Come Hell or Highball (7 page)

“And you sell girdles?” I asked.

“
Sell
really isn't the proper word. Of course, yes, I do sell them. But I consider myself more of an engineer. Foundation garments, dear, are as critical to a lady's turnout as foundations are critical to a house.” Eloise surveyed my figure. “You are precisely the sort of lady who forms the bulk of my clientele.”

Maybe it was because she'd used the word
bulk,
but if she called me Society Matron, I was going to scream.

“Elegant, well dressed,” Eloise said, “but in need, due to the ravages of gravity and rich foods, of additional buttressing.”

I unclenched my teeth and poured the remainder of my highball through.

“Come to the Foundations Department sometime, at the Wright's on Fifth Avenue,” she said. “I'll see if there is anything I can do.”

My self-esteem lay in rubble around my François Pinet shoes. And then, as luck would have it, two gorgeous men sauntered into the drawing room.

All right,
three
men sauntered in, if you counted George Zucker. But hangdog George was utterly eclipsed by the arrival of Bruno Luciano and some other tall, dark stranger.

“Sweet snugglepups,” Olive said. “Suddenly it's rather like cocktail hour on Mount Olympus, isn't it?”

“If you like that sort of thing,” Eloise said. She sipped her pink cocktail. I was pretty sure her eyes strayed to Horace.

There is simply no accounting for taste.

George stopped to chat with Horace and Gerald. Bruno and the other man joined us on the terrace, and Olive made the introductions.

Bruno Luciano had a rubber doll's perfection, and I wondered how much oil he'd used to gloss his suntan. His eyes were the same liquid brown that they appeared to be on the silver screen.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Woodby,” Bruno said, his voice high and piping.

No wonder Sadie Street had called him Mr. Pipsqueak.

Olive, beside me, was breathing in rasps. Bruno's voice didn't bother
her
a bit.

The other man was introduced as Mr. Ptolemy Fitzpatrick.

“Call me Lem,” he said. His voice was gravelly, and his palm was rough. He was dashing in that half-hungover way, with stray locks of hair, five o'clock shadow, and purple half moons beneath scary dark eyes.

He was what you'd call a Wrong Number.

“Lem is another of Horace's business associates,” Olive said.

“Tin cans,” Lem said. “Arbuckle needs 'em, and I got 'em. I won't bore you ladies with the details. Hey, where's the gramophone, Mrs. Arbuckle?”

“Call me Olive.
Mrs
. sounds so … ancient.”

“Can't have cocktails without jazz,” Lem said. “Steer me toward the old horn, why dontcha?”

Lem set Duke Ellington spinning, and Hibbers dragged some furniture out of the way. Bruno and Olive started dancing, and then Horace swept Eloise out onto the carpet, too.

Gerald Wright slumped against the wall near the gramophone, watching Horace and his wife dancing cheek to cheek. His stare was angry-hot enough to steam up those thick glasses of his.

George Zucker edged up to me. “Dance, Mrs. Woodby?”

“I'm a widow,” I said. But I gave him my hand, anyway.

“Have you ever suffered from unrequited love, Mrs. Woodby?” George asked.

“Can't say that I have.”

“Well, you're lucky, then. It's hell. Sheer hell. Enough to make you want to—to
kill
someone.”

“Good heavens. Don't do
that,
Mr. Zucker.”

Despite his angst, George was a wonderful hoofer. We kicked and waggled, working up a sweat to sultry tunes riding on bouncy bass lines.

Then Sadie Street put in an appearance.

Between spins with George, I caught sight of her in the doorway, a lithe vision in yellow, her bob pomaded to a golden helmet. She glared at Bruno, who was in mid-whirl with Olive.

Then—I craned my neck as George spun me around again, narrowly missing a floor lamp—Bruno saw Sadie. His face went stiff. He released Olive from his arms, mid-dip. Olive crashed to the carpet, legs splayed and hair tufting.

Someone brought the gramophone to a nails-on-the-chalkboard stop.

Silence.

Horace went over to Olive.

“Help me, you big oaf!” Olive yelled. He complied.

Sadie and Bruno's eyes, meanwhile, were locked like two fighting roosters in the pit.

George was the first to speak. “Sadie, darling, how was your nap?”

