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DURING THE DAY, the Lakeshore Room of the Harmon House Hotel offered a menu of quick meals and cold beverages served on linen-covered tables by stern waiters who spoke in clipped monosyllables. By night, the cavernous room served up everything high: society, rollers, and times. The stage was large enough to accommodate a band, a grand, and two mammary glands. The dance floor was spacious enough for doing the jitterbug and the swing.
Since it was early in the day, the only person on stage was the piano tuner, just finishing up. A sprinkling of patrons dotted several tables, but otherwise the room yawned like a clamshell on a bed of lettuce. The racetrack-shaped bar was doing a so-so business. The lighting was smudgy, the air was blue, and the walls buzzed with whispered conversations and phony laughter.
I parked on a swivel stool and slapped my arms down on the brass-railed bar. Wearing a barbershop vest, burgundy shirt, and black bowtie, the bartender flicked his Brylcreem pompadour in my direction. Familiar with my usual, he prepared an extra-dry martini, added several pimento-stuffed Spanish olives, and carried the drink to my station. “Look done in,” he said.
“You don’t know the half of it, Sam.”
He shoved off to make three middle-aged business types happy. They puffed smoke in my direction and guffawed the way outsiders do when set down in the center of a swinging metropolis. The barkeep glanced in my direction and raised his eyebrows. The brown-suited powder puffs confided in him with winks and finger gestures. The one with the pink carnation stuck in his lapel waved jovially in my direction. I waved back in the negative. He stuffed a sawbuck into Sam’s breast pocket anyway. From here on out, the drinks were on him. Didn’t matter how earnestly my bartending friend tried to set the record straight, the conventioneers had already convinced themselves I was a hooker. For years, they’d remember the Chicago chippy that had taken them for a drink or two and never gave them a second look.
When Sam returned, I said, “Did you tell them I don’t do S&M?”
His eyes laughed.
Management used low-wattage light bulbs and slow-burning candles to illuminate the room, making for nocturnal ambiance whatever the time of day. The sepia warmth mimicked my fatigue. Letting my shoes dangle off my toes, I leaned on a fist and allowed my eyes to drift shut. Voices receded into the background. The boozers withdrew to lunch, taking their drinks and double entendres with them. Quiet ruled. I went with the flow.
Fragments of a shattered stained-glass window crashed into a stormy ocean. A poodle scampered towards me, yapping. The parlor piano played a ragtime roll. Dressed in tutu and leotards, I danced to the music while Daddy clapped in time, a broad smile on his face.
My quest to make the world a better place and use my pen as a sword goes back to earliest memories, back so far, I can glimpse my mother as a twenty-five-year-old, creamy of face and glowing of smile, a striking brunette with high cheekbones and proud posture. In my imagination, she’s Loretta Young under soft focus, the way she looked in The Bishop’s Wife with Cary Grant. When I think of Grace Grenadine this way, I wonder if I really remember her or if the pictures in my mind were taken from faded photographs. Either way, the little girl inside me longed for those first few years of normal life, before everything changed forever and Daddy stopped smiling.
A shadow darkened my eyelids, and I jerked awake.
“Didn’t mean to disturb your nap.” Damian Kane, general manager of the Harmon House Hotel, was looking down at me, a beautiful smile on his lips and a sparkle in his bright blue eyes.
I straightened my spine. “Just closing my eyes for a second.”
“I can lend you a room if you like.”
“For an hour?”
“On the house,” he said.
“Think of what it would do for my reputation.”
“Never know. Could improve it.
“I’d still come out squeaky clean.”
Damian was bright as a new dime. He had it in spades: looks, stature, suaveness, personality, and a self-deprecating sense of humor. Movie star handsome, he was in his early forties and would probably stay that way forever while the painting in his attic aged into a very old man. He was always impeccably tailored, not a thread out of place. Today he wore a Gianni Vironi suit, a silk royal-blue handkerchief stuffed in the breast pocket, and solid gold cufflinks that set off everything in style. After delivering a polite peck on my cheek, he slid onto the adjacent stool and propped a fist against his jaw. His work ethic dictated he arrive before eight in the morning and leave well after midnight, six days a week, including every holiday except Yom Kippur. Why Yom Kippur, I never knew since he was a practicing Roman Catholic with a devoted wife, three kids, and a mistress on the side. She had a terrific sense of humor: the mistress, not the wife.
“What’s the reaction at the big house?” I asked him.
