THE NEWS THAT reached Pickax City early on that cold November morning sent a deathly chill through the small northern community. The Pickax police chief, Andrew Brodie, was the first to hear about the car crash. It had occurred four hundred miles to the south, in the perilous urban area that locals called Down Below. The metropolitan police appealed to Brodie for assistance in locating the next of kin.
The victim, they said, had been driving through the heart of the city on a four-lane freeway when the occupants of a passing car, according to witnesses, fired shots at him, causing him to lose control of his vehicle, which crashed into a concrete abutment and burned. The driver’s body was consumed by the flames, but through the license plates the registration had been traced to James Qwilleran, fifty-two, of Pickax City.
Brodie smashed his leathery fist down on the desk, and his face contorted in grief and anger. “I warned him! I warned him!” he shouted.
Qwilleran had no living relatives; a phone call to his attorney confirmed that fact. His family consisted of two Siamese cats, but his extended family included the entire population of Moose County. The genial personality and quirky philosophy of the retired journalist endeared “Mr. Q” to everyone. The column he wrote for the local newspaper had won him a host of admirers. His luxuriant moustache and drooping eyelids and graying temples were considered sexually attractive by women of all ages. And the fact that he was the richest bachelor in three counties and an unbridled philanthropist made him a civic treasure.
Brodie immediately called Arch Riker, Qwilleran’s lifelong friend and current publisher of the Moose County newspaper. “Dammit! I warned him about that jungle!” the chief shouted into the phone. “He’s been living up here for three years, and he forgot that life Down Below is like Russian roulette!” Shocked and searching for something to say, Riker mumbled soberly, “Qwill knew all about that. Before moving up here he lived in cities for fifty years. He and I grew up in Chicago.” “Things have changed since then,” Brodie snapped. “God! Do you know what this means?” The fact was that Qwilleran had inherited vast wealth from the Klingenschoen estate – on one condition: He must live in Moose County for five years. Otherwise, the Klingenschoen millions – or billions – would go to the alternate heirs out of state.
Riker listened glumly to Brodie’s tirade and then phoned Polly Duncan, the woman in Qwilleran’s life, who was prostrated by the news. He himself made immediate plans to fly down to the city. By the time the publisher had notified his own news desk and the local radio.station, the telephone lines were spluttering with the bad tidings, and Moose County was caught up in a frenzy of horror and grief. Thousands would miss Qwilleran’s column on page two of the newspaper.
Hundreds would miss the sight of Mr. Q riding his bicycle on country roads and walking about downtown Pickax with a long stride and a sober expression, answering their greetings with a courteous salute. And everyone realized the community would now lose scholarships, grants, and interest-free loans. Why, they asked each other, had he been so rash as to venture Down Below? Only one person thought to worry about the Siamese. His part-time secretary, Lori Bamba, cried, “What will happen to Koko and Yum Yum?” There were cats galore in Moose County – barn mousers, feral cats, and pampered pets – yet none so pampered as the two thoroughbreds who lived with Qwilleran, and none quite so remarkable as Kao K’o Kung, whose everyday name was Koko. With his noble whiskers, aristocratic ears, sensitive nose, and inscrutable gaze Koko could see the invisible, hear the inaudible, and sense the unknowable. His companion, Yum Yum, was a charmer who captivated Qwilleran with shameless wiles, reaching out a paw to touch his moustache while squeezing her eyes and purring throatily. They were a handsome pair – fawn-furred, with seal-brown extremities and mesmerizing blue eyes. What would happen to them now? Where were they? Would anyone feed them?
Then came the gripping question: Were they still alive? Had they been in the car when it burned?
About two weeks before the metropolitan police called Brodie with the fateful news, Qwilleran and his two feline companions were spending a quiet evening at home in Moose County – the man, a husky six feet two, sprawled in the second – best easy chair with nothing much on his mind; the cats lounging on the best chair, as was their due, meditating and looking exquisite. When the raucous bell of the telephone disturbed the domestic peace, Qwilleran reluctantly hoisted himself to his feet and went to the phone in the adjoining room. It was a long-distance call from Down Below.
He heard an unfamiliar voice say, “Hello, Mr. Qwilleran. You’ll never guess who this is!… Amberina, from the Three Weird Sisters in Junktown! Do you remember me?” “Of course I remember you,” he said diplomatically, at the same time thinking fast. The three women had an antique shop, but which of the sisters was Amberina? The giddy young blond or the man-crazy redhead or the unimpressive brunette? “How’s everything Down Below?” he asked. “I haven’t been there for quite a while – three years, as a matter of fact.” “You’d never recognize Junktown,” she replied. “We’re being gentrified, like they say.
People are buying the old townhouses and fixing them up, and we’re getting some first-class restaurants and antique shops.” “Do you still have your shop?” “No, we gave it up. Ivrene finished art school and got a job in Chicago. Cluthra married money – wouldn’t you know? – and moved to Texas. And I’m working for an auction house. From what I hear, Mr.
Qwilleran, your life has changed, too, with the inheritance and everything.” “Much to my surprise, yes… By the way, did you hear about Iris Cobb?” “Gosh, were we ever shocked! When she was in Junktown she was such a live wire.” “Does Mary Duckworth still have the Blue Dragon?” “She sure does! It’s the best antique shop on the street – the most expensive, that is. Robert Maus has opened a classy restaurant, and Charlotte Roop is his manager. You know both of them, I think.” Why, Qwilleran thought, is this woman calling me after three years? His momentary silence brought her to the point.
Amberina said, “Mary wanted me to call you because she’s going out of town. She has something she’d like to suggest to you.” “Well, fire away!” “Do you know the big old white apartment building called the Casablanca? It’s sort of rundown, but it’s a landmark.” “I vaguely remember it.” “It’s a tall building between Junktown and the reclaimed area where they’re putting up the new office towers and condos.” “Yes, now I know the one you mean,” he said. “Well, to make along story short, some developers want to tear it down, which would be a crime! That building is really built! And it has a lot of history. Junktown has formed a task force called SOCK – Save Our Casablanca Kommittee – spelled with a K, you know.” “Does SOCK have any clout?” Qwilleran quipped.
“Not really. That’s why we’re calling you.” “What’s the proposition?” She drew a deep breath. “The Casablanca used to be the best address in town. SOCK wants you to buy it and restore it… There! I said it! It wasn’t easy.” It was Qwilleran’s turn to take a deep breath.
“Now wait a minute, Amberina. Let me straighten you out. I’m no financier, and I don’t get involved in business ventures. Nothing is further from my mind. In fact, I’ve turned my inheritance over to the Klingenschoen Memorial Fund. I have nothing to do with it.” Actually he made suggestions to the Fund, but he saw no need to mention that.
“We all remember what you did for Junktown when you wrote for the Daily Fluxion, Mr. Qwilleran. Your series of articles in the paper really woke us up and started our comeback.” He stroked his moustache as he remembered his memorable winter in that slummy part of town. “I admit my Junktown experience whetted my interest in preservation,” he said, “and theoretically I endorse your cause, although I’m in no position to know whether it’s feasible.” “Oh, but you should see the Casablanca!” she said with enthusiasm. ‘The experts tell us it has great possibilities.” Qwilleran was beginning to remember her now. Amberina was the least weird of the Three Weird Sisters. “The building used to be very grand,” she was saying. “Some changes have been made; but the architects say they’re reversible. It could go back to being a fashionable place to live, and that would be a real boost for Junktown. Right now the Casablanca is… well, the tenants are a mixed bag. But they’re interesting! Mostly singles, but a few couples, not necessarily married.
Whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics… yuppies, artists, truck drivers, wealthy widows, college students, a couple of stunning call girls, and a few bums and crazies, but they’re harmless.” “You make it sound irresistible.” “I live at the Casablanca myself,” she said with a small hysterical laugh.
Quill now remembered more about Amberina. She had dark hair, very attractive blue eyes (probably wore contacts), and a husband. Yet she now spoke as if she lived alone. “I’d like to see the place,” he said.
“Mary said to tell you the penthouse apartment is available for sublet, and it’s very well furnished. Maybe you’d like to come down and stay for a while.” “Well, I don’t know…” “You should decide fast, Mr. Qwilleran, because the developers are putting pressure on the owner of the building to sell it to them. SOCK is getting kind of antsy.” “Who is the owner?” “We call her the Countess. She’s seventy-five years old. She’s lived in the building all her life and still has her original apartment. I’m sure you could talk her into selling to your Memorial Fund, Mr. Qwilleran. You’re a very charming man.” “Not always,” he protested in mock modesty, grooming his moustache. He was well aware of his success in winning over women, especially older ones. “If I were to drive down there,” he said slowly and thoughtfully, “I’d have to take my cats. Are pets permitted?” “Cats are okay, but not dogs. In fact, there are cats allover the place.” Amberina giggled. “Some people call it the Casablanca Cathouse.” “Did you say there’s a penthouse available?” he asked with increasing interest.
“You’d love it! It’s really very glamorous. There’s a large sunken living room with a skylight and indoor trees…
and a marvelous view… and a terrace…” “Let me call you back tomorrow. I’ll have to discuss it with my bosses,” Qwilleran said facetiously, meaning the Siamese.
