At last an extension was lifted and another hung up. Charlotte Vivien said, “Mr. Samson?”
“Thank you for speaking to me, Mrs. Vivien.”
“What is it that you want?”
“I need to see you.”
“Oh yes? And what would that be about?”
“I'm working on an urgent case and a matter has come up that means I need to ask you to identify something.”
“Me? Me specifically?”
“Yes. No one else will do. It is something that I am told used to be yours.”
“Good heavens. What?”
“It's a dress.”
“What dress?”
“I'm not good at describing clothes but I have a picture of it. I will really have to show it to you.”
She paused for a long time.
I said, “Mrs. Vivien?”
She said, “As I recall, Mr. Samson, the last time we talked you wouldn't do something I asked you to. How do you have the nerve to ask a favor of me?”
“I wouldn't if it weren't very important. I know it sounds crazy, but it isn't. I will meet you anywhere at your convenience. If you can spare me a few minutes, just tell me where and when. I'll be there.”
She sighed. “All right, Mr. Samson. A few minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“There is a bar on East Washington Street called McGinley's. It's a few blocks past East Street. I'll meet you there at eight-thirty.”
“I'll find it.”
“It has a second room, with tables.”
“O.K.”
She hung up.
I didn't know McGinley's but it couldn't take long to find. Eight-thirty gave me a couple of hours.
I looked around the office. Two hours. I didn't know how I should spend them. I looked at my notebook. Potential clients to call back. I looked at the telephone.
So it rang.
“Albert!” Frank said. “Hey, great, wasn't it!”
“What?”
” 'What?' 'What?' Hey, everybody, he says, 'What?' Isn't this the coolest dude you'll ever meet!”
“Frank, stop pulling your wick and tell me what you're talking about.”
“The commercial, of course! Everybody is raving about it.” Everybody?
“I haven't seen it,” I said.
“Haven't seen it! Albert, baby!”
I choked momentarily and Frank used the time to say, “I'm at Lucy's mother's. I've got a tape. Come over. All the people from the department are on their way.”
“The police department?”
Frank laughed heartily. “You are a natural, Albert, a real natural. That's what they're all saying. I won't claim that I realized it when we did the session but in the editing room it was obvious.”
“What was obvious?”
“On tape you project an amateurish professionalism that is completely irresistible.”
“I do?”
“Absolutely, utterly, irresistible. Lip-lickin' finger-poppin' good.”
“Before you start foaming at the mouth put Lucy's mother on the phone, will you?”
“Ah, love is about sharing triumph. I can relate to that.”
“Put her on the phone, Frank!”
My woman came to the telephone. I said, “Is he being committed or is he going voluntarily?”
“They're having a little party,” she said. “You're the guest of honor. Are you coming?”
“What is this all about, kid?”
“The success of the first commercial for the Albert Samson Investigative Services Agency. ASISA.”
“The what?”
“When they realized that the acronym was a palindrome it blew their minds.”
“What minds?”
“Lucy did the graphics, and all the high-tech stuff sets off your aimless stuttery wholesome innocence beautifully.”
“Is he contagious or something?”
“The cable company even had two calls from people saying how much they liked the commercial and asking when it would be broadcast again. Frank has booked it for two more weeks and he is considering giving up his 'filmic' ambitions to start his own ad agency.”
“Somewhere in La-La Land?”
“So you haven't seen it?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I haven't seen it.”
“You should.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I haven't felt your basic attractiveness so intensely for years.”
“My what?”
“You come across well. And Frank has packaged it well. The only question is whether anybody who wants a private eye watches commercials on Cab-Co.”
“I had calls from five different people while I was out.”
“Albert, that's wonderful!”
“I guess so.”
“What's the problem?”
“I thought it might be a joke.”
“Honestly! And does that mean you haven't called any of them back?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, I'll get off the phone,” she said. There was a sound behind her. “Frank says, could you bring some money? He needs another eight hundred dollars.”
“Don't we all.”
“Sort it out with him yourself.”
“Look, I don't know whether I'm going to be able to get there. I've got an appointment on the east side at eight-thirty.”
“I thought you hadn't called any of those people.”
“It's about another case.”
“Suddenly it's nonstop business, eh?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well,” my woman said, “you could sound a little more cheerful about it.”
But I didn't call any of the message-leavers.
My brain was too full.
I wandered around my rooms for a few minutes. Then went downstairs to say hello to Mom. She'd like to hear about the response to the commercial. Might mean she'd get some rent one day.
But Mom wasn't there.
Nor was there any sign of Norman.
I went back up and studied Bobbie's drawing of Wool Glove Woman and wrote up what I had done for the Animals and then did nothing very useful at all.
