Death Was the Other Woman (8 page)

BY THE TIME
we went down for dinner, Brucie's spirits had been miraculously restored, at least on the outside. She seemed to have that sort of personality. Resilient, I would have said on first meeting. Though there was something of the caged bird about her. Her wings might be clipped, and sometimes she might wish she were soaring, but you couldn't suppress her gaiety for long. As a result, our meal was a jovial affair. You got the feeling that Brucie was one of those girls that people say light up a room. By the end of the meal, Marjorie was clucking over Brucie maternally, Marcus seemed delighted just to be in her company, and the various elegant old codgers that currently shared our roof all looked ready to rush out and lay capes over puddles for her. Brucie had that effect on people, and most charmingly, she didn't even seem aware of it.

As I had predicted, just as we'd finished clearing the dishes from our evening meal, we heard the front door knocker.

“That'll be Mustard with your stuff,” I said to Brucie, but she was already leaving the room.

“Is it all right if I answer the door?” she called back over her shoulder.

Marjorie and I nodded almost simultaneously. “Of course,” I said.

I started to help with the washing-up, and after a while Brucie popped into the kitchen, Mustard in tow.

“Hey, kiddo,” he greeted me. “Hello, Mrs. Oleg.”

“Mustard has the most wonderful surprise,” Brucie enthused. “You'll never guess.”

“Ummm . . . probably not.” The world was too vast. There were too many possible guesses. “Why don't you tell me?”

“We're going to the Zebra Room!”

“We are?” I said. I knew I'd be going. I didn't know yet how I felt about a whole group.

Marjorie looked only slightly disapproving. I realized it was because she probably had no idea what a Zebra Room might be.

“Dex came by to get a car,” Mustard explained. “I told him I was coming up here to see Brucie, and he sez, why don't I just bring you two lovely ladies and we'll meet him there?”

I could feel the tiniest bit of glowering beginning from Marjorie, so I explained to her, “It's not a date. It's business. Dex is on a case, and he asked if I'd come along, kind of to help.”

If Marjorie was mollified, she didn't show it. “It's not seemly, Miss Katherine.”

I smiled at her reassuringly. “It's a different age, Marjorie. It'll be all right. I'm a big girl.”

“Not that big,” Mustard offered up gallantly. “But I'll be there to be sure she's all right.”

“I'm not sure that makes me feel any better,” Marjorie sniffed, as she left the room. But despite her words she did seem slightly reassured.

“I told Dex this afternoon that I really haven't anything to wear.”

“Ha!” Brucie said unexpectedly. “Then you're lucky I'm here, because I have
lots.”

Mustard had not only brought a large trunk, but several boxes as well.

“Hats,” Brucie said, explaining the boxes. “Well, some hats, some shoes.”

We showed Mustard where to haul Brucie's stuff, then installed him in the drawing room with a glass of Marjorie's medicinal Irish whiskey before tripping back upstairs.

In her room, I discovered that Brucie hadn't been exaggerating. It seemed to me there was little in that trunk beyond what was appropriate to be worn to places like the Zebra Room.

We were not the same size. I was taller and more angular. Brucie was small, delicately made, and full-bodied. The basic differences in our shapes narrowed the possible clothing selection somewhat, but her wardrobe was so ample that several choices remained.

At her insistence, we settled on something I would normally never have worn, never mind had access to. It's not that it was particularly revealing; it wasn't. But the ivory fabric draped me so closely, I felt unusually exposed. The dress fell to a point just between knee and calf that Brucie pronounced acceptable though not perfect.

“Last year when I had the dress made,” Brucie explained, “the hemline was the perfect length. But this year, hemlines are a few inches lower, so this would be too long for me. You're taller though, so it all sorta works out.”

When I tried on the dress, she stood back and surveyed me critically. “You know, it's funny. It looks so different on you than it did on me. It looks like a different dress altogether. But it looks good. Oh, wait though; there's a hat.”

Which set her back in motion, pulling open boxes within boxes, until she came across what she was looking for. It seemed so tiny to me, it could barely be called a hat; a wedge of shiny ivory fabric that she fixed on my head with a series of pins.

Once she was finished, she stood back and surveyed me again. Finally she nodded approvingly. “You still need a little lip rouge and maybe something for your cheeks, but other than that you'll do nicely.”

She turned me so I faced the mirror on the back of the door. I gasped when I got a load of myself; the transformation was startling.

