Kim made it to his feet and the officer caught him or he would have gone down again. Kim touched his jaw.
“They ought to prop these buildings up better,” he said, “so they wouldn’t fall on people.”
“What happened to him?” the officer asked me. “Who was in that car? Somebody slug him?”
There was no point in implicating Donald. I gave the cop my best smile and said, “I don’t know about the car, officer. This is just a little lover’s quarrel.”
“Don’t give me that!” he said loudly. “What’d you scream for?”
I doubled up my fist. “I don’t know my own strength, officer. I screamed because I thought I’d killed him.”
The cop turned to Kim. “Don’t tell me this dish knocked you flat!”
“This dish, as you so rudely call her, officer, was once the woman heavyweight champion of Atlanta, Georgia.”
The cop hitched up his pants, glared at both of us with deep disgust, and walked off down the street, mumbling to himself.
I took Kim’s arm. “How do you feel, legal eagle?”
“Polite, but firm. The boxing coach in college told me never to lead with a right. And yet I have the vague memory that the citizen who came out of the car led with his right. What happened to Donald?”
“He probably would have liked to kick you in the head, but the law was galloping down on us and the chauffeur had better sense.”
“For a playboy he wants to play rough. Where can we get some medicine?”
“Medicine?”
“Yes, Muscles. My head aches. I need wheatcakes, scrambled eggs, black coffee, toast and marmalade.”
There was a booth in the back of the small, cheery restaurant. After Kim ordered, I opened my purse, handed him the device I had unscrewed from the lamp and told him the whole story. He held the plug so tightly in his lean hand that his knuckles turned white.
“That seems to narrow it down a bit,” he said. “Your unknown admirer is someone who could have had access to the dressing room. I wish you hadn’t handled that bulb, but my guess is that whoever unscrewed it was smart enough to wipe it off. Also, despite popular belief to the contrary, a clear fingerprint is a very unusual thing to find.”
“So my pappy used to say. Joe Ryan, with the flattest feet on the force. A great guy, Kim. You would have liked him.”
“What happened to him?”
“Some eighteen-year-olds with a war souvenir pistol were taking fur coats out of a loft. There were three of them. The old man clumped up the stairs and managed to catch five of the six slugs in the chest. The five slugs annoyed him so much that he shot two of the fur thieves through the head and got the third one in the middle. The third one died the next day, two hours before the old man did. Six weeks later my mother paid a nickel to join Dad. Courtesy of the Eighth Avenue Subway.”
He reached across and touched my hand. “Why do you make yourself sound so bitter?” he asked.
I looked down into my lap, hoping that he wouldn’t see the tears. My voice came out surprisingly small as I said, “What else can I do? Sing Hearts and Flowers.”
“Don’t be like that, Hank,” he said. “You’re not like that underneath.”
I looked at him. “What makes you think you know what I’m like underneath? I’ve consistently lost everybody I’ve learned to love. The world is a rough little place, and I’m the rough little gal who can handle it.”
He took his hand away and shrugged. “Have it your way, lady. Let’s get back to cases. Who could have gotten into your dressing room?”
“Betty doesn’t lock the door. She locks the closet with my clothes and purse inside and leaves the key under the saucer on top of the dressing table. Both rest rooms are in the downstairs hallway. Anybody could find a chance to duck up the stairs and go into the dressing room.”
He thought that one over. “But whoever it was, Hank, that person would have to know your habits. They’d have to know that Betty left after helping you for the first show. They’d have to know that you’d go over to the dressing table and reach for the switch on the tablelamp.”
“That wouldn’t be hard to figure. It’s the only lamp in the room. And anybody could see Betty leave night after night.”
“Would it have to be somebody who was in the club as a customer or an employee?”
I thought that one over. “Not even that, Kim. The side door has one of those gimmicks on it that keeps it from closing quickly. Lots of the band boys catch fresh air out the side door and leave it propped open with a pack of matches so they can get back in. The shadows are deep back there. A person could hide in the shadows and wait until one of the band boys came out, finished his smoke and pulled the door open to go in. He or she would have time to get to the door and stop it before the latch clicked.”
“Then it could have been anyone,” he said in a discouraged tone.
“Except Donald. He was waiting.”
“And if he’d done it, it would be a good angle for him to wait around.” We sat and stared at each other blankly. He said, “We better get in touch with the police.”
I shook my head. “Kim,” I said patiently, “if I were a clerk in a store or a stenographer or a housewife, we could get in touch with the police. But you forget my line of work. Any kind of publicity helps my income. I can see a brighteyed lieutenant snickering and saying, ‘And so you figure somebody is trying to knock off the famous Laura Lynn? How much newspaper space is she looking for?’ ”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said.
“You don’t know how hard some of the girls and boys fight for those headlines. From bitter experience the cops would suspect that I had fired a shot into my wall, make a scratch across my tummy, broken my own floorboards and fixed up that gimmick to make it look as if I was the lucky girl in a private electrocution. They would sneer wisely and then be very surprised when I stopped breathing.”
“Why don’t you risk it anyway?”
“Because that sort of publicity turns into a boomerang sometimes. The smart boys figure that if your agent dreams up that sort of a sloppy script for you, you must be slipping and need a shot in the arm and they stay clear. I want to keep singing at top rates, Kim.”
“You might be able to convince them anyway — the police I mean.”
It was my turn to touch his hand. “Kim, my lad, I have learned to make the lyrics of moronic songs sound sincere. I have learned how to turn on and off imitation emotion like a kid playing with a faucet. However, when it comes to the real thing I just can’t keep it from looking like an act.”
“The fact that you can see yourself that way means that you’re a pretty bright lass, Hank.”
“Pretty, period,” I said brightly.
Betty woke me up and I looked at the bedside clock and found out that it was only eleven. Somebody had rubbed gravel in my eyes and sprayed my teeth with wet peach fuzz.
I peered up at Betty.
“Hank, honey,” she said, “that Mr. Hale is here with another man. I tried to shoo them away, but Mr. Hale said that he would personally come in and bounce you out of bed unless I got you up.”
She giggled, then got my robe out of the closet. I yawned, stood up, slipped into it and belted it around me. I stuck my feet into the battered fleece-lined slippers I have had since I was fourteen and shuffled, yawning again, out into the horrid glare of the living room.
Kim Hale looked disgustingly washed and healthy and full of life. He had a man with him, a man who was completely bald and had a face that looked nineteen years old.
“Hank, meet Baldy Owen,” Kim said. He turned to Betty and performed the same introduction. Then he said pleasantly to Betty, “Shoo!”
The dismissal didn’t fracture her grin. She trotted on out and pretty soon I heard her singing and clattering in the kitchen.