“And what would you do with your mink?”
“It gets cold at night there, too. Why, think I’m full of baked beans?”
“I think you need a vacation. Why don’t you take a few weeks off?”
“Actually, I was thinking of going to —”
“France?”
“Why, yes. How did you know?”
“Call it a wild guess,” I said, glancing over at the volume of Villon on the sofa next to Lulu.
“Oh, I see. It’s because Gabby wants to in the play, and you think I take on the characteristics of whomever I’m playing.”
“It has been known to happen.” The only part of this equation I didn’t care for is that Gabby Maple falls for a doomed gentleman writer who is shot dead at the end of the third act by Duke Man tee and buried in the Petrified Forest with the other fossils.
She sat back on her haunches and drank some more champagne. “I can’t go to France. France belongs to you.”
“To me?”
“To us. You took me there on our honeymoon, when things were so lovely, and I-I can’t go anywhere we went together. I made the mistake of going into Elaine’s once last year, and Lulu’s water bowl was gone and I started to weep.” Her green eyes filled up. “Oh, horseradish, I was hoping you’d cheer me up. I suppose no one can.” Halfheartedly, she pulled a pile of unopened mailing pouches off the coffee table and began to sort through them there on the floor.
I poured out the last of the champagne and held up the bottle. “Shall I open its friend?”
“Please do.” She frowned. “How did you know there was a friend?”
“Masculine intuition.”
I found the champagne on the top shelf of the fridge right next to Merilee’s most secret, junky passion — Velveeta. I returned with the bottle, sat back down, and began working the cork out as she tore into a fat pouch, pulled out the squat, square box inside, and tossed the envelope away.
I had a delayed reaction. I was busy fiddling with the champagne, and preoccupied with thoughts of Cam Noyes. I must have stared at that discarded pouch for five full seconds before I noticed the press-on letters that spelled out her name and address. And recognized them. And reacted.
I dove for Merilee just as she pulled the lid off the box. I heard a sharp metallic snap as I dove. A glass jar shot out of the box as I landed atop her. It just missed her — splashed its liquid contents all over the floor and the Persian rug and my back. Almost at once the varnish on the floor began to bubble, the rug to smolder and stink. Something hot nibbled at my back. I jumped to my feet and whipped off my silk houndstooth sports jacket, which already had several holes eaten in it, and then my shirt, which had just started to go.
Then I fell back on my knees, gasping with relief. I was the only one. Lulu, bless her, was still asleep on the settee. And Merilee seemed more bewildered than frightened.
“What is all of this, Mr. Hoagy?” she wondered as she reached for the jar.
“Don’t touch that!” I cried. “It’s sulfuric acid. Battery acid.”
“But what —?”
“It was meant to hit you in the face when you opened the box.”
Her fingers shot involuntarily to her face. She got very wide-eyed and pale. It was sinking in now. “W-What would it have done … ?”
“Put an end to your movie career for real,” I said. “Unless they needed someone to play Freddy’s sister in a new
Nightmare on Elm Street
.”
“And if it had gotten in my eyes?”
I left that one alone.
“Omigod!” She threw herself in my arms, shaking uncontrollably.
“It’s okay,” I said, hugging her tightly. “It’s okay now.”
When she had calmed down a little, I gingerly examined the box. The jar had been set inside it on a catapult held in place with a retaining wire. Pulling the top off the box had triggered the catapult, which in turn had snapped back the jar’s spring-loaded lid. A simple, monstrous jack-in-the-box. Also untraceable — you can buy battery acid from any hardware supply house.
“I-I don’t understand it, Hoagy,” she said. “What sort of person would
do
something so … so … ?”
“Somebody who is really sick,” I told her, fingering the envelope it had come in. “How did you get this?”
“It was downstairs waiting for me when I came home tonight.”
“Call the doorman, would you? Ask him if he remembers who delivered it.”
She went to the house phone by the front door. Lulu finally stirred from her slumber.
“Lassie,” I pointed out sternly, “would have barked out a warning. Dragged the pouch off into Central Park with her bare teeth. She
wouldn’t
have snoozed through the whole damned thing.”
Lulu yawned in response. And went back to sleep with a peaceful grunt.
Merilee returned a moment later. “Ned said he noticed it there earlier this evening after he’d been hailing a cab for a tenant. He didn’t see who left it.”
“Too bad. Mind if I borrow one of my old shirts back?”
“Not at all, darling. I’ll get it for you as soon as I call the police.” She picked up the phone, started to dial it.