“I look ... I look grown up,” I said quietly.

Brucie laughed at my comment, though not unkindly. “But not
too
grown up. No one wants to look like that.”

It was a silly thought—that grown-up thing—but not one without reason. I'd been a schoolgirl, and then overnight, it seemed, I was a grown woman with responsibilities. There'd been little time for transitions involving coming-outs and balls. And now . . . well, now I was going to the Zebra Room with my boss and his friend. Hardly a coming-out. Still it was an exciting night for me. I felt I was on the threshold of something.

“And this is what
I
need for the Zebra Room,” Brucie said, bringing out a gown that had been wrapped in tissue and stored carefully in the trunk. “You'll see. The two of us will look like we were born for that place.”

When she shook out the garment, I gasped. And I could understand her special care. The dress was gold lame—not a fabric I'd seen before—and the bodice was affixed with beads so tiny, all you saw was the shine.

“It's Mainbocher.” She breathed the name of a designer I'd never heard of before as though he were a religious icon. And then as though admitting something, she said, “OK, well it's
not
Mainbocher. But it's from a Mainbocher design. And I don't think anyone could tell that it wasn't, do you?”

I shook my head.

“Well, princess,” she said, when she was dressed and had fussed appropriately over our hair and makeup, “we're set then. Let's have Mustard get our chariot ready.”

And the funny thing was, in that moment I
did
feel like a princess. I felt like anything was possible. And I won't forget the night. Not ever. Though it ended so badly, in its infancy it was an evening that seemed made for magic.

THE ZEBRA ROOM
astonished me. It was like nothing I could ever have imagined.

The Town House Hotel had opened just a year before. Bad timing, really. It had been designed and launched with a different era in mind. One of opulence and excess. One where affluence was inevitable and assured.

In the twenties the stock market had been unstoppable. People were even borrowing money in order to invest in the market. Everyone knew it would just keep going on like that— up, up, and ever up. I was very young, but you couldn't miss the optimism, even the arrogance. This is the way things would always be, the future an unbroken ribbon of glistening promise.

The only thing necessary in such a market had been venues of excess where people could go to unload some of their easily gained cash. With all of that in mind, the Town House Hotel on Wilshire had opened its doors. It boasted fourteen floors of elegant opulence and the first—the only—indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool anywhere in the Southland. It had restaurants and shops and services galore. And it had the Zebra Room, a club where Zelda and F. Scott would have felt right at home.

Based on the name alone, I'd expected a black-and-white decor. I was wrong but not disappointed. The club was done in browns and creams and whites with only accents of black. It managed to pull off elegance and whimsy all in one bite, and against this color scheme I could see why Brucie had thought we were perfectly dressed for the club. With me in ivory and Brucie in her gold lame, we might have been created by the Zebra Room's interior designers as a foil for the decor of the glamorous room.

Truly, though, I wasn't certain anyone would notice us. When we got there at ten o'clock, the club was filled to the rafters with people and noise and music and an air of such extreme frivolity, it seemed to me almost like a dream of what such a place would be. It was everything I'd imagined. More. The club seemed full of men in smart suits and beautiful women in dresses of every conceivable hue. The place looked full and rich and right. It made you think that maybe the
Times
was right; maybe there really was no Depression going on, not here. How could there be? Not in L.A.

When we entered the club, Mustard insisted Brucie and I each take an arm, though if this was for his sake or ours, I wasn't quite sure. He escorted us right into the center of the partying throng, where Brucie and I fell in behind him like small ships in the wake of a larger one. From there Mustard led us through the crowded room, ever more deeply into the club. I could tell he had a destination in mind.

I noticed that sometimes he gently elbowed members of the crowd aside. More often, people would notice him first and get out of his way as though he were Moses and they were the Red Sea. I wondered if it had to do with his reputation or the expression on his face. After a bit more observation I decided it was probably some of both.

“Is this a special night?” I said, moving close to Brucie's ear so she could hear me over the din.

“Whadja mean?” she asked.

“All these people. It looks like New Year's Eve or something.”

“Or something,” Brucie laughed. “At the Zebra Room, it's New Year's Eve every night.”

I took this in but didn't say anything, intent on keeping Mustard's back in sight. He didn't slow his pace until he found what he'd been looking for: Dex had commandeered a banquette near the back of the room and was waiting for us.

“Get a load of you,” he said, when he saw me. He had some dark cocktail on the table in front of him, though I wasn't surprised he'd gotten a head start.

