Nightmare in Pink (6 page)

"How ugly! How terrible!"

"But that's only a guess. I'm just saying that it's possible. With an unlimited supply they could keep him in good physical shape for a long long time. Long enough to shake a lot of leaves off the money tree, Terry."

"You've scared the hell out of me, Trav."

"I meant to. I don't want you getting reckless. I want them nice and confident."

"When did you decide this was going on?"

"As you were telling me all about Char lie."

"That was the last piece to the puzzle?"

"No. There's a few to go."

"What are you going to do? I want to help."

"I look for the weak link, Terry. Somebody who knows about it, and can be made to talk about it. I don't know how you can help. The best thing you can do is keep absolutely quiet."

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Yes. Yes, of course. But did you just sort of… stumble onto this, Trav?"

"My best friend's sister was engaged to the boy who was killed."

"Oh."

"I'm not used to the big rich. You can be my guide."

I saw the monkey-grin again. "We're just like anybody else. Isn't that what Hemingway told Fitzgerald? We're just like anyone else, except we have more money. And I think you know how to handle us very nicely. Well, directly, if not nicely." She held her glass out to me. "More of the same please."

I fixed it and as I gave it to her, I looked carefully to see if there was any effect from the others. The green eyes were clear and alert. The mouth had not loosened.

This was an international witch. A special segment of show business. A millioned girl had briefed me once upon a time. It is the iceberg analogy. The real-and-true school just under the surface, invisible. Perhaps like Charlie and Joanna Armister in the years of togetherness. And like old Connie.

So that the ones you see, the ones that do a little flapping on the surface, they are the fringe kids. The almosts. The restless ones like Terry Drummond, and the dubious nobility, and the climbers, lounging on the far-away sun decks with their sexpot acquisitions of both sexes, squinting bored into the Rolleis of the social photographers. Farukers, my millioned girl called them, an in-group word for the ones who make vulgar and obvious uses of themselves and their money.

So this green-eyed Terry was not quite classy. She had roamed too far and hard and wide, divorced too publicly, made too many scenes, kept her perennially girlish rump too busy. Once upon a time maybe there had been something touchingly lonely about her, a hidden vulnerability, but now it was so encapsulated by the scars of roaming that all she could do was fake the emotions she believed she should feel.

But she had lost no sensitivity to mood and opinion. She smiled and said, "Don't tell me you're that conventional, McGee."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't I detect some dreary middle-class disapproval?"

"Middle-class curiosity."

"Darling, I've tried everything. Twice. Does that answer your question?" The laugh was gutteral and the eyes as old as Egypt.

"I was only wondering how you drink so much gin and stay girlish."

"Oh, that! Heavens. These are the only calories I get, darling. I gave up eating long ago. Twice a day my maid, my treasure, blends up a great goopy mess of protein and mineral and vitamin things and I choke it down. I'm balanced, dear. I'm inured. I'm in a continuous state of glowing health, slightly tiddly, but entirely aware and useful. I'm going riding at three today. Could you join me? And going to Connecticut for the weekend. We should be back by Monday noon, dear. It would give us time to discuss this whole dreadful mess."

"Sorry. There's only one thing to discuss. How do we break into the magic circle? What's the starring point? What's the cover story?"

She pursed her lips and laid a slender finger against the side of her nose. "Mmmm. What if I asked the Hersch person to lunch with me? As a secretarial type, the idea might enchant her. I could plead with her to send Charlie back to my sister. My word, I could even try to bribe her and see what happens! What do you think, Trav?"

"I think it might be interesting. I might join you, accidentally. But can I trust you not to let her suspect that you suspect that she is helping Mulligan pick Charlie clean?"

"Are you asking me if I'm capable of intrigue, dear?"

"That's about it."

"McGee, darling, you are looking at the woman who invented the word. I can be so devious I can hardly stand it."

"Gin and all?"

"Gin and all. Once upon a time I pried my third husband loose from a greedy bit of fluff by marrying her off to my second husband's younger brother, and then got them both out of the way by getting a dear friend to offer him a job in Brazil, and nobody ever realized I had anything to do with it."

"Remarkable."

"If I can't handle some meaty obvious little stenographic person, ducks, I should turn in my uniform."

"Do you think you can set it up for Monday?"

"I shall try.''

"What if she says no?"

She looked amused. "Dear boy, if you were a twelve year-old outfielder and Mickey Mantle invited you to lunch, would you turn him down?"

"It's a point."

She arched herself slightly. "I've spent my life in the major leagues."

