While My Pretty One Sleeps (6 page)

He pocketed the money.

“That's better,” Charley said. “What are your hours at the deli?”

“Nine to six. Mondays off.”

“She leaves for work between eight-thirty and nine. Start hanging around her apartment building. The shop closes at six-thirty. Remember, take your time.
It can't look like a deliberate hit
.”

Big Charley started up the engine for the return trip to New York. Once again he fell into his customary silence, broken only by the grunting sound of his breathing. An overwhelming curiosity was consuming Denny. As Charley turned off the West Side
Highway and drove across Fifty-seventh Street, Denny asked, “Charley, got any idea who ordered the job? She don't seem like the kind to get in anyone's way. Sepetti got sprung. Sounds like he's got a memory.”

He felt the angry eyes flash in his direction. The guttural voice was now clear, and the words fell with the impact of a rock slide. “You're getting careless, Denny. I don't know who wants her wasted. The guy who contacted me don't know. The guy who contacted
him
don't know. That's how it works, and no questions asked. You're a small-time, small-mind bum, Denny, and some things are none of your business. Now
get out
.”

The car stopped abruptly at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street.

Uncertainly, Denny opened the door. “Charley, I'm sorry,” he said. “It was just . . .”

The wind was whipping through the car. “Just shut up and make sure that job gets done right.”

An instant later, Denny was staring at the back of Charley's Chevy as it disappeared down Fifty-seventh Street. He walked toward Columbus Circle, stopped at a street vendor for a hot dog and a Coke. When he had finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His nerves began to settle. His fingers caressed the bulky envelope inside the pocket of his jacket.

“Might as well start earning my keep,” he muttered to himself, and began to head up Broadway toward Seventy-fourth Street and West End Avenue.

At Schwab House, he sauntered casually around the block, noting the Riverside Drive entrance to the building. No chance she'd use that. The West End Avenue one was much more convenient.

Satisfied, he crossed the street and leaned against the building directly opposite Schwab House. It would make a great observation point, he decided. The door opened near him, and a cluster of residents came out. He didn't want to be observed, so he casually moved on, reflecting that his wino outfit would make him blend into the background while he stalked Neeve Kearny.

At two-thirty, as he crossed town toward the East Side, he passed a line of people waiting to buy tickets for the movie. His narrow eyes widened. Halfway along the queue Neeve Kearny was standing next to a white-haired man whose face Denny recognized. Her father. Denny hurried by, his head buried in his neck. And I wasn't even looking for her, he thought. This is going to be the easiest hit I ever made.

4|

On Monday morning, Neeve was in the lobby, her arms once again filled with Ethel's clothes, when Tse-Tse, a twenty-three-year- old actress, emerged breathlessly from the elevator. Her curly blond hair was early Phyllis Diller. Her eye makeup was violent shades of purple. Her small, pretty mouth had been painted into a Kewpie-doll
bow. Tse-Tse, born Mary Margaret McBride, “After guess who?” as she'd explained to Neeve, was always appearing in off-off-Broadway productions, most of which lasted less than a week.

Neeve had gone to see her several times and had been astonished at how really good Tse-Tse was. Tse-Tse could move a shoulder, droop a lip, change her posture and literally become someone else. She had an excellent ear for accents and could range her voice from a Butterfly McQueen high pitch to a Lauren Bacall throaty drawl. She shared a studio apartment in Schwab House with another aspiring actress and filled out her family's grudgingly small allowance with odd jobs. She'd given up waitressing and dog-walking in favor of cleaning. “Fifty bucks for four hours and you don't have to drag along a pooper-scooper,” as she'd explained to Neeve.

Neeve had suggested Tse-Tse to Ethel Lambston, and she knew Tse-Tse cleaned for Ethel several times a month. Now she regarded her as a messenger from heaven. As the cab arrived, she explained her dilemma.

“I'm supposed to go there tomorrow,” Tse-Tse explained breathlessly. “Honest to God, Neeve, that place is enough to drive me back to walking pit bulls. No matter how tidy I leave it, the next time it's always in shambles.”

“I've seen it.” Neeve considered. “Look, if Ethel doesn't pick up this stuff today, I'll take you there in a cab tomorrow morning and leave everything in her closet. You have a key, I guess.”