“Yeah, our girl cleans up pretty good, don't she?” Mustard said, nodding approvingly.

He introduced Brucie, and I thought maybe Dex looked at her appraisingly when he heard her name, his eyes widening slightly, but I might have been imagining things.

The three of them chatted a bit over the din. We were close to the piano player, who was tinkling away madly while a canary in a bright pink evening gown belted out “Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love” and other things by Cole Porter and the Gershwins. I tried to focus a bit on the conversation, but was overwhelmed by my surroundings. The sights, the sounds, the colors, the scores of people all bent on hilarity. All of it outside my experience and deeply interesting.

After a while, a waitress appeared at our table to take our order. Mustard asked for a manhattan, and though he already had a drink in front of him, Dex ordered one as well. Brucie asked for a silver fizz. When it came to be my turn, I had no idea what to ask for. Brucie saw this and came to my rescue.

“You don't drink much, do you, doll?” she said.

I shook my head. Really, I didn't drink at all.

“She'll have a Kir Royale,” she told the waitress.

I looked a question at Brucie, and she said, “We'll start you with something light. It's almost like soda pop—just champagne mixed with creme de cassis.” I kept looking at her. “Black-currant liqueur,” she explained, smiling. “It would take a
lot
of those to get you looped.”

“Is this a speakeasy?” I asked, when the waitress had moved away. I said it as quietly as I could while still being heard by my companions. I was unprepared for their laughter.

“No,” Dex said. “It's just a nightclub.”

“But what about Prohibition?” Every table in the place seemed to be covered with various drinks, many of them exotic-looking cocktails in interesting-looking glasses. And nobody seemed to be the least bit concerned about it.

“Well, it's a thing,” Mustard said. “But no one in Los Angeles is paying much attention anymore.”

“Really?”

“It's complicated,” Dex said. “But the right people pay off the right people, and this”—he indicated the booze-laden tables—“this is what you get.”

After a while of watching and listening, what had appeared at first to be an unrestrained horde of people began in my mind to sort themselves into little groups. The tables—perhaps sixty of them counting the banquettes that followed both walls—were mostly taken by parties like ours, small groups made up of good-looking couples intent on having a good time. There was another group near the piano player and the singer, enjoying the show the duo provided. Still another group lounged around the long polished wood bar near the entrance. This group was mostly masculine and purposeful-looking. They looked as though they weren't just there for fun and frivolity, but like they had business to conduct. Or like they never stopped conducting it.

I noticed Dex's attention settle on the men at the bar, and after a while he got up and sauntered over there, greeting a well fed-looking man in a bespoke suit like an old friend.

“That's Lucid Wilson,” Mustard said, noticing my interest. I shrugged. The name meant nothing to me. It registered with Brucie though. She seemed to shrink into herself slightly. I looked at her curiously, but she didn't meet my eye.

After a while Lucid led Dex through a door at the side of the club that I hadn't noticed before. A few minutes later a tall girl with wavy black hair under a narrow black hat came out and headed toward the ladies' room.

“Dance with me, Mustard,” Brucie said brightly, making me think I'd been mistaken about the air of quiet she'd owned a few minutes before.

“No one's dancing,” Mustard pointed out.

“Aw, c'mon.” She stood, grabbed his hand, and played at pulling him up. “Be a sport. They'll dance if we dance.”

Mustard laughed and relented. “You're a pretty pushy broad,” he said through a smile.

“How the hell do you think a girl gets what she wants?” Brucie said gaily, winking at me over Mustard's shoulder as she led him away.

Watching Mustard and Brucie dance, the caged bird analogy I'd thought of at the house came back to mind. Only now she'd been released from that cage and was determined to fly. She looked set to have some fun. For his part, when Mustard looked at Brucie, the lines that normally creased his face seemed to fall away. Was he sweet on Brucie? I wondered. Had he always been, or was I watching the birth of something new?

While I sat alone at the table and watched the dancers, the waitress came back with a huge raft of drinks on a tray. I wondered that she could carry that many, let alone sort out whose drinks were whose.

She placed the Kir Royale in front of me—a dark purple drink in a champagne glass. I sipped at it tentatively. Brucie had been right; it tasted good. Like some fizzy, vaguely naughty juice.

A couple of times, I looked over at the door Dex had disappeared through, but there was no sign of him. I quelled the fingers of worry I started to feel. He was a big boy, used to such things. He knew how to take care of himself.

