Design for Dying

by Renee Patrick

  “Dusty Rose it is. Oh, wait. You need to know the recipient’s bust size.” All wasn’t lost. There was no way he could have been entrusted with that particular number.

  “Thirty-six.”

  Damn.

  * * *

  GENE HAD SCARCELY departed with his haphazardly wrapped gift when Mr. Valentine materialized at my counter, crimson handkerchief in full flower. “About that last sale, Miss Frost.”

  “Yes, sir. I convinced the gentleman to spring for the imitation satin model.”

  “I fully expect it to be returned. The ‘gentleman’ was quite obviously the detective who’s been here before. May I ask the purpose of your little charade? I was under the impression you’d recommitted to work.”

  I was scrambling for a rebuttal when the unlikeliest ally hove into view at Mr. Valentine’s elbow. Edith Head cleared her throat to gain his attention, then faced me. “You’re right, young lady, those are excellent pieces. Thank you for suggesting I look at them.” Now a glance at Mr. Valentine. “Would you be the manager, sir?”

  “Yes. May I be of some assistance?”

  “I hope to assist you. Permit me to introduce myself.” With a white-gloved hand she offered her card, which he accepted with reverent grace. “Paramount is arranging shopping expeditions for several actresses we have under contract. Marsha Hunt, Frances Farmer. We want to bring them to department stores and allow them their choice of what real women are wearing.”

  “A splendid notion. Tremayne’s would be honored to participate.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll inform my superiors. That handkerchief is a marvelous color, incidentally. Such a refreshingly bold choice. If I could finish speaking with your salesgirl?”

  Mr. Valentine bowed and strode away like a figurehead on the prow of a ship, his pocket square a beacon in the night.

  “Thank you,” I gushed to Edith. “Were you serious about the shopping trips?”

  “Absolutely. They’re slated for Bullock’s, but I’ll see what I can do. On to more important matters. That card I gave you with the writing on the puzzle piece.”

  I emptied my handbag’s contents onto the counter, finding the card in question. Edith inspected it. “December eleventh, seven thirty,” she said. “Only that’s not what it says, is it? Merely our interpretation of it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Twelve eleven was the actual notation. It occurred to me this afternoon when I was speaking with another of our writers, Billy Wilder. Brilliant man, so funny. From Vienna originally. He has a script in production with Mr. Lubitsch. Travis has outdone himself with his costumes for Miss Colbert. At any rate, Billy wrote down a date. And as I looked at it—”

  “Oh, Lord,” I said, a memory coming back to me.

  He’d come into Tremayne’s several months ago, an older fellow in a Tyrolean hat with accent to match. Once I’d deciphered it, we got along like a house on fire as I helped him select some items for his frau back in Deutschland. Mr. Valentine and I watched as he pulled out his checkbook and wrote the date as twelve-slash-six. I gave Mr. V the high sign, branding Siegfried a swindler trying to postdate his check. But Mr. Valentine smoothly asked the Germanic gent to correct his date from the European to the American style. The customer happily tore up his check and started over.

  “The date’s written backward,” I said.

  “Not backward, dear. Differently. A definite possibility if the writing, like the invitation, is not Ruby’s but Natalie’s.”

  “So it’s not December eleventh but November twelfth.” I flipped calendar pages in my head. “Today.”

  “Which means the princess’s appointment is in about ninety minutes. The question is where?”

  “The Hotel Normandie Park would be my guess. That’s where Natalie received visitors.”

  “An excellent thought. I tried calling Detective Morrow but haven’t been able to reach him. Having overheard your boss, I know why. He was here. I don’t suppose he said where he was off to next? That’s unfortunate. I’d venture to the hotel myself but Travis … requires my assistance this evening.”

  From her careful phrasing, it was clear Edith was again covering for the genius of glamour. But she was right. This opportunity couldn’t slip through our fingers. It was time for a daring move, and only I was dumb enough to make it.

  “I’m off the clock in ten minutes. I’ll go straight to the Normandie Park. You tell Gene. And before you say it, I won’t do anything foolish.”

  “I was going to ask if you had anything to wear over that.” Edith pointed at my dress, the color that of an egg yolk from a particularly contented hen. “It’s lovely but a touch … vivid for early evening.”

