Ladyfingers

by Shepard Rifkin

  "Ah," said Luigi. "Suppose we go all through that red tape. I could spend a few hours shopping in Manhattan after we have our subpoenaed conversation."

  He expected me to yell.

  Instead I said, very politely, "Brooks Brothers?"

  He inclined his head about a quarter of an inch.

  "Listen, Luigi," I said earnestly. "Honest, you can do better at Klein's."

  He had no sense of humor and I had no further time to waste. I took out my notebook and stood up. "Thank you, Luigi," I said. I asked Bruno for a ruler. He looked worried but he got one out of the cashier's desk. I walked to the kitchen and began measuring distances from the rear door to the stove. I measured the diameter of the garbage cans and their distance from the refrigerator. I wrote down all the figures. I measured the width of the aisles in the kitchen. I measured the distances between the fire extinguishers in the kitchen.

  If anyone were to follow all of the New York City regulations for fire and health, ninety percent of all restaurants would have to close forthwith.

  "How many trash cans you got?"

  "That's all we got. Five," Bruno said, looking mournful.

  "Five, eh?" I frowned and made a note. I measured the dimensions of the metal hood above the stove. I had Bruno steaming. Moreover, I didn't have the faintest idea what the regulations were, but anyone could get any manager of anything hysterical by measuring things and writing them down in notebooks with a frown.

  "Bruno."

  "Yes, Mr. Sanchez?"

  "I've already found four serious violations. I know you're running a straight place. I don't want to close it up."

  "Mr. Sanchez-"

  I held up a hand. "I can get an inspector over here from the Department of Health in forty-five minutes," I said. "I can get one from the Fire Department in even less time. We'd have to close up your place as a health and fire hazard. You know that?"

  His face told me he knew that. I was happy that he was out of his old business. I would hate to run across him in a dark street with that new grudge steaming him up. "Sure, sure, I know you could close me up. But Luigi is a real-"

  "I know he is. And I'm a real detective. I don't want to wake him up at eleven tomorrow morning and take him downtown in his silk pajamas-"

  Bruno grinned. "How you know he's got silk pajamas?"

  "All dukes got silk pajamas. When I get him downtown I'll have to be rude to him. He'll just hate it. You could make it real easy for him. I'm going to go back in the dining room and eat that very good steak while you think it over."

  I went in and sat down and ate. A very good piano player tinkled away at very soft Gershwin and Lerner. The steak was two inches thick and so tender I could have eaten it with a spoon. He had a very good operation going and I began to feel ashamed of myself for sneaking around the kitchen and telling lies with his own ruler.

  The girl at the next table kept sneaking stares of interest at me when her escort wasn't watching. I looked him over. In case I got high and made a pass at her it might be necessary to dump him and I decided I could take him. He looked a little thick around the waist and his complexion showed he worked indoors and was probably out of condition. She was a very well built redhead and I understood her interest. I was the new face at the neighborhood beanery. It's the old pattern. Much more common in suburbia, where a strange single male moving in can have his pick of almost all the local females who are sick and tired of the same old bodies and the same old jokes. If I didn't have business on my mind I would have slipped a buck to the ladies' room attendant with a note to give her whenever she went in.

  When I had eaten half the steak, Luigi came to my table.

  There was a little red spot on each cheek.

  "Have a seat."

  "Thank you. I prefer to stand." He looked over my head.

  I shrugged. Some have to learn the hard way.

  "They came in, once, twice a week. She holds his hand. He lets her. She holds it with her two hands. The woman is in love. You can see it, it comes off her like from a radiator. We remember her and him because he always tips badly, like many wealthy people who believe that money does not grow on trees. She makes him put more money for the tip. She talks and looks only at him. He yawns and looks at the other women. He is bored. So bored! He does not listen. He half listens. Me, now when I become bored with a woman, I end it, pffft! like that. But this drags on. Until they have a big argument here last fall."

  The one Morrison had told me about.

