Death Was the Other Woman Page 9

  “You don’t drink much, do you, doll?” she said.

  I shook my head. Really, I didn’t drink at all.

  “She’ll have a Kir Royale,” she told the waitress.

  I looked a question at Brucie, and she said, “We’ll start you with something light. It’s almost like soda pop—just champagne mixed with creme de cassis.” I kept looking at her. “Black-currant liqueur,” she explained, smiling. “It would take a lot of those to get you looped.”

  “Is this a speakeasy?” I asked, when the waitress had moved away. I said it as quietly as I could while still being heard by my companions. I was unprepared for their laughter.

  “No,” Dex said. “It’s just a nightclub.”

  “But what about Prohibition?” Every table in the place seemed to be covered with various drinks, many of them exotic-looking cocktails in interesting-looking glasses. And nobody seemed to be the least bit concerned about it.

  “Well, it’s a thing,” Mustard said. “But no one in Los Angeles is paying much attention anymore.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s complicated,” Dex said. “But the right people pay off the right people, and this”—he indicated the booze-laden tables—“this is what you get.”

  After a while of watching and listening, what had appeared at first to be an unrestrained horde of people began in my mind to sort themselves into little groups. The tables—perhaps sixty of them counting the banquettes that followed both walls—were mostly taken by parties like ours, small groups made up of good-looking couples intent on having a good time. There was another group near the piano player and the singer, enjoying the show the duo provided. Still another group lounged around the long polished wood bar near the entrance. This group was mostly masculine and purposeful-looking. They looked as though they weren’t just there for fun and frivolity, but like they had business to conduct. Or like they never stopped conducting it.

  I noticed Dex’s attention settle on the men at the bar, and after a while he got up and sauntered over there, greeting a well fed-looking man in a bespoke suit like an old friend.

  “That’s Lucid Wilson,” Mustard said, noticing my interest. I shrugged. The name meant nothing to me. It registered with Brucie though. She seemed to shrink into herself slightly. I looked at her curiously, but she didn’t meet my eye.

  After a while Lucid led Dex through a door at the side of the club that I hadn’t noticed before. A few minutes later a tall girl with wavy black hair under a narrow black hat came out and headed toward the ladies’ room.

  “Dance with me, Mustard,” Brucie said brightly, making me think I’d been mistaken about the air of quiet she’d owned a few minutes before.

  “No one’s dancing,” Mustard pointed out.

  “Aw, c’mon.” She stood, grabbed his hand, and played at pulling him up. “Be a sport. They’ll dance if we dance.”

  Mustard laughed and relented. “You’re a pretty pushy broad,” he said through a smile.

  “How the hell do you think a girl gets what she wants?” Brucie said gaily, winking at me over Mustard’s shoulder as she led him away.

  Watching Mustard and Brucie dance, the caged bird analogy I’d thought of at the house came back to mind. Only now she’d been released from that cage and was determined to fly. She looked set to have some fun. For his part, when Mustard looked at Brucie, the lines that normally creased his face seemed to fall away. Was he sweet on Brucie? I wondered. Had he always been, or was I watching the birth of something new?

  While I sat alone at the table and watched the dancers, the waitress came back with a huge raft of drinks on a tray. I wondered that she could carry that many, let alone sort out whose drinks were whose.

  She placed the Kir Royale in front of me—a dark purple drink in a champagne glass. I sipped at it tentatively. Brucie had been right; it tasted good. Like some fizzy, vaguely naughty juice.

  A couple of times, I looked over at the door Dex had disappeared through, but there was no sign of him. I quelled the fingers of worry I started to feel. He was a big boy, used to such things. He knew how to take care of himself.

  I went to the powder room as much to waste time until everyone came back as to do any serious business. Plus I was tired of sitting there all alone feeling as conspicuous as a bump on a log.

  Like the rest of the club, the powder room was unlike anything I’d ever seen. A long row of stalls mirrored by a long row of elegant sinks. A smiling attendant kept her position somewhere near the middle, an array of perfumes, sewing materials, and other niceties ready should I need to fix my dress, my hair, or anything else.

