Manhattan Heat

by Alice Orr

  “Vangie’s what she said it was.”

  That threw Nick off a little. Falcone had told him the mark’s name was Bennett St. Simon. Where’d you get Vangie out of that? But Nick was sure it had to be her, and the guy with the name like a city down in yahooland had to be Memphis Modine.

  “How long ago was she here?” he asked.

  He saw the look exchanged between Liddy and the bartender. Liddy was passing the signal to be cool. He’d never trusted her anyway.

  “I’m not sure. A while ago,” the bartender said. “They were here one minute, then they were gone. Maybe they’re out in the back catching the tunes. It’s too busy in here for me to be keeping track of the customers, even the hunky ones.”

  She must’ve wanted to make that last clear because, after she said it, she took off down the bar to wait on a couple of guys who were waving to get her attention. Liddy had taken off, too. He could see her working her way through the crowd toward the back room. Maybe she was intending to warn Modine and this St. Simon chick.

  Then it hit him. The description the bartender gave. Short black hair. Real hip looking. He remembered something he’d seen out of the car window when he and Rudy were cruising Ninth Avenue. Some girl kissing a guy on a doorstep. The reason Nick remembered it was because of the way she was all over the dude. Almost turned Nick on to look at it. He’d been so busy checking her out, he almost didn’t notice the guy she was with. Except for the black leather jacket. Nick was real good with picking out details like that.

  Nick put all of it together now. It could add up to the two he’d been after for sure. He remembered her face well enough to guess it could be St. Simon after some make-over work. That would be a smart move, doing her up so nobody’d recognize her. He touched the place on his neck that was still sore from the way she’d come close to throttling him back at that fleabag hotel. He’d recognize her all right, but when he got done with her maybe nobody else would.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The quiet of the street was as much a shock as the havoc of the club had been. Bennett needed a minute or two to regain her bearings and remind herself that she didn’t have to shout anymore. What she did have to do was think. She had told Memphis the reason for their hasty exit. They’d shouldered their way to the rear door with him in the lead since he was far better equipped for shouldering. The alley was dark except for one hooded light over the exit. They nearly fell over a phalanx of trash cans as they ran toward the street.

  “I imagine you want to go to the Seaport now,” Bennett said breathlessly, answering the destination question instead of asking it this time.

  “That’s right,” Memphis said. “Are we headed that way?”

  “Actually, we’re not.” Apparently he hadn’t managed to get his bearings as quickly as she had.

  He stopped and turned around as if to head in the other direction.

  “I don’t think you want to do that,” she said. “We would have to go past the DownTown Lounge or closer to it than I care to be with Mr. Nick in the area.”

  “That’s true.” Memphis didn’t sound the least bit winded, though Bennett could feel her heart hammering in her chest.

  “I also don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back to your ship.”

  “Boat,” he said. “It’s not large enough to be a ship.”

  “It’s large enough to hold a great deal of trouble for you if you get caught anywhere near it.” Bennett had spotted a pay phone on the next corner and headed toward it. “May I borrow a quarter?” she asked.

  Memphis reached into a pocket of his jeans as he reluctantly followed her. “I get the feeling you have a plan,” he said. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know if I’d call it a plan quite yet. It’s more an approach to a plan at this point.”

  Bennett took the quarter he offered her and hurried up the curb to the aluminum phone carrel. She said a silent prayer that this would be a working phone rather than a vandalized one. When she lifted the receiver, the dial tone was music to her ears.

  “Then tell me your approach to a plan,” Memphis said when he caught up to her.

  “In a moment,” she said as she punched in the number she was so pleased to remember. “What corner are we on?” she asked.

  Memphis checked the street signs. “First Avenue and East Fourth,” he said.

  Bennett nodded. “This is Bennett St. Simon,” she said when the car service answered. “I need a car at First Avenue and East Fourth Street.” There was a hesitation on the other end of the line. They weren’t accustomed to having her call from anywhere near this neighborhood, though they certainly must have picked Forth up in worse parts of town on any number of occasions. Her family had been using this service for as long as she could remember. “I’ll be going to the Plaza Hotel,” she added.

  “Yes, Ms. St. Simon” was the rapid and very polite answer. They were talking familiar territory again.

  “Can you make that a rush pickup?” she asked. “I would rather not spend very long on this particular corner.”

  “Of course, Ms. St. Simon. We will be there right away.”

  “Did I hear you say you’re headed for the Plaza Hotel?” Memphis watched her with a curious expression on his face as he waited for an answer.

  “We are headed for the Plaza Hotel.”

  “Oh, no, we’re not.” He raised his hands as if to ward off the possibility. “I think this has to be where we say goodbye.”

  Bennett grabbed his hands in hers. “No, it is not,” she said so emphatically she even surprised herself. “You are coming with me. You have to.”

  “Why do I have to?”

  Memphis took a step toward her. He was gazing directly down into her face. She continued to clasp his hands.

