Alice Kimberley - The Ghost and the Femme Fatale

As we drove closer to the river, smokestacks rose up like sooty tree trunks. Between their dirty silhouettes, I spotted tugboats, container ships, and barges full of coal moving along the water, beyond a collection of busy docks.

Traffic on the road was pretty heavy, too. Delivery trucks roared by as Jack did his best to circumvent the gridiron of elevated subway lines, railroad yards, and bridge approaches. He signaled a lane change but someone behind him didn't notice because a horn blasted and a bakery truck suddenly swerved, narrowly cutting us off. Jack cursed as his hands jerked the wheel. I slid across the seat, slamming into him.

He straightened the car out again. "You okay, doll?"

"Whoa, don't you have any seatbelts in this tank?"

"Seat what?"

"Seatbelt, Jack. It locks around your waist to keep you from sliding all over the place, or worse slamming your head into the-" I frowned at the dashboard. "That thing's solid metal, isn't it?"

"What thing? The dashboard? This is a 1939 Packard, honey. What else would it be?"

I shuddered at the idea of cracking my forehead open against that thing. In fact, my head felt like it already had.

"Good lord, Jack. No seatbelts, no shoulder harnesses, no airbags, and a dashboard of solid metal! How did your generation stay alive on the road?"

"Well, let's see now, baby…when my generation wasn't struggling to survive a nationwide Depression, we were trying to keep from dying in a world war. Vehicular safety wasn't high on our list of concerns. But if you're that worried about smash-ups, I have an idea how to keep you from bouncing around in my car-"

He dropped one hand off the steering wheel, snaked a muscular arm around my waist, and pulled me playfully against him. "How's that, doll? Nicer than a crummy old seatbelt, isn't

it?"

"That's all right, Jack," I said, fighting a warm flush of embarrassment. "I don't need a seatbelt. I'll just make do."

As I extricated myself from his grip and slid to the other side of the car, Jack laughed. It was an amused, highly infuriating sound, as if he knew exactly how I'd react to his pass. That's when I noticed his smashed fedora sitting on the seat between us. I picked up the mangled hat and waved it in front of his nose.

"See what you get for teasing me. Your headgear's as flat as a pancake."

He snatched it from my fingers and tossed it into the backseat. "It's okay, baby. Feeling your heart skip a beat over me was worth it."

He laughed again, and I attempted to regain my dignity by roughly straightening my outfit. That's when I realized I was no longer wearing my own clothes. Once again, Jack had chosen an outfit for me, only this time I wasn't decked out in a slit-skirted gown with four-inch heels. My current forties costume consisted of a tweed suit with a cinched waist, a knee-l ength skirt, and brown shoes with a nice low, sane amount of heel.

I was about to thank Jack for the wardrobe improvements when I caught my reflection in the sideview mirror. My auburn hair was curled into a lovely, sleek pageboy, but my face was displaying quite a lot of makeup. The colors looked strange.

"What's on my lips?" I murmured.

"Lipstick," he said. "Hokey-Pokey Pink."

"You've got to be kidding."

"What's your beef?" Jack said defensively. "I saw it in a magazine. It's the most expensive brand on the market: one whole dollar, plus tax."

"Redheads don't wear bright pink lipstick."

"Why not?"

"They just don't."

"Well if you're worried about how you look, baby, it's a waste of brain cells. You're cute as the lace panties you're wearing under that getup. I picked them out of a magazine, too, along with your bra, stockings, and garter belts."

My cheeks now matched the Hokey-Pokey Pink lipstick. "Can we please get off the subject of my underwear?"

Jack snorted. "Forget getting off the subject. I'd rather just get off your-"

"Jack!" I interrupted, "I'm sure you didn't bring me back here just to talk about my panties. So I'd appreciate it if you'd-"

"Okay, okay," he said. "I'll get down to business."

And he did, promptly filling me in on what I'd missed since our night at the Porterhouse Restaurant. Irving Vreen, the Gotham Studio head, had expired from his stab wound (no surprise), and Hedda Geist's actor boyfriend, Pierce Armstrong, had been taken into custody.

"But not Hedda herself?" I asked.

"The tabloids are hounding her every day, but she's still free as a bird."

"Can we find out more about the case?" I asked. "Which one?"

"What do you mean, which one?" I said. "Vreen's death, of course."

"You forget, baby, Vreen wasn't my case. The reason I took you to the Porterhouse in the first place was because I was tailing Nathan Burwell at the time. That's why I'd witnessed Vreen's stabbing-it was in my memories. I've told you before: I'm a ghost, not a magician. I can't take you anywhere I didn't go in life."

"Yes, Jack. I understand." I sat up straighter as it all came back to me. "Burwell was your cheating-husband case. But wasn't that case a little dicey, trying to get evidence on someone as powerful as the city's district attorney?"

Jack checked his rear-view mirror, gave a little smirk. "Why do you think I'm wearing a new suit?"

"Oh, I get it. Burwell's wife is paying you enough to make it worth your while?"

"Bingo, doll, only I ran into a little roadblock."

"What do you mean?" I worriedly glanced around. "You wrecked the Packard?"

Jack sighed. "I was talkin' figuratively, baby. Try to keep up. See, I was tailing Burwell and his chippy for a few weeks before Vreen got the big knife in the back. I'd been taking notes on the DA's trysts, getting photos of the two together when I could- on the street, in a diner, in front of the Hotel Chester. Then all of a sudden…" Jack snapped his fingers.

"What?"

"Over. Burwell's back to his old routine. No more cheating. No more visits with the chippy. After about a week, I figure that's okay. Maybe the stabbing spooked the hubby, and he thought it best to end the affair. So I still think everything's jake because I know where the girl's staying. I go to her hotel-but she's not there."

"She checked out?"

"Gone. Lammed it on May sixth, the morning after Vreen's murder. The clerk at the Chester gives me a name and address, but they don't exist. So now I'm holding the bag."

"Why?"

"Because I need that girl…" Jack checked his rear-view again. "I need her in the flesh."

"Why? You've got evidence, haven't you?"

"My notes can be disputed. Even photos can be explained away. But the actual girl can be subpoenaed to testify under oath. Burwell's wife needs that assurance before she tries to put the screws to her husband. Without the chippy's real name and address, I can't even verify that she was underage, which would have been the lynchpin to getting Burwell to settle out of court."

"You have any leads on her?"

"Two-maybe."

"What are they?"

"First one's you, baby."

"Me?!"

"Yeah. When you first saw that girl in the restaurant, you said she looked familiar."

"I did…but Idon't remember where I've seen her before. I'm sorry, Jack."

"Well, keep working on it, because I can use all the help I can get right now."

"What's your second lead?"

"A 1941 gull gray Lincoln Continental Cabriolet with spode green wheels." "Excuse me?"

"That's the only lead I've got on the DA's chippy. The bellboy at the Chester remembered taking her suitcase out to that make and model car. I remembered a car like that outside the hotel when Burwell went upstairs to…" Jack paused abruptly and cleared his throat. "When he went upstairs with the girl."

"I understand."

"I know you do. Anyway, I got its plate number in my notes so I had a friend at my old precinct run the license. Got an address in Queens along with a name-Lester Sanford."