Did you get any sleep at all, Frank?”
Not much sun managed to burn through the morning clouds, but somehow a stray beam shone straight down on Cass, making her shine like an angel. And she was that, I thought, white and bright and pure. Maybe a little too pure for a business like this—for a man like me.
“Sure,” I told her.
It wasn’t exactly a lie, but she nodded like she didn’t believe it.
“There’s a client in the outer office,” she said. I figured she’d skipped the intercom and come in to tell me so she could make sure I was put together enough to deal with the public. I must’ve perked up a bit too much at what she said, because Cass hurried on, “No, not her. A man. A Mister Edward Mars.”
I sighed to myself, but got up and walked out into the other room, not bothering with a fresh tie.
The man was tall and scarecrow-skinny, dressed in a plain brown suit that hung on him like the drapes in a cheap hotel room. His eyes were big and full of worry and he kept crushing his straw Panama hat between his long fingers.
“It’s my fiancée, see,” he said, like I’d already asked. “I think she might have someone, you know, on the side. I mean I hate to suspect her, I love Patsy or I wouldn’t be marrying her, right? But I gotta know …”
“Mister … Mars is it?”
“Huh?” he asked, then, “Oh. Yeah. But Eddie’s good.”
“Eddie,” I said, patting his shoulder. “I’m sorry, pal, I can’t take your case. The agency’s booked solid at the moment.”
The fella looked crestfallen. I didn’t glance Cass’s way, but I could damn near feel her consternation boring into the back of my head.
“I can recommend another private eye I know, former associate of mine. He’ll do a good job for you and won’t break your bank account.”
I jotted down Dick Foley’s number and his office address and handed it to the nervous fella. He looked it over like it might be written in code, then tucked it in his pocket with a twitchy shrug.
“Uh,” he said from the threshold, frowning, “thanks.”
I nodded, and closed the door behind him.
“What’s the idea, Frank?” Cass said, shaking her head at me as I turned around. “We ain’t booked! We only got that one active case right now, and that one’s just about done anyway, right? So why are you throwing good money out the door? You may not need the money, but I—”
“—got a mother to take care of, I know. Have I ever shorted you before, Cass? Even when times were tougher than this?”
“Well … no.”
“Then don’t get your stockings in a knot. As for Mister Mars there, it’s my business what cases I take and what cases I don’t. Unless that’s your name on the door.”
It was a bit rougher than I’d meant it to be, but I couldn’t exactly un-say it.
Cass scowled, the way a mother might scowl at a kid who’d just told an obvious fib. “I don’t get you, Frank,” she said from behind her desk, shaking her head some more. “The way you been lately, it’s not you. I feel like I don’t hardly know who I’m workin’ for these days. I said don’t take this case. I said that woman was gonna be a buncha bad news. Now look how you’re acting. It’s not good, Frank.” She sighed.
I wanted to tell her my mother died when I was twelve and I wasn’t looking for anyone to fill the job, but I swallowed my temper as best I could. I knew Cass was only trying to look after me, and probably I needed some looking after. But right then I didn’t especially care to be treated like a kid.
“I’ve got some leads to follow up on,” I said, going into my office for my notebook, my gun, and a fresh tie. Didn’t really figure I’d need the piece considering the day’s agenda, but lately I didn’t want to go any further than the bathroom without some kind of protection. I strapped on the shoulder holster and tucked the .38 in against my ribs where it wouldn’t show much through my jacket or my topcoat. I stashed the notebook away, knotted my tie, grabbed my coat and hat and got out, shutting the door on Cass’s frowning eyes.
I started at the top of the list but got no answer at Damia Nyx’s number when I called it from an uptown payphone. When I tried the next number, someone I took to be Elenore Duncan’s maid explained that Miss Duncan was spending the season in Spain and couldn’t be reached for several weeks. I told the maid it must be nice to be rich and not have to work for it. She made a soft sound I took for agreement, and hung up.
Miss Valerie Alder answered her own phone.
I introduced myself as a reporter with the Tribune. “You know a Miss Evelyn Night?”
“Evvie?” the voice asked. “Sure, I know her!”
“Mind if I come by, ask you a few things about her? Background on a little feature I’m working on?”
“I haven’t seen Evvie in months—years!” Valerie Alder cried.
“I’ll only take a few minutes of your time,” I promised.
She said sure again, and gave me directions.
Five minutes in a cab and I found myself deposited outside a nice looking Greek revival place with its wide back to the park. I rang the bell, heard it chime inside, very musical. The woman answered her own door, too, and did an admirable job of pretending not to notice my mangled face.
“Hi!” she said, bright as sunshine. “Come in!”
The place was nice, fresh-cut flowers in antique vases on fluted marble pillars, ferns in the corners, big windows looking out on trees and hedges. All of it much more alive than Miss Night’s forgotten dwelling.
