Beauty Dies E-Book

Melodie Johnson Howe

• Herausgeber: Elliott & Thompson
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 344

Beschreibung

Praise for Melodie Johnson Howe's City of Mirrors:"City of Mirrors is deftly written and smart. On top of that, it is entertaining as hell."--Michael Connelly"A fine crime novel with an engagingly cynical edge"--Simon BrettNew York can be a deadly place. In this gripping murder mystery, the enigmatic private eye Claire Conrad and her independent assistant Maggie Hill are in New York and about to fly to Los Angeles when a young woman appears at their hotel bearing an unusual message: a legendary fashion model who died recently did not commit suicide. When the messenger is stabbed to death, Claire and Maggie have no choice but to stay in New York to solve the mystery, whatever the risks..."Howe has created a wonderful, highly entertaining (and just a touch bizarre) pair of female sleuths."--Library Journal"One of the genre's best short story writers and novelists… More than glamour of setting, what makes Ms. Howe's work stand out is keenness of insight."--Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Leseprobe

Beauty Dies

A New York Murder Mystery

Melodie Johnson Howe

To Bones Howe, Kathleen Boddicker, Erica Marlette, and Geoffrey Howe

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Acknowledgments

You will put on a dress of guilt and shoes with broken high ideals.

—Roger McGough

One

“WANNA BUY A DIAMOND ring, lady? Check it out.”

The man’s dark angry face glistened with sweat in the cold spring morning light. He thrust his hand at me. I stared at a chunk of rhinestone as big as a glass eye.

“Diamond ring, lady. Twenty bucks.”

Diamonds are forever, I thought. Neil’s ring had slipped on so easily and it had taken me forever to get it off.

“Check it out, twenty bucks.”

As I turned away from the man, our shoulders collided.

“Fuck you,” he said in low voice.

That’s exactly what Neil had said to me when I left him. Only he had added my name, Maggie Hill. My maiden name.

It was Tuesday, my last day in New York City, and I could hardly wait to get back to the isolation and uneasy separation that was Los Angeles. I hadn’t thought about my ex-husband for two whole weeks. That’s because I was a new woman with a new job.

I moved quickly up Madison, tightening my grip on the package Claire Conrad had sent me to pick up. It contained two pairs of kid gloves made specially for her. One black pair, one white pair. She wore gloves not because she was a lady. She wore them because she was a private detective and didn’t want to leave her fingerprints around to confuse the cops.

Claire and I had met only a few weeks before in Los Angeles, where my previous employer had blown his head off. My new position consisted of secretarial duties and running errands. In other words, I was her assistant. Also, because I hold the dubious distinction of having once written and published a novel, I was chronicling Claire Conrad’s exploits—including how she had proven my employer’s suicide was really murder, and how her extraordinary intelligence, her unnerving perceptions, and my help had solved the crime. I was writing slowly. I wanted this job to last. At thirty-five, I was getting a little too old for temp work. A little too old even to be a new woman.

I hoofed it past store windows displaying antique pillows, men’s silk bathrobes, and the ubiquitous thin mannequins adorned in spring suits as white as a little girl’s First Communion dress. The store windows reflected my own image back at me: the dark brown hair, questioning dark brown eyes, defiant chin, and sharp straight nose that dipped slightly down, as if it were trying to call attention to my mouth. In contrast to these rather pointed features, my lips were full and sensual. Men had a tendency to look at them instead of my eyes.

I stopped in front of my favorite shoe store. There they were. A pair of black and white spectator pumps. I longingly admired how the black shiny patent curved around the pristine white leather. I delighted at the little holes punched along the edge of the patent so the white leather peeked through. I appreciated the sexy curve of the heel.

In college I had read a play by Odets. A character described his feelings for a woman by comparing her to a pair of black and white wingtips, shoes that he could never afford, shoes far beyond his reach. It had never occurred to me to try to be that unobtainable woman. She belongs with the perfect man. I just wanted the shoes, spectator shoes. Think of the possibilities. If I slipped my feet into them, what would I observe? Witness? As usual I didn’t go into the store, didn’t ask the price, and didn’t try them on. I just longed for them. It does the soul good to yearn for something.

I turned right on Sixty-third and sauntered toward the Parkfaire Hotel.

“Miss?”

A young woman with wasted blue eyes stepped quickly in front of me. A greenish yellow bruise spread across her left cheek.

“Miss?” She wiped her runny nose on the sleeve of her cheap red jacket.