Chapter Fourty Two
McGINLEY'S WAS EASY TO find so I was ten minutes early. It was a small building with its own parking lot. A sign on the door advised, “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”
The second room was to the left past a sign on the wall that said, “This phone cuts off all calls after three minutes.” It was not isolated from the main bar. It had round tables, each with six chairs. Icons from Notre Dame football teams hung on the walls.
There were no genuflections to north-side chic. McGinley's was an Irish version of the generic ordinary bar you can find anywhere in town and I'd spent many a melancholy baby hour in them, one year or another. It was an extraordinary place for Charlotte Vivien to fix a meeting in.
I took a beer to an empty table and settled. I expected to be kept waiting but Charlotte Vivien was a couple of minutes early. I didn't see her enter. When I recognized her, she was already walking toward me carrying a bottle of beer and a glass.
She wore an expensive trouser suit, and a few heads turned as she approached my table. I rose and pulled out a chair.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you for meeting me.”
She sat. “What's this about a dress, Mr. Samson?”
I put Bobbie's drawing before her.
She looked at it on the table. But then she picked it up.
She looked at me.
“Do you recognize it?” I asked.
“The dress is very much like one that . . . that I bought before Christmas.” She put the picture down.
“Do you still have it?”
She shook her head. “This is all very peculiar, Mr. Samson.”
“I'm sorry about that. But I need to know.”
“Well, I'm 'sorry' too, but I'm not going to answer your questions without some form of explanation, much as I like to help peop
le who are trying to better themselves.”
“I have been hired to identify and locate a woman and this drawing was made from the description a witness gave of her.”
“Identify as well as locate?” she said. “I take it this is not just a missing persons case.”
“That's correct.”
“But is it this black woman in the drawing that you are trying to find?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The woman may have taken something,” I said.
We sat looking at each other for a moment.
“You don't intend to tell me what she took?”
“I can't.”
“And your witness didn't know who the woman was.”
“No. Nor does my witness have a very good memory for faces. She does, however, remember clothes and, quite by accident, another person saw the drawing and immediately identified the dress as one of yours.”
“Good gracious!” she said. “Who in the world claims to know my clothes well enough to say that a dress is mine?”
I said, “I can't tell you that either.”
“Oh, honestly!” she said.
“I assure you, there is nothing sinister about the identification of the dress as yours.”
“I'm going to lose sleep trying to work out who it was,” she said, but there wasn't much conviction about the way she said it. Maybe she led a life where lots of people followed her every frill.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“So,” she said. She looked again at the picture. “There is some urgency about finding this woman?”
“There is.”
“Is she . . . in danger?”
“She may be.”
“From you?”
“No.”
“From whom? Or what?”
“I'm afraid I can't—”
“You can't tell me much, can you, Mr. Samson? But you damn well expect me to tell you any little thing you want to know.”
“It is important, Mrs. Vivien. That's why I've made such an effort to see you this evening.”
Charlotte Vivien said, “It's a nice drawing, but I am not all that sure that this dress is the one I used to have.”
“Used to have?”
“That's right. I no longer own the garment your anonymous source remembers.”
“Where is it?”
“Where is it?” she mimicked. “How about 'Where is it, please?' “
“This is not a game, Mrs. Vivien. But if you would be so kind and gracious, I would be grateful to know where the dress in question might be found now, please.”
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” She set her glass aside and took a long pull from the bottle of beer. “One way and another life has been very complicated for me lately. In moments of enthusiasm I put myself forward as a certain sort of person and then the enthusiasm fades and I find myself trapped by the facade I've created and I long to be free. So I make some contrary decisions and they lead to involvements that make me shudder when I wake up in the morning and think about them.”
I had been involved in one of her enthusiasms and had shuddered myself. But that wasn't what Charlotte Vivien was talking about. What, though? A stranger's head on the pillow?
I said, “Being in charge of one's own destiny is both the greatest up and the greatest down of being alive.”
“Yes,” she said. She looked at me. “Who said that?”
“I did.”
“Oh. Well.” She studied the beer bottle and then flicked at it half a dozen times with the nail of her index finger. “When I feel things slipping out of control I get irritable. I don't know, Mr. Samson. What am I going to do?”
“About what?”
“About . . .” She looked up at me again. With a short rush of breath she said something like, “Ha.” Then, “But you don't want to know about my troubles.”
“I am happy to hear about your troubles. They'll make a change from my own.”
But her confessional moment had passed and she tuned me back to my proper place in her universe. She said, “What were we talking about?”
“I was trying to find out what happened to the dress.”
“I don't keep clothes that I have no more use for.”
“So you do what, throw them away?”
“No, no. Most go to a Next to New charity store, though I do sometimes give things to the people who work for me.”