  I vowed to borrow a cardigan from one of the girls. Perhaps yellow wasn’t ideal for meeting royalty. But I didn’t have time to change. And with luck they had the saying in Hungary, too. Any friend of Ruby’s …

  20

  THE LOBBY OF the Normandie Park had been primped for the evening. The floor tiles and the doorman were buffed to a high shine. Care had been taken to groom the nap of the grass-green carpet on which herds of couches and low-slung tables contentedly grazed. I lassoed a settee with a view of the reception desk, where a lissome blonde stood watch. It’s an acting exercise, I told myself. I am rich and on vacation, not poor and on a wild-goose chase. The chancellor shall hear of your impertinence.

  When an elderly man spoke to the clerk, the futility of my plan hit me. How would I know if anyone was asking for Natalie? I couldn’t hear anything. The lady herself could glide past and I wouldn’t recognize her unless she carried a scepter to dinner.

  I’d stepped toward the blonde when the elevator disgorged a clown car’s worth of activity. A pair of barking dogs dragged a surly man in a chauffeur’s cap. Two screaming children followed, twin boys running like they’d bolted out of the gate at Aqueduct Racetrack. A nanny strained to impose order while the preoccupied parents angled toward the desk. I scanned the room for crowned heads while waiting my turn.

  The revolving door gave out with a gust and blew in an elegant figure. Olive of skin and nimble of step, black hair gleaming, mustache perfectly manicured. His pearl-gray suit draped like it had been fitted on him an instant before. He carried a bouquet of red roses. His eyes settled briefly on every woman in the lobby. Each of us enjoyed exclusive access to his small, formal smile for a moment before he moved on to the next. I flushed slightly, as if he’d just twirled me around a dance floor.

  As the family caravan barked and shushed their way into the night, the new arrival addressed the statuesque clerk. I inched closer.

  “You are, I fear, mistaken.” His speech bore a distinct Latin flavor and an agitated quality.

  “I’ve looked, sir, but we don’t have a guest by that name.”

  “Only last week I escorted her to her suite. No. I must insist you look again.” He punctuated his polite but forceful request with a tap on the counter.

  The flustered clerk danced to his tune. “I’m sorry, sir. No Natalie Szabo.”

  He had to be Armand Troncosa. I knew from the moment he’d entered the lobby. I felt a surge of pride, followed by a tidal wave of panic. What now?

  “Most distressing. Bring forth your manager, my dear. At once.” The would-be suitor laid the roses on the desk. The clerk reached for the phone. I seized my chance.

  “Pardon me, sir.”

  With some subtle adjustments, he transformed his expression from dissatisfied customer to that of a man happy to chat with a woman. Any woman. “Yes, miss. How might I assist you?”

  “Don’t think me rude, but I couldn’t help overhearing—”

  “Lil?”

  I hadn’t imagined that chill wind at my back. It was the revolving door again, admitting Esteban Riordan. Troncosa’s man Friday looked dapper despite the suspicion in his eyes.

  “Hello, Esteban. It’s actually Lillian. Lillian Frost.”

  Esteban positioned himself between me and his employer. I wa
s viewed as a threat. “This is the woman I told you about.”

  “Never. This cannot be the scatterbrained visitor you described.” Troncosa took my hand as if he held the deed to it and pressed his lips to my skin. I was dealing with an Olympic-caliber Lothario. “Lillian, not Lil, I am Armand Troncosa. You already know Esteban. And Natalie, too, I believe.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I regret I haven’t met the princess.”

  “No? Yet you use her name to try gaining entry to my home.” Troncosa glanced at Esteban, who nodded in confirmation.

  “If I could explain?”

  After a moment’s consideration, Troncosa dispatched the hotel clerk with an arched eyebrow and proceeded to a settee. Esteban remained standing and vigilant. “Very well, Lillian,” Troncosa said. “You may explain.”

  “Natalie and I have a mutual acquaintance. Ruby Carroll.”

  “This other woman both you and the police mentioned to Esteban. Sadly, the name is unfamiliar to me.”

