Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she . . .
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
“WAKE UP, PENNY. We’ve arrived.”
I opened my eyes to a new world of old Manhattan.
Night had descended on the city, but the tall buildings around us buzzed with the primitive bulbs of electric daylight. The sidewalks were teeming with men in suits and hats, and women wearing elegant dresses with snow-white gloves.
Me? I was sitting in a big yellow taxi, the heavy door open. Standing next to me on the sidewalk was Jack Shepard, looking sturdy as a skyscraper.
Exiting the cab wasn’t so easy in a black silk-and-brocade gown and heels taller than the Empire State Building. Fortunately I had the help of a courteous private detective. He offered his hand, and I took it. Jack’s grip was strong, warm, and so alive I could almost feel his heartbeat.
The air was summer hot, but not insufferable, even in this getup. I struggled to adjust the floor-length frock and shrugged, only then realizing I was wearing a set of pearls wound close around my neck. Me? Pearls? Really?
As I glanced up to complain, I got a better look at my date—
Jack had gone all out. The black-tie evening wear, cut in the style of the day, flattered the detective’s powerful frame. His gunmetal gray eyes were animated, his iron jaw clean-shaven, and above the dagger-shaped scar on his chin, his mouth tossed me a little smile, rare but familiar and (like his attitude) smart and challenging. All that was missing was Jack’s signature fedora, propped at an angle on his head, though the sight of him was striking enough to make at least one female passerby turn hers.
Instead of complaining, I ended up staring.
“You look good, Jack.”
He winked. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
Our little moment was interrupted by a newsboy hawking his wares.
“Extra! Extra! Howard Hughes subpoenaed by Senate. Read all about it!”
I stopped the boy to check the newsprint in his ink-stained hand—New York World-Telegram, August 8, 1947.
“Hey, lady! This ain’t a lie-berry.”
“Here, kid,” Jack flipped a coin, and the boy snapped it out of the air.
Grinning wide enough to display a missing tooth, the kid tucked the nickel into his shirt and continued down Fifty-Third Street.
“Looks like I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go.”
“I promised you a drink.” He pulled my arm through the crook of his. “Where we’re going is just down the block.”
Soon we joined a cluster of the smart set—loud men with cigars and quiet women with cigarette holders. The nightclub’s elaborate Vegas-like facade was fashioned to resemble the widespread wings of a giant white bird. As the tony crowd entered, the bird’s wings appeared ready to enfold them.
“What’s with the seagull?” I asked.
“It’s an albatross, Penny.”
“I’ve heard this argument before.”
“You know about the albatross, don’t you?” Jack said. “It’s the bird a guy finds hanging around his neck.”
“I didn’t know you were a fan of Coleridge.”
“I’m not. But I can hum a few bars of Cole Porter.”
The Ancient Mariner theme continued as we entered the club’s lobby, a plush waiting area with a white-cloud ceiling, ocean-wave wallpaper, and cushioned benches with backs resembling the sort of wooden posts you’d find in shipyard docks.
“Hello, Jack.”
The man who greeted us had thin lips, oiled hair, and a face like stretched canvas. His hand slipped in and out of Jack’s faster than a Whac-A-Mole bobbing its head—and I’m fairly sure a dead president was exchanged in the process.
“Hugo,” Jack said, his smile wary. “Long time no see.”
“Yeah, almost like you planned it that way.” The oily man turned his gaze in my direction. “Who’s the doll?”
“Penny, I want you to meet Hugo Box. He owns this joint.”
“Charmed.” He actually kissed my hand. (Well, he put his lips to my black cotton glove anyway.)
“You want a table, Jack? I’ve got a front-row seat with your name on it.”
“A booth up by the bar.”
Hugo chuckled. “Always the peeper, eh?”
What did that mean? I wondered. And soon found out.
The royal blue booth was luxurious, the lighting low and romantic. But knowing the detective as I did, I understood why Jack picked this spot, and it had little to do with ambience. To reach the bar area, we had to climb ten carpeted steps, which gave us a spectacular view of the stage and the customers. From this mezzanine, we could spy on the entire dining floor.
“I’ll have champagne sent over,” Hugo said. “It’s the real French stuff, too. Since the war ended, we’re drowning in it.”
