The girl at the cloakroom took my blue wool coat with the fur collar which I had thought was so elegant when I bought it and hung it on a coatrack between the minks and sables already hanging there. Leo handed over his topcoat and hat. He was wearing a navy blue wool double-breasted suit with a white shirt, navy-and-yellow paisley tie and a matching handkerchief that poked out of his breast jacket pocket. His dark blond hair was slicked back with the comb marks showing.
As Leo turned to me he seemed to notice me for the first time, running his eyes down my body and back up to my face as if I was a polo pony he was considering buying. He didn’t have that leer that some men have when they check out a girl’s figure, but it was obvious he hadn’t thought of me like that until now and was pleasantly surprised. Amazing what a black cocktail dress off the Woodies’ sale rack could do for a girl.
‘You look lovely,’ he said, offering me his arm. ‘Let’s get a cocktail first, shall we?’
The hotel had just been redecorated and the interior was terribly sleek and modern. Peach-colored mirrors faced all the old marble columns in the lobby. We walked across a black marble floor striped with white marble. The ceiling was silver leaf and blue, the walls paneled in teak wood. Modern Chinese Chippendale furniture, which I recognized only because I’d seen it in an advertisement in Ladies’ Home Journal, finished off the new look of the lobby.
Leo waved off a cigarette girl as we stepped up a level into the cocktail lounge of the Pall Mall Room. Decorated in rose and chromium hues, the lounge was even more sophisticated than the lobby. The room wasn’t crowded yet. That would happen hours from now, when decent people were in bed, as my mother would say. We took a spot near the small stage set up for a quartet.
A colored waiter with a thin mustache and black shoes so shiny they reflected light appeared and addressed Leo. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes,’ Leo said, and nodded at me.
‘A martini please, no olive, and just a touch of vermouth,’ I said.
‘Our house brand is Gordon’s. Will that be acceptable?’
I was about to say yes, but Leo spoke up. ‘Do you have any Tanqueray?’
‘We are fortunate to have several cases still, yes sir.’
‘Then the lady will have that,’ Leo said. ‘I’ll have a manhattan with Glenlivet, please.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but we have no British whiskeys at all. Would Jack Daniel’s Black Label suffice?’ I waited with baited breath to hear if Frank Sinatra’s favorite drink would meet Leo’s high standards.
‘I suppose,’ Leo answered.
Leo had demonstrated his sophistication and wealth to his satisfaction, I hoped, because I had no patience with that sort of thing. A real sophisticate wouldn’t need to show off to a waiter; he would be self-confident like Joe, who despite being poor knew more about music, art and books than Leo Maxwell ever would, even if he couldn’t afford Jack Black.
At this point I was so curious as to why Leo Maxwell had invited me out I almost asked him outright.
Our drinks came, and when I sipped mine I understood why people were willing to pay for expensive liquor. My martini was wonderful. I wondered how much a pint of Tanqueray cost.
Leo leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and sipped his manhattan.
‘So,’ he said, ‘tell me, what kind of work do you do?’
‘I’m a file clerk,’ I said. ‘I work for the government, just like everyone else in this town.’
‘A file clerk,’ he said. ‘Just a file clerk, then. You seem … well, different from most government girls. More serious.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m a thirty-year-old widow. Does that answer your question? You could have just asked me how old I am.’
He leaned toward me across the table. ‘Louise,’ he said, ‘I can tell that I’ve started this evening off all wrong. I’m sorry. Can we begin again? I won’t be pretentious, I promise.’
‘I’m just wondering why I’m here, Leo. That’s all.’
He sipped from his manhattan and reached across the table with his other hand, covering mine. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I get tired of talking about money and parties all the time. You’re an attractive and interesting person. I don’t meet girls like you very often.’
‘Like what?’ I pulled my hand gently out from under his.
‘Who have jobs and are interested in something other than society.’
‘What about Gloria? Where does she fit in?’
‘Her marriage is unhappy and I need a wife with money of her own.’
‘So it’s a business arrangement.’