“So whatta you wanna know?” Miss Alder said, ushering me into what I think people with money call a sitting room. More large windows let in the sun that had finally burned through the rain for a few minutes. I sat in a needlework chair that looked like it cost more than most automobiles.
“Oh, just your general impression of Miss Night,” I said, nonchalant. “My editor figures she’ll make a nice feature for the society pages. Wealthy orphan girl and all.”
“I don’t know how much I can tell you,” Miss Alder said, settling onto a snow-white chaise lounge, the sort of thing you only ever found in houses with sitting rooms.
“Like I say, it’s been ages since I saw Evvie last. We used to be thick as thieves, oh, sure. Going to all the best parties, eating in all the fine restaurants. Oh, we had a glorious time!”
“So what happened?”
Miss Alder shrugged. “Nothing really. We saw less and less of each other, that’s all. Honestly, I got the feeling Evvie had gotten bored with all that, the country clubs and charity balls and everything. I can’t say I blame her. It’s nice enough, oh sure, but pretty bland after a while. Though I must say I still enjoy rubbing elbows with movie stars and wealthy industrialists from time to time.”
I liked this woman’s open manner, that honest smile, never mind the “oh sure”s. I could almost believe money hadn’t made her forget she was a person like the rest of us. But I also knew I’d gotten the useful information out of her already. Still, I asked a few more questions, mostly to pad out my cover story, things that would go in that piece I was writing for the Trib. I also managed to find out that the unaccounted-for Miss Morgen was now Mrs. Thomas Leigh and lived with her husband in a city far more prone to sunny days, and on the other side of the country. No help there.
After a few more essentially meaningless questions, I thanked Miss Alder and let myself out.
Seemed I was back to Damia Nyx or no one. I put another call to her number but again got no answer. I decided to cool my heels awhile at the lounge at the Highsmith, let my mind wander some while my fingers stumbled over the yellowed piano keys. Mostly my thoughts kept wandering back to that dream, and pretty soon I found myself tickling out that torch song from the deep of my mind. Without that smoky voice to accompany it, the notes all sounded lost and empty. Cheap sentimentality.
And it hit me then how right Cass had been, smacked me like a sucker punch. What the hell was I doing, sending clients away—sending them to that fool Foley, of all people? There was a damn good reason I’d cut out on my own, and now I was taking money out of my own pocket and putting it in his. I’d lost my good sense, it seemed. Lost my good sense over a bad woman—a woman who practically had “doomed” etched into the crystal of her lovely eyes.
No, I thought, arguing with myself again. Not yet. I’ve got what she wanted. I’ve got her name. I can still give her back her life.
I can still save her. I’ve got to.
I slapped the cover down over the piano keys, finished my soda and lime, and headed out to keep an eye on Damia Nyx’s place.
It was dusk when I finally saw signs of life at the big Victorian house on the corner of G Street and Avenue E. I’m not sure why I decided to stay there all afternoon, pretending to read a newspaper on a bench across the street while I spied on the place. Playing a hunch, I suppose, answering some subtle instinct that promised I’d find answers here.
I tossed my paper in a trashcan and got up to pay Miss Nyx a visit, but paused a second. The fading light, all muted shades of blue smudged with shadows, had turned the charming house into something from a kid’s ghost story, one of the ones that stays with you even after you grow up.
Scoffing at myself, I put my shoes in motion and ambled across the street, rang the bell. No answer. I waited. Rang the bell again. Waited some more. And the whole time I felt like a school boy acting on a dare.
At last the door opened on a pale round face, crimson makeup shadowing high, fine cheekbones. The girl’s bleached-blonde locks clung to her head in a tight wavy ’do that looked about ten years out of style, little curlicue locks poking down over her ears, close to her skin. She offered me a smile that was all warmth, and didn’t show a hint of surprise at seeing a scarred, disheveled stranger on her doorstep. Unlike her old pal Miss Alder, Damia Nyx wasn’t pretending she hadn’t seen how bad I looked. That should’ve tipped me off that something was wrong, but I guess her open expression took me in. Which probably is exactly what she wanted it to do.
“Hello there,” she said, like she’d been expecting me.
I dropped the earlier pretense about the newspaper article and introduced myself by name, handing her my card. “You know a Miss Evelyn Night?”
She cocked her head, thought a second, then said, “Why don’t you come in?”
With the heavy claret-colored curtains drawn against the streetlamps, the place was all deep crimson gloom inside, like stepping into a velvet-lined coffin. Wooden furniture with dark varnish, expensive wallpaper in dark colors, dark art deco paintings in dark frames. Even the small brass chandeliers seemed barely able to hold back the shadows. It was a wonder I’d seen any hints of light at all through those velvet drapes.
