“Mom,” I said, “please listen to Rachel while I’m out. No matter what, you’ve got to stay in the apartment. I’m sorry about this, but you won’t be safe otherwise.”
“Why not?”
“We got a threat from the woman we’re trying to track down. She knows about this apartment, and if she has a chance, she might do something to you.”
“To me? I’m an old woman. Why would she want to hurt me?”
“She doesn’t, she just wants me to stop looking for her, and she figures threatening you might get me to do it.”
“So why don’t you? Why don’t you let Leo handle it?”
“This is the woman who killed Miranda,” I said. “I have to handle it.”
She seemed to accept that, grudgingly. “How long will this go on?” she said
“Not long,” I said. “I think we’re getting pretty close.”
Andrew Kodos had a suite in an old skyscraper on Fortysecond and Lex. Beautiful Art Deco carvings on the outside of the building, soaring lobby, but by the time you got up to the eighth floor, you weren’t surprised any more that a guy who booked strippers for a living worked here. The hallway was poorly lit and dingy. At one end, a mop and bucket had been abandoned. There was a locked men’s room and a women’s room whose door was propped open with a block of wood. In between were five doors advertising five separate businesses. This being Saturday, all but one of the doors were dark.
The one with light behind it said “Kodos Theatrical Representation” in gold letters on the pebbled glass. I wondered if his theatrical work involved handling anyone other than strippers. But I knew the choice of wording was probably just to avoid spooking the building management. It was the same reason Leo had finally settled on “Hauser Consulting Services” for our door.
I pressed the button by the doorknob, then knocked on the glass when I didn’t hear anything buzzing or chiming. I saw a shadow approach through the glass. The door swung open. “Come in, come in.” Kodos looked behind me, saw no one else in the hall, and shut the door.
He was a well-fed specimen, extra pounds pressing the limits of his belt, which was straining at its last hole, and his shirt collar, which looked tight even unbuttoned. A blue necktie hung at half-mast, knotted but loosened as far as it would go. He wiped his hand on the leg of his pants before extending it to me but when I shook it his palm still felt damp against mine.
“You spoke to my partner earlier today,” I said. “We’re opening a club downtown.”
“Sure, I remember. It’s good to meet you. Where’s your partner?”
“Something came up at the last minute,” I said. “She’s sorry she couldn’t come.”
“Me, too. She sounded like a good-looking young woman.” He coughed into his hand. “Excuse me. Every January I get a cold. Like clockwork. So where’s this club of yours going to be?”
What had Susan said, the West Village? “You know where Calder Street is, near the West Side Highway?” Fortunately, it looked like he didn’t. “That’s where we’ll be.”
“And how’d you hear about Tracy?”
“I didn’t, my partner did. You’d have to ask her.”
“Well, you won’t be disappointed. She’s the best.” He led me through a short corridor lined on either side with framed eight-by-tens of women in all sorts of outfits: stockings and garters, boas and headdresses, bikinis and evening gowns. You could tell from the hairstyles that some of the photos went back to the eighties, some to the seventies. There were even a few black-and-white shots that looked older still. Many of the photos were signed: To Andy, the greatest agent in the world! Love, Cherry. Or Asia, or Crystal, or Jet.
“How long have you been doing this?” I asked.
“Signed my first girl in 1962,” he said, pointing to a photo. “Maxine Murray. Danced under the name ‘Sissy.’ Can you imagine a dancer calling herself ‘Sissy’ now?” He shook his head at the wonder of the world. “That was before you were even born. How old are you anyway?”
“Old enough,” I said.
“Aren’t we all.” He opened the door to his office. “Tracy, I want you to meet-” He waited for me to fill in my name.
“John Blake,” I said. I held my hand out and she leaned forward in her seat to shake it. She could have stood up, but that wouldn’t have given me a view of her breasts pressing forward against the front of her scoop neck T-shirt. It was a thin shirt and her dark skin showed through the white fabric. I could see that she was wearing small rings through her nipples. If I’d looked closer, I could probably have told whether they were silver or gold.
“Andy, would you mind if I talked to Tracy alone for a minute?”
He looked puzzled, but he said, “Sure. Sure.” Then he told Tracy, “He’s opening a club down on… where was it?”
“Calder Street,” I said.
“Calder Street. And they want you for the opening. I told him you’d be perfect for it.”
“Did you?” she said. But she was looking at me rather than at Kodos, and somewhere along the way it had turned into a skeptical look. I wondered what I’d said or done wrong.
“So, you kids talk. Just don’t forget to bring me back in before you talk money.” He patted me on the shoulder. “That desk folds out into a bed in case you need it.” Then, to Tracy, “What? What? I’m joking!” He backed out of the office and drew the door shut behind him. I waited for his silhouette to disappear.
“Tracy-”
“You’re not really opening a club, are you?” she said.
I hesitated for a second, then shook my head.
“Then, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll put my shirt back on.” She pulled a folded flannel shirt from under the chair and buttoned it up over her T-shirt.
“What gave me away?” I said.
She held up a fist and unfolded fingers from it one by one. “First of all, I’ve never seen a club owner or manager who looked like you. You look like some prep school kid from the Upper West Side. Second, Calder Street’s two blocks long and there’s a church on one of them. No way the city’s going to let you open a titty bar where the faithful might have to look at it. Third, I seem to remember a friend of mine telling me about a John Blake who was passing out business cards to the girls at the club where she works, asking questions about Miranda Sugarman. As it happens, I knew Miranda Sugarman.”
“I know.”
“So the name stuck in my mind. John Blake. I may even have your card in here somewhere.” She lifted a handbag that was hanging from one arm of the chair.
“That’s okay. I’ll give you a new one.” I fished one out of my wallet. She looked at it, slipped it into the breast pocket of her lumberjack shirt.
“So, you want to tell me why you’re wasting my time on this beautiful Saturday afternoon?”
“I guess you know I’m a private detective. My firm’s been looking into Miranda’s death. I understand you knew her partner, too. Jocelyn Mastaduno.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, we’re trying to find her. Do you have any idea where Jocelyn is now?”
“Why?”
“We think she might know something about what happened.”
“Know something like what?”
“Like what happened.”
Tracy folded her arms over her chest. “You’d better start talking straight, or I’m walking out that door.”
“Miranda was killed by two gunshots fired at close range into the back of her head. The person who did it had to be someone who was able to get close to her, someone Miranda trusted.”
“You think Jocelyn killed her?”
“It’s one possibility. We’d like to rule it out.”
“No way,” she said. “I’m not saying I can’t imagine Jocelyn doing something crazy – the girl had her issues. But there’s no way she would kill Miranda. She was still in love with her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because she was. She couldn’t go two nights without mentioning her name. She kept her fucking picture up on the wall. Even after I moved in, she wouldn’t take it down.”