The waitress arrived a minute later, with a pair of crystal glasses and a bottle in a silver bucket of ice. Her uniform was navy blue, with a white sailor’s collar. Her décolleté was daring, her hemline scandalously short, and her heels were higher than mine.
“Cute outfit,” Jack said as he watched her leave.
“Amazing she can walk in those shoes. Maybe she should audition for the Rockettes.”
Jack poured, then lifted his glass. “To you, Penny.”
The champagne was sweetly refreshing. The bubbles tickled my nose as I watched the stage show, which featured a handsome young guy who looked and sang an awful lot like Dean Martin.
Jack seemed more interested in the customers.
“What are you looking at, Detective?”
“See that dame standing at the corner table?”
“The brunette chatting up those men?”
“That’s the one.”
I watched the table. One of the middle-aged men in the group tried to coax the woman to sit with them. He even stood and offered her his chair. She declined in a way that made the men grateful she paid attention to them at all.
“Notice anything?”
“Her dress is the same navy blue shade that the waitress was wearing—only instead of a miniskirt and white sailor’s collar, it’s an elegant full-length strapless gown with white gloves.”
Jack nodded. “That dame works here, too. She’s one of Hugo’s girls—hostesses he calls them. Their job is to look classy and make everyone feel they’re part of the party, including encouraging guests to lap up Hugo’s stock, preferably the most expensive bottles.”
Jack refilled my glass. “Drink up. The show’s not over yet.”
Jack was right. After the Dean Martin look-alike finished, next onstage was a woman who did an amazing impression of Carmen Miranda. Her colorful wardrobe featured an elaborate headdress, puffy sleeves, and a bare midriff. She could dance, too, maybe too much like—
“Wait a minute! That is Carmen Miranda.”
Jack shrugged. “She and Dean Martin are the headliners tonight.”
“You mean that really was Dean Martin?!”
“Look, there’s our girl,” Jack interrupted, directing my attention to a table less than twenty feet away.
A young woman with short, sassy golden blond hair and a figure to die for laughed as she helped three men stack champagne glasses into a pyramid. Her back was turned, so I couldn’t see her face, but she was wearing Hugo’s favorite shade of strapless navy blue.
Once the glasses were stacked, the laughing blonde deftly uncorked the champagne while she moved around the table.
“That’s the girl from the Nathan Brock painting!”
“In the flesh,” Jack said. “Her name is Ruby Tyler.”
“So you weren’t pulling my leg. You really did know her?”
“Everybody knew Ruby. She got off the bus from West Virginia at the tender age of sixteen. By the time she was legal, she had half of Hell’s Kitchen at her feet.”
Jack frowned at me for the first time. “I know that pinched look.”
“What pinched look?”
“The one that tells me what you’re thinking about the girl, but you’re wrong. Ruby was never a lady of the evening. She started out a waitress, then became a model and a hostess here. Believe me, I’ve known plenty of good-time girls, but Ruby only played the part. At heart, she was a sweet soul and a real Robin Hood.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ruby grew up in a hardscrabble mining town. See that choker around her neck?”
“Is that a cameo?”
“It’s Ruby’s mother, carved out of West Virginia sandstone by her pop. He was a coal miner who died underground. Six months later, her mother laid herself next to him, by her own hand.”
Jack took a long gulp of champagne.
“Most dames come to New York with big dreams. Ruby came because she had nowhere else to go. That kind of background can make you mean. Not Ruby. Those years made her more sympathetic. Whenever she met a girl who was new to the city, one who really needed a friend or a hand, Ruby gave it to them. Of course, that sweet southern twang also attracted a lot of male attention, as you can see.”
Jack tipped his head and we both watched Ruby entertain her table of admirers. With laughing ease, she poured champagne into the top glass in her crystal pyramid until the bubbly liquid flowed down into the rest of the cups.
“Like a lot of Hugo’s girls, Ruby sometimes got pursued by the wrong type of guy.”
“Married guys?”
“Not necessarily,” Jack said. “Not unless they’re the kind who don’t take no for an answer. See, Hugo protected his girls. That’s why they liked working for him. He even hired me a few times to get his girls out of jams.”
“Jams?”
“Stalkers, mashers, worse. I’d track ’em down, have little talk. Make sure they got the message to leave the girl alone.”
When Ruby’s bottle was empty and all the men’s glasses full, cheers rocked the room. Ruby hugged every one of the guys as she passed out the glasses.
