Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 10 (3 page)

Searchlights stroked the evening sky, motorcycle cops kept the traffic moving, and hundreds, hell, maybe thousands of gawking pedestrians lined the sidewalks, the flashbulbs of the press popping, as limousine after limousine drew up on Washington Street near State, where a doorman in green and gold livery helped women draped in diamonds and furs step to the curb, followed by husbands in black tie and bemusement. What might have been a Hollywood premiere was only another attention-attracting attempt by a floundering department store to regain its footing in dark Depression days.

The famous showcase windows of Marshall Field’s remained tasteful tableaus of prosperity, the classic Queen Anne opulence of a few years before replaced by Art Moderne; but the faces reflected in their glass belonged to window shoppers whose dreams of lives of luxury were as abstract as the streamlined geometry on display. Retail sales were down and wholesale was a disaster aided and abetted by the Merchandise Mart, the Field Company’s $30,000,000 white elephant, the world’s biggest (mostly empty) building, that mammoth warehouse conceived on the eve of the Crash.

Marshall Field’s clearly needed help, and the heroine of the hour was finally arriving.

The man in uniform opened the door for her and Amelia Earhart seemed to float from the backseat, an angelic blur of white. Then, as she paused to wave at the cheering crowd—her shyness and self-confidence a peculiar, peculiarly charming mix—she came into focus, tall, slender, tanned, loosely draped in a white topcoat, its large mannish collar and lapels those of a trench coat.

The applause and huzzahs ringing around her seemed to both embarrass and amuse Miss Earhart, her wide set eyes crinkling; with Hollywood-style makeup, the elongated oval of her face would’ve seemed pretty, but her features were barely touched with the stuff, a little lipstick, a little powder. Her hair was a dark honey-blonde tousle, her nose small but strong, her mouth wide and sensuous.

Just inside the bank of doors, two men in tails were scrutinizing engraved invitations and checking off names from a guest list limited to 500 of the Midwest’s well fixed. Waiting with them was a handsome devil, also in tails, about thirty, six strapping feet with reddish-brown hair.

Me.

Stepping outside into the crisp March air, where breath plumed from every mouth, I crossed the red carpet to meet our honored guest, halfway. It was the least I could do.

I introduced myself: “Nathan Heller, ma’am. I’m the chaperone your husband arranged.”

Taking in my tux, she flashed me just a hint of an apple-cheeked, winsome, if gap-toothed grin. “You don’t look much like a bodyguard, Mr. Heller.”

She didn’t bother working to be heard above the noisy crowd; she seemed to know I’d be able to hone in on the low-pitched, Midwestern musicality of her voice.

“You don’t look much like a pilot,” I said, taking her arm.

Her smile froze, then melted into an ever better one. “You don’t impress easily, do you, Mr. Heller?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I selected a door and opened it for her. Inside, no one asked to check our invitation. We moved down the long wide main aisle; though this was after normal business hours, the first floor was open, brilliantly illuminated and fully staffed. Some of the wealthy guests were pausing to pick up this and that at the curving plate-glass counters, bright showcases of fine lace, jewelry, perfume, embroideries, and notions. As Amelia strolled by on my arm, eyes turned our way and oohs and aahs accompanied us.

“How lovely,” Amelia said, looking skyward.

She was taking in the fabled Tiffany dome, a million and a half or so pieces of iridescent glass, blue and gold, shimmering six floors above.

“Hell of a lampshade,” I granted.

She laughed gently, then her eyes widened and brightened. “You’re that detective Slim told G. P. about!”

Slim was Charles Lindbergh.

“I’ve heard of you, too,” I said. “I guess you know your husband’s already upstairs.”

“You’ve met G. P.?”

George Palmer Putnam, formerly of G. P. Putnam’s publishing, part-time consultant to Paramount Pictures, full-time husband and manager of Amelia Earhart.

“Oh yes,” I said. “He’s been choreographing things here all afternoon, the management, the staff, the press, me, you name it.”

“That’s G. P. Obnoxious, isn’t he?”

She had a wicked little smile going; I gave her half a smile, just this side of noncommittal, in return.

“That’s an opinion I wouldn’t care to express, ma’am, at least until my expense account had been approved.”

The smile widened and made her face crinkle in all sorts of interesting ways; wind and sun had left their signatures on the once-fair, now-freckled skin. But to me the beauty of those blue-gray eyes was only emphasized by the fine lines at their corners.