  “Because the solution to the mystery of Pearlanne Fellows’s death is on my end of town not yours,” Bennett said, returning his gaze just as directly, even though the chaos that gaze created inside her tempted her to look away.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “What I learned at the DownTown Lounge is that Pearlanne had been spending a lot of time uptown lately. She apparently had a gentleman friend there, a gentleman who is probably named Stitch Falcone.”

  Memphis sighed and nodded his head slowly. She’d gotten his attention this time.

  “That’s probably why she was at the Stuyvesant Club, to meet Falcone just like you were.” She was about to repeat what she had learned about smuggling and sailboats, but something made her hesitate. What if she should not be trusting Memphis after all? What if having too much information and talking about it was the cause of Pearlanne’s death, as Liddy had suggested? Bennett wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

  “I would guess that Falcone either is the murderer or he knows the murderer,” she said. “Apparently he spends his time uptown rather than downtown. If that is true, I think I can help you find him.”

  Bennett wasn’t certain she should be doing even that. All the same, though she might have doubts about Memphis, she still wanted to help him. She had committed herself to that, and she wasn’t ready to give up yet. Meanwhile, Memphis continued to stare into her eyes.

  “You could be right,” he said at last. “Besides, my choices seem to be pretty limited right now.”

  “Exactly.”

  Bennett scanned the avenue for the car service vehicle. It occurred to her that the driver might not recognize her in her outfit. She turned to walk toward the curb, but Memphis gripped her hands tighter and wouldn’t let her go.

  “There’s one more thing I need to know,” he said, capturing her with his gaze once again. “Is solving this mystery the only reason you don’t want us to split up and go our separate ways?”

  She felt the smile rising from her heart to her lips. The warmth of his eyes flushed through her, like a candle’s rosy glow, melting any doubts or questions in its path. She squeezed his hands and said, “No, that is not the only reason. We can talk about the rest of it later.�
��

  The glow grew rosier and warmer as she considered the fact that “later” they would be in a hotel room—just the two of them—and nowhere near Forty-second Street this time.

  MEMPHIS COULD HARDLY believe his eyes when a long, black limousine pulled up at the corner.

  “I take it this is for us,” he said.

  “I thought they would send something less ostentatious.” Bennett sounded embarrassed.

  “That last name of yours seems to bring out the first-class in people.”

  First-class or not, the limo driver looked as if he had his doubts about her, too. He lowered the window no more than an inch when Bennett walked up and rapped on it.

  “Don’t worry, Kevin,” she said. “It’s really me. I’ve been at a costume party.”

  Memphis couldn’t help but admire the way she spieled that lie off so smoothly, without batting a pretty blue eye, and followed it up with a smile dazzling enough to roll any man’s window down.

  “Sure thing, Ms. St. Simon,” Kevin said.

  Memphis heard the door locks click open. Then Kevin was out of the car like a shot, hopping to grab the rear door handle. He even bowed a little at the waist as Bennett ducked her head to climb inside the car. Memphis nodded his head as thanks for the courtesy, but Kevin wasn’t having any of it. He gave Memphis the fish eye as he slid onto the plush seat next to Bennett. Kevin was obviously an old hand at this limo business. There was no use trying to fool him about who belonged in one and who didn’t.

  Kevin climbed back into the front seat, on the other side of the sliding panel of black glass, and the car purred away from the curb. He picked up speed, moving north along the almost deserted avenue. Memphis couldn’t blame him for wanting to make tracks out of this part of town. There were plenty of hard cases on these mean streets. Any one of them would love to get his hands on a rig like this one, and whoever had the bad luck to be inside it, too.

  “So much for being inconspicuous,” Bennett said.

  “I was just thinking something like that. About sticking out like a neon sign in the woods.”

  Bennett laughed, and he realized this was the first time he’d heard her do that. There hadn’t been much to laugh at tonight up till now. Maybe she had a point about getting away from the rough side of things for a while. He would have liked to reach over and take her hand and tell her that, along with how much he loved the way she laughed, but something stopped him. This whole situation was too weird to be believed. First, he’d found the murdered girl on the billiard room floor. Next, he’d taken a beautiful woman for a hostage. Now here he was, in a black stretch limo headed for a place too fancy for him to even think about going before tonight.

  None of this felt real. None of it felt as if it could be happening to him. He was starting to wonder if he even felt real. He should probably tell himself to relax and enjoy it, go with the flow like they used to say. His nerve endings were screwed up so tight, from everything that had been going on these past few hours, he might never be able to relax again. On the other hand, if and when he could find enough free space in his head to let himself kick back, this was the kind of place to do it in.

  The interior of the car was black as the outside—leatherlined doors and ceiling trimmed in polished chrome—except for the seats, which were a color that reminded him of old wine or maybe even brandy. He’d never sat on a car seat that felt like this one. Hell. He’d hardly ever sat on a sofa like this. The cushions were deep and wide. He tried to keep himself from thinking about how it would be to lay Bennett down right here and make love to her. Kevin would probably be over the seat in a flash if he thought anything that out of line was going on back here anyway. The partition might be made of black glass, but Memphis would bet money Kevin had his ways of knowing exactly what was going on in his ride. Memphis smiled at the thought.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” Bennett slid closer to him.

