A Cast of Killers (18 page)

Auntie Lil stepped back and glared at the
woman. T.S. moved beside her for support. Together, they stared
down the superintendent. She was as short and round as the man on
the couch, and her hair had been dyed an unlikely orange. She wore
a shapeless shift that was torn under one arm and she, too, held a
beer in one hand.

"What is the name of the old woman who lives
on the sixth floor?" T.S. asked more politely, though the effort
was painful to make.

"There's no old woman living on the sixth
floor," the super replied nastily. "No one lives on the sixth floor
at all. Go away before I call the police."

T.S. opened his mouth to argue, but before he
could get a single word out, the door slammed firmly shut in his
face.

"Well, I never," Auntie Lil said. "We are
going to the police. I don't like the looks of this, at all."

"We're doing more than that," T.S. suddenly
decided. He had seen enough to make him very angry. And when he was
angry, T.S. could be every bit as determined as his aunt. "I'd like
to keep a very close eye on this building. Something is wrong and I
don't like it at all."

They hurried out of the claustrophobic
hallway and paused on the outside steps.

"Why in the world would that woman lie like
that?" Auntie Lil wondered.

T.S. thought of what had been going on in the
occupied sixth-floor apartment, and of the disarray in Emily's
rooms. "I don't know. But it isn't good."

"Perhaps she got killed for
her rent-controlled apartment?" Auntie Lil suggested. "I read about
this case in the July
True Detect…
 well, this periodical I have a subscription
to, that told about a woman who was killed for that very
reason."

"Killed for an apartment?" T.S. interrupted.
"That's a bit extreme, even for New York City."

"People get killed for twenty-five cents in
this town," Auntie Lil protested.

T.S. thought about it. "You're right. I'll
find out who owns the building and we'll go from there."

"We should also start watching the building,"
Auntie Lil added. "And we need to talk to people at the soup
kitchen ourselves."

"Then we need some more help," T.S. said
firmly. "That's all there is to it. Whether the police believe us
or not, we need someone else to watch this building while we poke
around the neighborhood."

Just then, an Asian man passed by. He was
wheeling a dolly cart loaded with boxes of fresh produce as he
headed toward a corner fruit and vegetable stand. T.S. and Auntie
Lil watched his progress down the block, then turned to one another
in mutual inspiration.

"Herbert Wong," T.S. said, smiling
because—for once—he'd beaten Auntie Lil to the punch.

"Herbert Wong," Auntie Lil agreed with
relieved enthusiasm. "Herbert Wong is most definitely our man."

They had gotten no farther than a few feet
down the block when a tall black woman sauntered past them. She was
dressed in an orange mini-dress that barely covered her butt in
back and was stretched to within a millimeter of popping at the
sides. It hugged her ample chest tightly and had long sleeves
pulled so far down her shoulders that they resembled matching
gloves. Unfortunately, the effect was spoiled by a large rip under
one of her arms that exposed a strip of coffee-colored skin and a
ragged black-lace bra. The woman wore one dangling fake diamond
earring and swung a small black purse in idle circles. Her
makeup-smudged eyes were wide and vacant and she took no notice of
either Auntie Lil or T.S. Passing them slowly, she promptly bumped
into a trash can and careened right off without missing a beat. Her
eyes closed a bit as she focused on a nearby building and she began
to mutter beneath her breath while swatting at imaginary flies with
the pocketbook.

Auntie Lil stared after her. "My goodness. I
guess she dresses in the dark."

"She dresses for the dark," T.S. corrected
her. He stared after the woman's lanky form. "She looks familiar. I
think I've seen her before, too.

Auntie Lil surveyed her with distaste. "I
can't imagine where," she finally said. "And if you remember, I
don't think I even want to know."

T.S. was trying to figure out how someone
could move as slowly without simply freezing into one position. "I
think she's on drugs," he told Auntie Lil.

"I should hope so. There must be some excuse
for that outfit."

As they watched her curiously, the woman
peered up at the numbers of several buildings, then abruptly turned
and picked up speed. Eyes fixed on the front door, she wobbled up
the front stairs of Emily's apartment building, her body teetering
dangerously close to the edge of the top step as she attempted to
unlock the front door while balanced on high spike heels. She
dropped her keys, bent over to pick them up and managed the task
only after hiking her skintight dress nearly to her waist.

