Miranda turned a page in the notebook. “Last night you said something about Jerry Alexander, about saving the story for another time and place.”
“Jerry has had more escapes than Houdini. Most of them bought and paid for by Niles. He’s the primary reason—in my opinion—Sylvia is so … so shattered. As it is, his allowance has been cut and the trust fund rewritten and his inheritance depends on him making something of himself and staying out of trouble. That trust fund, incidentally, is Sylvia’s money, which answers your question before it’s asked.”
Miranda nodded, jotting down a note.
“What about Louise? Jerry’s pursued her from the beginning.”
The novelist shook his head. “Look, Miss Corbie—Jerry sees every woman as something to conquer. He practically grew up in Sally Stanford’s place. You know how many rape cases Niles has paid off? Four. And those are the ones that he knows about.”
“Is he capable of murder—in your opinion?”
Roscoe frowned, brow wrinkling. “I would think so. Under the right circumstances. I’m not sure how smart he is, but he’s certainly violent enough. With Louise, though, he doesn’t strike me as the letter-writing type—more like a tire iron or bare-handed strangler.”
Miranda raised her eyebrows. “A preview of your new crime novel?”
The writer cracked a cautious grin. “Maybe.”
“Two more questions, Mr. Roscoe, at least for now. You were worried last night, and not just about Louise. You suggested she was hiding something, something that could be endangering her or even Alexander. Do you have any idea what?”
Roscoe studied the floor and spoke slowly.
“Louise is crucial to Niles. She is his first reader, his assistant editor, his secretary, his all-around Girl Friday.” He looked up, thin face twisted. “I don’t know, Miss Corbie. I don’t know. What I do know is that something isn’t right with her and hasn’t been for one or two months. I’ve even wondered—I’ll confess it—if she’s not writing the letters herself.”
She stared at him.
“And sending herself poisoned chocolates? Why?”
He shook his head slowly. “If I could make a guess, I’d tell you. I don’t know. Just a—writer’s intuition, let’s say. Louise is in trouble, certainly, but I’m not sure it’s the trouble we think it is.”
Miranda kept her face steady with effort. Roger Roscoe was voicing some of her own goddamn worries. Her eyes flickered over the notes once again.
“Final question: Louise said Alexander is grooming Howard Carter Smith for major success … New York Times, publicity, awards. You insinuated Niles may be working him too hard. Do you suspect Smith of something?”
Some of the aplomb crept back into Roscoe’s demeanor.
“I suspect him of horrid prose. I suspect him of faking facts and muckraking the muckless. Niles has been hinting something about Alcatraz—as if that hasn’t been done to death, no pun intended—but you’ll have to ask Smith. I warn you in advance … he’s hardly a gentleman.”
“Unlike you.”
The smile was lopsided, charm back in place. “Indubitably, dear lady.”
Miranda nodded again. “That’s all, Mr. Roscoe—at least for now. I’ll have more questions later.”
“I don’t doubt it. I’ll be better prepared next time, ‘No more be grieved at that which thou hast done: Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud.’”
He nodded, grinning, and slid through the open door into the hallway, footsteps echoing against the white marble.
Seven
Miranda was walking toward the door when the phone rang. A buzz and crackle and then Allen’s voice, uncharacteristically dim and barely audible.
“Miri? Got word you called. Can you hear me?”
“Barely. You sound farther away than Murrow and he’s getting bombed.”
The chuckle came through more clearly. “No bombs here in Livermore, but plenty of land mines. I’m knee-deep in cow dung. Would you believe I’m on a rustling case?”
She grinned. “I always pegged you for a Wild West type. Listen, I need a trace on a name.”
A loud motor drowned out his reply. Miranda raised her voice.
“Allen? Allen, can you hear me?”
“Not really. I’ll be back to the office tomorrow morning. Can it wait?”
“Sure thing. See you tomorrow. And thanks, Allen.”
The phone clicked off while the tractor or thresher was warming up again. She replaced the receiver thoughtfully, picked up her purse, and closed and locked the door behind her.
Glanced at her wristwatch. Three-twenty already, and she’d need to change clothes. Louise would be leaving for her rendezvous with the #3 White Front in a little under three hours.
