by Maia Chance
I stopped. “Officers,” I said, breathing hard. “Please. We’re being … chased by … those two thugs!”
Mr. Egghead and the blonde were coming up the steps.
The plumper of the two policemen burst out laughing. “Haw! Thugs!” He nudged the other officer with his boot. “Van Hoogenband’s valet a thug? Haw-haw-haw!”
Valet?
The other policeman chuckled and took another bite of pie.
“As useful as rainboots in the bathtub,” Berta muttered.
We pushed into the lobby.
“Up the stairs,” I whispered.
Berta and I climbed the stairs. As soon as we reached the landing, we peeked down. Mr. Egghead and the blonde stood inside the lobby doors, looking around.
“They didn’t see us go up,” I said softly. “Come on.”
We mounted the rest of the steps, ran down the hallway, and pushed through a door leading to a back stair. Downstairs again, we fumbled around until we found a door out. We were at the side of the inn, where a strip of lawn met Walnut Street.
“Let’s run for the yacht now, while they’re still inside,” I said.
“Run? I would prefer a brisk walking pace.”
We made it to Hansen’s Bait Shop and looked back. No one was following us, unless they were hidden in the shadows. There were plenty of shadows. We dodged to the back of the bait shop, down the wooden steps to the harbor path, and onto the dock.
Berta stopped. “Oh dear. I forgot my purchases on the bakery counter.”
“What purchases?”
“The scouring pad and cleaning powder. I really must go back.”
“Now? It’ll still be there in the morning.”
Berta shook her head. “I cannot abide living in squalor. Do not worry about me, Mrs. Woodby.” She hitched her handbag up her forearm and started back up the steps.
“I should come with you.”
“No. Certainly not.”
Something told me Berta’s desire to go back to the bakery—alone—was more about the mustached baker than a can of Bon Ami cleaning powder. Thugs or no, far be it from me to meddle in another lady’s romantic machinations.
“Be careful,” I whispered after Berta.
She waved a dismissive hand.
* * *
I walked down the dock, Cedric in my arms, and boarded the Sea Nymph.
“What a night,” I muttered to Cedric, setting him down. “What I wouldn’t give for a highball right about now.”
“Well, that’s a coincidence,” someone said in the darkness, “because I brought a bottle of whiskey and some ginger ale special for you.”
“Ralph!” I pressed a hand to my jolting heart. “I mean, Mr. Oliver.” Cedric waggled away from me.
“Come on, now, Lola. Why the formality?” I made out Ralph lolling in the canvas deck chair, legs stretched, hands clasped behind his head. Two bottles glimmered next to his feet.
“Why? Because you’ve been calling me Mrs. Woodby ever since you returned from your mysteriously long trip to Cuba, that’s why.”
“Must’ve been a mistake.” Ralph bent to scratch Cedric’s ears, and then got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Lola.” Thin moonlight illuminated his forehead and cheekbones, but I couldn’t quite make out his eyes. He came closer.
“Oh. Well. I accept your apology,” I said. “Why are you here?”
“To let you know I tracked down Grace Whiddle—”
“Really?”
“—because I thought it might help you with your case.”
“Where is she? Is she all right? Where did you find her?”
“I haven’t seen her yet. I only traced a series of leads to Pete Schlump’s apartment on the Upper East Side.”
“Pete Schlump?” I thought of Grace’s Vaseline-on-the-camera-lens glow when she’d looked at Pete, and how Pete had leapt to Grace’s defense when Muffy Morris insulted her. “I knew it.”
“I’m thinking she’s in his apartment, but she’s not coming out. I staked out the building till the doormen started getting antsy. Probably thought I was a Yankees fanatic out for blood over Schlump’s pitching slump. I’ll head back there tomorrow. Which reminds me. Foghorn’s booked solid tonight. Mind if I sleep here? My neck can’t take a night in my jalopy.” Ralph stopped a half pace away.
“Here? Oh. I—”
“On deck should be fine. Nice and warm tonight.”
He had that right.
Ralph brushed my hot cheek with his knuckle. “C’mon. You owe me one. You said so yourself.”
True.
He went on, “I also came here tonight because I wanted to see you.”
