This Dame for Hire (7 page)

With that, Miss Bergman quickly made her way down the hall.

Brian Wayne watched her go. The guy was a walking cliché of a college professor. He had the full head of dark hair, graying at the temples, a handsome craggy face, and he wore a white shirt, green-and-white four-in-hand, a brown gabardine jacket, tan trousers, and brown oxfords.

He turned back and gave a smarmy smile that I knew he thought dripped with charm. It didn’t do the trick for me.

“She sorta looks like Claudette West, don’t ya think?” I said.

He didn’t blink or move a muscle. “Now that you mention it, I suppose she does in a negligible way. If it’s Miss West you want to talk to me about, I’ve told the police all that I know, which isn’t much.”

“Can we go into your office?”

“What for?”

He seemed uncomfortable for the first time.

“I want to talk to ya.”

“Let’s go to the cafeteria. I need a cup of coffee.” He turned and locked the door.

I got the idea Dr. Wayne didn’t want me to see the inside of his office, but I didn’t know why. Too messy?

“It’s only one flight down,” he said. “Let’s take the stairs.”

“Yeah. I’d rather not have another elevator trip right now.”

He laughed. “Oh, you’ve experienced our Mr. Gable’s ride, hmmm?”

“You got it.”

He opened the door to the stairs and motioned me through. I couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy about taking this lonely route even though it was only one flight. There was something about Wayne that gave me the willies.

But nothing happened, and soon we were entering the cafeteria, which was loaded with people. We found a table near a wall.

“What would you like, Miss Quick?”

“You’re havin java, I’ll have the same.”

“Fine. I’ll be right back.”

I lit up and looked around the place, which was jumping with students. There were a few older types, and I guessed they were teachers exempt from the war. I wondered when this thing would be over. It wasn’t just that I had a personal interest with Woody doing his bit, it was the whole damn thing. I couldn’t read Ernie Pyle’s column without getting the snuffles. The way he wrote about the GIs gave me a pretty damn good picture of what it was like to be over there. I couldn’t imagine myself in a foxhole for days on end or waiting for the enemy to attack. I guess at heart I was a coward.

Wayne came back and put the cup and saucer in front of me, pulled out his chair, placed his java at his spot, and sat down.

“Now,” he said, “what exactly can I do for you?” He took out a silver cigarette case, delicately picked one out, snapped the case shut. He didn’t offer me one cause I was already smoking.

“What were ya doin with Miss Bergman upstairs?”

“I beg your pardon?”

I didn’t really think the rustling around in his office was book gathering. “The cutie who looks like Claudette West. Why were ya locked in with her?”

He lit his cigarette with a good-looking lighter. “You make it sound prurient, Miss Quick.”

I knew he thought I wouldn’t know what the word meant, so I played along. Always better to let them think they’re smarter than you are. “Prurient?”

“Concupiscent. Amorous.”

Concupiscent.
I mean. “You talking lecherous?” I didn’t smile.

His mouth twitched. “You make it sound that way.”

“Yeah. That’s because it seemed that way to me. Locked in and all.”

“We weren’t locked in.”

“You weren’t? I heard ya unlock the door.”

“Yes, I did. I meant, we weren’t locked in in the way you’re implying. I always lock my door when I’m with a student so no one can barge in with some stupid question.”

“Ya do that with Claudette West?”

He took a belt of his java and gave me a look-see over the cup brim, then set it back in the saucer. “I just told you I do that with all my students.”

“So ya locked yourself in with Claudette.”

“You’re a very irritating girl,” he said.

“So I’ve been told. Could ya answer the question?”

“Yes. Of course I did. Why would I treat her any differently from other students?”

“You tell me.” I blew a plume of smoke past his head.

“There’s nothing to tell. I
didn’t
treat her differently.”

“So, ya have affairs with
all
your female students?”

He started to get up, and I put a hand on his arm. “Sorry,” I said.

“That was uncalled for.”

“You’re right. Tell me about your relationship with Claudette.”

“My
professional
relationship was professor and student. Nothing more.”

