by Ed Ifkovic
Belinda eyed Kitty, furious. “I told everyone not to mention him. He never said a word to me. Not then—never.”
“He didn’t have to. That stare.”
Dougie shouted, “Weasel!”
“Rich weasel,” said Kitty. “But his wasn’t the look of—love.” She shrugged. “Or maybe it was love turned real bitter.” She offered a disingenuous smile. “You don’t slap a rich man and live to talk about it.”
Belinda yelled out, “I don’t want this conversation. Could we go? I’m cold.”
I caught Noel’s eye. Not happy, if I could judge by his steely look, the pursed lips. He turned his head away from the scene, as if searching for a cab. He flicked his head in my direction, a signal to move.
“You wanted to come along for the party,” I told him quietly.
“What?” asked Corey.
“Not a thing,” I said.
Kitty went on. “The curse of fame.”
I caught her eye and accused. “You make it sound like a blessing, my dear.”
“I suppose it is,” she agreed with a foolish, self-conscious giggle, then pointed at a quiet Belinda. “All the men will always fall in love with you.”
An odd line, I considered—bittersweet, intended as such, but coming off as petty and ugly.
“We poor men, gentlemen rankers off on a spree, damned from here to eternity.” Corey bowed.
Impulsively, he saluted Belinda, then grabbed her hand and kissed it. “The continental gesture,” he sang out. It seemed a mocking gesture, though perhaps some attempt to lighten the fractious conversation. Belinda laughed out loud. She twisted her head to the side coyly and blew a kiss to Corey. Then, as an afterthought, one to Dougie.
Flustered, Dougie tottered against a streetlight pole, slipped on a patch of ice at the curb, but regained his balance and angrily faced Corey. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing, Dougie.” He shrugged his shoulders, dismissing it.
But Dougie, energized, stumbled forward, grasped Corey’s sleeve, and pulled at it. Off balance, Corey shuffled his feet, spun away, but looked back. “C’mon, Dougie, we’re having fun.”
Noel broke in, exasperated. “Dougie, this is nothing. It’s…”
What startled me was Belinda’s face. The beautiful face was suddenly haggard, worn, her lovely eyes dull and faraway, sadness in them. Trembling, she looked at Dougie. A befuddled look—confusion, yes, but mixed with annoyance. Pain. Hurt. A love sickness, too. Longing. It was an amazing transformation, one I’d not expected, this palette of conflicting emotions, but almost immediately her features hardened as she drew in her breath and mumbled, “You make me so tired, Dougie. Sometimes I just want to fall asleep.”
“Nonsense,” he yelled back. “Belinda, do you have to have the attention of the whole world?”
Weary, head dipped down, not looking at him, she replied, “That’s funny—I thought I only wanted yours.”
“Cyrus Meerdom.” The man’s name, stressed.
“Has nothing to do with me,” she said in a dragging voice, barely audible. “A producer.”
“I think…”
At that moment Belinda lunged forward and slapped Dougie across the face. “Okay, now everything is even. I slapped Cyrus. I slapped you. Happy?”
No one looked happy. I shifted from one frozen foot to the other. Noel, mouth agape, rolled his eyes.
Dougie looked ready to cry.
“Enough of this,” Noel said finally, his voice flat.
Corey had been watching the skirmish with his hands folded over his chest. “Cold.” He watched my teeth chatter. “Coffee.”
Dougie’s body shook.
Watching him closely, Belinda leaned in and grabbed his hand, gave it an affectionate tug. A quick peck on the cheek. “Come on, Dougie. You and me, right? Let’s make everything okay. Don’t make my days unbearable. This jealousy…this temper.”
He managed a weak smile as she touched his lips with her fingertips. “Belinda.” Plaintive, drunk with her.
“Quiet,” she said gently. “It’s almost Christmas. You like Christmas.” She spoke as though to an errant child.
Then we all laughed; even Dougie grinned.
“Coffee,” Corey said again. “Is anyone listening to me?”
“The automat,” Kitty suggested. “Everyone goes there late at night. The swells. Let’s all go.”
