Dial Me for Murder

Chapter 18

I STUBBED OUT MY CIGARETTE AND LOOKED AT my watch. It was almost midnight. (Time also flies when you’re not having fun.) “It’s getting late, Ab,” I said, yawning between syllables. “I’m so tired I can’t see straight. Let’s continue this dialogue over coffee in the morning, okay?”

She scowled. “You can’t leave now! We’re just getting started. Have you forgotten about Sabrina?”

“Huh?” I didn’t get what she was driving at.

“You have to brief me on Sabrina,” she insisted. “She’s the queen bee in this hive of hornets, and-other than the fact that she’s a high-society madam who manages a stable of high-priced call girls-you haven’t told me a damn thing about her!”

“That can wait until tomorrow,” I said, rising to my feet and picking up the lavender list from the table. “I’m too tired to-”

“Sit down, Paige!” Abby leapt out of her chair and snatched the list out of my hand. “Sabrina gave you plenty of information about Melody and Brigitte and Candy in these notes,” she said, unfolding the list and flapping it in front of my face, “but do you see anything here about her? She didn’t write a goddamn word about herself.”

“But that’s because she-”

“Oh, hush! I’m not an idiot. I know why she didn’t want to put anything about herself in writing. What I don’t know is all the stuff she told you but didn’t write down. I’m not a mind reader, you know! And if you don’t sit tight and give me all the dope right now, I’m gonna go nuts wondering about it all night. I’m talkin’ insane, Duane.”

“Can’t you just-”

“No! I can’t! I need you to give me the lowdown on Sabrina this very minute! You know how I am.”

Abby was right. I did know how she was-which meant I knew enough to sit down and start dishing out the details before she worked herself up into one of her snit fits (a sure to be noisy and unseemly process that would delay my bedtime indefinitely).

“Oh, all right!” I snapped, giving in and flopping back down in my chair. “Have it your way.” (As if there could ever be any other way.) “But you’d better make me some coffee, or I’ll fall asleep at the wheel.”

“Good idea,” she chirped, twirling over to the kitchen counter. “I’ll brew some java while you tell me about Sabrina.

“I can tell you only what she told me,” I grumbled, “and as soon as I’m finished, I’m going home to bed!”

“So who’s stopping you?”

Groan.

“Sabrina was born into an affluent family,” I began, talking fast, hoping to wrap the story up as quickly as possible. “She was raised by governesses and educated in Switzerland. She was a debutante, a pampered beauty, a social butterfly who dated lots of wealthy young men. And now-according to Sabrina-many of those young men are rich, powerful, and influential older men, and some of them are her clients. I’d say Sam Hogarth and Oliver Rice Harrington belong to that fraternity.”

“Well, that’s pretty damn interesting,” Abby said, pausing, blinking, obviously savoring the scandalous possibilities. “But it’s not the whole story, Rory. What I want to know is how it happened. I mean, how and why did Sabrina become a madam to begin with?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?” she said, turning the flame on under the percolator. “Didn’t you ask her about it?”

“No, it wasn’t my place.”

“What?” she said again, only this time it was more of a screech. She spun around, stared me in the eye, propped her hands on her hips, and cried, “It wasn’t your place?! How could you be such a boob, Paige? Don’t you have any chutzpah? The woman runs a whorehouse, for Pete’s sake, and you’re worried about your stupid place?”

“It’s an escort service, not a whorehouse.”

“Oh, excuse me!” she said, sarcasm seeping out of every pore. “The last time I checked, call girls and whores were the same thing. And prostitution, by any other name, was still a crime.”

“Yes, but I don’t believe it should be,” I said, thinking of all the desperate young women who peddled their flesh because that was the only thing of value that they had.

“Don’t change the subject!” Abby blustered. “We’re talking about you now. You and your fearful, self-conscious ways.”

She was starting to tick me off. “I’m not fearful, I’m cautious,” I said, keeping my voice low and my emotions under control (for once). “There’s a big difference between the two. And I’m not self-conscious, either; I’m self-aware. Also modest, polite, and reserved-which is more than I can say for some people.”

“Oh, stuff it, Paige! That’s a crock, and you know it. You’re as modest and reserved as Milton Berle with a lampshade on his head.” She took two cups out of the cabinet and plopped them down on the counter. “You know what? This is a really stupid argument, and I refuse to take part in it.” (She had, apparently, forgotten that she was the one who started it.) “All I want to know is how you could spend a whole afternoon talking to the madam of a brothel-excuse me, escort service-without asking her how she got into the racket.”

I was two seconds away from blowing my top. (Okay, one second.) “For God’s sake, Abby!” I bellowed, blood rushing to my head. “What the hell do you want from me? I was sitting in an impressive Gramercy Park apartment, having lunch with a total stranger, talking about the brutal murder of a beautiful young woman! I was in shock that I was there, appalled and intrigued by the sinister circumstances, and madly scratching in the dirt for information-so focused on the hideous death of Virginia Pratt that I could hardly breathe. And you’re telling me… what? That I should have ignored that little problem? That I should have-first and foremost-found out why my snooty, short-tempered hostess had given up a life of leisure to become a madam?!”

Unaffected by my tirade, Abby calmly replied, “I never said you should ignore anything. I simply felt it would be useful to have more clues to Sabrina’s character. She could be the murderer, you know.”

Aaargh!

“I’m very well aware of that,” I said, inhaling deeply, trying to cool myself down from a boil to a simmer. “That’s why I’m going back to question the queen in the morning. I’m going to storm her big white castle, fight off the two knights in armor standing guard at her door, charge up to her private turret, and force her to tell the true tale of her secret passage from maidenhood to madamhood.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “What the hell are you dithering about? Castles! Knights! Turrets! Secret passages! I think you’re going bats.”

Frankly, I thought so, too. “Sorry, Ab,” I said. “I was just trying to describe the odd building Sabrina lives in, but I got a little carried away.”

She shrugged it off and charged ahead. “Are you really going to see her tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I said, coming to a firm decision. “First thing in the morning. But don’t think for one minute that you’re going with-”

“I’m going with you,” she said.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am!” She stomped one foot on the floor, then filled the two cups on the counter with coffee and brought them over to the table. “We’re a team, remember? Burns and Allen. Abbott and Costello. And as your partner, I have a right to meet and interrogate the notorious Miss Stanhope myself.”

“That’s impossible,” I said, with Charlton Heston-like conviction. “I swore to Sabrina I wouldn’t tell anybody about her involvement, so I could never show up at her apartment with you at my side. She’d know I broke my promise, and she wouldn’t trust me anymore, and then she wouldn’t provide me with any new information. And she wouldn’t divulge any of her personal sex secrets to you, either,” I added, tossing a bucket of ice water on Abby’s eternal flame, “so you can kiss those burning questions good-bye.”

That cooled her off, thank goodness. “I get your drift,” she said, spooning sugar into her coffee and staring off into the distance like a Gypsy telling her own fortune. “I have to be slow and sneaky and stay deep undercover.”

“Right,” I said, heaving a huge, but silent, sigh of relief. “The deeper, the better.”