“Don’t lose any time,” she warned. “If anything happens to the old lady, Mary says, the building will be sold to the developers so the heirs can be paid off.” After hanging up the phone he rationalized fast. One: He had been confined to Moose County for three years, except for one flying trip Down Below to have dinner at the Press Club. Two: Winter was on its way, and winters in Moose County were not only cruel but interminable. Three: The imperiled Casablanca would be a convenient excuse to escape the glacial pavements and ten-foot snowbanks of Pickax. At least, he thought, there’s no harm in driving down and checking out the building’s potential.
First he broke the news to the Siamese. Living alone, he made it a practice to converse with his cats, often reading aloud to them and always discussing his problems and plans. They seemed to enjoy the sound of his voice, whether or not they knew what he was saying. More importantly, verbalizing his thoughts helped him to make decisions.
“Listen, you guys,” he called out to them, “how would you like to spend the winter in the Crime Belt instead of the Snow Belt?… Where are you?” His companions had deserted their comfortable chair and were nowhere in view.
“Where did you brats go?” he demanded. There was not a murmur from either of them, although he could feel their presence, and he could guess where they were. Koko had bur- rowed under the hearth rug, and Yum Yum was hiding under the rug in front of the sofa. Their silent comment was readily interpreted: They abhorred a change of address, and they sensed what Qwilleran had in mind.
He paced the floor with growing eagerness. De- spite the reaction of his housemates, he relished the idea of a winter in the big city. He missed the Press Club. He missed the camaraderie of the staffers at the Daily Fluxion, where he had been a popular feature writer. He missed the stage shows, the hockey and pro basketball, and the variety of restaurants. There was one drawback: He would have to forgo the companionship of Polly Duncan. He had become very fond of Pickax City’s head librarian. They shared the same interests. She was his own age – an intelligent and loving woman. And since neither had a desire to marry, they were a compatible pair.
Polly was the first one he wanted to consult about his proposed venture, and he phoned her little house in the country, but before he could break the news, she quelched his elation with a cry of distress.
“Oh, Qwill! I was just about to call you. I’ve had some dreadful news. I’m being evicted!” “What do you mean?” For years she had been the tenant of a snug cottage in farming country, and he had spent many idyllic weekends surrounded by cornfields and deer habitat and a hemisphere of blue sky.
“I told you the farm had been sold,” she said, almost in tears. “Now I learn that the new owner wants my cottage for his married son. Winter’s almost here! Where can I go? Landlords don’t permit cats, and I can’t give up Bootsie! What shall I do?” she wailed. Here was a woman who could devise a swift solution to the most complex problem arising at the public library; her panic over this personal setback was disturbing. “Are you there?” she cried impatiently. “Did you hear me, Qwill?” “I heard you. I’m thinking,” he said. “It so ‘happens that I’m invited to spend the winter months Down Below – in a penthouse apartment. That means… you could put your furniture in storage and stay at my place in Pickax while you scout for a new house.” Whimsically he added, “I have no objection to cats.” There was silence at the other end of the line. “Are you there, Polly? Did you hear me?” “I’m thinking,” she said. “It sounds like an ideal solution, Qwill, and it’s certainly very generous of you, and of course it would be handy to the library, but… ” “But what?” “But I don’t like the idea of your spending all that time Down Below.” “You went to England for an entire summer,” he reminded her. “I didn’t care for that idea, either, but I survived.” “That’s not what I mean. Cities are so unsafe! I don’t want anything to happen to you.” “Polly, may I remind you that I lived in large cities all my life before moving up here.” “What is the penthouse you mentioned?” she asked warily.
“Let’s have dinner tomorrow night, and I’ll explain.” Next he phoned his old friend, Arch Riker, now publisher of the local paper. He said, “I’ve just had an interesting call from Down Below. Do you remember the Casablanca apartments on the edge of Junktown?” “Sure,” said Riker. “Rosie and I lived there when we were first married. They’d cut up most of the large apartments into efficiencies and one-bedroom units. We had a few good years there. Then the kids started coming, and we moved to the suburbs. What about the Casablanca? I suppose they’re tearing it down.” “You guessed right,” Qwilleran said. “Some developers want to take it over.” “They’ll need a nuclear bomb to demolish that hunk of masonry. It’s built like the Rock of Gibraltar.” “Well, hold on to your hat, Arch. I’ve been thinking it might be a good public relations ploy for the Klingenschoen Fund to buy it and restore it” “What! You mean – restore it all the way? That would be a costly operation. You’re talking about megamillions!” “That’s what I mean – restore the apartments to their original condition and go condo. The Fund is making money faster than the board of directors can give it away, so what if it’s a financial loss? It will be a triumph for the cause of preservation – and a feather in the Klingenschoen cap.” “I have to think about that. Offhand, it sounds like a madcap gamble. Have you suggested it to the board of directors?” “I heard the news only half an hour ago, Arch. I’ll need more particulars, but see what you think of this: If I spend the winter down there, investigating the possibilities, I can write a weekly column for you on the horrors of city living.
Moose County readers will lap it up!” “Are you sure you want to go down there?” Riker asked apprehensively. ‘,’It’s a dangerous place to live, what with muggings and break-ins and murders.” “Are you telling me? I wrote the book!” At the height of his career Qwilleran had written a bestseller on urban crime. “You may remember, Arch, there were muggings and break-ins and murders when you and I worked for the Daily Fluxion, and we took them for granted.” “From what I hear and read, conditions are much worse now.” “There’s no coward so cowardly as a city dweller who has moved to the boondocks, my friend. Listen to this: I can get the penthouse at the Casablanca, furnished.” “Sounds good, I guess, but don’t rush into anything,” Riker advised. “Think about it for a couple of weeks.” “I can’t wait a couple of weeks. The K Fund will have to sneak in a bid ahead of the wrecking ball. Besides, we can expect snow any day now, and it won’t stop snowing until March. I won’t be able to get out of here.” “What about the cats?” “I’ll take them with me, of course.” “They won’t like living high up. We were on the ninth floor, and our cats hated the elevator.” “They’ll adjust. There’s a terrace, and where there’s a terrace there are pigeons. Koko is a licensed pigeon watcher.” “Well… do it if you want to take the gamble, Qwill, but wear a bulletproof vest,” Riker warned, and said good-bye.
Qwilleran found it difficult to settle down. He tried reading aloud to the Siamese to calm his excitement, but his mind was not on the printed page. He was impatient to learn more about the Casablanca. Unable to wait until morning, he phoned Down Below.
“I hope I’m not calling too late, Amberina,” he said. “I need more information before I can broach the subject to the board of directors.” “Sure,” she said distractedly, as if watching something attention-riveting on television.
“First, do you know anything about the history of the building? When was it built?” “In 1901. The first high-rise apartment building in the city. The first to have an elevator.” “How many stories?” “Thirteen.” “Who lived there originally? What kind people?” “Well, Mary says there were financiers, government officials, railroad tycoons, judges, heiresses – that kind. Also, they had suites for visiting royalty, opera stars, and so forth. After the stock market crash in 1929, more millionaires jumped off the roof of the Casablanca than any other building in the county.” “An impressive distinction,” Qwilleran said wryly. “When did the place start to go downhill?
“In the Depression. They couldn’t rent the expensive apartments, so they cut them up, lowered ceilings – anything to cut costs and bring in some rent money.” “What can you tell me about the structure itself?” “Let’s see… SOCK put out a brochure that’s around here somewhere. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll try to find it.
I’m not a very well-organized person.” “Take your time,” he said. He had been making notes, and while she searched for the brochure, he sketched out his approach to the board of directors, scheduled his departure, and made a list of people to notify.
“Okay, here I am. I found it. Sorry to keep you waiting,” Amberina said. “It was with my Christmas cards.” “Aren’t you early with Christmas cards?” “I haven’t sent out last year’s cards yet!… Are you ready? It says the exterior is faced with white glazed brick.
The design is modified Moorish… Marble lobby with Persian rugs… Elevators paneled in rosewood… Mosaic tile floors in hallways. Apartments soundproof and fireproof, with twelve-foot ceilings and black walnut woodwork. Restaurant with terrace on the top floor. Also a swimming pool up there… this is the way it was in 1901, you understand. How does it sound, Mr. Qwilleran?” “Not bad! You’d better reserve that penthouse for me.” “Mary told me to say that you’ll be the guest of SOCK.” “I can afford to pay my own rent, but I appreciate the offer. How’s the parking?” “There’s a paved lot with reserved spaces for tenants.” “And what’s the crime situation in Junktown?” “Well, we finally got the floozies and winos and pushers off the street.” “How did you do that?” “The city cooperated because the Pennimans were behind it – ” ” – and the city realized a broader tax base,” Qwilleran guessed.
“Something like that. We have a citizens’ patrol at night, and, of course, we don’t take any chances after dark.” “How about security in the building itself?” “Pretty good. The front door is locked, and there’s a buzzer system. We had a doorman until a year ago. The side door is locked except for emergencies.” “Apparently the elderly woman who owns the building feels safe enough.” “I guess so. She has sort of a live-in bodyguard.” “Then it’s a deal. Count on me to arrive next weekend.” “Mary will be tickled. We’ll make all the arrangements for you.” “One question, Amberina. How many persons know that SOCK is inviting me to go down there?” “Well, it was Mary’s idea, and she probably discussed it with Robert Maus, but she wouldn’t gab it around. She’s not that type.” “All right. Let’s keep it that way. Don’t broadcast it. The story is that I want to get away from the abominable snow and ice up north, and the Casablanca is the only place that allows cats.” “Okay, I’ll tell Mary.” “Any instructions for me when I arrive?” “Just buzz the manager from the vestibule. We don’t have a doorman anymore, but the custodian will help with your luggage. It will be nice to see you again, Mr. Qwilleran.” “What happened to the doorman?” he asked.
