Don't Look Behind You Page 6

  Pat’s sigh spoke volumes. “Yeah. And the question is, how many more imported Woodcocks and Maxwells are out there? Maybe this is a syndicate of hired guns, a new Murder Incorporated, and these relocated hitmen weren’t tapped to kill you… their boss got the contract.”

  I grunted a laugh. “I was just an assignment that both assholes blew.”

  “Elegantly put. Mike, why don’t you be reasonable for a change, and keep a low profile until my office can clear this thing up.”

  “Maybe leave town, you think? Or you could provide me with police protection?”

  “Right!”

  I hung up on him.

  Velda made her liquid way into my office, her pretty mouth twitching with amusement. “You just hung up on the Captain of Homicide.”

  “Yeah, I’m out of control.”

  She sat opposite me, no amusement on her face now. “That cabbie’s name, according to the papers, was Ernie Jackson. He has a wife and three kids in Harlem. A deacon of his church. A man who welcomed fares into his cab like old friends.”

  My fists balled of their own volition. “I know. Somebody’s going to die for that.”

  “That’s swell, but his family has to live.” Her face was smooth, no wrinkles at all, and yet she was frowning at me. “Ernie Jackson got it because he was unlucky enough to have you as a potential passenger.”

  I frowned back at her, but with every wrinkle my face had to offer. “Think I don’t know that? Send them five grand out of our off-the-books stash.”

  Now the smooth face was somehow smiling. “You want to write a note to go with it? Or I can.”

  I shook my head. “No. Anonymous. And flowers to the funeral parlor. Nice and big, like he was a horse that won a race. That you can sign.”

  She nodded. “By the way, you look like something the cat dragged in. All those nicks on your face.”

  “Gives me character.”

  “I was thinking maybe we should dump the Borensen bridal shower, even if they aren’t smart enough to cancel us themselves. We know people who could handle that, and even get a referral fee of our own. I mean, how can you manage it? Your best suit got ruined.”

  “Good idea.” I reached for the phone.

  She was really smiling now and rose to go out when she heard me talking with my tailor at Brooks Brothers, telling him I needed another suit with the same specs as last time, and a rush job. Not all Brooks Brothers jobs are cut to conceal a .45 in a shoulder sling.

  And when she went out, she wasn’t smiling at all.

  * * *

  The next afternoon, at a quarter till three, I was crossing the mosaic-tiled floor of the mile-long lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, on my way to the tower elevators and the twenty-seventh of the hotel’s forty-seven floors. The place had more marble, stone and bronze than Green-Wood Cemetery, and enough eighteenth-century paintings to stock a decent-size museum. And if the Early American furnishings clashed with the Art Moderne touches, nobody seemed to mind. I was skirting over-stuffed chairs and potted plants, making for the bank of elevators, when a bland stocky guy, hatless in a business suit as nice as my new Brooks Brothers, approached and gave a slight head bob. Without a word, we moved in that direction to a nearby couch and sat.

  In those pricey threads, Merle Allison might have been a refugee from an executive suite, but he wasn’t. He was the chief house dick at the Waldorf with a staff of twenty-five, all of whom dressed as well as their well-off guests, the better to blend in.

  Merle had the round, deceptively pleasant face of a top sergeant. He folded his arms and gave me a sideways look. “How dangerous are you making it for my guests, Mike, hanging around my hotel?”

  “Congratulations on buying the joint, Merle, and I hope they gave you an employee discount. I don’t think anybody’s going to take a potshot at me in this lobby, but thanks for your concern.”

  His smile was warm, his eyes cold. “Well, you never know. If some unknown miscreant is tracking you, there’s only so much we can do about it. We have a good security team here, but this facility is open to the public. We’re able to discourage dangerous-looking characters and outright riff-raff, but it’s an imperfect science. For example, nobody tried to stop you when you came in, did they?”

  “No.”

  “And you’re armed.”

  “Does it show?”

  “Not particularly. But I’m a detective.”

  “I heard that rumor. You seem touchy today, Merle.”

