All for a Story (38 page)

“Mr. Davenport!” Mrs. Kinship chastised.

“It’s all right,” Max soothed. He recalled her demeanor on the phone and the look on her face when she walked away from him in the station. Of course she had someone waiting to —

Stop.

If there was another man, it was just such an assumption that had driven her to him.

“I’m beginning to get a little worried, truth be told,” Mrs. Kinship said. “That lecher was calling all evening.” She reached over and patted Max’s knee. “Drunk, he was. A most unpleasant fellow. Never liked him.”

Max could picture the fellow, if it was the same one. The lout from the diner. He curled and uncurled his fist in memory. “Did she say where she was going?”

“No,” Anna said. “You never know with her. She goes to the most glamorous places.” She leaned forward, whispering. “I think, even, a few speakeasies. So exciting.”

Max looked for the others to comment on Anna’s observation, and it dawned on him. They didn’t know. None of these three people had a clue about Monica’s job, where she went and why.

“Maybe she left some sort of note?” After all, she was a writer, and writers made notes.

“Not for any of us,” Mrs. Kinship said.

“Maybe —” he cleared his throat, not wanting to seem improper —“maybe somewhere in her room? On her desk?”

Mrs. Kinship snorted. “Not likely.”

“You should go look,” Anna said, standing. “Would that be all right with you, Mrs. K.?”

“You know the Graysons don’t approve.”

“I’ll go with him,” the younger woman eagerly volunteered.

“Thank you,” Max said, “but I think it would be best if I went alone. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

Apparently, he couldn’t have said anything to please her more, because she blushed and giggled in something close to joy and eagerly agreed.

In truth, he simply wanted a moment alone with his thoughts.

He wondered whether he would need a key, but he found the room —last on the left —to be unlocked. What he was looking for, he didn’t know. Maybe nothing, but the nascent discomfort he’d felt since learning that Monica was out “on an errand” was on its way to a full-grown fear.

He ran his hand along the inside of the doorway, eventually finding the switch that brought the room to light. And there she was. Monica. Not the woman herself, of course, but every inch of it the essence of her. The bed was made with a plush cover of
quilted silk, half of it obscured by clothing. Moreover, clothing was draped on the bedpost and the bureau, piled on the floor, hanging from hooks. The room smelled of coffee and . . . something else —soft, like powder. An enormous mirror was draped with scarves and necklaces; the dressing table was a sea of jars and bottles —a myriad of all that enhanced her beauty. And books? She may have stood in awe of his collection, but if someone were to gather all she had, sort and shelve them, hers would rival. They were piled and pyramided on and under every possible surface. Finally, on a small folding table flush against the window, a small, portable typewriter. How anyone could write anything in this nest of a room was beyond him.

But then, nothing about Monica had ever really been in his grasp.

Here, a witness to her systematic messiness, the idea of finding a clue as to her present whereabouts seemed more ridiculous than ever. An archaeological approach would mean sifting through the topmost layer of litter surrounding the coffeepot, but he was reluctant to dive into her privacy. Then he remembered that guy, Charlie, and the primitive, hungry way he’d looked at her, and started reading everything in sight. Shopping lists, abandoned Monkey Business columns, scattered humorous rhymes, and then something not in her own hand.

I miss you, my little Mousie. One more chance? JJ’s tonight.

The endearment was the one the creep had used in the diner; he could almost hear the slur.

As he puzzled over how he could possibly find this place without being killed or arrested, the sound of the telephone downstairs
offered a ring of hope. This hardly seemed a household of people who would receive phone calls after nine o’clock at night, so it must be Monica. Her, or the creep calling to look for her. Either way, it meant someone he had to talk to.

Stuffing the note into his pocket, he hurried downstairs to find Mrs. Kinship listening intently, a look of grave concern on her face.

“Is it her?” Max asked.

She nodded.

“Let me talk to her.”

She shook her head, holding up a single finger to stop him in his tracks. “What should I tell him?” She listened again. “And what do you need us to do?” After this, a series of humming agreements, then a promise to do all that she could, and then, to Max’s utter amazement and frustration, she hung up.

“I wanted to talk with her,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm. He could barely explain this urgency to himself, let alone this woman he didn’t know. “I think I know where she is.”

“I don’t think you do,” Mrs. Kinship said.

“I found a note.”

When he held it out to her, she did that sideways sniff he saw for the third time that evening and said, “Figures.”

“Do you know where this is?” She hardly seemed like the type to be able to point him to a place that may well be a nightclub, but it was worth asking.

“She’s not there. Come into the kitchen.”

He followed, too stunned to do anything else. She went straight to a cabinet in the far corner, opened it, and pointed to a cracker tin on the top shelf.

“Can you reach that down for me?”

“Certainly.” It was an easy reach. He held it, drumming his
fingers against the tin, wondering how he could hold it hostage without coming across as some menacing bully. “Where is she?”

Mrs. Kinship glowered, held out her hand, and he silently handed over the tin.

“She told me to tell you she had a meeting with some club. That you would know what she was talking about.”

Relief surged through him. Of course. It was Anti-Flirt Week, after all. It figured they would have a meeting.

“But that’s not where she is.” Mrs. Kinship popped the lid off and reached inside, pulling out a few rumpled dollars and a handful of change before instructing him to put the tin back. “She’s been arrested, rounded up in a raid in one of them places. Bound to happen sooner or later.”

His stomach sank as she spoke. The fact that she was in jail and the fact that she went to meet
him
battled as to which was most troubling.

Just then, Anna poked her head inside the kitchen. “Mr. Davenport and I were wondering if that was Monica on the phone.” She turned to Max. “Did you find anything?”

