It was a sweet face. Freckled across the bridge of the little nose. Freckled on the round cheeks. She had a slight smile on her lips and her lips looked very soft. Her eyes were kind and quiet. Her hair was light and flowed gently to her shoulders. I gazed into that face and wondered what a nice girl like her had been doing in a photo like Kendrick’s. It didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. But then I thought about the other girl, the one I’d met tonight in the dressing room. The one with the purple earrings and no shirt. She wasn’t any older than this kid. Hell, she wasn’t any older than my own daughter would’ve been if she’d stayed alive. She probably came here from Wichita or K.C. or Omaha. Probably thought she was being sophisticated or sharp, walking around like that. Living alone here, with no one to take care of her …
I heard a noise behind me. A short, sharp intake of breath, almost a gasp. I turned and saw my waitress. She was carrying my club and fries on a tray, but she had come to a stop a few feet from the table. She was staring over my shoulder at the picture in my hand.
The moment I looked at her, she turned it off. Her pretty face went blank. She took the next step and set down the tray. She dealt me the club. Her cheek was an inch from me. I studied it.
“I need to find her,” I said.
She didn’t answer. She straightened. She glanced at the bar. Back at me.
“Why? Are you a cop?”
“God, no.”
“A private eye?”
“There’s no such thing as a private eye. I’m a reporter. John Wells of the Star.” The name did nothing for her either. It seemed actors didn’t care much about the day’s news. I said: “She may be involved in a story I’m doing. I want to find out.”
The woman walked away. I cursed. I crushed out my cigarette. I pulled the club sandwich toward me. The woman came back. She’d dumped the tray. She sat down in the chair across from me. She pushed a slip of paper toward me.
“That’s her address,” she said.
I picked up a quarter of sandwich. I chomped it. I munched it, eyeing the paper. “Have a fry,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“Anyone else ask you about her lately?”
She shook her head. “No. Why?”
I shrugged. I chomped. I munched. “I could use an exclusive right now.”
She shrugged back. “Sure,” she said. “It’s nothing to me.” For the first time, I noticed something hard—steely—in those light eyes.
“How’d you know her?”
She swallowed her fry. My cigarette pack and lighter were lying on the table. She took out a butt, lit it. “We worked together in a place downtown.”
“A theater?”
“A restaurant. The Prince Street Cafe.”
I kept chomping, munching. “She work there long?”
“Not long. You know. A couple of months.”
“You got to know her pretty well then.”
“All right. You know.”
“Sure. So? What was she like?”
She considered it. “We weren’t friends,” she said carefully. Then she added: “We talked sometimes though.”
“You didn’t like her?”
She blew smoke at me. “I never said that.”
“No. You didn’t. Silly me.”
She smiled. I liked her smile. “I gotta go to work,” she said. She stood up.
“Listen. Wait a minute.”
She waited.
“Well, what’s your name?” I asked.
“Susan Scott. I’m here every night but Monday. Till I get a part.” She reached down across me to put out her cigarette. The view was nice. She pulled away.’ I saw the slip of paper again.
“That’s a pretty ritzy address,” I said. “How does she rate that?”
Her smile soured. “Go ask her,” she said.
I watched her as she walked away. I turned back to my sandwich. I chomped. I munched. I stared into the sweet eyes of Georgia Stuart.
11
She lived in a brownstone on Gramercy Park. An elegant old building in a line of elegant old buildings, all of them peering out on the square of grass and statuary that gives the area its name. That square little park sat snug and exclusive behind its iron fence. The trees behind the fence, and the trees on the sidewalks outside the fence with the rest of us, drooped in the windless heat. The old-fashioned street lamps sent halos into the mist. That heavy mist that wouldn’t turn to rain.
The Artful Dodge and I went around the square twice looking for a parking space. Finally found one around the corner, on Irving. I walked back to Gramercy past the tables of outdoor cafés, past couples drinking beers at little tables, past the sound of their laughter.