I veered right, but she stayed with me. I moved to my left. So did she.

“Miss?” Her hair was bleached brittle blond.

I kept walking toward the hotel. The doorman, who minus legs would have been perfectly square, was looking toward Park Avenue where little green buds heralded new life on the trees in the center island. The young woman reached out her hand toward me with new hope. Ah, spring.

“Miss?”

“Look,” I said, stopping and confronting her. “It’s only nine o’clock in the morning and I haven’t even had my coffee and I’ve already been told to fuck off. I left all my money in my hotel room. Go try somebody else.”

“She didn’t kill herself,” she said, doggedly scuffing alongside me in red cowboy boots.

I was at the hotel.

“Cybella didn’t kill herself.”

The doorman turned toward us, his long beige coat flapping in the breeze. Cool eyes peered from his bright red face, sizing up the young woman.

“Good morning, Miss Hill,” he said, stepping between the girl and me. “I hear you’re leaving us today.”

“That’s right, Frank.” We spoke to each other as if she didn’t exist.

I pushed through the revolving door into the white marble lobby. It wasn’t much bigger than your average-size Beverly Hills living room. I stood for a moment brushing my hair from my face, then turned and looked back.

Frank was waving his stubby arms at the young woman—she was maybe twenty-three—forcing her to cross the street. She flipped him off, then stood on the opposite sidewalk, arms folded against the wind, defiantly staring at the hotel. She wore a short, skintight, white leather skirt. Red fishnet stockings boldly defined her long thin legs. Her gaunt pale face was mean with determination.

“We had to throw her out of the lobby this morning.” Desanto, the manager of the Parkfaire, came up to me all decked out in tails and pin-striped trousers. He looked like an officious groom waiting for a bride who was too smart to show up. “She wanted to see Claire Conrad,” he said with a sniff.

“What about?”

“I didn’t bother to find out.”

I turned away from the revolving door and the image of the young woman. Leave it alone, Maggie, I told myself. Soon you’ll be back in L.A. I headed toward the elevators.

Desanto half-closed his eyes, drew his head so far back that his chin looked ingrown, and marched along beside me. It was difficult to take a walk alone in this town.

“You will be checking out at noon?”

“That’s what I told you, Mr. Desanto.” I pushed the elevator button. Desanto was used to dealing directly with Claire, and now he had to deal with me. I guess he thought it was a step down.

“I just wanted to make sure. Mr. Orita is coming in this evening and I told him he could have the Conrad Suite. It’s his favorite.”

Desanto’s eyes darted from me to a heavily carved table in the middle of the room. An Oriental vase the size of a small child held an enormous bouquet of dangerous-looking flowers. Bony stems and petals as sharp as long red fingernails twisted upward to the ceiling, jabbing at an old, gracious crystal chandelier. A woman in a black uniform was methodically replacing some of the dead flowers. Desanto watched her every move with a busy intensity. He suddenly pulled in his chin again and rushed to greet the Bovine Lady, as I called her, who was just settling down into her usual chair by the marble fireplace at the end of the lobby. She was a plump, middle-aged woman laden with jewelry. Her face was long and sad, her eyes big and blue. She looked as though her wealthy husband had put her out to pasture. I thought of the young girl with her thin arms folded against the morning cold. Not everybody was put out in the same pasture. Leave it alone, Maggie.

The elevator door opened. I stepped aside, letting out four men and one woman in business suits with briefcases. Four to one, not a good ratio. The elevator shot me up to fifteen.

At the end of the hall a brass plate on the door identified the Conrad Suite. I gave the special knock: two quick taps, three long ones. Boulton let me into the black-and-white marble foyer, looking every inch the English butler in his gray jacket, vest, and dark pin-striped trousers.

“Did madam enjoy her morning stroll?” he asked, bowing slightly. His jacket was opened and I could see the butt of the gun in his shoulder holster.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a stroll,” I said.

Boulton’s chestnut brown hair was swept back from his high, intelligent forehead. His lips, in repose, were somber, almost sad. I liked them.

“Where’s Claire?”

“Madam’s in the drawing room,” he said in his formal English accent.

“To me it will always be the living room,” I said.

A slight smile.

“What kind of mood is she in?” I asked.

“Depressed as always when she finishes a job. Especially insurance fraud cases. Tread lightly. By the way I took the liberty of packing for you.”

“Thanks.”

