Vincent didn’t say anything.
“She was a cocktail waitress at Spade’s Boardwalk, worked days, ten A.M. to six P.M. Which doesn’t mean she couldn’t have been moonlighting. We talked to Personnel. They tell us she missed two days in a row, didn’t call in.”
“The day she died,” Vincent said, “and the day before that?”
“No, one-ten in the morning they found her. Don’t count that day. They mean the two days before that. She took off, didn’t call in sick or anything.”
Vincent nodded. He said, “You talk to Donovan?”
“He’s got something like thirty-five hundred employees,” Dixie said. “I don’t think he keeps track of ’em all.”
“Donovan hired her, personally. Brought her up from San Juan.”
“Yeah?” Dixie seemed to like that. “We’ll put him on the list.”
“Told her she was gonna be a hostess.”
“Maybe she was. We’ll find out.”
“If you don’t, I will,” Vincent said.
Dixie looked at him but let it go.
“Girl she roomed with identified the body. They only knew each other a couple weeks. Iris worked days, the other girl works nights, in the band that’s staying in the same house. She says they hardly knew each other.”
“How’d you find her to make the I.D.?”
“She called in a Missing. Morning of the day we found the body. Like eight hours later, nine o’clock. She called the city cops and they let us know. Her name’s Linda Moon. She’s with a band plays at the hotel.”
Vincent worked the name around in his mind because it was familiar. After a moment he said, “Let’s go back to the scene. If nobody was staying in the apartment, and none of the building tenants know anything or heard anything outside of maybe a scream…”
“No scream,” Dixie said. “I would’ve screamed, I would’ve tried to fly.”
“No scream,” Vincent said. “So where are you?”
“Still talking to the doorman, old guy in a rent-a-cop outfit. We’re checking on deliveries made that day. We’re talking to everybody who worked with Iris, might’ve known her. And we got our snitches to talk to yet.”
Vincent said, “You mind if I pick through what you’ve got? I won’t do anything without telling you first.”
“I never turn down professional help,” Dixie said. “Long as the chief doesn’t find out.”
All they knew as fact, so far:
Was that Iris had gone off the balcony of Apartment 1802 in a high-rise condominium that stood on the corner of Surrey Place and Atlantic Avenue in Ventnor.
That the apartment was owned by a manufacturing company in Trenton that made janitorial supplies, cleaning compounds. Guy with the company said as far as they knew the apartment was vacant, hadn’t been leased or rented since last season. Yes, the company had contracts with several hotels in Atlantic City, including Spade’s Boardwalk.
That the apartment was relatively clean and did appear to be vacant. Except that one of the beds had been slept in and remade. Though not made the same as the bed in the second bedroom, tight, with fresh sheets. The slept-in sheets were at the lab.
Vincent saw Iris in a bedroom…
That a black cocktail dress was hanging behind the door in the bathroom. Silver high heels on the floor. A purse with cosmetics on the back of the washbasin.
He saw Iris on a balcony…
That a lady’s black wool double-breasted coat was hanging in the bedroom closet, the room where the bed had been used. A few pieces of costume jewelry were in the top drawer of the dresser, in the same room. Cut-glass earrings, two bracelets, a necklace. Cheap stuff.
He saw Iris falling.
A young woman wearing a raincoat entered the parlor, her gaze holding on the casket.
Late twenties. Dark hair pulled back. Pale skin, delicate features cleanly defined. No makeup, not bothering on this rainy day to make herself more attractive. Still, as he watched her, Vincent saw a glamour shot of the same girl and a name with it. Now Appearing in the Sultan’s Lounge, Linda Moon. Then saw her in a soft blue spot that diffused her clean features, but it was this girl. It had to be. He watched her stop short of the casket.
“Why did you have it opened?”
“I wanted to see her,” Vincent said. “Make sure it was Iris, not somebody else.”
“It’s Iris.” She said, “I don’t know if I can look at her again,” but moved almost cautiously toward the casket to stare into it without moving. “God, whoever did her makeup…”
“Ought to be arrested,” Vincent said.
The girl he knew was Linda Moon looked over at him, taking her time now. She said, “You’re the one from Puerto Rico,” with some surprise. “Iris’s friend. I came in, I didn’t recognize you.” She turned away, walked over to the empty rows of folding chairs, hands in the pockets of her raincoat, and sat down before looking at him again. “Where’s your cane?”
“I forgot it,” Vincent said.
He sat down with a chair between them, the girl staring at the casket again. She said, “Isn’t that pathetic? Last seen in this life in a genuine wood-veneer plastic box.”
Vincent studied her face in profile, dark hair tied back, giving him a good look at her features, hollow cheeks, delicate nose, long dark lashes-a girl who knew things about him, knew Iris well enough to pay for her funeral.
He said, “You are Linda Moon.” Wanting to be absolutely sure but sounding like a lawyer or a court clerk.
She said, “I didn’t make too big an impression, huh? You should see my act now. I wear an orange outfit, with ruffles.” Very dry. Staring at the casket.
He said, “You did a weather set ‘Stormy’ and then ‘Sunny’…”
She turned to look at him.
“Then you did ‘Where’re the Clowns.’ “
“ ‘Send in the Clowns.’ I thought you’d left.”
“I stopped at the bar for ‘Send in the Clowns.’ I thought you were great.”
“Weren’t too broken up, uh, after your talk?”
“Do you want me to tell you about Iris and me? It’ll take about two minutes.”
“But you’re here,” Linda said.
“To bury her. You beat me to it.” Looking into quiet blue eyes, and those long lashes. “I didn’t know you were friends.”
“We met that night. We flew up together and roomed in the same house.”
“But you’re paying for her funeral.”
She glanced around. “I didn’t see anybody breaking down the door. I still owe three hundred, which I don’t happen to have at the moment.”
“I took care of it,” Vincent said. “I’ll give you a check for what you paid them.”
She said, “You don’t owe me anything. If you want to go halves on it, fine, I won’t argue with you.”
“You knew her two weeks,” Vincent said.
“Yeah? How long did you know her? You say you can tell me all about it in two minutes.”
“Don’t get mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m in a shitty mood, that’s all.” Looking at the casket again. “It’s pathetic, the whole thing. The little party girl, looking for excitement-she gets two people at her wake.”
Vincent waited a moment. “What about Donovan? Hasn’t he been here?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Have you talked to him?”
“About what, Iris? Why would I? It’s an idea though. Shake him down, get him to pay his share.”
“She thought she was going to be a hostess,” Vincent said. “Is that an in joke in the casino business, a hostess?”
“She was a cocktail waitress.”
“During the day,” Vincent said, and paused. “What was she doing in that apartment?”
“I don’t know.”