Come Hell or Highball (15 page)

“Hey,” Ralph whispered when the music died down. The musicians were taking a break. “Let's go backstage. We can ask the musicians if they know where to find Sadie. After all, she worked with them, right? I heard this is the regular band here.”

“What if Lem sees?”

“We'll just say we're looking for the powder room. Isn't that what you ladies always say when you go snooping?”

“Wait a minute.
We're
looking for the powder room? What's all this
we
business?”

Ralph pulled me toward a curtained door next to the stage. “Only trying to help out. I'd hate to see you not get what you came for.”

It didn't line up quite right. Still, talking to the musicians was a great idea.

Backstage was a set of cramped little rooms with pipes crisscrossing the ceiling. We looked through an open doorway. The musicians, all of them brown-skinned men of assorted ages, lounged on chairs or stood around smoking. They were in their shirtsleeves, sweating from their performance. Shining brass instruments lay on a table, or inside cases on the floor.

“Hey!” one of them yelled. It was the trumpeter, paunchy and middle-aged. “What're you two doing back here? Musicians only.”

Uh-oh. “I'm looking for Sadie Street,” I said.

The musicians exchanged glances.

“You mean Sadie
Minsky
?” the trumpet player said.

“Um, I guess so. She must've changed her name. To become an actress.”

“Well, there's your answer.” That was the sinewy piano player. He puffed at a smoke. “The canary took off to be in the pictures. That's the last we saw of her. A shame, too, those beautiful pipes of hers wasted in them picture shows where there's nothing but crummy rags for sound.”

“Do you know where she lives?” I asked. “Or where she used to live, back when she sang here?”

Again, the musicians exchanged a round of glances. The pianist stubbed out his cigarette. “Girl, you'd best be minding your own business about Sadie Minsky, if you know what's good for you. And I know what's good for me, so I ain't going to talk about her anymore.” He turned his shoulder to me and started speaking to the trombone player in a private tone.

“Thanks,” I said.

They ignored me.

Ralph and I hurried back to the dance floor.

“Minsky!” I whispered.

“Don't look now,” Ralph said, “but Fitzpatrick is coming our way.” He patted my low back. “Listen, kid, I think you'd better call it a night. Go grab your Swedish sidekick, and I'll get you a taxi.”

*   *   *

Once Berta and I were careening in a taxicab through the midnight streets, I told her about Sadie's real last name.

“Are you even listening?” I asked.

Berta sat ramrod straight. Her handbag was propped on knees sandwiched together so tightly, you'd have thought she was a nun in the confessional booth.

“Thinking about Jimmy?” I asked.

“What?” she yelled.

“You made quite the conquest.”

“I did nothing of the sort.” Berta's face softened. “Although, Jimmy is not so low a character as one would suppose a gangster to be. He grew up on a farm. In Missouri.”

“Oh, okay, does the farm cancel out the gangster bit?”

She
tsk
ed her tongue and turned to stare out the window.

I leaned my head back on the seat. I was woozy, and disheartened about the film reel. And extremely annoyed that I couldn't erase the feeling of Ralph's big, warm palms on my body.

It wasn't until I was nearly asleep, snuggled up with Cedric on Alfie's sofa, that the most important question came into focus: Why the heck was Ralph helping us look for Sadie Street?

 

16

I was stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey with cinnamon rolls when Berta and I waddled through the doors of Wright's on Fifth Avenue the next morning.

“I can't keep on like this,” I said. We walked toward the elevators. “I'm going to split my seams. Look at this dress! It's supposed to
drape,
for Pete's sake. Not hug.” We got on the elevator.

“You ought not complain,” Berta said. “Fellows like a homey girl.”

“‘Homey girl'?” I couldn't decide if that was better or worse than Society Matron.

The elevator boy said, “Which floor, madam?”

And when had I gone from being a
miss
to a
madam
?

“Foundations Department,” I muttered.

He hid his smirk.

“Pronto, young man,” Berta barked. “And have you tried witch hazel for your spots? It worked miracles for my cousin Edvard.”