“If you’ll forgive me, I thought you were the type of American woman who wore those athletic-looking undergarments. The see-through, white lace bra was a pleasant surprise. Breakfast will be served momentarily.” He turned crisply on his heels and headed down the short hallway to the dining room.

I loved observing Boulton. I loved how he moved. I loved the grace of his lean compact body. Where I had trouble with him was up close. Then his grace and intelligence had a coolness, a steeliness that disturbed me. My ex-husband is an LAPD detective. I know about macho men and their guns. Boulton may have been English and looked like he’d just stumbled out of Masterpiece Theater, but these men are all the same. I think a woman should try once in her life to desire a man who doesn’t carry a gun. I was keeping my distance.

I opened the double doors to the living room and tried to dismiss the image of Boulton alone in my room, his hand cupping my bra. Claire Conrad was enthroned in her Queen Anne chair. Not the one she had in Conrad Cottage in L.A., but her New York chair. Covered in white linen, it had the same bowed legs, clawed feet, high straight back, and sides that winged out. I had the feeling there were Queen Annes in hotel suites all around the world waiting for the famous detective’s backside to nestle onto their downy cushions.

It was Claire’s day to dress in black. It fit her mood. She wore black slacks, a black silk shirt, and a black wrap jacket. Her ebony walking stick leaned against her chair like a faithful dog.

“Your gloves,” I said, placing them on a small table next to her. In response she stared at the tips of her shoes.

I sat down at my desk. It was a gray lacquered affair and had better legs than I did. The room was done in various shades of white. Two sofas covered in grayish white silk faced one another in front of a gray marble fireplace. The coffee table was glass with an iron base. Windows, which looked down on Park Avenue, were graced with ecru damask.

“Breakfast will be served momentarily,” I said.

Her penetrating dark blue eyes found me. Silvery white hair folded back like the wings of a bird from her refined, handsome face. Deep lines ran across her forehead and down the corners of her lips, enhancing her elegance instead of detracting from it. As her biographer I should have known her age, but I didn’t. I guessed her to be in her fifties. One of these days I was going to have to ask her. For a moment I thought she was going to speak, but she just stared at me. The sound of car horns and sirens filtered through the large windows, gently disturbing the silence in the room. Between the street and the fifteenth floor the traffic noise had lost its anger. Amazing what money can do.

I looked down at my list and checked off the gloves. Next came the Bentley. I had to call the rental company so they would be sure to have someone at the airport to pick it up. Then I had to call Graham Sitwell, the CEO of New York Insurance, to tell him Claire considered the fraud case closed and to please send the money. Just as I reached for the phone, Boulton appeared.

“Breakfast, madam,” he announced.

Claire stood and stretched her lean six-foot frame, then followed him out of the room. I took up the rear. We made a somber procession down the hallway to the dining room. It was small, with mirrored walls and pale gold carpet. Crystal sconces, with silk lampshades that never stayed straight, offered an expensive glow.

Claire sat at the head of the table. I sat on her right. Boulton placed The New York Times next to her and began to serve the coffee. Gerta, carrying two plates, pushed open the swinging door from the small galley kitchen.

“Good morning.” She served us caviar and sour cream omelets.

“How are you, Gerta?” I asked. “It’s nice to talk to somebody.”

“We go home,” she said in her thick Hungarian accent. She looked at Claire, sighed heavily so we could all hear it, then looked back at me. “I hope a job will be waiting for her when we get to L.A. Then all this gloom will disappear.”

Gerta pushed the swinging door with her heavy hip and returned to the kitchen, followed by Boulton.

Claire picked up the newspaper and began to read. We ate our omelets and drank our coffee in silence. The only sounds came from the tinkling of crystal and china and the rustle of The New York Times. Very cosmopolitan.

Claire leaned back in her chair. Her shrewd eyes came to rest on me. “Beauty dies, Miss Hill.” Her voice was edged with melancholy.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s interesting how many other qualities die with beauty. Style, grace, elegance, hope. Society puts a great deal of hope, of promise, in beauty. Hope dies, too.”

I gave this some thought, then said, “It was just an insurance fraud case. And, if you don’t mind me saying so, you earned a ton of money having that poor old accountant arrested. He’s the one who should be depressed, not you.”

“I? Depressed? What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cybella.”

I put down my coffee cup. She tossed me the paper folded to the obituaries.

“Cybella.” I repeated the name.