“Don’t do that, Merilee,” I said quietly.
She stopped. “Why not?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Hoagy, I’ve been attacked!”
“Don’t call the police.”
“But you said yourself someone may have been murdered tonight. You said your apartment was trashed. You said —”
“It may be Cam.”
“What do you mean it may be Cam?”
“I mean he’s a big strong kid, and he’s good with his hands and he’s violent.”
“I see.” She bit her lip fretfully. “You don’t trust him?”
“I don’t know. All I know is he’s hiding something from me, and that it may have cost Skitsy Held her life. Only, say it
is
Cam. Why would he go to so much trouble to scare me off of this project — threaten me, try to disfigure you? All he has to do is fire me. I don’t get it. I don’t know what’s going on. Until I do, I owe him the benefit of the doubt. Friends … ” I trailed off, swallowing.
“Friends what, Hoagy?”
“Friends don’t call the police on one another.”
She stared at the phone in her hand, then slowly put it down. “Okay, Hoagy. If it means that much to you.”
“Thank you.”
“Hoagy?”
“Yes, Merilee?”
“Why do you keep getting caught in the middle of such messes?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
Somebody was sleeping in my chair.
My new, easy-opening front door was ajar, my reading lamp was on, and Detective Lt. Romaine Very, the rock ’n’ roll cop, was slumped there, snoring. A copy of my second novel lay open in his lap. Another critic. He had changed into a Rangers sweatshirt, jeans, and Pony high-tops. His bike was propped against my bookcase. Lulu sniffed at it, and at him, disagreeably.
“Good and comfy, Lieutenant?” I asked him, my voice raised.
He jumped and sat up blinking, immediately alert. “Yo, saw the hole in the wall, dude. Thought somebody broke in. So I came in to check it out. Waited around for ya.”
“Why didn’t you just put on my jammies and hop into bed?”
“Sorry, dude. It’s this ulcer I got. Used to drink ten, fifteen cups of coffee a day to keep going. Doc won’t let me drink any now, so I keep sort of, like, drifting off.” He got to his feet, popped a piece of gum in his mouth, and began to pace around my apartment, chomping. “Place is a real dive, y’know?”
“Thanks. It’s nice of you to say so.”
“What’s with the hole?”
“Had a break-in a few days ago. Haven’t gotten around to getting it fixed yet.” And what was the point? It wasn’t as if fixing it would keep out anyone who really wanted in. Besides, I’d always wanted cross-ventilation.
He stopped pacing, started nodding to his personal rock ’n’ roll beat. “You report it?”
I shook my head. “Nothing was taken. Must have gotten scared off or something.” I put down some fresh mackerel for Lulu, then found some Bass ale in the fridge and offered him one.
“Naw, I’m off beer, too. Also chocolate and anything spicy, which means no pizza, no souvlaki, no hot dogs, no pastrami, no moo shoo pork, no whatever tastes good. Christ, you ever taste that herbal fucking tea?”
I opened an ale and drank some of it. “Kind of young for an ulcer, aren’t you?”
“Doc says I have an intensity problem,” he replied. “Too much of it.”
“Not exactly a calm line of work either,” I suggested.
“You got that right, dude.”
I glanced at grandfather’s Rolex. “I don’t mean to be inhospitable, Lieutenant, but it’s three a.m. and I’d like to get to bed. Did you want something?”
He flopped back down in my easy chair. “I got a bunch of calls tonight from the press about Miss Held. Seems she was a pretty important lady.”
“In certain circles.”
“You said ya had some kind of appointment with her.”
“I did.”
“What about?” he asked.
“Is that important?” I asked.
He popped his gum and narrowed his eyes at me. “Maybe you oughta just tell me, huh?”
“Tell you what?” I shoved aside the newspapers and magazines piled on the love seat and sat down. “Skitsy Held and I were business acquaintances. I had nothing to do with her jumping.”
“Who said she jumped?”
“You did.” I drank some more of my ale. “Why, have you found something that’s changed your mind?”
He shrugged. “Her dirty laundry.”
“What about it?”
“There wasn’t any. Doorman says she came home in a yellow dress. She died less than an hour later in a blue one. We know she took a shower. But her laundry hamper was empty. No yellow dress. No stockings. No soiled undies. We turned the place upside down. Closets, dressers, everywhere. So, like, where’d the shit go?”
I tugged at my ear. “Laundry room?”
“We checked there.”
“Dry cleaners?”