She damn near hugged my arm as I escorted her to the elevators where the middle one was being held for us. Then, except for the good-looking elevator girl (Field’s only hired the prettiest—Dorothy Lamour started in one of these cages), Miss Earhart and I were alone.

“Rent the tux for the occasion?” she asked, looking me over, finally stepping to one side, releasing my arm.

I gestured to myself with both hands. “This is mine.”

An eyebrow arched in amusement. “Really? I didn’t know private detectives owned tuxedos.”

I patted under my left arm, where the nine-millimeter was nestled in its holster. “You got to be well-heeled to guard the well-heeled.”

Childish enthusiasm turned her into the tomboy she’d most likely been, growing up. “There’s a
gun
under there?”

“Tailor on Maxwell Street gave me a special cut. Wouldn’t want to create an unfashionable bulge. ’Specially not when I’m guarding a big-time dress designer.”

Which she was, in her way: Marshall Field’s was the exclusive outlet for the Earhart line of clothing, outfits for sports, travel, and spectator wear, sold under franchise by one merchandiser in each of thirty metropolitan areas. Macy’s had New York.

She had a wry smirk going. “I’m not exactly Coco Chanel.”

“Coco Chanel never flew the Atlantic, not to mention the Pacific.”

The latter had been Amelia’s latest accomplishment, a Pacific crossing from Honolulu to California, a little two-day jaunt in January.

“You see, it’s a routine now, Mr. Heller.” The low, melodic voice was weary and resigned. “I set a record and then I lecture on it…even though I hate crowds. And I sell books—which I do write myself, mind you—and clothes, which I do design myself—and even, Lord help me, cigarettes.”

“Don’t tell me you roll your own.”

“No. I detest smoking. Filthy habit.”

“Then why endorse Lucky Strikes?”

Her smile was as sad as it was fetching. “Because I love to fly—and it’s an expensive obsession.”

Our cage shuddered to a stop, and the pretty elevator girl opened the gate and we stepped onto the sixth floor, and Amelia took my arm again. A handsome young man in a gold and green uniform, looking like a chorus boy in a Victor Herbert operetta, took Amelia’s topcoat and ushered us into the salon’s lavish oval foyer, with its beige oak walls and matching carpet and Regency furnishings.

“Miss Amelia Earhart,” a butler intoned. He had an English accent that was almost convincing.

She swept into the salon with her distinctive combination of self-confidence and humility. Applause—of the fingertips in the palm variety, but applause nonetheless—echoed in the main rotunda. She waved it off and began to circulate, shaking hands, saying little, listening to effusive compliments with the patience of a priest.

The spacious circular room, broken up by curtained-off alcoves, had plump, comfortable chairs for plump, comfortable customers to plop down in around the central, beige-carpeted area, where wafer-thin models in costly clothing normally would do their preening, whirling routine.

Tonight, however, the joint was standing room only. Wealthy women, from younger dolls in slinky sparkly gowns to older gals who seemed to be wearing the dining room drapes, took center stage, their tuxedoed husbands at their sides like personal butlers.

In her casual white sheath with its distinctive black-and-white sash, Amelia would have seemed out of place, had she not been the focal point of wide-eyed admiration. Waiters served champagne from silver trays, waitresses ferried
hors d’oeuvres,
and a pianist in tails tickled the keys with Cole Porter. I didn’t tag after my charge, but kept her in sight. With a crowd this select, this controlled, it wasn’t like my experience with the pick-pocket detail was likely to come in handy; still, the ice hanging off these dames made Jack Frost look like a piker.

The most suspicious character in the crowd was probably Mr. Amelia Earhart, that is, G. P. Putnam. There was something wrong with the guy; something that just didn’t fit, though he certainly wore his tuxedo well. He had the tall, broad-shouldered build of an adventurer; but his big square head with its close-cropped dark hair was taken over by the mild features of a college professor, particularly the cold dark beady eyes behind rimless glasses.

And yet, as I’d seen this afternoon as he manipulated everybody at Field’s from the top brass down to the salesgirls, orchestrating the evening like Florenz Ziegfeld putting on a new Follies, he was one glib son of a bitch, whose fast-talking charm was a thin layer over his general disdain for the human race.