The page was filled with the accomplishments of old white dead men and very young dead men, the letters AIDS looming over their successes. In the bottom of the left-hand corner of the page was a photograph of a woman of great beauty. The caption read: BEAUTY DIES, CYBELLA DEAD AT 53. The photograph had been taken when she was around my age, mid-thirties. She had a long graceful neck, dark hair setting off high cheekbones, and a strong chin. Her mouth was lush but not soft. Dark haunting eyes stared into mine. She had the kind of beauty that seemed to come from the ages—not from two minutes on MTV.

The gist of the obituary was that Cybella, née Nancy Grange from Buffalo, New York, had been the top model in the sixties. Later she had tried acting, but her cool beauty had turned to ice on celluloid. Suffering from depression, she had jumped from the tenth floor down the stairwell of her Manhattan apartment building. She left one daughter, named Sarah Grange, a model.

I thought of the girl standing outside the hotel. I also thought of another young girl, me, standing in front of my bathroom mirror trying to suck in my cheeks and extend my neck so I could look like Cybella. I had forgotten her name, but not her face.

“I saw her only once, Miss Hill, many years ago, at a reception given in my honor in Paris,” Claire said. “She was the guest of the minister of culture, a randy old thing. When Cybella walked in you could feel a change in the room. A frisson. Beauty had entered.”

I looked at Claire. “She didn’t kill herself.”

“You deduced that from this innocuous obituary? Maybe I should write about you.”

“No, no.” I was on my feet. “Just a minute. I’ll be right back.”

I ran out of the dining room, down the hall. I pounded on the elevator button till the doors pulled open.

As I shoved the revolving door around, the cold wind hit my face. She was across the street smoking a cigarette, waiting for me. I squeezed between two limos parked at the curb, checked the traffic, and darted across.

“Okay,” I began, “three questions. How did you know Claire Conrad was staying at this hotel?”

She reached into the pocket of her jacket and handed me a crumpled newspaper clipping. A picture of Claire, Boulton, and me coming out of the Parkfaire was captioned: THE ELUSIVE CLAIRE CONRAD IS IN TOWN. The name of the hotel could be seen in the background. Boulton and I were not mentioned.

“Even I can read the Daily News,” she said.

“How do you know Cybella didn’t kill herself?”

“You got a VCR?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have proof.” She took a videocassette from her plastic purse.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Jackie.”

“Jackie what?”

“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Murphy. My mother had dreams.”

“I can take you up to see Claire Conrad, but she’ll probably throw you out.”

“I’ll never live it down.” She flicked her cigarette into the street.

Let it go, Maggie, I told myself once more. Soon we’ll all be in Los Angeles, I’ll be driving my Honda, the car radio my only contact with the outside world and the sun warm on my arms and face. Let it go.

Oh, hell. Her mother had dreams.

Two

BOULTON OPENED THE DOOR.

“Jackie, this is Boulton,” I announced. “He’s going to search you. Where’s Claire?”

“Drawing room.” He stepped between Jackie and me, moving her against the wall of the foyer. His hands moved efficiently, expertly down her body.

“Hey, what the fuck’s going on here?” she demanded.

I closed the living-room doors behind me.

Claire was back in the Queen Anne, long legs extended, observing the tips of her black loafers.

“There’s a young woman who says that Cybella didn’t kill herself. Here’s the proof.” I held up the video.

Her gaze moved slowly from her shoes to the cassette. I could tell by her expression she found her own footwear more interesting.

“I’m walking back to the hotel,” I explained quickly, “and this girl appears out of nowhere and says, ‘Cybella didn’t kill herself.’ I think she’s just another crazy. I come up here and read about Cybella’s suicide.”

I gestured toward the door. “The girl’s in the foyer.”

“The only thing you were supposed to bring back with you were my gloves, Miss Hill.”

“All you have to do is listen.”

I opened the doors. Boulton, a firm grip on Jackie’s arm, guided her into the room.

“Do you always have your clients body-searched?” she demanded, trying to squirm out of his grasp.

Claire’s eyes riveted on me. “Client? Client!”

At least I had her full attention. “You spoke about Cybella so eloquently.” I picked my words carefully. “Remember how the room changed when Cybella walked in? I remember when I was eight years old and how I wanted to look like her. She affected us both. Isn’t that worth the time it takes to look at this tape?”

“No!” snapped Claire.

“Maybe just for once a beautiful woman didn’t die by her own hand.”

“Miss Hill, we have a plane to catch.”

“She didn’t kill herself,” Jackie said.