“She gave me one about six months ago. Let me know. See you.” Tse-Tse blew Neeve a kiss and started jogging down the street, a flamingo with her permed golden hair, her crazy makeup, her bright purple wooly jacket, red tights and yellow sneakers.

•   •   •

At the shop, Betty helped Neeve again hang Ethel's purchases on the Will Call rack in the sewing room. “This has gone beyond Ethel's rattlebrain behavior,” she said quietly, a worried frown creasing the permanent furrows in her forehead. “Do you think she's been in an accident? Maybe we should report her missing.”

Neeve piled the accessory boxes next to the rack. “I can ask Myles to check about accident reports,” she said, “but it's too soon to report her missing.”

Betty grinned suddenly. “Maybe she's found a boyfriend at last and is off somewhere on an ecstatic weekend.”

Neeve glanced through the open door onto the sales floor. The first customer had arrived, and a new saleswoman was showing her gowns that were absolutely unsuitable for her. Neeve bit her lip. She knew she had something of Renata's fiery temperament and had to watch her tongue. “For Ethel's sake, I hope so,” she commented, then with a welcoming smile went over to the customer and the saleswoman. “Marian, why don't you bring the green chiffon Della Rosa gown?” she suggested.

It was a briskly busy morning. The receptionist kept trying Ethel's number. The last time she reported no response, Neeve had the fleeting thought that if Ethel had met a man and ended up eloping, no one would cheer louder than Ethel's former husband, who after twenty-two years was still sending alimony checks every month.

•   •   •

Monday was Denny Adler's day off. He had planned to spend it following Neeve Kearny, but on Sunday evening there was a call for him at the public phone in the hallway of the rooming house.

The manager of the deli told Denny he'd have to come in to work the next day. The counterman had been fired. “I was figuring out the books and the sonofabitch had his hand in the till. I need you.”

Denny swore silently. But it would be stupid to refuse. “I'll be there,” he said sullenly. As he hung up, he thought of Neeve Kearny, the smile she'd given him the day before when he delivered lunch, the way that coal-black hair framed her face, the way her breasts filled out the fancy sweater she'd been wearing. Big Charley said that she went to Seventh Avenue on Monday afternoons. That meant there'd be no point trying to catch up with her after work. Maybe just as well. He'd made plans for Monday evening with the waitress at the bar across the street and hadn't wanted to break them.

As he turned to walk the dank, urine-smelling hallway back to his room, he thought, You won't get to be another Monday's child, Kearny.

Monday's child was fair of face. But not after a few weeks in the cemetery.

•   •   •

Monday afternoon was Neeve's usual time to spend on Seventh Avenue. She loved the bizarre bedlam of the Garment District, the crowded sidewalks, the delivery trucks double-parked on the narrow streets, the agile delivery boys manipulating racks
of clothes through the traffic, the sense of everyone rushing, no time to spare.

She'd begun coming here with Renata when she was about eight years old. Over Myles's amused objections, Renata had taken a part-time job in a dress shop on Seventy-second Street, just two blocks from their apartment. Before long, the aging owner turned over to her the job of buying for the shop. Neeve could still visualize Renata shaking her head no as an overeager designer tried to persuade her to change her mind about an outfit.

“When a woman sits down in that dress, it will crawl up her back,” Renata would say. Whenever she felt strongly, her Italian accent would leap into her voice. “A woman should get dressed, look in the mirror to make sure she doesn't have a run in her stocking, a drooping hem, and then she should forget what she is wearing. Her clothes should fit like a second skin.” Renata had pronounced it “skeen.”

But she also had an eye for new designers. Neeve still had the cameo pin one of them had presented to Renata. She had been the first to introduce his line. “Your mama, she gave me my first break,” Jacob Gold would remind Neeve. “A beautiful lady, and she knew fashion. Like you.” It was his highest compliment.

Today as Neeve wended her way from Seventh Avenue through the West Thirties, she realized she was vaguely distressed. There was a throbbing pain somewhere in her psyche, like an emotional sore tooth. She grumbled to herself, Before long, I'll really be one of those superstitious Irish, always getting a “feeling” about trouble around the corner.