The elevator boy's smirk dissolved, and he hit the button marked
5
.

“Remember what we agreed upon,” I whispered to Berta after we stepped off the elevator. “I'm going to come right out and demand the film reel from Eloise, and we'll see where that takes us.”

We'd talked it over at breakfast. After last night's impromptu questioning of Lem Fitzpatrick at Blue Heaven, we'd decided we needed to stay on the same page. However, that flea of a landlord was due back in three days, so we'd agreed that blustering might speed things up. And now that we knew Lem Fitzpatrick was a gangster, Eloise's little business conference with him at the golf links had taken on a decidedly suspicious cast.

We approached the saleslady at the girdle and corset counter. Her stout figure was frozen into the shape of one of those Russian stacking dolls. Her hair was a waved silver helmet. “May I be of assistance?” she asked.

“I was hoping to speak to Mrs. Wright,” I said.

“Oh? Do you have a private fitting scheduled?” She opened up a pink suede book. “Name, please?”

“I don't have an appointment,” I said. Darn it. I should've made one yesterday.

She slapped the book shut. “Then I am afraid—”

“
I
have an appointment,” Berta said.

The saleslady opened the book again. “Name?”

Berta craned her neck, trying to read the appointment book upside down. “Mrs. Beeker.”

The saleslady's fingertip stopped beside a name. “I have a Mrs. Bleeker. Not a Beeker.”

“Silly girl on the telephone took it down wrong,” Berta said. “They always do.”

“Very well. Follow me.”

We wove through long-line brassieres, garter belts, and dressing gowns, went down a hallway, and stopped at a pink door. The saleslady knocked.

“Enter,” a voice called.

Eloise Wright sat behind a desk in a large pink chair—a throne, really.

The room was decorated with pink flocked wallpaper and swagged curtains, and one wall was taken up with built-in pink wardrobes. Cardboard boxes towered in the corner. The boxes were stamped with a picture of a crown and the words
GIRDLE QUEEN
.

Well, that explained the throne, then.

Eloise dismissed the saleslady. Then she turned to me. “Mrs. Woodby, what a surprise. I was under the impression that a—” She glanced through her reading glasses at a paper on her desk. “—a Mrs. Bleeker was here to see me?”

“Never mind that,” I said.

“And who—” She looked at Berta. “—is this?”

“My assistant.”

“And which of you is in need of a fitting?” Eloise looked first at Berta's midriff, tightly cased as always in her old-fashioned steel-boned corset, and then at my cinnamon roll middle. “Of course. Mrs. Woodby. Yes, I recall we spoke briefly of your … little problem at the Arbuckles' country place.”

Little problem?
“I actually came here,” I said, “to—”

The telephone on Eloise's desk jangled. She picked up the earpiece and leaned close to the transmitter. “Yes?” She frowned, and glanced at the mountain of cardboard boxes. “As a matter of fact, yes, I have found a way to dispose of them, but—what? Oh, all right.” She hung up. “I beg your pardon. It's my seconds.” She gestured toward the boxes. “That's but a fraction of them, and there are always more coming from the factory. They'll be the absolute death of me. I'm afraid I must pop over to the freight elevators—I'll be back in a jiffy.” She hurried out.

As soon as Eloise was gone, Berta poked through one of the cardboard boxes. “Girdles,” she said.

“Her husband was complaining about the factory seconds at Dune House. Said they were a waste of money. There must be hundreds of them in those boxes.”

Berta stared meaningfully at Eloise's desk, and then at me.

“What?” I asked.

“
I
am not going to do it.”

“Oh, fine.” I went around to the other side of Eloise's desk. The top was cluttered with papers, all of them typed. Only one paper had handwriting: a small, lined scrap that said
17 Wharfside
.

I started opening the desk drawers, one by one.

“Anything?” Berta asked, peeking out the door.

“Lots of things.” I crouched down and slid open the last drawer. It held a rubbery white mound. “But no—Berta?” I'd heard her peep.

Someone made a tactful cough.