"She's wearing a girdle," T.S. observed.
"Another inch and I'll tell you the brand."

"That despicable overgrown Peter Pan man said
there was no one over thirty in the entire building," Auntie Lil
said indignantly. "That woman is forty if she's a day."

"And she certainly gives new meaning to his
contention that the whole building was in the business," T.S.
added. "You wait here."

He crept up behind the woman and caught a
whiff of stale liquor mixed with Giorgio perfume. He considered
either scent vile in its own right, but the combination was as
deadly as mustard gas. He took a step back, which was,
unfortunately, downwind, and waited. No wonder she was wobbling,
mixing her drink and drugs in the middle of the afternoon like
that. She finally succeeded in unlocking the door and lurched
inside. T.S. scampered up the stairs and peeked through the front
door window in an effort to see which floor she called home.

She chose the nearest
floor—which just happened to be the entrance hallway—and slumped
against a small storage door set into the wall. She closed her eyes
as the door slowly opened and the upper half of her body tumbled
into the closet, where she promptly fell asleep. Her thighs and
legs, encased in torn black stockings and cheap heels, protruded
anonymously into the hallway like an updated version of the Wicked
Witch of the East in
The Wizard of
Oz.
T.S. heard a faint buzz begin. At
least she was not dying of an overdose before his eyes, and was
still capable of lusty snoring.

He contemplated waiting to see what would
happen when the bad-tempered superintendent discovered her tenant
sprawled across the carpet. But then T.S. decided he'd had his fill
of surly strangers for one day and hurried back to his aunt.

"Which floor?" she asked.

"The front hallway floor. She had just enough
steam to get inside and now she's snoring away inside the janitor's
closet, near the superintendent's door."

"They're good friends, no doubt." Auntie Lil
shook her head and glanced at her watch. "It's nearly four. I have
just enough time to check out the soup kitchen before it
closes."

"The soup kitchen? You got tossed out on your
ear, remember?"

"I was told I couldn't work there anymore,"
she reminded him. "No one said I couldn't go there for a meal."

T.S. stared at her without comment.

"The sign says that all who are hungry are
welcome," she insisted petulantly. "Besides, I have to question
Adelle and the ladies again."

T.S. sighed. "All right. Give it a whirl. But
you're on your own. I'm heading down to Centre Street to see who
owns this building and if Abromowitz throws you behind bars, you'll
just have to find someone else to bail you out."

"Harvey's at eight?" she asked. "I'll call
Herbert and invite him."

"Harvey's at eight." T.S. headed for the
subway, thinking longingly of the bar at Harvey's. It would be
hushed and dark right now, nearly deserted and at its most
inviting. What he really wanted was a good stiff drink and no one
to bother him while he drank it. He needed time to explore his
memory. Where had he seen that dreadfully attired woman before?

Auntie Lil arrived at St. Barnabas just as
the last of the hungry in line were entering the basement. She
squeezed in behind them and looked around. Fran and Father Stebbins
were both busy behind the counter. There were two obviously bored
detectives sitting at far tables interviewing people, but Auntie
Lil did not recognize any of them. She sniffed the air
suspiciously. Yes, just as she had feared. Fran had overspiced the
spaghetti sauce and ruined its flavor. Oh, well. After a giant hero
sandwich, cheesecake and three meat pies, not even she was hungry
again yet.

Just to be safe, she pulled her felt hat down
over her face and sidled up to Adelle's table. She knew Fran would
not hesitate to take the advantage Lieutenant Abromowitz had handed
her and run with it.

"What in the world?" Adelle demanded in a
cultured voice. She had decided to be British for the day and her
accent was impeccable.

"It's me," Auntie Lil hissed back.

"For heaven's sake, Lillian," Adelle sniffed.
"Why the big disguise?"

"I've been thrown out of here," Auntie Lil
told the assembled old actresses indignantly. "By the awful
lieutenant in charge of investigating Emily's death."