“Be quiet!” I barked.

“Don’t tell me to be quiet. Who the fuck do you people think you are, anyway?”

Boulton tightened his grip on her arm and Jackie sucked in her breath. Claire leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. When Claire closes her eyes, she’s either listening carefully to those around her or pretending they no longer exist. I didn’t have to guess which it was today.

“Show your video to the police,” I said to Jackie.

“The police? What world are you living in?”

“Come on.”

Boulton began to pull her back toward the foyer.

“No!” She dug in her heels and struggled in his grip. “If you jump down a stairwell, you don’t fall in a straight line. You bounce off the railings, the walls, until you finally hit the floor.”

Claire opened her eyes and held up her right hand. The chunk of lapis she called a ring shimmered darkly on her forefinger. Boulton released Jackie.

“You saw her being pushed over the railing?” Claire asked.

“I’m not saying I saw it happen.”

“What’s your name?” Claire asked.

“Jackie.”

“Jackie what?”

I held my breath.

“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Murphy.”

“Her mother had dreams,” I added quickly.

“A firm grasp on reality might have been more helpful.” Claire studied Jackie. “If you didn’t witness Cybella’s death, then how did you know she was dead?”

“I read about it in the paper.”

“And how did you know where to find me?”

“She read that in the paper too,” I said. Jackie took the clipping, out, waved it, then shoved it in her purse.

“What do you do, Miss Murphy?” she asked.

“I’m an actress. I perform at Peep Thrills. Private booth. Just me and the customer. White blondes are special.” She tilted her head back and fluffed her dried bleached hair with her fingers as if she were in a Clairol commercial gone terribly wrong.

“And I’m not being a racist,” she added. “Let’s face it, there’s no fuckin’ equality in sexual fantasies.” She looked evenly at Claire, giving her time to absorb this observation. Claire peered back at her: sage to sage.

“Just to look at me costs a token,” Jackie continued, her hands on hips, back slightly arched, breasts proud. “For another token the customer can talk to me on the telephone while I perform. Tell me what he wants me to do, what he wants me to be. Or what he’d like to do to me while I’m doing what it is he wants me to be. Like I said, I’m an actress.”

“How did you become acquainted with Cybella?” Claire asked.

“I met her last week. We had coffee. She wanted to know why her daughter did this video.”

“Her daughter?” Claire leaned back in her chair. “I will regret this. Play the tape, Miss Hill.”

Jackie sat on the sofa, Boulton standing behind her. I opened the armoire, put the tape in the VCR, then sat back down at my desk and hit the remote control. The television screen flickered gray and then went to color. I blinked. The camera was very close-in on something round and pinkish. Slowly, I realized the pinkish mound was flesh. Soft flesh. Female flesh. The camera jerked back, revealing Jackie’s breasts, barely covered by a red evening dress. Sitting next to her on a bed was a lovely brunette about Jackie’s age. She had a wide sculpted face with high cheekbones and coffee-brown, passionless eyes. She wore black stockings, garter belt, panties, and bra. Legs crossed, the two women looked into the camera as if they were waiting to be asked to dance.

“That’s me in the red!” Jackie pointed to her image. “I got to wear the dress. It was so pretty.”

Claire grumbled, “The young woman next to you is Cybella’s daughter, Sarah Grange?”

Jackie nodded, never taking her eyes off herself.

The camera shoved in on the two women. Acting her part with gusto, Jackie unfastened Sarah’s bra, slowly slipping it from her small, firm breasts. Sarah was passive, her expression inappropriately aloof for being in a porno film. A disdainful smile formed on her lips as she slowly turned and began to remove Jackie’s red dress.

Female flesh merged. Breasts on breasts. Tongues licked. Hands grabbed. Fingers stroked. Jackie groaned dramatically. The camera closed in on Sarah’s face as she moaned in forced ecstasy. I decided it was best for my new career not to look at Claire.

Jackie leaned forward on the sofa, watching herself with a narcissistic intensity. Boulton’s eyes met mine in a look of strangely ambivalent sexuality. You cannot view pornography without becoming a part of it, even if it repels you. Its power is to make you the voyeur, the needy person in the dark peeking through windows, through parted curtains, through the crack of a half-open door. In other words, it makes you feel like an assistant to a detective.

I turned back to the TV. The camera lurched in on wet nipples, blond hair, an elbow, black-stockinged legs, thighs, buttocks, Sarah’s wet lips. I could hear Claire muttering while Jackie and Sarah did everything to each other except discuss women’s liberation. Suddenly the tape flickered to gray. I hit the remote control.

