I didn’t stoop to asking him why he should be so worried something had happened to me; he might have given me the right answer. “Well,” I said, “I’ve got him.” And I passed him the rosewood jewel case.
“Got who?”
“The guy that Chick’s been made a patsy for.”
He opened it, looked in, looked under it. “What’s this?”
“Hers. I had a hunch, and I bought it. He must have had a hunch too — only his agent — and it must have been his agent, he wouldn’t show up himself — didn’t follow it through, wasn’t sure enough. Stick your thumb under the little lock. Not over it, down below it, and press hard on the wood.” Something clicked, and the satin bottom flapped up, like it had with me.
“Fake bottom, eh?” he said.
“Don’t be an echo. Read that top letter out loud. That was the last one she got, very day it happened.”
“ ‘You know, baby,’ ” Bums read. “ ‘I think too much of you to ever let you go. And if you ever tired of me and tried to leave me, I’d kill you first, and then you could go wherever you want. They tell me you’ve been seen going around a lot lately with some young punk. Now, baby, I hope for his sake, and yours tod, that when I come back day after tomorrow I find it isn’t so, just some more of my boys’ lies. They like to rib me sometimes, see if I can take it or not.’ ”
“He gave her a bum steer there on purpose,” I pointed out, “He came back ‘tomorrow’ and not ‘day after,’ and caught her with the goods.”
“Milt,” Bums read from the bottom of the page. And then he looked at me, and didn’t see me for once.
“Militis, of course,” I said, “the Greek night-club king. Milton, as he calls himself. Everyone on Broadway knows him. And yet, d’you notice how that name stayed out of the trial? Not a whisper from beginning to end! That’s the missing name all right!”
“It reads that way, I know,” he said undecidedly, “but there’s this: She knew her traffic signals. Why would she chuck away the banana and hang onto the skin? In other words, Milton spells real dough, your brother wasn’t even carfare.”
“But Militis had her branded—”
“Sure, but—”
“No, I’m not talking slang now. I mean actually, physically; it’s mentioned in one of these letters. The autopsy report had it too, remember? Only they mistook it for an operation scar or scald. Well, when a guy does that, anyone would have looked good to her, and Chick was probably a godsend. The branding was probably not the half of it, either. It’s fairly well known that Milton likes to play rough with his women.”
“All right, kid,” he said, “but I’ve got bad news for you. This evidence isn’t strong enough to have the verdict set aside and a new trial called. A clever mouth-piece could blow this whole pack of letters out the window with one breath. Ardent Greek temperament, and that kind of thing, you know. You remember how Schlesinger dragged it out of Mandy that she’d overheard more than one guy make the same kind of jealous threats. Did it do any good?”
“This is the McCoy, though. He came through, this one, Militis.”
“But baby, you’re telling it to me and I convince easy, from you. You’re not telling it to the Grand Jury.”
I shoved the letters at him. “Just the same, you chase out and have ’em photostated, every last one of them, and put ’em in a cool, dry place. I’m going to dig up something a little more convincing to go with them, if that’s what’s needed. What clubs does he own?”
“What clubs doesn’t he? There’s Hell’s Bells—” He stopped short, looked at me. “You stay out of there.”
“One word from you...” I purred, and closed the door after him.
“A little higher,” the manager said. “Don’t be afraid, we’ve seen it all before.”
I took another hitch in my hoisted skirt, gave him a look. “If it’s my appendix you want to size up, say so. It’s easier to uncover the other way around, from up to down. I just sing and dance, I don’t bathe for the customers.”
“I like ’em like that,” he nodded approvingly to his yes-man. “Give her a chord, Mike,” he said to his pianist.
“The Man I Love,” I said. “I do dusties, not new ones.”
“Good tonsils,” he said. “Give her a dance-chorus, Mike.”
Mike said disgustedly, “Why d’ya wanna waste your time? Even if she was paralyzed from the waist down and had a voice like a frog, ain’t you got eyes? Get a load of her face, will you?”
“You’re in,” the manager said. “Thirty-five, and buy yourself some up-to-date lyrics. Come around at eight and get fitted for some duds. What’s your name?”
“Bill me as Angel Face,” I said, “and have your electrician give me an amber spot. They take the padlocks off their wallets when I come out in an amber spot.”
He shook his head, almost sorrowfully. “Hang onto that face, girlie. It ain’t gonna happen again in a long time!”
Burns was holding up my locked room-door with one shoulder when I got back. “Here’s your letters back; I’ve got the photostats tucked away in a safe place. Where’d you disappear to?”
“I’ve landed a job at Hell’s Bells. I’m going to get that guy and get him good! If that’s the way I’ve got to get the evidence, that’s the way. After all, if he was sold on her, I’ll have him cutting out paper dolls before two weeks are out. What’d she have that I haven’t got? Now, stay out of there. Somebody might know your face, and you’ll only queer everything.”
“Watch yourself, will you, Angel Face? You’re playing a dangerous game. That Milton is nobody’s fool. If you need me in a hurry, you know where to reach me. I’m right at your shoulder, all the way through.”
I went in and stuck the letters back in the fake bottom of the case. I had an idea I was going to have a visitor fairly soon, and wasn’t going to tip my hand. I stood it on the dresser-top and threw in a few pins and glass beads for luck.
The timing was eery. The knock came inside of ten minutes. I’d known it was due, but not that quick. It was my competitor from the auction room, flashy as ever; he’d changed flowers, that was all.
“Miss Sebastian,” he said, “isn’t it? I’d like very much to buy that jewel case you got.”
“I noticed that this morning.”
He went over and squinted into it. “That all you wanted it for, just to keep junk like that in?”
“What’d you expect to find, the Hope diamond?”
“You seemed willing to pay a good deal.”
“I lose my head easy in auction rooms. But, for that matter, you seemed to be willing to go pretty high yourself.”
“I still am,” he said. He turned it over, emptied my stuff out, tucked it under his arm, put something down on the dresser. “There’s a hundred dollars. Buy yourself a real good one.”
Through the window I watched the dreadnought drift away again. “Just a little bit too late in getting here,” I smiled after it. “The cat’s out of the bag now and a bulldog will probably chase it.”
The silver dress fitted me like a wet compress. It was one of those things that break up homes. The manager flagged me in the passageway leading back. “Did you notice that man all by himself at a ringside table? You know who he is, don’t you?”
If I hadn’t, why had I bothered turning on all my current his way? “No,” I said, round-eyed, “who?”
“Milton. He owns the works. The reason I’m telling you is this: You’ve got a date with a bottle of champagne at his table, starting in right now. Get on in there.”