  "She accuses him of seeing other women and he does not deny it. She has had a little too much to drink. She starts to scream at him rather hysterically. He slaps her and she just sits there, stunned. Then he gets up and walks out. After a few moments, she follows without a word. They don't come back again all winter.

  "Then, sometime in March I think, they are back. They come in two, maybe three times that month. Everything is just the same as it was before, except now she is wearing a wedding ring-and on the right hand."

  "You're sure it was the right hand?"

  "Yes. Certain. Headwaiters notice things like that. It is our business, like detectives, to interest ourselves in what, in civilized countries, are considered personal matters."

  I let him have that one. Bruno must have ripped out several tailfeathers during their little talk in the kitchen.

  "It was a very interesting puzzle," he continued. "Not only that the ring was on the right hand, but that she was wearing one at all. They certainly did not give the impression of being married.

  "Again they do not come in for a while. Then about ten days ago they show up again. This time she is wearing a wedding ring on the left hand. A very big one." I didn't question his observation this time. "My thought was that she had been pursued by someone and that she wanted to make it clear that she was not available. That is what it seemed like, but I do not know."

  "Anything else?" I politely asked, thinking there wouldn't be. He had already confirmed everything Dr. Morrison had told me.

  "Yes. There was the argument."

  "Another argument?" Obviously Morrison hadn't heard about this one. Bruno's seemed extremely conducive to altercations, at least for our two surgeon friends. "What did they argue about this time?"

  "She wanted to go sailing with him. He said he was sick of sailing, sick of the boat, sick of the swindler who kept the boatyard. He was sick of the hospital, sick of the country, and sick of her."

  "How could you hear all this?"

  "First, I put it together from what the waiter and the busboy said, from what I myself overheard, since my desk is only two tables away from their favorite table. And his voice, he was drinking too much, and it was not hard to hear him, even when he thought he was whispering. Shall I go on?"

  "Yes."

  "He said he wanted to sell the boat. She asked what they would do that summer without the boat. He said he didn't give-excuse me-a shit what she planned to do, but he had rented a summer house to which, he wanted to make clear, she was not invited."

  "Did he say where it was?"

  "At this point she stood up and threw her drink in his face."

  "Then?"

  "If they would be alone I think he would have killed her; I saw his face."

  I listened.

  "He was holding a fork in his hand when she threw the drink. I saw him lift the hand with the fork, For a second I thought he was going to push it in her face. But he controlled himself. He put the fork down. His hand was shaking."

  "Then?"

  "Then he took out a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet. The bill was about fourteen dollars. He left without his change. That was the biggest tip he ever left. That was why everyone remembered the incident so well. She rubbed her fingers back and forth on the tablecloth while the waiter cleaned up. I felt sorry for her. She ordered a cup of coffee and drank it. She had pride. She bent down and picked up a piece of broken glass the busboy had missed. She put it on the table and left. I never saw her or him again."

 
"Did you see her face?"

  "Yes. When she threw the drink I knew it cost her a lot to do it, and I thought, 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' It is an old proverb and a very good one. She was a very intelligent woman. I began to feel sorry for him. I was sure she would think of something very bad for him."

  He felt like giving a lecture on women. He told me that women think with their behinds and that was where male logic should be directed.

  Maybe I could learn a lot from him. Maybe I should have listened and taken notes. It might have saved me some grief with the female side of my life. Instead I thanked him for his information. He softened a bit. You would never have known from his attitude that Bruno had very respectfully told him to get off his high horse or he would get maybe one or two legs broken.

  I paid my check. Bruno was hurt when I took it out of his hand. I had discovered long ago that when people pick up a tab they semiconsciously feel that they have acquired some sort of a right over you-maybe they expect deference, or even some kind of respect. I don't want to give that to anyone in my business. I prefer to pay my way. It costs money, but it gets you a grudging respect, and respect is what helps get you information and a reputation for leveling.

  At the door I said, "Bruno, thanks." He spread his hands out, palms up, and shrugged.