“Well,” she said apologetically, “he was shot.”
2
THE SENIOR PARTNER of the Pickax firm of Hasselrich Bennett & Barter, legal counsel for the Klingenschoen Memorial Fund, was an elderly man with stooped shoulders and quivering jowls, but he had the buoyant optimism and indomitability of a young man. It was Hasselrich whom Qwilleran chose to approach regarding the Casablanca proposal.
Before discussing business, the attorney insisted on serving coffee, pouring it proudly from his paternal grandmother’s silver teapot into his maternal grandmother’s Wedgwood cups, which rattled in the saucers as his shaking hands did the honors.
“It appears,” Qwilleran began after a respectable interval for pleasantries, “that all of the Fund’s ventures are on the East Coast, and it might be advisable to make ourselves known in another part of the country. What I have to suggest is both an investment and a public beneficence.” Hasselrich listened attentively as Qwilleran described the gentrification of Junktown, the unique architecture of the Casablanca, and the opportunity for the K Fund to preserve a fragment of the region’s heritage. At the mention of the marble lobby and rosewood-paneled elevators, the attorney’s jowls quivered with approval. “Many a time I have heard my grandfather extolling that magnificent building. He knew the man who built it,” said Hasselrich. “As a young boy I was once treated to lunch in the rooftop restaurant. Unfortunately, I remember nothing but the spinach timbales. I had a juvenile aversion to spinach.” Qwilleran said, “The rooftop restaurant is now a penthouse apartment, and I plan to spend some time there, investigating the possibilities and persuading the owner to sell, if it seems wise. You know what will happen if developers are allowed to acquire the property; the building will be razed.” “Deplorable!” said Hasselrich. “We must not let that happen. This must be added to the agenda for the directors’ meeting next week.” “I plan to drive down there in a few days-to beat the snow,” said Qwilleran. “If you will be good enough to make the presentation in my absence, I’ll supply a fact sheet.” He welcomed any excuse to avoid meetings with the board of directors.
“Do you find it quite necessary to attend to this research yourself?” asked the attorney. “There are agencies we might retain to make a feasibility study.” “I consider it highly advisable. The owner is being pressured by the developers, and it will require some personal strategy to persuade the lady to sell to us.” The elderly attorney’s lowered eyes and twitching eyelids were making broad inferences.
“She’s seventy-five,” Qwilleran added hastily, “and if she dies before deciding in our favor, we’re out of luck and the Casablanca is doomed.” Hasselrich cleared his throat. “There is one consideration that gives me pause. You have indicated a profound interest in the welfare of Moose County, and that entails a responsibility to remain in good health, so to speak. You under- stand my meaning, do you not?” “Moose County’s interest in keeping me alive is no greater than my own desire to live, and I might point out another fact,” Qwilleran said firmly. “When I go Down Below I am not a naive tourist from the outback; I’ve been city-smart since childhood.” Hasselrich studied his desktop and shook his jowls. “You seem to have made your decision. We can only hope for your safe return.” That same afternoon, the Moose County Something, as.the local newspaper was waggishly named, carried the regular Tuesday column headed “Straight from the Qwill Pen,” with an editor’s note stating that Jim Qwilleran would be on a leave of absence for an indefinite period, pursuing business Down Below, but he would file an occasional column on city living, to appear in his usual space.
As soon as Qwilleran read this he recognized a conspiracy on the part of Arch Riker, the publisher, and Junior Goodwinter, the managing editor. The two guessed what the result of such an announcement would be, and they were right. Qwilleran’s telephone started to ring, and the citizens of Moose County tried to dissuade him from braving the perils Down Below. When told that the trip was important and necessary, they offered advice: “Wear a money belt… Don’t take your best watch… Get a burglar alarm for your car… Lock yourself in when you drive in the city.” Police Chief Brodie said, “Och, mon, you’re a bit daft. I happen to hear a few things that don’t get in the papers, but if you insist on going, stay home after dark and buy one of them gadgets that lock the brake pedal to the steering wheel.” From Susan Exbridge, a member of the Theatre Club, there was a melodramatic phone call: “Darling, don’t walk anywhere! Take a taxi, even if you’re only going a block. I have friends Down Below, and they tell me it’s hell!” Dr. Goodwinter warned of respiratory ailments caused by airborne pollutants, and Eddington Smith, the timid dealer in secondhand books, offered to lend his handgun.
Lori Bamba was concerned chiefly about the cats. “If you’re taking Koko and Yum Yum,” she said, “don’t let it be known that you have pedigreed animals. Kitnapping is big business Down Below. Also, you should feed them extra B vitamins to combat stress, because they’ll sense menacing elements.” Even Qwilleran’s cleaning man was worried. “It’s prayin’ I’ll be,” said Mr. O’Dell, “until you be comin’ safe home, Mr. Q.” Nevertheless, Qwilleran stubbornly shopped for the journey. He bought a cagelike cat carrier that was more commodious and better ventilated than the picnic hamper in which the Siamese had formerly traveled. For their meals en route he laid in a supply of canned crabmeat, boned chicken, and red salmon. He also bought two blue leather harnesses – one medium and one large – with matching leashes. For himself he would take whatever he happened to have on hand.
There were two suits in his closet-a gray flannel that he had worn once to a wedding and a dark blue serge that he had worn once as a pallbearer. These – ‘with two white shirts, a couple of ties, and a raincoat – were his concessions to city dressing. Otherwise, he would take flannel shirts, sweaters, and his comfortable tweed sports coat with leather patches on the elbows.
During Qwilleran’ s final days in Pickax, fare- well scenes with friends and associates had the solemnity of a deathbed vigil. Polly Duncan, on their last evening together, was lachrymose and in no mood to be comforted or to quote Shakespeare, although Qwilleran rose to the occasion with “parting is such sweet sorrow.” “Promise you’ll call me as soon as you arrive” were her final words. He had hoped for less wifely anxiety and more amorous sentiments.
Even the Siamese sensed that something dire was afoot, and they sulked for twenty-four hours before their departure. When taken for rides in their new carrier, as rehearsal for the trip, they reacted like condemned nobility on the way to the guillotine – stoic, proud, and aloof.
None of this heightened Qwilleran’s anticipation of the expedition, but he packed the car on Saturday morning with grim determination. Two suitcases, his typewriter, the unabridged dictionary, and his computerized coffeemaker went into the trunk. On the backseat were two boxes of books, the new cat carrier, and a blue cushion. The cats’ water dish and their commode – a turkey roaster with the handles sawed off – were on the floor of the backseat.
The car was a small, energy-efficient, preowned four-door that Qwilleran had bought in a hurry, following his accident on Ittibittiwassee Road. The paint finish, a metallic purplish-blue, was not to his liking, but the used-car dealer assured him it was a color ahead of its time, called Purple Plum, and it would increase in acceptance and popularity.
“It looks better on fruit,” Qwilleran remarked. The price was right, however, and the gas mileage was said to be phenomenal, and he had retained thrifty habits despite his new financial status, so he bought it. This was the car he packed for the four-hundred-mile journey, which he intended to stretch over two days for the comfort of the Siamese.
“All aboard the Purple Plum for Lockmaster, Paddockville, and all points south!” he announced to his two reluctant passengers. Grudgingly they allowed themselves to be stuffed into the carrier.
As the three of them pulled away from their home on Park Circle, the pair in the backseat maintained their funereal silence, leaving Qwilleran long, quiet hours to reflect on his sojourn in the north country. Despite the king-size mosquitoes, poison ivy, skunks, and hazardous deer crossings, Moose County afforded a comfortable life among good people. Most of them were rampant individualists and non-stop gossips, but that merely made them more interesting in the eyes of a journalist. How, he questioned, would he adjust to city life with its mask of conformity, guarded privacy, and self-interest?
His ruminations were interrupted by a demanding shriek from the backseat – so loud and so sudden that he gripped the steering wheel to keep the car on the road. Yum Yum was merely making a suggestion. How a creature of such delicacy and gentleness could produce this vulgar screech was beyond his comprehension, but it was effective. At the next crossroads he stopped for a coffee break and released the Siamese from their coop to stretch, peer out the windows, lap a tongueful of water, and examine the gas pedal.
After six hours of driving (Yum Yum objected to speeds in excess of fifty miles per hour), Qwilleran could not fault his passengers. They were behaving like mature, sophisticated travelers. At the motel that night – a less-than-deluxe establishment that welcomed pets – the Siamese slept soundly throughout the night, although Qwilleran was disturbed by barking dogs, slamming doors, and a growling ice machine outside his room. This appliance was located at the foot of wooden steps, up and down which the second-floor guests thumped frequently, shouting to each other: “Where’s the gin?” “In the trunk under the spare tire!” “I can’t find the peanuts!” It was Saturday night, and travelers were partying late. They also took an undue number of showers in Qwilleran’s estimation. The force of the water hitting the fiberglass tubs in neighboring rooms thundered like Niagara, while he lay awake waiting for the tumult to end.