  At the far end of this gallery was a small but well-appointed lounge area. The walls were painted dark chocolate, setting off the two zebra-striped sofas and a chair. The dark-haired girl I’d seen enter a while ago sat in the armchair, her shoes pushed off and her legs over one of the arms of the chair in a most unladylike fashion.

  A girl with dyed yellow hair and a bright green dress sat on one sofa. Her shoes were off as well, but she had her legs curled under her. The two were chatting earnestly. When I came in, both raised their heads and looked at me, as though checking to see if I was anyone they knew. When they didn’t recognize me, they went back to their conversation. I dropped myself onto the other sofa, pushed off my shoes, and tried to look bored and tired. The tired part wasn’t hard.

  They chatted about inconsequential things. At least they seemed inconsequential to me, being filled with names and places that held no meaning.

  “Do we know you?” It took a moment to realize that the black-haired girl was addressing me.

  I shook my head and tried to smile. “No.” I indicated my bare feet. “I just need a moment of quiet.”

  “Still,” the girl demanded, “you look familiar. Have I seen you in here before?”

  I started to reply in the negative, then had a thought. “Maybe a few times. A while ago. With Harrison Dempsey.” I watched their faces as I said his name. The blonde’s lit with a sort of dull recognition, while the black-haired girl laughed outright.

  “Ha!” she said. “There’s someone I know isn’t here tonight.”

  “How do you figure?” I asked.

  “Are you saying he’s here?” The girl looked incredulous.

  “No, no. I’m here with some other friends. And … and I haven’t seen him for a while, but I don’t figure there’s any reason he wouldn’t be here.”

  “Are you kidding?” the girl said scornfully. “There’s about thirty thousand reasons for him not to be here.”

  I must have done a good job looking confused—it was easy, I was confused—because she went on. “He’s into a couple of people here for a lot of spondulix.”

  I looked at the girl uncomprehendingly.

  “Spondulix?”

  “You know. Cabbage, spinach, dough.”

  “Money?” I tried.

  “Right.” The girl nodded, as though she were thinking I might be not much brighter than a pile of spondulix myself.

  “What’s a lot?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” the girl admitted. “But I get the feeling it’s the kind of dough that floats businesses and big houses, you know? Not the kind you need to play the ponies.”

  “So thousands?”

  “More like thousands and thousands. He had a very bad run at the tables. An’ last week? Him and Lucid got into a big scene right here at the club. Did you hear about it?” I shook my head, and she went on, as though relishing having someone to unload this bit of gossip onto. “Lucid told Harry that he’d run out of good time—that’s what he said—and that he’d better come across with the spondulix or there’d be hell to pay.”

  “So … gambling?” I said.

  The girl nodded. Then she shrugged, as though she considered it lightly. As though she really didn’t care. “Sure, gambling. Everyone’s into Lucid for gambling.”

  “Not me,” the blonde piped up.

  The dark-haired girl ignored
her. “So yeah, gambling, sure. But I think it’s more than that. Don’t ask what though, ‘cause I don’t know. It’s not like he ever tells me anything.” She said the last reproachfully, and I was tempted to ask who the he in question might be. The only thing that stopped me was the fear that she’d clam up. And there were still things I wanted to know.

  “No kiddin’?” I said instead. “What about Rita?”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a look of loathing flit over the dark-haired girl’s face. “What about Rita?”

  “Was she here with him?”

  “Sure,” the girl said, looking at me speculatively. “She always was. Say, how do you figure in?”

  I aimed for a look that said embarrassed, or maybe humiliated. “I don’t like to say,” I said, hoping they’d fill in something unimaginably lurid and not ask me about it.

  They did. The blonde girl colored slightly and hid her mouth with her hand. “Oh,” she said, with a concerned sound. I realized I’d built a picture so bad, it wasn’t even one I had the tools to look at myself.

