Murder is a Girl's Best Friend (30 page)

“Well, it’s good I woke you up then,” she said with a sniff. “The later we get there, the less chance we have of finding the Ham at home.”

“Ham? What ham?”

“
Birming
ham, you nitwit. As in Jimmy. As in the poet with the dog. As in Judy’s fickle ex-boyfriend. As in the possible murderer who’s been stalking you.”

“Oh, yeah,” I mumbled. The crime-busting plans we had made for the day came crawling back into my consciousness. “What time is it?”

“Almost eleven.”

“Jeez! It really
is
late. Where’s Terry?”

“He left already. Went to see Judy’s old roommates. Up on 19th Street. Do you remember
that
part of the plan at least?”

“Yes, of course I do,” I said, ignoring her raised eyebrow and sarcastic tone. “So, uh . . . well . . . I guess I’d better get a move on. Take a shower and get dressed.”

“Slick scheme, Sherlock,” she said, smiling, backing out of my apartment and turning into her own. “Come over as soon as you’re finished. There’s still some coffee in the pot.”

I went back upstairs and took off all my clothes—except for the stockings, which were stuck to my knees and shins as if glued with epoxy. I had to take a shower with my nylons
on
before I could (carefully!) peel them
off
. Then I slathered my wounds with various tinctures and ointments and bandaged them with gauze. Hiding the bandages under a pair of navy blue wool slacks, I put on a baby blue sweater and a white dickey, and zipped on my snowboots. A bit of lipstick, mascara, and rouge, followed by a fierce hair brushing, and I was ready—actually raring—to go.

Hurrying down the stairs, however, I caught sight of my flimsily patched, taped-up back door and almost lost my nerve. What the hell did I think I was doing? Who the hell did I think I was? Joe Friday? Mike Hammer? Sky King? Ozzie Nelson was more like it! I was begging for trouble, and I knew I was going to get even more of it. The killer had broken into my apartment once and now there was nothing but a Duz detergent box to stop him from doing it again.

He could have let himself in last night while I was sleeping,
I screamed to myself,
and smothered me with a pillow! Or strangled me with my own neckerchief! He could come back today while I’m out and destroy everything that I own! He could set fire to my books! He could smash up my typewriter! He could . . . he could . . . he could . . .
the possibilities were endless.

But my capacity for self-torture wasn’t. I finally gave myself a mental slap in the face, hoisted myself up by the bootstraps (okay,
snow
bootstraps), and swaggered down the rest of the steps to the kitchen. I scrunched up the Tiffany bag with Dan’s present in it and stuck it down between the cleaning products in the cabinet under the sink, setting the bottle of bleach in front, within easy reach. Then I grabbed my purse and gloves and coat off the kitchen chair and skedaddled over to Abby’s .

THE SUN WAS STRONG, BUT THE COLD WAS much stronger. None of the snow was melting. The sidewalks were dry in places, icy in others, and the air was as clear and sharp and brittle as glass. Making our way toward Jimmy Birmingham’s address on East 8th Street, Abby and I kept our noses buried in our mufflers, walked as fast as we could, and did very little talking for fear our teeth would freeze. Entering Washington Square Park from the south, we cut through the very center of the paved arena, heading straight for the triumphal Washington Arch—the gateway to lower Fifth Avenue.

If it had been summertime, the huge fountain in the middle of the park would have been flowing, and the raised circumference of the fountain basin would have been lined with poets and singers and musicians giving free performances for anybody who would stop and listen. The cement tables on the outskirts of the fountain area would’ve been crowded with old Italian men playing chess, and the double-barred iron railing near the trees—the stretch of fence everybody referred to as the “meat rack”—would’ve been strung with promiscuous young men looking for partners with whom to play other, more physical, kinds of games.

But it was the middle of winter, and—except for a handful of pedestrians and a few hardy souls sitting bundled up on benches, holding their pale faces up to the sun—the park was empty. Abby and I hurried along the shoveled path, past the round, snow-filled sink of the fountain, and onward through the arch, exiting the park and heading due north toward 8th Street. To our right stood No. 1 Fifth Av - enue, the high-rise apartment building where the poet Sara Teasdale committed suicide in 1933, and about a mile and a half ahead, at 34th Street, rose the Empire State Building, its lofty spire piercing the clear blue sky like a humongous hypodermic needle.

Hanging a right on 8th and walking two blocks east, we finally reached the Birmingham residence, a four-story, tan brick structure housing a street-level chop suey restaurant.

(If I smelled like fish, Jimmy probably smelled like fried rice.) There were no buzzers near the building’s entrance, and no lock on the door either, so Abby and I simply went inside and trudged, in single file, up the dark, narrow staircase to the second floor.

There was just one apartment on that floor, and the name on the door said Potter, so we continued our climb to the next level and the next apartment. And there it was—written in letters so tiny they
almost
all fit in the window of the small brass nameplate—BIRMINGHA.

“Should we ring or knock?” I whispered to Abby, glad not to have to make such a momentous decision on my own.

“Ring,” she said, pressing the bell. She took off her hat, pulled her long braid over one shoulder, and started warming up her lash-batting muscles.

Nobody came to the door.

“And then ring again,” she added, jabbing the bell about three more times.

Still nobody.

“Then knock,” she said, rapping her knuckles hard against the wood.

Nothing happened.

“And if that doesn’t work, knock harder,” she said, pounding the side of her fist like a sledgehammer on the door. “Hey, Birmingham!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Get your lazy ass over here and open the door!”

