The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy (24 page)

“Same reason, dude. Where the hell you gonna hide a dead guy in an eight-by-ten room?”

“Good answer, Lieutenant.”

“Thanks. Does Lieutenant Munger have any ideas, Trooper?”

“If he does he ain’t sharing ’em with me.”

“Or me,” Very said. “All I can get out of him is attitude. What’s the gee’s problem, anyway?”

“I just assumed he had a certain personal difficulty with African-American individuals,” Slawski answered stiffly.

“Could be,” Very suggested, “he’s just an all-around schmuck.”

“I’m down to that,” Slawski agreed.

“Dude?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Anyone else’s photo I should be showing to the security guard?”

“Arvin.”

“You got some reason to believe the kid’s involved?”

“I’ve got no reason to believe he isn’t.”

“What aren’t you telling me, dude?” he persisted, his voice growing heavy with apprehension.

“Nothing that I can share with you at the present time.”

“You’re trying to destroy me, aren’t you? You’re purposely trying to destroy me!”

“Why, Lieutenant, whatever do you—?”

“I
knew
this was gonna happen,” he fumed. “The second I laid eyes on you!” He was getting good and agitated now. He almost sounded like his old, normal self. “I
knew
it!”

“Careful, Lieutenant. Think of your brain waves.”

“What seems to be the difficulty here?” Slawski wondered.

“The problem is this gee’s all the time getting in my face!” Very roared.

“I heard that. He the Piffle Man.”

“He
tells
me my business. He
withholds
key information from me—”

“Uh-huh,” Slawski chimed in. “That’s right.”

“He stirs up every single person he comes in contact with—”

“You the man.” Slawski egging him on. “Uh-huh!”

“And
then,
just when he’s managed to turn a neat, orderly investigation into a rat’s nest of nutsiness and hysteria, he pulls some bonehead play that just about gets everybody killed. And guess who he leaves to pick up the pieces?
Me!
Always
me!
” Very stopped short, breathing heavily into the phone, in and out, in and out. “But he doesn’t get under my skin anymore,” he insisted, his voice as soft and sweet as warm maple syrup. “That was the old me.”

“I surely would like to know how you manage it, Lieutenant,” Slawski said. “On account of, dig, I could use me some of that.”

This seemed like a really good time for me to hang up. I left the two of them to hash over the details, pleased that they were starting to bond.

And even more puzzled than I had been. Sometimes, as more information comes to light, the picture becomes clearer. This wasn’t one of those times. Thor had been a dying man. Had he known about it? Is that why he’d shown up on my doorstep? And what about Marco? For some reason Barry’s volatile lover kept nagging at me. Was there something about Marco I was overlooking? Some personal stake he had in Thor’s affair with Clethra? Some connection between him and Tyler? What was I missing?

The phone rang not ten seconds after I’d hung up.

“The police,” Ruth Feingold blustered, “think I killed them both.”

“The police,” I said, “don’t know what to think.”

“Where’s Clethra?” she demanded. “And don’t you dare lie to me.”

“In Connecticut.”

“What, alone?”

“She wanted some time to herself.”

“I see,” she said harshly.

“She’s got a lot on her mind, Ruth. Don’t crowd her or you’ll drive her further away.”

“What the hell do you know about teenagers?”

“Plenty. I still am one.”

That silenced her for a moment. No small feat. “Hoagy, did Thor … did he say anything to you about his health?”

“Not a word.”

“Maybe this explains some of his …” She trailed off, groping around in the eternal dark for some comfort. “How he behaved. Maybe it had already gotten to his brain. That can happen.”

“It can,” I agreed. Who was I to take this crumb of solace away from her?

“I always used to joke about how he was the living embodiment of the dead white male. And now …” She let out a sob. “The poor bastard.”

“Just give Clethra some time to sort through things, Ruth. She’ll come back to you. She’s a good kid.”

“She’s a bitch,” Ruth snarled. “It runs in the family.” And with that she hung up.

Merilee came padding in from the bath in her silk dressing gown. “Darling, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I could have sworn I just heard you say Clethra was a good kid.”

“You must be imagining things.” I glanced up at her standing there, all dewy and fragrant, her cheeks flushed. Tired as always, to be sure. But she’d never seemed lovelier to me than she did at that moment. “Clethra slept in our bed last night.”