Claire did a slow turn, glared at me, then turned back to Jackie. “My dear young woman, your video makes no connection between Sarah Grange and Cybella’s death.”

“Do you know who Sarah Grange is? She’s one of the top models in New York. She’s worth millions. You find out why she did this video and you’ll have your connection.”

Claire leaned back, tapping the toe of her shoe with her walking stick. Jackie fell silent. Mucus ran from her nose onto her upper lip.

“Give her some Kleenex, Miss Hill.”

I took a box from my desk and handed it to Jackie. She blew her nose.

“Allergies,” she said, turning demure.

“Do not insult my intelligence, young woman,” Claire said. “Who set up the video?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who told you to be in the video? Who held the camera? Who paid you? I assume you were paid?”

“The money was just there for me in the room.” She appeared confused by the barrage of questions.

“Not that I am a connoisseur, but this is obviously not a professional porno video. Who shot it?”

“I don’t know.” Her fingers nervously twisted the silk fringe of a pillow.

“Was it the person who struck you?”

The fingers moved quickly to her bruise. “He loves me.

“Of course.” Claire sighed. “Tell me about your meeting with Cybella.”

Jackie wiped her nose, then pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket and lit one, cupping her hand around the match as if she were still standing outside in the wind. Her eyes avoided Claire. “I never met Cybella. I just said that so you wouldn’t throw me out.”

“Why are you really here, Miss Murphy?”

“I think I’m being followed.”

“Who is following you?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”

“Maybe it’s a customer, Jackie,” I said.

“No. I think it’s because I did this video. And now Sarah Grange’s mother is dead. They say it’s suicide, but it really isn’t, see what I mean? I could be next.”

Claire stood. “Give her fifty dollars and her tape, Miss Hill. We leave for Los Angeles at the appointed time.”

I got the tape and handed it to Jackie.

“What’s the problem?” she demanded.

“Jackie,” I pointed out, “you have no proof that Cybella was murdered.”

“Well, I’m not the detective, am I? That’s her job.” She gestured toward Claire, who was making a quick exit from the room.

“I’m sorry, Jackie,” I said.

“I knew she wouldn’t believe me. Here.” She tossed the video onto the cushion of the Queen Anne. “Something to remember me by.”

We rode down in the elevator in silence. The doors slipped open and we stepped out into the lobby. I handed her the fifty dollars.

“This make you feel better?” she asked snidely.

“No.”

She took the money. “I’ve been in better hotels than this one.” Giving the opulent decor a disdainful glance, she strolled across the lobby. Cowboy boots scuffed at the marble floor. She paused in front of the revolving door and adjusted her red jacket, arched her back, and squared her hips. Her tough street sexuality back in place, she pushed the door around and disappeared.

Back in the suite, I tried not to think of her. Around eleven o’clock Boulton stacked the luggage in the foyer and went to the garage, which was a block away, to bring the Bentley around. I called for two bellboys. Restless, Claire stalked from room to room.

As I packed my portable computer, she prowled near the living-room window. A pigeon, tottering on the sill, eyeballed her like a drunken sailor. No matter how much money you have in this city, you can’t rise above the pigeons. She swung her walking stick at the window. The pigeon flew.

“Filthy little beasts.” She turned on me. “There was nothing I could do for that girl. And you, Miss Hill, must not go around picking prospective clients off the street. It’s unseemly.”

“I didn’t pick her. She picked you. And one of these days you’re going to break that window.”

“Nonsense. I know exactly where to strike so that the pigeon flees and the glass remains intact.”

The doorbell rang. Gerta let in two bellboys. They arranged the luggage on their carts. As we followed them out of the suite, I tried not to look at the cassette on the Queen Anne chair. Oh, hell, maybe Mr. Orita could figure it out.

Looking as if we were going on safari instead of back to L.A., we made it down to the lobby. Desanto waited by the elevators, bowing and scraping his way alongside Claire as our procession headed out to the street.

I instinctively looked for Jackie but she was gone. Boulton pulled up in the black Bentley and got out. Desanto was still oozing around Claire while the bellboys and Frank loaded the luggage into the car. Boulton’s voice cut sharply through Desanto’s slobbering words.

“Across the street, Miss Conrad.”

