Chapter 6
CHARLOTTE WAS WAITING FOR ME IN THE ENTRANCE hall. (How the heck did she know I was leaving? Did Sabrina ring a hidden buzzer, or something?) She helped me into my jacket, returned my hat, and gracefully opened the front door.
“Thank you, Charlotte,” I said, slapping my beret on my head and charging into the hallway. I wanted to stop and talk to her for a few minutes (i.e., ask her a few probing questions), but I didn’t have time. It was 2:45! I wouldn’t get back to the office until after three. If Mr. Crockett didn’t give me the axe, Crown Prince Pomeroy surely would.
The uptown subway was abnormally crowded (was B. Altman’s having its annual girdle and corset sale?), so I didn’t take a seat. I just clung to a strap near the door, clutching my purse (and the crucial list it carried) so tight to my breast you’d have thought it was full of money (my purse, not my breast). When the doors snapped open at my stop, I was off the train, up the stairs, down the block, and around the corner in a wink. And just a couple of minutes after that, I was bursting into the Daring Detective office, feeling like Brenda Starr on a life-or-death mission, but probably looking like Imogene Coca on a bug-eyed bender.
To my great astonishment and relief, Pomeroy wasn’t there.
Mike said he’d gone out about 12:30 and wouldn’t be back until 4:30-in time to make sure that Mario and Lenny met the art deadline.
“Mr. Crockett isn’t here, either,” Mike grumbled, leaning back in his chair, lighting a Lucky, and spewing the smoke straight up at the ceiling. “He went from lunch to the typesetter, or the distributor, or someplace like that. Won’t be back today. Said he’d see us at nine sharp in the morning.” He plunked one penny-loafered foot on top of his desk. “And where the hell have you been, sweetheart?” he asked, taking another drag on his weed. “Sticking your snoot in the sewer again?”
Mike was a coward, you should know, and he deeply resented the fact that I wasn’t. Like almost all crime writers in the detective magazine field, he wrote only clip stories-long, florid, trumped-up accounts of the grisliest, most sensational murders, pieced together from previous reports and composed totally in-house. He had never been to a real murder scene in person, or investigated a killing on his own, and you could bet your bottom dollar he never would. All Mike had the courage to do was razz and belittle me.
“You look kind of ragged, doll,” he said, with a smirk. “What’s the scoop? All that digging in the garbage dump got you down?”
“Not likely,” I said, giving him an ugly smirk in return. “In fact, I’m flying sky-high! I’m working on something really, really big,” I added, just to upset him (and to try out my Ed Sullivan impression). “It’s a very juicy and important story, but please don’t ask me any questions about it. I can’t discuss it with anybody. It’s top-secret.”
Mike’s jaw dropped (as I’d known it would), and then he quickly dropped the conversation, too. He didn’t want to hear about my important exploits. Enjoying Mike’s shamefaced silence to the hilt, I hung up my beret and jacket, hid my purse under some papers in the bottom drawer of my desk, and then ventured to the back of the workroom to see how Lenny was doing.
Mario didn’t even look up when I passed his desk. He was so focused on finishing the cover paste-up, he was barely aware of his surroundings. He’s in a real panic, I told myself, chuckling under my breath, glad that the crushing art deadline had kept him from noticing my late return from lunch. I’d never seen Mario work so hard before.
Lenny was working hard, too-just to stay conscious.
“You look awful, Len,” I said, feeling his forehead. His fever was raging and his skin was clammy to the touch. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be in bed.”
“Er, ah… yeah… ” he mumbled, struggling to straighten the caption under a photo of a bloody, bullet-ridden corpse. His fingers were shaking, his eyes were bulging, and his nose was swollen and red. There was a huge glob of rubber cement stuck in his hair. “I, ah… can’t leave, though,” he said. “The boards… aren’t done.”
“Who cares about the stupid boards?!” I cried, overcome with concern for my friend. “I only care about you.” I picked up his scissors, snipped the gummy ball of glue out of his hair, chucked it in the wastebasket, and then screwed his rubber cement jar closed. “C’mon, let’s get your stuff together,” I said. “You’re going home.” I felt I had to get Lenny out of there before Pomeroy came back and forced him to work late, making him even sicker than he already was.
As I helped Lenny to his feet and began guiding him to the front of the workroom for his hat, muffler, and jacket, Mario snapped out of his trance. I’m talking far out! He jumped up from his desk and followed us down the aisle, screaming his head off and yanking on the back of my sweater like a two-year-old in the throes of a three-alarm tantrum.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he wailed, grabbing a handful of gray angora and pulling so hard I stumbled two steps backward. “Lenny can’t leave! He hasn’t finished pasting up the boards! And the messenger’s coming to pick them up at five!”
I tore away from Mario’s grasp and spun around to face him head-on. “Shut up, Mario! And keep your grubby hands off my clothes. Lenny’s too sick to work. He shouldn’t have come in today at all. I’m going to help him downstairs now and hail a cab to take him home. You’ll just have to finish the damn boards yourself.” I turned back to Lenny, took him by the arm, and continued steering him toward the coat tree.
Mario and Mike didn’t make a move or say a word. They were shocked by my forceful behavior, and-to tell you the truth-so was I! As the only woman on the staff, I was accustomed to being submissive and servile-not strong. And I certainly wasn’t used to calling the shots. I realized my newfound power had a lot (okay, everything) to do with the the fact that Crockett and Pomeroy weren’t there, but it felt really good to be assertive, and I decided to savor the sensation as long as I could.
After getting Lenny into his cap and jacket and wrapping his muffler around his skinny neck, I put on my own jacket and grabbed my purse out of the drawer. (I couldn’t take the chance of leaving it-or, rather, the list-unattended, plus I needed money for the taxi.) Then I escorted Lenny out of the office and down the hall to the elevator.
He protested all the way, of course (Lenny’s fear of elevators was all-consuming), but I knew he was too weak to walk down nine steep flights of steps. When the elevator doors opened, I pushed him inside, pinned him to the wall with my shoulder, punched the DOWN button, and held his hand tightly until we reached the ground floor and he stopped whimpering. Then I piloted him across the lobby, maneuvered him through the revolving glass doors to the street, bundled him into a cab, and gave the driver my last two dollars.
It was while I was standing there on the sidewalk-waving good-bye to Lenny and sticking my empty wallet back in my purse-that I saw Brandon Pomeroy hurrying up the block. Poof! My new sense of power disappeared in a cloud of smoke. I ducked back in the lobby and snagged the first available elevator, hoping I could make it back to the office, hang up my jacket, hide my handbag, and be safely seated behind my desk before the feces hit the fan.
FOUR THIRTY CAME AND WENT, AND THERE was still no sign of Pomeroy. I couldn’t imagine what had happened to him. After all, I had seen him marching up the block toward our building and, by all appearances, he’d been determined to get here in a hurry. And that was over half an hour ago! So where the heck did he go? Did he have another appointment? If so, it must have been extremely important, because Pomeroy would never, under normal circumstances, let an art or editorial deadline slip by without seizing the opportunity to whip the slaves.