“It might be more diplomatic to come home on the losing side,” she counseled. “These fellows can help you at NBC. There’s no need to make them look bad.”
I slapped my cheeks hard as the alcohol pleasurably burned my face. “Okay, honey. I’ll try not to get too lucky.”
The planetarium had a bank of pay phones by the corridor that led into the Museum of Natural History. The last Star Show had ended, as had (for the moment) whatever groping and nuzzling I’d been having with Donna, judging by the fact that she was now fixing her makeup. I used this hopefully momentary lull to place my check-in call to the hotel, asking the Abbey’s operator for Room 622.
“Hello?” Shepard sounded bored and a little dozy.
“It’s Brother Dale,” I informed him. “Anything I need to know?”
“Nope. No one’s called except Dancer and Braverman to ask the same question. But make sure you check in again before you head home. The first time you don’t call here will almost certainly be the one time your wife does.”
I thanked him for minding the fort, and he assured me I’d be returning the favor next Monday. I kind of hoped he’d ask how my night had been going, so that I could boast a bit about my partial conquest, but he honored the tenets of the Brotherhood and made no personal inquiries.
Donna was checking her makeup in the reflection of a glass case containing a portion of a meteorite that had landed in a Kentucky farmyard in 1928.
“I’m ready for dinner,” she said. “Necking makes me hungry. Do you have somewhere nice in mind?”
I suggested we not go where either of us might be recognized by someone from work.
“I appreciate your concern for my professional reputation,” she nodded, her tongue planted as firmly in her own cheek now as it had been in mine just a few minutes earlier.
“Do you know anyone from Queens?” I asked as we stepped outside.
She shrugged that well-researched shrug of hers. “I’ve never met anyone who went to Queens who ever came back.”
“Good. I took the liberty—”
“You sure did,” she said, not altogether disapprovingly.
“—of reserving us a table at a romantic spot with candlelight dining. We’ll just ask them not to light the candles.” I waved for a cab, simultaneously using my arm to hide my face from passersby in the strong light of the streetlamps.
“Hello, angel,” I greeted Donna at her reception desk the next morning. “Did you have pleasant dreams?”
I was a half hour late, having missed my regular train from Pelham. I’d stayed in bed later than usual, debating if I’d been brilliant or an imbecile not to press my luck with Donna after supper. On consideration, I felt I’d done the wise thing. She’d seemed pleasantly surprised that I hadn’t tried to translate our racy dinner conversation into action at her apartment in lower Manhattan. But Donna was someone to be nurtured, brought along slowly. At least until next Monday. (I was already hoping I could convince the supportively disposed Braverman to trade turns with me, so I’d not lose precious momentum with her.)
“I thought about you all the way in to work,” I now told her smoothly. She gave me an icy look that was not sugar-frosted and, keeping her voice low, spoke as if her words tasted of Acromycin. “I made myself a big mistake last night, Mister Winslow, and thank God it only went as far as it did. NBC would can me and your wife would brain you if either party found out about our date. So let’s not ever talk about it again. In fact, let’s not ever talk, ’kay?”
I was horrified, I mean horrified. That she despised me was all over her face, and I’m sure her face and the word despised were rarely to be found in the same sentence. I frantically searched all memories of the previous night for what I might have said or done to turn her around so completely. As I unmanfully pleaded for an explanation, I saw Matty Dancer approaching and instantly silenced myself.
Dancer offered a far warmer greeting than had Donna, with whom I’d been necking under the projected heavens less than a dozen hours earlier. He set a manila envelope on the reception desk and asked her to see it was correctly messengered to its intended recipient. Then, under the guise of jovial chitchat, he said to me, “Hey, Ken Compton wanted to have a brief word with you, Brother Dale.” He lowered his voice and added, “He’s already spoken with the Other Fellows You Were With Last Night, if you catch my drift.”
“Bit of a personal question, Dale,” Compton began in an embarrassed manner. He rose from his desk and flopped onto the leather couch directly behind me. I swiveled my visitor’s chair to face him across his Danish modern coffee table, as he began, “Forgive me, but do you mind if I ask where you were last night?”
I had no idea what this was about, but felt relieved I had a big, fat, juicy answer to offer.
“Well, I guess there’s no shame involved in admitting that Dancer, Spitz, Braverman, and I were playing poker. Over at the Abbey Victoria. We have a little poker night in Room 622 each Monday. I think I arrived a few minutes after seven and left a bit after midnight Give me a moment and I can probably be more precise.”
Compton waved away my offered alibi. “No, I just wanted to hear it from you. I’ve already spoken to your friends this morning, and they told me about your little poker club.” He leaned forward. “So will you tell me? Who’s the best player among you? My money’s on Spitz.”
I smiled. “Well, he’s very conservative, and that ultimately works against him. It was Braverman who cleaned up last night, if you can call ten dollars cleaning up.”
He nodded. “Exactly as I expected. But honestly, I don’t know how you guys put up with room service at the Abbey. I’ve heard their restaurant tends toward Italian by way of the Borgias.”
I explained to him how we have to bring food in. “Last night Spitz and Braverman fetched us some chow from the New Bamboo Palace. My almond gai ding was quite good.”
“Ah, the old New Bamboo Palace.” Compton laughed as much as I’d ever heard him laugh. Come to think of it, I’d never heard him laugh. “I remember that place. Used to love the pu-pu platter there.”
Although we were clearly alone in his office, he looked around as if to ensure our privacy. “Dale, may I tell you why I ask about your poker party? Last night someone broke into my office. Pried open the drawer where I was keeping the fall schedule. Took it. Stole it. Stole a schedule that CBS would pay somebody a fortune for. like stealing jewelry. And there were only four people, other than myself, who knew that the schedule already existed and where it was kept.”
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“The night watchman discovered the forced lock on my door when he was making his eleven P.M. rounds. I keep telling RCA they have to make people sign in and sign out around here. Anyone could have taken an elevator to a couple of floors above us, waited somewhere along the fire stairs until later in the evening, then grabbed the schedule from my office, walked down to a lower floor, and taken another elevator from there to the lobby. After that, they could walk out of here free as a bird. Or if they felt like celebrating, head back up to the Rainbow Room and dance the night away.”
I agreed that the scenario was plausible. “But there must be some other explanation. Because the four people who knew where you kept the schedule were otherwise occupied last night, until after the break-in.”
“Well, I know that, for gosh sake. You were all having Chinese food from the New Bamboo Palace at the Abbey Victoria.” He flashed me a mirthless grin that showed me more of his teeth than I’d ever wanted to see. “It’s just a damn shame they closed the New Bamboo Palace three years ago.”