  “Ruby Carroll was what she called herself professionally. Her right name was Roza Karolyi.”

  Comprehension illuminated Troncosa’s face as Esteban’s head snapped around. “Natalya’s cousin!” Troncosa spoke to Esteban as much as me. “I have not yet had the pleasure.”

  “Natalie has spoken of her. The actress,” Esteban said.

  “Then you are friends with my Natalya’s family.” Troncosa started to smile, buoyed by this prospect. Then his face gave way to grief. “But Esteban tells me this Ruby has been in the newspapers. She is dead?”

  I nodded. “She was murdered.”

  Troncosa clenched his fists and made a keening sound, like a coyote’s mournful cry. Esteban knelt by his side. “¡Que tragedia!” Troncosa said. “Then Natalya has suffered a great loss. My sympathies to you as well, Lillian. You wish to convey this sad news to Natalya?”

  “She knows. I spoke to her by telephone a few days ago.”

  “You did?” Troncosa said a few words in Spanish to Esteban, one of them being policía. “Please. I offer my total assistance. Avail yourself of me. What can I do?”

  “You could tell me how you and Natalie met.”

  Troncosa couldn’t help grinning, already warming to the tale. “A chance encounter in a hotel bar. The unplanned stop that changed the course of my life. Natalya was there, alone, her beauty drawing the eye. Also her sadness. She joined our party. Slowly she revealed the story of what brought her to America. It is unfortunately a story we’ve heard too often in these troubled times. Conspiracies of hoodlums taking over the old regimes in Europe. Brigands masquerading as statesmen. Her family under threat, she fled with a few items of sentimental value and vowed to help her country from afar.”

  “Did she speak much of her family in America?”

  “Briefly. She did not wish to burden me with her troubles. I only know of Roza because I heard her recounting the poor girl’s plight to a friend.”

  “Addison Rice?”

  “Yes! Is that why you seem familiar, my dear? Do you know Addison?”

  “I’ve enjoyed his hospitality once or twice.” Okay, once. But I enjoyed it immensely.

  “A splendid man, Addison. A captain of industry and true connoisseur of character. Natalya tried to flee his party when I first took her there, certain she would find it a bore. But she and Addison became fast friends. Unlike me, Addison is able to appreciate beauty from afar.”

  He took my hand and rested it on the burgundy brocade of the couch between us. “You do not know me, Miss Frost. I am aware some view me as nothing more than a wastrel. A … Latin lover, as the films made in your fine city say. For too long a time, that is exactly what I was.”

  His eyes took on a faraway cast as Esteban bowed his head in shared shame. I waited for my scoffing instinct to kick in and was astonished when it didn’t. Troncosa seemed completely ridiculous and utterly sincere at the same time. Los Angeles, I was learning, was thick with such people.

  “I do not exaggerate when I say meeting Natalya altered me to my core. Troncosa, who would have one rendezvous at lunch, another at dinner, a third before the sun rose. Who vowed never to become serious about any woman! I dedicated myself to Natalya. An old soul, a melancholy spirit, a refugee. I like to think each time we meet, Natalya feels stronger, more able to carry on. She not only showed me my life needed purpose, she provided it as well. When I am in the presence of Natalya, all other women disappear.” He released my hand and looked me square in the eye. “This is why she must become my wife.”

  I required a moment to capture my breath. “You and Natalie are to be married?”

  “It is my deepest wish, and the reason I am here with you now. We arranged to meet at seven thirty tonight. I hope to hear Natalya formally accept my marriage proposal. My second, I should say. The first occurred within days of our meeting and was an impulse, a surprise even to myself. Natalya knew this and gracefully held me at bay. But her discretion only strengthened my resolve. Before my trip I asked Natalya for her hand again. She already had much on her mind. She has been approached about a film career and is toying with the notion even though the business, for all the pleasure it gives, is filled with jackals and scoundrels. She told me she would visit friends in San Francisco, consider her future, and give me her answer upon my return. I rushed here at once to receive her reply.” Hence the date on the puzzle piece. Troncosa glanced around the lobby for Natalie but there was only the clerk, her face turned away.

  It was a sad story. Bringing red roses to a cold hotel lobby anticipating a princess only to wind up on a sofa with a girl who sold garters for a living.