Meanwhile, the Siamese slept peacefully on top of his feet, and when he wriggled to relieve the numbness, they moved farther up and draped their soft bodies across his knees. Then late arrivals slammed their car doors and ran up the wooden steps, exchanging shouts: “Bring my zipper bag up with you!” “Which one?” “The blue one!” “Do you have the key?” “Yes, but I can’t find 203.” “Who’s going to take Pierre for a walk?” After that they all took showers, and the cascading water in the rooms above drowned out the television in the rooms on either side. Qwilleran heaved the cats off his knees, and they crawled farther up without opening their eyes.
So it continued until four o’clock in the morning, at which time he managed an hour’s sleep before the early risers started taking showers, slamming car doors, and revving motors. He could have been excused for greeting the new day with a colossal grouch, but he exhibited a purposeful and admirable calm. All of Moose County had advised against this trip, and he was determined to prove them wrong from start to finish. He was, he told himself repeatedly, having a good time.
On the second day of driving, the panorama of woods and open fields and farmyards gave way to a scattering of billboards, gas stations, auto graveyards, and party stores, followed by strip malls and housing developments with fine- sounding names, and finally the freeway. Heavy traffic and increased speed began to put the backseat passengers on their guard, their noses lifting to register the density of emissions, while Yum Yum complained bitterly. For Qwilleran the sight of sweeping interchanges and incoming jets and the jagged skyline produced an urban high that he had relished in the past and had almost forgotten. Even the Purple Plum looked less offensive in the smoggy atmosphere.
He left the freeway at the Zwinger exit. On this late Sunday afternoon, downtown was virtually deserted. Zwinger Street, formerly a blighted area, was now Zwinger Boulevard-a continuous landscaped park dotted with glass towers, parking structures, and apartment complexes. Then the boulevard narrowed into the nineteenth-century neighborhood known as Junktown, with the Casablanca standing like a sentinel at the approach.
“Oh, no!” Qwilleran said aloud. “It looks like a refrigerator!” The Casablanca was indeed white, although in need of cleaning, and it had the proportions of a refrigerator, with a dark line across the facade at the ninth floor, as if delineating the freezer compartment. Modified Moorish, the SOCK brochure had called it. True, there were some arches and a marquee and two large ornamental lanterns of Spanish persuasion, but on the whole it looked like a refrigerator. Not so in 1901 perhaps, when iceboxes were made of golden oak, but now…
Qwilleran made a U-turn and pulled up to the curb, where the city permitted twenty-minute parking. He unloaded the cat carrier and the turkey roaster and then, taking care to lock all four doors, approached the shabby entrance. Broken glass in the two lanterns exposed the light bulbs, and the glass sidelights of the door were walled up with plywood that no one had bothered to paint. Carefully he picked his way up the cracked marble steps and set down the carrier, opening the heavy black door and holding it with his foot while he maneuvered into the dark vestibule.
“Help ya?” called a voice from the gloom. A jogger was about to leave the building.
“How do I ring the manager?” Qwilleran inquired.
“Right over here.” A young man with a reddish moustache almost as imposing as Qwilleran’s pressed a button on the apartment directory panel. “You moving in?” “Yes. Where do you jog around here?” “Around the vacant lots behind the building. Two times around is a mile – and not too much carbon monoxide.” “Is it safe?” The man held up a small tube and pointed it at Qwilleran. “Zap!” he said, looking wise. “Hey, nice cats!” he added, squinting at the carrier. When a voice finally squawked on the intercom the obliging jogger yelled, “New tenant, Mrs.
Tuttle.” A buzzer released the door, and he sprang to open it. “Manager’s desk straight down the hall, opposite the second elevator.” “Thanks. Good running!” Qwilleran wished him. The inner door slammed behind him, and he found himself in an empty lobby.
It was narrower than he had expected-a tunnel-like hall with a low ceiling and a lingering odor of disinfectant.
Fluorescent tubes were spaced too far apart to provide effective light. The floor was well-worn vinyl, but clean, and the walls were covered with something that looked like sandpaper. When he reached the first elevator, however, he stopped and stared; the elevator door was burnished bronze sculptured in low relief, representing scenes from Don Quixote and Carmen.
As he studied the unexpected artistry, the door slid open, and a man in black tie and dinner jacket stepped out, saying coolly, “This is a private elevator,” at the same time flinging a contemptuous glance at the turkey roaster.
With the top handle of the carrier in one hand and the roaster under the other arm, Qwilleran walked slowly toward the rear of the building, observing and sniffing. Someone on the main floor was cooking, and he knew Portuguese garlic soup when he smelled it. Lined up in the tunnel were a cigarette machine, a soft-drink dispenser, and an old wooden telephone booth. Some attempt had been made to brighten the hall by painting apartment doors in jellybean colors, but the paint was scratched and dreary with age.
As he reached the phone booth, a body tumbled out onto the floor. It was a woman of indefinite age, wearing a red cocktail dress, and she was clutching a pint rum bottle, uncapped. “Oops!” she said.
Gallantly, Qwilleran set down his baggage and went to her assistance. “Hurt yourself?” She slurred an apology as he helped her up, propped her on the seat of the phone booth, and closed her safely inside, leaving only a puddle on the floor. He picked up the cat carrier and commode and walked on. As he approached the manager’s desk, there was sudden activity within the carrier, which started jiggling and swinging, the reason being that two felines – a calico and a tiger with a, chewed ear – had wandered out from nowhere and were eyeing the new arrivals.
Although the host cats were not hostile, Qwilleran thought it advisable to place the carrier on the scarred counter where a homemade sign announced: “Mrs. Tuttle, manager. Ring for service.” Separating the manager’s desk from the tenants’ counter was a window of thick, bullet-proof acrylic.
He rang the bell, and a large, powerful-looking woman with a broad smile on her ebony face bounded out from the inner office. “Oh, you’ve got two Siamese!” she exclaimed joyously. Despite her genial greeting, she studied Qwilleran with a stern and forbidding eye, and he imagined that she tolerated no nonsense from the tenants or the resident cats.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “Are you Mrs. Tuttle? My name is Qwilleran. The penthouse apartment has been reserved for me.” “Yes, SIR!” she said. “We’re expecting you! Glad to have you here. Did you have a good trip?” “Fine, thank you. Do you also have a parking space for me?” “Yes, SIR!” She produced a ledger and flipped the looseleaf pages to Q. “First we need one month security deposit and one month rent, and the parking is payable by the quarter… What are they called?” “Uh… what?” Qwilleran was concentrating on his checkbook. He considered the rent high, even though utilities were included.
“Do your kitties have names?” “Uh… the larger one is Koko, and the… uh… female is Yum Yum.” He had put the turkey roaster on the floor, and it was being sniffed by the calico and the tiger. “I see you have a welcoming committee down on the floor.” “That’s Napoleon and Kitty-Baby,” she said. “They live on the main floor. Your kitties will be the only ones on Fourteen.” “Fourteen? I thought the building had thirteen stories.” “They skipped Thirteen. Bad luck, you know. On the top floor there are two apartments, 14-A and 14-B. Yours is the nice done, all furnished. You’ll be very comfortable. Here is your receipt and your key to 14-A. And here’s your mailbox key; the boxes are through the arch. Mail is delivered around three or four o’clock. Your parking slot is #28 on the west side of the lot. The elevator’s right behind you. Ring for the one with the red door. Old Red, we call it. A nice old elevator.
Old Green is out of order.” “What’s the one with the bronze door, near the entrance?” he asked.
“A private elevator for the owner of the building. Bye-bye, kitties! Glad to have you here, Mr. Qwilleran.” The Siamese had not uttered a sound. He picked up the roaster and the carrier and moved to the elevator bank, accompanied by Napoleon and Kitty-Baby. Two doors, one painted red and one painted green, were closed, displaying an abstract design of scratches and gouges made by impatient tenants carrying doorkeys. He pressed the button, and noises in the shaft indicated that Old Red was descending… slowly… very slowly. When the car finally arrived, it could be heard bouncing and leveling. Then the door opened with a convulsive jerk, and a tiny Asian woman with two small, doll- like children stepped out and scurried away as if glad to escape safely.
Qwilleran boarded, signaled for the fourteenth floor, and waited for the door to close, while Napoleon and Kitty- Baby stayed in the lobby staring into the car as if they would not be caught dead in Old Red. The Siamese were still ominously silent.
There was a bulletin board on the rear wall of the elevator, where manager and tenants had posted notices, and Qwilleran amused himself while waiting for the door to close by reading the messages. Two signs were neatly lettered with a felt marker and signed “Mrs. T.” IF DOOR IS OPEN, DO NOT JUMP! ATTENTION ALL CATS! MONDAY IS SPRAY DAY!
There was also a handwritten message on a note card with an embossed W, offering a baby grand piano for sale in apartment -F. Scribbled on a scrap of brown paper was an ad for a tennis racquet for twenty-five dollars, spelled T-E-N- I-S R-A-C-K-E-T. Qwilleran was a born proofreader.
