18.

Sorrentino didn’t have anything to report, and I didn’t have anything I wanted to report, so we had a pleasant meal, talked about the Bengals and the Bears, couldn’t decide whether Muhammad Ali in his prime could have beaten Mike Tyson in his, and mostly settled for enjoying our sandwiches and coffee.

He had a few calls in to his bosses’ West Coast fences and was in no hurry to leave since they rarely got in to work before noon their time, but I wanted to get over to the West Side and hunt up the lady with the ring.

While we were waiting for the check, he decided he wanted to debate whether Zenyatta could have beaten Ruffian at nine furlongs, and that turned into whether Affirmed was better than Alydar or just luckier. Finally I made an excuse that I had to visit the men’s room, stayed there seven minutes by my watch, and when I emerged he had paid the bill and was waiting by the door.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Forgot to shave. Just taking care of it.”

He studied me. “You missed a few spots.”

“They give me character,” I replied.

“Nuzzle a girl and you’re gonna have more than character,” he said with a smile. “You’re gonna have one hell of a slap in the face.”

“I’ll only nuzzle girls with beards,” I said.

“What about dinner?”

“Nice Mediterranean joint opened up a few months ago.” I gave him the address.

“What’s Mediterranean?”

“Like Greek, only different.” I told him how to get there.

He grimaced. “Thanks a lot. Seven o’clock?”

“Sounds good,” I said, walking out the door before he could start another conversation.

I got to the Ford, had a little trouble starting it up but finally managed, and headed off to the west. I slowed down when I got within a few blocks of my destination and surveyed the area. Nice, well-kept apartment buildings, probably built in the 1940s and 1950s. (Someone once told me when I was considering moving to Cincinnati that if I wanted to see what America was like during Eisenhower’s presidency, come to Cincinnati. And of course Mark Twain once remarked that if the world came to an end, he wanted to be in Cincinnati because everything happens five years later here.)

It was a nice enough neighborhood. Little shops on the corners, tiny but well-manicured lawns. To hear the locals describe the town, Interstate 75 is the north-south running dividing line, and all the money is on the east side. Well, most of it is, but that doesn’t mean everything west of the highway is a slum. It’s very nice, just not, well, Grandin Road nice.

I pulled up to the address I’d been given, got out of the car, waited for a kid on a skateboard to coast down the sidewalk, entered the building, and went to the row of doorbells, looking for one with Mitzi Cramer’s name on it.

I rang, waited for an answering buzz to let me in, but none was forthcoming. I tried twice more with no response. I couldn’t believe that a girl who was walking around with a hundred grand on her finger was working a nine-to-five job, especially given what Winslow Monroe had suggested, so I went back to the car, climbed into it, tried to find a station that wasn’t playing rock music, finally got some twenty-four-hour news channel, and got a quick education in Ethiopia’s latest hunger crisis.

I’d been there about an hour when the most gorgeous blonde I’d seen since coming to Cincinnati a few years ago came walking—well, undulating—down the street. Her skirt wasn’t that short, her heels weren’t that high, despite the cold she was just starting to open her coat and her neckline wasn’t that low, but you took one look and knew she’d be a unanimous choice for Playmate of the Year, even if, like Zenyatta, she had to give weight to all her overmatched competitors.

I didn’t need a second look to know that this was Mitzi Cramer. I checked her hand and there it was, glistening in the afternoon sun.

I was afraid if I stopped her on the street she might make a scene, so I waited for her to go into her building, gave her time to climb the stairs to wherever her apartment was, and then got out of the door, entered the building, and rang her bell again.

The building wasn’t new enough—or perhaps the landlord wasn’t generous enough—to have an answering system so the person could call down and ask who was there. You either pressed the buzzer and let your guest in or you didn’t . . . and since based on what Monroe had told me she was unlikely to turn callers away, I wasn’t surprised when the buzzer sounded and the inner door unlocked.

I climbed a flight of stairs, didn’t see any open doors, then climbed up to the third floor. A door was cracked open, and a blue eye peeked out.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“Not yet, Mitzi,” I said, pulling out my detective’s license and holding it up for her to see. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’ve stayed clean,” she said defensively.

“I’m sure you have,” I said. “May I come in? It won’t take long.”

She stared at me. “I don’t know.”

“We can talk here or down at the station,” I lied. “It’s up to you.”

That did the trick. She opened the door, stepped aside as I entered, and then led me to a living room that was furnished a little better than the average.

“Have a seat, Mister . . . ?”

“Paxton,” I said, sitting on a chair rather than a sofa so she wouldn’t feel she had to sit on the same piece of furniture. “Eli Paxton.”

She sat down, facing me. “What do you want?”

“You can tell me who gave you that ring,” I said.

She covered the ring with her free hand.

“Why?” she demanded.

“It has to do with a case I’m working on.”

“I don’t know what you think I done for it . . .” she began.

“Mitzi, I don’t care what you did for it. I just want to know who gave it to you.”