Way ahead of his boss, Sam brought over Damian’s standard: a shot of single malt whiskey poured into a brandy glass together with a tumbler of ice water. Damian wrapped manicured fingers around the crystal. “Strangely quiet,” he said. “The mayor won’t talk. Everybody else is under orders not to.”
Given the prime location of the Harmon House, its general manager couldn’t help being a conduit of information. City aldermen used the Lakeshore Room as their hideout, frittering away downtime on alcohol, cigars, and dark humor. They were naturally loud-mouthed and loose-lipped, and Damian’s loyal staff would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to pick up tittle-tattle and spread it about.
I pushed an olive past my lips. “What’s your take?”
He hefted the brandy glass and swirled the golden liquid. “Byrnes was army. Sergeant during the Anzio offensive. Company B, 15th Infantry, 3rd Division. Expected everyone to salute. Had a talent for rubbing people the wrong way.”
“Enough to get bumped off?”
“In this town ...?” He left the question open-ended for a reason.
“And Alderman Kirk?” Peering at him over the rim, I drained my drink.
“Am I missing something?”
“Heard Byrnes had it in for him.” Sam deposited a chaser on a fresh napkin and took away the empty glass. I took a satisfying sip. My toes were already tingling.
“I only know Johnny Kirk likes his wiener schnitzel greasy, his spinach creamed, and his beer German. He’s probably at Bergdorf’s right this minute, sending off his nemesis with several toasts.” Damian finally got around to tipping back the brandy glass and consuming the whiskey in a single gulp.
“Something’s definitely up,” I said, “and it’s not just Dick Byrnes’s peter.”
His laughter was deep-throated and genuine. “You always cheer me up, Iris.”
I fell in love with Damian Kane the first time I laid eyes on him, but it wasn’t meant to be. Even though there lingered an undeniable attraction between us, romantic involvement now or in the future was something both of us knew would never happen. The knowledge gave us freedom to flirt without complications.
I sensed his disquiet. He was staring into the distance, not focusing on anything in particular, his blue eyes clear but the crow’s feet located at the outer corners crinkled. Damian was a cautious man. I could count on him to give me the scoop on just about anything, so long as the details bore no connection with the hotel. He sensed my concentrated stare and sent me a sidelong glance. His smile was endearing. Having come to a decision, he nodded. “Might as well know,” he said on a sigh. “Been a rash of break-ins lately.”
“Think Byrnes was the victim of a burglary gone wrong?”
He shook his head. “Wish I knew. He wasn’t registered. Not at this hotel.”
“Who found the body?”
“Mr. and Mrs. McBride. Nice couple. In town to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Went out for breakfast and came back to find a freeloader sleeping in their bed. Took it in stride, especially when we moved them into the honeymoon suite.” A leer deepened the dimples bracketing his succulent mouth. “As for Byrnes, I don’t know if you heard, but he’s been doing some housecleaning around City Hall. One name kept popping up.”
Damian was about to reveal information that could solve the murder. I encouraged him with a sober glance even though my thumbs pricked with anticipation.
“O’Hare,” he said at last.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. “As in the war hero?”
“The airport.”
The one-time military airfield northwest of town was hours away from opening its shiny new terminal to international air traffic. Plans had been in the works for more than a decade, with the city buying up acreage and annexing vital corridors. Roads were built, runways constructed, politicians convinced, and public sentiment wooed. Damian’s hint could mean only one thing. I asked, “Byrnes found dirty laundry?”
“Only that the city was taken to the cleaners on the project.”
“Graft?”
He didn’t have to answer. A city couldn’t run without graft, especially when the stakes were high. For an undertaking as large as O’Hare, commerce was on the line and money was up for grabs. Politicians got in line or got out. The state capitol and city hall were forced into a marriage of convenience. Favors were called in. Bonds were passed. Deals struck. And public outcries squelched in the name of progress.
Back when the wheels were being greased, Byrnes was just a precinct captain and Gerald ‘Jerry’ Moore wasn’t the mayor but a lowly alderman representing the 19th Ward, the same ward Kirk ran today with an iron fist and itchy palms. Fortunes changed when Moore ran for state senate and won. It set the clock forward and eventually turned an ex-alderman into the mayor of the second-biggest city in the country. The mayor and his right-hand man might have arrived too late for the party but early enough to walk off with the favors. If dirt were attached to the O’Hare deal, their hands would be clean. Come to that, even Kirk’s hands would be clean.
“Why Kirk?”
