City of Sharks

by Kelli Stanley

  The twenty-fourth-floor lounge opened in ’37 as the West Coast’s answer to the Rainbow Room and the true salvation of the newly secular Hotel Empire. First of its kind before the barely year-old Top of the Mark made imitation the most sincere form of theft, the Sky Room’s famous-first views were still a destination for middle-class Americans and tourists, especially those for whom the sounds of Benny Goodman and the price of better accommodations were just a few dollars out of reach.

  Elevator motors clicked and whirred into action, sending a crate down from floor twelve. Miranda smoothed her dress, an off-the-shoulder turquoise silk, low-cut in the back and showcasing her neck and collarbone, diaphanous except for bands of lace and sequins.

  No passing for twenty-three, not anymore, but she could still pull off twenty-six, especially with hair newly hennaed and worn down, shining and silky, shoes a silver patent leather, silk of the dress clinging to her breasts and thighs and stomach before falling to the floor in an elegant line.

  Footsteps on the polished floor behind her, high-pitched giggles and baritone murmurs.

  Miranda turned, ready for whatever the night might bring.

  A young man, maybe five-eleven, with broad shoulders and pomaded hair rounded the corner. He stopped in midstride when he saw Miranda, left hand still in the pocket of his double-breasted cashmere coat, right hand holding a brown Borsalino, anemic blond date in pink tulle fading into the wallpaper.

  Jerry Alexander, current King of the Cardinal Gridiron. The blonde nudged him in the ribs, and his mouth shut.

  Miranda’s lips twitched at the corners. “Are you here for the Forester party?”

  * * *

  Jerry Alexander’s laugh was as vacuously pleasant as his fair skin and wide-set eyes. “Why—yes.” Thrust out a hand. “I’m Jerry Alexander. Niles’ son. You are—?”

  The handshake was firm and quick, like his running down the field or his reputed taste in escorts.

  “Miranda Corbie. I’m a friend of Miss Crowley’s.”

  The manicured eyebrows rose, while his eyes darted over her face and down the length of her gown.

  “Louise? Louise invited you?”

  “Ye-es.” She extended a hand to the forgotten date. “Miranda Corbie.”

  The blonde accepted two fingertips in a limp embrace, blue eyes burning like dry ice.

  “Kaye Harmon.”

  Not a familiar name, but the new crop of socialites were far from the hardy Brenda Frazier and Cobina Wright, Jr., variety …

  Jerry’s eyes were still struggling to see through Miranda’s dress when the main elevator doors drew open and an assortment of businessmen, women in evening gowns, and tourists poured out. She stepped toward a hallway on the right.

  “The invitation says to use the freight elevator. I was just headed that way.”

  He quickened his pace to stay astride. “If you’re a regular here, Miss Corbie, I’ve obviously not been watering at the right holes.”

  She threw him a sidewise glance.

  “I know the Empire well—a friend of mine took out a monthly room here.”

  “Did she marry or just tire of the place?”

  Miranda stopped in front of a nondescript but functional freight elevator guarded by a bored, balding man in a wilted tuxedo.

  “He joined the army, Mr. Alexander.”

  Miranda presented her invitation, strode inside, and pressed the automatic button for the twenty-fourth floor, leaving Jerry still looking for his card and impatiently explaining who he was to the bored man checking names.

  With a wobble and a groan, the crate rose slowly, finally opening in the middle of the Sky Room.

  Sound struck Miranda with force, bouncing off the six-by-fourteen-foot windows and reverberating around the oblong island bar on the left, all stainless steel and poplar wood with gleaming gold trim.

  Every martini was refracted in silver, every stool filled with men in suits or tuxedos, women laughing too brightly in chiffon and silk. Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” played from hidden speakers, blending in with the tipsy laughter, frantic conversation, and—somewhere—a man with anger in his voice and a woman on the verge of tears.

  She frowned, pausing by a potted fern, adjusting to the cacophony while her nose wrinkled at the unholy amalgamation of Shalimar, Joy, and Tabu.

  In the right corner was a table laden with hors d’oeuvres and a cut-glass punch bowl. Louise stood beside it, speaking to a waiter, dressed in a pastel plum evening gown, conservatively cut.