At Artless Sportswear, she ordered linen blazers with matching Bermuda shorts. “I like the pastels,” she murmured, “but they need a dynamite something.”

“We're suggesting this blouse.” The clerk, order pad in hand, pointed to a rack of pale nylon blouses with white buttons.

“Uh-uh. They belong under a school jumper.” Neeve wandered through the showrooms, then spotted a multi-colored silk T shirt. “That's what I mean.” She picked up several of the T shirts in different color patterns and brought them over to the suits. “This with the peach; that one with the mauve. Now we've got something going.”

At Victor Costa, she chose romantic boat-necked chiffons that floated on the hangers. And once again Renata drifted into her mind. Renata in a black velvet Victor Costa, going to a New Year's Eve party with Myles. Around her throat she'd worn her Christmas present, a pearl necklace with a cluster of small diamonds.

“You look like a princess, Mommy,” Neeve had told her. That moment had been imprinted on her memory. She'd been so proud of them. Myles, straight and elegant with his then prematurely white hair; Renata, so slender, her jet-black hair piled in a chignon.

The next New Year's Eve, a few people came to the apartment. Father Devin Stanton, who was now a bishop, and Uncle Sal, who was still struggling to make his mark as a designer. Herb Schwartz, Myles's deputy commissioner, and his wife. Renata had been dead seven weeks . . .

Neeve realized that the clerk was waiting patiently at her elbow. “I'm woolgathering,” she apologized, “and it isn't the season
for that, is it?”

She placed her order, went quickly to the next three houses on her list and then, as darkness began to fall, headed for her usual visit to Uncle Sal.

The showrooms of Anthony della Salva were now spread throughout the Garment District. His sportswear line was on West Thirty-seventh Street. His accessories on West Thirty-fifth. His licensing on Sixth Avenue. But Neeve knew she would find him in his main office on West Thirty-sixth. He had started there in a tiny two-room hole-in-the-wall. Now he occupied three sumptuously equipped floors. Anthony della Salva,
né
Salvatore Esposito from the Bronx, was a designer on a par with Bill Blass, Calvin Klein and Oscar de la Renta.

To Neeve's dismay, as she crossed Thirty-seventh Street she came face to face with Gordon Steuber. Meticulously dressed in a tan cashmere jacket over a brown-and-beige Scottish pullover, dark-brown slacks and Gucci loafers, with his blaze of curly brown hair, slender, even-featured face, powerful shoulders and narrow waist, Gordon Steuber could easily have had a successful career as a model. Instead, in his early forties, he was a shrewd businessman with an uncanny knack of hiring unknown young designers and exploiting them until they could afford to leave him.

Thanks to his young designers, his line of women's dresses and suits was exciting and provocative. He makes plenty without having to cheat illegal workers, Neeve thought as she stared coldly at him. And if, as Sal hinted, he was in income-tax trouble, good!

They passed each other without speaking, but it seemed to
Neeve that anger emanated from his persona. She thought of hearing that people emitted an aura. I don't want to know the color of that aura right now, she thought as she hurried into Sal's office.

When the receptionist spotted Neeve, she rang through immediately to the private office. An instant later, Anthony della Salva, “Uncle Sal,” came bounding through the door. His cherubic face beamed as he hurried to embrace her.

Neeve smiled as she took in Sal's outfit. He was his own best ad for his spring line of menswear. His version of a safari outfit was a cross between a paratrooper's jumpsuit and Jungle Jim at his best. “I love it. It will be all over East Hampton next month,” she said approvingly as she kissed him.

“It already is, darling. It's even the rage of Iowa City. That frightens me a little. I must be slipping. Come. Let's get out of this.” On the way to his office, he stopped to greet some out-of-town buyers. “Are you being helped? Is Susan taking good care of you? Wonderful. Susan, show the lazy-time line. It will walk out of the store, I premise you.”

“Uncle Sal, do you want to take care of those people?” Neeve asked as they cut through the showroom.

“Absolutely not. They'll waste two hours of Susan's time and end up buying three or four of the cheapest pieces in the place.” With a sigh of relief he closed the door of his private rooms. “It's been a crazy day. Where does everyone get the money? I raised my prices again. They're outrageous and people are fighting to put in rush orders.”