  "You made me talk dirty to Luigi," he said. "I'm sad and Luigi is sad."

  "But I'm happy, Bruno."

  I ransomed my hat for a quarter. She looked a foot over my head.

  When I stepped out on the street a woman came up to me and said, "Hello. I like you." I turned. She was the girl who had been sitting at the next table. She said quickly, "My date is getting the car out of the lot. I'm going to tell him I have a headache, so he won't come upstairs. Drop by in half an hour. We can play records and talk."

  "I'd like that."

  I felt a piece of paper being slid into my hand as a car pulled up. She got into it talking brightly to her date, then she held her hand to her forehead.

  The paper read "Apt 3A, 1617 Mason." Convenient. Ten blocks away, three blocks from Greer General. And I couldn't start phoning real estate agents about summer rentals until nine the next morning. The lady would work in very nicely. I would like visiting her. I was beginning to forget what they looked like when they took their clothes off.

  I would appreciate a refresher course.

  As I had asked, my car was in the front row. I waved at the kid in his booth as I walked by. He had a portable radio pressed to his ear going full blast. It was loud enough to melt his earwax, but the louder the better for that type. He looked up at the ceiling.

  The Olds didn't start. Gas O.K. Battery O.K. I opened the hood. Someone had pulled out all the wires leading from the distributor to the plug. Who knows the correct firing sequences? Not me. I shoved them in any old way and started her up again. It was even worse. I put her in gear and crawled up to the booth.

  The kid came out.

  "The funniest thing just happened to my car," I said.

  "Yeah? What?" He seemed interested.

  "All the wires from the distributor crawled out all by themselves."

  He looked surprised. "Yeah?"

  "Like caterpillars in the spring."

  "Huh?"

  He looked too surprised to be acting. If he were that good with the vacant, puzzled stare and the slightly opened mouth he wouldn't be holding a transistor radio to his ear in a parking lot out in Queens. He'd be off-Broadway in an acting class pretending to be a lilac or a bathmat.

  "I suppose it's the revolt of the machine," I said, trying to figure out my next step. Luigi or Bruno? Who had done it? That was my big problem, and why not concern myself with it? I couldn't rush the mysterious lady who, after all, had said half an hour. If it took half an hour to brush off her boyfriend, I was sure she knew her timing. My distributor might be off but she had better know her correct firing sequence.

  I had nothing to do till nine tomorrow morning, so I might as well sit there in the parking lot and try to solve a nice, small, easily handled mystery.

  Luigi or Bruno? Would a real "dook" whose ancestors used to ride around on horseback stabbing insolent peasants do a thing like that? Why not? The Borgias went around poisoning everybody without feeling guilty.

  On the other hand I didn't think Bruno would do anything so petty and so easily fixed as pulling some wires. He would saw the steering column in half so that a sudden hard turn would break it off in my hands. That had a good vengeful quality which Bruno would admire and go to sleep feeling content about. So it didn't feel like Bruno.

  Well, keep thinking, jerko. You have till nine tomorrow morning before you get on with that slighter mystery about the missing fingers and till then-oh, Jesus Christ Almighty. I hadn't phoned Hanrahan all day. And I'd have nothing definite to tell him by the morning, either. Calling Hanrahan with a lot of hunches would be worse than not calling at all. I knew that. I also knew that Hanrahan would improve upon the shining hour by telling the PC I hadn't bothered to call.

  Staten Island, here I come. I would become an example to the Department. They'd take so much out a week for the doctors' vouchers. I'd become a legend. "Ever see Sanchez these days?" "No, what happened?" "They broke him to patrolman. He had some kind of a run-in with Hanrahan and then he screwed up a big one the PC had a personal interest in. I hear he's pounding a beat out in Tottenville." Tottenville.

  Tottenville! What kind of a name is that? It's a comic-strip name. But that's where I'd be. Because you can't be physically in Fun City and be further away from 240 Centre. And the travel time each day would run three hours if all connections were perfect. Which they wouldn't be with my luck.