  He lifted an upright finger. “It’s this bridal shower on the twenty-seventh floor at four p.m. You’re handling security, I understand.”

  “That’s right. Could be that’s why I’m armed.”

  Teeth blossomed in the smile but his eyes remained ice. “You’re always armed, Mike. I just don’t understand why Mr. Borensen and his fiancée needed to bring you in. We offered to provide security ourselves. Aren’t we good enough?”

  “You know, Merle, when I got the call, I probably should have said, ‘Never mind paying me a grand and a half, Mr. Borensen. You’ll do just fine with hotel security.’”

  His face fell, and the smile went with it. “You’re getting fifteen hundred for a couple of hours work? That’s highway robbery.”

  “It’s the indoor variety Borensen is concerned about.”

  I explained my client’s thinking, but also admitted that I was a kind of celebrity attraction. Part of the entertainment.

  Allison had cooled down. “Well, you always were more entertaining than me, Mike. I guess I don’t begrudge you turning a dollar. Even fifteen hundred of ’em.”

  “Big of you.” I put on a friendly face. “Listen, buddy, I could use a favor.”

  “Yeah?”

  “This affair today is being catered by the hotel. Will there be any help brought in, or will it be strictly staff?”

  “Staff.”

  “You know them all?”

  “Enough to recognize. This hotel has more employees than guest capacity, you know.” He shrugged in false modesty. “But I stay on top of hirings and firings.”

  “Good. I’m going up to brief them right now. Would you tag along, and make sure there are no unfamiliar faces?”

  Merle agreed to that, and as we went up in the west tower elevator, he asked me how I’d managed to get shot at twice in one week. He didn’t mean to pry.

  “It’d be prying,” I said, “if you asked how it felt to kill two guys in one week.”

  “How does it feel, Mike?”

  “A hell of a lot better than being dead.”

  In the suite, we moved across a light-green marble floor through an entryway bordered by Grecian busts on white pillars, a faux antiquity touch at odds with the otherwise modern furnishings.

  By the side wall to my right, two facing coral-leather couches were perpendicular to a white marble fireplace over which hung a big room-doubling mirror. A low-slung glass-topped table perched between the couches, all positioned on a white throw rug as fluffy as egg whites on their way to being meringue. At the far end of this high-ceilinged living room, a triptych of windows presented a panoramic Manhattan skyline. Nearby, on the right wall, a door would lead to a bedroom, assuming this was set up like similar Waldorf suites I’d been in.

  But all of this was somewhat lost in the flowers, so many flowers, roses, lilies, tulips, some yellow, some white—the bride-to-be’s colors—on tabletops, on the mantel, elaborate arrangements on virtually every surface except cushions designed for backsides.

  Velda was already there. She’d wanted to be on hand as the help arrived. Right now she was in the dining room, where—off to the left, filling much of the space—chairs were arranged in groups of four or five at small linen-covered tables, enough to accommodate the fifty guests who’d soon be arriving. The tables and chairs faced a white baby grand in front of another Cinerama window onto the city. I viewed all this from just inside the open French doors.

  The dining room table, draped in linen and arrayed with presents, had be
en moved closer to the facing wall. A fair number of gifts bore the light blue, white-ribboned boxes that whisper-screamed Tiffany’s. The rest were mostly wrapped in yellow and white, to go with the floral arrangements much in evidence here, as well.

  Velda, in a black cocktail dress with bare sleeves and a rather full short skirt, had positioned herself near the gift table. Meanwhile, scattered on chairs at the little tables, primed by Velda, the party’s staff sat waiting to get a pep talk from me. On the young side, mostly in their twenties and early thirties, they seemed to be college kids needing a part-time job or former college kids who needed a job period.

  I counted ten of them—five male, five female, attractive, slender, all in black trousers, ruffled white shirts and bow ties—and two more, a woman and a man, unattractive, heavy-set, in cook’s whites. The latter pair worked the little kitchen, prepping platters of hors d’oeuvres and trays of martinis.