Sadie ignored him. “Well, well,” she said to Bruno. “Looks like Mr. Pipsqueak's in the middle of another one of his embarrassing screen tests.”

“
My
embarrassing screen tests?” Bruno said.

“And how nice to see you've taken up dancing,” Sadie said. “Again. Just like old times at Philippe's.”

This question held some kind of weighty significance; Bruno's face turned mauve. “How
dare
you?”

“How dare
you
?” Sadie marched up to Bruno and slapped his cheek. It was quite the cinematic spectacle: a lock of Bruno's hair came loose across his forehead, and fury boiled in his lustrous eyes. Sadie glowered, chin tilted, her beauty glowing from within.

Wow. If Pantheon Pictures could catch this kind of thing on film, they'd have a humdinger on their hands.

Sadie swanned out of the drawing room.

Hibbers—he has impeccable timing—appeared with a tray of martinis. Everyone lunged for a drink. The gramophone blared up again.

 

7

I despise pimento-stuffed olives, yet I snatched one of the martinis from Hibbers's tray. No time to hang on for a highball. I took an icy swallow.

Through the French doors, I glimpsed motion on the lawn and heard a familiar yap.

Cedric.

I slipped out onto the terrace. Cedric was cavorting on the shadowy grass, his leash held by a tall man. I frowned. Yes, a tall man in servant's livery. With an annoying swagger. His back was to me, and he was whistling a ditty up into the sky.

“Hey!”
I whispered.

He didn't turn.

I glanced over my shoulder, into the drawing room. Everyone was dancing and dipping their bills.

I turned back to Ralph. “Hey!”

Still, he didn't turn. What
was
that he was whistling—“Bugle Call Rag”? Or was it something from … a Puccini opera?

No, couldn't be.

I plucked the olive from my martini, aimed, and lobbed it through the darkness. It hit Ralph square in the bean.

He turned. When he saw me, his face lit with a slow smile. His eyes meandered south to take in my gown. On the way back up, they lingered on my front bumpers. “Hey, Mrs. Woodby. Nice dress.”

“I have a good mind to throw my drink in your face for following me here.”

“You wouldn't do that. You need that drink so's to get through the evening with this pack of goofs.”

I wobbled (had my François Pinets always been so precarious?) down the terrace steps and across the grass. Cedric squiggled a greeting. I stooped to pat his head.

“Gonna bust my chops like that starlet did to Mr. Luciano?” Ralph said.

“You've been spying on us?” I straightened.

“Just walking the dog.”

“Why are you following me?”

“Like I told you, I'm investigating a matter to do with your late husband.”

“Does it have anything to do with … with a film reel, by any chance?”

His eyes glittered. “Film reel?”

Maybe he
hadn't
heard my conversation with Ruby Simpkin in her dressing room. Or maybe he was one swell actor.

“Never mind,” I said. “Listen, Mr. Oliver, I don't believe for a second that you're investigating Alfie. I think you're investigating
me
.”

His eyes landed on my mouth. “I'd
like
to be investigating you.”

“I know you are, and I do
not
approve. Cease and desist.”

Ralph chuckled. “Maybe you're used to pulling that high-and-mighty routine on other fellas, but it's not gonna work on me, all right?”

“For a man who's playing valet to a toy Pomeranian, you certainly have brass.”

“You're broke, Mrs. Woodby. They don't know it yet—” He gestured with his chin to the drawing room. “—but I know. And I dug up some other real interesting things, too.”

I licked my lips. “Oh?”

“Number five Polk Street, Scragg Springs, Indiana—ring a bell?”

“I can't say that it does.”

I turned and reeled back across the lawn, onto the terrace, and inside.

*   *   *

Dinner consisted of broth, watercress salad (no dressing), steamed vegetables, parboiled codfish, and far too much tipply. I was still shaky from my encounter with Ralph Oliver, and I was speeding toward the four-cocktail mark. If I didn't get some substantial food into my engine, my tubes were going to be coursing 100 proof.

Once we hit the codfish, Gerald and Eloise wheeled out their marital misery.

“It's the goddam seconds,” Gerald said.

“I beg your pardon?” Olive said, swilling a martini.

“All the corsets that my darling wife tosses aside when she comes up with a new design.”