Corey sang out in an exaggerated basso profundo. “Oh, how I love the automat, the place where the food is at!” Grandly, he bowed.
We applauded.
Noel, not to be outdone, sang out, “See Mr. Whitney passing by, munching on Swiss-on-rye. There’s Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, saying, ‘This is my place! I got here first.” He also bowed, adding, “Courtesy of Moss Hart, folks.”
Grinning, Dougie nodded at us, and Belinda, watching him closely, took his arm. But the look on her face told me she could no longer abide such childish posturing. My eyes caught hers, and she smiled back at me. Yes, I thought—an ambitious singer, but something else there. She didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, even though she knew she might have to. That observation caught me up short—I’d casually dismissed her as one more Broadway darling, but now something struck me as painfully genuine in her, some strain of goodness. I liked her then, the trace of mettle in her blood, and, more importantly, kindness.
Noel and I begged off the automat, a public eatery I’d never visited. I preferred not to obtain my meals from a slot with a glass door. A conveyer belt of indigestible cuisine. Noel hailed a cab and we shuffled into the backseat. The foursome waited on the corner and waved at us. Rather, everyone waved but Dougie. He had both arms wrapped around Belinda, a bear hug that looked awkward—and unwelcome.
“Perhaps your adoring acolyte needs more schooling at the foot of the master,” I said to Noel as the cab pulled away from the curb. “A dunce sitting in the corner.”
Noel answered me in a strained voice. “I suppose I value the flattery of you Americans too much. I’m intoxicated with Americans. Even those who act like children. You are all like a—a new breed plopped down on virgin soil. Children playing with too much money in a lush flower garden.” He grinned. “Perhaps all Americans are children at heart.”
“I don’t flatter you, Noel dear.”
“Of course you do, dear Edna. You hover on the edge of my life like a moth circling a flame.”
I laughed. “Yes, that’s me, strewing rose petals before each step you take.”
His eyes twinkled. “I’m too humble to call myself a genius, so you have to do it for me.”
“Are all Brits so drunk with themselves?”
“Only the clever ones. The witty.”
I grumbled, “Those who still long for the days when they were angelic child stars. pretty little boys onstage, all London at their feet.”
“Yes, the happiest time of my life.”
“Until New York began worshiping you.”
“Let’s see if that’s true after I come back from Cleveland.”
***
In the middle of the night I woke with a start. The telephone jangled, then stopped. Or had I dreamed it? In the dim room I stared at the clock on the nightstand: early morning. Three in the morning. An ungodly hour. I’d been asleep for—what? Barely two hours. Madness, this—dream. I hadn’t drawn the curtains and I glimpsed the pale white sky beyond my terrace. A snow sky, I always called it in my days back in Appleton, Wisconsin. The dull, chalky sky that presaged snowfall.
I had trouble falling back to sleep, but in the early morning I roused because the aroma of potent coffee wafted from the kitchen. Rebecca, my indefatigable housekeeper, was whipping up buttery biscuits and frying crisp bacon.
Dragging myself into the kitchen, sloe-eyed, I saw Rebecca shaking her head. “Did I imagine it or was the phone ringin
g in the middle of the night?”
“So I wasn’t dreaming.”
“What fool calls then?”
I felt a quickness in my chest as I shook my head. “Rebecca, those calls are doomsday calls.”
At that moment the telephone rang, and we both jumped. Rebecca reached for it, but I stopped her. “Let me.”
My voice hollow. “Tell me.” I waited.
At first silence, then labored breathing. “Edna.” One word, ominous.
“What? Tell me.”
“It’s Noel.”
I rushed my words. “I know who you are.”
A deep intake of breath, a raspy cough. “Belinda is dead.”
I gasped. “Oh, Lord, no.”
“Strangled.”
“Impossible.”
A long heartbeat. “They found her body in a hallway at the back of the automat in Times Square.”
My mind went blank. Dizzy, I sank into a chair. “Tell me.”
“Well, I don’t know anything.” His voice broke. “On the radio. No details. I…Last time we…Edna, the automat?”