  A few of these staffers nodded to Merle, seeing him at my side. The well-dressed house dick scanned the room slowly, gave me a nod that they were all legit, and took his leave.

  I gave them their special instructions. I explained that I would be in the living room where I could keep an eye on the door while Velda would watch the gift table.

  One young man had already been assigned to greeter duty, which included taking coats and depositing them on the bed in the bedroom, as if this high-society bridal shower were a suburban house party.

  “As far as any attendee is to know,” I told them, “Miss Sterling is just another guest, an out-of-town friend of Miss Foster’s.”

  A kid in back raised a hand as if in class.

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “Mr. Hammer, is there anything we should be doing differently? How seriously do you take the threat of a robbery?”

  “Unless you see something really suspicious, just do your job. Miss Sterling and I will take care of the rest.”

  “What would you consider ‘really suspicious?’”

  “A guest, after the gifts are opened, slipping something into a purse. One of you trusted hotel employees turning out to have pickpocket skills, helping yourself to a nice diamond bracelet, would be another.”

  Some of them smiled at that, others looked alarmed.

  “Anything like that you might see,” I said, “report to me.”

  Nods all around.

  “And while it’s not likely,” I said, “if armed robbers should burst in here—and Miss Sterling and I don’t nip it in the bud—just do as they ask. And encourage our guests to do the same.”

  A young woman, her voice quavering, asked, “Mr. Hammer, we aren’t in danger of being in the middle of… of some kind of… shoot-out, are we?”

  “We won’t endanger anyone,” I said.

  “That’s a promise,” Velda said.

  No one had any further questions.

  With the conclusion of my spiel, they rose from their chairs at the guest tables and lined up at the back of the room, a little army ready for further orders. It was three-thirty now.

  A few minutes later, Gwen Foster showed up on the arm of Leif Borensen. She was in a bright yellow cocktail dress with a simple strand of pearls, very chic, but looking too young for her own party. Borensen was in a light yellow sweater and tan slacks, expensively casual. He looked too old for the party. Also the wrong sex.

  As they came in—Gwen had a key—Borensen grinned at me and held up his hands in surrender.

  “I know I’m not supposed to be here,” the big Viking said, “but I just wanted a quick look at the place… So many flowers, honey!”

  She was holding his hand tight, her big blue eyes wide, dominating her delicate, pretty features. “I know! So wonderful. Doesn’t it smell like a garden? I hope none of my girl friends has hay fever.”

  They took a quick tour, still hand-in-hand, and stopped to take in the table of gifts.

  “What a haul you’re making, honey!” he said to her.

  Velda had slipped up at my side. “She really is,” she whispered to me.

  “Yeah, I saw the Tiffany boxes.”

  “The rest won’t be too shabby, either. Know where her bridal registry was? Saks.”

  Borensen ducked out, and soon the guests started arriving. The guy working the door looked out his peep hole, then collected coats, and I nodded to the members of the high-class chorus line that gradually came in. Like the wait staff, they were in their twenties and early thirties, beauties who seemed to be walking right out of the society pages.

  Not that every doll was of the wealthy class—some were showbiz friends of Gwen’s, real chorus-line members. And it was a snap to tell which category a girl belonged to because Gwen greeted every one of them, making each feel special, and all I had to do was pay attention to the chatter. I did that in part because if any one of this pulchritudinous parade was a sneak thief, it’d most likely be one of the struggling actresses or chorines.

  On the other hand, a lot of rich people are nuts, so it wasn’t out of the question a former debutante might be suffering so much in her wealth-riddled despair that she’d turned klepto.

  As the guests formed pairs or little groups, there was some pointing and giggling at me, school girls discussing the new kid. Of course I was anything but a new kid. More like an old teacher. But my media fame/infamy made me a topic of conversation. For fifteen hundred bucks, I did not give a shit.

  Before long the shower was in full sway, the young women in cocktail dresses, bright colors mostly and nicely short, spread out over both rooms, having a wonderful time chatting and sipping martinis. The waiters and waitresses threading through didn’t get many takers on the hors d’oeuvres—this was a group watching its collective figure.

