Stewart Sterling - Where There’s Smoke

Leila put a finger to her lips, pleaded with her eyes. Pedley ignored the appeal. “I was about to ask where you were between, say, three and four-fifteen this afternoon, Lieutenant.”

“Let’s see.” Conover appeared to consider. “Most of that time I was nickeling the juke box in a hole-in-the-wall called Alfy’s Green Room.”

“The Fortieth Street hangout? See anyone you know?”

“Bartenders.”

“Didn’t go there with anyone?”

“No.”

“Didn’t run into Lownes there?”

Conover shook his head. “I was just lapping up a few beers and waiting until it was time to go pick up Leila. Any other little item you’d like to be wised-up on?”

“Yair. Where you live?”

The lieutenant put his arm around Leila, looked down at her affectionately. “Tell him where I live, shugie.”

She was genuinely startled this time. “Why — on your boat, Bill.”

Pedley elevated one eyebrow. “In midwinter? What is it? A steam yacht?”

“Motorboat,” Conover said. “Thirty-eight footer.”

“In the water, this time of year?”

“Up on the ways. At Sheepshead.”

“Must have to sleep in your woolies. Well — don’t take any cruises until I give you port clearance, Lieutenant.”

Leila made a derisive gesture. “Now you’re being silly. Bill’s the last person in the world to suspect.”

“You might have a slight emotional bias, Miss Lownes. Your fiancé claims he had his reasons for—”

“Oh!” Leila cried. “Plenty of others had good reason.” She put the back of her hand up to her mouth, opened her eyes very wide as if something had slipped out unintentionally.

“As for instance?”

“Oh — lots of people. Ned could have written a book on How to Make Enemies and Irritate People.”

“You say lots of people had good reason to hate your brother, Miss Lownes. But you can’t think of their names at the moment. How about this Hal Kelsey who leads your orchestra?” Pedley cocked his head to listen to the piano; Kim Wasson had started playing again. The music was soft but the tempo was being accelerated.

“Hal Kelsey?” Leila dismissed him with a shrug of her free shoulder. “I guess Hal was practically the only soul in the show Ned didn’t pick a fight with, one time or another.”

“Just one big happy family!” The marshal recognized the tune that emerged from the elaborate overchords the arranger was devising.

“Shine, little glow-worm,” tinkled the treble. “Glimmer — Glimmer,” echoed the bass. “Um-dee-dee-dum-dum, da-dum, dee-dum—”

“Kim! Please!” It was Leila. “I’m tired.”

“Sorry, Li. I wasn’t thinking.” The piano was silent.

Conover held out his hand. “Great fun to have met up with you, Mister Pedley. Too bad to cut your visit short. But you heard what the little lady said. She’s a-wearyin’ of you.”

“Don’t be rude, Bill.” Leila tried a smile. “The gentleman won’t want to pay me another visit.”

“Oh, I’ll be back,” Pedley said. “Before I come, you might think up some better answers than the ones you’ve been handing me.” He put on his hat, touched the brim in salute. “Or first thing you know, you’ll have me wondering why you two don’t want this firebug caught.”

Pedley stood beside the phone switchboard in the Riveredge lobby talking to Maginn. He hadn’t finished looking over the list of outgoing calls made from Leila’s apartment when he heard the hum of the descending elevator again.

The grille clashed, the bronze door slid back. High heels clicked on lobby tile. Around the corner of the screen shielding the switchboard from public gaze, Pedley caught a flash of vermilion beneath a short beaver jacket.

“Stick with it, Mag. I want to know if she talks to her lawyer.” He flipped a hand at his deputy, got to the sidewalk as Kim was beating a red light at the corner. It was too stormy for many people to be on the street; he had no trouble keeping her in sight until he could climb behind the wheel of the sedan.

He nursed the car along behind her until she reached Lexington and swung north; he was parked 50 feet away when the drugstore door closed behind her.

He pretended to inspect the display of cough remedies and hot-water bottles until he saw her mounting a red leather stool at the fountain. Then he went in.

He hooked a leg over the stool next hers.

If she was astonished or annoyed, he couldn’t have told it.

The only other person at the counter was a watchman having his midnight pickup. The soda jerker hardly looked at Kim as he sauntered over, polishing a glass.

“Ham and swiss on rye,” she ordered. “Plenty of mustard. And a raspberry malted. Sweet.”

“Old Black Joe,” said Pedley.

The counterman started to push things around on his cutting-board.

The marshal leaned on the marble. “You didn’t waste any time following me out.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She was amiable about it. “I didn’t know you were going to hang around and pull a Dan’l Boone on me. I came out because I thought those two had a right to be alone for a while. What’s the idea of shadowing me? You don’t imagine I tried to burn down the Brockhurst?”

“You might know who did.”

“I might have some ideas. But that’s all they’d be.”

“That wasn’t a bad idea — that ‘Glow-worm’ thing you were playing.” The counterman brought the malted and black coffee.

She showed nice teeth. “I was butchering it. That’s my weakness. When I’m excited about anything, it comes right out on the keyboard. That’s why I’ll never amount to anything as a pianist. Can’t control my emotions.”

“You’re in the majority. What’re your emotions about Hal Kelsey?”

“Censored!” She started to devour the sandwich.

“What’s he done to you?”

“Nothing beyond the usual chiseling on the special arrangements I make for the show. And the customary battling when I have to take over the eighty-eight to make sure Li gets the right tempo in the production numbers. It’s what he’s been trying to do to her that riles me. And she doesn’t even sense what he’s up to. Maybe I’m talking out of turn.”

“Long’s you keep on talking—”

“I don’t know whether you’ll understand.”

He pointed to his shoes. “No flat feet. No derby. Ditch the idea I’m a detective. Pretend I’m Joe Blow.”

She laughed. “I’ll try — but I don’t know whether this has anything to do with the fire or not — I really don’t.”

“Let’s hear it, then maybe we’ll see. Keep on pouring.”

“Well — the thing goes back a bit. To the time when Ned and Leila were headliners on Pantages and Polis and Keith-Orpheum. The five-a-day is the hard way to come up, don’t let anybody tell you different. One-night jumps from the tanks to the sticks. Playing every whistle-stop in the timetables and some that weren’t even on the map. There were plenty of times when they had to hock their overcoats so they could have coffee and cakes. And they did their share of tenting on the old camp ground before they got the breaks. But they finally got ’em. They were never next-to-closing but they were good enough to get by — partly because Ned was terif as an eccentric hoofer, partly because Leila’s looks put over the act when her pipes couldn’t. She hasn’t much of a voice, you know.” She studied Pedley to see if he thought she was being disloyal.

“I wouldn’t be any judge of that,” he said. “But she has something.”

“’Deed she has, suh. ’Deed she has. That’s the point. Lownes & Lownes hit the jackpot by getting a fill-in job on one of those Broadway legstravaganzas. It wasn’t such a much of a spot but they made the best of it. The crix went wild about Leila. Not her singing; she had only one number. Just — her freshness, her figure — you know what I mean.”