No she wasn’t. She was frowning all over her face. Melrose said, “I feel rather awful about this mix-up.”
“Mix-up? I don’t understand.” Her arms crossed over her bosom, she was scratching at her elbows.
“I got the wrong address, the wrong Johnson. It was not Mr. Harry Johnson’s animal I was to collect, but a Mr. Howard Johnson’s. And he lives in Cadogan Square, not Belgravia. It’s so stupid; I was given the wrong information. At any rate, here’s your cat back. Now, can you assure me it is your cat?” If not, I’ve got another one in the car.
Mrs. Tobias bent down and got a hiss for her trouble. “Oh, that’s Schrödinger”-it came out “Shunger”-“nasty-tempered thing.”
“Yes, I’d have to agree with you there.” Melrose opened the carrier and the cat made straight for the bureau in the room across the hall.
“I guess she did miss them kittens.” Mrs. Tobias sighed.
Relieved of the one cat, he said, “I do apologize again.”
“Oh, never mind, sir. ’Long as the cat’s back before Mr. Johnson.” She opened the door for him and, after he passed through it, looked out and around. “But I do wonder… you didn’t happen to see a little dog about, did you?”
“Dog?”
This would come to tears, he just knew it.
56
Cigar was a West End club so cool and laid-back, you could walk right past it and never know it was there.
Which was what Jury did. He wondered if that wasn’t a great metaphor for most of what passed for life. Most of the time you could walk right past it.
Its brick facade, its small brass plaque (that no one would be able to see from more than three feet away), its little wrought-iron fence, and its un-uniformed doorman-unless the black turtleneck sweater, black wool jacket, black jeans, all of the black pretensions, were to be taken as a uniform-all of this made the place look helplessly hip.
The black-garbed gatekeeper didn’t do anything except smile slightly and nod. He wasn’t there to check credentials; he was only there to assure customers that this was Mayfair, WI, and Cigar was exclusive.
Inside, he thought about checking his coat with the blonde in the small gated enclosure but decided to keep it in case of the need for a quick getaway. He was a few minutes late, so unless Rosie Moss decided to keep him waiting, she’d be here.
The room put him in mind of last century’s London before the coal fires were damped down and the city was called “the Smoke.” The club meant its name. Through vistas of smoke, he looked the wide room over: the gorgeous brunette sitting at the bar, eyeing him; a tawny-haired woman at one of the roulette tables, where a villainous-looking croupier whipped the wheel around; two blondes, like paper cutouts, sitting close together, dripping a lot of jewelry.
His eye traveled back; he had missed her just as he had missed the club itself-but why wouldn’t he? She turned out to be the gorgeous brunette at the bar, smiling at him. The hair was all curls, no bunches; the candy stripes exchanged for a long black skirt, slit to the knee; black halter top; black fringed shawl; and jade green Christian Louboutin shoes on her feet, one of which she was swinging so that the shoe hung precariously from her toe. So this was Rosie Moss: Dark hair. Black dress. Red soles.
Killer looks.
“You didn’t recognize me.”
“You could say that.”
“I don’t always look twelve years old.”
“I can see that.”
Red-soled shoe now firmly on her foot, she pushed out the stool next door. “Here. Saved it for you. I had to turn a few guys away.”
“Half the male population of London, more likely.”
The barman was there in a blood red suede waistcoat. Jury looked at Rosie’s glass, questioning. She raised a fairly fresh martini. He ordered whiskey, then when the fellow waited, he realized he’d have to name it. This wasn’t Trevor, after all.
“Macallan?”
The barman nodded and drifted off to whatever crypt they aged the whiskey in.
Jury said, “Do you transform yourself this easily and often?”
She was plucking a cigarette from an ebony case and offering him the case. He refused for the thousandth heartbreaking time in three years.
“Who says it’s easy?”
“All right. I was merely observing your chameleonlike qualities.”
“I have other, even better qualities.”
Oh, hell, it was to be a night of double entendres. He wasn’t up to it. “Do you mind if I call you Rosie, instead of Adele?”
She shrugged, obviously disappointed that he couldn’t come up with a better question.
“How did you get into this work?”
“Took my clothes off.”
The barman was back with his whiskey. This, he could use. He drank off half of it. “And saw your future.”
“Pretty much.” Her smile was unpleasant, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. She sipped her martini. It was a strange color, probably one of those boutique martini mutants that were popular among drinkers who didn’t like martinis.
Jury took a chance. “You didn’t like her, did you?”
An artfully arched eyebrow went up. “You mean Stacy? I didn’t mind her; I hardly knew her. Why? I should be unconsolable now she’s dead? I should wrap myself in sackcloth and ashes? Throw myself into the Thames? Jump from the top of Nelson’s Column?”
Jury laughed. “No, but you seem to have given some thought to it.”
The pale look, the whiteness that had suddenly touched her cheekbones, now was swept away as if it were snow in the wind. It was a rather dramatic turn. Her next move was another.
Rose leaned into him, her hand on his wrist, the hand then traveling slowly up his arm. “This is supposed to be a bit of time together, a few drinks, a few laughs, a meal, and then who knows?”
He did, for one. Strange he felt no desire for her, no ardor. He felt himself to be almost clinically cold. It was, of course, as he’d told Carole-anne, not a date for pleasure but for work. Still, that wouldn’t have been reason for feeling he was made of ice. Was it because of the terrible condition of Lu Aguilar? Guilt? No, because it certainly hadn’t stopped him getting into bed with Phyllis (the very thought of whom started the ice melting). No, there was something missing, something not coming across.
Then he thought, She’s acting. That was part of it. Of course, he imagined she often did. The thing was, there was no real ardor on her part, either. All of her actions were rote, which wouldn’t be surprising except that she wasn’t here in the role of escort; he hadn’t hired her. It was a plain old date. Why did she need the act? He said, “This chap in Chesham Stacy was engaged to…”
Abruptly, Rose polished off the rest of her drink and held out the glass for another, held it out not to Jury but to the barman, who nodded. “Engaged? Don’t be daft. That what he told you?” Her tone was strangely spiteful. She stubbed out her cigarette. “Bobby never meant anything to her. He was just for laughs.”
The serious, sympathetic Bobby Devlin was hardly a fellow a girl would keep by her “for laughs.” He thought Rose had it exactly the wrong way round. It was the men Mariah-Stacy was having casual sex with who were there for laughs.
“Anyway,” Rosie went on, “he wasn’t her type at all. That bewildered-little-boy act? Oh no, that wasn’t-” She stopped mid-sentence. She had said too much.
Jury watched her try to backtrack.
“I mean, that’s the impression she gave me.”
“‘Bewildered-little-boy act’? That’s more of a thing you’d see, rather than something you’d be told, and certainly not told you by Mariah herself. So when did you meet him?”
She looked off, round the room. “Oh, I just ran into him once, you know, by accident.”
“Bobby Devlin told me he rarely went to London; he hates it. So I’m assuming you ran into him in Chesham. You didn’t mention that. Indeed, it’s strange, especially since you know so little about Mariah’s life. But you did know about her, didn’t you? You knew her intimately. She pretty much kept Bobby under wraps.”