She took me into a small room with a well-stocked bar on one side, all polished mahogany and gleaming brass fixtures. It was pretty apparent the 18th amendment had never reached the Nyx household. I sat on a bar stool while Damia Nyx poured herself a glass of wine that perfectly matched the curtains. “Care for anything, Mister Orpheus?” she asked. She had the breezy voice of someone who entertained guests just about every night.
I’d spotted a bottle of Prize Stallion Kentucky Bourbon—mighty pricey hooch, and well over a decade old now—standing among the other decanters, but managed to resist the temptation with a casual wave of my hand.
My hostess settled herself on a stool beside me, crossed her legs at the knee, and sipped her drink. “So, what brings you asking about Evvie? Is she in some kind of trouble?” Her burgundy-colored skirt showed off a lot of leg, long and twice as silky as her dress, a great shape hinting at greater things just out of sight. It was damn distracting and she knew it, but I managed to turn my attention to my notebook and my work, though all at once that old scar over my eye had started up on me again.
“Trouble?” I repeated. “You could say. She’s missing.” That was true enough, I supposed.
Damia Nyx laughed, a bubbly sound that made me think of champagne.
“Who told you that?”
She did, I thought.
“A concerned party.”
She laughed, something between a scolding and a dismissal. “No, no. Evvie’s not missing.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“We move in the same circles,” Miss Nyx said, her smile and her voice lighting up the dark room. “If something happened to Evvie I’d know.”
We move in the same circles. I wondered if that was meant as some kind of taunt, but pretended I hadn’t caught it.
“She hasn’t been at her residence in at least a week,” I pointed out.
“Evvie never was a homebody.” Miss Nyx waved a small hand, sweeping the question away. “Drove her folks crazy, poor souls. Then after they, uh … after their terrible accident, she spent even less time in that dreary old place.”
I thought about the grim decor all around me and marveled that Miss Nyx could call Evelyn Night’s home dreary.
“You shouldn’t worry about Evvie. I’m sure she’s just found someone to keep her company.”
I pretended that statement didn’t sting me at all.
“Anyone in particular?” I asked.
Miss Nyx shrugged. “Evvie had a few boyfriends I knew of. No one steady. I don’t think she wanted anything too serious. She and I are just good time girls, you know?”
I knew. All I had to do was look at her. Damia Nyx, with those long eyelashes and that blond hair and those slender legs, was the kind of girl who could drive a man crazy and he’d come back the next night and beg for more. She reminded me of … But I put that thought away before it could cut me. Another mistake.
“What about a fella named Maurice Guilio? Or Marcus Giles? Maybe Gerry Martin?”
“Sure, I knew Maury. He also called himself Martin Guiley sometimes. He was a kick. I met him at a club one night and just knew Evvie would flip for him. He was just the type she went for—dark, mysterious, kind of dangerous looking.”
“Maybe it wasn’t just a look.”
Damia Nyx gave another dismissive wave, sipped her wine. “Maury was harmless. That tough fella stuff was all for show. He wanted to impress the girls and make himself feel important, that’s all.”
“Was harmless?” I asked. “Something happen to him?”
Best I knew Maurice Guilio’s untimely demise was still no more than a rumor among the city’s bad element, crooks and thugs like my pal Farris. What would a rich kid with the right breeding know about it?
“Haven’t seen him in weeks,” Damia said, splashing more Chablis into her glass. “I got the feeling he wasn’t coming back.”
There wasn’t a hint of disingenuousness in her tone, not that I could hear. If she knew Guilio had gotten himself slaughtered like a prize pig, she wasn’t showing it. Still, something about that phrase—I got the feeling he wasn’t coming back—struck me as coolly final.
“When was the last time you saw Miss Night?”
“Oh I don’t know,” Damia Nyx shrugged her fine shoulders. “Maybe last week … two weeks ago … The nights all blend together, you know? All the parties, the clubs.…”
She shrugged again, then raised her glass in a toast to Miss Night or to me or maybe just to herself, and took a swallow of wine.
I nodded back at her, charmed despite myself, hoping it didn’t show.
“I’m going to see Evvie tonight, actually,” Damia Nyx said suddenly. “We’re meeting for cocktails around nine. You can come with me, if you want. See for yourself that Evvie’s not missing.”
I had to get a good solid hold of myself to keep from jumping on the invitation like a half-starved dog on a soup bone.
“Sure,” I said, casual as I could. Even as the word came out of my mouth, I knew it was another mistake, but I was helpless to yield to my better judgment. “Should I have the cab pick you up here?”
“Ah, who needs cabs? We’ll take my car. I’ll pick you up—say, quarter ’til nine?”
“Sure,” I said again. And pretty well sealed my fate.