“Why is that?”
“To do this.” Ralph’s arms circled my waist and he pulled me up against his warm, hard, salt-scented chest. The core of me simply melted, like a fizzled-out lightbulb filament. “On the off chance you changed your mind. You know, about not being happy to see me back from Cuba.”
“I might’ve changed my mind,” I whispered against his lips.
“Yeah?”
“But fair is fair. You can’t be the only one playing your cards close. Besides, don’t you know that when a lady says she isn’t happy to see you, there’s still a twenty percent chance she is?”
Our lips touched.
The yacht bobbed. Someone had stepped aboard.
“Well, well, Ralphie,” a girlish voice chirped. “I’m not surprised to see you petting another gal, don’t get me wrong. But most fellers woulda taken a intermission or something.”
Ralph and I pulled apart. We both turned.
Mr. Egghead’s tiny blond sidekick stood with one arm akimbo and the other aiming a jumbo pistol at Ralph and me.
“Miss Mallone,” Ralph said with a stiff nod.
“Everyone calls me Baby Doll, and last time I checked, you did, too, you big gorgeous sheik, you. When you weren’t calling me other things, anyways.”
“Do you two know each other?” I asked.
Ralph scratched his eyebrow. “Do you two know each other?”
“No,” I said. “Well, yes. I mean to say, this Miss—Miss Mallone—”
“Call me Baby Doll,” she said. “Everybody does.”
“—has been pursuing me hither and thither all day. She’s a hired thug.”
“Gee, thanks, honey,” Baby Doll said, and she didn’t even sound sarcastic.
“Who are you working for this time, Miss Mallone?” Ralph asked.
“Van Hoogenband. Have been for months, which you woulda known if you paid attention when I talk.” Baby Doll looked at me. “Now I see why you’ve been so cool, Ralphie. Got yourself a side dish. Say, cute dress, Mrs. Woodby. Ralphie likes smart dressers, don’t you, Ralphie?”
I frowned up at Ralph. “What’s going on here? Is this—this young lady your—?”
“Sweetie,” Baby Doll said. “I’m his sweetie.”
“Uh—” Ralph said.
“It’s no skin off my teeth that you’re here with this fancy dame,” Baby Doll said to Ralph. “I’m not a jealous girl. Live and let live, that’s my motto. I got my own coupla side dishes, and let me tell you, I like my beef with a side of beef.”
“I’m not sure what that means,” I said.
“Miss Mallone,” Ralph said, “you are not my sweetie.”
“No?” Baby Doll’s dimpled smile was visible even in the weak light. “That’s what you said when I was down in Cuba.”
“You were in Cuba with her?” I asked Ralph.
He massaged his forehead. “It’s—”
“Course he was,” Baby Doll said. “Stayed in a fancy white hotel together and ate all kinds of fruits.”
I sucked in a slow, shuddery breath.
“Say, honey,” Baby Doll said to me, “Boss ain’t too happy about the way you and your pudgy sidekick have been giving me and Eggie the slip.”
“Eggie?” I said.
“Big fella? God-awful scar clear across his forehead like a soft-boiled egg?”
“But now we figured out where you’re staying.” Baby Doll glanced around the yacht deck. “What a dump.”
“What does Mr. Van Hoogenband want?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Eggie and me’s orders was to figure out where you and the pudgy dame are staying and report back. And now we know. Enjoy your spooning, you two. See you round.” Baby Doll turned and minced down the gangway. Her hollow footfalls receded on the dock.
I spun on Ralph.
He said, “Lola, listen to me before you—”
“No! I loathe you and I never want to see you again.” A Thrilling Romance heroine would have slapped Ralph’s cheek at this juncture, but I felt like slapping myself for getting stuck on a ladies’ man. I, of all people, should’ve known better. After all, I’d been married to a Casanova for a decade.
“Still jake if I sleep here on the deck?” Ralph asked.
“Argh!” I cried, throwing my arms up, “Come, Cedric.”
Cedric didn’t budge from his perch on the deck chair.
“Peanut,” I said, patting my knees, “come.”
Cedric panted.
