The War Against Miss Winter (11 page)

F
RIDAY
J
AYNE AND
I
SPENT
the better part of the day milling about the Garment District looking for a dress that met two requirements: it made me look like a knock-out and I could afford it. When neither qualification co-existed in one spectacular gown, we went back to the Shaw House where I sulked about, proclaiming this was a sign I was supposed to stay home that night.

“But you can’t!” Having no clothing dilemma of her own, Jayne found it hard to empathize with mine. She planned on wearing one of several frocks Tony B. had bought her that were cut so low and slit so high that the only part of her guaranteed no exposure was her stomach.

I retreated to my bed and shifted a stack of magazines to my lap. “Trust me: it’s better for everyone if I stay home.” The plan was to go to a gin joint the civilian shortage had turned into a gangster hangout. I’d never been there before, but I knew the kind of place it was. A girl had to be dressed to the nines if she wanted to survive the night.

Jayne pursed her lips and threw her arms across her chest. “I’m not taking no for an answer.” She stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind her. Churchill and I ignored the melodrama and instead examined a woman poured into a red dress and sprawled across the cover of
Detective Fiction Weekly
. Now there was a dame who was dressed for a night out with Tony B. She even carried a gun.

I flipped through the magazine, looking for a story to grab my attention. Instead, a circular shoved inside fluttered to the bed, announcing that the publication may be reducing its frequency thanks to the war-induced paper shortage. In addition to irking me, the note reminded me of Jack, who was not, at that moment, trying to find something he could wear on a blind date.

“But he would,” I told Churchill. “If he could.”

“Rosie?” Jayne opened the door and stuck her head into the room. Her body followed and was joined by a second form. “It’s our lucky day—Ruby has offered to lend you a dress.” Filling Ruby’s arms were ten evening gowns in a variety of styles and colors. She eyed my choice in literature and looked heavenward.

“Thanks but no thanks.” I gave a queenly wave to dismiss them. “I don’t feel comfortable wearing Ruby’s rags.”

“If you’re worried about stretching them,” cooed Ruby, “I can lend you a girdle.”

That did it. I tossed aside the magazine, rose from the bed, and sucked in my stomach. “That wasn’t my worry, though I appreciate your concern.” I grabbed a dress and held it in front of me. The bureau mirror reported that the color was nice but the cut all wrong.

Ruby sat on the bed and smoothed the remaining dresses across her lap. “Jayne says you’re going on a fix-up tonight.”

“Oh, she did, did she?” I tried to meet Jayne’s eyes and found her gaze focused out the window.

Ruby fluttered her lashes. “If you’re looking to meet someone, I might know a few fellows about your age.”

“Gee, that’s swell of you, Rube, but I’d think you’d want to concentrate on your own love life.” I relieved her of the other dresses and went behind an Oriental screen we’d stashed in the corner. “How’s the job hunt going?”

“You’re looking for a job?” asked Jayne.

“No,” snapped Ruby. “As a matter of fact, several things have come through for me.”

I pulled a red sequin-encrusted number over my head. “Good for you. I’m assuming one of them isn’t Bentley’s play? I understand he got new funding.” I zipped the dress and peered around the screen until I could see my reflection in the bureau mirror. The gown bagged at the bosom and made my hips look like a boy’s.

“I don’t know what Lawrence is or is not doing,” said Ruby. “WEAF hired me for a weekly show and I was cast in a play at People’s Theatre.”

Jayne’s head volleyed from Ruby to my reflection. I receded into my corner. “I thought it was cast?” I asked.

“Oh, it was, but the director decided to go in a new direction.”

I yanked off the sequined dress and replaced it with something black and itchy. “What does that mean?”

Ruby touched her fur-trimmed collar the way rich old women fawn over little dogs. “I’m not sure. All I know is they called and offered me a sizable part. I didn’t even have to audition.”

Jayne cleared her throat and I rose onto my tiptoes and caught her eye in the mirror. She misread my attempt to shut her head and raised her squeaky voice. “Aren’t you in that show, Rosie?”

“Nix on that,” I said between clenched teeth.

“Is that so?” Ruby threw me a look that was so condescending it wore a crown. “This will be our first show together. Won’t that be fun?”

“Loads.”

She glanced at her wristwatch. “If you’ll excuse me, girls, I have other things I need to be doing.” She opened the door. “Take your time picking out a dress, but be careful. Some of those gowns are very expensive.” As she exited, I emerged from my cave.

Jayne slouched onto the bed and dragged Churchill into her lap. “That’s a pretty dress.”

