The Mammoth Book Of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits Part 2

Harry had an engagement, probably with his mysterious Uptown inamorata, but after I bemoaned the loss of the martini he'd promised, I suggested he soothe my hurt feelings with one of the bottles of gin I knew he had sitting with the cake of ice in his bathtub. I'd heard his bootlegger deliver in the dead of last night, so I was secure that he would come across.

Hugging the cold bottle to my breast, I climbed the stairs to my flat and found my dear, sweet Mattie at tea in my narrow little kitchen with her betrothed, Detective Gerry Brophy, whom we had met when we first came to live in the Village.

"Don't bother, Gerry," I said as Gerry struggled to his feet.

"Olivia." He was a going-to-orange redhead with loads of freckles and blue eyes that all but disappeared when he smiled, which he was doing at the moment.

"Olivia, tea?" Mattie said, her face flushed from the kettle, and maybe a little more.

"Something stronger, I think. Something purely medicinal, Gerry." I carried the bottle into our parlor and fixed myself the longed for martini. Is there nothing better than the tang of gin on the tongue? I came back into the kitchen. "Oh, Gerry, have you possibly heard about a new girl in the Village with a blue head?"

"Blue hair, you say?"

"No hair. A blue scalp."

He shook his head. "No, I can't say I have."

"I have," Mattie said. "I saw her in Washington Square the other day. Dancing under the arches, dressed as a b.u.t.terfly, she was."

"You never mentioned it," I said. But perhaps I too had seen her earlier in the day, the flare of blue behind me, like the wings of a b.u.t.terfly.

"Olivia, this is the Village. Everyone is a little strange."

"Cept thee and me," I said, pa.s.sing her my gla.s.s. She took a sip and pa.s.sed it along to Gerry, who inhaled the fumes, good cop that he is, and pa.s.sed it back to me and I finished it. "We must celebrate. Walling House is going to publish my first book of poems."

"What happened to Mr Harper?" Mattie asked.

I slipped a cigarette into my holder and bent to get a light from Gerry. "He went up in smoke."

Webster Hall is an auditorium suitable for social functions. For us it is the perfect place for dancing, with boxes overlooking our dance floor and the bar next door that keeps our whistles wet. Amid flying feathers, Kendall held me close as we spun round the floor, colliding now and then with other spinners, releasing more feathers into the air, until it was as if we had burst a mult.i.tude of pillows. I, still languid from making love, buried my face in the hollow of his chest. He is an old friend of Harry's, from the Great War. Kendall and I are, regrettably, only sometime lovers because he works in Washington for the Secret Service as a cryptographer. Still, I think it is the sensuality of antic.i.p.ation that makes a long distance affair work well for us.

A girl in a feathered tutu that was disappearing with each movement danced by with a masked man in a white robe, on which someone had stenciled feathers. The costumes varied from original to extreme, though there were more than enough Robin Hoods and Little Johns. I myself wore a delicious green feather boa, which Mattie and I had found amid elegant clothing in one of the attic trunks that had belonged to Miss Alice, the love of my great aunt Evangeline's life.

The Victrola music would start and stop when whoever was winding it went off to refill his gla.s.s. But it didn't matter because we could hardly hear over the noise of the revelers and we made our own music anyway.

Yet, something disquieted me. A foreboding. I couldn't seem to put my finger on it, this sense that things were off kilter. A whiff of evil in the air. I pushed the presentiment away. We always have fun at our b.a.l.l.s.

The dance floor had gotten crowded with inebriated Pierrots, street urchins, Robin Hoods of every size and shape, sheiks, and artists and their models. We could hardly move, my derriere pressed to that of a Hun in full regalia, feathers like a wreath atop his p.r.o.nged helmet.

I saw Harry at a distance, up in one of the boxes, his arm round Norma Millay. The only concession he'd made to a costume was a huge Indian feather sticking out of his ponytail.

"Let's go upstairs," I said, trying to get Harry's attention. The other boxes were beginning to look like love nests.

"Go ahead," Kendall said, dropping a welcome kiss on my parched lips. "I'll get the gin." Tall as he is, he got lost in the feathered sea almost immediately.

As I made my way to the stairs, waving off first knight, then tramp, and finally a drunken caveman who pawed my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and tried to plant a gin-tainted kiss somewhere on my face, a creature costumed as a brilliant bird b.u.mped me sharply and what seemed to me deliberately.

My Irish temper might have gotten the better of me had not the double doors to the street sprung open revealing the prancing hoofs of a white stallion. The revelry came to a stunning halt. Its rider, an apparition in multi-colored feathers, urged the stallion forward. Something like lightning flashed through the air. A simultaneous gasp filled the hall. The apparition's breast turned crimson. The stallion reared; its rider slid to the floor.

No one moved. Finally, I pushed my way to the injured person, but Harry, the Indian brave, was already there, on his knees beside the still feathers. When I peered through the gathering crowd, I saw a feathered arrow rising from the motionless crimson breast. What I had initially thought were feathers, were shredded bits of colored silk, like b.u.t.terfly wings.