“Fine.” I stomped down the ladder into the bowels of the yacht. Cedric could stick with Ralph. They could have a ginger-haired boys’ evening. I certainly didn’t care a snap of the fingers. Stumbling around in the near darkness, I ripped the wool blanket from the top bunk. I carried it back up to the deck and threw it beside Ralph’s deck chair—he was lounging there with Cedric in his lap and looking inscrutable. “That’s for Cedric,” I said. “Not you.”
“Got it,” Ralph said.
I flounced toward the ladder.
Wait. I turned and went back.
“I knew you were a softie,” Ralph said, starting to smile.
“I am not a softie.” I snatched the bottles of whiskey and ginger ale and carried them down to my cabin. I slammed the door so hard, it bounced open again. I slammed it again, and it clicked shut.
I slumped on the edge of my bunk and unscrewed the cap of the whiskey bottle. I sighed. Highballs with Ralph would’ve been divine, but getting whiffled all alone on a mildewy bunk bed with gravy on my dress, my favorite shoes in a rubbish bin, no real progress on our murder investigation, and Van Hoogenband’s thugs on my caboose? Simply depressing. I screwed the whiskey bottle cap back on and stashed it under the berth.
I rummaged in my handbag for a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar and tore into it. I waited for Ralph to come storming in and sweep me into his arms.
Ralph didn’t show, and I fell asleep waiting.
19
I awoke to the crick-creeek, crick-creeek of the yacht as it rolled gently on the waves. Water slopped. Sunlight sliced through the open porthole. My mouth tasted of chocolate and my vision blurred with mascara and dried tears.
Ralph.
Baby Doll Mallone.
Fruit in Cuba.
Ugh.
I checked my wristwatch which, along with my clothes, shoes, and makeup, I still wore. Phooey—just after eleven o’clock, and I was due to call upon Hermie Inchbald at twelve thirty.
I tiptoed out of the cabin, praying that Ralph was gone. He was, and so were Berta and Cedric. Berta had left a note for me on the galley table: Meet me and your dog at Little Vienna Bakery.
I cold-creamed my face, fixed my hair, brushed my teeth, and got dressed. It was just as well that Ralph and I were out of business, because my undergarments weren’t really up to entertaining a gentleman caller. Bathroom sink hand washings and fire escape dryings had taken their toll. The lacy silk frivolities I’d indulged in back when I was a Society Matron were as shrivelly gray as coal miners’ hankies.
I buttoned myself into the last clean dress in my suitcase, a gauzy, drop-waist floral. I had no choice but to wear my black Pinet pumps, even though they looked all wrong with the dress. Topping it all off with a sun hat and a dab of my new Coty lipstick, I was on my way.
* * *
I found Berta sipping coffee at a table inside Little Vienna Bakery. The bakery was empty of customers, and warm. A ceiling fan whirred, and somewhere in the back, a phonograph piped out a symphony.
“Any sign of Van Hoogenband’s goons?” I asked, sitting.
“No.” Berta was blooming in a blue dress and a new style of plaited bun. “I am relieved to see you are in good health, Mrs. Woodby.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I bent to pet Cedric, who lay beneath the table. Pastry crumbs trembled on his whiskers. A bowl of water sat beside him.
“Mr. Oliver told me you disappeared into your cabin with a bottle of whiskey. I assumed you were on a toot.”
“Didn’t drink a drop. And Mr. Oliver is no longer welcome on the yacht.”
“Lovers’ spat?”
“No. Complete amputation.”
“It won’t last.”
“Just you watch. Hold it—whose coffee cup is this?” A half-empty coffee cup sat at my place.
“Mr. Oliver’s.”
“Berta! Is he … here?” I looked around furtively.
“He has already gone to the city in order to continue his surveillance of Pete Schlump’s apartment building.”
“Did he tell you how Van Hoogenband’s blond puppet—her name is Baby Doll!—found our yacht?”
“Yes—and he was kind enough to sleep on deck and stand guard for us all night.”
“And did he tell you that he’d been in Cuba—at the same hotel—with Baby Doll?”
Berta’s forehead creased. “That sounds most unlikely. That Baby Doll creature is built like a drinking straw, and Mr. Oliver has always been so very appreciative of your womanly figure—”
“Could we change the topic?” I wanted to kick something.
