by Ed Gorman
"Ah. I forgot about that particular pact."
"You could always get on a plane and come out here."
I told her about the Avanti and Coburn's murder. Instead of inquiring about the case, she said, "I suppose there are a lot of women at the Avanti."
"A few."
"And probably attractive ones, too."
"If you like them burly with three eyes."
Laughter. "Uh-huh."
"And speaking of the Avanti, that's just where I was going."
"Gee, what a subtle hint."
"So I'll pick you up at the airport three days from now at four-fifteen."
"Right." Pause. "I'm sorry I'm not more trusting."
"Your ex-husband didn't give you much reason to be trusting."
"Thanks for saying that. I love you, Dwyer."
"And I love you." Pause. "I miss you, Donna. I heard carolers tonight and I thought of you. How much you'd have liked them."
"Boy, that was the perfect thing to say."
"Then I'd better hang up before I blow it by saying the wrong thing. Good night."
"Good night, Dwyer. Be good."
I didn't have to ask what she meant by that.
Chapter 15
A huge Christmas tree had been set up to the right of the band. Multicolored holiday lights splashed over the dancers in the darkness as the band played "My Funny Valentine" and "Stairway to the Stars." It was not unlike a prom, and there was a real melancholy to it, as if everyone shared the secret knowledge that tomorrow morning the world would end.
Even more than usual, the Avanti looked like the set from a gangster picture made in the Forties. The platoon of waiters and captains, the photographer passing among the tables, and the tuxedoed men with sleek hair did not exactly discourage this impression.
I sat at the bar, three quick scotches warm in my stomach, and a plastic-tipped cigarillo wafting blue smoke between my fingers. I've managed to convince myself that smoking cigarillos—I try not to inhale them—is not smoking. Not exactly.
Thus far tonight I had seen no one I'd come to see—neither Mrs. Richard Coburn nor Mr. Richard Coburn's mistress, Jackie, nor the sleek Tom Anton nor his gorgeous daughter, Mignon.
"Another, sir?"
"Please."
The bartender, male, balding, neuter in some inoffensive way, nodded and vanished and reappeared and slid me my drink and took his money from the twenty and some change I'd left on the bar from the first drinks.
She said, "You look so handsome I hate to see you ruin it."
Jackie. She wore a dark green dress with a dramatic V-neck and her hair swept back so artfully that Scarlett O'Hara would probably be envious.
She guided my hand to the ashtray and smashed out the cigarillo. It was as if I were five years old and doing something naughty. I didn't mind at all.
"Alone?" she said.
"Always."
"Good."
I stood up so she could sit down. She nodded to the bartender. He knew exactly what she wanted. She said, "Maybe we were wrong the other night."
"About not going to your place?"
She nodded.
"No," I said, "we weren't wrong. I'm in love with somebody else."
"True-blue Dwyer."
"I try."
She sighed and smiled at the bartender as he set her drink down. "So do I. I was always faithful to Richard. I just wish he'd been to me."
I sipped my drink.
She said, "It was approval. That's what he wanted. I mean, I don't think he suffered from satyriasis or anything. But he did need approval. From men he got envy. He took pleasure in taking things away from them—their money or their businesses or their women."
"Nice guy."
"As I said the other night, Richard was a surprisingly nice guy. When he wasn't playing his 'war games' as he always called them. Taking things from people."
"What did he take from you?"
She laughed. "My good sense. I'm a very sensible girl, really. But for some reason around Richard—I mean, I should have said goodbye to him a long time ago. What did I get from it? At first, he couldn't even make love. But I stuck with him. And of course as soon as his sexual powers came back to him, he started cheating on me."
"Why did you stay with him?"
"He was the big violent boy I've always wanted."
"Really?"
"Really. He brought out something in me that was terrible and maternal at the same time. And then there were those moments when he was the sweetest man I've ever known. Sometimes when we'd lie in the dark, even his voice would change and I'd think that he was somebody else."
"His other women didn't bother you?"
I watched her reaction carefully.
"Still looking for a motive, aren't you? For why I may have killed him."
"I suppose."
"Don't you ever get tired of being a detective?"
"All the time."
"Why don't you quit, then?"
"Why didn't you dump Richard?"
Rather than answer me, she slid down from the stool and held out her arms.
"My God," I said, "you really are a masochist."
"Maybe you've taken dancing lessons since the last time I saw you."
"Dreamer."
On the floor her dress rustled as we moved through the steps of the fox trot. Her perfume was overmuch in a satisfying way and her breasts against me felt much better than I wanted them to. "I wish they'd play Christmas songs," she said. "I love it when the tree lights flash on and off and they play 'White Christmas' or 'I'll Be Home for Christmas.' Do you have a favorite Christmas song?"
"'Blue Christmas.'"
"I like that, too."
"By Elvis."
She laughed. "Sure."
"I'm serious."
"You really like his version?"
"It's great."
"My, my," she said. "You are full of surprises, aren't you?"
