Where There’s Smoke

Chapter Twelve In Such a Dither

Pedley stood beside the phone switchboard in the Riveredge lobby talking to Maginn. He hadn’t finished looking over the list of outgoing calls made from Leila’s apartment when he heard the hum of the descending elevator again.

The grille clashed, the bronze door slid back. High heels clicked on lobby tile. Around the corner of the screen shielding the switchboard from public gaze, Pedley caught a flash of vermilion beneath a short beaver jacket.

“Stick with it, Mag. I want to know if she talks to her lawyer.” He flipped a hand at his deputy, got to the sidewalk as Kim was beating a red light at the corner. It was too stormy for many people to be on the street; he had no trouble keeping her in sight until he could climb behind the wheel of the sedan.

He nursed the car along behind her until she reached Lexington and swung north; he was parked 50 feet away when the drugstore door closed behind her.

He pretended to inspect the display of cough remedies and hot-water bottles until he saw her mounting a red leather stool at the fountain. Then he went in.

He hooked a leg over the stool next hers.

If she was astonished or annoyed, he couldn’t have told it.

The only other person at the counter was a watchman having his midnight pickup. The soda jerker hardly looked at Kim as he sauntered over, polishing a glass.

“Ham and swiss on rye,” she ordered. “Plenty of mustard. And a raspberry malted. Sweet.”

“Old Black Joe,” said Pedley.

The counterman started to push things around on his cutting-board.

The marshal leaned on the marble. “You didn’t waste any time following me out.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She was amiable about it. “I didn’t know you were going to hang around and pull a Dan’l Boone on me. I came out because I thought those two had a right to be alone for a while. What’s the idea of shadowing me? You don’t imagine I tried to burn down the Brockhurst?”

“You might know who did.”

“I might have some ideas. But that’s all they’d be.”

“That wasn’t a bad idea — that ‘Glow-worm’ thing you were playing.” The counterman brought the malted and black coffee.

She showed nice teeth. “I was butchering it. That’s my weakness. When I’m excited about anything, it comes right out on the keyboard. That’s why I’ll never amount to anything as a pianist. Can’t control my emotions.”

“You’re in the majority. What’re your emotions about Hal Kelsey?”

“Censored!” She started to devour the sandwich.

“What’s he done to you?”

“Nothing beyond the usual chiseling on the special arrangements I make for the show. And the customary battling when I have to take over the eighty-eight to make sure Li gets the right tempo in the production numbers. It’s what he’s been trying to do to her that riles me. And she doesn’t even sense what he’s up to. Maybe I’m talking out of turn.”

“Long’s you keep on talking—”

“I don’t know whether you’ll understand.”

He pointed to his shoes. “No flat feet. No derby. Ditch the idea I’m a detective. Pretend I’m Joe Blow.”

She laughed. “I’ll try — but I don’t know whether this has anything to do with the fire or not — I really don’t.”

“Let’s hear it, then maybe we’ll see. Keep on pouring.”

“Well — the thing goes back a bit. To the time when Ned and Leila were headliners on Pantages and Polis and Keith-Orpheum. The five-a-day is the hard way to come up, don’t let anybody tell you different. One-night jumps from the tanks to the sticks. Playing every whistle-stop in the timetables and some that weren’t even on the map. There were plenty of times when they had to hock their overcoats so they could have coffee and cakes. And they did their share of tenting on the old camp ground before they got the breaks. But they finally got ’em. They were never next-to-closing but they were good enough to get by — partly because Ned was terif as an eccentric hoofer, partly because Leila’s looks put over the act when her pipes couldn’t. She hasn’t much of a voice, you know.” She studied Pedley to see if he thought she was being disloyal.

“I wouldn’t be any judge of that,” he said. “But she has something.”

“’Deed she has, suh. ’Deed she has. That’s the point. Lownes & Lownes hit the jackpot by getting a fill-in job on one of those Broadway legstravaganzas. It wasn’t such a much of a spot but they made the best of it. The crix went wild about Leila. Not her singing; she had only one number. Just — her freshness, her figure — you know what I mean.”