  And, brother, I was watching them, too.

  A stereo was playing the latest rock ’n’ roll, which seemed slightly incongruous to me, but at least it was soft. Maybe a third of the girls were smoking but the ventilation was good, and anyway cigarettes were props to them, rarely puffed.

  Velda drifted in to check up on me. She saw me standing there with a silly grin on my face and got a smirk going.

  “They sure hired a fox to guard the chicken house,” she said.

  “Some pretty foxy chickens, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask you.”

  I pointed. “You need to get back to your post, soldier.”

  “That rates an elbow, but the trouble is… you’re right, Mike. Have you seen the rocks on display?”

  I had. The cocktail dresses were simple, not a patterned print in the place, strictly solid colors, all very pop art. Maybe half the wenches wore hats, all at least as crazy as the puffy red number Gwen sported the other day. But the jewelry on necks and wrists was very old-fashioned—diamonds and emeralds and rubies, oh my.

  “I can see why Borensen wanted armed security,” I said to Velda. “His two-hundred grand estimate might be low.”

  She nodded toward that bedroom door in the corner of the fireplace wall. “There’s a way in through the bedroom, you know.”

  “Yeah. I scoped that out. Probably too much activity for anybody to risk it.”

  “All it would take is a passkey or an accomplice. Do it when the living room is full and you could just slip in.”

  “If you were a female in a cocktail dress, maybe.”

  “Or a young male or female in black slacks, white shirt and bow tie.”

  She wasn’t wrong. But I said, “It’s still risky. That’s where the facilities are.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. Even the rich and famous have to tinkle and poo.”

  “You are such a classy broad.”

  That made her laugh, and she went back to assume her post. Watching her go, with those long, mostly exposed legs, made all these other dolls look like also-rans.

  For about an hour, the cocktail-party vibe held sway, but then the girls assembled in the dining room for the entertainment. Bobby Short, a young colored cabaret singer and pianist making a name for hi
mself, had arrived around four-thirty, and had done some mingling. But now, with that stereo silenced, it was time for him to do his thing, which was jazzy takes on Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter and other real songwriters.

  The living room emptied out for his performance, and I was left alone to watch the door. But it was unlikely anybody invited would show up this late. Even the young man taking coats had bailed for martini duty. At least I could hear the smoky-voiced song stylings from the other room.

  Around six o’clock, I let the cabaret singer out, while in the other room the jewel-clad cuties were watching Gwen open presents, with Velda handing each one to her, the hostess thanking each gift giver to applause while Velda wrote down the name of the gift and the giver in a book.

  That left me alone in the living room with only the occasional babe cutting through to use the bedroom john. Most of them flicked me a smile that said they were a little embarrassed I’d discovered they were human.

  The detective stuff people read about is exciting, even thrilling. But what we mostly actually do is dishwater dull. This had been boring duty, nicely mitigated by all the female goodies on show. I strolled to the open French doors where I had a view on Gwen and Velda doing the presents routine.

  Man, all that swag was something—if there were any fondue sets or blenders in there, they must be sterling silver, because it seemed like everything else was. The girls at their tables were laughing and clapping and doing more ooohing and aaahing, getting loud about it—frankly they were all probably at least a little tipsy. That’s probably why I didn’t hear him.

  But I heard Velda, all right, and saw her wide-eyed alarm as she said, “Mike! Down!”

  I didn’t argue, and as I hit the deck, I caught Velda whipping her little automatic out from the thigh holster under that full skirt and three shots were flying over my head, cracks that one-two-three turned the hen party into a screaming, all-out zoo.

  I looked back fast enough, still on my belly, to see a bland-faced guy in a white shirt, bow tie and black trousers take all three of Velda’s shots in his chest, with immediate blossoms of red soaking the white, not going with the bride’s colors at all. He slid down the bedroom door, leaving smeary snail trails of scarlet and sat there with his chin on his chest and dead eyes staring at nothing, the nine-millimeter automatic clunking to the floor from lifeless fingers.