“Yeah, all I need are a couple of balloons in my bra and it will fit perfectly.” I struggled with the zipper and dropped the gown to the floor. “Why did you have to ask her for help?”

Churchill’s tail wrapped around Jayne’s wrist. “I wanted you to come out tonight.”

“Now not only do I not want to go, I want to kill her.”

Jayne sank her fingers into Churchill’s back. “You know you don’t mean that.”

I stepped on the dress, crushing wrinkles into the delicate fabric. “All right, I don’t want to kill her, but I’d be interested in seeing her get
a very bad bruise. She’s stealing my part.”

“You’re off your nut.”

I kicked the dress out of spite. “There are two women’s parts in that show: a moll and a Mother Hubbard.”

“She said they were going in a new direction. Maybe he decided to add more women to balance things.” Jayne’s hand caught Churchill beneath his chin and ruffled his fur.

I retrieved another dress and pulled it over my head. “Or maybe Ruby called in a favor and got me booted.” My arms made it into the sleeves, but my head couldn’t find its hole. I staggered blindly until Jayne came to my aid and directed my noggin upward.

“She didn’t even know you were cast in the show.”

The shoulder seam let out a satisfying rip. “Oh, she knew. She’s the one who gave me the message. This is her revenge.”

“For what?”

I rapped my noodle, hoping to shake a logical explanation loose. One fluttered free and I acknowledged it with a snap. “Right after Bentley broke up with her I told her, we’d met him and he’d been on the make.”

“And you think she’d use that as a reason for getting even with you?” Jayne was losing patience with me. “It’s Friday, Rosie. If they decided not to cast you, they would’ve called. They wouldn’t let you show up on Monday and tell you you’re fired.”

I examined myself in yet another overpriced, ill-fitting dress. “They would, if Ruby asked them to.”

By eight o’clock I was decked out in Ruby’s most expensive gown (brown taffeta enhanced by my thickest socks) and an updo that showed my neck to good advantage. While Jayne finished drawing seams on the backs of her bare legs, I took refuge from the cat hair and went down to the lobby with an issue of
The Shadow
.

“Aren’t you gussied up,” said Belle as I came down the stairs. In her hand was a feather duster that matched the plumage-lined purple dress
she’d donned to clean the house.

“Just the woman I wanted to see.” I’d been waiting for the perfect moment to tell her about the People’s Theatre gig. I gracefully left the stairs, twirled her way, and tripped over a pile of luggage.

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

Belle shook her head. “It’s not mine. It’s Veda Dale’s.”

Veda Dale was a dancer who’d moved into the Shaw House a few months before. She was a talented girl with the grace of Ginger Rogers and the face of Fred Astaire. “No work?” I asked.

“No brother,” said Belle. “Her folks called this morning. He was gunned down in North Africa. If you know of anyone who needs a room, we’ve got an opening.”

My desire to rub in my new job instantly disappeared. It was funny how other people’s grief hit me. I was devastated for them, but I also felt like I’d dodged a bullet. I still believed there could be only so much death in the world and each time someone else died they were taking up a slot that might have been Jack’s.

Belle continued along her path to the kitchen. “I understand congratulations are in order.”

I followed after her. “What are you talking about?”

“The job you just got, you sap. Ruby told me about it. She was so happy for you she couldn’t keep it to herself.” I let out a noise like a low growl. Belle flicked her feathers in the direction of the lobby and lowered her voice. “By the way: your visitor’s here.”

“My what?”

She tipped her head toward a man sitting with his back to me. “Your visitor.” She winked, then disappeared behind the kitchen’s swinging door. I stepped toward the lobby and paused at an angle where I could better see my companion’s back. Close-cropped dark hair ended above a wool navy peacoat. The shoulders were square and strong. He held his head at an angle that suggested he was a man who knew from posture, probably because a director had told him that slouching was appropriate only if your character’s name was Quasimodo.

My dream
had
been a sign—Jack was home! I gave my breath a quick
check and verified there were no sweat stains in my armpits. I put my arm on the banister and fixed a gentle smile on my face. “Couldn’t stay away, could you?”

Edgar McCain turned around and sliced his face with a grin. “From the look of the place, I never would’ve guessed there were dress requirements.”

I ignored the hand he offered me and hid my disappointment beneath layers of carefully applied disgust. “I’ve got a blind date.” He made a move to respond, but I continued rattling. “And before you come up with some witty retort, let me say I’m amazed a member of your species can walk upright, which is proof that miracles do happen, my own plans notwithstanding.”

His eyes drifted chest level. “I was going to say you look nice.”