Slowly, I shut the drawer and stood.

Berta stood there, looking mortified. Next to a red-cheeked Eloise.

“Might I inquire what you are doing in my drawers?” Eloise asked.

It probably wasn't the best time for a joke about underpants. “I, um—”

“She is here to demand the return of the stolen film reel,” Berta said.

“The what?” Eloise's bosom heaved.

“The reel that you nicked from Horace,” I said.

Eloise's face was blank.

I could bring her tryst with Horace into the mix. Maybe
that
would make her fess up. “I saw you with Horace Arbuckle the night before he died.”

“Saw me with him? Well, of course you did. We were
all
with him last weekend. What are you doing? Poking your nose into the murder investigation? And would you mind getting away from my desk? I am attempting to conduct business here. I don't want your bored little housewife's game to disorder my operations.”

I took my place beside Berta. Eloise, meanwhile, marched around and resumed her seat on the pink throne.

“Now, then.” Eloise folded her hands on top of the blotter. “Tell me again what it is you wish to confront me about?”

Why did I get the feeling she was trying to hide that scrap of paper that said
17 Wharfside
?

“Well, for starters, I saw you with Horace,” I said. “In his study. Somewhat, um, in the altogether.”

Eloise's face had been a perfectly powdered and lipsticked mask of puzzlement. Now, understanding (and what looked a lot like mirth) washed over it. “Oh! Dear me. You saw that, did you?”

“Did you tell the police about your liaison?” I asked.

“I assure you, Mrs. Woodby, I had no
liaison
with Horace Arbuckle. What did you think? That I shot him in some lover's crime of passion? Oh my. Horace didn't really inspire those sorts of sentiments. Unless you—?”

“Me?” I said. “And
Horace
? No!”

“One never knows. Horace and I merely … how shall I put this? I suppose I
must
tell you, or you'll go waltzing off to the police with your grievous misunderstanding, and then we'll be in that much more of a muddle. As you know, Horace was a stout man. Far more stout than his wife wished. He approached me with a matter of the utmost delicacy. He asked for my help.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “No matter what you call it, it's still—”

“No, no. You see, I was fitting Horace for a girdle.”

My mouth fell open.

“A prototype of my own design,” Eloise said. “I have developed a new sort of girdle—patent pending, mind you—that is made of one hundred percent surgical rubber.” She opened a desk drawer and took out the quivery white mass I'd noticed before. She held it up.

So
that's
what that was: a rubber girdle, a big flexible tube with little holes punched all over.

“The holes allow the skin to breathe,” Eloise said. “Unlike traditional corsets and even the newer girdles with elastic panels, this girdle allows for a natural range of motion, all while keeping the problematic figure well contained.” She looked at my middle again.

I inched my handbag over to cover it up.

“Because of the natural motion made possible,” Eloise said, “my rubberized girdles are appropriate for gentlemen's use. No telltale rigid posture or inhibited movements, you see.”

“Are you telling me that Olive Arbuckle drove Horace to use a man-girdle?” I asked.

“Well, yes. Although the gents' item is called a Chappie, not a girdle. Patent pending, of course.” Eloise stood and picked up a pink measuring tape that lay coiled on her desk. As she did so, she placed the girdle on the scrap of paper she'd been hiding with her hands.

What could be so top secret about that address?

“Allow me to fit you for a complimentary girdle,” Eloise said to me. “And then we'll forget this entire misunderstanding, all right?” She came at me with the measuring tape.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, Eloise Wright ushered us out of her office. I had a parcel of two different rubber girdles to try. Berta had her dignity.

After Eloise shut the door behind us, I accidentally dropped my parcel, and I stooped to pick it up.

I heard Eloise's muffled voice from behind the door.

“Who is she talking to?” I whispered to Berta.

“Telephone,”
Berta mouthed.

We looked up and down the hallway. Empty. I laid my ear against the door.

“… so we have a bit of a problem,”
Eloise said.
“A meddler. Yes. Mmm. Indeed. Something must be done.”
The earpiece rattled as she hung up.