  Miranda watched her for a few seconds, pretty young blonde, congenial and efficient.

  Louise Crowley. Hard to believe someone might want her dead.

  * * *

  The secretary caught her eye, cut short the waiter’s conversation and hurried over with a cocktail glass, threading her way through middle-aged men in tuxedos and potbellies, drawing appreciative glances.

  Louise extended the glass to Miranda, smiling guardedly. “Miss Corbie—I’m so glad you could come.”

  Miranda felt someone behind her. She stiffened at Jerry Alexander’s hand on her bare back, rubbing in small circles.

  He drawled: “Really, Louise—you constantly amaze me. You should bring your friends more often.”

  Miranda pivoted sideways from the football player, sliding out from his grasp with a quickness that more resembled a slap in the face. She refocused her smile on his date.

  “Louise, I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Harmon outside—along with Mr. Alexander, of course.” The girl in pink tulle stared stonily back at Miranda.

  The secretary’s smile was frozen in place. “Everyone meets Jerry sooner or later. Champagne is in the punch bowl, Jerry. If you’d like something harder, the bar is open.”

  The running back stood with his legs apart, hands held dumbly at his sides, mouth unsmiling. He grabbed his date’s elbow and pushed quickly toward the bar.

  “A real Prince Charming, isn’t he? And not that you don’t look like a Hollywood star, Miss Corbie—you do—but Jerry’s like that with so many women that I’ve lost count. He never stops playing the game.”

  Miranda sipped the champagne. “We’re supposed to be won over or run over. Where’s his father?”

  Louise tilted her head toward a seating area with the best view. “There.”

  Niles Alexander, fifty-seven, was holding court, standing in front of the largest window and commanding views of his own. Still relatively fit for a man his age, florid in complexion with an aquiline nose and pugnacious chin, he’d held offices at the Monadnock for seven or eight years. According to Gladdy, her main source for building gossip, he’d undergone plastic surgery.

  Whether his transformation was tactile or not, Alexander—originally from Hell’s Kitchen and originally named Saul Arnofsky—had remade himself. Russian-Jewish heritage rejected and dismissed, he’d replaced it with a vaguely Continental air, a hint of British reserve, his bank account flush and his politics as strident as a flag-waving mother from Peoria.

  The publisher was nodding grandiloquently to two mustachioed gentlemen in starched tuxes, patting the shoulder of a distinguished-looking man next to him. Smart, double-breasted navy suit, glasses, and a long, well-bred English face, too well-bred to flinch … C. S. Forester.

  Louise followed Miranda’s eyes. “That’s Mr. Forester. He’s ever so polite, but I don’t think he’s going to leave Little, Brown for us. Mr. Alexander doesn’t have the connections to Mr. Forester’s English publisher, at least not yet.”

  Miranda sipped the champagne again, made a face, and set the glass down inside the potted fern. “So what’s this really about? Or is Alexander that delusional?”

  “Louise! You look stunning. And who is this ravishing creature in blue?”

  The voice was charming, masculine with a droll undertone. Miranda turned toward a tall, thin man of about thirty-six in a crisp new tuxedo. He grinned as his eyes followed the lines of her gown.

  Louise smiled. “Hello, Roger. Miss Miranda
Corbie—meet Roger Roscoe, one of our authors.”

  Roscoe placed his hand on his heart. “Such a shade of azure! ‘She walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies…’”

  Miranda raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re an author and not an actor, Mr. Roscoe?”

  He took a step closer, smelling of lime and oak. Bent quickly to her ear and whispered, “Are you sure you’re a private detective and not Aphrodite?”

  Miranda jerked her head upward and met his eyes. Louise interjected smoothly: “Roger writes adventure books and westerns for us, though now he’s got a mystery. Don’t you, Roger?”

  Roscoe stepped away, nodding. “Yes, ma’am. Luckily for me I escaped from my garret and burned my poetry.”

  “What kind of mystery are you writing, Mr. Roscoe?”

  The novelist shrugged. “Whatever kind Niles is buying. I like the Raymond Chandler approach—the man is doing wonderful things for Los Angeles. Surely I could do the same for San Francisco … and it helps that we have so many detectives available for research, even in our own Monadnock.”