“They’re socks and you’re a pig.” I covered myself as best I could and stepped away from him. “To what do I owe this unexpected and wholly inappropriate pleasure?”

He reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope. Through the thin paper I made out the outline of a check. “My mother asked that I deliver this to you.”

I took it from him and shoved it into my evening bag. “And you have—good-bye.”

“Don’t I get a thank-you?”

I curtsied as anyone in an evening gown should. “Thank you. In the future, might I recommend you use the post office? They’ve made a business of this delivery stuff and do a bang-up job from what I understand.”

He tilted his head as one did when talking to a very small child. “But then I wouldn’t have gotten to see you.”

“I’d be flattered if I didn’t know you better.”

The half smirk disappeared. “What do you say we grab a cup of coffee?”

“If by
we
you mean you and me, I say no. Look, Mr. McCain, I have things to do. There’s the floor, and there’s the door. I guarantee if you follow one it will lead to the other.” I clutched the pulp to my chest and
turned toward the stairwell.

“Don’t call me Mr. McCain.”

I kept my back to him and rolled my eyes. “Fine:
captain, lieutenant, whatever
.”

“I mean my name’s not McCain.”

Curiosity got the better of me and spun me around.

“Jim McCain wasn’t my father. He was my stepfather.” He removed his hat and rested it in the crook of his arm. “My last name’s Fielding. Is that incentive enough for you to join me?”

I
LEFT WORD WITH
B
ELLE
that I’d gone up to Charles Street to grab some java at Louie’s, a hash house known for its cheap food and dim lighting. Within ten minutes Edgar and I were in a corner booth stirring condensed milk into twin cups of joe and bumping gums about the war. When it became apparent that I had less to contribute than Sally Rand had clothes, he lit a cigarette, extinguished his match, and jumped to his point.

“Who were you expecting?” he asked. He removed his coat, revealing the same stark blue uniform I’d seen him in at Jim’s funeral. A gold eagle nested on his lapel, watching me in judgment.

I tapped my spoon on the lip of my mug. “What do you mean?”

“Was your date supposed to pick you up?”

Since he offered the lie, I grabbed it. “Yes.”

He mulled this over a drag on the gasper. “Funny, I thought you said it was a blind date.”

“Don’t worry: that steel trap you call a brain is accurate.”

He nodded, his butt bobbing along with his head. “Yet the first thing out of your mouth was ‘you couldn’t keep away, could you?’”

I narrowed my gaze. I wasn’t about to share any fantasies about Jack returning to me. “What’s your point?”

He leaned into the table and turned discomfort into a threat. “I know when you’re lying.”

I chased his malice with a slug of coffee and willed myself to show no fear. He couldn’t do anything to me. It was a public place. “It’s been quite a week for you, Ed. Both your dad and stepdad killed in one day.”

“Don’t call me Ed.”

“Then drop the military mind games.” Nerves yanked my voice to a
pitch that left dogs begging for earmuffs. “While I enjoyed hearing about your family tree, what do you want?”

“I need to know where the files went.”

I fluttered my eyelashes in my best impersonation of innocence. “Last I saw they went into crates which presumably went into a moving truck.”

“The office was empty when the movers arrived.”

I cocked my head and toasted him with my coffee cup. “Gee, I’m sorry to hear that. Next time you might want to consider hiring a guard in addition to a file clerk.” Before my cup reached my lips, Edgar’s paw knocked it from my hand, sending steaming liquid all over the table and the front of Ruby’s gown. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“This isn’t a game,” said Edgar.

“And this isn’t my dress.” Anger pulverized whatever fear I felt until all I could think about was shoving my spoon in his eye. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I rose and pushed at the table as hard as I could. Its metal-lined edge bounced off Edgar’s abdomen while the legs slammed into the floor. The impact grabbed everyone’s attention. The cook and busboys filled the kitchen doorway and watched us warily from a distance.

Edgar grabbed my wrist and attempted to pull me back into my seat. “Lower your voice.”

I wrenched myself free and reprimanded him with the stained napkin. “Lower my voice? Look, pal, you’re the one who turned things nasty.” My volume increased until it lingered near Medea’s. “If I feel like screaming my lungs out while I buzz the coppers, I think I’m entitled.”

“You all right, miss?” asked a tentative black man in white chef’s garb.

“She’s fine,” said Edgar. Again he made for my arm, but I moved before he could touch me. His teeth clenched, turning his voice from a snarl to a hiss. “Let’s start over, Rosie.”

“You must have me confused with some other chippy. I’m leaving.”
I reached for my evening bag on the booth seat and couldn’t find it. I located the purse with my foot and bent down to retrieve it. As my hand made contact with the strap, Edgar joined me in the dark cavern beneath the table.