With tenderness most unlike him, Harry brushed the silken shreds from the face of the dead girl, the girl who had ridden in on the white horse, and I saw a flash of vivid blue.

Fania Ferrara was no longer missing.

By the time the police arrived, four coppers in midnight blue, the hall had emptied out, the bar next door shuttered, and the owner of the Victrola had disappeared with it as well. All that remained were scores of dirty gla.s.ses nestled among the feather carpet, and poor dead Fania, her breast dark with clotted blood surrounding the feathered arrow. And of course, Harry, Kendall, and I.

You well may ask what happened to the white stallion. It was last seen cantering up Third Avenue, sprouting wings and taking flight, according to an inebriated fellow clinging to one of the iron struts of the El.

Harry, who'd been holding Fania's white hand, stood. The copper with the most size and the triple chin spilling over his tight collar gave Harry the once-over. "You know her, Melville?"

"Her name is Fania Ferrara, Grundig," Harry said.

Grundig looked round the big hall, took in the evidence of liquored revelry and the feathers. "And I suppose you four were the only ones here."

One needn't respond to a purely rhetorical question.

"You better get Kilcannon." Grundig sent one of the other cops off to find this Kilcannon. Averting his eyes from Fania's nakedness, he then introduced himself as Sergeant Marcus Grundig, took our names, and suggested we wait for the inspector outside the hall. "This is no place for a lady," he said.

I suppose he meant me.

"Olivia?" Mattie's voice pierced my stupor.

I had a beastly hangover, and Kendall, before he left for Washington, had asked me to marry him, spelling for me the end of our affair. I'd sent him off with my usual I'll-think-about-it. I explained to him that my work comes first, that I have no desire to be either wife or mother, but he didn't seem to hear me.

"Olivia."

"You're shouting."

"I'm not shouting."

I peered out from under the bedclothes. The room was swirling and dipping. I ducked back into the cozy darkness.

"Olivia. You'd better drink this."

I peered out again. The room began to calm itself. Mattie was holding a steaming cup in a saucer.

"I need a cigarette."

She set the cup down on the little table next to my bed and lit one for each of us. "What happened last night?"

"How do you know anything happened?"

"Gerry was here this morning with an Inspector Kilcannon. They wanted to see Harry but Harry didn't answer his door."

"We were all upset last night." I took a sip of the hot black tea. My hand was shaking so that a portion went into the saucer. Mattie took charge of it.

"The ball ended badly. Harry's missing cousin Fania was shot dead with a feathered arrow."

"Dear G.o.d," Mattie said. Then: "Harry has a cousin?"

"Harry has more relatives than you would believe. He was terribly upset about Fania."

"I should think so."

"We'd better see how he is."

"Not just yet," Mattie said. "Inspector Kilcannon is in the parlor. And I saw Harry leaving when I brought the milk in."

"We talked to the Inspector last night, or this morning, it was. Told him everything we knew. What else can he want?"

Mattie went down to entertain Kilcannon while I washed my face and wrapped myself in the green patterned j.a.panese kimono I'd found in the attic. My head was throbbing. The tea hadn't helped. I knew just the thing that would cure me and it was in the parlor. Fresh air would have to do. I opened the window. Coming down Bedford Street were Ding Dong, Red Farrell, and Kid Yorke. Knowing they wouldn't be happy to meet up with Kilcannon, I leaned out of the window. They didn't see me. I looked round for something to toss and there was my feather boa. I sailed it out the window and it landed auspiciously on Kid Yorke's derby.

"Hey, Olwer," Kid Yorke wrapped my green boa about his scrawny neck.

Red Farrell and Ding Dong looked up at me.

"Coppers in my parlor," I stage whispered.

They took off with such speed that only a few green feathers fluttered to the street where they had stood only moments before.

Kilcannon, napkin across his knee, was having a cup of tea and a piece of Mattie's shortbread. He was what they call Black Irish, a descendant of the Spanish Armada sailors who jumped ship and married Irish girls: hair jet black, skin tone olive, and the sharp blue eyes of his Irish ancestor. He was thick torsoed without being fat, and had a fine black mustache. In vocation and style, he was as far from any of us here in the Village as you could get. But he was a fine-looking man, and I like fine looking men.

As I waltzed into my parlor, trying to avert my eyes from the liquor cabinet, Kilcannon got to his feet, dislodging the napkin. "Ah, Miss Brown. I hope you'll forgive me for disturbing your work." He set down his teacup and seemed suddenly speechless in my presence.

Mattie choked back a giggle and left us.

"I want to do everything I can to help find who killed Fania." I motioned for him to sit and I sat opposite, taking care with the folds of my kimono before realizing I'd forgotten to put on shoes. I waited for him to ask me whatever it was he wanted to ask, but he was definitely distracted by my bare toes. "Inspector?" I tucked my feet up under me.

The olive skin on his cheekbones flushed. "Perhaps you know where I can find Mr Melville?"

"He's probably gone to the Brevoort to break the news to his cousin Amy Lowell, who came down from Boston yesterday to try to find poor Fania."

