Starr was eavesdropping on a group of dowdy civil servants. When one of them spotted him, he covered his tracks by reaching out to a man in a gray suit. “John, what a surprise!”
“Do I know you?” the man in the gray suit said.
“Great, great. Kids are great. The wife, great.” Backing safely away from the man in the gray suit, Starr bumped smack into me. I glanced around to make sure no one was within listening range before speaking in low tones. “What’d you find out?”
“About what?”
“The sting?”
“What sting?”
“You know and I know Pennyroyal’s laying groundwork for a bust.”
“On who?”
“You know who.”
“About what?”
“You know what.”
“You’re not talking about―?”
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
He threw back his head and considered his response, weighing what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. When he wagged his eyebrows, I knew I was in for doublespeak. “You’re telling me that he’s setting up Kirk so he’ll turn state’s evidence against Bogart, which will protect Arezzo and coincidentally take the heat off Mayor Moore, who wants this Byrnes thing to go away?”
It wasn’t doublespeak. “I’m not telling you anything, but that pretty much sums it up.”
“Hell, Grenadine, don’t tell me you believe every rumor Pennyroyal spreads around like Jiffy Peanut Butter on Wonder Bread?”
Starr was smarter than I figured. He impressed me with his grasp of the facts and the political implications. But since I went for any type but his type, I put it out of my mind that I might actually be attracted to him. “Sort of makes us two of a kind,” I said. “Birds of a feather. Two peas in a pod.”
“So long as you stay on your side of the metaphor and I stay on mine.”
“I heard the sting’s tomorrow night,” I said.
“Tonight.”
“Are you sure?”
“Doubly sure.”
Finding his double assurances suspect, I said, “Make like a tuna, Starr, and can it.”
“Sure thing.” Saluting, he backed away and resumed snooping, snaking into and out of gabfests, stepping on toes, and tripping over clichés.
I left him to his antics and skulked in a circuitous route, ferreting out my own sources of information. Monica Seagraves lay in wait. She brought her camera to eye level and framed my image inside the viewfinder. “Smile, Iris!”
Blinking into the aftereffects of the flash, I said, “Why if it isn’t Monica Seagraves. The walking IBM 700 Series, the World Book Encyclopedia of the modern age, the Fort Knox of rumor and innuendo, the Boardwalk and Park Place of an iconoclastic society plugged into vanity and sloth.”
“Drop dead twice, Iris.”
“And look like you?”
A tall woman passed our way. She wore a dress with three-quarter sleeves and turned-back cuffs, the bodice white with navy-blue detailing, and the skirt solid navy blue. Under the pretense of searching for someone else, she inclined herself in our direction, her ear tilted to better overhear our conversation.
“Dee Dee Morton,” I called out to her. “That article on lake erosion. How did you manage it?”
“Why, Iris,” Dee Dee said, her smile bitchy, “I didn’t see you standing there.”
“That’s because you’re not wearing your glasses.”
“I only wear them when I have to see.” Dee Dee looked down her nose at Monica. “Playing photojournalist, are we?”
Monica’s smile was even bitchier. Dee Dee strutted off, head tossed back, hair swinging, and hips grinding. When she was out of earshot, Monica asked, “Remind me again how she snagged her lake erosion story.”
“Slept with the Superintendent of Sewers and San.”
She harrumphed and said, “You should talk.”
“A woman who has more taste per ounce than a Hershey’s chocolate bar doesn’t have to sleep her way to the top.”
“What about Byron Bullock?” Monica asked. “Heard you two were an item.”
“Past tense.”
“And Frederick Bickel?”
“Freddie’s just a friend.”
“More than a friend.”
“Oh, yeah, right, that Freddie Bickel. My extra-special friend who lends me his parking space whenever he’s out of town.”
“An extra-extra-special friend who lends you his evening gowns, too, but only when you’re posing as his beard for social occasions.”
Monica was more in the know than I previously gave her credit for. All this time, I thought she was just a sponge cake with whip cream between the ears. Turned out, she also had chocolate sprinkles on top. “What perfume are you wearing?” I asked her.
