Mood Indigo

by Ed Ifkovic

  “But could he kill for beauty?” I asked hurriedly.

  She was standing up but dropped back into the seat. She looked frightened, as if I’d touched on an explosive topic. “She left a trail of broken hearts behind her, Miss Ferber. Let me put it this way—she was always thinking of tomorrow’s lover. What can I say?”

  Corey snapped at her. “That’s cruel, Kitty.”

  “Yeah, so what? What can I say?”

  “I don’t think you liked her,” I concluded. “Either of you. Frankly.” Then I added, “And you don’t like Dougie.”

  I stared at both of them as they shot glances at each other.

  Corey snarled, “Christ’s sake, Miss Ferber, you don’t really get it, do you?” He exchanged a conspiratorial look with Kitty that unfortunately included me as well. “When you’re rich, you can’t afford to like anyone.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Midnight in Manhattan.” Noel’s buttery words drifted through the telephone lines. A light chuckle as he went on. “Edna, the two of us, a walk on the wild side. The mysterious automat calls us to its doors.”

  “Yes, the wild side. A bite of a pastrami on rye that’s lingered untouched in a glass cubicle for a good part of a bad day. Too Wild West for me, dear Noel.”

  Immediately he got serious. “Edna, it’s time we asked a few questions. Dougie is becoming more and more morose, hidden now in his mother’s unforgiving lair. He walks the streets like a Bedouin nomad. You and me, the approximate time of the murder. Midnight. The folks there might remember something.”

  I sat back in my chair, sipped the cup of tea at my elbow. “According to the papers, the police thoroughly questioned the workers there. What makes you think…?”

  He didn’t wait until I finished. “You know, Edna, we’re not the police. We have our own questions. They have an obsession with facts. You and me—we’re writers. We have an obsession with lying.”

  “True. That’s one way to describe my life’s work—I make my living lying.”

  “Then you’re the perfect sleuth. You can spot when others are making things up.”

  I drew my tongue into my cheek. “Liars. Lord, Noel, especially Corey and Kitty, two people easy to dislike. But these days I’m also wondering if our boy Dougie is telling the truth.” I closed my eyes. “Is he one more liar?”

  I could hear Noel dragging on his cigarette. “He lied?”

  “Not so much lied, but cheap with the truth. He seems to skirt around it, trusting we won’t notice.”

  A long silence. “Yes, I sense that.”

  “What secrets is that man hiding?”

  “I’ll pick you up in a cab after eleven, Edna. Bring coins for the machines. I’ve never been in an automat. Even the name is absurd, no? But so American. It’ll be…mad.”

  “I suppose I’ll be ready.”

  I could hear him laughing. “You’re too puritanical to ever be late for anything, Edna.”

  “Said by a libertine wastrel.”

  “And yet we adore each other.”

  I clicked my tongue, though I smiled. “Sometimes I’m not so sure, Noel.”

  A high-pitched laugh. “One insurmountable difference between us, dearest Ferber, is that you write stories about folks who flatten their consonants, like Midwestern farmers and riverboat captains. I write plays about folks who elongate their vowels as if they are in pain.” A considered pause. “Daaarling.”

  Smiling, I hung up the phone.

  ***

  The automat was a place I’d never considered frequently. Of course not. Yet everyone I knew relished dropping in, inserting their nickels or dimes, then raving about the futuristic slice of apple pie that appeared magically before them. Science fiction coming to life in a heavenly glass-fronted kitchen.

  “Americans want as little contact with other people as possible,” he told me in the cab ride over. “Machine-age food production.” His voice rose. “I envision a day in America when robotic arms will be all the rage in loving embraces.”

  “Noel, you’re not making much sense.”

  Ever since Irving Berlin’s musical revue Face the Music became a smash hit, the crowds at the automat in Times Square had mushroomed—with self-proclaimed swells sailing in dressed in formal evening attire. In that stage production the rich who’d lost their fortunes after the Crash and could no longer get a table at the Ritz found themselves hobnobbing with other gentry at the pedestrian automat. Society dames in elbow-length silk gloves and diamond necklaces yelled across the room to others dressed in outdated Parisian finery. And everyone gleefully sang, “Let’s Have Another Cup of Coffee,” a song you heard incessantly on the Zenith in the family parlor. A delightful romp, the revue featured a big-boned battle-ax of a matron named Mrs. Martin Van Buren Meshbesher, a woman “lousy with money,” so bejeweled that on a clear day “you could see me in Yonkers.”

