"Oh… Memory Lane," I tell her casually.
"Uh-huh." She gives me her cynical reporter's look. "My ass! You're on a story, David. I can smell it. So clue me in, Lover Boy. Unless you're afraid I'll crowd your turf."
She shows me a tight little smile, her way of warning me I'd be a fool to think she wouldn't.
"It's an old story, Pam. You like new stories."
"Sometimes old is new."
"True enough…"
I'm rescued by the strutting entrance of Spencer Deval, who joins a group two tables away. Pam squints as she studies him.
"I don’t get it about that guy," she whispers. "He's such a self-important little shit. And that accent! It's so phony. Who is he anyway?"
I gesture at the portrait of Waldo Channing. When Waldo died, he took over the column. The two of them were lovers, at least started out that way. Spencer, it's alleged, was quite lovely in his youth."
"You'd never know."
"Waldo left him his house and furniture. There're also rumors about something shady in Spencer's past. They say Waldo, who was to the manner born, cleaned him up, taught him manners, even sent him to England for a year to learn how to speak."
Pam grins. "That explains the accent. I get it now. Pygmalion," she says.
I take her to dinner at Enrico's on Torrance Hill, a quiet, family-owned Sicilian place. It's a weekday night, and there aren't many customers, certainly no out-of-town reporters. Pam is charmed.
"Candles stuck in old Chianti bottles, red and white checked tablecloths – I love it, David. Right out of the fifties."
The owner doesn't stand beside our table like a waiter; rather he pulls up a chair, turns it around, then sits leaning over the back in spectator-sporting-event position to take our order.
When he moves away, Pam gives me a serious look.
"Please tell me what you're working on, David. And, please, no bullshit about how it wouldn't interest me. Everything interests me. Especially if it interests you."
"I'm not ready to talk about it yet."
"Must have to do with those weird drawings taped to your walls."
I'm stunned. "You've been in my room?" She shrugs. "Aren't you the little sneak?"
"Curious little bitch is what you mean. You're just too polite to say it."
"How'd you get in?"
"Told the chambermaid I might have left a bra in there. Please don't get mad at her, David. She watched my every move."
"What were you looking for?"
"David Weiss. Like who are you, David?" She widens her eyes. "What're you up to? What's your game?"
"What's yours, Pam?"
"Investigative reporter." She smiles. "And you know what? I think that's your game, too."
I stare at her more annoyed than angry, but I know I can't let her get away with what she did. "Talking your way into my room," I eye her sternly, "you've got a fucking nerve."
She shrinks back as if taking a blow across the face. "I did it because you intrigue me so much. I know that's no excuse. Please forgive me," she pleads. "I'm sorry. I really am."
Nothing hypocritical about her apology; I read sincerity in her eyes. "I like you, Pam. I really do. But don't ever do anything like that to me again."
4
I'm standing by the once grand entrance to the grounds of The Elms, a morose sight this sultry summer afternoon. The skeletal gate frames hang loose from rusted hinges. With most of the ornamental ironwork missing, they resemble an assembly of bare bones. The stone pillars on either side are also in decay – mortar crumbling, moss attacking the rock. Only one of the two statues of griffins that once perched upon them remains and that one's now headless. This deteriorated entrance would make a fine drawing, I think.
In the old days, of course, these gates were well attended. Members arriving at night would find the griffins illuminated by lights concealed in the surrounding foliage. A guard would stop cars, then relay names by intercom to the reception desk up at the club. People in the cars, the men in tuxedos, the women swathed in furs, would wait with mock joviality for admittance.
A night at The Elms was exciting; visitors felt they were entering forbidden terrain. Often too there would be anxiety in the car when the clearance procedure took longer than expected. Then laughter and relief when approval time came and the guard waved them through. Then the slow journey down the long lit drive between magnificent evenly spaced English elms; the arrival at the great house, its banks of leaded windows lit from within; a cheerful greeting from the parking valet; the sweet aroma of burning wood in the air on winter nights as guests strode up the broad flagstone steps to the main door.
The walls of the entrance hall were adorned with third-tier old master paintings in heavy gilded frames. In winter, fires crackled in the hearths, for the club was installed in what had once been a great private home. The sound of a singer would drift out to the hall, one of those torch-song specialists Jack Cody, club owner and host, brought in from Chicago or New York. Then Jack himself would appear, ultra-suave in his trademark white double-breasted dinner jacket and Errol Flynn pencil-line mustache.
Everyone was fascinated by Jack, a handsome, craggy-faced man of medium height and compact build, with a year-round tan, sharp eyes, crocodile smile, precision-cut salt and pepper hair, and a voice so husky and soft it came out in a fierce whisper. Men were charmed by his two-handed shake, women by his gallant kisses. Often he would honor arriving guests with a few choice words, perhaps notification that a famous ballplayer was in the house or a certain out-of-state high roller was at the craps table in back playing like there was no tomorrow.
Then Jack would smoothly turn his clients over to Jurgen, the opaque maitre d'hotel, who, rumor had it, had killed a man in Mexico, then served in the French Foreign Legion. Jurgen would escort them to their tables in the Cub Room, the air lightly permeated by a sumptuous aroma composed of the smoke of fine Havanas, a touch of Chanel № 5, and the lusty smell of fabulous thick, rare, juicy, broiled steaks.
Elms staff members were expertly cast: short-skirted cigarette girl with dazzling smile; stoic barman with slicked-down black hair; hovering European waiters; cool black backup musicians; cooks in immaculate starched white jackets and high white hats; bearded sommelier with accent, tasting spoon, and cellar key. Steaks, lobsters, wine, and liquor were always superb, service attentive, chairs soft, flowers fresh, tablecloths damask. Everything was luxurious, expensive, ‘best of class.’
The Elms, sometimes called a ‘roadhouse’ in the downtown papers, was the closest thing Calista had to a fantasy nightclub-casino. Its glamorous Manhattan atmosphere was borrowed from The Stork Club and El Morocco, and some of its particulars, alluring singers and back-room gaming parlor, from such Hollywood noir classics as Dead Reckoning and Casablanca.
Jack Cody, imitating the ironic manner of Humphrey Bogart, always referred to the club as ‘my joint.’ Wealthy locals called it simply The Elms and were thrilled to dine and gamble there, not least because gambling was illegal throughout the state. The Elms was entirely Jack's creation. Everything that happened inside, every nuance, was choreographed by him for maximum effect.
A sure sign that one had become a friend of the house would be a whispered confidence from Jack, a tip, say, on a horse running at a Florida track, or a choice piece of gossip about some sordid event of which even columnist Waldo Channing would be unaware – an adultery or financial scandal, a dope and sex party, a fistfight between gentlemen who'd stepped outside to settle a dispute, or an exchange of slaps in the lady's restroom.
Such privileged information was not easily shared. Jack kept his distance until one became a regular or lost a minimum of twenty thousand dollars in his gaming room. After that anything was possible: a complimentary bottle of rare French wine sent to one's table; a speeding ticket efficiently fixed; a high-end call-girl introduction discreetly made. People said that due to his wide acquaintanceship there was nothing Jack could not arrange, and, in truth, he did seem to know everyone in town – athletes and entertainers, socialites and judges, politicians, cops and mobsters. It was this last category, Jack Cody's rumored underworld connections, that originally brought Barbara Fulraine within his ken.