Then she held me tighter and we sort of swung around the floor, almost daring in our clumsiness. As we got closer to the trees, the lights played against her dark hair. She was from another era, the time when women didn't always count calories or worry about job promotions or consider a man too demanding because he wanted to spend all his time with her, at least during that heady period of sexual and emotional excess that marks the start of most affairs. I didn't know if I even liked women like that anymore but somehow with the snow falling again and the night bitter cold and Donna gone, it was comfortable in her arms, middle-aged comfortable even though she wasn't yet thirty, and so I watched the lights play off her hair and loved it.
"Oh, God," she said.
"What?"
"Look who's here."
I followed her gaze to the bar. Deirdre Coburn, in a black dress and a great deal of jewelry, sat at the bar watching us dance.
"She killed him," Jackie said.
"Is that just a guess or do you have some facts?"
"He spent all her money."
"How?"
"Here. The Avanti. She always pretends to have so much. Her father was a very successful lawyer. He had a great deal of money—a lot of which he cheated his clients out of, I'm told—but he had a very bad drinking problem and squandered most of it."
"What about Earle Tomkins?"
"Earle didn't kill him."
"Nobody seems to think so but the police." I didn't want to tell her what I'd learned about Deirdre Coburn stealing Tomkins's clothes.
She held me tight again. Deirdre glowered at us then turned back to the bar, jamming her cigarette out and swallowing her drink quickly. With a long arm, she pointed languidly to the bartender. Apparently this was some kind of sign language for another drink.
Jackie said, "And now the night's complete. Tom Anton and his strange little daughter."
"You don't like Mignon?"
"Something's wrong with her. I'm probably being unfair."
"Wrong with her?"
"Problems of some kind. She used to come
in here during the day sometimes and she'd hardly speak to me. But the longer I watched her, the more I sensed that she must have some kind of head problems."
"But no idea what?"
She nuzzled into me. "Don't you ever get tired of talking?"
"I'm interested in your theories. What kind of problems could Mignon have?"
She nuzzled me again and sighed. "I'm afraid I can't help you. It's just the way she acts—she's just strange. Now come on. Dance with me."
So we danced. Only once—well, maybe twice did she make one of those involuntary little squeals that meant I'd tromped on her foot again. I would probably be opening up a studio soon and giving lessons.
When the orchestra quit, the lights coming up for a break, we turned and went back to our table. Deirdre and Tom and Mignon stood along the bar, watching us.
"They really like me." Jackie laughed as I held her seat for her. "They just hide it well."
For the next forty minutes there was a floor show, a smutty comic who had stolen the mannerisms of five famous comedians and didn't know what to do with any of them. We drank and I ordered a steak sandwich and it came and I asked if I would be permanently barred from the place if I put ketchup on the meat and she said to be her guest and so I did and not more than ten people sitting around us sent over imperious disapproving glances. Maybe it was the way I pounded on the upside-down ketchup bottle with the heel of my hand. All this time, Jackie ate delicately from her salmon steak. She even gave me a couple of bites. The stuff was good, no doubt about it.
Just after the comic left and the lights went down again and the glow of the Christmas tree came up, Jackie excused herself and went to the ladies' room and Deirdre Coburn came over and stood by her chair.
"I hope you're not charging me for tonight," she said. "Because I won't pay for it."
"Calm down, Mrs. Coburn."
"You bastard, who do you think you're kidding, anyway? You're supposed to be proving that she killed him and here you are dancing with her."
"Why don't we try that?"
"Try what?"
But by then I was up and escorting her to the dance floor. She resisted at first but I kept moving. On the floor she relented and put her slender arm on my shoulder and we started in.
"Jesus," she said almost immediately.
"What's wrong?"
"You stepped on my foot."
"Ah."
So we danced some more and I tried very hard not to step on her foot. It was not the same with her in the Christmasy darkness as it had been with Jackie.
"It's my understanding that you took Earle Tomkins's jacket and hat the night of the murder."
"What are you talking about?"
There was just enough light to see her face and in her face I could see she was lying.
She said, "God."
"You admit it then?"
"I thought you were working for me." She sighed. "Could we go to Richard's office?"
She served brandy in snifters. I sat in a deep leather chair and stared at a fireplace that looked cold and dark as death. She sat dramatically on the edge of his mahogany desk and stared for a long moment at the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. I'd checked them out—just the sort of stuff the real Jay Gatsby probably read, all about how to be number one and then a lot more books on how to remain number one.
She said, "Who told you?"
"It isn't important."
"Of course it's important."
"I'm not going to tell you so we may as well drop it." I hesitated. "Why did you take his jacket and hat?"
She sighed. "So if anybody saw me, they'd think I was Earle. We're about the same size and all bundled up that way, nobody could tell it was me. Especially Richard."
"So you went out to his car bundled up and pretending to be Earle and you killed him?"
"Killed him? Don't be ridiculous. I went out to his car to see if I could find something. I didn't want Richard to know that I knew he had it."
"Had what?"
"Some kind of report."
"What kind of report?"