  The Hart & Hardart Automat on Broadway in the middle of Times Square was an architectural wonder. No simple eatery, this place, like prosaic Child’s, where you could stand on the sidewalk and watch a pimply boy flip pancakes in the window. No, the automat had a dazzling brownstone façade with intricate terra cotta inlaid panels, magnificent acorn-shaped ornaments speckling the friezes over the entrance—with a spectacular illuminated marquee dominating the whole affair. The word AUTOMAT was spelled out in swirling Art Nouveau lettering against a stained-glass backdrop. The splendor of it all. The food gods, celebrated. An orgy of conveyer belt cuisine.

  “A cathedral,” Noel quipped. “To commerce.”

  “To culinary catastrophe.”

  Noel squeaked at me. “Snob.”

  “You bet.”

  Outside, huddled in shadows, a few shivering men and a woman watched us walking in. A young boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, bone thin, started to say something, but the woman’s arm reached out, touched his shoulder. He drew back into the shadows. When I glanced back at the shabby loiterers, they turned their heads away.

  Walking through the massive revolving door, I was overwhelmed by the vast, high-vaulted interior: a magical kingdom of glittery, colorful lights, a rainbow of sunshine yellow and orange and forest green. A towering ceiling grandly painted with gaudy flora—lush tropical rain-forest blooms twisted gracefully down the white marble pillars. Tiny gargoyle-like figures perched high on pillars, gazing down at us. Bacchanalia, I thought—a hymn to dime-store gluttony and the awesome power of macaroni and cheese.

  Noel, dizzy from arching his neck to take in the “divine show, really,” immediately inserted a nickel into a slot and proudly held up a powdered doughnut the size of one of the lesser states, holding it aloft as though it were the lost ark of the covenant.

  “Noel,” I said softly, “it’s a doughnut.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s—America.”

  I surveyed the walls of glass compartments. A nickel for a ham sandwich. Fish croquettes, slices of roast turkey, baked mac and cheese, mashed potatoes. Pecan pie á la mode. Banana cream pie. Gigantic silver spouts shaped like leaping dolphins dispensed hot coffee.

  At midnight the tables were jam-packed. I sized up the crowd, immediately creating lives for them: backstreet vaudevillians, gypsy dancers, dungaree-clad dock workers, zoot-suited connivers and hucksters, a street walker with a Lucite box purse, a dime-a-dance girl from the Orpheum, women in furs and Empire Eugenie felt hats, feathered—a Garboesque affectation. Jean Harlow platinum blondes. George Raft gigolos. Speakeasy bouncers. Overweight drummers from Newark.

  I turned to face a fussy-looking man in a baggy gray flannel suit, the jacket one size too large. His sliver of a moustache twitched as he smiled at us. A nametag on his lapel: Josiah Farnum, Night Manager. He rocked back and forth on his heels, though his sudden salaam was overly dramatic.

  “Celebrities,” he intoned, running his tongue over his teeth. “Noel Coward and Edna F
erber.”

  “Yes,” Noel said, “we know who we are.”

  “An honor. We…”

  I broke in. “Mr.—”I leaned in, squinted at the tag to get the name right. “Mr. Farnum, a favor, please. We’re friends of Dougie Maddox, the man who…”

  He held up his arm, actually putting his palm close to my face. He whispered, “Awful. Just awful.” As he spoke, his head surveyed the packed room.

  Noel said, “Sir, if you would allow it, we’d like to talk to any of your staff who worked here that night. Curiosity—his family wonders.”

  Mr. Farnum made a grumbling sound. “I was off that night.” He lowered his voice. “Unfortunately. I missed the…horror of it all.” Then he thought better of his word choice. “I mean, the whole thing was…unfortunate.”

  I raised my voice. “Dougie Maddox is a suspect, as you know.”

  His head shifted, again checking out the crowded room. “They’re saying he’s the murderer.” He shivered. “Back there.” He pointed behind a closed door.

