"Actually, he was. He was viewed as a lovable eccentric by Little Tony."
She nodded sagely. "Anthony Tretriano." Then she frowned. "Doolan was a regular at 52?"
"For a while, anyway."
"Why in the world would he be? And if you say 'pulchritude'—"
"He was taking pictures, Angela. Mostly of that disco doll ... Chrome?"
Her expression changed so radically it was damn near comic. Her eyes tightened and popped at the same time, and her face turned so pale the bright red of her lipstick was like blood on white linen.
"We shouldn't talk in public about this," she said quietly.
"We're all right. With all this kitchen noise—"
"Not here."
"Well, if we're at the 'your place or mine' stage, I don't have a place, other than my room at the Commodore."
"That should do fine. But we shouldn't go up at the same time. We're both well known, and I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea."
I grinned at her. "Including me?"
Her smile had a nice naughtiness to it that was brand-new. "I've already learned, Mike, not to try to control your thoughts...."
The Commodore near Grand Central Terminal was probably due for an overhaul, and at twenty-six stories wasn't much in skyscraper terms, but it remained my favorite hotel in the city. I always used it for out-of-town clients and maybe now and then for a conference with a good-looking female, sometimes work-related, sometimes not. My stay here so far had been just fine. And it looked to improve....
Angela Marshall was lounging on the dark blue spread of my brass double bed, facing me as I sat in the comfy chair in a corner by the window. I had ordered room service for four more cold Millers, in bottles, and those had arrived. My guest, in her silk blouse and short skirt, had her shoes off, leaning on one hand, sitting on one hip, with lots of stretched-out bare leg showing as she spoke animatedly, like a girl at a slumber party. With the lucky guy who'd crashed.
The only light on was the nightstand lamp on the other side of the bed, and the limited lighting and the shadows thrown made for a nice mood, enhancing the already beautiful features and shapely form of the assistant district attorney.
My hat and coat were tucked away in the closet, and my tie was loose. We had a nicely cozy thing going.
She was on her second beer (fourth, counting those at Moriarty's) and that may have accounted for her lively manner.
"Mike, I've been investigating Club 52 as discreetly as I can—I went there a couple of times myself, but that really told me nothing. But I'm convinced the club has been a major conduit for cocaine and other controlled substances in this city since the day it opened. And now Anthony Tretriano is opening up Club 52s in half a dozen major cities, all around the country. With more to come."
I nodded. "You figure he's not just franchising his club, but setting up a nationwide distribution system."
"Yes! And there's a kind of twisted genius about it. The blessing given by local law enforcement to the recreational use of drugs by his celebrity guests, the hands-off, benign neglect bit ... it plays right into Tretriano's ability to move narcotics in and out of there."
I was frowning. "Why do you have to investigate discreetly? Since when does the New York County District Attorney's Office give drug running a free pass?"
"Have you been to Club 52?"
"Just the other night."
"See anybody interesting there? In terms of officeholders?"
I grinned. "Only the mayor and two local legislators and one national one. I see your drift."
"I have no way of knowing who in the current local administration, or on the national scene, are just naive, starstruck nincompoops buying the Club 52 glitz, and who's been bought off all the way. Mike, these are dangerous waters to swim in. God, you don't know how relieved I am to be able to finally talk to somebody about it."
"What about this new federal group, the D.E.A.? Have you contacted them?"
"That's the plan, when I feel I really have something more than hunches and suspicions."
She was ambitious. If those hunches and suspicions were right, she might become the city's first female D.A. And then mayor, and...?
I sipped the Miller. I was still on my first (or third, but who was counting). "Baby, these are dangerous waters. The kind a girl can drown in."
"I'm a big girl, Mike. But I admit ... I admit liking to have a guy like you on my team."
"If I'm on your team, I have a right to ask a few questions."
"Yes you do."
I sat forward. "What brought you to that crime scene the other night? Ginnie Mathes is a small kill for such a 'big girl.' And then there's earlier today, this afternoon, over at that flophouse—why does the late Joseph Fidello get on your radar? And don't say because he was the Mathes kid's ex-boyfriend. I want the whole story."
She reached for the beer, chugged some. A little Irish courage for the girl.
Then she said, "Mike, Ginnie was in a dancing class, off Broadway, using the same private tutor as Club 52's star attraction."
"Chrome?"
She nodded. "I talked to the tutor, and I think I did so in a way that raised no suspicions. I'm not as skilled an investigator as you, but I didn't dare use any of our investigative team, and—"
"Skip it. What's the connection?"
"Chrome had been grooming Ginnie to be a backup dancer in her act."
"She doesn't use any backup dancers in her act."
"Well, not her current act, maybe. But Chrome's preparing for this big national tour, and she'd been dangling that opportunity over Ginnie's head, as recently as the day the young woman was killed. Chrome had really been courting her—otherwise Ginnie wouldn't have been on my radar at all. They often had lunch together, after dance class, and Ginnie seemed enthralled to be in the star's company."
I sipped more beer. "If you did your research, which I'm sure you did, then you know Ginnie took out a cabaret entertainer's license a while back. Making it as a performer was apparently a long-held dream."
"Right," Angela said, nodding. "And when I heard the description of the dead girl who was a mugging fatality, it sounded awfully close to Ginnie—not just physically, but down to the clothes I'd seen her wearing earlier ... so I checked it out."
"And we had our first star-crossed meeting."
She smiled. "Boy, did I hate your guts."
"I wanted to ram that Japanese sports car of yours up your rear highway."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Or ram something somewhere."
She almost blushed at that. Damn, she was cute.
"But, Mike—now Ginnie's boyfriend has been murdered, and there can be no question about that. Nobody could write Fidello's death off as a mugging. And it's sure not a robbery, considering where he lived."
"No," I confirmed. "That was as cold-blooded as kills get. So how do the pieces fit? You're looking at Tony Tret as a drug kingpin. What does that have to do with Chrome making friends with Ginnie Mathes?"
"Simple." She shrugged. "Chrome works for Anthony. She may even be his main squeeze, if rumor can be believed."
"I say Tony's gay, but go on."
"Whatever the case, this may just be a matter of Chrome enlisting Ginnie for some purpose. An errand of some kind, which might explain what Ginnie was doing on that rough patch of real estate where she died."
Delivering Basil's diamond to somebody. But who? And why?
"Mike, what's on your mind?"
"Just thinking, doll. Just thinking."
"Can you figure why Fidello was murdered?"
My eyebrows hiked. "Possibly he was getting back with Ginnie, and overheard something, and maybe became the kind of loose end that needs cutting off."