Mystified by the first two notices and questioning the market for baby grands in such a building, he failed to notice that the elevator door was still standing open. It was hardly the latest model in automatic equipment, and he looked for a suitable button to press. There was one labeled OPEN and a red button labeled HELP; that was all. The red button, he observed, showed signs of wear. Out in the lobby all was quiet. Mrs. Tuttle had left her post behind the bulletproof window, and the only signs of life were Napoleon and Kitty-Baby.
In Qwilleran’s lean and hungry days, when he lived for a brief time at the decrepit Medford Manor, there was a stubborn elevator door that responded to a vigorous kick. He tried it, but Old Red only shuddered. Then he heard running footsteps approaching from the front door and a voice calling “Hold it!” A short man in a yellow satin jacket, with the name “Valdez” on the back, slid into view like a base runner approaching first.
“No hurry,” Qwilleran told him. “The door won’t close.” The fellow gave him a scornful glance and jumped up and down on the elevator floor. The door immediately closed, and the car proceeded slowly upward, clanking and shuddering as it passed each floor. Valdez got off at Five, and as he left the car he turned and said, “You jump.” Qwilleran jumped, the door closed, and Old Red ascended at the same snail-like pace, with groaning and scraping added to the clanking and shuddering. The Siamese had been patient, but suddenly Yum Yum emitted her earsplitting screech, and immediately the car stopped dead. According to the floor indicator over the door they were not yet at Fourteen. According to the floor indicator they were not anywhere.
“Now what have you done?” Qwilleran scolded.
He pressed the button for his floor, but the car did not budge. He jumped, Valdez-style, and nothing happened.
He pressed the button labeled OPEN, and the door slowly obliged, revealing the black brick wall of the elevator shaft.
“Ye gods!” Qwilleran shouted. “We’re trapped between floors!”
3
THE SIAMESE, who had been more or less uncommunicative for four hundred miles, became vociferous when told they were trapped between floors in the Casablanca elevator shaft. Qwilleran pressed the HELP button and could hear a bell like a fire alarm ringing in some remote precinct of the old building, but the longer he leaned on the red button and the longer the bell pealed, the louder Koko howled and Yum Yum yodeled.
“Quiet!” Qwilleran commanded, and gave the bell another prolonged ring, but in Siamese cat language “quiet” means “louder.” “Shhhh!” he scolded.
Somewhere an elevator door was being forced open; somewhere a distant voice was shouting.
Qwilleran shouted back, “We’re stuck between floors!” “Where y’at?” came the faint query.
“YOW!” Koko replied.
“Quiet, you dumbbell! I can’t hear what he’s saying… We’re stuck between floors!” “What floor?” The voice sounded hollow, suggesting that hands were being cupped for a megaphone effect.
“YOW!” “I can’t hear you!” Qwilleran shouted.
“What floor?” The voice was coming from overhead.
“YOW!” “Shut up!” “What you say down there?” “We’re between floors! I don’t know where!” Qwilleran bellowed at his loudest.
There was the sound of a heavy door closing, followed by a long period of silence and inactivity.
“You really blew it!” Qwilleran told Koko. “They were coming to our rescue, and you wouldn’t keep your mouth shut. Now we may be here all night.” He looked around the dismal cell with its soiled walls and torn floor tiles. One of the fluorescent tubes had burned out leaving half the car in shadow. “At least you’ve got your commode,” he said to his disgruntled companions, “which is more than I can say.” He rang the emergency bell again.
There was another wrenching sound in the shaft above, and a voice overhead – somewhat closer this time – yelled, “You gotta climb out!” “YOW!” Koko replied.
“How?” Qwilleran shouted.
“What?” “YOW!” Qwilleran gave the cat carrier a remonstrative shove with his foot, which only accelerated the howls. “How do I climb out?” “Push up the roof!” In the tan ceiling of the car there was a metal plate, black with fingerprints.
“Push it all the way!” carne the instructions from on high.
Qwilleran reached up, gave the metal plate a forceful push, and it flopped open with a clatter. Through the rectangular opening he could see a bare light bulb, dazzlingly bright in the black shaft, and a ladder slowly descending.
He wondered if he could squeeze through the hole in the roof; he wondered if the carrier would go through.
“I’ve got luggage down here!” he yelled. There was another long wait, and then a rope carne dangling through the trapdoor.
“Tie it on the handle!” called the rescuer. Qwilleran quickly knotted one end to the top handle of the cat carrier and watched it rise off the floor and ascend in jerks that annoyed the occupants. It disappeared into the hole above.
“Any thin’ else?” Qwilleran looked speculatively at the turkey roaster. Its handles had long ago been sawed off to fit on the floor of the car. Furthermore, it contained slightly used kitty gravel.
“Nothing else!” he shouted, kicking the pan into a dark comer of the elevator. Then he started up the ladder.
Above him he could see a pale face and a red golf hat clapped on a head of sandy hair.
The custodian was waiting for him at the top. “Sorry ’bout this.” On hands and knees Qwilleran crawled out of the black hole onto the mosaic tile floor of a hallway, a performance that interested the waiting cats enormously; they were always entranced by unusual behavior on his part.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“On Nine. Gotta walk up. We got both cars broke now – Old Red and Old Green. Serviceman don’t come till tomorrow. Costs double on Sundays.” Their rescuer was a thin, wiry man of middle age, all elbows and knees and bony shoulders, wearing khaki pants and a bush jacket, its large pockets bulging with a flashlight and other tools of his trade. Judging by his prison pallor, it was doubtful that he had ever bushwhacked beyond the weedy landscaping of the Casablanca. The man picked up the cat carrier and headed for the stairwell.
“Here, let me take that,” Qwilleran offered. “It’s heavy.” “I seen heavier. Lady on Seven, she’s got two I cats, must weigh twenty pounds apiece. You in 14-A?” “Yes. My name’s Qwilleran. What’s your name?” “Rupert.” “I appreciate your coming to our rescue.” After that brief exchange, the two men plodded silently up the four long flights to the fourteenth floor, which was really the thirteenth. At the top of the stairs they emerged into a small lobby with a marble floor and marble walls, a relic of the rooftop restaurant in the Casablanca’s illustrious past. There were two elevator doors, closed and silent, and two apartment doors with painted numbers.
Qwilleran glanced at his key and opened 14-A. “I guess this is it.” “Yep, this is it,” said Rupert. “Doorbell’s broke.” He touched the pearl button to prove it.
“All the doorbells are broke.” They walked into a spacious foyer handsomely furnished in the contemporary style, with door- ways and arches leading to other equally lavish areas. This was more than Qwilleran had expected. It explained why the rent was high. A bank of French doors overlooked a large room with a lofty ceiling and a conversation pit six feet deep. “Is that the sunken living room?” he asked. “It looks like a carpeted swimming pool.” “That’s what it was – a swimmin’ pool,” said the custodian. “Not very deep. Didn’t do much divin’ in them days, I reckon.” An exceptionally long sofa doglegged around one end of the depression, and around the ceramic-tiled rim of the former pool there were indoor trees in tubs, some reaching almost to the skylight twenty feet overhead.
Qwilleran noticed a few plastic pails scattered about the room, and there were waterstains on the carpet. “Does the skylight leak?” he asked.
“When it rains,” Rupert said with a worried nod. “Where’d you park?” “At the front door in a twenty-minute zone. I may have a ticket by now.” “Nobody bothers you on Sunday. Gimme your keys and I’ll haul up the rest of your gear.” “I’ll go with you,” Qwilleran said, remembering the advice showered on him in Pickax. “I suppose we have to walk down thirteen flights and up again.” “If we can find the freight, we’ll ride up.” “Then let’s go.” The custodian looked at the cat carrier standing in the middle of the foyer. “Ain’tcha gonna let ’em out?” “They can wait till we get back.” Qwilleran always checked the premises for hazards and hidden exits before releasing the Siamese.
The two men began the tedious descent to the main floor, down marble stairs with ornamental iron banisters, each flight enclosed in a grim stairwell. “Good-looking staircases,” Qwilleran commented. “Too bad they’re enclosed.” “Fire department made ’em do it.” “What’s that trapdoor?” In the wall of each stairwell, toward the top of the flight, there was a small square door labeled DANGER – KEEP OUT.
“That’s to the crawl space. Water pipes, heat, electric, and all stuff like that,” Rupert informed hint.
Halfway down they met the tiny Asian woman shepherding her two small children from one floor to another. She seemed unaware of their presence.
“Are there many children in the building?” Qwilleran asked.
“Mostly kids of the doctors that work at the hospital. From all different countries.” At last they reached the main floor, and as they walked past the manager’s desk, Mrs. Tuttle, who was knitting something behind the bulletproof window, sang out cheerfully, “Why didn’t you two ride the elevator?” She motioned toward Old Red, which was standing there with its door hospitably open. Qwilleran squinted into the dim back comer of the car and quickly retrieved the turkey roaster, carrying it away triumphantly.
Farther down the hall Valdez, still in his yellow satin jacket, was beating his fists against the soft-drink dispenser, and Napoleon was sniffing a puddle near the phone booth, critically. There was no activity around the elaborate bronze door of the private elevator.
“Quiet on Sundays,” Rupert commented. In front of the building the Purple Plum was still parked at the curb, neither stolen nor ticketed, and Qwilleran drove into the parking lot while Rupert went to the basement for a luggage cart.
