Look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else.
—Tom Stoppard
The Martin Beck Theater
New York City
November 1947
I WAS LYING in bed, eyes closed, ears listening to the rain, when, clear as the bell on my morning alarm, I heard a woman’s refined theatrical voice announcing—
“Tears, Mr. Shepard. That man stole my tears.”
Opening my eyes, I found myself standing in a basement corridor lined with dressing room doors. I knew they were dressing rooms because each door had a named painted on it, right beneath a gold star.
My nightgown was gone, and I was now costumed in vintage garb, including a below-the-knee dress, girdle, stockings, and snow-white gloves. The murmur of a large crowd filtered down from the floors above, while beneath me, the black floorboards had been painted with a stain so glossy they reflected the harsh light from the big naked bulbs, which appeared to be screwed directly into the celling.
Suddenly, a dressing room door swung open right beside me.
“Excuse me, miss.”
The regal voice, deep and godlike, shook me out of my paralysis.
“Sorry, my bad,” I muttered, allowing the athletically built man to pass. His electric blue eyes met mine for a brief moment, and I experienced a second wave of shock. This handsome actor was a legend, one I’d seen many times in Hollywood epics—but never this young!
“Hey, Hes,” another voice, more relaxed and friendly but just as familiar, called from the next doorway. I recognized the slender, smiling man immediately, though he was also younger than I remembered.
“What can I help you with, Tony?”
“The gang is heading over to Sardi’s for a drink. Care to join?”
“Sorry, I have a previous engagement.”
“Ta-ta, then. See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, Mr. Randall,” the blue-eyed man said with a loose salute.
Then I gawked in awe as Ben-Hur and Felix Unger headed down opposite ends of the hallway. That’s when I heard another man talking from behind a third dressing room door, this one marked syble zane.
“And just how am I supposed to recover stolen tears, Miss Zane? You want me to track down leads to a silk hankie?”
The door may have muffled the gruff voice, but I recognized the hard-boiled ghost’s sardonic attitude in a heartbeat. It was Jack. At least, I was ninety-five percent sure it was him. The reserved five percent evaporated when Syble Zane’s voice answered—
“Don’t be droll, Mr. Shepard. I’m not talking about emotional tears. I’m referring to teardrop diamonds—”
Turning the knob with my gloved hand, I barely pushed the wood, and the door practically flew open. My surprise entrance stopped the woman’s words mid-sentence. As she gaped at me, I mirrored her expression—for several reasons.
Inside the cramped dressing room, I spied the steel structure of a man, impressively tall and powerfully built. He wore a navy suit and red silk tie dotted with little blue clocks. Fedora in hand, trench coat thrown over one crooked arm, he stood toe-to-toe with the gawking girl, a shapely young woman with full red lips who wore Cleopatra eye makeup and practically nothing else!
I knew we were in the basement of a New York theater, but the skimpy faux-Egyptian regalia the ingenue sported looked more like the brazenly scandalous product of a precode Hollywood film set.
At the sound of the opening door, the big man tore his gunmetal-gray gaze away from the near-naked woman and our eyes met.
That’s when I experienced my third hard shock in as many minutes.
You’d think I would have gotten used to these little dream journeys by now, and mostly I had. But experiencing Jack “in the flesh” was always a stunner. No matter how many times the PI spirit took me back to his mean streets, the initial surprise (and yes, thrill) of actually seeing Jack Shepard’s rugged face with the dagger-shaped scar slashing across his anvil chin and feeling the pulsing energy of his larger-than-life presence never got stale.
“Ah, Penny. There you are,” Jack’s low voice rumbled. “You arrived at the sound of the bell. Miss Zane is about to leave the gate and explain how I’m supposed to track down and recover her stolen tears.”
The woman gave me a hard look. She obviously saw me as an unwanted intruder. Her big, brown, long-lashed eyes held enough cold contempt to freeze my blood. Feeling like a mouse in a cobra’s sights, I simply stood there, not sure what to do or say. But Jack did, and the chilly stare-off ended with his warm introduction—
“This is my lucky Penny, Miss Zane. She’s my secretary and right-hand gal rolled up into one cute little redheaded ball.”
I caught my reflection in the dressing room mirror and tried not to blush at Jack’s assessment. I did look rather adorable dressed in the height of late 1940s fashion.
