

“No? What about that one?” I followed his glance. So did Berta.

Lem Fitzpatrick sat a few tables down.

Lem held court amid a bunch of men who could've posed as gangsters for the funny pages: pomade-smooth hair, pinstripe suits, stubbly jaws. White spats flashed under the table.

“Lem said he was in the tin can business,” I said.

“Oh, he's in business, all right, but it's not tin cans,” Ralph said. “Fitzpatrick runs half the speakeasies in New York, and he's got his finger in lots of other pies, too. He's a gangster. One of the kingpins, actually, although he's just coming up in the world after his older brother Luke went for a swim in the East River last year.”

“Are you sure about all of this?”

“Never met him personally—aside from seeing him up at the Arbuckles' place, that is—but I know him by reputation.” Ralph took a swallow from his teacup. “Lucky for Fitzpatrick, he's not quite famous yet. And that Hare's Hollow police inspector, Digton, wouldn't recognize a gangster if he tripped over one.”

“As you are obviously aware, Mr. Oliver, the reason Berta and I came here tonight was because we're trying to find Sadie Street, and we were told she used to sing here.”

“Right,” Ralph said. “I heard the shopgirl at the store this afternoon.”

“Well, the funny thing is, when we were all up at Dune House, Lem and Sadie acted like they were meeting for the very first time.”

“Why would they do otherwise?” Berta said. “According to the motion picture magazines, Sadie has a wholesome public image. She would not wish for anyone to know that she used to sing jazz at a sordid club.”

“There's more,” I said. I told them how I'd seen Lem and Sadie playing footsie under the Arbuckles' dinner table.

“Huh,” Ralph said. “So not only did Sadie know Fitzpatrick from this club, but the two of them are an item.”

“Yes,” I said. “But why hide it?”

“Because,” Berta said, “girls next door do not tumble with gangsters.”

That made sense.

“What I'd like to know,” Ralph said, “is why Fitzpatrick pretended to be in the tin can business at Dune House. I mean, did Arbuckle know he was really a gangster?”

Berta and I exchanged a glance.

“Listen, Mr. Oliver,” I said. “Berta and I don't wish to get involved in Horace's murder.”

“Oh no? Then what're you two doing here, looking for Sadie?”

“Business,” Berta said. She waved her empty teacup at the waiter.

“Did you already polish off that drink?” I whispered to her.

She pretended not to hear me.

“What kind of business?” Ralph asked.

“Never you mind,” I said.

The waiter took Berta's order for a fresh orange blossom.

I stared over at Lem Fitzpatrick. He had same moody, haunted look I'd noticed at Dune House, and that same nasty curl to his lip.

Lem caught me looking.

Rats.

His eyes narrowed, and he stood.

The fellow next to him stood, too. He was puny and bowlegged, with a beat-up face and a squashed nose. His diminutive pin-striped suit was exquisitely cut.

Girls gawked at Lem as he snaked through the tables toward us; men glanced at him with covert dread. The bowlegged guy followed.

I swallowed half my drink.

“Jiminy Christmas,” Ralph muttered.

“Well, well, well. If it isn't New York's most scandalous widow,” Lem said, hitching up a chair beside me. The bowlegged man sat down next to Berta.

“Read about you in the papers today,” Lem said to me. He looked at Ralph. “Say, why do you look so familiar?”

“The name's Smith,” Ralph said. “John Smith.” He rose halfway and shook Lem's hand.

“Sure,” Lem said, settling into the chair. “About half the fellers in this place are named John Smith. Funny, ain't it? This here is Jimmy the Ant. Say hello, Jimmy.”

Jimmy smiled. He was missing some teeth, and I suspected one of his eyes was glass.

“Jimmy was the all-borough featherweight champ six years straight. What we always say is, don't fiddle with Jimmy or he'll fiddle with your face.”

Jimmy said, “Heh-heh-heh.” His voice was surprisingly gruff, given his petite stature. He winked his good eye at Berta.

Berta's eyes bugged.

Lem looked me up and down. “Nice dress.”

“Thanks.”

“Well,” Lem said, “guess my secret's out.”

I batted my mascara-globbed lashes. “What secret?”

“That I'm not a—what did I say up at Arbuckle's place?—oh yeah. I'm not a tin can salesman.” Lem lurched toward me; I shrank toward Ralph. “What're you doing here, cookie? Following me or something?”

“Now, listen here, buddy,” Ralph said.

“It's okay,” I whispered to Ralph. I batted my lashes again at Lem.

“I seen that trick before, cookie,” Lem said. “Blinking your big eyes like Krazy Kat, playing dumb. Not gonna work.” A muscle on his cheek twitched.

You probably can't be a gangster kingpin without succumbing to a certain amount of deranged paranoia.

The atmosphere at the table was thick, but Lem was already on to me. Might as well pump him for as much information as I could.

“It's true,” I said. “The beans are spilled. I'm looking for the film reel.”

Berta made a tiny, indignant blat.

Not a flicker of understanding crossed Lem's features. “Film reel? Don't know about no film reel.”

“She is, as they say, out on the roof,” Berta said. “She does not make a bit of sense after she has been at the highballs.” The waiter appeared with Berta's second orange blossom. She grabbed it right out of his hand and polished it off. She stood. “Mrs. Woodby, shall we—?”

“Dance?” Jimmy the Ant said. He jumped to his feet, and his chair crashed behind him. He grabbed Berta's hand.

Berta's mouth was an
O
of outrage. On the other hand, she'd downed two orange blossoms, so Jimmy was able to pull her out onto the dance floor.

The musicians launched into a sassy rendition of “The Sheik of Araby.”

“Yeah, dancing sounds like a swell plan,” Ralph said, and he pulled me out onto the dance floor, too.

*   *   *

“Rule number one,” Ralph said, pulling me close to his chest, “don't show your hand.” He twirled me around, then drew me close again. “Especially not to a gangster.”

“Who are you, Professor Gumshoe?”

“I could be a
real
good teacher.” His gray eyes glowed. “Of lots of things.”

Oh boy.

Ralph was as good a dancer as a fellow could be before a girl started asking pertinent questions. He was at home in his body. And his eyes were all over me.

I'd had one highball. Only one. But I started to wonder in a dazed sort of way, as I shook my hips and swayed my bare shoulders to the devilish, divine jazz, if I'd made a fatal error in my mathematical calculations. This was a speakeasy. The booze was extra,
extra
strong.

But the thing about extra-strong booze is that it makes you not give a hippo's toot about your fatal errors. That was sort of the whole point of the stuff.

So I swam with Ralph in the glittery, steamy mess of bodies. My ears were full of skidding trombone; my mouth tasted like salt and whiskey.

And when Ralph, with his laughing eyes and serious mouth, got really close during the slow numbers, I can't say that I made much of an effort to act demure.

However, I
wasn't
too far gone to burst out laughing when I spied Berta gyrating on the dance floor with bandy-legged Jimmy the Ant. Berta must've lurched across her cocktail limit, too.

*   *   *