  Louise’s voice was pointed. “Roger, the champagne’s in the punch bowl. Hard liquor is at the bar.”

  He bowed, eyes darting up impishly at Louise and then Miranda.

  “Ladies. Anon.”

  Roscoe sauntered off toward the punch bowl but made a sudden lurch to the left, tenderly greeting a woman in her mid-forties dressed elegantly in silver lamé.

  “Who is that?”

  “Sylvia Alexander. Niles’ wife.”

  “Is Roscoe usually so—attentive?”

  Louise hesitated, color rising in her cheeks. “Niles is often away on business, and Roger sees that Sylvia has—has an escort when she needs one.”

  “And Alexander doesn’t mind?”

  The secretary opened and shut her mouth, cheeks still suffused, then spoke in a low tone without looking up.

  “I believe it’s called an ‘arrangement.’ Niles—Niles has a number of … well, I’m sure you’ve heard the gossip. Sylvia has Roger. Roger hasn’t written a new book in three years, and squiring Sylvia—according to Bunny Berrigan, our publicity person, it keeps his name in the papers, which helps sell his books—Niles’ books.”

  Miranda arched her eyebrows. “At least it’s all in the family. When is Roscoe’s new book due?”

  “It’s overdue. He’s very late with it. I—I’ve got to get back to the table now, Mr. Alexander will wonder—”

  “This is the same Roger who was with you when you received the chocolates?”

  Louise kept her eyes on the punch table. “Yes. I consider him a friend. Now—”

  “Just one more question. When I walked in I thought I heard someone speaking roughly and a woman crying. Have you heard or seen anyone upset?”

  “No. Nothing unusual. I’m sorry, but I really must get back…”

  Miranda nodded. The blonde hurried across the floor.

  Miranda opened her white leather handbag and plucked a cigarette from the gold case.

  Cole Porter was right. When writing prose, anything goes …

  * * *

  Miranda stood in a nook by the bar, watching Roger and the publisher’s wife.

  Something was wrong with Sylvia Alexander.

  Something beyond the pink nostrils, the shaking hands, the obvious cocaine addiction.

  The woman clutched Roscoe’s thin arm as if she were about to be swept out to sea. She was fighting a losing battle, bravely extending a hand or her cheek to approaching guests, sipping something clear in a highball glass but failing at the expected light laughter and brittle conversation, her eyes wide and terrified and searching for a safe harbor.

  Roger provided comfort between the necessary niceties, smoothing the transitions and steamrolling over any confusion. Less lover than minder, his behavior suggested the Alexanders’ “arrangement” was far less French in style than Viennese by way of Freud.

  About fifteen feet away was husband Niles, pontificating his views on literature (“Everyone knows Steinbeck is a Red”), the future of publishing (“De Graaf? An idiot. Cheap ‘Pocket Book’ editions catering to illiterate rabble who’d rather listen to a ventriloquist on the radio than read a good book—he’ll be bankrupt in a year”), and the war (“You’re well out of it, Forester. But the navy—your modern-day Hornblowers—will see England through”).

  Forester stood by uncomfortably, occasionally inching his way toward the bar. The glad-handing and old school tie back-slapping did not go down well with the diffident writer.

  Louise hovered behind and to the left of her employer, fetching matches, ashtrays, and drinks for his congregation. And Sylvia Alexander, whenever she glanced the secretary’s way, stiffened, her face as tight as a death mask, her thin lips drawn inward, nostrils wide and pink.

  Miranda gulped the champagne and handed the glass to one of the circulating waiters, striding across the carpeted expanse of the Sky Room, catching Alexander’s eye as she walked toward the group, his audience turning as one, necks craned backwards, conversation faltering.

  Louise papered over the pause: “This is Miss Miranda Corbie, Mr. Alexander. She works in the Monadnock.”

  One or two recognized her name. The rest, including Alexander, just made polite noises while their eyes traveled up and down her dress. Forester threw her a brief smile of gratitude and escaped to the bar.

  “A pleasure, Miss Corbie. What is it that you do? Are you interested in publishing?”

  Miranda’s lips curved up at the corners. “I’ve recently become very interested, Mr. Alexander.”