“Dr. Wayne, I’ve been led to believe it was somethin more.”

“Then you’ve been led astray.”

“So why don’t you level with me and tell me about you and Claudette.”

“There’s nothing to tell. I was her professor in comparative literature. She chose to do a paper on Henry James. I was her adviser.”

“So she’d see ya outside of class?”

“In my office, yes.”

“Ya never saw her anywhere else?” I noticed that he was chewing the inside of his right cheek.

“No.”

“Tell me about her.”

He looked at me blankly. “What do you mean?”

The question seemed easy as pie to me, so I didn’t know what his dilemma was.

“I want ya to tell me what she was like, what your ideas, impressions of Claudette were.”

Wayne seemed to be twisting in the wind. He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. “She was a nice girl. I thought very highly of her.”

“Was she smart?”

“Yes. And diligent about her work.”

“Did ya think she was a looker?”

He pursed his lips, annoyed by the question.

“She was attractive. Well groomed,” he said.

“She confide in ya about personal things?”

“Such as?”

“That’s what I wanna know.”

“She spoke of her boyfriend, Richard Cotten.”

“What’d she have to say about him?”

“She wanted to end the relationship.”

“Why?”

“He was too possessive.”

“Sounds like she spoke to ya about pretty intimate things.”

“No. Not really. Only about Cotten.”

“Did she tell ya she was pregnant?”

His head flipped back as though I’d slapped him. “No. She didn’t.”

“Be honest, Dr. Wayne. You ever pitch woo with Claudette?”

“Pitch woo?” he said, his nostrils flaring.

“Yeah. Make love.”

“Never.”

Since there was no way to prove a negative I didn’t pursue this.

“She ever mention any other guy?”

“No.”

“Well, I guess that’s all for now,” I said and stood up. “Thanks for talkin to me.”

Standing, he said, “You’re welcome. Miss Quick? Are you certain Claudette was pregnant?”

“Yeah, that’s what the autopsy showed.”

“I see.”

He seemed a little down in the dumps.

“Well, I’ll be seein ya.”

He nodded and sat again while I walked away.

I wasn’t sure what it meant in the grander scheme of the case, but I knew for sure that he’d been sleeping with Claudette West.

EIGHT

I was pretty hot under the collar about the Wests not telling me about Claudette being pregnant, and I wanted to know their reasons. If Porter West could call me anytime he wanted, I figured I could drop in on him anytime
I
wanted.

I caught an uptown subway and settled in for the ride. I started to open my book when I noticed a guy sitting across from me who looked a lot like my old man. Same brown eyes, same full head of hair with a widow’s peak. A good-looking gent. Coulda been my pop twenty years ago when I was just a kid. That’s when I loved him like crazy. I was too young to know the ins and outs of one Frank Quick.

What I
did
know was that we were always moving and that I’d had a brother who died of influenza in 1918 and there was something strange about my old lady. But I didn’t understand any of these things then.

I looked over at the man across from me, and he gave me what you might call a suggestive smile. I didn’t wanna inflame Casanova, so I turned to my book. But I couldn’t read. Now that Frank and Helen had invaded my mind I was done for.

When I was a kid, before dinner I played Casino with my old man, and he didn’t like losing. Same as with any game he played, and he played them all. Frank was a gambler, and that’s why we always kept moving.

One time he scored big and he bought us a cute little house in a nice neighborhood and I had my own bedroom, but within six months he lost the place. I don’t know whether that was the straw for my old lady or if my brother’s death had done it, but she started on the morphine heavy around then. She’d had the flu as well as Frank Jr., and often cried and screamed at God, who she said shoulda taken her instead of my brother.

Not that she believed in God. She didn’t believe in anything and always said to me I should expect the worst from life and then I’d never be disappointed.

These days she was pretty much in her morphine fog all the time, and my father had a job at the downtown Newark Paradise, taking tickets. When I first heard this, I figured he’d fallen pretty far.

I knew what the lay of the land was through my aunt Dolly, who I’d lived with those four years. Anyway, nowadays my aunt gave me the skinny about my parents when I asked, but never brought them up unless I did. I asked a few months back, and that’s when I learned what they were doing, how things were.