Miranda stood indecisively in the marble hallway, listening to the hushed women’s voices around the corner. Maybe she could push Louise a little further.
When she reached the elevator bank, she punched six.
* * *
Miranda pushed open the double doors marked ALEXANDER PUBLISHING and looked around.
Alfred A. Knopf had nothing to worry about.
Wainscoting lined the walls, gray paint splotchy, gold-framed scenes from Shakespeare and cheap reproductions of Rembrandt. The waiting area was furnished in thirty-year-old couches, floral patterns dim and faded, with a couple of side tables and lamps on a burgundy-colored carpet. A marble standing ashtray stood in the corner, contents unemptied.
Louise sat behind a newer, more modern desk, blond hair limper than at lunch, stack of envelopes in the outbox to her right. Behind her a thick oak door boasted NILES ALEXANDER: PUBLISHER in gold script. An unmarked door, smaller, plainer, thinner, stood meekly to the right.
The secretary’s blue eyes grew wide at Miranda’s entrance, then darted toward the publisher’s sanctum.
“Yes—yes, I’ll make sure he gets the message. No, I believe the print run was already set and he’s firm on that, but I—yes, I will double check. Thank you.”
She blinked, hung up the phone, and took a deep breath. “Miss Corbie—”
“Why doesn’t Alexander install a buzzer? You’d certainly be safer from rejected crackpots.”
Louise glanced again toward her boss’s office, voice low. “He likes to be accessible.”
“Then let him sit where you are. Listen, Louise, I’m heading out of town tonight—another case—but I’ll be back in the morning and I’d like to get on Alexander’s calendar tomorrow. I also need to borrow an office key.”
“A key? Oh no, that’s impossible. He’ll never allow it.”
Miranda held the blonde’s eyes. “He’ll never know. I’m playing a hunch and need to test the typewriters. Your letters may be an inside job.”
Louise paled. “Miss Corbie, I—I told you, I’m sure no one here had anything—”
“I’m not so sure. How many machines are there, by the way?”
“Six. Mine, one in Mr. Alexander’s office, one in Miss Berrigan’s—her office is through the other door—and another two in the editing office—Miss Kingston and Mr. Ward come in about twice a week, and they share an office but not a typewriter—and one more in our general meeting room, next to Miss Berrigan’s.”
“Fine. I’ll come in either early in the morning or late at night, no one the wiser.”
“But I don’t have an extra key—”
Miranda’s voice was breezy, confident. “That’s OK, I’ll get yours copied right now before I leave town.”
Louise blotched red and white, blue eyes like Wedgwood saucers.
“But—my job—”
“Your life, Louise.”
The secretary’s breath was audible in the quiet office.
“I— There is an extra key. I’ll get it for you.” She stood up, walking quickly and quietly through the unmarked door, shutting it behind her.
One Mississippi, Two Mississippi …
Miranda grabbed the mail from the outbox, rifling through envelopes
as fast as she could.
Uniformly typed, all on office stationery and addressed to various people—one of them Roscoe—probably royalty statements for agents and authors—and an assortment of bills, mostly printing and distribution invoices. In between two invoices was a letter hand-addressed in blue ink to The Greer Home, a sanitarium out on Fulton and 36th.
Miranda frowned, studying the writing, when she heard the doorknob click. She hastily replaced everything.
Louise entered distraught, voice barely under control.
“I—I can’t find it, Miss Corbie. It’s not there.”
“Where do you usually keep it?”
“In the meeting room. We have file cabinets there with extra paper and office equipment, and I always keep the key on a string, hanging from the inside of the top drawer.”
Miranda said slowly, “Maybe it fell off. I’m sure you’ll find it later when you look again. I can pick it up tomorrow when I come in to talk to Alexander. What time will work?”
The schedule, resumption of order, seemed to calm her a little, though she kept glancing back toward the unmarked door as though the key would walk through it.