Quietly, I placed the receiver down and sat with my hands folded in my lap.
Dougie and Corey and Kitty…and Belinda. Coffee? The automat. Last night’s squabbles. The tree at Rockefeller Center. Coffee?
Dougie.
A walk. Out of there. I apologized to Rebecca as I got up from the table, quickly dressed, and wrapped myself in my fur coat, adjusted my fur hat. My warm gloves. My scarf. My morning ritual, though different today. Every day a mile walk, even in blazing August heat and fierce Manhattan blizzards. Up Park Avenue, over to Lexington, back downtown. Brisk, my mind swimming with plans for the day. Characters buzzed in my head. A line of dialogue. A facial expression. The Italian butcher on Lexington, blood-stained, a groan as he tacked a sign in his window. Yes—save that image. A short story. Walk, walk, walk.
But not today. The cold numbed, ice bit my face, and I stopped at the corner, turned back. Impossible, this day. Impossible, this awful news.
Dougie.
At a corner news kiosk, the wizened old man I often nodded to was clipping copies of the morning edition of the Daily News onto a wire suspended along the top panel. Copy after copy after copy of the flash-fire tabloid, suspended at an angle. A hiccough of sensation. I stood and stared as the old man smiled at me, pointed at the newspapers piled in front of him.
“Such bad news,” he said clearly. “And it’s almost Christmas.”
Almost Christmas.
Dougie.
“You want one?” He picked up a newspaper.
Yes. I fished a nickel out of my pocket. He handed the paper to me, and I stared at the front page. An insert in the upper right-hand corner—a professional headshot of the beautiful Belinda Ross, smiling, glistening, posed coyly. But the entire page displayed a black-and-white grainy shot of Belinda dancing at the Stork Club with Dougie Maddox, identified as the songstress’ current beau. “The wealthy scion.” Three succinct words. In the background a dazzling crystal chandelier, reflecting mirrors on the side. But what alarmed me was that the photographer had captured the two lovebirds in an infelicitous moment. For some reason Belinda was looking off to her side, her mouth slightly open as though ready to say something to someone out of camera range. But Dougie’s face alarmed—he was staring at her profile, his face a scowl. Nothing of the suave good looks now. Nothing of the debonair man-about-town. Certainly nothing of the rich dapper man in the Brooks Brothers suit. No, he simply looked—craven.
No story yet, according to the skimpy copy. Late night news hurried at breakneck speed onto the printing press. Details to follow.
Details.
“The celebrated star of Broadway.”
Dougie.
I cringed.
My hands shook as I read the bold-font shouted headline: BROADWAY BEAUTY STRANGLED.
Chapter Eight
Dougie Maddox sat at my Steinway grand piano, one finger pinging middle C, a monotonous punctuation I believed he scarcely knew he was doing—and doing to my nerves. Idly, he gazed out the bank of windows that faced my terrace.
“Stop it, Dougie,” Noel said quietly.
“What?”
“Stop or find another key to annoy us with. Middle C is so—the start of a sentence you don’t know how to finish.”
“What?” he asked again, puzzled.
“Never mind,” I said to both men. “Could we be quiet a moment?”
Dougie glanced at me, a sliver of a smile on his face. He stood up and walked to the window, placed his palm on the glass. “I didn’t know you lived so high up in the sky, Edna. You can see Grand Central Station. The Chrysler Building. A penthouse, no less. You got a terrace big enough for tennis.” He pointed out the window. “All your windows face south. So much sun.”
Noel clicked his tongue mischievously. “And we all thought show boats only drifted down rivers.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, turning to face Noel.
“Never mind,” I repeated.
Silence for a moment, until Dougie spun around, arms flailing, then paced around the room. “I don’t know if I should have come here.”
“Sit down,” I said in my schoolmarm tone, pointing to an armchair. He plopped into it, his body all angles, and immediately began to sob.
I caught Noel’s eye—what to do? He shrugged his shoulders and said in a low rumble, “Dougie, tell us what happened.”