The lot was an obstacle course dotted with potholes, and his #28 parking slot was occupied by a small green Japanese car.
“Park in #29,” Rupert told him. “Nobody cares.” “This lot is in terrible condition,” Qwilleran complained. “When was it last paved? In 1901?” “No use fixin’ it. They could tear the place down next week.” Rupert wheeled the suitcases, typewriter, dictionary, books, and coffeemaker into the basement, Qwilleran following with the turkey roaster and the cats’ water dish. They rode up in the freight elevator, a rough enclosure of splintery boards, but it worked!
“How come this one works?” Qwilleran asked. “It’s never broke,” the custodian said. “Tenants don’t get to use it, that’s why. They’re the ones wreck the elevators. Wait’ll you see how they wreck the washers and dryers! There’s a coin laundry in the basement.” “What do we do about rubbish?” “Put it out in the hall at night. Boy picks up startin’ at six in the mornin’. Any problem, just ring the desk.
Housephone’s on the kitchen wall in 14-A.” Qwilleran tipped him liberally. Although frugal by nature, he had developed a generous streak since inheriting money. Now he bolted the door, cat-proofed the rooms, and released the Siamese. “We’re here!” he said. They emerged cautiously, swiveling their fine brown heads, pointing their ears, curving their whiskers, and sensing the long broad foyer.
Koko walked resolutely to the far wall where French doors led to the terrace; he checked for pigeons and seemed disappointed that none appeared. Meanwhile Yum Yum was putting forth an experimental paw to touch the art rugs scattered about the parquet floor.
Art was everywhere: paintings on the walls, sculpture on pedestals, crystal and ceramic objects in lighted niches.
The canvases were not to Qwilleran’s liking: splotches of color and geometric studies that seemed meaningless to him; a still life of an auto mechanic’s workbench; a bloody scene depicting a butcher block with work in progress; a realistic portrayal of people eating spaghetti.
Then he noticed an envelope with his name, propped against a bowl of fruit on a console table. Nestled among the winesap apples, tangerines, and Bosc pears, like a Cracker Jack prize, was a can of lobster. “You guys are in luck,” he said to the Siamese. “But after your shenanigans in the elevator, I don’t know whether you deserve it.” The accompanying note was from Amberina: “Welcome to the Casablanca! Mary wants me to take you to dinner at Roberto’s tonight. Call my apartment when you get in. SOCK had your phone connected.” Qwilleran lost no time in phoning. “I accept with pleasure. I have a lot of questions to ask. Where’s Roberto’s?” “In Junktown, a couple of blocks away. We can walk.” “Is that advisable after dark?” “I never walk alone, but… sure, it’ll be okay. Could you meet me inside the front door at seven o’clock? I won’t ask you to come to my apartment. It’s a mess.” He opened the can of lobster for the Siamese, arranging it on a Royal Copenhagen plate. All the appointments in the apartment were top-notch: Waterford crystal, Swedish sterling, German stainless, and so on. After unpacking his suit- cases he wandered about the rooms, eating an apple and marveling at the expensive art books on the library table, the waterbed in the master bedroom, the gold faucets in the bathroom. He looked askance at the painting of the bloody butcher block; it was not something he would care to see early in the morning on an empty stomach, yet it occupied a prominent spot on the end wall of the foyer.
When the Siamese had finished their meal and groomed their paws, whiskers, ears, and tails, he introduced them to the sunken living room. In no time at all they discovered they could race around the rim of the former pool, chase each other up and down the carpeted stairs leading to the conversation pit, climb the trees, and scamper the length of the sofa- back. For his own satisfaction he paced off the length of the dogleg sofa and found it to be an incredible twenty feet.
Though few in number, the furnishings were large-scale: an enormous onyx cocktail table stacked with art magazines; an eight-foot bar; an impressive stereo system with satellite speakers the size of coffins.
The most dramatic feature was the gallery of paintings that covered the upper walls. They were large still lifes, all studies of mushrooms – whole or halved or sliced, tumbled about in various poses. The jarring effect, to Qwilleran’s eye, was not the size of the mushrooms – some two feet diameter – but the fact that each arrangement was pictured with a pointed knife that looked murderously sharp. He had to admit that the knife lifted the still lifes out of the ordinary.
Somehow it suggested a human presence. But he could not imagine why the owner of the apartment had hung so many mushrooms, unless… he had painted them himself. Who was this talented ten- ant? The signature on the work was a cryptic logo: two Rs back-to-back. Why did he specialize in mushrooms? Why did he leave? Where had he gone? When would he return? And why was he willing to sublet this lavishly furnished apartment to a stranger?
There were no windows in the room-only the skylight, and it admitted a sick light on this late afternoon in November. Apart from the potted trees and the green and yellow plastic pails strategically placed in case of rain, the interior was monochromatically neutral. Walls, upholstered sofa, and commercial-weave carpet were all in a pale gray- beige like the mushrooms.
He checked his watch. It was time to dress for dinner. At that moment he heard a door slam in the elevator lobby; the occupant of 14-B was either corning in or going out. He soon discovered which.
When 14-A had been carved out of the former restaurant, space was no object, and the master bathroom was large enough to accommodate a whirlpool bath for two, a tanning couch, and an exercise bike. The stall shower was large enough for three. At the turn of a knob, water pelted Qwilleran’s body from three sides, gentle as rain or sharp as needles.
He was luxuriating in this experience when the water abruptly turned ice cold. He yelped and bounded from the enclosure.
Dripping and cursing and half-draped in a towel, he found the house telephone in the kitchen. Mrs. Tuttle’s businesslike voice answered.
“This is Qwilleran in 14-A,” he said in a politely shocked tone. “I was taking a shower and the water suddenly ran cold, ice cold!” “That happens,” she said. “It’s an old building, you know. Evidently your neighbor started to take a shower at the same time.” “You mean I have to coordinate my bathing schedule with 14-B?” “I don’t think you need to worry about it too much,” she said soothingly.
That’s right, he thought. The building may be tom down next week. “Who is the tenant in 14-B?” Mrs. Tuttle said something that sounded like Keestra Hedrog, and when he asked her to repeat the name, it still sounded like Keestra Hedrog. He huffed into his moustache and hung up.
After toweling and donning his old plaid bathrobe in the Mackintosh tartan (his mother had been a Mackintosh), he was in the process of eating another apple when he heard incredible sounds from the adjoining apartment – like a hundred-piece orchestra tuning up discordantly for Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The cats’ ears swiveled nervously, the left and right ears twisting in opposite directions. He realized that they were hearing a composition for the synthesizer, a kind of music he had not yet learned to appreciate. He also realized that the walls between 14-A and 14-B were regrettably thin – one of the Casablanca’s Depression economies. By the time he had finished dressing, however, the recording ended, a door slammed again, and his neighbor apparently went out for the evening.
He checked out the cats as he always did before leaving and found Yum Yum in the bedroom, sniffing the waterbed, but Koko was not in evidence. He called his name and received no response. For one sickening moment he wondered if the cat had discovered a secret exit. Hurrying from room to room he called and searched and worried. It was not until he went down into the conversation pit that he found the missing Koko.
The eight-foot bar in the pit was situated rather conspicuously in the middle of the floor, and Koko was sniffing this piece of furniture, oblivious of everything else. Qwilleran himself had not touched alcohol for several years, and when he served spirits to his guests, Koko showed no interest whatever unless he happened upon a stray anchovy olive. So why was he so intent upon investigating this leather-upholstered, teak-topped liquor dispensary? Koko always had a sound reason for his actions, although it was not always obvious.
Qwilleran opened the drawers and cabinets of the bar and found decanters, glassware, jiggers, corkscrews, muddlers, napkins, and so forth. That was all.
“Sorry, Koko,” he said. “No anchovies. No mice. No dead bodies.” The cat ignored him. He was sniffing the base of the bar, running his twitching nose along the line where the furniture met the carpet, as if some small object had found its way underneath. Qwilleran touched his moustache questioningly, his curiosity aroused. It was a heavy bar, but by putting his shoulder against one end of it he could slide it across the tightly woven carpet. As it began to move, Koko became agitated, prancing back and forth in encouragement.
“If this turns out to be an anchovy-stuffed olive,” Qwilleran said, “you’re going to be in the doghouse!” He shoved again. The ponderous bar moved a few inches at a time.
Then Koko yowled. A thin dark line had appeared on the pale carpet. It widened as Qwilleran lunged with his shoulder – wider and wider until a large dark stain was revealed.
“Blood!” Qwilleran said.
“Yow!” said Koko. He arched his back, elongated his legs, hooked his tail, and pranced in a circle. Qwilleran had seen the dance before – Koko’s death dance. Then from the cat’s innards came a new sound: less than a growl yet deeper than a purr. It sounded like “Rrrrrrrrrr!”
4
BEFORE LEAVING FOR dinner with Amberina, Qwilleran made a long-distance phone call. It was Sunday evening, and Polly Duncan would be at home waiting for news. He deemed it advisable to keep the report upbeat: Yes, he had enjoyed the trip… Yes, the cats behaved well… The manager and custodian were helpful. The apartment was spacious and well-furnished, with a magnificent view of the sunset. He mentioned nothing about the malfunctioning elevator nor the leaking skylight nor the bulletproof window at the manager’s desk nor the bloodstain on the carpet, and he especially avoided reference to his dinner date with Amberina. Polly was a wonderful woman but inclined to be jealous.
