False Negative (Hard Case Crime) (27 page)

The home closest to the water shined as brazenly as a lighthouse. Limousines competed for parking space with a smattering of out-of-state Jaguars and MGs. Jordan put his hand on the cabbie’s shoulder. “Stop here.”

“It don’t cost no more to the door.”

“Here’s good.”

A stockade fence strung with Japanese lanterns enclosed the yard. Through the chinks Jordan saw a crowd milling under a
canvas canopy, the centerpiece a grill staffed by a cook in a toque. He went in as if he owned the place, or was holding the note. He pulled a bottle of Trommer’s from a barrel of ice. A waiter snatched it away, popped off the cap, and returned it to his hand wrapped in a napkin.

A three-piece combo he didn’t care for banged out stale pop hits. Tonight the music didn’t matter. He moved through the crowd betrayed by his shabby clothes, aware of something else that marked him as different. He was a young man at a party for older men. Old and middle-aged men, and much younger women done up as if they’d been asked to the prom by a campus hero with vulgar taste, and had dressed to please him. Jordan watched them cluster around the old men, giddy as Sinatra’s fan club. In the competition for attention they were in agreement with all points of view, hysterical over every joke.

One or two, closing in on thirty, had the tragic aspect of women beautiful by any standard other than their own. Most were young, several too young even for him, but available to the old men. A paradox: The old men were clumsy with the young women, but confident, and the beautiful women were graceful and unsure. Some were tipsy. No one told them to take it slow.

A slap on the back caused him to crunch down on the bottle. He looked sideways at McAvoy, his former boss. “Why are you hanging around with old farts, Ken?”

“Same Jordan,” McAvoy said. “A day late and a dollar short. It’s my place. The farts are my friends.”

Jordan played the tip of his tongue against a tooth he might have chipped.

“How did you hear about the party?”

“Reporter’s luck. Information finds me.”

A man wearing a phi beta kappa key on his vest pulled a Piels from the ice. McAvoy said something in his ear, and he dug deeper for a Trommer’s.

“Heard about it in New York?”

Jordan, shaking his head, sensed that he was breaking McAvoy’s heart.

“That’s Henry Felder, isn’t it? The public works commissioner?”

“Know him?”

“By reputation only,” Jordan said. “He has his hand in more pockets than a tailor.”

“Under more skirts, too. He’s a jurist at every beauty pageant on the shore.” McAvoy confiscated Jordan’s bottle. “Get another, this one’s cracked,” he said. “Want to hear a good one?”

“A gag?” Jordan said. “Since when do you laugh?”

“I’ve been thinking of coming to you for work. A story for your magazine I’d write under an assumed name. Hub Chase, the pride—make that the former pride—of the Yankees, got himself killed last night.” He paused. “You’re not surprised?”

“How’d it happen?”

“He was with a married lady when her husband walked in on them, and Hub got in the way of several bullets.”

“Can’t use it,” Jordan said. “There’s nothing to it.”

“Same Jordan,” McAvoy said. “Too impatient to learn how events pan out. The lady and her husband have one of those marriages where they don’t give a damn who the other one’s sleeping with when they aren’t sleeping with each other. The husband found them in bed together, and went to the living room for a good book till the love-making took a wrong turn. Hub was choking her by the time he went to the lady’s defense. Hub got the upper hand, and was kicking his ribs in when the loyal bride pulled a Derringer, and put three in Hub’s chest. What do you think?”

“I like what I’m hearing. But it needs more.”

McAvoy smiled at a woman—Jordan didn’t catch the face—and went after her. “Enjoy yourself,” he said to Jordan, “only don’t bother the other guests with your opinions about—”

“Jazz?”

“Anything.”

Jordan walked around the property looking at the girls. Who had appointed him homicide investigator? Why wasn’t it his responsibility to lie, flatter, flirt, tell self-aggrandizing stories, find out how far he could get with Miss America?

Politicians, jurists, lawyers, prominent builders and union bosses were McAvoy’s friends, tough negotiators praised in his editorials as custodians of the public trust. None couldn’t be bought, but even Henry Felder did not come cheap. Tonight’s deal-making was out in the open, a grab bag for the City Hall stalwarts.

A redhead backing against Jordan threw her arms around his neck to keep from falling. “You wouldn’t be a judge of beauty?” she said. “I mean beauty judge.”

