Pretend You Don't See Her (14 page)

 
          
“It’s
Alice Carroll, isn’t it,” he asked in a tone that was more affirmation than
question.

 
          
“Yes,
and you’re Tom Lynch.”

 
          
“So
they tell me. I understand you’ve just moved to Minneapolis.”

 
          
“That’s
right.” She hoped her smile did not look
forced
.

 
          
He’s
going to ask questions, she thought nervously. This could be my first real
test. She picked up the spoon and stirred her coffee, then realized that very
few people felt the need to stir black coffee.

 
          
Svenson
had told her to answer questions with questions. “Are you a native, Tom?”

 
          
She
knew he wasn’t, but it seemed like a natural thing to ask.

 
          
“No.
I was born in Fargo, North Dakota. Not that far from here. Did you see the
movie, Fargo?”

 
          
“I
loved it,” she said, smiling.

 
          
“And
after seeing it, you still moved here? It was practically banned in these
parts. Folks thought it made us look like a bunch of hicks.”

 
          
Even
to her own ears it sounded lame when she tried to explain the move to
Minneapolis: “My mother and I visited friends here when I was sixteen. I loved
everything about the city.”

 
          
“It
wasn’t in weather like this, I trust.”

 
          
“No,
it was in August.”

 
          
“During the black fly season?”

 
          
He
was teasing. She knew it. But when you’re lying, everything takes on a
different slant. Next he asked her where she worked.

 
          
“I’m
just settling in,” she replied, thinking that at least that was an honest
statement. “Now it’s time to look for a job.”

 
          
“What
kind?”

 
          
“Oh,
I worked in billing in a doctor’s office,” she replied, then added hastily,
“but I’m going to try something different this time around.”

 
          
“I
don’t blame you. My brother’s a doctor, and those insurance forms keep three
secretaries busy. What kind of doctor did you work for?”

 
          
“A pediatrician.”
Thank God, after listening to Mom all
these years, I can sound as though I know what I’m talking about there, Lacey
thought. But why on earth did I mention the billing department? I don’t know
one insurance form from another.

 
          
Anxious
to change the drift of the conversation, she said, “I was listening to you
today. I liked your interview with the director of last week’s revival of
Chicago. I saw the show in New York before I moved here and loved it.”

 
          
“My
cousin Kate is in the chorus of the road company of The King and I that’s in
town now,” Lynch said.

 
          
Lacey
saw the speculative look in his eyes. He’s trying to decide whether to ask me
to go with him to see it. Let him, she prayed. His cousin Kate had worked with
Heather; she was the one who introduced them.

 
          
“It’s
opening tomorrow night,” he said. “I have two tickets. Would you like to go?”

 
          
IN
THE THREE MONTHS THAT FOLLOWED ISABELLE’S DEATH, Jimmy Landi felt detached. It
was as if whatever part of his brain controlled his emotions had been
anesthetized. All his energy, all his thinking were channeled into the new
casino-hotel he was building in Atlantic City. Situated between Trump Castle
and Harrah’s Marina, it was carefully designed to outshine them both, a
magnificent gleaming white showcase with rounded turrets and a golden roof.

 
          
And
as he stood in the lobby of this new building and watched the final
preparations being made for the opening a week away, he thought to himself,
I’ve done it! I’ve actually done it! Carpets were being laid, paintings and
draperies were being hung, cases and cases of liquor disappeared into the bar.

 
          
It
was important to outshine everyone else on the strip, to show them up, to be
different in a special way. The street kid who had grown up on Manhattan’s West
Side, who had dropped out of school at thirteen and gone to work as a
dishwasher at The Stork Club, was on top now, and he was going to rub another
success in everyone’s face.

 
          
Jimmy
remembered those old days, how when the kitchen door swung open, he would try
to sneak a glance at the celebrities in the club’s dining room. In those days
they all had glamour, not just the stars but everyone who came there. They’d
never dream of showing up looking as if they had slept in their clothes.

 
          
The
columnists were there every night, and they had their own tables. Walter
Winchell. Jimmy Van Horne. Dorothy
Kilgallen
.
Kilgallen
!
Boy,
did they all
kowtow to her. Her column in the Journal-American was a must-read; everybody
wanted her on his side.

 
          
I
studied them, Jimmy thought, as he stood in the lobby, workmen milling around
him. And I learned everything I needed to know about this business in the
kitchen. If a chef didn’t show up, I could take over. He had worked his way up,
becoming first a busboy, then a waiter, then maitre d’. By the time Jimmy Landi
was in his thirties, he was ready to have his own place.

 
          
He
learned how to deal with celebrities, how to flatter them without surrendering
his own dignity, how to glad-hand them, but make them glad to get his nod of
recognition and approval. I also learned how to treat my help, he thought
—tough, but fair. Nobody who deliberately pulled anything on me got a second
chance.
Ever.

