'I didn't know she was in the city,' Hawes said.
'Ever hear of her?'
'Yes. She's pretty popular. Sophisticated stuff, you know. Cole Porter, like that. And lots of special material with off-colour lyrics in impeccable taste.'
'How's your wrist?'
'Fine,' Hawes said, feeling it with his left hand.
'Do you want to look her up?'
'Sure,' Hawes said.
The phone on Byrnes's desk mng. He picked it up.
'Byrnes here,' he said. He listened. 'Sure, put him on, Dave.' He covered the mouthpiece. 'The lab,' he said to Hawes. He uncovered the mouthpiece and waited. 'Hello, Sam,' he said, 'wie geht's?' Hawes listened. Byrnes listened, interjecting an occasional 'Uh huh' into the phone. He listened for about five minutes. Then he said, 'Thanks a lot, Sam,' and hung up.
'Anything?'
'A good set of prints on the glasses,' Byrnes said. 'Sam's already sent copies to the I.B. and to Washington. Keep your toes crossed. He's sending a written report back with the glasses. They're 1952 vintage, discontinued for the later models. Once we get them, I'll have Steve and Meyer start checking the hockshops. How about this Lady Astor? Think she's the target?'
Hawes shrugged. 'I'll check her out.'
'It could be,' Byrnes said, returning the shrug. 'What the hell? Person in the public eye. Maybe some jerk doesn't like the dirty songs she sings. What do you say?'
'I say it's worth a try.'
'Make it fast,' Byrnes said. 'Don't stop to listen to any of her songs. We may have a few other tries to make before eight tonight.' He looked at his watch. 'Jesus, the time flies,' he said.
A call to the Brisson Roof told Hawes that Jay Astor's first show went on at eight p.m. The roof manager refused to divulge her address even when Hawes told him he was a detective. He insisted that Hawes give him a number to call back. Hawes gave him the Frederick 7 number, and the manager called back immediately, apparently satisfied after talking to the desk sergeant and being transferred to the Detective Division that he was talking to a bona fide cop and not one of Miss Astor's great unwashed. He gave Hawes the address, and Hawes left for the apartment immediately.
It seemed odd that Miss Astor was not staying at the hotel where she was performing, but perhaps she didn't like to mix business with pleasure. Her apartment was in uptown Isola, in the swank brown-stone neighbourhood on the south side, some thirty blocks below the first street in the 87th-Precinct territory. Hawes made the drive in ten minutes. He left the car at the curb, climbed the twelve steps to the front door, and entered a small, immaculate lobby. He scanned the mailboxes. There was no Jay Astor listed on any of the boxes. He stepped outside, and standing on the front stoop once more, checked the address again. It was the right address. He went into the lobby again and rang for the superintendent. He could hear the loud bell sounding somewhere beyond the curtained inner-lobby door. He heard a door opening and closing, heard footsteps, and then the curtained door opened.
'Yes?' the man said. He was an old man wearing house-slippers and a faded blue basque shirt.
'I'd Like to see Miss Jay Astor,' Hawes said.
'There's no Miss Astor here,' the man answered.
'I'm not a fan or a reporter,' Hawes said. 'This is police business.' He took out his wallet and opened it to his shield.
The man studied it. 'You're a detective?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'She's not in any trouble, is she?'
'She might be,' Hawes said. 'I'd like to talk to her.'
'Just a minute,' the man said. He went inside, leaving the curtained lobby door open, and also leaving the door to his ground-floor apartment ajar. Hawes could hear him dialling a phone. Upstairs, Hawes heard a phone ringing. The ringing stopped abruptly, and Hawes heard the old man talking. In a few minutes the old man came back.
'She said you should go up. It's Apartment 4A. That's the one she uses for the entrance. She's got the whole top floor, actually. That's 4A, 4s, and 4c. But she uses 4A for the entrance, got the other ones blocked off from inside with furniture. 4A. You can go right on up.'
'Thank you,' Hawes said. He moved past the old man into the hallway. Carpeted steps led from the inner hallway upstairs. An ornately carved banister was on one side of the steps. The hallway was suffocatingly hot. Hawes climbed the steps, thinking of Carella and Meyer hitting the hockshops. Would Byrnes ask for interprecinct assistance on this one? Or did he expect the 87th to hit every hockshop in the city? No, he'd ask for other men. He'd have to.
There was a small placard set in a brass rectangle screwed to the doorjamb of Apartment 4A. The placard simply read,
ASTOR.
Hawes pressed the buzzer.
The door opened so rapidly that Hawes suspected Jay Astor had been standing just inside it.
'You the detective?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'Come in.'
He walked into the apartment. If anything, Jay Astor was a disappointment. She had appeared sexy, slinky, and seductive in her newspaper photo, the skin-tight gown moulding the abundant curves of a naturally endowed body. Her eyes had been provocative, and her smile had held the flash of promised evil, the tantalizing challenge of a mysterious woman. Here, in person, there was no challenge and no promise.
Jay Astor wore shorts and a halter. Her bosom was full and rich, but her legs were somewhat muscular, the legs of a tennis player. Her eyes were slightly squinted, but he realized instantly that the squint was a result of myopia and not sexuality. Her teeth revealed by her smile were rather large, giving her the appearance of a benevolent horse. Or perhaps he was being too cruel. He supposed, unprepared by the photo, he would have considered Miss Astor an attractive woman.
'The living room's air-conditioned,' she said. 'Come on in there, and we'll close the door.'
He followed her into a room done in extreme modern. She closed the door behind him and said, 'There. Isn't that better? This heat is the most. I came up from a South American tour two weeks ago, and believe me it wasn't as hot down there. What can I do for you?'
'We received a letter this morning,' Hawes said.
'Oh? What about?' Jay Astor went to the bar lining one side of the long room. 'Would you like a drink? A gin rickey? A Tom Collins? You call it.'
'Nothing, thanks.'
Her face expressed mild surprise. Unperturbed, she began mixing herself a gin and tonic.
'The letter said, "I will kill The Lady tonight at eight. What can you do about it?" ' Hawes said.
'Nice letter.' She pulled a face and squeezed a lime into the drink.
'You don't seem particularly impressed,' Hawes said.
'Should I be?'
'You are known as The Lady, aren't you?'
'Oh! Oh!' she said. 'Oh, yes. The Lady. I will kill The Lady tonight. I see. Yes. Yes.'
'Well?'
'A crank,' Jay said.
'Maybe. Have you had any threatening letters or calls?'
'Recently, do you mean?'
'Yes.'
'No, not recently. I get them every now and then. Jack the Ripper types. They call me smutty. They say they will kill me and cleanse the world in the blood of the lamb, and like that. Buggos. Cranks.' She turned from the bar, grinning. 'I'm still alive.'
'You seem to take all of it pretty lightly, Miss Astor.'
'Call me Jay,' she said. 'I do. If I had to worry about every buggo who writes or calls, I'd become a buggo myself. There's no percentage in that.'
'All the same, you may be the person indicated in this letter.'
'So what do we do about it?'
'First of all, if you don't mind, we'd like to give you police protection tonight.'
'All night?' Jay asked, raising an eyebrow coquettishly, her face expressing for a fleeting instant the promise and the challenge that was in the newspaper photo.