‘I’m fond of her and she’s fond of me. We’ll do fine together. Let’s stop talking about Gloria. Besides, you have a beau too, the man you were at the Baron Steuben with. Am I correct?’
‘He is out of town on business. Indefinitely, I’m afraid.’
‘Gloria will be in Chicago until after Christmas. Why should you and I sit at home and sulk when we can go out and have some fun?’ He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. ‘Besides, we were both in the Baron Steuben when a dead man was found behind the bar. That sort of thing doesn’t happen very often.’
‘No, it certainly doesn’t.’
‘You’re a good friend of that policeman, aren’t you?’
The interrogation had begun.
‘Sergeant Harvey Royal is a personal friend, yes, but that doesn’t mean I know any more about the murder than you do.’
‘Oh, please,’ he said. ‘Sure you do. I’m so curious about it. I heard that Stinson was the custodian for the German embassy. That’s on my street, for heaven’s sake!’
‘He was, since the early thirties. I mean, he was an American, not a German. The Swiss kept him on when the Germans left, figuring he had experience with the building.’
Leo beckoned for the waiter. ‘We’d like another drink and to move to our dining table now,’ he said.
The waiter nodded and pulled out my chair. We progressed – that was the word that came to my mind – down three steps into the dining area of the Pall Mall Room, where the waiter seated us along the wall near one of the mirrored pillars. I slipped into the banquette seat while Leo took the chair opposite.
We sipped our second drinks while looking at the menu.
‘Would you like me to order for you?’ Leo asked. ‘You haven’t been here before, have you?’
I prefer to choose my own dinner, but Leo had spoken with no condescension in his voice and I did hope to get some information out of him, so I decided to appear docile and womanly. ‘Yes, please,’ I said.
While Leo ran his eyes down the menu I wondered if my neighborhood liquor store stocked Tanqueray.
‘Only one beef dish on the entire menu,’ Leo said, glancing up at me. ‘I’ll be glad when this war is over and a man can get decent prime rib again. But the special is excellent, I’ve had it before.’
A new waiter appeared to take our order.
‘Malcolm,’ Leo asked him, ‘is the venison fresh?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘We received a box of fresh game packed in ice from New Hampshire this morning.’
‘Then we’ll have the venison ragout with currant jelly and chestnut purée. Are the oysters fresh also?’
‘The chef selected them at the Central Market himself.’
‘We’ll have the oysters Bienville to start.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the waiter with a slight nod, and glided away.
‘Back to the murder, Louise. I understand Sergeant Royal considers us all to be suspects? Not just witnesses?’
I chose my words carefully. I didn’t want to say anything that Sergeant Royal and Miss Osborne wouldn’t want me to share.
‘Yes, we are all suspects. There just weren’t a lot of people out and about that night. Remember what the weather was like?’
‘Cal must have seen the body when he opened the bar. Why didn’t he call the police?’
‘He was terrified. He wanted to wait until the bar closed.’
‘But that scruffy bus driver just had to go looking for a bottle of whiskey.’
‘Yeah, and you saw the rest of it.’
The waiter brought us our appetizer. I hated most seafood but I loved oysters. I’d rarely had them when I lived on the coast in North Carolina, and then they were fried. These were sort of puffy, obviously baked on the half-shell, seated in a bed of salt. I took a bite.
‘Good, huh?’ Leo said, noticing my expression. ‘Never had them before?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They’re delicious! What’s in them?’ While I waited for his answer I slid another hot, creamy oyster into my mouth.
‘Let’s see,’ Leo said. ‘The sauce is made of mushrooms, shallots, cream, butter, wine and breadcrumbs. Poured over the oysters, then browned. It’s a New Orleans recipe, actually, from Antoine’s. I watched our cook prepare it once.’
‘They are wonderful.’ I deeply mourned the last bite I took and watched the waiter take the plate away with sorrow. When Joe came back from wherever he was I’d fix them for him.
The waiter had left behind an inch-thick wine list. Leo went through it page by page, his brow furrowed to show his concentration. ‘Any particular wine you’d like?’