“Sexcess story.”

“Sure. That’s the way she affects you, across the foots. Not all of it comes across on the radio, of course. But enough.”

“Where’s Kelsey come into this?”

“Her radio show’s big-time stuff. Top rating. Premium price. They print her pictures in the country weeklies, name bras and race horses after her. So the band that backs her up gets in on this great white glare of publicity. ‘Luscious Leila Lownes with Hal Kelsey and the Gang.’ It’s gone to Hal’s head. He’s had a taste of the big dough for the first time in his lousy life — and now he wants the whole piece of cake. He’d like it to be ‘Hal Kelsey with Luscious Leila,’ instead of the other way ’round.”

“Then by-and-by it would be ‘Hay Kelsey with Trixie-So-and-so’?”

“Sure. I know that’s what he’s after. Because he told me so one night when he was high and tried to sell me his idea of romance. I was to come along and help him ease her out of top billing. Step one — to kill Leila’s throaty mike-style — kid her that she can sing anything the gals in the Met can. She’s half ready to fall for it, believe me. And it would ruin her. She’s no Lily Pons. Then Hal might be able to step in and replace her with someone he could control.”

“Step two?”

“Ned. He was in Hal’s way, if Hal was to put it over. You can say what you like about brother Edward and I’ll agree with all of it doubled and redistilled. But Neddie knew show biz. He knew how to handle Leila. On the stage, I mean. Off it — well — what’s the use of calling a dead dog names!”

“Why didn’t she ditch her brother, if he treated her so scummy?”

She looked at him sideways. “That’s for her to say, isn’t it?”

“It’s for you to say, if you know. He was holding something over her head, wasn’t he?”

“He might have rattled the family skeleton around in the closet a little.” She opened her handbag, dabbled around in it, laid coins on the counter. There was a pucker of perplexity between her eyes. “Maybe Hal Kelsey knew about that, but I don’t think so.” She finished the sentence slowly, as if doubting it herself.

“I guess I’m the only person besides Leila who knows, now Ned’s about to push up the daisies. She’d cut my throat for telling you.” Kim did things with lipstick, compact and puff; Pedley forced himself to be patient. Eventually she completed the prettying process. “Promise me you won’t use it any way that’ll hurt her?”

“If she isn’t the guilty party.” He nodded.

“I don’t know why I should take your word for it. But you couldn’t be so hardboiled and a two-timer to boot. Well — four or five years ago — five, I think — Leila was—” She had been preening herself with the aid of the mirror back of the fountain — now she stared fixedly at it.

Abruptly she spun around on the stool, bumping into the marshal, spilling him off his perch and back against a pyramid of display cartons which toppled down around his head.

As he was freeing himself from the cardboard clutter, he wondered if that sudden movement of hers had been intentionally awkward. That expression of mingled alarm and apology as she peered out the store window might be the McCoy — or not.

“I’m terribly sorry.” She whispered so the soda jerker couldn’t hear what she was saying. “But there was a man out there on the street! With a gun!”

“Where?” Through the window, Pedley couldn’t see anyone. He slid out the door. The street was empty except for a taxi driver reading a tabloid behind his wheel.

Pedley sprinted to the corner. Nobody there but an old woman wrapped in a shawl, huddling over a pile of newspapers on the curb.

He went back to the cab driver. “See a guy standing at the drugstore window there, a minute ago?”

“There’s always somebody hangin’ around this corner, Mac.” The taximan rattled his newspaper. “I don’t pay no attention.”

Perhaps there hadn’t been any man. The arranger might have been putting on an act. But why? He went back inside.

Kim Wasson wasn’t there.

“Where’d the babe disappear to?” he asked the counterman.

“Side door.” The man slapped the cartons back in place aggrievedly. “Like to know why she tore out in such a dither, without helpin’ pick up these things.”

“Don’t ask me. I haven’t an idea. Not a glimmer.” Pedley went out the side door, but he didn’t expect to see Kim.

He was right about that.