“Chanel No. 5. Like it?”
“Not particularly.”
We stood side by side, gazing out at the crowd.
“Got any juicy gossip I can use?” I asked. “Any titillating tidings, lurid leads, or tawdry tips?”
“Other than a dead dick with a lobotomy?”
We directed our attention toward Johnny Kirk and Shirley Wickham. As different as olive oil was from vinegar, they seemed to go together on the salad plate; insiders who were really outsiders; one crude, the other prim; one oily, the other acidic. From their snide expressions, knowing nods, and furtive finger pointing, they were making mincemeat of everyone.
“I heard Shirley still lives with her mother,” Monica said.
I shook my head. “Moved into a two-bedroom co-op on Lake Shore Drive.”
“On a civil servant salary?”
“Old Man Wickham left her and her mom a bundle.” Shirley Wickham was a representative of that class of women who never married. A childless, unloved spinster in her thirties and rapidly approaching forty, dedicated to her job, her boss, and the power she derived from the man she served. Since she protected her boss’s interests with the loyalty of a Doberman pincer, no one could get near him without going through her first.
“What’re you doing here anyway?” Monica asked. “Aren’t parades your beat?
“Get this,” I said. “Some hick singer from Memphis. White guy who belts it out like the coloreds. Here to sign with a local record company.”
She crossed her eyes. “Sounds thrilling.”
Susie Mueller, a stringer for the Post-News, toddled past. “Susie darling,” I said. “Where did you get that double darling dress?” As an aside to Monica, I said, “By sleeping with her editor.”
“Really? Susie Mueller sleeps with Alan Zimmerman?”
“None other.”
“The midget?”
“The midget with the long schlong.”
“Why are you really here, Iris? And don’t give me any crap about a hayseed.”
“To give you a hard time.”
“Hah! I know why you’re here. So you can get a lead on who murdered Dick Byrnes.”
“True,” I admitted, “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but practically everyone who might have a motive is here.”
“Practically?” she repeated. “Who’s missing?”
“Mrs. Byrnes.”
“You think Mrs. Byrnes killed her husband?”
“Could also be the bimbo Byrnes was with when he bought it.”
“Dick Byrnes was with a bimbo?”
“And there’s always the bimbo’s boyfriend.”
“You’re making it up as you go along.” Her eyes crossed as she tried to fit all the possibilities onto the head of a pin. Eventually, she gloated. “You forgot someone.”
“Mrs. Byrnes’s lover?” I asked.
She frowned. “You know about her lover?”
“All anybody has to do is get a load of Dick Byrnes to know his wife must have a lover.”
Across the way, Kirk gave Shirley a friendly pat on her bottom and waddled off.
Monica called out to Barbara Levy. “Barbara Levy! Or should I say, the invincible Barbara Levy.” As an as
ide, she said, “The sting’s going down tonight.”
“Aw, gee, I have a date tonight.”
“Stand him up.” Monica strutted off. Without warning, she folded like a pleated skirt and toppled with a loud thunk. After a delayed reaction and a shake of her head, she climbed painfully back to her feet and pretended nothing had happened. People looked away but tittered behind their hands. She scowled in my direction.
Sniggering, Starr sidled beside me. He’d been my silhouette for the last five minutes. I knew it. He knew that I knew it. We both knew Monica didn’t know it. I gave him a big smile. He shrugged innocence, and stuffing hands into pants pockets, strolled toward a covey of big shots.
I recognized one of them as John J. Rudolph, one-time owner of the department store Rudolph & Co. and publisher of the Post-News. He was huddling in a ring of other high-powered publishers and editors, men who wore dark suits and smug airs. Their words ricocheted back and forth like shot from a BB gun. “Byrnes ... Kirk ... sting operation ... jail time ... tonight.”
One of the big shots was none other than General Jacobson Ashford, publisher and editor of the Daily Standard. Though Rudolph and Ashford were fierce competitors who attacked each other on the op-ed pages of their respective papers, in public they exchanged facile comments as if they didn’t really want to tear out each other’s hearts and feast on the still-beating flesh with a fine Bordeaux. The general broke off midsentence and twisted around. Cold gray eyes peered down at me over a hooked nose. “Do I know you?”