She knew full well what I was going to ask next, but she waited for me anyway. “And do you remember what you did with this particular dress?”
She thought. “Probably the Next to New. But you know how things are. Sometimes you have a clear visual picture of something you've done and sometimes you don't. I don't really remember.”
“Do you know how long ago you got rid of it?”
“I certainly remember the last time I wore it.”
“Which was?”
“To a party in January. That I remember extremely clearly, because the man I was with spilled wine over me and then made it far worse by trying to wipe it off.”
“And would you have given the dress away soon after that?”
“I would think so. But I don't remember. Sorry.”
“If it was to a person, who might it have been?”
For some reason she reacted slightly when I asked her this. But after a moment she said, “Well, I have a housekeeper and I sometimes give her things.”
“Do I take it that she is not likely to be the person in the drawing?”
“Ayesha? No, no. She's the right color but the wrong side of sixty, and dumpy.”
“So any clothes you give her are for somebody else anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know who Ayesha passes clothes on to?”
“Not really.”
“Is there anybody else you give clothes to?”
“I must have given things of one kind or another to all my staff.”
“How many of those are there?”
“You've met Loring. I also have a handyman, David.”
“Would you give dresses to them?”
“I don't remember ever giving them dresses. Though some of my friends seem to think Loring might well have an inclination toward that kind of thing.”
“You wouldn't give dresses to friends?”
“No, no.”
“To your children?”
“Sheree wouldn't be seen dead in a dress like this. And my son's girlfriend is absolutely minute and only seems to wear denim with carefully picked holes in it.”
“Mrs. Vivien, if I don't have any luck at the Next to New, may I show the drawing to your employees?”
“If you must,” she said.
“Where is the charity store?”
She gave me the address.
“And do your employees work for you every day?”
“Loring lives in. The others come each day, yes.”
“O.K. I'll check the Next to New tomorrow.” She sat back. “Is that it?”
“That's it, Mrs. Vivien. Thank you very much indeed.”
“May I ask you a favor now?”
“Sure.”
“Let me know what you find out about the dress.”
“If I can, I will.”
She shook her head. “You won't even promise me that after all the questions I've answered.” She shook her head.
I said, “Mrs. Vivien, may I ask you a completely irrelevant question?”
She didn't answer at once. Then she said, “No, I don't think you may. I don't much like conversations that are one-way traffic” She got up and left without another word.
I watched her go.
What I wanted to ask was how she knew the bar.
She passed from my sight and I was about to gather up the drawing when I noticed a figure leave a barstool and head for the door.
The figure was female, though dressed in unisex jeans and a ski jacket. The figure turned
toward me and winked and then passed out of sight in the same direction as Charlotte Vivien.
The figure was Bobbie Lee Leonard.
Chapter Fourty Three
BEFORE I LEFT McGINLEY'S, I called my woman. Her daughter, Lucy, answered the phone. “Albert, where are you!” she said. “We've been waiting!”
“Get your mother, please. I only have three minutes.”
“What?”
“Your mother. I need to speak to her.”
“O.K. O.K. But get your ass over here, hear?”
“Lucy . . .” I began again, with impatience. But she was gone.
It seemed forever before my woman took her place. But it was only about thirty seconds. And counting. She said, “I know you Hollywood types go in for late arrivals and grand entrances but I think you'd better hurry. Your fan club is running out of patience.”
“Ho-ho.”
“Are you coming over, Al?”
“Only after they've left. How long should I leave it?”
“An hour should do it. They'll have finished the beer by then and they've already gotten tired of patting each other on the back.”
“I'll go home first, then, and pick up a six-pack on the way. It's not Sunday, is it?”
“No, it's not Sunday. What's the matter, TV star? The flunky who counts days for you gone to the John?”
I stopped at the Liquor Locker across from the office and then locked the liquor in my trunk before ascending my stairs.
I should have been more alert. I would have heard the car door slam.
What I did hear was footsteps at the bottom of the stairs as I put the key in my door. I looked down. Someone in a cape and broad-brimmed hat was outlined in the streetlight. The someone was making its way up the stairs. There was an unsteadiness of step about the someone's progress.
It was not anyone I recognized and as it got closer I saw that my visitor was a woman. Hopes that her trek up the stairs was a mistake vanished four steps below me when she said, “Mr. Samson? Mr. Samson?”
I thought about denying myself, but, typically, I didn't act fast enough.
She said. “I knew you had to be out. I just knew it!”
I said. “Uh.”
She arrived on the landing. I saw that she wore extremely high heels and that was enough to account for the wobbles up the stairs.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do I know you?”
“No, no,” she said. “Can we go in?”
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