A formfitting Robin Hood dress of forest green, with gold trim and matching buttons, hugged my curves and hit me just below the knees. Matching green heels lifted my feet; a coat the same shade hung over my arm; and perched on my copper hair (at a jaunty angle) was a little green Sherwood Forest hat sporting an absurdly long feather.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Syble Zane said, though she obviously wasn’t.
In fact, her animosity was almost palpable in the close quarters of this cramped dressing room. Immediately dismissing me, she laid a shamelessly flirtatious hand on Jack’s manly chest.
“I need your help, Mr. Shepard. If I don’t get those Tears back, I’m ruined. I . . . I just don’t know where to turn.”
Miss Zane shot me a sidelong glance and smiled thinly. I doubt Jack noticed our exchange. His attention was . . . elsewhere.
“There, there, Miss Zane. It can’t be as bad as all that,” Jack said, his deep voice practically purring.
Syble pulled him closer. “You can’t know the trouble I’m in.”
I cleared my throat—loudly—which elicited another hateful stare from Syble Zane.
How could I be any threat to this woman? I wondered. She was worldly. She was lovely—surely Jack noticed, because she was undressed. Her navel was right out there for all to see. And that perfume! The scent filled my senses until I was dizzy—and wanted to flee the room.
Unfortunately, escape was out of the question. Jack had taken me back here, to the memories of his life, and I’d consented to the trip.
“Now that Penny’s here to take notes, perhaps you’d better tell me your story, Miss Zane. Start at the beginning,” Jack said, detaching himself from her desperate grip.
“The beginning?” Syble Zane scoffed. “If you’re a woman in this business, the beginning is always the casting couch.” She paused to glance at her reflection in the mirror. Miss Zane obviously liked what she saw. “I was luckier than most of the hopeless girls who drift into this city. Harry Amsterdam liked me. He liked me a lot. He liked that I wasn’t as naive as I looked. He liked having me around.”
“I get it,” Jack said. “You’re likable.”
“Instead of a weekend doxy I became a regular.”
“Sounds like quite the honor.”
Syble raised a painted eyebrow and pinched Jack’s lean chin with her manicured fingers.
“Wake up, Mr. Shepard. You’d be surprised at how many women would kill their mothers to be ‘Harry’s girl.’ ”
“Even so, it doesn’t sound like it ended well.”
“No, it didn’t end well at all. But I knew it would end, eventually. I hoped I could hold his attention long enough to get a few juicy parts, claw my way up a few more rungs before he tossed me aside.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she angrily shoved the chair out of her way with a dainty sandaled foot.
“Take a look around and you can see how well that went. A nothing of a part in a holiday turkey.”
“Aw, stop crying the blues,” Jack returned. “You’re on Broadway, in a revival of Antony and Cleopatra. It’s Shakespeare. That’s classy, ain’t it? What is there to bawl to your mama about?”
“I never had a mother, and I don’t bawl, Mr. Shepard. Instead, I made sure I had an exit strategy. Call it a retirement plan.”
She stepped around Jack and pulled a black-and-white photograph off the mirror. She handed it to the PI, who studied the image before passing it to me.
It was a portrait photo of Syble Zane wearing the now familiar necklace and earrings called the Tears of Valentino.
“Six months ago, Harry gave me those jewels as a gift.”
Jack’s eyes went wide. “He did like you a lot.”
“Not enough to let me keep them,” she shot back. “Yesterday, while I was doing a screen test at a studio in Ithaca, Harry entered my apartment—”
“He broke in?”
“No, he had a key. He used it to steal my necklace.”
“You’re sure it was Harry Amsterdam?”
“I’m sure. On account of the doorman, who saw him coming and going. He had a woman with him. She was wearing my necklace when she left the building.”
Jack whistled. “That’s tough.”
“Brazen, that’s what it is. That necklace and those earrings are quite valuable. They are more than pretty baubles. They are a part of show business history.”
“Fancy that,” Jack said with mock surprise.
“Those jewels are all I have after nine years of acting.”
From the way she spat out the word, I could tell the “acting” Syble Zane referred to included scenes played off stage as well as on.
“Well then,” Jack said. “I guess you better tell me all about those rocks.”