  “Now I am,” he said.

  His hand was fairly itching to take hold of hers. All the same, he couldn’t bring himself to touch her. The only way he could explain it was that he was feeling shy, and Memphis Modine had never been shy so much as a New York minute in his entire life.

  “This is my first limo ride,” he said, hoping to get his mind off the track it had been running on.

  “Since you work with yachting types, I would have thought you had ridden in lots of these things.”

  “I work for yachting types, not with them,” he said with a laugh. “There’s a big difference. For one thing, they don’t take the hired help out for a cruise around town.”

  There’d been kind of a sharp edge in the way he said that, but she didn’t let on that she noticed. She was too classy for that. Like when she didn’t ask if this was his first time in a limo. She’d waited for him to say it, and even then she didn’t make a big deal out of it. That was classy, too.

  “Well, they should,” Bennett said with a smile as dazzling as the one she’d given Kevin earlier.

  “Should what?” That smile had his thoughts much more fuddled up than he liked them to be.

  “Your employers should have taken you out driving with them,” she said. “I’m sure they would have enjoyed your company.”

  “Does that mean you enjoy my company?”

  Memphis almost groaned. He’d made that sound so much like a line he could hardly believe his own ears. He also had trouble believing how rattled she made him feel just by sitting next to him. That wasn’t because he felt out of place in this high-toned car, either.

  Bennett had looked up at him instead of answering. When she did speak, her voice was so low he could barely make out what she was saying. “I enjoy your company,” she said, and he was ninety-five percent sure he heard a throb in her tone.

  Memphis leaned toward her. He was in so much trouble tonight, the last thing he should be thinking about was this woman’s lips, but that seemed to be all he could think about. His face was almost to hers. Up this close, her eyes looked big as planets and bright as stars in the night sky. He was about to lose himself among those heavenly bodies when the car made a sudden lurch and they were thrown apart, almost to opposite ends of the wide seat.

  “I think Kevin just might have done that on purpose,” Memphis said after he straightened himself.

  “You could be right about that. He may have the St. Simon family agenda in mind.”

  “I’d say it’s a fair guess my name isn’t on that agenda anywhere.”

  “You could be right about that, too,” she said. “But I haven’t always toed the family line.”

  He would have loved to ask her how exactly she had strayed from the straight and narrow, but he didn’t want to waste time talking about her family ties. He knew these minutes with her were precious because they would most likely be few. He wanted to treasure every one.

  They didn’t move close to each other again for the rest of the ride, yet there was a heavy feeling in the air that something was going to happen between them and it was going to happen soon.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bennett had never brought a lover to the Plaza Hotel. It occurred to her that she had never been this eager to bring any man anywhere. She had the limo drive straight up to the main entrance, where the Plaza flag flew next to the Stars and Stripes as if this great hotel were a country all its own. She had long been a respected citizen of that country, but she had never come here looking as she did tonight. On another occasion, Kevin might have volunteered to go in ahead and smooth the way. He made no such offer, probably to show her how little he approved of whatever shenanigans she was up to.

  Bennett took Memphis’s hand as they climbed the red carpetted steps under the medieval-style canopied marquee toward the brass revolving doors. She looked up to find him gazing down at her as if all of the gilt and glamour of the place were nothing compared to her in his eyes. She clasped his hand tighter before she had to let go to enter the door.

  In the foyer a vast crystal chandelier held cour
t over a pedestal table topped by an immense vase of fresh flowers in a towering arrangement. The blue-blazered security guard watched Memphis and Bennett with special interest. She flashed him a brilliant smile as she towed Memphis past, onto more red carpet with more gilt in a heraldic design. If Memphis was awed by this place that had awed so many, he kept those feelings to himself and strolled along as if he made this trek every day. He didn’t even appear to be impressed by the tall mahogany cases along the walls, displaying the crown jewels of Plazaland, which actually came from some of the most exclusive shops in the city.

  The registration desk was off another grand foyer with a white mosaic tile floor and yet another vast chandelier and floral arrangement. Bennett could have brought them in directly through this entrance. She wasn’t quite certain why she hadn’t. Either she wanted to show off the Plaza to Memphis, or Memphis to the Plaza. She couldn’t decide which. Another blue-blazered security man looked as if he might be equally curious about her motives. He was carrying a walkie-talkie. She wondered if his counterpart at the main entrance had signaled ahead about the arrival of two very unexclusive-looking types upon this so exclusive scene.

  Bennett wasn’t the least bit fazed by this. She had been born and bred to the art of always belonging absolutely anywhere she went. She marched straight up to the registration desk and announced who she was and that she was staying in the St. Simon suite for the night. Even so, there was a delay while the night manager was summoned. Bennett remained patient. Patience was a grace, and this was an occasion for employing grace under fire. When the manager came, she put her masquerade party line to good use again, along with the brilliant smile that made her look just like her mother. The ploy was as effective as Bennett had planned it to be. Within minutes she and Memphis were on their way up the Plaza tower to the family suite. The manager being the soul of typical Plaza discretion, no mention had been made of their lack of luggage.