“Did she?” she said mildly. “And where did you sleep?”

“In our bed. She came up in the middle of the night. She was frightened. She had a claw hammer.”

“Oh, that old ploy.” Merilee went over to her dressing table and began pawing noisily through her jewelry box. “What
did
I do with my diamond earrings?”

“I calmed her down.”

“Have you seen my diamond earrings, darling?”

“No, Merilee, I haven’t seen your diamond earrings.” I tugged at my ear. “Nothing happened, of course.”

She treated me to her up-from-under look, the one that turns the lower half of my body into ooze. “Of course.”

“You do believe me, don’t you, Merilee?”

“Darling, if I can’t believe in you after all these years who can I believe in?”

“Maybe Neil Young, but I can’t think of anyone else.” I got to my feet and went over to her. “Thor was dying of cancer.”

“I wondered.”

I frowned at her, puzzled. “You wondered?”

“To me, the man was positively begging for it. Running off with his own stepdaughter that way. Picking that fight with those hairy mastodons at Slim Jim’s. Rather surprising, really. Don’t you think?”

“What is?”

“That with all of his macho posturing Thor Gibbs didn’t have the nerve to commit suicide.”

I considered this. “Unless that’s precisely what he did do, Merilee.”

We dressed. The tux for me. Starched white broadcloth shirt with ten-pleat bib front and wing collar, black silk bow tie, Grandfather’s pearl studs and cuff links, something greasy in what was left of my hair. Just kidding about the hair, actually. I have a lush, rampant growth of hair. It’s just that very little of it happens to be on my head anymore. Merilee went with the black velvet Ralph Lauren, the bare-shouldered one that makes her look as willowy as a schoolgirl. Diamond necklace and earrings—yes, she found them. Her long, golden hair up, a bit of color on her lips. She looked positively radiant.

“Where are we going?” she demanded eagerly. She hates secrets more than just about anything else, except possibly Velcro.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“But I must tell Pam where we’ll be, darling. We can’t just be footloose and fancy-free anymore, you know. We have Tracy. We have responsibilities. We have—”

“I’ve written it all down for her,” I said to her soothingly. “Besides, we can pretend, can’t we?”

She straightened my tie and kissed me lightly on the mouth. “We can do more than pretend.”

I unstraightened the tie and kissed her back, not so lightly. Until she lunged for her grandmother’s white silk shawl and escaped for the kitchen, swaying on her three-inch heels in a most beguiling manner.

Pam was rolling out dough for our breakfast scones, all cheerful and pink-cheeked, Tracy watching her solemnly from her bassinet. Lulu was waiting for us anxiously in the doorway wearing the black silk top hat Merilee had had made for her that year she did the Cole Porter musical. A chin strap holds it in place.

“I understand he’s given you our numbers,” Merilee said to Pam dubiously.

“Yes, yes,” Pam reassured her. “Now please do relax and enjoy yourself. I have minded dozens of babies and I haven’t lost one yet. Several, in fact, have gone on to serve in high government positions.

Merilee and I exchanged a look.

I said, “I’m really sorry you said that, Pam.”

Merilee said, “Now you have me truly frightened.”

“Don’t be,” Pam commanded her.

Merilee bent down and kissed Tracy, lingering over her tearfully. Until finally she gathered herself and exclaimed, “I can’t believe we’re actually going out on a date.”

“Believe it.”

She hesitated, glancing at the sheet I’d left by the phone for Pam. “Perhaps I’d better just have one quick little look at the phone numbers where we’ll—”

“Let’s go, Merilee,” I growled, grabbing her by the arm.

“Yes, dear. Gosh, you’re a brute.”

Our limousine was waiting for us downstairs at the awning, turning some heads. It was a spotless 1933 Rolls Phantom II, black and yellow. The uniformed driver, Jimmy Piper, was a retired Scottish race car driver who operated three such vintage limos around town. And had himself a soft spot for Pam’s hot cross buns, as it were. A tub of caviar, toast points and a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon awaited us in the backseat.

The champagne was gone by the time we finished crossing Central Park.

Lulu ate most of the caviar.