Mission accomplished. There were some plodding and groaning noises on the other side of the portal, then a couple of clicks and scrapes, then a wide opening appeared between the door and the doorjamb. And standing smack in the middle of that opening was Jimmy Birmingham, yawning loudly and wearing nothing but a high school ring, a silver ID bracelet, and a dirty brown blanket wrapped around his narrow hips. Otto was standing at Jimmy’s feet, whimpering and whirling his skinny little tail in circles.

“Hi, Jimmy,” Abby said, pushing the door even wider and stepping inside. “Did we wake you up?” Her bright red lips were smiling and her thick black lashes were flapping like the wings of a raven on takeoff. It was quite a show.

“Yeah,” he said, holding the blanket up around his waist with one hand and scratching his beard with the other. “Didn’t get to bed till a couple’a hours ago.” He cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes, and took another—closer—look at Abby. “Hey, gorgeous, do I know you?” he asked, raising his heavy lids and cocking his lips in a sleepy smirk.

“You do now,” she said, brushing past him and moving deeper into the apartment.

“Allow me to introduce you,” I said, stepping into the doorway and standing in front of Jimmy. “This is Judy Catcher’s cousin, Muffy Gurch.” (If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never know where
that
name came from!) “She just came into town from Pittsburgh. Muffy’s still really broken up about Judy’s murder, and she thought she might find some comfort in the company of her cousin’s closest friends.”

Looking at me for the first time, Jimmy took a step backward and winced. “Yeah, okay, fine—but what the hell’re
you
doing here?” He touched his fingers to the scabbed-over lesion on his lip. “You wanna sink your teeth in me again?”

“Oh, no!” I cried, telling the absolute truth (for a brief second, anyway). “I thought I could use some comfort, too. And I wanted to apologize for what happened the other night—and for the nasty things I said.”

“Yeah, well . . .” He looked skeptical, to say the least.

“I’m really sorry, Jimmy,” I pleaded. “I’m so sick about what happened to Judy, I don’t know what I’m doing or saying anymore.”

“Are you serious?” he asked, scratching his beard again.

“Dead serious.”

“No more biting or crazy accusations?”

“Not even a nibble.”

“Well then,” he said, moving aside and pulling the door all the way open, “I guess you can come in, too.”

Jimmy seemed to have forgiven me, but Otto definitely hadn’t. As I walked into the apartment, the teeny-weeny dog let out a great big weenie growl. And then—nails clicking madly against the bare wood floor—he started jumping all over the place and yapping his pointy-nosed little head off. I was the only one in danger of being bitten now.

“Cool it, Otto!” Jimmy commanded, and the little dog immediately quieted down. Jimmy picked him up in his free hand (the other one was still holding the blanket around his waist) and cradled him in the crook of his arm. “That’s a good boy,” Jimmy gurgled, lowering his cheek for Otto to lick. (Was that the same sound I’d heard on the phone with the anonymous caller last night?)

“My cousin used to write me letters about you, Jimmy,” Abby said, taking off her coat, inflating her ample chest, giving him an eyeful of her fuzzy, well filled-out red sweater. She threw her coat on the foot of his rumpled bed (it was a studio apartment—no bedroom) and draped her thick braid over the opposite shoulder, allowing it to slither, like a python, over one breast. “Judy told me how handsome you were, and that you were a brilliant poet. I can see for myself that the first part was true,” she said, twirling the end of her braid around her index finger and giving him a slow, slinky smile, “but how can I be sure about the second part?”

Jimmy was a goner. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Abby had him by the short hairs (and I’m not talking about his beard). “I can read you some of my poems,” he said, writhing, strutting, blushing, inflating his own (bare) chest to the bursting point. “Or you could come to the Vanguard tonight and watch me perform. It’ll be real gone, babe. Far out. I’ll be reciting my new Christmas opus.”

Opus?!
I hooted to myself. I had to fight to keep from laughing out loud.
A real gone, far out Christmas opus?!
Now,
that
I had to hear.

“I have an idea,” I broke in, stepping up close to Jimmy, trying to get his full attention (no easy feat with Abby in the same room). “Why don’t you go take a quick shower to wake yourself up, and then get dressed, and then come out and read us your new poem. We’d both really like to hear it, wouldn’t we, Muffy?”

“Boom chicky boom!” she said. “That would be sooooo groovy. ”

Jimmy grinned at Abby and nodded. “Okay!” he said, getting even more excited. He put Otto back down on the floor and charged around the room—from the closet to the dresser and back to the closet again—gathering up various items of clothing and putting them in a pile, doing his best not to step on his trailing blanket. Then, scooping the pile of clothes up under his free arm, he scrambled toward the bathroom at the far end of the studio.

“I’ll be right back!” he croaked, stepping up to the closed bathroom door and trying to open it with the same hand that was clutching the blanket—an impossible maneuver which left him flushed and frustrated. Finally, he dropped the blanket to the floor, opened the door, and ducked into the bathroom—giving us a real gone, far out glimpse of his pink, poetic backside.

Chapter 24

THE VERY SECOND JIMMY CLOSED HIMSELF up in the bathroom, Abby and I got to work. She started going through the drawers of his dresser, while I tackled the closet. Otto kept dashing back and forth between us, whimpering at Abby and growling at me.

Glad that Jimmy had a miniature dachshund and not a Great Dane, I rifled through the boxes on the upper shelf of the closet, finding nothing but a flattened football, a stack of pinup magazines, a 1949 bowling trophy, and a Dodgers baseball cap. I searched the pockets of Jimmy’s coat, pants, and jackets and came up empty—except for a snotty handkerchief and a slew of movie ticket stubs from the Waverly Theater. There were a couple of shoeboxes on the floor of the closet which held nothing but shoes. Neither box was from Thom McAn.