  “Who says that?” I said hotly.

  He backed up, startled by the force of my words. “The police have been in more times than I can count. I mean, they’ve swarmed all over the place. And the crowds. Look at this room. Packed. We’re not usually so—so busy at this hour. Why is it a murder makes average folks want to stand in the same spot? Crowded tables, wanderers back to the hallway. Lord, enough with the Daily News and their flash-bulb Leicas. Intrusive.” He sounded indignant. “We are not the circus.”

  Noel was impatient. “Nevertheless, if you could help us.”

  His eyes glistened. “How can I deny Noel Coward and Edna Ferber?”

  “Good point.” I said. “Sensible man. Now…”

  He snapped his fingers and a young woman hurried over. “Could you call Thelma from the kitchen?” He turned to face me. “The cops took the names of the dozen or so people here that night. I mean, customers.”

  He waited until a woman approached us, and he whispered something in her ear. “Thelma Mickles,” he told me. Then he pointed to an empty back table.

  Thelma Mickles wore a look of utter fear in her face as she sat down at the table. I smiled at her and Noel half-bowed, reaching over to shake her hand. Neither gesture allowed her to relax.

  “A few questions, my dear,” Noel told her, and her lips trembled.

  “I ain’t know nothing but what I told the cops.” A thick Irish brogue, a singing voice that enchanted me.

  “Ireland?” I asked.

  She looked at Noel. “England?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t know you two,” she said flatly. “Him”—indicating the manager who was standing ten feet away, making believe he was inspecting a line of ketchup bottles—“whispered that you are famous. The both of you.”

  “That’s not why we’re here,” I said. “We’re friends of the young man the police think killed Belinda Ross.”

  Matter of-factly, “Oh, the murderer?”

  I started. “Well, we want to prove him innocent.”

  She scoffed. “Well, good luck with that one, honey.”

  “And why is that?”

  She counted the reasons with her calloused fingers. “One, you got you a body with a scarf tight around her neck, and two, you got his name all over the piece.”

  “Still and all,” I went on, heated.

  Noel held up his hand. “You wouldn’t want an innocent man convicted, would you, darling?”

  Her eyebrows rose. A grunt. “Happens all the time in this country.”

  I ignored that. “Anyway.”

  “Don’t mean to offend nobody.” She offered a girlish smile.

  Thelma leaned back, draped one arm over the back of her chair. The chubby big-boned woman had wide footballer shoulders. Her gray curls were partially hidden under a net cap, though a few vagrant strands drifted down her forehead. Her fingers were short and stubby, the nails bitten to the quick. When she smiled, her face became warm, inviting, her small eyes lost in the folds of her flesh. A dimpled face, though that charming feature was nearly hidden by rolls of chapped, blotchy skin. Her dumpy faded blue uniform, bunched at the waist with a frayed belt, sported a large reddish stain on her chest.

  Noel pointed to it. “You look like you’ve been shot in the heart.”

  “Many times,” she laughed out loud. “Married three times. Men never miss the heart when they aim.” She caught my eye. “Of course, you knows they miss everything else they’re supposed to hit.”

  Noel pulled out a folded sheet from his breast pocket. The front page of the Daily News, Dougie’s sour face and Belinda’s scattered expression. “Did you see this man in here?”

  She shook her head vigorously. “No, sir. I work back in the kitchen. Almost never come into this here room.” She looked around the restaurant. She grinned. “Not dressed for company.” She seemed to be seeing the crowd for the first time. “It’s a circus in here tonight.”

  “But you saw her?” I indicated Belinda.

  She bit her lip. “Only when that poor girl was dead in a heap on the floor, that infernal scarf tight around that pretty neck. I swear to heaven, I crossed myself and called out to blessed Jesus. I nearly fainted. Nobody gets kilt in this place.” A sly grin. “And don’t make no cracks about the food.”

  Noel was munching on the doughnut, a smear of white powdered sugar covering his pale chin. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “Can you help us in any way?” I asked.