First stop was the Post House on East Sixty-third Street, a rousing and boisterous chophouse that served the finest—not to mention largest—cuts of meat in New York City. Chalkboards announced the daily specials, few if any of them recommended as a regular part of one’s daily food pyramid. Not the most romantic dining spot in town, I’ll grant you. But Merilee Nash, in case you didn’t know it, happens to be one of Gotham’s preeminent carnivores. When Rusty’s held a celebrity rib-eating fund-raiser for the Special Olympics she put away more baby back ribs than four out of the five Knick starters. Only Charles Oakley could outeat her.

When Merilee eats out she eats meat. Period.

She turned more than a few heads when we came down the steps from the bar and crossed the dining room to our table. She generally does. Another bottle of Dom Perignon, properly chilled, awaited us. We drank it while we ordered. Caesar salads for starters, mammoth grilled veal chops, blood rare, and nothing but sin on the side—double orders of onion rings, hashed browns and creamed spinach. Merilee tore into her food like a starved, feral animal, pausing only occasionally to wash it down with the not terrible Cotes du Rhone I’d found on the wine list. Lulu went for the pan-fried trout, her tail thumping while she ate. It was the happiest I’d seen her in months. Six months and eleven days, to be exact.

Rob Reiner and Bill Goldman were there polishing off steaks at Goldman’s usual table. Merilee did that thriller with them a few years back, the one she was nominated for, and the three of them have remained friends. Highly unusual in that business. They sent us over another bottle of the wine. We raised our glasses to them and sent them back two slabs of chocolate cake, though in Rob’s case the fresh melon in season might have been a kinder selection.

After Merilee had cleaned her plate she dabbed genteelly at her mouth with her napkin and sat back, green eyes gleaming. “It feels so good to be out and about again, darling,” she purred. “Doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

She gazed across the table at me. “I just have one word for you, mister.”

“What is it?” I asked, gazing back at her.

“Cheesecake.”

“And a lovely word it is, Merilee. Only—”

She stiffened. “Only what?”

“We’re not having dessert here. The evening is young and so are we. Or at least we were at some vague point in the not too distant past.”

She reached across the table and took my hand, her grip steely. She’d ingested a lot of protein. “Where to, darling?”

Where to was the Hotel Carlyle. Not the Cafe, where Bobby Short held court. To the penthouse, where one of the apartments was undergoing renovation that season. I had rented its rooftop terrace for the evening, complete with its view of most of the East Side. A uniformed waiter met us at the elevator with more chilled Dom Perignon. And out on the terrace, in the cool of a sparkling autumn night, the Brad Kerr Trio was playing
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.
Brad was a young piano player from East St. Louis, half black, half Asian and all blind. No one who liked Harry Connick, Jr., had the slightest idea who he was. And that was how he liked it. He was a true keeper of the flame. Two ancient Ellington sidemen backed him on bass and drums. They knew he was the real thing.

Merilee let out a small gasp of glee when they segued into
Georgia on My Mind.
Because this was our song, the one we danced to that first night in the Polish seamen’s club on First Avenue and Ninth Street, when we drank up peppery vodka and each other. When we knew. Just as we still knew.

She slipped into my arms. We danced.

“Darling,” she said huskily, “you very seldom disappoint me.”

“Name one time I have.”

“That opening night party for the Albee play, when I caught you and those other men laughing heartily at Sharon Stone’s jokes.”

“Sharon happens to be a very amusing woman.”

“I see. And what else does she happen to be?”

“Ssh.”

We danced, the city at our feet, the waiter refilling our glasses. Lulu curled up on a cushioned wicker settee and watched us, drowsing contentedly under her top hat. We danced.

“About your brother Philip …” I said, after a while.

“Did you say Philip?” She was somewhat startled. I seldom mentioned him.
She
seldom mentioned him. Merilee’s brother was a lazy, useless sort of person. Had something to do with operating ski lodges somewhere out in Colorado or Utah. “What about him?”

“Did you two ever play doctor when you were growing up?”

“Naturally.” She drew herself up a bit. “It’s normal and healthy for children to be curious about each other’s bodies.”

“How old were you when you stopped playing?”

“Merciful heavens, Hoagy, I don’t remember. I was five or six, I suppose. He was perhaps eight. Why on earth are you—?”

“And is that normal as well?”

“Darling, I really wouldn’t know. And if this is your idea of romantic patter I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve slipped rather dramatically.”