  Should I go inside and conduct a merciless investigation of all suspects? A small victory would be good for my crumbling morale. Luigi would deny it. Bruno would deny it. And the damn wires could be properly arranged in five minutes by someone who knew what he was doing.

  Oh, the hell with it. I would get a mechanic to fix it in the morning and send the bill to Bruno. After all, he was responsible for what happened to customers' cars in the lot. I started the car. It sounded like a spastic kid running a stick along a picket fence.

  I tried thinking of something pleasant for a change. My new friend? One: I wouldn't have to take her home. Two: She was not related, even distantly, to the PC. Three: She seemed intelligent. I liked the secretive way she slipped the note into my hand. Of course, she would doublecross me just as cleverly someday, but I didn't intend to commence a life-long relationship with her. One night, till 8:30 a.m. next morning, for example, would be just fine. Four: She smelled good, even in our brief encounter. Not so good as the Duchess. The Duchess' perfume probably cost thirty-five bucks an ounce. This lady probably only used toilet water. I don't rate myself an expert in such matters as perfume. All I know is that some smell nice because of good perfume, and some smell nice without any. That was one reason why I put up with Irene. She could go all night and she'd still smell nice all by herself.

  An empty cab came along just then. I hailed it, told the kid to park the car, gave him a buck to bring out a smile, and I got in. Sufficient unto the day were the evils thereof. And I did like the way the mysterious lady's fingernail scratched across my palm when she passed me the note.

  As we moved along the darkened streets I thought of the Duchess. I didn't want to. She arrived without orders, as she usually did.

  I smoked a cigarette and looked at my watch. My hand was developing an itch along the slash line. I scratched it gently. Soon it would be time to face another lady from Queens.

  I hoped she wouldn't turn out to be another Irene. I wasn't planning any long-range affair, but she did seem intelligent and she did know how to be concise. If Irene had come up to me on the sidewalk for the first time tonight she would have drawn me a map with detailed instructions like "Watch out for the hidden driveway back of the Texaco station where if you make a right on red the cop will give you a ticket." The fact that her bo
yfriend would then be outside listening to all the extra instructions wouldn't faze Irene. She'd go right on talking. She'd even bring in the boyfriend for confirmation.

  I thought again of the Duchess. There was a pussycat I would much rather tangle with. But I had been through all the reasons why I should. And through all the reasons why I shouldn't. If I ever got drunk with the lady I wouldn't give a damn for all the negative reasons. The positive reasons were the way her long tanned legs made her small firm buttocks tighten and thrust against the silk skirt when she walked in front of me in Simpson's Boatyard; and that confident smile when she drove so expertly. I would have liked to unbutton her sweater. I would have liked to open the hooks of her brassiere and slide my palms under her breasts and take their weight gently… but I wouldn't like to be brought up on charges a couple of weeks later. I erased her, got out, and walked to my new friend's house.

  26

  AS SOON AS I RANG 3A the buzzer sounded. She must have had her finger poised in readiness. She couldn't have been any more anxious than I was. As the elevator went up I worked out the last time I had performed the mattress mazurka. Three weeks. Too long.

  I had just eaten a good steak. I could give a good account of myself.

  I pressed her doorbell. Seven chimes sounded inside. As if there were a music box attached to the door. As soon as the last chime sounded she opened it. She must have been waiting for that last one. The cool, calm, deliberate type. I liked that. The opposite of the Duchess. No sulks. No doors slammed. No curses.

  On the other hand I never cared much for the cool segment of the population. But they did represent a greater challenge. They were like big trees. And I was an industrious beaver.

  I would gnaw and gnaw at their ankles. They would pay no attention. At first. But I would keep gnawing. I would never give up. There would be no sign of surrender. My jaw muscles would ache. I would grimly keep forging ahead. And suddenly there would come vibrating down the trunk a very gentle quivering. Then a slightly bigger quiver. Then, suddenly, a mighty crash, and another forest giant would be laid low. There would be a lot of satisfaction in that.