“Everything is fine,” Mrs. Kinship said before he could get a word out. She tucked the money into her apron pocket. “She and this one had a misunderstanding. Seems they were supposed to meet up at some swanky place.”

“Oh,” Anna said, crestfallen. “Mr. Davenport is ready to retire to his room, but he’ll be happy to know all is well, at least.”

“Well, if you ask me,” Mrs. Kinship said, without a trace of compassion, “we’ve all spent quite enough time worrying about Miss Monica this evening. I’m already over an hour late for work. Will you go put poor Davenport’s mind at ease?”

Anna, clearly dismissed, gave Max one more wistful look, and it crossed his mind that his life might be far less complicated if
he could love a sweet, simple girl like her instead of one rounded up in a speakeasy and sitting in jail. The minute she left, Mrs. Kinship took the money from her apron pocket and pressed it into his hand.

“It’s five dollars’ bail, she says. Go get our girl.”

Don’t let elderly men with an eye to a flirtation pat you on the shoulder and take a fatherly interest in you. Those are usually the kind who want to forget they are fathers.

ANTI-FLIRT CLUB RULE #9

THE COP HELD ON TO HER ELBOW throughout the phone conversation, tightening his grip the second she replaced the earpiece in the cradle.

“Watch it,” Monica said, attempting to tug it back.

“Listen, sister, we got a lotta people waiting to get their phone call same as you.”

“Yeah? Well, if anybody would listen to me, there’d be one less. I haven’t committed any crime, Officer —” she glanced down to see the name written at the top of the report —“Meeks.” He was a solid block of a man, his beefy fingers easily encircling the arm encased in her coat sleeve. “You see, I’m a writer —”

“Well, then, you can write up a nice story to tell the judge at your court date.”

“No, I mean I write for a paper.
Capitol Chatter
. I was doing
some research.” It wasn’t the total truth, but then she wasn’t in front of that judge yet.

“I don’t ever look at that rag. See enough of that stuff every day with my own eyes, you know what I mean? But my girl? She’s a different story.”

“Then ask her.” They were moving along at a good clip, Monica’s feet barely touching the floor. The cell, crowded with the dozen or so women who had been at JJ’s along with a few unsavory perpetrators of other crimes, loomed closer with each step. She tried in vain to dig in her heels; it was up to her words to get herself out of this mess.

“I write for the paper. That’s what I do. I go to places like that and write about them. Monkey Business.”

That got his attention, and he stopped.

The two holding cells —one for men, one for women —each had three solid cinder-block walls, the fourth comprised of bars stretching from ceiling to floor with a locked sliding door camouflaged within. He’d brought her from the front desk, where each prisoner had been allowed to make a single phone call, and he’d stopped right in the middle, putting them in view of the occupants of both cells.

“You that Monkey?” he said, with what she imagined to be hopeful affection. “My girlfriend reads you every week.”

“Yes!” Relief rushed over her. “See? I’m not just —”

“And after she reads it, I get all the guff about not being exciting enough for her. That I don’t buy her nice things or take her to swanky clubs, never mind that it’s my job.”

“Oh.” Hope closed shut. “If it helps any, I tend to exaggerate.”

“That don’t help.” He tightened his grip. “Let’s see what everybody else thinks.” He puffed up and hollered. “Well, whaddya know about that, everybody? We got us a monkey in the cage!”

If he expected a riotous reception to his joke, he must have
felt disappointed, because the crowd of men offered little more than a grumble, and the women simply jeered.

“That did not make them happy,” Officer Meeks said. “Seems like they might feel a little resentful, you writin’ about all these places, tipping off the Feds and all.”

“I didn’t tip anybody off to anything,” she said, once again being moved along. “Maybe once, but that place needed to be shut down.”

“Hey, Mousie.” It was Charlie, his face pressed up between the bars. “I think it best you pipe down right about now.”

She lunged, and Officer Meeks pulled her back, up against his chest while her feet danced in the air.

“This is all your fault, Charlie —”

“Cut it out!” Officer Meeks turned his body, making a blue wool wall between them. “You’ll have time to kiss and make up on the other side.”

“Fat chance of that,” Monica said over the sound of the opening and slamming of the women’s cell door.

There was one empty seat on the long bench lining the wall; Monica sank down on it, burying her face in her hands.

“Monkey girl,” the woman next to her said derisively. It felt like a life sentence.

She pressed her cheekbones into the heels of her hands, welcoming the darkness, but conscious enough of her makeup. She’d been strong enough not to cry so far; why take a chance on smearing it all now? It would take all the dignity she could muster to face Mrs. Kinship when she arrived to post bail.

The conversations around her were surprisingly inane. Clothes and lipstick and Rudy Valentino —like they were all lined up at a drugstore counter getting egg creams instead of lumped together in a holding cell.

“I could watch him all day long,” one woman said, speaking around a massive wad of chewing gum. “Give me a handful of movie tickets and a couple of baloney sandwiches, and I wouldn’t have to move all day.”

The girls listening laughed, and one said if she was going to spend the day in a dark room with him, she sure didn’t want him up on no screen. And they laughed some more.

Monica pulled in tighter, willing herself to disappear. She’d spend the rest of her life happily in solitary confinement if it meant getting away from here right now.

Someone tugged the collar on her coat. “So, tell me,” a voice pierced through the darkness, “this monkey fur, monkey girl?”

Monica looked up to see who had spoken. A tall girl with brown hair nearly the same shade as her hat. She had a smear of lipstick on her teeth that no one had bothered to tell her about, which made her a person even more reviled than Monica. Motivated more by superiority than kindness, Monica told her.

“What’s it to you?” she retorted, though careful to keep her lips covering the offending stain. Then she strode off, as far as a girl can stride in a room not much bigger than her apartment.