  She made a face. “I don’t know how, seeing as I don’t know nothing.” She breathed in. “But, okay, here’s the story like I told it to the cops over and over. ‘What was that again?’ they keep asking. Deaf cops. No wonder the city is falling apart. That, and Herbert Hoover, him looking like an undertaker at a wedding.” She glanced at the manager who was holding a fork up to the light, a frown on his face. “I think she was crying earlier. I mean, I walked into the hallway earlier, maybe four or five minutes before, and I heard someone crying real loud in the ladies room. That stopped me cold. Yeah, folks get into fights here—crying, this and that. But this was—real sad. I go to open the door but she pushed against it. ‘Go away.’ Sweetest voice, I thought. Okay, somebody warring with an ass of a boyfriend. Happens all the time.” She closed her eyes for a second. “Now I think it was her.”

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  “I can’t, but, you know, I got a gut feeling. The cops said the same thing.”

  “Then what happened?” asked Noel.

  “So I’m back in the kitchen and all of a sudden I feel a cold draft on my feet. Right through the closed door. Getting colder and colder. What in heaven’s name? Bad enough I got no heat in my cold-water flat out in Queens. So I swung open the door and there she is, heaped up, twisted, arms bent under her body. Her eyes open like she seen the face of the devil—like surprise in them. I swear to God.” She crossed herself again.

  “The outside door was wide open? To the alley?”

  “Yeah. And I’m thinking the murderer run out that door.”

  “Could he have come in by that door?” I asked. “Not through the front door?”

  The question alarmed her. “Well, yeah. It ain’t locked. Marvin over there”—she pointed to a wiry Negro sweeping the floor around some empty tables—“he got to bring out the trash every hour or so.”

  The manager made a harrumph sound, clicked his heels like a Prussian soldier, and Thelma stood up, though slowly, stretched out her arms. “I gotta get back to cooking. I bring home the only cash in the house.” A mischievous grin. “Husband number four is curled up by the old Motorola listening to Jack Benny and laughing hisself silly.”

  Nodding at us, she walked away.

  Mr. Farnum snapped his fingers and a young man clearing some tables and running a wet rag over them stopped wha
t he was doing. He ambled toward us, nodding to the manager. Blinking wildly, he stammered his name. “J-j-j-ohnny Hicks, my name.” He waited. The manager yelled to us. “Johnny was working the tables that night.”

  “Please sit, Mr. Hicks.”

  “Johnny,” he said. “Nobody calls me Mr. Hicks.” Glancing at the manager, he insisted, “I’ll stand, if it’s okay with you. Gotta keep my eyes on my tables.”

  “You saw the girl who was murdered? The others with her?”

  He was nodding quickly, eager to talk. His moist tongue kept rolling out over his lips, like a swamp frog anticipating a treat. “I was finishing up, stayed past my hours. I gots me a long train ride deep into Brooklyn. Two hours. Maybe more when she breaks down in the tunnel. So I was rushing. But I seen them four.”

  Perhaps in his late twenties, Johnny was a short skinny man, with a long bony face with a faint beard stubble. His watery blue eyes under bushy eyebrows kept blinking, staring away from us.

  “What can you tell us?” Noel said.

  Johnny had rehearsed his story, the words tripping out in measured, emphatic sentences. “They were arguing. Or at least two of them was. The real pretty girl. Someone told me she was a famous singer on Broadway, but I ain’t never been on Broadway. But an eye-catcher, she was. At least I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Anyway, I overheard them. She goes off, comes back. She looked—tired.”

  “Did you hear what they were saying? Arguing about?” I asked.

  “Dunno. Just bickering like.” He grinned. “Like I do with my girlfriend. Squawking ain’t nothing but people learning to be together.”

  “What about the other two? The man and the woman.”

  “They said nothing, so far’s I could tell, though the other guy was mumbling something at one point.”

  “Then she was alone?” I asked.

  He nodded quickly. “Strangest thing, though. I mean, she flares up—I was just coming out of the kitchen and I seen it—and tells them all to get lost. Real loud, but teary, you know. The murder guy”—suddenly he pointed to Dougie’s face in the front page article, spread out on the table—“him, the murderer, he looked furious. His buddy nudges him. Like—let’s get the hell outta here. This bomb is gonna explode. So they go, and she sits there. Like alone as can be. Just staring into space. That pretty girl.”