‘I don’t know a thing about wine. And I’ll only have a glass anyway. Otherwise I might fall asleep.’
Leo beckoned to a sommelier, who came over to the table to take his order. That had been a revelation to me, too, when I came to Washington, that when you went out to eat at a nice restaurant you often had more than one waiter. ‘We’ll have this Burgundy,’ Leo said, pointing to the wine list. The sommelier nodded and took the wine list when he left the table. I still had some of my second martini left and sipped on it, thinking about those oysters. Leo sat quietly, twirling his empty highball glass around in his hand.
Our dinner came. I’d had venison before many times and it was often tough if not cooked properly. This had been marinated in red wine and garlic and grilled until just medium. It was tender and savory, not gamy at all.
I poked around the chestnut puree with my fork.
‘Try it,’ Leo said. ‘You won’t be sorry.’
I wasn’t. It tasted sort of like roasted sweet potatoes and walnuts spiced with nutmeg and pureed with cream.
When I cleaned my plate I noticed with delight that the dishes were decorated with tobacco leaves and Sir Walter Raleigh’s coat of arms.
Our waiter cleared our table and brought us coffee and the dessert menu. I remembered to reapply my lipstick, as Ada had advised me to do.
After browsing the menu for a few minutes Leo tossed it on the table. ‘Awful choices,’ he said. ‘Pear crumble, tapioca pudding and apple and bread pudding. Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘I don’t smoke myself, but I don’t mind if you do. And I don’t want any dessert.’
‘I’d think a girl from North Carolina would smoke. Don’t you grow a lot of tobacco there?’
‘Acres of it, but smoke makes my throat awfully sore.’
Leo lit a Marlboro with a match from the matchbook embossed with the words ‘The Raleigh Hotel’ left on the table in a crystal ashtray. When his eyes moved from the burning tip of his cigarette I saw the mask slip from his face just as if he’d pulled off a real mask. He wasn’t any longer a genial dining companion but a spoiled playboy with a mean streak.
‘You know,’ he said, flicking cigarette ash into the ashtray, ‘breaking and entering is a serious offense.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
‘I don’t, and I don’t like your tone of voice, either.’
‘I saw you come down the fire escape behind the German embassy. How did you get inside? What were you doing?’
I decided to turn the tables on him and see what happened.
‘I had a very bad day and too much to drink at the Baron Steuben. No one was on guard at the embassy and I walked around outside and just for the hell of it tried the back door. It was unlocked and I went inside and wandered around. There were lots of huge empty rooms. I came to my senses and left. That’s it.’
‘I could turn you in and you’d go to jail,’ he said.
I leaned across the table toward him, equally tense. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t?’
‘I’ve already told Harvey Royal what I did, and he’ll cover for me. He owes me a favor. Plus, you have no idea what government agency I work for. For all you know I could be J. Edgar Hoover’s personal secretary. Leave me alone. I did nothing but wander around the inside of an abandoned house while under the influence. Why are you interested? That’s what I want to know. Your father was practically a Nazi, wasn’t he? Why didn’t you call the police right away? Why didn’t you tell me you’d seen me when I met you on the sidewalk? You must have a reason, and I bet it’s not a good one.’
I saw him hesitate before telling me the truth. ‘I wanted to know how you got inside because there’s a lot of money hidden there.’
‘That’s just a rumor,’ I said. ‘But unless you want me to tell the police that you wanted to know how to get inside the German embassy so you could burglarize it you’d better keep your mouth shut about me.’
The waiter came to refill our coffee cups while we sized each other up.
‘One more question,’ he said once the man had moved away.
‘You can ask whatever you want, but I might not answer you.’
‘Why did you come down the fire escape when you went in the back door?’
I took a final swallow of coffee.
‘When I decided to leave I found the back door locked. Scared me witless, not knowing who’d locked it. All the downstairs windows were nailed shut. I’d seen the fire escape from outside, so I crept upstairs, found the right room and clambered down it. After I got away and calmed down I figured that maybe the caretaker had checked the doors routinely, found one left open and locked it, and I just missed running into him.’