“I’m—I’m sorry—I should have told you the truth earlier. I don’t—I don’t know why I didn’t, Miss Corbie. I’m sorry. I should have given it to you, and now—”
“Now you’ll have time to find it. It’s all right, Louise. I didn’t mean to rush you—it’s my fault that you panicked. Let’s start over, shall we? Will a late morning appointment with Mr. Alexander be possible?”
The secretary breathed in and out for a moment, shoulders moving with her lungs. Then she sank into the squeaky chair and opened a large appointment book.
“10:30 is open for thirty minutes.”
“I’ll take it.”
Louise was writing down “Miranda Corbie” in the empty slot when the buzzer on her desk went off, making both of them jump. The secretary flipped on the intercom, and Alexander’s voice burned through like acid.
“Louise—you’re late for our dictation.”
She looked up apologetically at Miranda, who smiled at her and whispered “See you tomorrow.”
Miranda turned from the doorway to wave good-bye to the blonde, but she was already at the publisher’s door, steno pad in hand.
* * *
Tracking someone who didn’t know you wasn’t difficult.
Don’t be afraid to get close, Corbie, and for God’s sake, don’t run. Look ’em in the eye—hell, you can follow from in front as easy as behind. The rest of it is just waiting and loitering. Bring a pack of smokes and you’ll be all right …
Charlie Burnett, a lesson with a leer, good advice delivered with bad breath and a pat on the ass.
Tracking someone who knew you—that required more preparation.
Rule One: plant a lie if you can. Louise thought she was out of town.
Rule Two: men can be more invisible than women.
Miranda studied the effect in her bedroom mirror, angling her head back and forth.
Hair pulled back and tucked into a patched and worn fisherman’s hat. Levis, baggy and blue, hanging from a cinched belt and rolled up at the cuffs. Shoes, a modified man’s boot with soft soles and hard metal toes.
The navy peacoat, double-breasted, hid most of her breast-bulge, and—as she’d learned in Reno—she could always stoop.
Miranda nodded to herself, right fingers sliding over the barrel of the Baby Browning in her pocket.
She was ready for wherever her client might lead her.
* * *
6:07.
Louise walked out of the Monadnock in a hurry, cream-colored hat askew, camel hair coat halfway unbuttoned. The blonde, even from a distance, looked harried, chased by Furies Miranda couldn’t see.
Miranda shrugged herself off Lotta’s Fountain. Brushed past a fat man in a straw hat, slurping water, ignored a middle-aged flower vendor who offered her a mum with a toothy smile, rushed across the end of Geary, the neon lights of DR. FORD—DENTIST and PILES CURED beating down from the flatiron on Kearny and Market, and crossed to the De Young building, ambling along the sidewalk of Market Street toward Montgomery.
The secretary wasn’t looking behind her. One of the Italian flower vendors brightened when he saw her, held out a pink carnation, and she smiled, waving the flower away and never stopping.
The Italian knew her—probably the same one Louise bought something from the night someone tried to push her under a streetcar.
Louise was heading for Market and Sutter, walking fast. Miranda hesitated, deciding to hoof it to the car stop ahead of the blonde. By the time she reached the corner of Montgomery and Sutter, she was out of breath, and leaned against an ornate doorframe, half in shadow. Louise hadn’t turned the corner onto Sutter yet.
The secretary’s hat bobbed into sight, heading straight for the #3 Market Street Railway stop on Sansome. A car was approaching.
Louise was climbing aboard when Miranda scooted in line, keeping her head down, catching odd looks from an old lady in tweed and a heavyset man carrying a tool box.
She slumped her shoulders, face angled down. Handed over seven cents to the bored conductor and peeked up from under the fisherman’s cap as she maneuvered to an empty seat in the back of the bus.
Sank into the green cushioned seat and exhaled.
Louise was gazing out the window, taut and tense, oblivious to the other passengers. The blonde jumped when the car started up, smiling distantly at the matron in moth-eaten fur beside her.
Miranda kept her eyes on Louise’s back. Taylor, Jones, Leavenworth … and Louise still staring out the window.
When the car clanged past Hyde, Miranda hunched forward. If Louise was going home, the no-choice destination for a Wednesday evening with Thursday morning hard behind, she’d step off the car at Larkin, maybe treat herself to a salad at the Hotel Carlton. She’d brush her hair and crème her face and cry in her pillow, and start the whole fucking thing all over again the next day.