“I don’t think your leaving is such a good idea.” He took hold of the bag and we engaged in a momentary game of tug-of-war.

“Give me one good reason why I should stay.”

“I have your purse.”

It was a nice purse. More to the point, it had my lipstick, compact, and Eloise’s check in it. “I have other purses.”

His voice slipped just above silence. “I also have a gun.”

I struggled to get out from under the booth, but in my panic my head hit one of the table’s metal supports. Dull pain reverberated from the center of my skull to my lower back. Edgar released my purse and took hold of my wrist.

I think I said, “Let go of me,” but the ringing in my noggin was so loud it was impossible to tell the difference between what I was thinking and what I was saying.

Edgar kept his voice low and calm. To anyone listening, his tone would’ve been gentle and reassuring but his words indistinct. “Ponder this: You think anyone here’s going to help you? The dark meat in the kitchen’s not going to protect you. I’m an officer in uniform.” He was right. I may have been a regular, but that didn’t mean the staff would take a slug for me. Given how little I tipped, the waitress would probably help Edgar aim the gun.

I stared at the top of the table and counted six wads of petrified chewing gum and a mysterious blob I feared once resided in a human orifice. I didn’t want to die here.

“Here’s how this is going to play,” said Edgar. “We’re going to get up and sit back in the booth. You’re going to act like a remorseful girlfriend and go along with whatever I say. Then you and I are going to have a little chat.” I evaluated my options. I could scream, assuming my mouth still worked, but gun or no gun Edgar was goofy and my angering him further wasn’t going to get me home. He had the bulge. “What do you
say, Rosie?” I nodded my consent, closing my eyes against the pain of my noodle sloshing about my skull. “If we get up and you run, I’ll fire. Be certain of that.” He released my wrist and I scooted backward until I made contact with the booth. Slowly I pulled myself into the seat and made a pact with God that if the room stopped spinning, I’d be a very good girl.

All eyes were on us. The kitchen staff waited in the doorway, uncertain whether to flee or charge.

Edgar’s voice returned to normal and his eyes crinkled under the strain of his false smile. “You overreacted. There’s no other girl for me. You’ve got to know that.”

So that was the role I was supposed to play—the brave sailor’s jealous girlfriend. If there was a bright side to the situation, at least I got to sink my teeth into a part I’d normally be passed over for. “Golly, I’m sorry.” I tried to widen my eyes, but the pounding in my head wouldn’t allow it. “I do know how you feel for me. I don’t know why I’m always gunning for trouble.” Motion returned to the room. The kitchen staff disappeared and the noise of the swinging door joined a chorus of conversations that eclipsed our own. A very pregnant waitress silently mopped up the remaining coffee and produced a tumbler of club soda to use on the dress’s stain. As I cleaned myself, Edgar retrieved a menu and feigned interest in that evening’s specials.

The waitress waddled over to a new table full of women dolled up for a night on the town. Edgar slid his hand, palm up, across the table and gestured for me to do the same. I did as he instructed and like two lovers we played with each other’s fingers and bent into our conversation.

“I’d like to start by apologizing,” he said. I snorted, then covered up the contempt with a fake cough. “As you said, it’s been a very bad week for me.”

“You’re not the only one.”

He closed his hand over mine. “I won’t hurt you,” he said.

“That’s a funny pledge from a guy packing heat.”

His eyes drifted down to the table. “I lied. I don’t have a gun.”

“Then I don’t have a reason to stay.” My keister rose into the air as
my hand slid free of his. Like a snake, his arm followed mine, again making contact.

“Don’t you want to know about Fielding’s missing play?”

I froze, rump north, while common sense did battle with curiosity. The latter won out and I lowered myself back into the booth. “I’m listening.”

Edgar took a sip of coffee, then directed his cup back to his saucer with the kind of care one took landing planes. “Are you surprised I know about it?”

“Should I be? You were his son.”

He spun his cup until the handle rested at twelve o’clock. “My father loved the theater. As a writer he believed art should challenge the audience and force them to think.”

I squeaked forward in my seat. “Sounds like a right guy.”

“I’ll leave that assessment to you. Have you read much of his writing?”

I could fake my way through many things, but this wasn’t one of them. “No.”