It was early afternoon, but the sky was already darkening. I’d been on the phone with Noel since early morning. After that first call that sent me prowling the streets, there were other calls, longer and longer, back and forth, none of which garnered either of us any new information. Before noon Noel told me Dougie had reached him—fresh from an agonizing visit to the Forty-seventh Street Precinct—frightened, barely able to talk, stammering about Belinda and dying and cops and pain. More pain. Sobbing. Noel told me Dougie simply dropped the phone, then finally called back, apologizing.
“He begged me to come over. Then he mentioned you.”
“Me?” Flabbergasted. “Why me?”
Noel had sounded flustered himself. “You and me—we were with him and the others last night.”
“So?”
“So”—Noel had dragged out the word—“so he believes we can vouch for something.”
I’d sunk into my seat. “For what? Loutish behavior on everyone’s part. Drunken rambles around a Christmas tree? A bunch of dipsomaniacs headed for an ungodly automat at midnight.”
Noel had sighed. “Edna, I guess that’s the point. You and I can testify that he was in good spirits—not a homicidal maniac ready to strangle his girlfriend in a fit of rage.”
“A character witness?”
“This is all madness, Edna. Murder? I’m not—used to it.”
The line struck me as bizarre, but I’d answered. “Noel, what do you want to do?”
“He wants to visit us. Talk to us. Do you mind?”
“Of course not. When?” I’d waited a second. “Maybe he has some answers.”
Noel appeared at my apartment around one, followed by a skittish Dougie, who immediately grabbed onto Noel, squeezed him—not me, I hasten to add—and sobbed inconsolably. Over his shoulder, Noel caught my eye, and looked uncomfortable.
Dougie looked beaten, the handsome face pale and drawn, deep purplish lines under his eyes, his hair uncombed, his chin unshaven. He was wearing a rumpled double-breasted suit, unbuttoned, a sloppy Windsor knotted tie around his neck. He’d often impressed me as the immaculate dandy on the town, so this disheveled look startled me, though I wasn’t surprised—he seemed a man rushed out of his bed, fire alarm clanging, a man hurling himself out the door. At one point Noel pulled at Dougie’s lapels, straightening the jacket, buttoning it, tugging at the careless n
ecktie. I smiled at that—Noel, the sartorial master, always groomed as though preparing for a photographer, wearing an expensive Lanvin shirt, gold cuff links, diamond tie clip, the padded shoulders, tucked waist, and billowing trousers. The expensive haircut. A barber’s routinely shaved chin. Noel expected people to look at him when he entered a room. They always did.
If Noel ever is charged with a murder—and it wouldn’t surprise me, given his intolerance of much of mankind—I fully expect him to appear before an early-morning docket with a Savile Row tailor and a Fleet Street barber at hand. A wash of lilac after-shave lotion permeating the stale air of any courtroom.
Not so, sad Dougie, who curled up in the armchair and looked ready to tuck himself into a fetal position.
“Dougie,” Noel began, tenderness in his voice, “you refuse to tell us anything.”
Dougie looked up, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Because I know nothing.”
“Frankly,” I interrupted, peeved, “you must know something. You spent the morning at the police station.”
He shuddered. “Have you ever been in a police station, Edna? It’s…”
“Filled with criminals,” I finished.
“Yes,” he stammered. “Yes. People handcuffed, in fact. To chairs.”
“I’d rather have them there than on the streets, Dougie.”
He whined, “But I’m not one—and they—they think I killed Belinda.”
I waited a heartbeat. “Tell us.”
Wide-eyed, he sat with his mouth open. Then, swallowing, he said, “Because we had a fight.” His voice cracked. “That’s why. A lover’s quarrel. But we always had spats. Lovers do, right? You don’t kill…”
“Some do,” I interrupted sharply.
He looked from Noel to me. “I want you both to believe me—I would never kill her. I loved her. She loved me.”
He began moving around the room, banging into chairs, pausing by the window and gazing down into the street. “So far down there. I could not live like this—it’s too dizzying.” He faced us, his face broken. “You know, a man stopped me when I got out of the cab—he asked for a dime. A dime.” His voice shook, his face caving in. “Who asks for a dime nowadays?”