“Very well. Do you know, I am ever so disappointed in Pete Schlump. I had held him in the highest esteem, particularly after last year’s World Series, but running off with a girl engaged to be married to another? It is so very low.”
“Think Pete Schlump could be a murderer yet?”
“Certainly not. He is still a Yankees pitcher.” Berta said Yankees pitcher the same way you’d say canonized saint.
“But what do we really know about him?”
“Everything. Have you been dwelling under a rock? His biography is known to the very masses.” Berta took a deep breath. “Pete Schlump was born to a German saloonkeeper and his wife in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in a brick row house. He was a naughty little boy—chewing tobacco and throwing tomatoes at policemen while only seven years old—and so he was sent to a reformatory run by priests, where he learned to play baseball from the head disciplinarian, Father Marcus. Upon graduation at the reformatory, he signed to play with the minor-league Rochester Red Wings, but he was soon snapped up by the Yankees at the age of nineteen, when they noticed Pete’s Hercules-like pitching arm.”
“How old is Pete now?”
“Twenty-five. And he has lived his entire adult life fully in the public eye. He cannot have any secrets. He is recognized everywhere he goes.”
The mustached baker emerged from the back of the shop in a white apron and wreathed in smiles. Berta introduced him as Mr. Wilhelm Demel, transplanted from Vienna by way of Queens.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said.
Wilhelm gave me a limp smile and then turned up the watts for Berta. “Another strawberry turnover, Mrs. Lundgren?”
“No, thank you, but I am certain Mrs. Woodby requires coffee and pastry.”
“Very good.” Wilhelm bustled to the back of the shop.
“He is such a wholesome gentleman,” Berta said, gazing after him. “Quite unlike the rakish characters I usually find myself mixed up with. There is something to be said for going against type, I do think.”
“Jimmy the Ant is ancient history now?” I asked.
“A fossil, Mrs. Woodby.”
After I gobbled up two strawberry turnovers and
drank a cup of coffee, Berta and I reviewed our plan for the day: I’d go to Inchbald Hall, she’d finagle her way back into Muffy Morris’s bedroom to look for an Institut Alpenrose directory, and then we’d devise a plan to, once and for all, find out who the nurse on duty had been the night Muffy died.
“And do not forget that we must ask Miss Shanks who her source for the Inchbald and Sons war-profiteering scandal was,” Berta said.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Mr. Demel has a telephone at the back that I am certain he would allow you to use.”
“Excellent. That’ll save me five cents.”
I poked my head into the kitchen—stuffed with racks of fragrant, cooling pastries and blindingly clean—and saw Wilhelm fussing with the oven. I asked if I could use his telephone, and he led me to a vestibule. The open door looked out onto the weedy alley.
“Thanks,” I said, and waited till Wilhelm went back to the kitchen to dial. I asked the operator to put me through to the Evening Observer offices on Park Row, and at length got Ida Shanks on the line.
“Going begging again, Duffy?” Ida said after I’d asked her to disclose the identity of her informant. Ida calls me Duffy because in 1910, my family, the Duffys of 5 Polk Street, Scragg Springs, Indiana, became the DuFeys of Park Avenue. Ida would simply hate for me to forget my rags-to-riches biography.
“I’m not begging,” I said. “I am suggesting that we trade information.”
“Have you anything tasty for me?”
Perspiration sprang up on my forehead. I had to come up with something juicier than a medium-rare sirloin if Ida was going to reciprocate. Aha: Van Hoogenband. She’d love the sound of that. “Did you know that Eugene Van Hoogenband is mixed up in Muffy’s death somehow?” I said. Strictly speaking, this was true, since I was mixed up in Muffy’s death and Van Hoogenband had mixed his thugs up with me.
“That’s good, Duffy. Van Hoogenband? Oh, his name will look gorgeous splashed across a headline—not as gorgeous as my byline below it, of course. Just how is he mixed up in it?”
“I’m not sure. Something to do with Grace Whiddle’s diary, possibly.” Wait. I shouldn’t have mentioned the diary. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