I found the right alley that led to the back of the building. A wide ramp led down to the basement parking area. I walked down the ramp. Big cars had a luxurious gleam under the ceiling lights. The service elevators were beyond a wire cage where an old man sat under a hooded light. Over in the wash rack, a Negro was slowly and carefully polishing a bottle-green Lancia.

"Can I help you?" the old man said.

"Yes, please. I'm supposed to pick up the Thayer's Mercedes. They told you about it."

"What?"

"The black 300 SL. It's supposed to be ready to go."

"Thayer?"

"That's right."

"Mister, you must have the wrong place."

"Isn't this one twenty-one?"

"Yes, but we got no Thayer in the house at all.

"I wonder if I could use your phone."

"Sure thing. Come around."

I looked up Nina's number. I knew she was working at the office. I dialed. I let it ring ten times and hung up.

"Now I don't know what to do," I said. "They're in the country and wanted me bring the car out."

"You sure it's East Seventy-first, Mister?"

"That's what I was told."

"You just got the wrong place."

"Maybe I could wait a few minutes and try again."

"No long-distance calls."

"Of course not."

Two young girls came out of the service el evator. The Negro backed the Lancia out of the rack and brought it up for them. He put the top down. They went droning up the ramp and away. A package delivery man came whistling in, greeted the old man, and went up the stairs to the service entrance to the foyer. I moved casually to the other side of the cage and looked at the parking chart with the slots labeled with the names of the users.

"You won't find Thayer on there," the old man said.

"You've convinced me of that, friend. Which Armister is this?"

"Mr. Charles Armister."

I spotted another slot labeled Mulligan, not far from the Armister slot. Both had the apartment number beside the name. 9A.

My inspection of the chart was making him uneasy. I tried my call again. I hung up and said, "This is ridiculous."

His house phone rang. He picked it up and said, "Garage. Yes sir. Right away, sir." He hung up and called to the Negro. "Dobie, run that Highburn Cad around front on the double." He turned to me and said, "If he can start it. They haven't used that thing in six weeks."

That's what you wait and hope for, the opening the other man makes.

"Unless you have a chauffeur, a car is a nuisance in this town."

"We got about fifteen chauffeur-driven here. They're the ones get the use."

The Cadillac moved up the ramp, belching, missing a little.

"But that takes a lot of money."

"There's money in this house, mister. A man would like to cry, the amount of money there is in this house. Just take that name that caught your eye, that Armister. He could have ten chauffeurs and it wouldn't cramp him."

"But he struggles along with one, eh?"

"That's right. He's got Harris, the meanest son-of-a-bitch I ever…" He stopped abruptly, hearing himself talk too much. He narrowed his eyes. "Isn't there any address for Thayer in that book?"

"Unlisted number."

He shifted in his chair. "They don't like people hanging around here, mister."

"Okay. Thanks for your help."

"Good luck to you."

Nina gathered me up and we went out into a day which had turned colder, the late afternoon sunlight showing a watery weak threat of winter. We went to the hotel lounge where we had first talked, and because we had become different people to each other, it made it a different place. It was nearly empty. We sat at a curve of the padded bar. My bourbon girl, unsmutched, with eyes of finest blue.

It astonished me that she could not get enough of Teresa Howlan Gernhardt Delancy Drummond. Voice, hair, clothing, every nuance of conversation. "You said that to her!" Horror. Consternation.

At first it amused me, and then it irritated me. "She didn't step down from Olympus, honey. She's just another restless woman, that's all. She never had to grow up. She was one hell of an ornament for a long time. Now not so much. And when there's no more studs, there'll be nothing left but green eyes, money and gin. She's going to be a very tiresome, bad-tempered old woman."

"Why do you have to try to cut her down?"

"I'm not. Nina, really, don't act like a school girl reading about a movie queen. Terry isn't worth that kind of awe."

"Stop patronizing me. Maybe I don't have your advantages, McGee. I'm just a simple thing from Kansas with a degree from Pratt Institute. I'm naive about the glamorous figures I read about in the papers."

"What are we quarreling about?"

"Just because I have a perfectly understandable curiosity…"

"She wore an emerald as big as a tea bag."

"What? With slacks?"

"In her navel, honey."

She stared at me and then laughed abruptly. "Okay, Travis. You win. I'll try to stop acting awed."

Cocktail-lounge business began to improve. I told her about checking the Armister apartment house, about all the careful insulation provided for the residents. We went out into the cool blue dusk and walked to her place. As we walked we made plans. I couldn't see any way to move any faster on the whole situation. I would wait for Terry's lunch with Bonita Hersch. So we had a Saturday night, and I would wait at her place while she changed, and then we would go to my hotel and I would leave her in one of the cocktail lounges while I changed. Some friends of hers were having a party in the Village, and we would take a look at it after dinner, stay if it pleased us, leave if it didn't.