“She used the Empire Cleaners on Broadway. I called the dude at home. He remembered her right away. She was a regular customer for years. He said she hadn’t been in for at least a week, and none of his people picked anything of hers up tonight. I also talked to her doctor. He said she had no history of depression or other mental illness, and wasn’t seeing a therapist. Not that that necessarily means anything. People can fall off the shelf like that … ” He snapped his fingers. “But still … ”
“You think maybe she was pushed?”
“I’m thinking there’s something a little bizarre going on. Maybe it’s nothing, but sometimes nothing turns into, y’know … ”
“Something?”
He nodded. “Man, I could tell you stories —”
“Now wouldn’t be a good time.” I sipped my ale. “To answer your question, I was there to talk to her about my next novel. I was hoping to get her interested enough in it to sign it up.”
“What’s it about, your new novel?”
“A man and woman who can’t stay together but who can’t stay apart. I’m hoping it reads better than it lives.”
“Why’d you go to her place to talk? Why didn’t you meet her in her office during business hours?”
“Common practice. Editors have most of their creative conversations over meals or drinks.”
“Sure you weren’t involved with her?”
“I told you — I was a business acquaintance.”
“Right, right.” Very yawned and scratched his stomach. “Got wind of a little scuffle recently at Elaine’s,” he said casually. “According to an eyewitness, you and Miss Held had some angry words on the curb outside.”
“A few,” I acknowledged. “You’re a busy guy, aren’t you, Lieutenant?”
“I liked you better when you called me zealous.”
“I liked you better before you started making accusations. I was on the sidewalk in front of Skitsy’s building when she hit the pavement. I couldn’t have pushed her off her terrace and then made it down to the street before she did. The elevator isn’t that fast, and I didn’t happen to have my cape with me. I didn’t kill her.”
“Didn’t say you did, dude,” he said soothingly. “Just trying to figure out what’s going on. Stay with me.”
“I’m with you, I’m with you.”
“Where were you immediately before you got to her place?”
“Walking.”
“Anybody see you?”
“Half of Manhattan.”
“I mean, anybody recognize you?”
I sighed inwardly. Maybe they would have in the old days, when it was my picture that was plastered all over the newspapers. Not anymore. “No one.”
He nodded. “Hear you’re ghosting Cam Noyes’s memoirs.” I am.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“You didn’t ask me.”
He stuck his chin out challengingly. “You jerking my chain?”
“I am not.”
“Dickhead lived in my dorm when he was a freshman.”
“You went to Columbia?”
“You sound surprised, dude. Think I’m some kind of Ricky Retardo?”
“Not at all. What did you major in?”
“Romance languages. Did me beaucoup good, too.” He belched. “I hear Miss Held was his first editor.”
“She was.”
“I don’t suppose your meeting with her tonight had anything to do with him.”
“It did not.”
“Just a coincidence?”
“That’s right, Lieutenant. Publishing is a small community. Cam and I happened to be at a party she threw recently for another of her writers. She and I got to talking about my new novel. She suggested we get together.”
He gave his gum a workout. “Got an answer for everything, haven’t you, dude?”
I left that one alone.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” he demanded, scowling at me now.
“Nothing I can think of.”
He shook his head. “I’m not supersatisfied.”
“Who among us is?”
He stood up and went over to his bike, still shaking his head. “I ran a check on you, y’know? You got no record, but I still keep getting the feeling you been down this particular road before. Why is that?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t say, Lieutenant. Possibly it’s the tire tracks across my back.”
Romaine Very stood there facing me a minute, his hands on his hips, one knee quaking, chin stuck out. He looked as if he wanted to punch me or say something real nasty. He didn’t do either of those things. He just said, “Whatever,” in a voice filled with quiet menace. And stormed out the door with his bike, gum popping furiously.
L
ULU WOKE UP COUGHING,
her chest rumbling like the aged Morgan Plus-4 I drove in college, the one I couldn’t find a replacement muffler for. I fixed her a spoonful of lemon and honey — her old bronchitis nostrum — and after she licked it clean, the two of us took a nice, hot shower together. Lulu hates showering with me. I’m not too crazy about it myself. She slips and slides around, and moans and keeps trying to jump out — all this plus the steamy, enveloping stench of fish breath. It’s kind of like bathing with an otter. But she needed the steam for her congestion, and after I warned her it was this or a trip to a vet for a s-h-o-t, she stayed put, withstanding the indignity of hot water beating down upon her head with heroic stoicism.