Jackie stood holding on to a wrought-iron railing. She stumbled off the curb, the red cowboy boots dragged and scuffed against the pavement. She walked through the traffic as if invulnerable. Her blond hair, like a frayed halo, blew in thin wisps around her head. Boulton moved toward her, but she staggered past him toward me, hands out in front of her like a toddler learning to walk. I took hold of her, guiding her to the sidewalk. Her mouth opened. A bright red bubble formed, slid down her chin, and popped. Another bubble took its place. She collapsed at my feet. A woman entering the hotel screamed. Desanto flapped around, commanding the bellboys. I kneeled, squeezing her hand. Again her mouth opened. I leaned close, but heard only the gasping fight against death. Claire knelt next to me. Jackie went limp. Her eyes, still mean with determination, stared into mine.

“I’ve called the police,” the doorman said.

“We’ve got to get her into the lobby,” I said.

“Don’t you dare!” Desanto cried.

“Stab wounds in her abdomen,” Claire noted.

“No, no, I won’t have this,” Desanto wailed.

“We can’t leave her on the street,” I said.

“Two, to be exact,” Claire observed. “One appears shallow. The other deep.”

Gerta offered her traveling blanket. “Here, keep her warm.”

“It’s too late for that, Gerta,” Claire said, feeling for a pulse.

The bellboys returned, carrying two large Chinese screens, which they hurriedly placed around us.

Boulton peered behind the screens. “I found her purse across the street. You had better take a look at it.” He beckoned Claire.

She followed him. I stayed, holding Jackie’s hand. I could hear the howl of sirens like trapped animals. Claire reappeared and kneeled next to me.

“The newspaper clipping of us leaving the hotel. Where was it?”

“In her purse.”

“And the money?”

“Same.”

“Both are gone.”

“Let go of her, Maggie.” Boulton’s voice.

I looked at my hand. Her blood was as sticky as cotton candy on my fingers.

Let it go, Maggie. Let it go.

Slowly I released her hand. It lay on my palm. Her chewed fingernails were painted a rosy pink. I looked up at the screen. Chinese ladies, delicately carved of rosewood, peeked discreetly down at Jackie from behind their mother-of-pearl fans.

“Have the luggage returned to our rooms, Boulton. We’re extending our stay,” Claire announced.

Three

IT WAS A PERFECT martini.

The police were gone and I sat at the small bar just off the hotel’s lounge. All tweed and leather, the room was very subtle, very masculine. It was like being surrounded by a country gentleman’s embrace.

I took another sip, trying to get my emotions under control. An hour earlier I had told the police that I didn’t know Jackie, that we’d been leaving for the airport when she staggered toward us and died. The police had found some blood in the basement stairwell of the apartment house across the street. The building was empty, waiting to be renovated. There were no witnesses. There was no wallet or any kind of identification in her purse. There was no money and no newspaper clipping of Claire Conrad. The police assumed Jackie had died in a mugging, a dope deal, or a trick gone wrong. Take your pick. She had a lot of options. They took our names and addresses as a matter of course, put her in a body bag, and carted her off. Desanto had the screens removed and the sidewalk washed down.

Now it was twelve-thirty and I held a chilled crystal cocktail glass. I looked at the bill. My martini cost eight dollars and ninety-five cents. It was perfect. Everything was perfect in this hotel. Everything was perfect if you had the money. Everything was perfect if you weren’t a dead young woman named Jackie.

I turned on the bar stool and looked at two fashionably dressed men, drinking expensive water, sitting at a table overlooking Park Avenue. Gold watches shimmered on their broad wrists. Jackie’s mother had dreams. The two men looked at each other, very satisfied, as if they’d just made a great business deal or just had great sex. Whatever it was, it was perfect, and it made me angry. Why did I always go for the anger instead of the sadness?

Across Park were two churches with a brownstone nestled between them. The Presbyterian church spiraled its steeples with Puritanical restraint toward the Manhattan sky and God. The Church of Christ, Scientist, round like a giant belly, appeared too fat and too weighted to Park Avenue to even bother to reach toward the heavens. Maybe if I believed, I’d be able to feel sadness instead of anger. I carry my grandmother’s rosary in my purse, but that’s only because she gave it to me, because she believes, and because I love her. My mother believes with a vengeance. She uses holy water like some women use Chanel No. 5. Still, that brownstone squeezed between the two churches did look protected. I hoped a young woman lived there, a woman who had dreams.

“Miss Hill!” Desanto’s voice made me jump. He hurried toward me, rubbing his hands together like Lady Macbeth.