So what if he was a con man with a scholar’s puss and the build of a linebacker? He was paying $25 for the evening, better than double my usual rate, so he was okay by me. The job had come in over the phone—he’d called me from his home in Rye, New York, a few days before—and had been a referral from (as he had pompously put it) “our mutual friend, Colonel Lindbergh.”

Right now he was working the room himself, in the company of Field’s amiable president, James Simpson, who was introducing him to Mrs. Howard Linn, one of the local arbiters of fashion.

Stocky, round-faced Bob Casey from the
Daily News,
looking about as at ease in his tux as a dog in a sweater, came trundling over with a glass of champagne in hand. “You’re a little out of your league, aren’t you, Nate?”

“And when did you start covering the fashion beat?”

“When Lady Lindy picked up a needle and thread. Did she give the photogs a chance to snap her, downstairs?”

“Sure. She stopped and waved at the crowd. They probably got some swell shots.”

“Great. It’ll be nice gettin’ some pics of her without the lens louse in ’em.”

“Who?”

He jerked a thumb toward Putnam, who was smiling and laughing as he spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Hughston McBain; McBain was the store manager. “Ol’ G. P. He shoves himself into every interview, every photograph he can. For every ten words you get out of the Queen of the Air, you get a hundred from the Bag of Wind.”

“Well, he’s sure had the Field’s crowd jumping through hoops all afternoon.”

“Shame on them,” Casey snorted. “He’s a cheap flimflammer.”

Putnam looked anything but cheap in his rimless glasses and tails, hobnobbing with Chicago’s elite, who seemed enthralled by his wit and wisdom; or maybe they were just impressed, looking at the guy who slept with Amelia Earhart.

Casey wasn’t through with his critique: “He took over a great publishing house and cheapened it with those fabricated books of his.”

“Fabricated books?”

He sipped, almost slurped, his champagne. “Overnight opuses wove out of headlines. By Admiral Byrd and your pal Lindy, and this big-game explorer, and that deep-sea diver. Ol’ Putnam virtually cast your date, there, in her role.”

“What do you mean, ‘her role’?”

Casey shook his head, his grin a Chicago cocktail of contempt and admiration. “He sold so many copies of Lindbergh’s book, he had a regular casting call, lookin’ around to find a
woman
to fly the Atlantic, so he could publish a follow-up.”

The reporter nodded toward Amelia, who was patiently, smilingly, listening to an overweight, diamond-flung patron of fashion prattle on.

“The belle of the ball, there,” Casey continued, “she was just a social worker in Boston, a weekend flier, till a pal of Putnam’s noticed her resemblance to Lucky Lindy, and the fabricated-book king made a star out of her.”

“You sure you newshounds aren’t just irritated, Bob,” I asked innocently, “that Putnam’s found a way to reuse your stuff for something besides birdcage liner?”

Putnam had spotted me talking with Casey, and he smilingly excused himself from Simpson and a small group of high hats, and made his way toward me, as Casey slipped away.

Hard-edged words emerged from a thin smile in a face as pale as his wife’s was tan. “Hope you’re not giving away trade secrets to the press.”

“I don’t know any to give away, Mr. Putnam.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “I told you, Nate—we’re on a first-name basis. Call me G. P. I’m not some damn snob.”

Nice way to tell me I was beneath him. And since when was “G. P.” a first name?

“Well,” I said, “you’ve scored at least one coup tonight.”

“I think we’ve scored more than one,” he said, pointlessly defensive. The mouth moved quickly, the eyes remained unblinkingly still. “I think we’ve done extremely well, and the night is still young.”

“I was referring to that sourpuss over there.”

He followed my nod and took in the grumpy visage of a stocky, white-templed character in dark-rimmed glasses and a tux that fit like a glove, if the hand in it were missing a finger or two from an industrial accident.

“Is he somebody?” Putnam asked, machine-gunning his words nervously. “I’ve never seen him before, he’s nobody to me.”

“That’s Robert M. Lee. That may sound like he’s a Confederate general, but he’s considerably more important. He’s the editor of the
Trib
’s Sunday section.”

Putnam’s thin upper lip pulled back over very small, white teeth, and his eyes widened with delight. Then the hand settled on my shoulder again and he whispered chummily in my ear: “How about that, Nate? We’re too big to ignore. Even by that fucking Colonel McCormick.”