He nodded, pleased with either my honesty or my ignorance. “As I’m sure you know, he wrote much of his work anonymously. His reasoning for this was explained in
On Theatre
, a book most universities continue to inflict on their students.” As Edgar spoke, his manner changed as though his recent installation into military life didn’t often allow for these detours down a past that had been filled with college and other hoity-toity pursuits. And he missed it because while being in the service allowed for many things, it didn’t give him the chance to freely express his intellectual superiority. “He wrote that his ideal play was one that appeared to have been produced organically, without any sign of the writer in it. He thought the playwright should be as our best actors are: so completely submerged in their parts that, were the play removed from the stage, it would be impossible to tell where the character began and the actor ended. To this end he touted the merits of complete realism. He also believed the easiest way to remove someone from the distancing of theater was to make sure whatever story he was telling was so astound
ing the audience would lose themselves in what they were hearing rather than the method by which they were hearing it.”

I thought of Jim’s note scribbled on the outside of the file folder: What would shock you? “So he liked to surprise people?” I asked Edgar.

He nodded. Our hands sat in grim prayer, his naked and wind-chapped, mine painted and ready for a night on the town. “I came to see you tonight because I believe Jim was very close to locating my father’s missing play and I believe this information was documented in his files. When I found the office had been burgled, you can imagine my dismay.”

“Actually, I can’t,” I said. His arm stretched like a waking cat, revealing a wristwatch with a plain black leather band. It was going on 9:30. Jayne would be throwing an ing-bing if I didn’t show up soon. “While you’ve told me many interesting things, and shown me parts of Louie’s I never would’ve visited on my own, I still don’t understand why you want this play.”

He rubbed his chin. Hair was starting to peek through his skin as though spending an hour with me required him to be at his most masculine. “It was my father’s last work and it was important enough for someone to kill him over. Is that enough of a reason for you?”

“Is it worth something?” I asked.

“Not monetarily. Given the passionate response its existence has caused, I think it’s safe to say that it’s worth a great deal to someone and not much at all to most everyone else.”

“So why not let that someone have it then?” I asked. “I mean, if the play was worth killing over, why would you want to put yourself at risk?”

Edgar sighed and released his hold on me. “It’s far too complicated to make you understand.”

It wasn’t, but I knew better than to go over the edge with the rams.

“What I need to know,” said Edgar, “is what was in Jim’s files?” His eyes locked on mine. He tapped his foot expectantly.

I concentrated on my pulse and heart rate, begging my body to relax as spies did right before submitting to lie detectors. “Like I told your ma,
there was nothing in them. I went through everything, every last scrap, and never even found a folder with Fielding’s name on it.”

His head sank into his hands. “I told her we should’ve taken them out of the office from the start.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry.” I rose, unencumbered, and tucked my bag under my arm. “Can I ask you something, Edgar?”

He lifted his head. “Sure.”

“What exactly was your ma’s relationship with Fielding?”

He paused before answering, his lips as thin as the gold lines drawn on his cuffs. “They never married if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Far be it for me to be judgmental, but Eloise doesn’t strike me as the kind of gal who would be comfortable having a kid out of wedlock.”

“My father didn’t give her much choice in the matter.”

It was hard to picture Eloise taking that lying down. “Did Jim know who your real father was?”

“Most likely, yes.” It was an odd answer and he knew it, and yet somehow I could tell that it was the most honest answer he could’ve given me.

“Did he ever talk to you or your ma about Fielding’s script?”

“By the time the play went missing their relationship was sufficiently strained that I doubt Jim would’ve considered talking to her.”

I could believe that. If the circumstances of his murder were any indication, Jim wasn’t in the habit of coming home regularly. And I doubted, when he did appear, that either he or Eloise was up for conversation. “What about you?”

“Jim was my stepfather in name only. We had no relationship.”

A chill passed through me. Why had Jim resigned himself to a loveless marriage, uniting himself with a son who wouldn’t know affection if it bit him on the leg? It couldn’t always been that way, could it? Nobody would choose to become trapped in a relationship like that. “When was the last time you saw Fielding?”

Edgar’s eyes lingered on mine, their fierceness overtaken by something much more pathetic. “It’s been years. He hated to be thought of as a weak man. After he lost his leg in the war, he became a recluse.”

“Were you close to him?”

Emotion softened the lines of his face until he looked like a much younger version of himself. “Extremely. I may not have seen him, but he communicated almost daily through letters and telephone calls.”

I might have believed him if he’d been mentioned once in the obituary.

Edgar paid for the coffee and insisted on ankling back with me. The temperature had dropped during our hour inside. Light snow drifted lazily to the ground, turning our path white while making a mess of my shoes. I kept my eyes on the ground, seeking out patches of ice so I wouldn’t have to rely on his touch to regain my balance. Neither of us spoke during the walk and this quiet monotony lengthened the road and shortened my stride.