Эд Горман - Murder on the Aisle

Then he asked Ramano if he could call a cab, and while he waited in the vestibule outside, he got to hear a medley of Roy Orbison hits.

9:17 P.M.

He was headed home again but an image from earlier in the day forced him to rap on the glass separating him from the driver and tell the man he wanted to go instead to Alfredo’s on the Park.

Fifty-Seventh Street was alive with Christmas decorations swinging in the cold winds. Blue and red and green holiday trees turned in store windows. An angel offering praise to heaven glowed like pure alchemist’s gold against a black office building’s facade. Even the doorman looked festive, a piece of mistletoe on his lapel.

The man nodded at Tobin and opened the door for him. He had not needed to consult his clipboard. Tobin would of course be invited to tonight’s party. That was one of the perks of being semi-famous.

He was shown to the private party room where his first few glimpses were of the New York critical mafia. The occasion tonight was for the Ryder Twins, as they were known, the brother and sister who took a sewing machine fortune made in Cincinnati and bought their way into Hollywood, where they proceeded to produce, in less than five years, such an amalgam of crap and craft that nobody knew what to make of them. The siblings, Karl and Karla, stood now at the front of the party room. Everybody made the pilgrimage, the way one visited special shrines while touring the Vatican. Karl was cross-eyed and pot-bellied, and no amount of Hollywood cash had been able to do anything about his basset-hound face; Karla looked as if she were trying to be the Baby Boomer’s version of Jayne Mansfield. She was given to gold-lamé pedal pushers and push-up bras and actual honest-to-God cigarette holders borrowed from Natasha on the old Rocky and Bullwinkle Show .

Tobin spent the first fifteen minutes seeing how much Scotch he could put away and giving a variety of people fleeting cheek kisses (this was the age of AIDS, there was no social dipping) and pumping hands and egos in a way befitting a society bent on having holiday cheer.

There were a few famous people here but mostly it was second-rank because this was a lousy time to pry major-league celebrities away from their families. But of course he was perfectly comfortable, for he was of the second rank too. He saw Chamales, who offered himself again as Dunphy’s replacement, and then he answered 1,346 questions about Dunphy’s death. And not a single eye that met his failed to contain at least a dim burning diamond of suspicion (murdering your own partner, imagine!). Then he was gone, on to the next set of eyes or breasts or capped teeth. There were orchids in glass bowls and orchids in drinks and orchids on evening gowns. Talk about your festive celebration.

He had come here to see Michael Dailey, Dunphy’s agent, but had yet to find him. But in looking he did see somebody who knew Dailey — somebody who shouldn’t have been here at all.

Apparently she didn’t own a winter cocktail dress because the buff blue gown she wore was summery and reminded Tobin of a prom gown which, given her age, it might well have been. She had her hair done up in a shining chignon and had applied her makeup in such a way that she almost completely camouflaged the fact that she was a film student at Hunter College who got mad when you insulted a jerk like John Hughes.

So here was one half of the riddle Tobin had come to solve — now all he needed to find was the man who’d stood on the college corner this afternoon and handed her a white envelope filled with what Tobin suspected was bribery money.

But bribery for what? That’s what Tobin wanted to discover.

He got himself another Scotch and started over to her.

She stood by a life-size stand-up cutout of the Ryder Twins’ latest creation, Gang Girls, two busty ladies in bikinis and low-slung Levi’s who made Russ Meyers’s women look like Betty Crocker. Of course these two had ammo belts slung over shoulders and breasts. Of course they had daggers stuffed inside their spike-laden belts. Of course they held Uzis aimed directly at you. The Gang Girls had thus far starred in three movies with, given the money they made, many more in prospect.

“Relatives of yours?” Tobin said when he reached Marcie Pierce, nodding to the Gang Girls stand-up.

“Funny,” she said.

“I wonder if I could ask you a question.”

“You can ask. I don’t have to answer.”

Tobin moved his Scotch from his right hand to his left. “Why don’t we shake hands again and see if we can be friends.”

“Why should we be friends?”

“Because it’s Christmas time.”

“Big deal. You don’t still believe in Santa Claus, do you?”

He just watched her. “No, but I happen to know that people still give gifts. You got one this afternoon.”

Her brown eyes, so lovely, were ruined by suspicion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When I was pulling away from campus this afternoon, I saw you standing on a corner talking to Michael Dailey, my partner’s agent. He handed you an envelope. A white envelope.”

“You’re crazy.” But when she said it her lower lip trembled.

He touched her arm, feeling sorry for her. All of a sudden she looked like a kid, not at all the hard-edged sophisticate she was trying to be tonight. “You don’t want to get involved in any of this, Marcie.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do.” He paused. “You probably get financial aid, right?”

“So what?”

“You’re probably not from a wealthy family.”

“I’m not from a family at all, if it’s any of your goddamn business,” she snapped. Then her voice softened somewhat. “My father died when I was eight. My mother works in an insurance office. But again — so what?”

“So you need money. That’s my only point.”

“Most people need money.”

“But most people don’t get involved in murder cases to get it.”

She put her eyes down. He had the feeling she was going to cry. “Just leave me alone.”

“I want to help you.”

She almost whispered. “Sure you do.”

Then her gorgeous brown eyes raised and stared across the room. He turned to see whom she’d recognized. But he should have guessed: Here came her benefactor Michael Dailey. On his arm was the inevitable Joan, looking recently risen from the dead.

“I see you’re wearing a blue suit,” Dailey said as soon as he reached them. “Don’t you think black would have been a little more appropriate, given the fact that Richard just died?”

“Actually, Michael, it probably isn’t appropriate that any of us are at this party,” Tobin said. “I mean, standing next to a stand-up of Gang Girls and all.”

Dailey’s cheeks flushed. “This is strictly business. It’s the only reason I’m here.”

“Right.”

“What children you two are,” Joan said. “Face it. Richard’s dead and life goes on.”

Tobin was fascinated by Marcie Pierce’s face. The callousness of Joan’s remark made Marcie look as if she’d just been told that Elizabeth Taylor was actually a transvestite. The innocence of her shock made Tobin like her all the more.

“You seem to have taken the death pretty hard,” Tobin said to Joan. In her strapless white gown, with her hair swept up dramatically and enough makeup on to last a full day under hot lights, she was a plaster goddess. Only her teeth, baby teeth, gave any evidence of real eroticism.

Then she startled him by tearing up. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s none of your damn business.”

Tobin was about to ask her what was none of his damn business when Michael drew his head back like Christopher Lee eyeing potential necks to bite and said, “We’d best see some of our friends.”