Dead of Night

Chapter ten: Spilled handbag

Rule a in the manual: Make no snap judgments. No Plaza Royale employee ever mistakes a United Nations delegate for a porter out of uniform. Though guests do, sometimes.

So I wanted to be sure I had this Edie character right before I did anything about her. She looked like a Park Avenue edition of Diamond Lil. She sounded like one of those babes who think Longchamps is French for lamb chops. But she might have been the big winner in that Stack O’ Jack contest, for all I knew.

I finished my rum sour, hunted up Zingy, told him what I wanted.

When I went back to the Steeplechase Bar, there was a vacant stool but one removed from Edie. I appropriated it, ordered, listened.

She was talking about someone Walch evidently knew.

“Why, bless y’ pore ole gin-soaked gizzard, she used to work in the line out on the Coast. She’s a fair terper. An’ photogenic as Grable. But nobody could say she’s pretty.”

Walch rattled ice in his highball glass. “Lanerd said so.”

“That’s what always threw me, sweetie. Never could figure how she hawgtied him. Sucker could have his pick of the flock.” She motioned to Mickey for a refill. “She must have something.”

Walch inspected her sardonically. “Nothing you haven’t got.”

“Should hope not.” Edie raised her tone on the last word.

“Only she doesn’t pass it around like canapés at a cocktail party.”

She thought that very comical.

The page boy came along. “Mista Walch — Mista Walch—”

Walch called, “Boy.”

The page boy turned. “Mister K. Walch? Long-distance for you, sir.”

“Sure it’s for me? Walch with a c?” The manager was puzzled. “Where’s it from?”

“Operator didn’t say, sir. Out at the public booths, sir. Ask for Operator Nine. Thank you, sir.” He pocketed his two bits, vanished.

Walch said, “Might be Nature’s gift to the shemale sex. Maybe he’s passed up the idea of a party, gone home.” He got off his stool.

Edie wriggled in aggravation. “I’m one party he better not pass up.”

When Walch had gone, I gave her the look. “Hi.”

“Hello.” No encouragement.

I moved over one stool. “Remember me, Edie?”

“No.” She was estimating what my suit had cost, how much I’d paid for the Countess Mara tie, so on. I must have come through her coin-biting test all right, for she melted enough to add, “I guess you’ve lost a little weight since I saw you, maybe.”

“What a memory! Only a quarter of an hour ago you were honey-pieing me all over the place!”

She twittered her eyelashes. “Some mistake, lovey-dove.” She glanced apprehensively over her shoulder. “My friend’ll be back in a minute—”

“No mistake. On my part. But about that arrangement with Mister Lanerd—” I shook my head. “That’s sour.”

That touched her where she was sensitive. “I don’t take any crap from a lousy errand boy! If Dow thinks he can give my girls the brush like that, he’ll find out it’s damn costive to cancel on Edie Eberlein!” She tossed her head so the big hat brim jiggled indignantly, flipped open her handbag, fished around for a compact. “I’ve gone to all that expense — he needn’t think he’s going to get off for free.”

“He wouldn’t let you hold the bag on that.” I couldn’t see any more of the gloves, but my preliminary size-up seemed to have hit it pretty close. Obviously she was one of those conventioneer madams who arranged for the cute little well-groomeds who were occasionally sneaked into better hostelries under the guise of “entertainers” for tired tycoots.

Having verified my guess that her cash deal was simply payment in advance for the “entertainers,” the routine would have been a flat “no dice.” But there was a key in her handbag. A Plaza Royale suite key.

She wouldn’t be registered. None of those alleged “agents” who furnish con girls ever check in; a group of those babes in a suite would be as noticeable as a Swede at a Senegambian wedding. So someone had given her the key. I couldn’t read the number on the square brass tag we use for double-letter duplexes, but I thought about the key Roffis would have had on him.

When Lanerd attempted to search the dead man’s pockets, I’d stopped him with that crack about police being touchy if anyone handled a cadaver. But since I’d had to unlock that closet the guard’s body was found in, I knew then that the key wouldn’t be on Roffis — unless it had been Tildy Millett who’d murdered him. Anyone else would have had to take the key from the corpse’s clothes, lock the door, and take the key away.

Edie snapped her bag shut. “I don’t want a lot of git-gat-giddle from you, errand boy. All I want is somebody to sing that old Yale song: ‘Moola, moola... moola, moola...”

“Mickey,” I called. “Repeat the prescription.”

“Right with you, Mister Vine.” He didn’t stop the rumba of the shaker.

“On the line,” Edie emphasized. “But quick.”

Walch returned, forehead furrowed, eyes resentful. “Nobody wanted me.” He stared as if I was something oozing out of a crack in the sidewalk. “I don’t understand—”

“I don’t, either,” Edie snapped. “This wisehead claims Dow isn’t interested in — my arrangements.”

“Is that right?” Walch didn’t seem disturbed at the news. “How would you know, buster?”

Mickey brought two drinks. I reached for one, to slide it over to Edie.

“Thanks, Mickey.” I grinned across at him.

“Oh!” Edie screamed; the double Martini Ed so clumsily upset slopped across the bar into her lap.

I made a grab for the glass, bumping into her.

She lurched off her stool. The handbag bounced on the floor beside the bar.

I was after it before it hit. Somehow or other it busted open. Stuff all over hell and gone. Purse, mirror, compact, lipstick, pencil, loose coins, keys. And gloves.

The square brass tag had stamped in it: 21MM.

I got that key, first.