  “You friends with Rita?” I asked. The blonde girl shook her head vehemently, but the dark-haired girl just laughed.

  “Friends? C’mon. She’s not the type to have friends. You probably figured that.”

  I shrugged. “So Harrison …” I said, trying to bring the conversation back around, but the black-haired girl cut me off.

  “Oh, that. You forget that bum, honey. Focus on whatever you got now. Lucid is mad as hell at Harry. And he’s not the only one. Harrison Dempsey is a dead man, if you know what I’m saying. Even if he’s still alive, he’s a dead man walking.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WHEN I GOT BACK to the table, I was relieved to see everyone had returned to their seats. And everyone was relieved to see me.

  Dex didn’t mince any words. “Where the hell did you get to?”

  Mustard looked as though he’d been concerned as well. Brucie, on the other hand, did not.

  “I told you guys she was all right. Didn’t I say she was all right?” And then to me: “Where’d you go, doll?”

  “The powder room,” I said. There were things I needed to tell Dex, but they would have to keep. I didn’t think he’d want me blabbing about business stuff in front of Mustard and Brucie.

  “That was an awful long powder,” Dex huffed. I looked at him closely, touched to see he really had been worried about me.

  “Next time I’ll leave an itinerary,” I said, maybe only half in jest. “Or a trail of bread crumbs. Where did you go?”

  “There are private rooms back there.” He indicated the spot where he’d disappeared behind a door perhaps half an hour before. “I know some guys, but no one knows anything about our boy.” Brucie looked curious, but Dex didn’t fill her in. “One of Lucid Wilson’s boys figures maybe Dempsey blew town, but I’m not buying it. It seems like he had too much to lose to run out.”

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now nuthin’,” Dex replied. “We did what we came to do. I say we have another drink and then blow this joint.”

  Brucie looked disappointed, but the plan sat all right with me. I’d come and seen and experienced, and it was enough. It had been a long day and I was tired. Plus I had information I wanted to give Dex in private, though I didn’t know if I’d be able to do that tonight or if it would have to wait for the office the following day.

  Brucie wouldn’t budge until she had one more dance. My boss surprised me by not only agreeing but obliging. Then he surprised me again, executing the moves of the Balboa lightly and expertly. Dex’s and Brucie’s torsos touched, but their feet flew so quickly, my eyes could barely follow.

  While Dex and Brucie scuffed up the linoleum, Mustard and I sat at the table finishing our drinks.

  “You wanna?” Mustard said, tipping his lowball glass toward the dance floor.

  I just shrugged. I did but I didn’t. And the part of me that really, really did was almost overshadowed by the part who was putting up a show of nonchalance.

  When Mustard got to his feet, drained his almost empty glass, and extended a hand and a grin in my direction, I wasn’t entirely surprised.

  “C’mon, kid,” he said, pulling me in the direction of the dancers. “A dress that nice shouldn’t oughta be wasted sitting on it.”

  The canary’s voice was belting out something dark and smoky as we approached the dance floor. My feet and my heart took no time at all to find the rhythm.

  Like Dex, Mustard was a surprisingly competent dancer, and it wasn’t until we were dancing—the dance floor soft on my shoes, the lights and other dancers blurring into a single color—that I realized how much I’d really wanted this moment. To have come to this beautiful new nightclub, sipped a pretty drink while wearing a pretty dress, and put my shoes and the dance floor to good use. It seemed almost like a dream.

  I don’t know when I felt the transition. They did it so smoothly that I figured it wasn’t the first time they’d changed partners on a dance floor. But suddenly it was Dex who was leading me in a slowed-down version of a varsity drag, and when I looked around, Mustard and Brucie were almost clear across the floor.

  “That was quite the magic trick,” I laughed up into Dex’s face. I had to raise my voice slightly to be heard over the music and the din of the crowd. “What a handoff. You guys have done this a time or two before.”