"That's what I was trying to figure out." She took a long drag from her cigarette and blew blue smoke to the tiled ceiling. "Two days before he died, a tacky little man dropped something off here at the restaurant. He said it was a report Richard was waiting for. I happened to be at the bar. The man gave it to Earle and Earle took it and put it in Richard's office. Richard was at one of the country clubs, impressing everybody with his importance. Anyway, I didn't think anything of it, but when Richard got back and saw it, he got very sullen and angry."
"But you don't know what was in the report?"
"No. Just that it changed his mood abruptly. He'd been very happy the two days previous because he was lining up investors for another restaurant he'd own entirely on his own. He wanted to be away from all of us—me, Tom, even Jackie, though I'm not sure she knew that."
"Did you ever see the envelope close up?"
"No. I just remember that it had the name of some chemical company on it."
"I'd like you to tell me what happened the night you put on Earle's clothes and went out to Richard's car."
"Nothing happened."
"Nothing?"
"The car was locked. I couldn't get in."
"Why did you think that the envelope was in the car anyway?"
"Because I'd seen him carry it out there along with other things. Richard often did that. Carried things out and set them in the car. Then he'd come back in for a last drink or something."
"So Richard wasn't there when you got there?"
"No."
"And the car was locked?"
"Yes."
"When the police found Richard's body, the door on the driver's side was open and some of Richard's blood was on the seat."
"Yes. Proving that I didn't kill him."
"Jesus," I said.
"What?"
"You're some prize, you know that?"
"Meaning what exactly, Mr. Dwyer?"
"Meaning that you're letting Earle Tomkins take the blame for your husband's death."
"I knew the police would eventually find out who really killed him."
"Your faith in our justice system is touching, Mrs. Coburn."
"You're sounding as if you don't like me anymore, Mr. Dwyer."
"Tonight I want you to call a detective named Cummings at the third precinct and tell him what you did the night of Richard's murder."
"I really wouldn't have let Earle stay in there long."
"The detective's name is Cummings. C-u-m-m-i-n-g-s."
For the next few minutes we sat there glaring at each other.
I thought of Earle and his poor mother.
"Why did you want the envelope anyway?"
"I wanted to see what was in it."
"Why?"
"Because I thought I could get some of my power back. Don't you know, dear, that's what bitches like me spend their time doing. Getting power. I used to run Richard's life. But then he got so embarrassed about his poor sexual performance that he had to turn elsewhere—and then I didn't have any power over him whatsoever."
"And he'd already spent all your money."
She smirked. "You've been talking to Jackie again. Did you know her mother was a maid at a Holiday Inn?"
"Richard got some letters over the past few months. Do you know anything about them?"
"Would you like some more brandy?"
"No. Tell me about the letters."
"He burned them one night. Very dramatically. I came into the den and there he was weaving around in front of the fireplace. He could barely stand up. Then he took three or four white envelopes and tossed them into the fire."
"You don't know who sent them or what they were about?"
"No."
"I want you to tell me about the man who gave Earle the report."
"You're getting very good at giving orders. Particularly in light of the fact you're my employee."
"The man."
&
nbsp; She went over and got more brandy from a cut glass decanter. "He was just a man."
"Height."
"Oh, I don't know."
"Tall, short, medium?"
"Medium."
"Color of hair?"
She laughed. "I suppose that depended on which toupee he wore on a given day. He wore a very cheap rug. I was almost embarrassed for him."
"Did you get a look at his face?"
"His face?"
"Yes, Mrs. Coburn, his face."
"Oh. Yes. He had a—birthmark or something on his right cheek."
Now there could be no doubting who we were talking about. By now the police would have packed Brian Ingram in an ambulance and shipped him out for an autopsy.
I stood up. "Remember to call Cummings."
"I believe you mentioned that."
"If he's not at work ask for his home number. Tell them it's an emergency and they'll give it to you."
"I really wasn't going to let Earle sit in jail, Mr. Dwyer."
"Right," I said. "Right." I left.
The commotion came from someplace in the kitchen. Pans and pots clanged as they bounced off tiled flooring. Shouts and curses erupted like gunfire. All I could do was run forward, pulled by the noise.
Pushing through the kitchen doors, I saw a short man with a corny, little mustache putting his hands to his mouth in shock. He wore the big white hat of the head chef.
"What's going on?" I said. But before he could answer I saw, down a long corridor and in spill light from the back door, a man in a dinner jacket laying punches into a scrawny, scarecrow form that looked familiar to me.
"There ain't no reason to kill him," the chef said. "Ain't" sounded very wrong coming from a man in a big chef's hat.
Other kitchen help had gathered around, staring down the corridor. At another time the kitchen with its multiple stoves and ovens and endless overhead jungle of hanging utensils would have been impressive. Now all I noticed, in a quick glimpse, was how dirty and wet the floors were and how sour some of the food smelled cooking.
I ran down the small corridor. By the time I reached the man doing the punching I saw that it was my old friend Ken from the other night. He glanced my way and frowned.
"Let him go," I said, nodding to the freaky man who'd been wearing the Roman collar in the alley the other day.