Again we climbed her stairs. She took her key out but she didn't need it. The lock was intact, but the door frame was splintered. She pushed the door open, found the lights and gave a cry of dismay. I pulled her back and made a quick search to be certain we weren't interrupting anybody at his work. The apartment had been carefully, thoroughly searched. Every drawer had been dumped, every cupboard emptied. She trotted about, giving little yelps of anger, dismay and indignation. From what I could see, there was no vandalism. I grabbed her as she went by and shook her.

"Hey! Let me go!"

"Settle down. Check the valuables."

She hurried into the bedroom. I followed her. All the drawers had been pulled out of the bureau, which was pulled away from the wall. She sat on the floor and began pawing through the heap of possessions. I put the drawers back in and pushed the bureau back against the wall. She found her red leather jewel-case and opened it. She went through it hastily.

She stared up at me and said, "Everything's here!"

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure. This is a solid-gold chain. Feel how heavy it is. It's worth two hundred dollars anyway…" She gasped suddenly and ran into the tiny kitchen. Everything was scrambled. She scuffled around and found an envelope and looked into it and said, "Oh, damn! This is gone."

"What was it?"

"Something over two hundred dollars. Maybe about two-fifty. I was putting five dollar bills in it, and when there were enough, I was going to buy a mink cape sort of thing. Damn!"

I made her check very carefully. She was so mad she wasn't very rational, but at last it was evident to both of us that the only thing taken was the money. The upholstered chairs had been tipped over, and the burlap ripped away from the springs. I put a chair on its legs and made her sit down and stop dithering. I examined the job with a reasonable amount of acquired competence. One learns by doing.

"Now hush a minute, Nina. It's no trick downstairs. You ring buzzers until somebody clicks the front door open. This door was no problem." I took a close look at the way it was broken. "Somebody worked a little pry-bar into it and slowly crunched it open. It was fast and it was thorough, Nina."

"This is my place," she said fiercely. "Nobody has any right…"

"We've got a problem," I said.

"Nobody has any right to… What? We've got a problem?"

"Somebody is either stupid or they don't give a damn."

"What?"

"Normal burglary, they'd just hit the places where people keep valuables. Bedroom drawers, desk drawers, kitchen cupboards, closet shelves. They wouldn't upend your couch and yank the burlap loose. They were after that ten thousand."

"Over two months later?"

"Think of some other answer. They came across a little bit of cash and took that. Why not? Like finding a dime on the sidewalk. If they wanted to make it look as if you were being cleaned out by a standard burglar, they would have taken your few hundred dollars worth of jewelry, your camera, your little radio, and put them in a trash can if they didn't want to risk handling them. If Flummer never left the ten thousand here, this would be a big fat mystery. And if you hadn't given it to me it would be gone now, and maybe with a hell of a lot less evidence of search around here. He would hit the obvious places first."

"What makes you so sure of all this?"

"I'm not. I'm just trying to make sense out of it. I can take it a little further, too."

"Yes?"

"As you say, over two months have gone by. Somebody knew Plummer had that ten thousand. His sister closing his apartment could have come across it and said nothing. That would be the normal reaction of most people. So whoever did this would have to have some good reason to assume the sister didn't have it, didn't take it back to California. Maybe his place was checked before she arrived."

"Like what they did here? I didn't hear anything like that."

"What shape were you in?"

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Lost. Utterly lost, Trav."

"Who would know?"

She stirred out of the memory of grief. "Danny. Danny Gryson. He was a rock."

She made a phone call. She caught him just as he was going out. She talked to him for several minutes, with sad overtones in her voice, hidden laments in a minor key. I fixed drinks for us.

When she hung up she looked at me, bit her lip, tilted her head. "I better stop criticising your guesswork, dear. Somebody got into Howie's place that Sunday and tore it all up. He couldn't see that anything in particular was missing. He just had time to put it back in shape before he had to go out to the airport and meet Grace. Danny's wife, Sally, was staying here with me, and by then I was loaded with pills. He didn't report it."

"That was damn foolish. Couldn't he see there might be a connection between that and Plummer being killed?"

"But Howie was mugged. And nobody knew anything about any money And there was so much going on anyway."

I put the couch back on its legs and sat down. "Something doesn't fit, Nina. Something doesn't fit worth a damn."

"How, dear?"