“It's called
innovation,
dear,” Eloise said.

“It's called a big fat waste.”

“No, no,” Horace said. “Her girdles are scientific.”

I suppose Horace
was
obliged to leap to Eloise's defense after their little tête-à-tête in the study earlier.

“What do you do with the seconds?” Lem asked. “Turn 'em into battleships?”

Eloise tilted her nose. “I no longer use steel boning in my designs. This is all very top secret, you understand—”

“Innovation,”
her husband said.

“—but I have begun to experiment with corsets—well, girdles, properly speaking—”

“What's the difference?” Lem asked.

Why was Lem so interested in ladies' unmentionables, anyway? He looked like the type who concerned himself only with peeling the things
off
a girl.

Horace shifted in his chair. “Should we really be speaking of ladies' undergarments?”

“Why not?” Olive snapped.

“The difference between a corset and a girdle,” Eloise said, “is that a girdle stretches with the body, while a corset is stiff. Of recent date, manufacturers have begun to sew elastic panels into their corsets, rendering them, technically speaking, girdles. But I have invented something quite new, something extraordinary.”

“Rubber girdles,” Gerald said.

“Gerald!”
Eloise whispered. She sighed. “I didn't mean to give the whole thing away. Why, anyone could take my invention and steal it. The patents are still pending.”

Bruno yawned.

I prodded limp watercress with my fork. The conversation was having a soporific effect—or else I'd gone feeble with hunger—because I dropped my fork. I bent to pick it up.

Lem, I should mention, was sitting on my right, and Sadie was seated across from him. So I couldn't help but notice that Sadie had kicked off one of her shoes, and her toes were wrestling with one of Lem's sock-covered dogs.

I forgot about my fork and sat up.

Hibbers appeared at Olive's side, and whispered something in her ear.

“The little
piglet
.” Olive stood. “I'm so sorry, but I must excuse myself. It seems young Theo somehow got his fat little mitts on an entire batch of cinnamon rolls, devoured the lot, and has taken ill.” She swerved out of the dining room.

Cinnamon rolls?
Berta
. Maybe she'd made a double batch.

Dessert was trembling molded gelatin. I declined a helping. When everyone migrated back to the drawing room, I excused myself for bed.

*   *   *

But I didn't go upstairs. Instead, I stole back to Horace's study. This time, it was dark inside. I tiptoed in.

I had made it as far as the desk when the overhead light snapped on.

My heart lodged in my throat.

“There you are, Mrs. Woodby.” Ralph stood in the doorway, Cedric tucked under his arm like a football. “Looking for something?”

“Um. No. Just … lost.”

“Sure you are. Well, I've come to deliver your mutt.”

“Mutt?” I narrowed my eyes.

“So to speak.” Ralph plopped Cedric on the floor.

“Come on, peanut,” I called.

Cedric sat at Ralph's feet.

“He doesn't like being ordered around,” Ralph said.

“He's
my
dog! Peanut, come to Mommy.” I patted my knees. “Come!”

Cedric didn't budge.

“He's kinda funny,” Ralph said. “Responds better to praise and cuddles. And kisses.” He winked, and strutted off down the hallway.

I scooped Cedric up, flicked off the study light, and went upstairs. I couldn't bally well break into a safe with Mr. Oliver slinking around in the background.

The heist would have to wait till tomorrow.

*   *   *

When I entered my bedroom, the first thing I saw was Berta in a pool of lamplight. She was bundled in a pink quilted robe, reading in an armchair before a fire.

She glanced up from her book. “Oh, hello. My. You
do
look a bit worse for wear, Mrs. Woodby. On a whizzer, are we?”

“I only had three,” I said. Or was it five?

A teapot in a knitted cozy sat on the table beside her. No cinnamon rolls—rats.

“Did you procure the film reel?” she asked.

“How could I?” I set Cedric loose. “There are people positively dotting the landscape. Never even had an opportunity to crowbar the safe open, or whatever it is I'm going to do.”

“Yes. I have been thinking about that.” Berta lifted her book so I could see the cover. It was one of my detective dime novels,
Hazard in Havana,
by Frank B. Jones, Jr. “Thad Parker gets into the evil scientist's safe by tricking him into opening it in front of him, and memorizing the combination.”