I went down the row of stoops to the address Susan had given me. I climbed the stairs and entered the vestibule.
I looked for Georgia’s name on the mailboxes. It wasn’t there. Simon was the name on the box that should have been hers. I pressed the button under the name. No answer. I pressed it again. No answer again.
I walked back outside, back down the steps to the baking sidewalk. Above me, the brownstone’s door opened. Georgia stepped into the night.
She was wearing a loose white blouse, a short, dark skirt. She had a carryall slung over her shoulder. She paid no attention to me. She came down the stairs briskly. She passed me without a glance and headed for the corner.
“Georgia,” I said.
She stopped, swung around. There was a touch of fear in her eyes but there might be in anyone’s accosted in the dark like that. There was no other expression on her clear, open face.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“No.” I showed her my press card. “My name is John Wells. I’m with the New York Star.”
I watched for a reaction. There was none that I could see. The name seemed to do nothing for her.
“Are you a theater writer?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I want to talk to you about Paul Abingdon.”
Again: no reaction. Her face remained a blank. She simply twisted her arm so she could look at the giant watch on her wrist. She lifted a shoulder at me. “Listen. I’m going to be late. No offense. Okay?”
She turned her back on me and was off again. She headed toward Park Avenue and the subways.
I tagged after her. We entered the shadows of some sycamores, walking briskly.
“Look,” I said. “I’m under the gun. It would help me out if I could talk to you. Get things straight.”
“I really am late,” was all she said. “I really do have to go.”
We came off the shaded street onto south Park. There are no high-toned apartments on this end of the wide avenue. It’s offices and warehouses mostly and they’re all empty at night. At night, the street belongs to the hookers. I could see them—women with all the charm and tenderness of rusted iron—standing in the gutters, calling to the cars.
We reached the stairs to the subway. Georgia took hold of the banister. She took one step down.
“What about Wally Shakespeare?” I said. “Does that name mean something to you?”
She stopped. She looked over her shoulder at me. She smiled—sadly, I thought. “Oh gee,” she whispered.
It was her first show of feeling. Her features softened. Her eyes grew bigger and more kind. I was captured by those eyes. I felt she revealed herself in them, let me see a little of who she was.
I recognized the type. A country girl who had heard the call of the big city. A kid who’d stared east across the high grass and dreamed of a rhythm as fast as the rhythm inside her. I pegged her as the determined type. Ambitious. But nowhere near as tough as she wanted to appear. I could see the innocence she tried to keep hidden. The gentleness she tried to harden without success. Savvy as she tried to seem, I figured she was still a girl in need of a friend, even a guardian. Otherwise, she’d be ripe prey for predators. Like handsome pols looking for a quick fix of power in her bedroom. Or sharp-headed reporters looking for a story that could ruin her life.
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“Lookit,” I said, “give me half an hour of your time. Clear things up for me one way or the other.”
She hesitated, uncertain. I wanted to warn her to turn around and go. I didn’t.
“I really should go to class,” she said. But she moved away from the stairs and stood beside me.
I took her arm. She didn’t protest. We walked back toward the park.
We went to one of the cafes on Irving. One of those where the couples sat together laughing. We sat together, too, at a little table on the sidewalk. We ordered beers. I lit a cigarette.
Georgia watched me. A slight night breeze stirred her hair. She watched me with her lips pressed together and her hands folded on the table. She seemed to be wondering, worrying: Was I friend or foe?
I wasn’t sure myself. I thought of those pictures of her with Abingdon. My guess was that she’d been taken in somehow, seduced. I felt sorry for her. I felt plenty sorry. But I needed a story by Monday.
“What kind of class you taking?” I asked her.
“Acting. Movement, really.” She tilted her chin defiantly. “I’m an actress.”
I nodded. “You know Wally’s been looking for you, don’t you?”