"Then I'll be heading in that direction." He rose, almost reluctantly.

I joined him at the door to my parlor. "Have you any more information about who could have done this?"

"Only that there were at least a dozen Robin Hoods and a few Little Johns, all with bows and arrows, and even some Indian braves, say like Melville."

I admit to getting a bit huffy. "Harry didn't have a bow or an arrow and he would never have harmed his cousin."

Kilcannon didn't react. "So Miss Ferrara was staying with Mr Melville while she was visiting the city?"

Was that the point of his visit? "No. He had no idea she was even here until his cousin Amy told him Fania had run away and was somewhere in the city. She asked Harry to try to find her before " Oh, dear, I thought, now I've done it.

"Before?"

"I think you should talk with Harry, or Miss Lowell, about Fania, as I only know a few bits and pieces, second hand." I shut up after that and as soon as Kilcannon left, I had my taste of gin.

A short time later, Harry returned to his flat, and not long afterward, Ding Dong and Red Farrell joined him. There was no sign of either Kid Yorke or, alas, my feather boa.

I stood in the doorway with my gla.s.s of gin. Red Farrell was stretched out on Harry's dilapidated sofa; Ding Dong sat cross-legged on his cluttered desk. Harry lit a cigar.

"What do you know?" I asked.

"She weren't on da street," Red Farrell mumbled without removing the derby from his face. "She were wid some rich people what has a private saloon on da Park."

My knuckles went white on the door jam. "I know them. Everyone knows them. Not a saloon, Mr Farrell, a salon. Harry?"

Harry nodded. "It appears that Fania was befriended by Clara Walling."

The drawing room was white, white walls, white rugs; the damask draperies were white, the chairs and sofas covered in white velvet, the chandelier, white porcelain. Our hostess was an imposing older woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties. A brazen silver streak marked her otherwise dark brown hair. She wore a gown lush in pattern and the color of burgundy, made even more outstanding as she was posed in front of a white marble fireplace.

She greeted me with, "My dear Olivia Brown, I'm so glad to meet you at last. I've been telling Edward for the longest time that he must bring you "

"I always respond to invitations when I receive them," I said, smiling away a pinch of tartness. I did not like Clara Walling.

She locked arms with me. "I'm sure you know most everyone here. Edward, do get Oliver if I may some champagne."

I dipped my head. "Olivia," I said. I took the fluted gla.s.s from Edward. My friends call me Oliver. Clara Walling would not be my friend.

"Perhaps you don't know Jack Dempsey." She was taking the high ground, as if we were in compet.i.tion. Maybe we were, if she and Edward had become lovers. "He's standing in front of the bay window with Lincoln Steffens and " She rolled her peculiar pale hazel eyes "all those girls. You're safe," she continued, touching my red tresses with what I thought to be too much familiarity. "Jack only likes dark-haired girls."

"Bother," I said. "What a disappointment." I was saved by the arrival of Hart Crane and Allen Tate, followed by that notorious lecher Max Bodenheim. Every starving poet, not to mention writer and artist, turned up at Clara Walling's Evenings because she served a sumptuous feast at midnight, a groaning board of ham and turkey and imported cheeses, and the very best of French wines.

As I greeted my friends, I drifted toward the new heavyweight champion who liked only dark haired girls. I do love a challenge, don't you know.

"Oliver!" Lincoln Steffens spotted me he stood well above everyone but Dempsey. Greeting me with a wet kiss and arm round my shoulders, he pressed his way to the side of the champ. "Champ, meet our resident girl poet, Oliver Brown."

Dempsey's an enormous slab of a man with dark, intelligent eyes. My tiny hand entered a maw of muscle. It was not at all an unpleasant sensation. "Oliver?" he said. His voice was gruff, almost shy. I didn't think he was terribly comfortable in this setting.

"My friends think Oliver suits me better than Olivia."

"I like Olivia," the Champ said, my hand still lost in his.

The dark hair girls round him stirred uneasily. I smiled.

Then, wouldn't you know, Michael Walling appeared at my side, apologized to the Champ and whispered in my ear, "Clara likes her guests to circulate and meet other people." And I was rather unceremoniously plucked from the Champ's presence.

In that brief moment, as Michael took my arm and steered me away from Dempsey, my eyes met Clara's amid the crowd there must have been close to two hundred people. She did not like me any more than I did her.

Who was Clara Walling? Where had she come from?

After Harry and I discovered Fania's connection to Clara Walling, I toddled off to Vogue to talk with Edward, ostensibly about the half dozen poems they were buying. He took me to lunch at the Waldorf. We talked about the death of the girl, Fania Ferrara.

"I'm not sure we should plan any more b.a.l.l.s," he said. "We're just attracting too many people from outside, and we don't know who they are."

"Michael is such a dear man," I said, moving the corned beef hash round my plate. The Waldorf was Uptown proper, which meant, no alcohol. "I'd heard last year that his press was in financial difficulties, but he was so rea.s.suring."