One time I put on a disguise, blonde wig, dark glasses, and went to the Paradise in Newark when the old man was working. I almost started bawling right there in the big lobby with the marble stairways and sculpture, velvet draperies, and crystal chandeliers.

There was my pop in his scarlet tunic piped in gold and looped across the front with more gold and tassels. He looked older than his forty-eight years, but he also looked happy. Especially when a kid would come up holding out his ticket. Frank Quick never failed to say something to them, though I couldn’t hear what it was. The kid always laughed, and my old man patted whoever it was on their little shoulder.

I had to leave after a while cause he kept looking at me, and I was afraid he might come over and ask if I was okay or something. I sure as hell didn’t want him to know it was me.

After that I wasn’t ashamed of him cause I could see he wasn’t. He liked the job much as he could like any job. I think he felt special in his uniform. All that gold. That would be like Frank Quick.

I almost missed my stop, but got up just in time before the doors closed.

Out on Eighty-sixth Street I packed away my family thoughts and crossed Broadway to walk over to Central Park West. In the middle of the street there was an island with benches, and some old folks sat there, watching the world go by. I wondered what it was like to be that old and if every night ya wondered if you’d see another day.

The weather was good, and I unbuttoned my coat, let it flap around me. I was a fast walker, so I made it to CPW in no time at all.

In minutes I found the Wests’ swanky building, awning and doorman in place. I wasn’t worried about getting in cause West would wanna see me. And then I realized what a dummy I was. He wouldn’t be there; he’d be at work. I’d been so fit to be tied about feeling I’d been hoodwinked by the Wests that I’d forgotten. Then I thought maybe it was okay after all. I might do better with the missus alone.

The doorman made me think of Ebenezer Scrooge.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m here to see Mrs. Porter West.”

“Who should I say is calling?”

I told him, and he picked up the receiver end of a black contraption and pushed a button.

“A Miss Faye Quick is here to see Madam. Yes, I’ll wait.”

I figured some maid was tellin the missus. It felt like a long wait, but I knew it wasn’t when the doorman spoke into the blower again.

“All right, I’ll send her up.”

He directed me to the elevator but not before he gave me the once-over and showed me a kisser that said I didn’t pass muster.

The elevator operator was another ancient jobbie, and I hoped he’d be a smoother driver than the one at NYU. He was. He pulled in tight at the tenth.

This was one of those deals that had only two apartments to a floor. And I didn’t know which one it was. But then the door on the left side opened, and there stood a girl in a gray maid’s outfit right down to the white apron and starched white headdress.

“Miss Quick?”

“That’s me.”

“Madam is waiting for you.”

She stepped aside as I entered. We were in a foyer with a marble floor, a couple a mean-looking chairs, and some potted plants. I waited until she closed the door, then followed her as she led me to a large living room.

I suppose it was Louis somebody furniture, but I wasn’t up to snuff on my antiques. All I knew was that it looked uncomfortable. I also knew that the intricate patterned rugs were probably Oriental. Put it all together and it spelled plenty of lettuce. Everything was in its place except for Madam, who was nowhere in sight.

“Please take a seat, and Madam will be right in.”

“Thanks.”

I looked around trying to figure which would be the most comfy seat, sorta a losing battle in this case. Before I could decide, Myrna West was entering with a man who was not Porter.

“Hello, Miss Quick. This is my brother, Cornell Walker.”

We greeted each other. Walker was obviously a younger brother. He had brown hair and blue eyes like his sister’s and was wearing a Marine uniform. Perfect features made him a looker if ya liked that type. He even had a cleft chin.

“I’m sorry to barge in on ya this way,” I said.

“That’s all right. I presume you have a good reason.”

I didn’t answer.

Myrna motioned to the stiffest-looking chair in the place, so there was no way out of taking it, which I did.

They both sat on the couch.

“Cornell is home on leave,” the missus said.

This I could see. “And where’s home, Captain Walker?” I knew my ranks.

“When on leave I live here with my sister.” He smiled crookedly.