She lowered her head. She brought her beer up to her lips and sipped it. “I know,” she murmured. Tossing her hair back, she looked at me. “Did he send you here?”
“No. We just met up with each other along the way. I’m acting on my own.”
“Because I feel so bad about him …” Her lips clamped shut. It was more than she’d meant to say.
I smoked. I watched her. I could see she wanted to talk. I waited her out.
“Look,” she said suddenly. She couldn’t hold back. “Look, Wally is very special to me. He really is. I don’t want to hurt him. But … he doesn’t understand!”
I looked sympathetic. I’m good at that. It helps during interviews.
“I mean, this is what I want, Mr. Wells,” she said. “I want to be an actress. Okay? That’s why I came here. To act. And I know I can. And I’m going to do it, no matter what anybody says.” It was her manifesto. She probably repeated it to herself before she went to sleep at night. She gave it a curt nod by way of punctuation.
“It’s all right with me,” I said.
“But not Wally.”
I smiled down into my beer. “You know, you’re not at all like he described you.”
A quick, wry laugh broke from her. “I’m not surprised. What did he say?”
“Well …” I held up a hand. “I’ll tell you. But don’t get mad at me. Okay?”
She laughed again, more warmly this time. She was beginning to relax a little. “Okay,” she said.
“Well, according to Wally, you were sort of a juvenile delinquent type. Wandering around middle America’s sin-infested shopping malls until he redeemed you with the word of God.”
“Oh cripes!” Her eyes went heavenward.
“I didn’t say it, remember.”
“But don’t you see? That’s just the thing about Wally. Everything is all right or all wrong with him. All good or all bad. I mean, my friends and I hung around the mall. What else was there to do?” Her hands went up and down. “God, I mean, it’s not like we robbed banks or anything.”
“I believe you. Really.”
She groaned comically. She shook her head. But then she paused, smiled to herself. A fond smile. “When he first came into the mall? To the burger shop? He was so funny. So grim and preachy. We laughed and laughed.” She glanced up at me shyly. “Some of the kids were really mean. I felt so sorry for him. I went over to talk to him more because of that than anything. Feeling sorry for him, I mean.” She sighed. “Now, I can’t get rid of him, Mr. Wells. Do you know I had to move to get away from him.”
“You moved to a pretty nice place,” I said.
“I was lucky. A friend of mine went on vacation to London. I took his place. I was hoping by the time he came back, Wally would give up and go home.”
I smoked my cigarette, considered my timing. I decided to take a crack at it. “I don’t think he’s going to do that, Miss Stuart. He’s pretty worried about this Paul Abingdon thing.”
There was a reaction this time. Her mouth turned down. Her eyes grew damp. She considered me closely—accusingly, I thought. “Are you sure you’re a reporter?” she asked. Her voice trembled.
“Yeah. More or less,” I said. “Why?”
She looked down, hid her face. “I guess I was just hoping …” she murmured: “You don’t look like a reporter, that’s all.”
“You know many reporters?”
Her hair went back and forth as she shook her head. She laughed a little. “No.” She raised her face again. She had beaten back the tears. “But you’re not what I would imagine. I mean, you don’t have a reporter’s eyes.”
I smiled. She smiled back. “What kind of eyes have I got?” I asked her.
And, very serious, she said: “My father’s. You have my father’s eyes.”
I stopped smiling. “No,” I said. “Just an old man’s eyes, that’s all.”
“No. Uh-uh. Something else. You have kids, don’t you? A daughter, I’ll bet.”
I didn’t answer her. I rolled the tip of my cigarette against the ashtray.
“Don’t you?” she said, teasing.
I made a vague gesture.
“Come on. I told you things. You have to tell.”
I watched her. “Yeah,” I said. “I had a daughter once.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I had a daughter once. Yeah.”
“Oh!” she said. Her lips parted. She actually blushed. The color rose into those round cheeks of hers. Pity rose into those pale eyes. “You mean she … Gosh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
“I’m so sorry. I … Was she real sick?”