Pretending to search for something in my purse, I raised my head and looked around. He was far from fooled. “I, uh, work for you, sir.”
He removed the pipe stem from his mouth and said, “Ah. You’re a reporter, a news hen, a jib-rat, the lowest form of amoebic life in this city, in the world, on the planet.”
“When you put it that way ....”
He twisted back around and elbowed Rudolph. “Someone I want you to meet, Rudy.”
Smartly dressed in one of Rudolph & Co.’s private label clothing lines, Rudolph scrutinized my outfit and coordinated accessories as if he owned them. In a way, he did, since I’d purchased nearly every item at his family’s State Street store.
Several years ago, after selling majority stake in the family business to his brother, Rudolph founded the Daily News in answer to the Daily Standard’s anti-Roosevelt bashing. The general didn’t take kindly to the move. From his way of thinking, freedom of the press belonged only to those who owned one, so he did his best to deep-six the fledgling newspaper. A few years later, the retail magnet—the third of his name—rubbed the general’s face in it by conjoining his paper with the Evening Post. The combined circulation of the revamped Post-News became the Daily Standard’s main rival. Ever since, it’s been open warfare.
“This is John Grenadine’s daughter,” General Ashford said.
I swallowed back an involuntary gasp. I never before met him, professionally or otherwise. His kind of people lived in big mansions behind locked gates with guard dogs patrolling the perimeter. Come to think, so did my kind of people, but in a different part of town.
“You take after your mother,” Rudolph said.
“You’ve met my mother, sir?”
“No, but you look nothing like your father.”
Chicago operated like a small town, adhering to small-town principles and engaging in small-town bickering. Movers and shakers unavoidably bumped into each other at community functions, forcing them to schmooze in a friendly way. But to gang up on an upstart newspaperwoman, namely myself, seemed uncivilized.
The general puffed pipe smoke in my direction. “Forget about the sting, Miss Grenadine. A certain alderman of the 19th Ward isn’t a shill for the mob. The mayor’s budget director was never gunning for him. Even if he was, he’s conveniently dead. The mayor himself knows of no such scandal, especially since it took place on the last mayor’s watch. Bottom line, there’s no story. If there were a story, I’d assign it to Tom Stacy. You’re acquainted with the man?”
“The Pulitzer Prize winner, sir?”
“Just remember this, Miss Grenadine. Everyone lies. Layers upon layers of lies. Day after goddamn day of lies. Don’t forget it.”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.”
“As much as you’d like to, you’ll never atone for your father’s sins. Even if you get an exclusive on this story, which you won’t, not if I have anything to say about it.”
“But you do,” I said, “have something to say about.”
He rounded on me. “I don’t like your attitude, Miss Grenadine.”
“Neither does my father.”
We had reached an impasse, perhaps even a truce. I nodded respectfully and stepped away, heel to toe, until there was enough distance separating us to slink off. Starr pulled alongside and matched his step to mine. “Your boss sure took you down a notch or two.”
I elbowed him in the gut.
“Isn’t she great?” Starr wheezed to a bystander. “I love her. Everybody loves her. Iris, the Grenadine. Iris, the Pink Lady.”
“Go to hell, Starr.”
“Will do,” he said, and bid adieu with a half-hearted salute.
Chapter 8
WHEN A DC-7 touched down on Runway 20 Left, everyone spilled out of the terminal and congregated on the tarmac. The airliner taxied into position as flags, banners, and cheers greeted its approach.
I drew beside Starr. “Bet you didn’t know the DC-7 was first put into service a year and a half ago.”
His eyes sliced sideways. “Go on.”
“Offered the first non-stop coast-to-coast service in the country, taking just eight hours to fly from New York to L.A. Takes a crew of four and holds up to 110 passengers.”
“You have my undivided attention.” He was admiring a blistering babe dressed in an off-white two-piece suit, very stylish and very sleek, both the babe and the suit. She posed in a nonchalant manner, one hand propped on hip and head angled sideways. Starr gave her the onceover from her toes to the top of her French-clipped hair.