She stared at the ring, then looked up at me. “It’s hot, right?”

“That depends on who gave it to you,” I said. “Give me the right name and you can keep it for all I give a damn. Give me the wrong name and it’s potential evidence in a—” I decided not to use the word murder “—criminal case.”

Her entire body relaxed, which was eye-popping in its own way. “Okay,” she said, clearly relieved. “It was a gift from a very wealthy gentleman friend from the other side of town. He’s got all kinds of connections and was going to help me become an actress.”

Shit! I thought. Palanto gave it to her, he had every right to, and we’re back where we started.

“Sounds good,” I said. “Just for the record, what was his name?”

“Abner,” she replied. “Abner Delahunt.”

I frowned. “Abner Delahunt?” I repeated. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Why would you?” she said. “He’s a big real estate tycoon, and surely you ain’t investigating him. I mean, he could afford a dozen rings like this.”

“I suppose so,” I agreed. “But he won’t be giving you another, will he?”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“How do you think I found you, Mitzi?”

She just stared at me without saying anything.

“I got your address from a jeweler you tried to sell it to,” I told her. “That doesn’t sound like a girl who expects her sugar daddy to keep her in diamonds, does it?”

For a minute I thought she was going to throw a lamp at me. Then all the tension went out of her body, and she just leaned back on the sofa.

“We split up,” she said at last.

“Less than a week after he gave you the ring?”

“How did you know that? It didn’t come from that jeweler, that Mister . . .”

“Monroe,” I said.

“Right, Monroe. My gentleman friend didn’t buy it from him, so how do you know when I got it?”

“It’s only been missing about a week.”

“The ring?” she demanded. “But my initials are on it!”

“Not the ring,” I answered. “The diamond.”

“But he doesn’t have to steal nothing!” she protested. “He’s a millionaire! He lives in a great big mansion over there in Hyde Park!”

“I’m not saying he stole it,” I replied gently. “I’m saying that someone stole it, and he wound up with it.”

That didn’t sound good even to me. If he could afford that kind of stone, why the hell was he dealing in a hot one? Sure, maybe he had a wife who was being kept in the dark about Mitzi, but how did a hot stone that the cops would soon be after make it any darker?

“Just a minute,” she said. “If it wasn’t even a ring a week ago, what makes you think it was stolen?”

“The diamond was insured.” I kept it singular; why tell her there were nine more missing? “The insurance policy describes it in such detail that any competent jeweler could identify it, and you took it to one whose shop is just a mile or so from Delahunt.”

“Well, believe me, he’s loaded,” she said. “He wouldn’t have to steal the damned thing. He could buy it with his pocket change. Probably some deadbeat sold it to him for cash and then put in a phony claim with the insurance company.”

“That’s not the way it happened,” I said. “This is serious business, Mitzi. You’re almost certainly going to be called to testify before it’s over.”

“Testify that a gentleman friend gave me a present?” she said. “Like it’s never happened before?”

“It’s never happened in quite these circumstances,” I answered. Then I figured I might as well shoot for the moon. “Tell me, Mitzi, did your friend—”

“Ex-friend,” she interrupted me.

“My mistake. Did your ex-friend Abner come into possession of a cat at about the time he gave you the ring?”

“How the hell would I know?” she shot back.

“He didn’t mention it?” I said. “Nothing about a cat?”

“No,” she said adamantly. “Are you going to accuse him of being a cat thief as well?”

It’d sure make life easy if I could, I thought.

“No, it’s just something very peripherally related to the case.”

She glared at me and finally spoke: “I hate cops.”

“I’m not a cop,” I said. “I’m private.”

“Big difference,” she snorted. “I hate you too.” She paused. “You working for the insurance company?”

Since I didn’t know who the hell I was working for—Velma, myself, the Chicago mob—I nodded my head and told her that she was right.

“Figures,” she said. “Maybe Abner should have bought an insurance company along with all that other stuff.”

“Can I ask why you broke up with him?”

“I didn’t.”

I frowned. “I thought you just told me—”

“You think I’d break up with a man the same week he gave me a sparkler like this?” she said, holding her hand out so the light hit the diamond. “I ain’t that kind of girl.”

“So he broke up with you?” I said. “The same week he gave you the diamond. Why?”

“His wife was sniffing around. She knew he was seeing someone, but she didn’t know it was me.” She shrugged, which too was eye-popping. “How the hell could she? We’ve never met, and he had enough brains not to leave my number lying around the house.” She grimaced. “So he said we couldn’t see each other for half a year or so, until the coast was clear, and then we’d go off to live on an island in the Pacific.” Another grimace. “I’ve heard that kind of shit before, although not from anyone who could afford it until Abner showed up. But I could tell he never planned to see me again, or if he did, it was going to be even more on the sly, just a bunch of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am nights. I figured hell, the ring ain’t hardly an emotional keepsake under those circumstances, so I might as well sell it and pay some bills, get some new clothes, maybe take a trip to the Big Apple and start auditioning.”