"Can you believe it?" one old lady asked
breathlessly. "Poisoned. One of us poisoned. But by who? And
why?"

"Her secrets caught up with her," Eva
declared. "That's what she gets for being so superior."

Adelle sighed. "Sit down Lillian. Take off
that hat and just turn your back to the crowd. They can't tell one
old lady from another, believe me."

Auntie Lil did as she suggested. "How was the
sauce?" she demanded.

"Overspiced," Adelle answered promptly.
"Honestly. That Fran woman doesn't know the meaning of subtle.
She's the Marion Davies of the cooking set." Heads bobbed in
agreement.

"So you've heard that Emily was poisoned,"
Auntie Lil said. "It was most astonishing. I helped discover it,
you know." The crowd tittered in appreciation, but no one asked for
details. They at least pretended to be a well-bred bunch.

"We've been exchanging theories," Adelle
confessed. "And we can't come up with a thing."

"Not quite," one old lady ventured. "There is
that Arnold Rothstein thing."

Eva sniffed. "It was me, not Emily, that he
stood up that night."

"Is that so?" someone asked nastily. "Then
you've been lying about your age all these years. Unless you were
dating him when you were twelve years old."

"You have a lot of nerve," Eva countered.
"You were in theaters before ladies' smoking rooms were." A murmur
of approval ran through the crowd. It had been a most worthy
insult.

"Oh, come, come," Adelle ordered them. "Her
death is not connected to some gangland murder committed sixty
years ago." She looked at Auntie Lil and rolled her well-painted
eyes. "Eva here has fantasized for over six decades now that she
was supposed to go out on a date with Arnold Rothstein the night he
was gunned down."

"I was," Eva insisted. "He stood me up."

"You and a dozen others, sweetie," someone
said. "He was not the faithful type."

"We thought, briefly, that maybe Emily had
set him up somehow," Adelle told Auntie Lil. "And his gang had
taken their time on the revenge. But I don't see how she could
have. She didn't even come to New York until 1937 as near as we can
tell."

"She was too plain for him anyway," Eva
insisted, patting her absurdly black hair primly into place over
her growing bald spot. "I ought to know."

Auntie Lil sighed deeply and drummed the
table impatiently with her sturdy fingers. "We need to go about
this in an organized fashion," she told the table. "You'll just
have to trust me on this. After all, I am a professional,
practically, and I'm sure you ladies can appreciate the difference
between an amateur and a professional."

"Certainly," Adelle allowed graciously. "The
show must go on."

"Exactly. So what I'd like to do is ask you
some questions about Emily. I know you don't think you remember
much, but you never know when a highly astute question from me can
reveal the hidden truth."

No one seemed miffed at Auntie Lil's lack of
modesty and they all nodded in agreement.

"If you have anything to add, please speak
up," Auntie Lil instructed them. "Otherwise, it might be best to
try and remain silent. Opinion is not what we are looking for here,
just the facts." It was as diplomatic as Auntie Lil ever got and
the old ladies nodded in solemn agreement again.

"My first question is, when did you
originally meet Emily?"

"I met her in 1939," Adelle
answered promptly. "We were chorus girls in
Hellzapoppin
together. I had a
front-row spot and helped her along. She really wasn't a very good
dancer, just well endowed."

"I met her right after she
came to New York," Eva sniffed, "I think it was late 1938. We
shared rooms in the same boarding house on Thirty-Sixth Street. She
was already putting on airs about
Our
Town
and going around calling herself
Emily Toujours."

"What about the rest of you?" Auntie Lil
asked the remaining actresses scattered around the table. After
separating the babble of voices that answered, she determined that
a few had known Emily briefly in the early forties and the
remainder had not known her at all until the last few years.

"Why did you lose contact with her for so
many years?" Auntie Lil asked those who had known Emily many years
ago.

"I lost contact with her after the show,"
Adelle admitted. "We hadn't much in common and when the war
started, I got a spot with A1 Jolson's revue. We went overseas, you
know. The man was tireless. How the soldiers loved him. They loved
me, too, of course. I was gone for nearly a year and when I
returned, we never renewed our friendship. I saw her around town
now and then, but that was all."