‘Then you ran into me.’
‘What luck.’
‘Sarcasm isn’t becoming in a woman. Especially one in your position.’
‘I’d like to go home now. Dinner was delightful, the company less so.’
Leo didn’t say a word, just stubbed out his cigarette and called for the chit.
In silence we claimed our coats at the cloakroom. Once outside Leo stopped the valet from going to pick up his car.
‘I’ll get it,’ he said. ‘Mrs Pearlie and I need the walk. It’s in the usual lot?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the valet said, handing over the keys to Leo.
Leo took me firmly by the arm and led me down the street and then around the corner toward the back of the hotel. It occurred to me to run – I was sure I could outrun him – but I doubted he’d try anything, and I needed a ride home.
We turned into a parking lot. Under the shaded streetlights I spotted Leo’s car. We both walked around to the passenger side. But instead of opening the door for me, Leo grasped me by my upper arms, hard, swung me around and shoved me up against the door.
I was livid. I hated to be bullied by anyone, especially a man as nasty as Leo Maxwell.
‘Let go of me!’ I said. ‘Right now!’
‘You tell me something first,’ he said. ‘Have you got the keys?’
‘What keys?’
‘The keys to the German embassy. I want them.’
‘Are you crazy? Why would you think I’d have the keys! What a stupid idea.’
‘Al killed Floyd Stinson for those keys. And then left town. I figure he gave them to you before he left, and you used them to get into the embassy and look for the money. But the caretaker got between you and the back door, so you had to go out the fire escape.’
‘You fool,’ I said, even though I’d once thought the same way. ‘Al is dead. Someone found his body under the Taft Bridge yesterday. He’d been dead for two days, so he never got out of town. You’re not the first one to think of Stinson’s keys either, but Sergeant
Royal told me the police found his keys in his room and returned them to the Swiss legation. Don’t you even think of reporting me to anyone! How do I know you weren’t the person in the embassy with me that night? Maybe you waited around for me after you locked the back door. Your family was close to the Germans for years; how hard would it be for you to have picked up a set of keys? Turn me loose, right now, or I’ll mention my new theory to Sergeant Royal.’
Leo didn’t release me. Instead he tightened his grip on my arms, really hurting me, and leaned into me until I felt his breath on my face. ‘You modern girls are such bitches,’ he said. ‘Wait until the soldiers get back from the war. You’ll all be back in the kitchen, where you belong. Men will be doing the men’s work again.’
‘What would you know about men’s work?’
I didn’t care that Leo clenched his teeth and hissed at me in anger but I did mind that his body moved closer to mine, and as his grip tightened even more my defense training kicked in. I couldn’t use my hands but shifted to one side, threw all my weight behind the blade of my right foot and, sliding my foot down his shin as a guide, slammed my heel on to his foot. Leo howled with pain and released me, dropping to the ground and grasping his foot. If I’d done my job well he’d have at least one broken bone.
I kicked my shoes off, grabbed them up and ran as fast as I could back around the block to the front of the hotel. After a pause behind a bush to catch my breath and put my shoes back on, I walked sedately up to the front door. The valet looked at me in surprise.
‘My date and I had an argument,’ I said to him. ‘Would you please call a taxi for me?’
ELEVEN
I leaned up against the door of my boarding house while I searched for my key to the front door. It was nearly midnight and I was bone-tired. My taxi had been held up by a messy accident on Pennsylvania Avenue that involved two cars and a truck full of vegetables coming into town from the country. After the taxi dropped me off I’d slipped on the icy sidewalk and landed on my hip. It hurt, and I’d have a huge bruise tomorrow.
My key wouldn’t turn in the lock. It must be frozen. Jiggling didn’t help. I thought about walking around the house to knock on Dellaphine’s basement bedroom window. She or Madeleine could let me in the kitchen door, but I hated to wake them. I knelt on the frigid doorstep, put my mouth over the keyhole, inhaled deeply and blew my warm breath into it. When I tried the key again it engaged and I stepped into the house.
Louise's Lies Page 18