“Don’t tell my wife.”

She raised a glass, dribbling scotch down her chin. Jordan gave her his napkin. She crumpled it into a ball as she waved like a reed in the wind. “ ’ll be our secret. Wha’s a judge know about beautiful? I can use a friend with connections, but might com-comp-compromise for a big spender. Wha’s your name?”

“Adam Jordan. Yours?”

“Miss 1952 Jersey Tomato.”

“Do you have a first name?”

“ ’S Miss Tomato to you.”

Mollie hadn’t been this tight the night at his place when he’d purportedly, allegedly, reportedly (a good newsman was careful to include qualifiers in a disputed account) taken advantage of her. He doubted Miss Tomato tumbled into a strange bed without asking
What’s in it for me?
He’d never believed that Mollie didn’t ask herself the same thing.

Beside the grill he saw a colored waiter in conversation with Beach. Beach, or else his double. Prominent Negroes were kept
away from the trough by the power brokers. That Beach was white would make him more unwelcome. He had traversed a line few people crossed, barging the wrong way down a lonely one-way street. Jordan had never heard of anyone allowed to cross back.

It was the wrong time for sociology. Maybe he’d sign up for night classes at NYU, and write his thesis on race relations among the grafters. He hid his face behind the redhead as the man who might be Beach looked his way. The waiter who definitely was Narvin started toward him. Miss Tomato was stuck to his arm as he hurried to the house.

The ground floor was walled in glass on the ocean side, carpeted in tile, furnished in cold modern. A new house on the beach was beyond most newsmen’s dreams. Whose pockets was McAvoy in? No one had ever tried to buy off Jordan with more than a beer. He wondered what he would have done if he’d been told to name his price.

He’d lost the redhead. Without her he felt exposed. Girls swarmed around a trestle table heaped with food, and picnicked on the stairs. He stepped over them to a second-story gallery, and looked down at Beach and Narvin pushing inside.

He rattled a locked door, then tried one that opened. A parchment shade softened the light around a woman crouched in bed. Legs protruding between hers were grizzled above black socks. She glanced indifferently as the door squeaked, and then gave Jordan a smile. Opportunities were lost with a sour first impression.

Jordan backed out. There were voices next door, but footsteps on the stairs sent him quietly inside. The couple in bed could go on with what they were doing. He wouldn’t stay long. If they ever had to run for their lives, he’d be pleased to return the favor.

The man was undressed. The woman sitting up beside him was wearing a broad skirt, and a blouse open to the waist. A bandana was around her head. Jordan didn’t see her face, didn’t want to.

The man, on his back, was unaware they weren’t alone. He said, “Let me hear you say it.”

Cherise looked toward Jordan as she had at the bottom of the bay. Saving her from drowning was one thing. His hands were tied now.

“Okay,” she said. “I don’t know nothing about birthing babies.”

The man shook his head. “Make it sound like you’re ashamed to admit it.”

“I don’t sound ashamed?” Cherise said. “Couldn’t we skip this part? Wasting precious time.”

“Not at all,” he said. “It’s good fun. Aren’t you having fun? Say it again.”

Cherise whisked her hand toward the door. Jordan didn’t budge. “Girl gotta do what she gotta do,” she whispered.

“What?” the man said. “I didn’t hear.”

“Ah don’ know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies.”

“Come to Rhett, honey.”

Jordan cracked open the door. If anyone was ashamed, it should be him. He backed in again, and swiped at a wall switch.

The man in bed covered his eyes against the light. “Who are you?”

“This room taken,” Cherise said. “Get out or we gonna call to have you thrown out.”

“My mistake,” Jordan said. “I apologize for disturbing you.” He was looking up and down the gallery when he heard Cherise say, “Sorry, Mr. Duchesne, I got to leave.”

“Now?”

“ ’Fraid so.”

“We hardly—we haven’t started. And you’ve been paid.”

“Not by you,” she said. “Lost my concentration.”

“I know what to do to make it come back.” He grabbed her.

“Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” she said. “Let go, please.”

“Who’s this man? What’s he doing here?”

Cherise pushed at Duchesne, who held her tight. “My partner.”

“Partner in what?”

She embraced Duchesne, squeezed his head against her breast. “Show him the camera,” she said to Jordan.