  “Natalie sent Addison a letter from San Francisco,” I said. “But no one has seen or heard from her since she called me a few nights ago. The police haven’t been able to find her.”

  “Surely they do not harbor suspicions that Natalya might be involved in her cousin’s fate.” Troncosa’s voice carried the sound of a glove slap across the face. His ferocity unnerved me into silence. All at once he was on his feet, stalking the slick tiles, unleashing great torrents of Spanish. Esteban responded in kind, his body language serving as translation. Stay calm. Everything is fine.

  I finally regained my voice. “I’m not the police. All I know is they want to talk to her. I don’t suppose you have a photograph of Natalie? That would be a great help.”

  “Of course. I could not possibly travel without a reminder of her.” He removed a slender ostrich billfold from his jacket. “My Natalya,” he said, handing me a three-by-five photograph.

  It had been taken candidly in a nightclub, the subject caught off guard but willing to play along. The regal bearing I’d heard about registered on film, the eyes beneath the dark hair swept forward in a sophisticated style projecting both haughtiness and an impish amusement. She wore a silver lamé gown that captured the flashbulb’s light and saucily threw it back.

  I’d seen the gown before, in Ruby’s suitcase. I’d seen the regal bearing before. I’d seen the princess before.

  There are moments when time stands still and you notice the world more sharply, in minute detail. I looked up from the photo and the lobby seemed brighter, more solid than it had before. Troncosa’s eyes shone with greater intensity and I discerned the individual hairs of his mustache quivering as his lips parted to pose a question.

  “Is she not beautiful?”

  Not only was she beautiful, she was Ruby.

  I answered with all honesty. “She is.”

  21

  WHEN GENE STRODE into the Normandie Park I extricated myself from conversation with Troncosa and Esteban, the photograph of Troncosa’s beloved still in my hand. It took an inordinate amount of time to traverse the lobby thanks to the give in my knees and a sudden trepidation about the universe in general. Reality had been turned so inside out that I half expected gravity to be on banker’s hours. Once safely across the floor, I pulled Gene behind a grove of potted palm trees.

  “This better be good. Edith Head
is sending me on more calls than Central Dispatch. Something about European numbers? I recognize Esteban Riordan, so I’m guessing that’s Troncosa finally showing his face. Tell me you didn’t spill what little we’ve learned.”

  “I’ve had more important things to keep from him.” I presented the photograph to Gene.

  “This is Ruby, isn’t it?”

  “It’s also the photo of Princess Natalie that Troncosa has been carrying next to his heart.”

  Gene stared at me, then angled the photo toward the light as if it might yield new secrets. “Damn it. Goddamnit.”

  “I can’t get my head around any of this. Who called me pretending to be Natalie? Who sent that letter to Addison?”

  “Rice has some explaining to do. Guzzling iced tea, yapping about Ruby and Natalie. Lying the whole damn time.”

  “You think he was lying?”

  A charitable word for Gene’s look was incredulous. “Frost, he talked about them like they were separate people.”

  “I’m afraid he thinks they were.”

  “You honestly believe he was hoodwinked?”

  “Yes. I do. Because what he’s saying is so absurd. If Addison was going to lie, why admit he knew Ruby in the first place? He didn’t have to volunteer that.”

  Gene frowned. “You’re saying genius inventor duped by starstruck kid from Ohio? Sorry, I’m not buying it.”

  “You’ve got it backwards. Addison is the starstruck one. He’s the perfect audience. That’s how Ruby got away with it. That, a new hair color, and six months’ distance.”

  “Then did Ruby set out to bamboozle Rice? Was he the turkey in this shoot?”

  “No idea. I only know Addison’s going to be mortified.”

  “One millionaire at a time. What did you tell Troncosa when you saw the photograph?”

  “Nothing. I’ve been in shock. Troncosa’s been talking about polo. Is the word ‘chukkers’ or ‘chukkas’?”

  “How should I know?” Gene peered through the trees like he was on safari. His game huddled close, Esteban’s head low, Troncosa’s eyes tracking every motion in the room in hope of sighting Natalie rushing toward him. I felt unwell.