 
          
He
watched with approval as a foreman sharply reprimanded a carpet layer who had
placed a tool on the mahogany reservations desk.

 
          
Looking
through wide, clear-glass doors, he could see gaming tables being set up in the
casino. He walked into the massive space. Off to the right, glittering rows of
slot machines seemed to be begging to be tried. Soon, he thought. Another week
and they’ll be lined up to use them, God willing.

 
          
He
felt a hand on his shoulder. “Place looks okay, doesn’t it, Jimmy?”

 
          
“You’ve
done a good job, Steve. We’ll open on time, and we’ll be ready.”

 
          
Steve
Abbott laughed. “Good job? I’ve done a great job. But you’re the one with
vision. I’m just the enforcer, the one who rides herd on everyone. But I wanted
it done on time too. I wasn’t going to have painters slopping around on opening
night. It’ll be ready.” He turned back to Landi. “Cynthia and I are on our way
back to New York. What about you?”

 
          
“No.
I want to hang around here for a while. But when you get back to the city,
would you make a call for me?”

 
          
“Sure.”

 
          
“You
know the guy who touches up the murals?”

 
          
“Gus
Sebastiani
?”

 
          
“That’s
right.
The artist.
Get him in as fast as possible and
tell him to paint Heather out of all the pictures.”

 
          
“Jimmy,
are you sure?” Steve Abbott searched his partner’s face. “You may regret doing
that, you know.”

 
          
“I
won’t regret it. It’s time.” Abruptly he turned away. “You better get going.”

 
          
Landi
waited a few minutes, then walked over to the elevator and pushed the top
button.

 
          
Before
he left he wanted to stop in again at the piano bar.

 
          
I
t was an intimate corner room with rounded windows overlooking the ocean. The
walls were painted a deep, warm blue, with silver bars of music from popular
songs randomly scattered against drifting clouds. Jimmy had personally selected
the songs. They all had been among Heather’s favorites.

 
          
She
wanted me to call this whole operation Heather’s Place, he thought. She was
kidding. With a glimmer of a smile, Jimmy corrected himself. She was half
kidding.

 
          
This
is Heather’s place, he thought as he looked around. Her name will be on the
doors, her music is on these walls. She’ll be part of it all, just the way she
wanted, but not like in the restaurant where I have to look at her picture all
the time.

 
          
He
had to put it all behind him.

 
          
Restlessly
he walked to a window. Far below, just above the horizon, the half-moon was
glistening on churning waves.

 
          
Heather.

 
          
Isabelle.

 
          
Both gone.
For some reason, Landi had found himself thinking
more and more about Isabelle. As she was dying, she’d made that young real
estate woman promise to give him Heather’s journal. What was her name? Tracey?
No.
Lacey.
Lacey Farrell.
He
was glad to have it, but what was so important in it? Right after he got it,
the cops had asked to take his copy to compare it with the original.

 
          
He
had given it to them, although reluctantly. He had read it the night Lacey
Farrell gave it to him. Still he was mystified. What did Isabelle think he
would find in it? He had gotten drunk before he tried to read it. It hurt too
much to see her handwriting, to read her descriptions of things they did
together. Of course, she also wrote about how worried she was about him.

 
          
“Baba,”
Jimmy thought.

 
          
The
only time she ever called me “Dad” was when she thought I was sore at her.

 
          
Isabelle
had seen a conspiracy in everything, then ironically ended up a random victim
of a con man who cased the apartment by pretending to be a potential buyer,
then came back to burglarize it.

 
          
It
was one of the oldest games in the world, and Isabelle had been an unsuspecting
victim. She simply had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 
          
Or
had she? Jimmy Landi wondered, unable to shake the worrisome residue of doubt.
Was there even the faintest chance that she had been right, that Heather’s
death hadn’t been an accident? Three days before Isabelle
died,
a columnist in the Post had written that Heather Landi’s mother, Isabelle
Waring, a former beauty queen, “may be on the right track in suspecting the
young singer’s death wasn’t accidental.”

 
          
The
columnist had been questioned by police and admitted she had met Isabelle
casually and had gotten an earful of her theories about her daughter’s death.
As for the mention in the column, she had completely fabricated the suggestion
that Isabelle Waring had proof.

 
          
Was
Isabelle’s death related to that item? Jimmy Landi wondered. Did someone panic?

 
          
These
were questions that Jimmy had avoided. If Isabelle had been murdered to silence
her, it meant that someone had deliberately caused Heather to burn to death in
her car at the bottom of that ravine.

 
          
Last
week the cops had released the apartment, and he had phoned the real estate
people, instructing them to put it back on the market. He needed closure. He
would hire a private detective to see if there was anything the cops had
missed. And he would talk to Lacey Farrell.