“No. Not like that, anyway. She killed herself.”
“Oh gosh. Oh gosh,” said Georgia Stuart.
I didn’t answer. I drank in the expression on her face. It was softer than any I’d seen in a while. More gentle. More real. I watched that expression, and I thought about Bush. I thought about Cambridge. I thought about this dirty little story.
“Listen,” I said. “Never mind my eyes. I’m a reporter, all right. I’m here for a story. I’m the guy who saw the pictures of you and Abingdon.”
She looked away from me. “I don’t understand. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on, Georgia. It’s been on the radio all day. You know who I am.”
Her eyes glistened as the tears returned. “I don’t … I mean you must have me mixed up with someone else.”
“You’re a lousy liar,” I said. “It was you.”
She tightened her lips to stop their trembling. Her hand moved up to her eyes, then fell away. “Well, what about you?” Her voice was pinched and hoarse. “What about what you’re doing. What you’re trying to do? It’s not very nice either, is it? It’s not very nice at all.”
Her carryall was hung on the back of her chair. She unhooked it, looped the rope of it over her shoulder.
“Excuse me,” she said, very softly.
She stood up. I stood up with her. I dumped some cash on the table. The couples in the cafe around us laughed and talked. Georgia hesitated another second. Then she was weaving through the tables to the sidewalk.
I followed her again. “Look,” I said, “there’s a murder involved here.”
She glanced over at me harshly, but kept walking.
“The cops’ll find you eventually. Other papers. You’re gonna have to talk to someone.”
We’d reached the corner of Gramercy Park South. The trees hovered above us. The shadows hulked around us. The air was so still it seemed to rumble and quake every time a car went by.
Georgia stopped and faced me. Still fighting back the tears, she said: “If I talk to them, will they hurt me any more than you will?”
“I can tell
your side …” I began to say. Then I stopped. It was every reporter’s pitch. The last angle when a source wouldn’t crack. I looked down at the sidewalk. I felt like a bum.
When I looked up again, she was walking away from me. She moved toward her brownstone down the block. I jammed my hands in my pocket. I cursed myself.
A car’s engine roared behind me. I spun to the sound. A pair of headlights flashed on. A long black car shot away from the curb with a screech of tires. It sped toward me.
The car whipped by. I saw the silhouette of the man behind the wheel. I saw Georgia glance over her shoulder at it as it came on.
The car slammed to a stop right next to her. A man jumped out of the back. A big man in dark clothing. In an instant, he’d thrown his arm around Georgia’s throat.
“Hey!” I shouted. I stepped forward.
One step. By the time I’d taken that one step, the man had dragged Georgia halfway into the car. She hadn’t even had time to cry out. I saw her legs kicking wildly for a second. Then she was dragged all the way inside.
The car was rolling again before the rear door shut. It sped into the darkness.
I didn’t wait to watch it go. I started running toward the Artful Dodge.
12
I reached the car in a moment. I tried to jam the keys in the slot. I couldn’t get it. I was losing her. Every second, I was losing her. The key went in. The door lock popped. I yanked the door open, jumped inside.
It was suffocating in there. The air had turned to stone. I got the key in the ignition, hit the pedal, pumped the old jalopy to life. I wrenched the wheel over and tried to pull out. Nearly clipped a van as it passed. I was jolted forward as I slammed on the brakes. Losing her. Losing her.
Finally, I pulled out into the street. I barreled toward the corner. I had to pull around the van. I heard its brakes scream as it stopped to avoid broadsiding me. I heard its driver scream as I swung in front of him. I sped away down Gramercy. I peered through the windshield, searching for the dark car.
I saw a pair of taillights up ahead a block. I hit the gas. I was panting, sweating. Clumsily, I rolled down the window with my left hand, steering with my right. The breeze swept in. It was a hot breeze, but better than nothing.