“This is unacceptable,” he said in a high-pitched tone.

“I agree. No martini should cost eight dollars and ninety-five cents.”

“I don’t mean the martini. I talked to the floor maid. She said Miss Conrad is back in her rooms.”

“That’s right, we’re extending our stay.”

“You can’t do that. You know I promised the suite to Mr. Orita.”

“Give him another one.”

“He wants the Conrad Suite. He loves to sit in the Queen Anne chair.”

“Sorry.”

“How long are you staying?”

“As long as it takes.”

I raised my glass to him and finished off my drink. He jerked his head back and his chin did its disappearing act. His lips twitched with anger.

“If you weren’t with Claire Conrad, I’d order you out of this hotel right now,” he said, trying to keep his voice down.

“If I weren’t with Claire Conrad, I wouldn’t be in this hotel right now,” I retorted.

He took a deep breath. “Try to understand. I’ve got Mr. Orita.” His breath came out in one long desperate sigh. “What’s one more dead whore to Claire Conrad?” he blurted.

The two men at the table turned from their water and peered at Desanto.

“I’ll tell you, Desanto, what one more dead whore is. She’s one more dead woman.” I didn’t bother to keep my voice down. My anger was in full bloom. Now the two men stared at me, their satisfied faces pinched with annoyance. I was feeling better.

Desanto’s eyes narrowed till he looked like one of the rosewood Chinese ladies peeking over her fan. He tucked in his chin and marched out of the room. The two men paid and left. I stared at the churches and the brownstone. There was a plaque on the big fat church. In the two weeks I’d been here I’d never bothered reading it. I slid off the stool and peered out the window. I could just make out the word lepers, the word dead, and another word: rinse. Rinse? Rinse the lepers. Rinse the dead? Couldn’t be. But then I didn’t know much about the Christ Scientist Church. Maybe they believed in a good rinsing. I was sitting back at the bar when Boulton came in.

“Are you all right, Maggie?” he asked, taking the stool next to me.

“Yes.”

He called the bartender over and ordered a brandy.

“Miss Conrad’s been looking at the video. She wants you to buy some of those fashion magazines such as Vogue and Bonton.”

“We should’ve helped Jackie.”

The bartender served Boulton his drink. He waited for the barman to leave before he spoke.

“Even if Miss Conrad had taken the case, Jackie still would’ve walked out of the hotel and been murdered. Nothing could have prevented that, Maggie.” He took a long swallow of brandy.

“I know. But at least she would’ve known that for once somebody had taken her seriously.” I studied the sharp line of his aquiline nose. He studied my lips. “How do you adjust to it?”

“To what?”

“Murder. Death.”

“You learn to separate yourself from it. You become an observer.”

“A spectator?”

“In a way.”

“Like wearing a pair of black-and-white shoes.”

“How many martinis have you had?”

“Only one.”

He smiled. It was a lovely warm smile. I liked him sitting next to me. I had to restrain myself from resting my head on his big broad shoulder.

“Have you ever been in love with a woman, Boulton?”

The smile disappeared. He stared at me for a moment as if he were debating something within himself, then sighed as if he had lost the debate.

“I have had great passion for women. I have had great respect for women. I have even felt passion and respect for the same woman. But I have never been in love.”

“I knew that.”

“You have probably been in love many times.” The watchful brown eyes took me in. “We’re perfect for one another.”

We smiled, knowing we were deeply attracted and that we weren’t perfect for one another. Distance, Maggie. I turned and looked out the window. “Can you read that plaque on the church?”

He walked over to the window. “Something about to raise the lepers, to raise the dead.” He took his place next to me.

“Of course. Raise the dead.”

“That’s the one thing even Miss Conrad will agree she can’t manage,” he said with a slight grin. “But she can find Jackie’s killer.” He tossed off the rest of his brandy. “She’s waiting for those magazines.” The English butler was back. Our intimate moment was over.

I made it down to a little shop off Park that sold magazines and newspapers from as far away as Croatia. I could never find an L.A. Times in the place. I guess that was too far away for New Yorkers. I bought the April editions of Vogue and Bonton and asked the woman behind the counter if she had any left over from a couple of months ago. She went in the back and came out with the February and March issues of Bonton.

I made two other stops. One was to a nearby Catholic church. The great thing about this city is that there is a church of your choice on practically every corner. It’s kind of like gas stations in Los Angeles. I lit a candle for Jackie.