“And Ruby ended up dead?”
“That’s right, because of that Brock painting.”
“So she was murdered by Nathan Brock?”
“No.”
“Then who killed her?”
“The man responsible for Ruby’s death was the man behind that painting.”
I was baffled by Jack’s reply. “But Nathan Brock is the artist who painted Ruby. She obviously modeled for him. Isn’t Brock ‘the man behind the painting’? Or . . . wait! I’ve got it! You’re talking about that rough-looking guy in the picture, aren’t you? The pockmarked man lurking behind Ruby, holding up the dagger?”
Jack was speaking, trying to explain, but I couldn’t hear him. His voice was drowned out by the most annoying microphone feedback ever.
I looked toward the stage, where the band was playing, but I heard no music, not even a voice. Just that loud, awful buzzing.
I put my hands over my ears.
“Jack, what is that? Make it stop! Jack? Jack?!”
I OPENED MY eyes.
The nightclub was gone. So was Jack Shepard.
I was back in my own time, in a lonely, chilly motel bedroom, and the ghost was no longer with me. But that annoying buzzing was!
My smartphone was vibrating the entire flimsy nightstand. I grabbed for it, knocking my glasses to the carpet as I wondered who could be calling so late.
“Hey, Penelope, Walt Waverly here.”
As Walt greeted me, I glanced at the clock radio. Okay, it wasn’t that late, ten minutes to eleven. The dream with Jack had taken less than an hour.
“Is anything wrong?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Walt said, “and I’m sorry to bother you. I didn’t think you’d pick up. I was going to leave a message—”
“It’s all right. Go on.”
“I wanted to let you know that I gathered together those additional paintings we talked about for the Palantines’ publication party, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get them to you by this weekend—”
“Actually, you’re in luck. We’re only a few miles away . . .”
I told Walt about our flat tire and promised I’d return to his house in the morning.
“That’s perfect!” he gushed. “Unlucky for you and your friends, but a break for me. The truth is, Pen, my online sales aren’t what they used to be. But I’m sure we’ll make a nice profit through your store event. The art will sell itself. The right people just have to see it.”
“I agree. And when we see each other in the morning, I’d like to know more about that Nathan Brock painting—the one with the real crime story behind it?”
“Sure thing, Pen. In fact, I already took a battery lantern into the attic and found my black and red notebooks. I color-code them, you see?”
“Yes, you mentioned that.”
“My latest one is blue,” Walt went on. “That’s the one your friend signed. Anyway, I’ve got all three sitting right here on my library table now.” He paused, apologizing for munching a cookie. “My notes about the Nathan Brock are either in my red book or my black one.”
I sat up in bed. “Since you have them in front of you, would you mind reading me what you wrote, right now?”
“I don’t mind at all, if you don’t mind waiting. I’ll have to flip through both notebooks to locate the Brock entry—”
Just then, I heard what sounded like a doorbell chime.
Walt groaned. “Now, who could that be at this hour? Sorry, Pen, I’ll need a minute to check my front door peephole . . .” I heard shifting sounds and footsteps, and then Walt cursed.
“It’s that buyer!”
“What buyer?”
“The one who wanted the Harriet McClure portrait. Shoot. I can’t get out of this one. I’ll have to break the bad news that I sold it. Unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
“Right after you left my house, I updated my online listing for the Harriet as sold. I hope the buyer didn’t see the update and come here to give me a hard time.”
“That seems extreme, doesn’t it?”
“I hate causing anyone disappointment or upset. Heaven knows, I’ve already done enough of that in my life.”
“What do you mean?”
“Forget about it.”
The doorbell chimed again. And again.
“Listen, Walt,” I said, “if you think the buyer will be angry, you should keep the door locked and talk it over through text messages.”
“Oh, no! Now that they’re here, I’m sure I can interest them in something else from my collection. I’ve got plenty left to sell.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you made my friend Seymour a happy man.”
“That’s the best part of this business. Making a collector happy. And your friend has nothing to worry about. There will be no harassment from this buyer. I learned my lesson years ago. These days, the information on all of my sales stays private!”
Again the doorbell chimed, followed by the dong of the grandfather clock striking eleven. Next I heard a loud pounding.
“I’d better answer,” Walt said. “See you tomorrow, Pen.”
And then the line went dead.