“Not to LA?” I asked. “A girl with your looks?”

“Hollywood is loaded with girls with my looks,” she said with the kind of smile men kill for. “We’re a little rarer in New York.”

“Would you happen to have his address?”

She gave it to me, and I scribbled it down in my notebook.

“He’s not much to look at,” she said. “Small, kind of chubby, going bald. But he can be a really sweet guy.”

“I’m sure he can,” I said. “One last question: Where did you meet him?”

“At the Shoe.”

“The Horseshoe Casino?”

She nodded. “I’m attracted to big plungers. They don’t have to win. I mean, hell, no one wins all the time. But if they can afford to make big bets, the odds are they’re good for it.”

“Makes sense to me,” I said. My own limit was five dollars at the Shoe and ten at River Downs.

“Anyway, Abner was a plunger. Or he was when I met him. He didn’t mind being seen with me at first, but for the past few months we stayed away from the Shoe. I think he was afraid some friend or maybe even a relative might spot us.”

I got to my feet. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mitzi.”

“And I can keep the ring?”

“For the time being,” I said. “If you can’t, someone else—someone a lot more official than me—will be by to pick it up.” I paused. “In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Abner I was here.” Why let him know anyone was on his trail until we’d amassed enough evidence to nail him?

“I won’t be talking to him again, and he sure as hell ain’t calling me,” she said. “Hell, I just might take an extended vacation.”

I shook my head. “I can’t stop you, but I wouldn’t advise it. If what you’ve told me is true, you are innocent of any of the crimes connected with the diamond.”

“Crimes?” she interrupted.

“It’s very complex,” I answered. “Anyway, I’d advise you to remain innocent. You leave town, and I can almost guarantee there’ll be a warrant out for your arrest in a day or two. Innocent is the best policy.”

She walked over and gave me a hug. She felt as good as she looked and smelled even better.

“What was that all about?” I asked when she stepped back.

She smiled at me. “It’s been a long time since anyone said I was innocent.”

I chuckled, walked out the door, and was driving back to my apartment a minute later. When I arrived I was just about to unlock my door when I became aware of the fact that I wasn’t alone.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Cominsky.”

“I’ve been reading mail all afternoon,” she said. “I’m afraid to go outside.”

“You think you’ll run into the mailman bringing another load?”

She frowned. “Don’t be fallacious.”

“You mean facetious?” I asked.

“Whatever.” She looked around, but there were no perverts hiding in the second-floor corridor. “This town is filled with liars and sex maniacs!”

“And that comes as a surprise to you?”

“Have you read these things, Mr. Paxton?”

“No. You’ve got ’em all.”

“I’ll give you some of the filthiest ones.”

“I shock easily,” I said. “You keep ’em.”

“Well, I did give some to that nice Mrs. Garabaldi. She said you told her I needed help going through them.” She paused. “We spent an hour today exchanging the most outrageous ones.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve figured out who found and returned the cat yet?”

“Cat?” she said. “What cat?”

“The object of the exercise,” I said.

“Oh! The cat” she said, suddenly nodding. “I’m working on it.”

“Well, keep at it,” I said.

“Oh, I will,” she promised. “I will.”

She marched off—I almost said “toddled off,” but she hadn’t toddled in thirty years—and I opened the door.

Go away, said Marlowe, opening one eye.

I got the leash. “Come on,” I said. “I know your bladder is stronger than mine, but even you need a walk now and then.”

He growled but let me put the leash on him. A freezing rain started to fall the instant we were outside, and three minutes later we were back. As I was kicking off my shoes the phone rang.

“Yeah?”

“Hi, Eli,” said Jim Simmons. “I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon.”

“What’s up?”

“We traced your Joe Smith fingerprint.”

“Unless it was Jim Smith,” I said. “What did you come up with?”

“His name is Tupak Morales, and he’s wanted in seven different South American countries, five of them for murder.” He paused. “We owe you, pal. You found us a big one.”

“Have you picked him up yet?”

“He and his partner are out grabbing a late lunch or early dinner now,” answered Simmons. “We’re tailing them, and thanks to you we know where they’re staying, and we’ll pick him up tonight.”

“So with a little luck, you can deport them all in chains, or at least cuffs, in a day or two?”

“Two of them for sure,” he answered. “The one we’ve already got and Tupak. I’ll be surprised if the other hasn’t also got warrants out for his arrest all over the hemisphere.”

“Good,” I said. “Glad I was able to get that print.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Uh, Jim . . .”

“Yeah?”

“On the off-chance that you have nothing on the third, or that this Tupak character can somehow make bail, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell him how you identified him.”

“You got it, Eli.”

“Well, that solves one problem, anyway,” I said, hanging up.

Marlowe stared at me as I walked over to sit on that portion of the couch he’d left for me.

You don’t really think it’s going to be this easy, do you? he said, and somehow I knew he wasn’t talking about taking back my couch cushion.