Then he said goodbye to the Siamese, having placed their blue cushion on the bed in the small bedroom. “Be good kids,” he said. “Have a nap and stay out of trouble. I’ll be back in a couple of hours, perhaps with a doggie bag.” He turned off all the lights except the one in the bathroom, where they had their commode, thinking that the darkness would encourage them to nap and stay out of mischief.
Leaving 14-A, he spotted a namecard tacked on the door of 14-B, and he sauntered close enough to read it. His neighbor’s name was indeed Keestra Hedrog, as Mrs. Tuttle had said. It looked like something spelled backward and he considered tacking a namecard to his own door: Mij Narelliwq.
What, he asked himself, had happened to nomenclature in recent years? Strange new words had entered the language and strange new names were popping up in the telephone directory. Mary, Betty, and Ann had been replaced by Thedira and Cheryline. Even ordinary names had tricky spellings like Elizabette and Alyce, causing inconvenience to all concerned, not to mention the time lost in explaining and correcting. (His own name, spelled with the unconventional QW, had been the bane of editors, typesetters, and proofreaders for thirty years, but that fact escaped him.) He signaled for the elevator and heard evidence of mechanical torment in the shaft – noises so threatening that he chose to walk downstairs. Feeling his way through the poorly lighted stairwells, he encountered bags of trash, unidentified odors and – between the seventh and sixth floors – a shrouded figure standing alone on the stairs and mumbling.
On the main floor he passed two elderly women ‘ in bathrobes, huddled in conference. One of them was saying in a croaking voice, “I’ve been mugged five times. How many times have you been mugged?” “Only twice,” said the other, shrilly, “but the second time they knocked me down.” Both of them squinted suspiciously at Qwilleranas he passed.
He found Rupert hanging around the manager’s desk, still with the red golf hat on the back of his head, while three boisterous students practiced karate chops in front of the elevators.
“Knock it off,” Rupert warned them, “or I’ll tell Mrs. T.” The youths clicked their heels, clasped their hands prayerfully, and bowed low, then made a dash for Old Red when it arrived.
“Crazy college kids,” Rupert explained to Qwilleran. “Everything okay on Fourteen?” “So far, so good.” He started for the front door – but returned. “There’s something I wanted to ask about, Rupert.
In my living room there’s a huge piece of furniture – a serving bar – right in the middle of the floor. Do you happen to know why?” “Mrs. T said to put it there,” said the custodian. “I didn’t ask no questions. Me and the boy had to move the thing.
It’s mighty heavy.” “How long have you been working here, Rupert?” “Twenty years next March. Good job! Meet lotsa people. And I get an apartment in the basement thrown in.” “What will you do if they tear down the building?” “Go on unemployment. Go on welfare, I reckon, if I can’t find work. I’m fifty-six.” Qwilleran had a long wait for Amberina, but the time was not wasted. While standing at the front door he watched a circus parade of tenants and visitors corning in and going out. He tried not I to stare at the outlandish clothing on the young ones, or the pathetic condition of some of the old ones, or the exotic beauty wearing a sari, or the fellow with a macaw in a cage.
When two well-dressed young men arrived, carrying a small gold tote bag from the city’s most exclusive chocolatier, he watched them go to the burnished bronze door and ring for the private elevator, and he began to conjecture about the “Countess.” The mysterious seventy-five-year-old who was visited by men wearing dinner jackets or bearing gifts sounded like Lady Hester Stanhope in Kinglake’s Eothen, a book he had been reading aloud to the Siamese.
Lady Hester lived in a crumbling middle-eastern convent, subsisting on milk and enjoying the adulation of desert tribes.
Was the Countess the Lady Hester of the crumbling Casablanca?
His flights of fancy were interrupted when Amberina came running down the hall. “Sorry I’m late. I lost my contact lens, and I couldn’t seem to get myself together.” He said, “Who are the well-dressed men who ride up and down on the Countess’s elevator?” “Her bridge partners,” she explained. “She loves to play cards.” Amberina had changed since their last meeting three years before. Her strikingly-brunette hair was a different color and a different style-lighter, redder, and frizzier. She had put on weight and her dimples were less beguiling. He was disappointed, but he said, “Good to see you again, Amberina. You’re looking great!” “So are you, Mr. Qwilleran, and you look so countrified!” He was wearing his tweed coat with leather patches and his chukka boots.
They left the building and zigzagged down the broken marble slabs with care. “These steps should be repaired before someone trips and sues the Countess,” he remarked.
“No point in making repairs when the whole place may be torn down next week,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “We’re all keeping our fingers crossed that nothing terrible will happen. Mary says the city would love it if the elevator dropped and killed six tenants, or a steam boiler blew up and cooked everyone on the main floor. Then they’d condemn the place and start collecting higher property taxes on a billion-dollar hotel or something. I do hope your people decide to buy the Casablanca, Mr. Qwilleran.” Now they were strolling down Junktown’s new brick sidewalks, recently planted with small trees and lighted with old-fashioned gaslamps.
Qwilleran said, “This is exactly what C. C. Cobb wanted three years ago, and the city fought him every step of the way.” The jerry-built storefronts that previous landlords had tacked on to the front of historic town-houses had been removed. One could never guess where the old fruit and tobacco stand had been, or the wig and fortune-telling shop.
New owners had miraculously restored the original stone steps, iron railings, and impressive entrance doors. A brightly lighted coffee house occupied the premises of the former furniture-refinishing shop in an old stable, now named the Carriage House Cafe.
“Tell me about this restaurant we’re going to. What is Roberto’s?” Qwilleran asked.
“You know – don’t you? – that Robert Maus wanted to open a restaurant when he gave up the law business. Well, he went to Italy and worked in a restaurant in Milan for a year. When he came home he was cooking Italian and had changed his name to Roberto.” “I hope he didn’t change his last name to ‘Mausolini.’ ” Amberina let out an involuntary shriek. “Wait till Mary hears that! She won’t think it’s funny. She’s very serious, you know.” “I know. So is he.” “Well, anyway, he opened this Italian restaurant in one of the old townhouses – Mary talked him into it, I think – and he lives upstairs. I’ve never eaten there – too expensive – but Mary says it’s fabulous food.” “Everything Robert prepares is fabulous. Will he be there tonight?” “You’re supposed to call him Roberto, Mr. Qwilleran. No, he’s off on Sundays, and they’re closed on Mondays, but he personally supervises the kitchen five nights a week. Imagine! A law degree! And he’s cooking spaghetti!” An unobtrusive sign on the iron railing of a townhouse announced “Roberto’s North Italian Cuisine.” As they climbed the stone steps Qwilleran knew what to expect. He had lived in Junktown long enough to be familiar with old townhouses. Even though they became rooming houses they had high ceilings, carved woodwork, ornate fireplaces (boarded up), and gaslight chandeliers (electrified)-all of these in various degrees of shabbiness. With Robert Maus’s taste for English baronial he would add red velvet draperies and leather chairs studded with nailheads. Ecco! North Italian!
Qwilleran was shocked, therefore, when they entered the restaurant. The interior had been gutted. Walls, ceiling, and arches were an unbroken sweep of smooth plaster in a custardy shade of cream. The carpet was eggplant in hue; so was the upholstery of the steel-based chairs. Silk-shaded lamps on the tables and silk-shaded sconces on the walls threw a golden glow over the cream-tinted table linens.
Before he could splutter a comment, a white-haired woman armed with menus approached in a flurry of excitement. “Mr. Qwilleran! Do you remember me? I’m Charlotte Roop,” she said in a reedy voice.
She had been his neighbor three years before on River Road – a strait-laced, spinsterish woman obsessed with crossword puzzles – but she had changed drastically. Where was her disapproving scowl? Her tightly pursed lips? Had she had a face-lift? Could she possibly have found love and happiness with a good man? Qwilleran chuckled at the idea.
Instead of her usual nondescript garb smothered in costume jewelry, she was wearing a simple beige dress with a cameo at the throat – a cameo brought from Italy by her new boss, Qwilleran assumed.
“Of course I remember you!” he exclaimed. “You’re looking… you’re looking… What’s a six-letter word for beautiful?” “Oh, Mr. Qwilleran, you remembered!” she cried with pleasure, adding in a lower voice, “But I don’t do crossword puzzles anymore. I have a gentleman friend.” She flushed.
“Good for you! He’s a lucky fellow!” Miss Roop touched the cameo self-consciously. “I’m the one who’s lucky. I have a lovely apartment at the Casablanca and a lovely job with our wonderful Roberto. Let me show you to our best table.” “This is a handsome place,” Qwilleran said.
“Very warm, very friendly, yet surprisingly modern.” “Roberto wanted it to be the color of zabaglione. He brought Italian artisans over to do the plastering.” She handed them menus and recommended the tagliatelle con salmone affumicato and the vitello alla griglia. Her boss, always a perfectionist, had coached her on the pronunciation. She added, “Roberto wishes you to be our guests tonight.