Duchesne shoved her away. He raised a pillow in front of his face.

Cherise buttoned her blouse, adjusted her skirt, slipped into her shoes. “Cost me a considerable piece of change,” she said walking out with Jordan.

“Go back. No one’s keeping you.”

“Heard what I said, I lost my concentration. Don’t want to discuss it. What’re you doing, following me?”

“Beach is trying to kill me. He saw me, and I ducked into the room.”

“Just open a door at any old party, and I’m behind it?”

She went to the railing. Jordan pulled her back. He stood on his toes, looking downstairs as Beach led Narvin outside.

“Why Mr. Beach want you dead? I never heard anything like it.”

“Another beauty contestant was murdered after he put her on the card at his theater. I tried to talk to him about her, and had to run to save my skin.”

“Think he want to murder you ’cause he the cause of that girl being killed?”

“What else?”

“
You
what else. Come bothering him, snooping around his business, he definitely gonna put a licking on you. I ain’t convinced he’d kill you.”

“He convinced me.”

“All right, kill you. I don’t believe he had anything to do with killing a girl. Ain’t in his nature. Killing her, and killing you, two separate items.”

“Do you know how ridiculous you are?”

“Was ridiculous when I was playing Prissy from
Gone with the Wind
. You ridiculous all the time. Like to play detective, but put
two and two together and get a hundred forty-three. Mr. Beach didn’t kill that girl, and you went ahead and give him reason for wanting you out of the picture.”

“Not at all.”

“You a big-time magazine editor in New York, ain’t you?”

“So?”

“Big-time detective magazine editor think he killed that poor girl, what could be worse? He don’t need you accusing him to the police. Easier to take care of you himself than rent a lawyer. Save trouble down the road on the murder he
didn’t
do.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“The right way,” Cherise said. “Mr. Beach a sweet man. You should apologize, intrudin’ on his private matters.”

On the stairs Jordan snatched off her bandana.

“Give it back,” she said. “I got another date.”

“Do you always play the same part?”

“White men who seen that damn movie before they grew up never have enough Prissy. Thinkin’ up a juicy role you want me to play?”

“I was born grown up, Cherise.”

“Been regressin’ ever since, have you? Not much I ain’t game for, but no more slave girls please. Had my fill of ’em.”

“I do have a fantasy about you,” Jordan said.

“Don’t be shy. Can’t say it, whisper in my ear.”

“I’m not convinced you’ve got what it takes.”

“Must be sick, sick, sick, you won’t tell me.”

“Some other time.”

“What’s wrong with now? Worst can happen is you get laughed at to your face, and I let on to Beach and Greenie and everybody here that knows you.”

“No,” he said. “No, it’s not.”

A thundershower moving up the coast cleared out the yard. Jordan, pinned beside the food table, took Cherise by the hand. “There’s someone you should meet.”

Squeezing through the crowd, they approached a pretty young woman at the window. Every woman at the party was attractive, most on the arm of an older gent. This one’s escort, slight and smooth-shaven, seemed out of place among adults. A camera was around his neck. Sighting through the viewfinder, he directed the woman with her back to the surf. “Hold the pose,” he said, and she stiffened when she saw Jordan.

“The whole world must be here,” she said while the flashbulbs popped.

A smile bubbled on the little man’s lips as he turned around. “
My
world. You, me, and Adam. And his friend. Are you going to introduce her, Adam, or are you keeping her for yourself?”

“I told you about Cherise,” Jordan said. “You’re going to help make her famous.”

“Indeed I am. I’ll get off a few shots now.”

“She isn’t dressed for it,” Jordan said.

“ ’Scuse him,” Cherise said. “He don’t own me, just looks that way. How do you want me?”

While Pixley squared her in the viewfinder, Jordan took Mollie aside. “Your roommate says you might not be coming back.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“Hers?”

“Hers and mine.”

“How did you hook up with Pix?”

“He called. If I had to wait for you, I’d never have a portfolio. He’s been very good to me, and knows all the right people. What are you doing here?”

“I’m another right person.”

“Your friend, too? What’s her name?”

“Cherise.”

“I thought you’d brought the maid. I don’t need to see a doctor, do I Adam? To have myself tested for various diseases?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Jordan said. “I don’t know who you’ve been sleeping with.”