"Plummer was threatening to upset a very big applecart. Millions. Assume he was taken out of the picture very cleverly. Why should very clever people who are stealing millions botch up their own scheme by searching his apartment the very next day?"

"Maybe they thought he'd written up how it was being done or something and they were looking for that."

"Then why did somebody plunder this place two months later? No, honey. I think this is promising. I think we have a situation where control at the top is not too solid. The people running this are not going to give much of a damn about ten thousand dollars. But to one of the little people who are in on it, it could be a very tidy amount."

"Or somebody who was in it with Howie," she said in a small strained voice. I looked at her and saw the look of tears on the way. "Come off it, Nina."

"I'm sorry. It's just that sometimes I…"

"Let's get to work."

It took a long time. She had a dime-store hammer and some brads. I did some temporary repairs on the door latch. I thumbtacked the burlap back on the undersides of the upholstered furniture. Once she had the kitchen back together, she laid out the rest of the things I had brought from the delicatessen. It was a buffet picnic while we brought order out of total chaos. She put records on. Folk music from Greece. Never-on-Sunday music. Most pleasant. Drinks and small spiced sturdy sandwiches and music and cooperative chores.

I waited for something to occur to her. I was stacking her books back on her shelves and she came into the living room and said, "Hey, we shouldn't get it looking too much better than it did before, Trav. That would be a terrible commentary on my…" She stopped and I looked at her. She was frowning.

"Trav?"

"Yes, dear."

"Aren't we going to report this to the police?"

"No."

"But if I didn't know anything about any ten thousand dollars, wouldn't I report it to the police? I mean, it would be the natural thing to do."

"Yes, it would."

"So won't whoever searched this place wonder about whether I report it or not?"

"Probably."

"And if I don't, won't he think that's because I do know something about the ten thousand dollars?"

"It might work that way."

She sat on a stool nearby and held her clenched hands in her lap and looked at me with her dark brows raised. "What are you trying to do? Turn me into bait?"

"On a very small chance, yes. It took him two months to come looking. Maybe you'd have spent the hell out of it by now. And anyway, we can still report it. Leave a few drawers messed up."

She nibbled at the edge of her thumb. "But it might make things happen faster if we don't?"

"There's that small chance. And I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Nina."

She stood up. "So okay. Anyhow, nothing would happen, I mean about getting my mink money back. Lois downstairs, they really cleaned her out a year ago. Some of the furniture even. She was on her vacation."

She shrugged, turned in a slow circle of Greek dance, popping her fingers, and twirled on off into the bedroom. In a little while I went in and hauled the spilled mattress back up onto the bed. She finished a sandwich, licked I her fingers, tried to give me a big wicked wink. But she wasn't a good winker. She couldn't close one without nearly closing the other. It made made her look squinty and nearsighted.

When we had to pass in a narrow space, doing the chores of reassembling the place, she contrived to bump me with a round hip. She hummed with the music. She looked bemused and tricky and smug, darting her blue and challenging glances. When she would come to show me where something went, she would manage to press the heat of a mellow breast against my arm. She built the big awareness of girl. We were in the girl house, perfumed with girl, with blue eyes everywhere. The infrequent small-talk bore no relation to what was going on, to what she was causing.

Finally she managed to trip and turn, and be caught just so, gasping, a silky weight, breath warm, eyes knowing, lips gone soft and an inch away, and not enough air in the room.

I straightened her back up and gave her a little push. "Now, Nina, damn it, just one goddam minute, damn it!"

"Oh boy," she said. "Ethics and everything. The little sister. You talk so many bold games, it gets confusing for a girl. I guess you think it would be a lousy thing to come here to take care of me, and then take care of me too many ways, huh? But there are all kinds of lousy things. How lousy is it you should be so stuffy you make me seem sort of cheap and obvious?"

"Don't get sore."

"I'm getting mad to keep from crying. I mean you're so stuck on this role you have to play. My God, I suppose I am the little sister, but I am also an adult, Trav. I told you before I've run into some doors.and had my share of black eyes. I had a disaster marriage and a very very fast annulment. But you have some kind of a boy scout oath with my brother, and… Now I feel degraded and… Damn it, get out of here!"

I laughed and caught her. She yawped and leaped about, saying in effect that the precious moment had passed, and the hell with it, and we couldn't retrieve the situation, it was spoiled etc etc. I stilled her mouth and each time she talked it was with a little less conviction, and finally she stood docile, trembling, taking huge noisy inhalations, her strong pale neck bent forward while, with clumsy fingers, I unlatched the little hook and eye at the back of her dress and stripped the zipper down.