“The DC-7 is a marvel of modern aerodynamics. It has a cruise speed of 350 miles per gallon, a range of 4,600 miles, and a ceiling of 25,000 feet. Its four Turbo-Compound radial piston engines are capable of achieving 3,400 horsepower and a maximum speed of 400 miles per hour.”
“To think I could’ve died happy without ever knowing what keeps seventy-one tons of steel from crashing down to earth.”
“Her name is Esther Weiss,” I said, referring to the blistering babe, “and she doesn’t like boys.”
“What about men?”
“Them either.”
“What does she like?” He was playing with a toothpick, moving it from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Starr, she’s coming on to me, not you, so stuff your ego back into your pants.”
He peered toward our right flank. Standing not very far from the mayor, Monica and Shirley shared gossip behind shielding hands and lowered voices. “Think you can hook me up with someone who doesn’t recite the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z?” His eyes shifted back. “A delirious debutante or two will do.”
“And waste the Doublemint Twins on you?”
Mild interest cheered up his otherwise vapid expression.
“Cammy and Pammy Neulander. Copyeditors at the office. Figuratively conjoined at the hip.”
“Heard about them. Four boobs for the price of two.”
Shirley and Monica continued chatting, occasionally tossing up their heads and laughing. They made a pair of queens in a deck of spades. Both brunettes. Both endowed with flattering assets of the second-balcony variety. Both with a penchant for black. Both insecure in flamboyant ways. And both replacing emotional attachment with work. In many ways, they were nearly indistinguishable from me, except for one essential ingredient. Neither possessed moral character.
“What was your boss talking about,” Starr asked. “Something about your father’s sins?”
From his
position beneath a sun-shaded portico, Kirk was keeping a low profile, the wide brim of his Homburg partially obscuring his face.
“Careful, Starr,” I said, “I’m onto you.”
The fake brunette reappeared, emerging from the terminal and shielding her eyes with a raised hand.
“My life’s a shut book,” Starr said. “Nothing you can get on me.”
The girl tucked her purse under an elbow and tried to light up. A breeze blew out the match. A man hurried to her rescue, flipping open his Ronson lighter. She held his hand steady, lit up, and nodded her thanks. Taken in by her beauty, his attentions lingered. She gave him a frosty look, and he moved on.
“Richard Coolidge Starr,” I began. “Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Named after maternal grandfather and dead president. Father Stanley. Mother Sophie. Served in the Army Air Corps the last year of the war but never shipped overseas, unless Hondo Airfield, Texas, qualifies as overseas. Rents an apartment near the lake and keeps a parakeet named Fred. Has a string of girlfriends, most of them one-night stands. Former Chicago cop. Left the department in ’52 on a disability suspension. Resurfaced a year later running a one-man detective agency. Want me to go on?”
Watching the mayor and his entourage, the girl propped the cigarette close to her mouth, elbow crutched atop a crossed arm. Monica had broken off her conversation with Shirley. Mayor Moore was standing just behind his secretary. He must have said something important because she wound around to give him her full attention, eyes large with esteem. After nodding, she reentered the terminal building, her step brisk.
Starr snapped the rim of his fedora. “Iris Esther Rebecca Grenadine. Born under the sign of Cancer. Five-foot-seven in three-inch heels. Named after a Greek goddess and deceased grandmothers. Raised on the west side until her folks moved to a mansion near the lake. Father a lawyer. Mother a psychic. Parents separated when she was little. Graduated from Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism. Ranked top in her class. Her lifelong dream is to live in a garret on the Left Bank, eat Gruyère cheese and fresh strawberries by day, drink champagne by night, and sleep until noon. Acts as if she’s got a lineup of boyfriends for every day of the week, but she’s usually seen with theater critic Freddie Bickel. Bickel is closer to a girlfriend than a boyfriend since he has a honey on the side, a blonde number with a goatee who wears buffed Italian leather. Want me to go on?” He shot me a sidelong glance. “Didn’t think so.”
The Green-Eyed Dick Page 6