Louise didn’t get off at Larkin.
The secretary passed the Carlton without a quiver, her own street without a sign of recognition.
Miranda settled back in her seat, legs pressed together, Levis too goddamn itchy.
At Van Ness, a stocky, sweaty man in a linty brown fedora squeezed in next to her, giving her a quizzical up and down. She twisted in the seat, flipped the collar up again.
Franklin … Gough … where the hell was Louise going?
An elbow suddenly jarred her side, and she gritted her teeth to keep from yelping.
The stocky bastard next to her.
He was grinning, pig-eyes red-rimmed and small. “Sorry—mister.”
Word was pointed, designed to provoke, just like the elbow in the side. The sonofabitch probably thought she was a nancy boy, wanted to have some fun, maybe follow down an alley and beat up the queer.
Miranda’s fingers traced the cold metal of the Baby Browning in her pocket. She grunted, made it as deep as she could.
They were crossing Buchanan. Louise woke up suddenly, gathered her purse closer and looked ahead, poised and ready.
“You hear me? I ’pologized—mister. Ain’t you gonna thank me?”
Louise was up now, preparing to leave the #3 at Fillmore and Sutter. The bastard next to her sprawled back in the seat, legs spread, self-satisfied smile stretching his fat red cheeks.
“Ain’t heard no thank you, and you ain’t goin’ nowhere til I do.”
A woman on the other side of him shook her head slightly. No one else said anything, determinedly content in friendly conversations about the Seals and the Fair and what was playing at the Fox.
The streetcar jerked to a halt and Miranda stood up. The stocky man’s legs were stretched out in her path, and Louise was moving quickly toward the rear exit, facing her.
She bent her face down. The bully chuckled.
“Cat got your tongue, sissy? Guess you’ll have to keep—”
Th
e metal toe of her boot struck bone under thin wool, aiming for the shin, and the bastard screamed and grabbed his leg while she maneuvered around him and hurried off the #3. She could still hear him yelling when the White Front pulled out into traffic, heading for the next stop.
Miranda caught her breath, eyes darting back and forth for Louise and her cream-colored hat. Found her standing by another stop, the #22 Fillmore line, headed south.
Louise looked from her wristwatch to the quiet, residential street. Miranda drifted to the small knot of people waiting with her, two old ladies, a painter, and a man in a suit.
Five minutes later, the #22 arrived, another White Front, one of the older, smaller wooden cars left over from the Quake. The secretary took an aisle seat in the front, still and composed.
Nearly 6:45. Where the hell was Louise Crowley heading?
Not many people on the car, conversation muted, music wafting from jukes in soda fountains and a few of the bars along Fillmore and Geary. Once past Turk, the secretary made a move, standing up at Golden Gate.
Miranda dismounted with her at McAllister. The neon was turning on, sky red and magenta and orange from the sunset, wide street darkened and quiet, except for cafes and bars and the corner stores.
Louise didn’t hesitate. She crossed the street to yet another bus stop, this time the #5 line, transfer clutched in her hand. A blond sailor in crackerjacks loitered under a streetlamp, whistling softly, eyeing the blonde. After a few minutes, two teenage boys in dungarees ran pell-mell down the sidewalk, arriving out of breath from the candy store up the street.
By the time the #5 pulled up seven minutes later, the stop was full.
Miranda’s hands were shaking. She needed a goddamn cigarette.
Louise climbed in, settled in the middle. Miranda headed for the back, where the sailor was already sprawled.
Nobody talked except for the boys, who seemed to be arguing over a comic book. The sailor dozed. Louise sat upright, eyes ahead.
They reached the Panhandle and turned down Fulton, passing by the Avenues, one by one, the air colder, heavier, saltier. The sailor stayed aboard, woke up around 43rd, Pacific Ocean pounding sand, screams of gulls and young girls riding the Big Dipper.
By now, it was obvious where they were headed, where Louise was trekking on a cold Wednesday night.
City of Sharks Page 7