  “But not as interested as she is in a stiff martini. Stand aside, boys—I’ll help Miss Corbie to the bar and bring her back home safely.”

  Young man, brash and dashing, about twenty-four or -five, wide face, mischievous eyes, dapper in a double-breasted green suit. He grabbed her elbow, leading her toward the bar before she could open her mouth to protest.

  Seven or eight feet away from the service setup, she shook her arm free.

  The curly-haired man grinned at her, laughing softly. “Your photos don’t do you justice, Miss Corbie.”

  She stared at him, recognition slowly crossing her face.

  “You either, Mr. Caen. Now, why the hell—”

  “Please—call me Herb. And don’t worry, I’m not a masher. I’m a newlywed.”

  “I know. I read your column—when I read the Chronicle. Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

  His grin grew broader. “And where am I gonna go? San Francisco is vacation enough for any man, especially if you’re from Sacramento. So … what’s the City’s most notorious female private eye doing here? Do I detect a column item?”

  “You know better than to ask.”

  He scratched his head. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. So you’re here for business, huh? With Alexander or Forester?”

  “What I’m here for, Mr. Caen, is none of your damn business. And I didn’t appreciate your interference.” She nodded toward the cluster of men around Alexander.

  The curly-haired reporter eyed her thoughtfully, biting his lip. “Maybe I jumped the gun. I just figured an entrance like that wasn’t exactly low-key, and using your own name meant you weren’t undercover, so—”

  “So you figured you stumbled on a scoop. Sorry to disappoint. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  Miranda turned to leave and he thrust a hand on her arm.

  “Wait a minute, Miss Corbie. We have a mutual friend—Rick Sanders. Now that the jerk has joined the army—much to the detriment of my poker game—I hoped you might want to occasionally send a little story my way. ‘It’s News to Me’ isn’t exactly an exposé series, but I can squeeze in some controversy here and there, and anything tougher I can pass on to my brothers-in-ink.”

  Miranda looked surprised. “Rick never mentioned that he knew you.”

  “He wouldn’t, the louse. Wanted you all to himself. But he sent me a line asking me
to look out for you, when I could, and, well … here I am. So—off the record—what are you doing here?”

  The half-Irish bastard … always interfering, always worried, and Christ, but she missed him …

  Miranda’s eyes met Caen’s, his charm as infectious as the wide-mouth smile.

  Goddamn it, what was it about newshawks?

  She sighed, linking arms with the curly-haired columnist. “I can ask the same of you. Why this party? Storing up items for when you go back to work, or are you a friend of Alexander’s?”

  They strolled around the bar, headed in the direction of the coat check, passing Forester behind a Manhattan on one end and clusters of partygoers on the other, most of whom didn’t recognize the author whom they were ostensibly there to honor.

  The young columnist shook his head.

  “Neither, really. I’m acquainted with the Alexanders and I know Forester socially—my sister throws parties for people—Art Shaw’s been over once or twice, Saroyan’s a friend of mine. Forester thought it might be amusing and has zero intention of changing publishers, either here or in England. Besides, my wife is out of town for the week, and I like this brand of champagne.”

  No one at the phone bank. Miranda halted the promenade, drawing Caen closer to her in the alcove.

  “So why did you whisk me away from Alexander? Sanders was out of line if he said I—”

  Caen threw up a hand. “That’s between the two of you—whatever ‘that’ is. Rick’s a good friend and he asked me to keep my eyes open. Sister, they were open plenty at the noise you made. Alexander was about to pop a blood vessel, and—I don’t know—I just figured it might be better to keep a lower profile. You know, so you could observe and all those things good detectives are supposed to do.”

  Miranda nodded solemnly, repressing a grin. “You mean shadowing marks and peeping around corners, I assume.”

  He scratched his head again. “OK, OK, I get your point—right between the shoulder blades. So what exactly are you doing here? And how does hypnotizing Alexander fit into the plan?”

  A human freight train hurtled past them, pushing Miranda into the columnist. The tall young woman with imposing red hair braked at the coat check window, turned to Caen, and smiled and waved heartily, while tossing a marten stole at the now-awake brunette behind the counter.