Tearing out the pages listing camera stores from one of the Manhattan classified directories in Bascom’s office, I drew a frown from Wilda and grinned at her in response. I didn’t bother to count the number of listings, but there were plenty. My knowledge of the island’s street system and addresses wasn’t very good yet, but I knew enough that I could put together a plan. Besides, I had bought a map of Manhattan, and I’m a quick learner.
I began by ruling out any shops within six blocks of Macy’s, which I now knew was at Thirty-Fourth Street and Broadway. Too much chance of Chapman being recognized in that neighborhood. Same on the Upper West Side, specifically centering on the intersection of Eighty-Third and Amsterdam, where the Chapman apartment was.
That left the rest of Manhattan, plus Brooklyn, Long Island City, and the farther reaches of Queens, as well as the other boroughs. But I chose to focus on Manhattan, realizing that even so I might be setting out on a wild goose chase that would give Bascom something to laugh about with his fellow operatives.
The next morning, with the picture of Clarence Chapman and my newly purchased street map in hand, I started downtown, working my way through the Financial District, Chinatown, Little Italy, and Greenwich Village. I stepped into each camera shop long enough to eyeball the employees and raise a few eyebrows, although I never stayed inside long enough to be questioned. I ran the risk, of course, that this, a Wednesday, might be Chapman’s day off.
I hit what seemed like dozens of places on the big east-west thoroughfares like Fourteenth and Twenty-Third Streets. Most of them were small operations, one or two employees grinning and eager behind the counters. At a few minutes after noon, I stopped at a little café on Lexington near Thirty-Seventh and sat at the counter with a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. I pulled out the telephone book pages and unfolded them, noting the shops I had visited and crossing them out. I was maybe 25 percent of the way through the Manhattan camera establishments. A long afternoon awaited, and very likely another day, or two, or three.
After lunch and a six-block sweep of both sides of Lexington, I walked north along Madison Avenue, which I learned was the heart of the city’s advertising business. It also had numerous places selling cameras, including three in a two-block stretch. At the third of these, Devereaux Cameras & Film, I saw him through the window, showing a Kodak to a matronly woman wearing a flowery hat and one of those hideous fox fur wraps complete with the animal’s head and sightless eyes.
I walked in and pretended to study the array of cameras in the display cases. A second salesman asked if he could help me, but I replied that I was just looking.
Much of my looking, at least surreptitiously, focused on the man I knew to be Clarence Chapman—no question. His dress was immaculate: a blue, pin-striped, double-breasted suit that looked new and a blue-and-yellow-striped silk tie.
His spiel went with his clothes: smooth, sharp, crisp, and the woman clearly was drinking it in. I contemplated waiting until after he had closed the inevitable sale and then approaching him, but decided to learn more about the man first. I left the shop, noting that its closing time was five p.m.
I had an hour to kill, so I parked at the counter of a little coffee shop just off Madison. By my second cup, I found myself on friendly terms with the counterman, a talkative little hunchback named Kevin. “I’ve been looking at camera shops around here,” I told him. “I want to get one for my uncle; his birthday’s coming up. You know anything about this Devereaux place up the street?”
“A little. ’Course their help don’t come in here much. Too snooty for the likes of us,” he sneered. “Rich dame owns the place.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Surprised you ain’t heard of her, Alicia Devereaux. She’s one of them society types who hasta have a cause.”
“What kind of cause do you call running a camera store?”
“Ah, I can give you an answer to that,” Kevin said with a grin as he ran a rag over the surface of the counter. “She bought the store half a dozen years ago or so, and she makes a big deal out of giving a percentage of its profits to some charity; I think it has to do with kids’ orphanages.”
“Sounds generous to me.”
“I s’pose, but seems like her picture’s on the society pages every couple weeks or so. I think she’s in it to puff herself up.”
“Married?” I asked.
“Divorced, twice. Good-looking stuff, if you like ’em middle-aged.”
“Interesting. She ever work in the place?”
Kevin cut loose with a rasping laugh that caused the only other guy at the counter to look our way. “Nah, she wouldn’t think of lowering herself. She likes to be seen as a benefactor, but she draws the line at anything resembling common labor, and that includes sales.”
“Hmm. Any idea where she lives?”
“Park Avenue, where else? Reason I know is that the Times did a piece on her mansion in the sky a while back, with a batch of pictures. Looked like a palace. She gives lots of parties. All in the name of charity, so she says.”
“Pretty fancy place, eh?”
“I’d say. It takes a whole damned floor of the Winchester, which is up around Sixtieth Street. Just about the toniest address on the avenue.”
“A woman like that would be a good catch for someone,” I observed.
“Talk is, she does the catching,” he said. “Now I’m not suggesting that she’s exactly a man-eater, but she likes to have male company close at hand.”
“You seem to know a lot about her.”
Kevin grinned. “Funny thing, the stuck-up society types give me a pain, but somehow years back I got into the habit of reading about ’em. Do you think I’ve got some crazy sort of love-hate relationship?”
“Maybe, although in a strange way I suppose these people are fascinating. See, now you’ve got me interested. In my case, maybe it’s envy. This Devereaux woman have any current gentleman friends you know of?”
“There I have to say you’ve got me, pal. That’s not exactly my crowd. From photographs I’ve seen in the papers, though, she seems to prefer the dapper type, smooth, you know. The kind with those thin little mustaches you see on actors like John Gilbert in the moving pictures.”
“Well, thanks for the coffee and the conversation,” I said, leaving a dime tip on the counter and stepping out into the sunny afternoon.
At a few minutes before five, I stationed myself across the street from Devereaux Cameras & Film. I could see through its plateglass window that there were no shoppers in the store now and that both Chapman and the other salesman looked to be getting ready to leave. My watch read 5:02 when Chapman walked out, popped a black homburg on his head, and walked north on Madison Avenue while the other man locked up.
I had never tailed anyone before but figured in this case it was a snap because the gent had no reason to think he was being followed. I stayed on the opposite side of the street as he turned east at Fifty-Sixth, going one block to Park Avenue.
As I expected, Chapman then went north, walking with a jaunty gait and looking like a man without a care in the world. We both were on the west side of Park now, with me a discreet distance behind him. Just north of Sixty-Second Street, he turned in at the green-canopied entry to a handsome brick-and-stone structure, where he and the splendidly uniformed doorman exchanged pleasantries before he stepped into the building.
I walked on by, looking at the gleaming brass plate next to the entrance that proclaimed the edifice to be the Winchester. That, I felt, was enough work for one day, and I headed in the direction of my rooming house.