I went to the powder room as much to waste time until everyone came back as to do any serious business. Plus I was tired of sitting there all alone feeling as conspicuous as a bump on a log.

Like the rest of the club, the powder room was unlike anything I'd ever seen. A long row of stalls mirrored by a long row of elegant sinks. A smiling attendant kept her position somewhere near the middle, an array of perfumes, sewing materials, and other niceties ready should I need to fix my dress, my hair, or anything else.

At the far end of this gallery was a small but well-appointed lounge area. The walls were painted dark chocolate, setting off the two zebra-striped sofas and a chair. The dark-haired girl I'd seen enter a while ago sat in the armchair, her shoes pushed off and her legs over one of the arms of the chair in a most unladylike fashion.

A girl with dyed yellow hair and a bright green dress sat on one sofa. Her shoes were off as well, but she had her legs curled under her. The two were chatting earnestly. When I came in, both raised their heads and looked at me, as though checking to see if I was anyone they knew. When they didn't recognize me, they went back to their conversation. I dropped myself onto the other sofa, pushed off my shoes, and tried to look bored and tired. The tired part wasn't hard.

They chatted about inconsequential things. At least they seemed inconsequential to me, being filled with names and places that held no meaning.

“Do we know you?” It took a moment to realize that the black-haired girl was addressing me.

I shook my head and tried to smile. “No.” I indicated my bare feet. “I just need a moment of quiet.”

“Still,” the girl demanded, “you look familiar. Have I seen you in here before?”

I started to reply in the negative, then had a thought. “Maybe a few times. A while ago. With Harrison Dempsey.” I watched their faces as I said his name. The blonde's lit with a sort of dull recognition, while the black-haired girl laughed outright.

“Ha!” she said. “There's someone I
know
isn't here tonight.”

“How do you figure?” I asked.

“Are you saying he's here?” The girl looked incredulous.

“No, no. I'm here with some other friends. And . . . and I haven't seen him for a while, but I don't figure there's any reason he wouldn't be here.”

“Are you kidding?” the girl said scornfully. “There's about thirty thousand reasons for him
not
to be here.”

I must have done a good job looking confused—it was easy, I
was
confused—because she went on. “He's into a couple of people here for a
lot
of spondulix.”

I looked at the girl uncomprehendingly.

“Spondulix?”

“You know. Cabbage, spinach, dough.”

“Money?” I tried.

“Right.” The girl nodded, as though she were thinking I might be not much brighter than a pile of spondulix myself.

“What's a lot?” I asked.

“I'm not sure,” the girl admitted. “But I get the feeling it's the kind of dough that floats businesses and big houses, you know? Not the kind you need to play the ponies.”

“So thousands?”

“More like thousands and thousands. He had a
very
bad run at the tables. An' last week? Him and Lucid got into a big scene right here at the club. Did you hear about it?” I shook my head, and she went on, as though relishing having someone to unload this bit of gossip onto. “Lucid told Harry that he'd run out of good time—that's what he said—and that he'd better come across with the spondulix or there'd be hell to pay.”

“So . . . gambling?” I said.

The girl nodded. Then she shrugged, as though she considered it lightly. As though she really didn't care. “Sure, gambling.
Everyone's
into Lucid for gambling.”

“Not me,” the blonde piped up.

The dark-haired girl ignored her. “So yeah, gambling, sure. But I think it's more than that. Don't ask what though, ‘cause I don't know. It's not like
he
ever tells me anything.” She said the last reproachfully, and I was tempted to ask who the he in question might be. The only thing that stopped me was the fear that she'd clam up. And there were still things I wanted to know.

“No kiddin'?” I said instead. “What about Rita?”

I couldn't be sure, but I thought I saw a look of loathing flit over the dark-haired girl's face. “What
about
Rita?”

“Was she here with him?”

“Sure,” the girl said, looking at me speculatively. “She always was. Say, how do you figure in?”

I aimed for a look that said embarrassed, or maybe humiliated. “I don't like to say,” I said, hoping they'd fill in something unimaginably lurid and not ask me about it.

They did. The blonde girl colored slightly and hid her mouth with her hand. “Oh,” she said, with a concerned sound. I realized I'd built a picture so bad, it wasn't even one I had the tools to look at myself.

“You friends with Rita?” I asked. The blonde girl shook her head vehemently, but the dark-haired girl just laughed.