  I noticed that the smile he sent back to me reached his eyes. That didn’t always happen with Dex. He nodded, agreeing. “Maybe a time or two,” he said. “But I’ll tell you a secret.” He inclined his head over mine, and I leaned up to hear him better as we danced. “With as much history as me and Mustard have, it’s good to know how to swap girls on a dance floor without them getting any the wiser.”

  I laughed outright at that. Both at the idea of the two of them with enough time on their hands to actually perfect that skill, and at me being one of the girls in such a swap.

  It had to be asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “So why’d you swap now?”

  “Ah, lookit those two,” Dex said, indicating Mustard and Brucie. “Sure it’s too soon for her to even think about it, but don’t you think the two of them just seem to fit somehow?”

  Dex danced us past them, and they didn’t even notice. Brucie was laughing at something Mustard had said. For his part, though he danced gracefully enough, Mustard looked slightly red and slightly awkward in the reflection of all that gold lame.

  “Why, Dexter J. Theroux,” I said, as we danced away, something in the magic of the night and being on the dance floor in the arms of a handsome man making me feel kittenish, a coquette-in-waiting. “I never figured you for a matchmaker.”

  Dex laughed at that. “And don’t start figuring me for one now. I wouldn’t wanna have to change my business cards.”

  We laughed at that as well. But it put work back into my head. The song had ended, and another started on its heels. Still we danced on. This looked like it might be the only quiet moment I’d get with Dex.

  “Dex, I’ve been wanting to tell you … when I was in the powder room earlier …”

  Dex looked at me askance, as though afraid of what I might tell him. “What goes on in there is between a lady and her compact.”

  I reclaimed my right hand and whacked him in the shoulder with it. He obliged me by saying, “Ow,” though he didn’t look particularly hurt. “I was talking to someone in there. You wanna hear this or not?”

  “If not hearing it involves more violence, then yes, I do.”

  “It’s about Dempsey.”

  “Dempsey was in the ladies room?”

  “Oh, pipe down, mister,” I said, half laughing, half exasperated. I’d never seen Dex in a mood so closely approaching jovial. “I was talking to these two young women in there. I didn’t get the idea either of them knew Dempsey very well personally, but they certainly knew who he was.”

  “You were asking people about him in the powder room?”
/>   “I wasn’t asking, exactly. It just… it just sorta came up.”

  Dex looked skeptical, but he wanted to hear me out. “Go on,” he prompted.

  “Well, I was sitting there, and these two girls started talking to me. They thought they knew who I was.”

  “They were talking to you in the powder room?” Dex didn’t sound any less skeptical.

  “There are couches and stuff in the ladies’, Dex. Like a little lounge. Women go in and sit there. Sometimes we chat.”

  “Gotcha,” he said. “Go on.”

  “Like I told you, these two thought they knew who I was. Like I looked familiar, you know? That they’d seen me there

  before. So I let them think that—let them think I’d been in the club before with Harrison Dempsey.”

  “Continue,” Dex said. I could tell he was at least slightly impressed with my fast footwork, and I don’t mean on the dance floor.

  “They said Harrison and Lucid got into a big to-do at the club last week. This one girl said she didn’t feel it was a gambling debt. Or maybe not just a gambling debt. But something really significant.”

  “A gambling debt can be significant,” Dex said, with the air of someone who knew.

  “Well, either way, they seemed to think it was enough to get him killed. ‘Thousands and thousands.’ And one of them said she heard Lucid tell Dempsey he’d run out of good time and that he’d better come across with the money or there’d be hell to pay. They didn’t say too much, Dex. It didn’t sound like bragging or anything. In fact, it sounded like they were being careful what they said and who they said it to. But they also said they figured Dempsey would be killed.”

  “They said that?”

  “Not exactly. They said he was a dead man walking.”

  Dex didn’t look skeptical now. At my words, I saw his eyes widen slightly and understanding flood in. “Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? That’s what happened to our boy. Dead man walking. That’s close enough for the kind of jazz we play around here.”