Damian shrugged. “Who knows what goes on in dark alleys? I only know Byrnes has been sticking to him like white on rice. Holds a grudge, they say. From the old days, when Kirk and Moore were at it tooth and nail. Just like now, I guess.” Alderman John Phineas Kirk and Mayor Gerald Xavier Moore had been political rivals for decades, squabbling like two kids in a toy store, Moore taking the high road with big business and Kirk aligning himself with the mob.
A strawberry-blonde entered the room and peered into the dark. The bouffant hairstyle—clipped just below her chin—framed a peaches-and-cream complexion. She was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Her lemon-yellow halter dress accentuated an hourglass figure. The skirt floated like a parasol just below her knees, hinting at fleshy delights beneath. Pink lipstick slathered a luscious mouth, and mascara enhanced liquid brown eyes. She focused on me for a full five seconds before sidling up to the bar and ordering a drink. Sam slobbered all over himself to make it fast and make it good. She tipped him well, afterwards leaning into his ear and asking him a question. He looked back at us before shaking his head.
Damian’s antennae went up just as mine had. He discouraged loose women from plying their trade in his hotel. Using a discreet gesture, he blinked toward a cocktail table near the entrance. Big and broad and working under the guise of a sleepy patron, the bouncer had already focused his sights on the girl.
“Two days ago,” Damian said, “Mayor Moore made a backhanded remark that Byrnes’s days were numbered. Even stranger, the mayor blinked on an ordinance for pension reform introduced by Kirk.”
The girl leaned on a fist and idly stirred her drink with a cocktail straw. She looked tired, blasé, disinterested, yet on edge. Every now and then, she put a cigarette to her lips. At one point, she tamped tobacco from her tongue, the action unaccountably sensual. She was as beautiful as they came. During the war years, she could have been a pinup girl in the footlocker of a lonely GI, giving him motivation to keep slugging it out against the enemy. Today she was just a hooker, making a living the only way a girl without typing skills could.
If she were my friend, I’d tell her to find a boring guy and settle down, but who was I to offer advice. “What do you know about Mrs. Byrnes?”
“The ice queen of the north side?” Damian shrugged. “Styled herself as the city’s future first lady. As you can imagine, Mrs. Moore didn’t take kindly to the notion.” He drained the ice water before sliding off the stool. “The offer stands, Iris.”
“About the hourly room rate?” If he had thrown himself in, I might have taken him up on the offer. I gave him a bemused smile. “Another time maybe.”
His smile was even more bemused. “Might hold you to it one day.”
“Promises, promises.”
Sliding a hand into his pocket, he strolled out of the bar. The blonde watched him leave. As if she had just lost something she could never have, a profound sadness crept across her face. Damian did that to every woman under the age of ninety.
I rummaged in my purse and freshened up my face. In the reflection of the compact mirror, Starr was staring at me. I jumped a mile. “Damn, don’t sneak up on me like that! I’ve decked guys for less.”
“I’d like to see that,” he said, and slid onto the stool Damian had vacated. “Do I detect a history between you two?”
I put the compact away. “Jealous, Starr?”
“I’d have to have a thing for you, wouldn’t I?”
The girl was staring keenly at Starr. She crushed her cigarette and signaled Sam. Her fingers trembled when she slid a stack of one-dollar bills across the bar and asked him another question. He shrugged. When she swiveled off the stool, the bouncer moved lightening quick. Just before she reached us, the big guy grabbed her by an elbow and escorted her out. She looked back one last time. Our eyes briefly met, and she was gone.
“Know her?” I asked Starr.
“Not me. You?”
I shrugged. “Not sure.”
Monica Seagraves entered the lounge and squinted into the dimness. She claimed a barstool off to the side and snapped her fingers at Sam. After taking her order, he winked and nudged his head for me to draw closer.
“Later, Starr,” I said, and slid off the stool. Sam waited for me at the far end of the bar. I watched Starr leave, round the corner, and disappear into the bowels of the hotel. “What’d the girl ask you?”
“If I knew who those people were, meaning you and the tall guy.”
“Seen her before?” I asked.
Shaking his head, he asked, “Who is he, anyway?”
“Name’s Starr. Know him?”
Another shake of his head. “He was sitting in that booth.” He lifted his chin toward the darkest corner of the lounge. “Watching you and Mr. Kane.”
Starr was a sneak and a scoundrel, even if he was a good kisser. I slipped Sam a ten-spot.
Monica sneered at me when I ambled past. For no apparent reason, her stool toppled right out from under her. She caterwauled like a harridan.