Would you like something from the bar?” Considering Miss Roop’s former attitude toward anything stronger than weak tea, this was a right-about-face. She suggested Pinot Grigio as an aperitif. Amberina shrugged and accepted. Qwilleran asked for mineral water with lemon.
Meanwhile, a waiter displaying professional ‚clat draped napkins across their laps – heated napkins.
“Real flowers,” Amberina whispered as she fingered the rosebuds in a Venetian glass vase. “I wonder how many of these vases they lose.” There was little general conversation as they adjusted to the elegance of the room and the awesomeness of the menu. Finally she said, “Tell me honestly, Mr. Qwilleran. What do you think of the Casablanca?” “It’s a dump! Does anyone really think it’s worth restoring? Does anyone think it’s even possible to restore such a ruin?” “SOCK is positive,” she replied earnestly. “Mary Duckworth and Roberto are officers, and you know they don’t waste their time on a lot of baloney. They’ve had an architect make a study for SOCK, and he knows exactly what has to be done and how to do it and how much it will cost. I don’t have the exact facts, but Mary can fill you in on that stuff.” “Where is she?” “Right now she’s flying back from Philadelphia. There was a big antique show there, and she took a double booth.
Her porters drove a truckload down, and she expected it would return empty. Mary has that snooty manner, you know, and she can sell anything and get a good price for it. People believe her! I wish I had her class. But that’s the way it goes!
The rich get richer. Her family is in banking, you know.” “Does she still wear kimonos embroidered with dragons when she waits on customers?” “No, she’s gone back to being preppy, pearls and everything… EEK! Did you see these prices?” she squealed when she saw the right-hand side of the card. “I’m glad I’m not paying for this! I’m going to order the most expensive thing on the menu. The chances are I’ll never come here again.” They each ordered an antipasto, soup, and a veal dish. Then Qwilleran said, “I have a few questions to ask, Amberina. Is the elevator service always as bad as it was today?” “I wish you’d call me Amber,” she said. ” And you seem to have forgotten that you used to call me Qwill.” “I didn’t forget,” she said sheepishly, “but now that you’ve got all that money, I thought I should call you mister…
What were we talking about?” “The elevators.” “Oh, yes… You just happened to hit a bad weekend. Usually they break down one at a time, and that’s not so bad. Or if it happens during the week, we’re in luck, because the serviceman comes right away – if it’s during the day. It’s time and a half after five o’clock, you know, and the management doesn’t go for that.” “I should have taken an apartment on a lower floor,” Qwilleran said. “Another question: What’s the meaning of the notice in the elevator about cats and spraying? It doesn’t sound good.” “Oh, that! Mrs. Tuttle posts a notice every time the exterminator is scheduled. He sprays the hallways, plus any apartments that request it, so people keep their cats locked up on Spray Day.” “My cats never go out under any circumstances.” “That’s a good idea. They can get on the elevator and just… disappear. There’s a big turnover in cats at the Casablanca.” “Do you have one?” “No, I have fish. They’re cheaper and they don’t have to go to the vet. They just die.” “Frankly, I fail to understand the roving-cat policy at the Casablanca.” “It’s for rodent control.” “Does the building have rats in addition to everything else?” “Only around the back street, where they keep the dumpsters. I’ve had mice in my apartment, athough. I don’t know how mice get up to the eighth floor.” “On Old Red,” Qwilleran suggested. The antipasti were served: breaded baby squid with marinara sauce, and roasted red peppers with anchovies and onion.
“I wish my sisters could see me now!” said Amber. “Eating squid at Roberto’s with a millionaire!” “Getting back to the notices in the elevator,” he said, “is there a large market for baby grand pianos at the Casablanca?” “You’d be surprised! There’s still some money floating around the building – and a few good-sized apartments.
We have elderly widows who are loaded! They don’t move out because they’ve always lived here.” “Who’s selling the piano? The sign says apartment 10-F.” “That’s Isabelle Wilburton. Her rooms are crammed with family heirlooms, and she sells them off one at a time to buy booze.” “What does she look like? I saw a middle-aged woman in a cocktail dress, tippling in the phone booth when I moved in.” “That’s our Isabelle! Her family made a killing in the furniture business, and they pay her basic living expenses, so long as she stays out of their sight. I warn you! Don’t let Isabelle latch onto you! She’ll drive you crazy.” The antipasto plates were whisked away, and the proficient waiter – who was always there when needed and absent when not – served the soup, a rich chicken broth threaded with egg and cheese.
“What do they call this?” Amber asked Qwilleran. “I wish I had written it down so I can tell my sisters.” “Stracciatella alla romana. What will happen to tenants like Isabelle if the building is restored to its original grandeur?” “What will happen to any of us?” said Amber with a shrug. “I’ll have to find a rich husband and move to the country. Maybe he’ll set me up in a shop of my own.” She had a suggestive twinkle in her eyes, which he ignored.
He said, “You had a husband the last time I saw you.” She twisted her lips in an unattractive smirk. “Husbands come and go like the Zwinger Boulevard bus.” “You’ve changed your hair color, too.” “This is my natural color. I dyed it for him because he liked brunettes. I suppose you’re having a tough time staying single now that you’ve got all that money.” “So far I’ve been successful without trying very hard,” he said, and then added to keep the record straight, “but I have a good friend up north who shares my interests and tastes. I hope she’ll come down for a visit while I’m here.” “That must be nice,” said Amber. “We weren’t so compatible. I don’t know why we ever happened to get married.
I’m a slob around the house, but my ex liked everything just so. A place for everything and everything in its place, you know. If he repeated that remark once more, I swore I’d shoot him, and I didn’t want to go to prison, so I filed for divorce. I hope he marries a computer. Mary tells me you’re divorced.” “Right.” He popped a chunk of crusty roll into his mouth to preclude further elaboration.
Amber was not easily put off, however. “What happened?” “Nothing worth mentioning.” He gobbled another morsel. “What do you do at the auction house?” “Just clerical work. It doesn’t pay much, but I’m working with antiques, so I like it. You should come to one of our auctions. Last month a painting went for $2.3 million – right in your class, Qwill.” He huffed into his moustache and ignored the remark. “Here comes the veal.” She had ordered the top-price rib chop with wine and mushroom sauce, and now she asked for a bottle of Valpolicella, explaining, “What I don’t drink, I can take home.” As Qwilleran knifed his medium-priced vitello alla piccata, sauteed with lemon and capers, he inquired about Mrs.
Tuttle. “She seems to have a remarkable blend of motherly concern and military authority.” “Oh, she’s wonderful! Can you believe that she was actually born in the Casablanca basement?” Amber replied.
“Her father was the custodian. They lived in the basement, and she grew up playing in the boiler room and on the stairs.
By the time she was twelve she knew the building inside out, and it was always her ambition to be manager. She’s very obliging, as long as you don’t break the rules. Ask her for anything you need. You may not get it, but she’ll smile a lot.” “I might need some more pails. The skylight leaks. Also, the hot water in the shower is unpredictable.” “We all have that problem,” said Amber. “You get used to it.” “Do you know the person in 14-B?” “No, she’s new, but I’ve seen her on the elevator-sort of wild-looking.” Amber was gobbling her food hungrily.
“I hope she doesn’t take too many showers,” Qwilleran said. “What can you tell me about the Countess?” “I’ve never met her. I’ve never even seen her! I’m not in her class. Mary knows her. Mary gets invited to the twelfth floor because her father is a banker and she went to one of those eastern colleges.” Amber was well into her bottle of Valpolicella and was losing what little reticence she had. “When you lived here before, Qwill, we all thought you had a thing for Mary and couldn’t get anywhere because you worked for a newspaper and she thought she was too good for you.” “It’s gratifying to know that all the gossips aren’t in Pickax City,” he said. “Shall we have dessert? I recommend gelato and espresso.” Then he launched the subject that was uppermost in his mind. “Why is the penthouse apartment being sublet – with all those valuable furnishings?” “The former tenant died, and the estate is going through the courts,” Amber said. “Mary had to pull strings to get you in there. If it wasn’t for all your money – ” “Who was the tenant?” “An art dealer – part owner of a gallery in the financial district, Bessinger-Todd.” “Apparently he was very successful, although I don’t concur with his choice of art.” “It was a woman, Qwill. Dianne Bessinger. We called her Lady Di.” “Why was she living in a broken-down place like the Casablanca?” “I guess she thought the penthouse was glamorous. She was the one who founded SOCK.” “Did you ever see her apartment? It’s filled with mushroom paintings.” “I know. She gave a party for SOCK volunteers once, and I asked her about the mushrooms. I don’t pretend to know anything about art. She said mushrooms are sexy.” “What happened to her?” “She… well, she died unexpectedly.” For the first time that evening, Amber was speaking guardedly.
“At what age?” “In her forties. Forty-five, I think it said in the paper.” “Was it drugs?” “No.” Amber was fidgeting nervously. “It’s something we don’t like to talk about. Ask Mary when you see her.” Ah! It was AIDS, Qwilleran thought, but immediately changed his mind. That would hardly explain the large bloodstain on the carpet, and people never died “unexpectedly” of AIDS. Or did they? “You say she was the founder of SOCK?” he said.
“Yes, she felt very strongly about the Casablanca,” said Amber, relieved to veer away from the unmentionable subject. “Anybody who’s ever lived here feels that way – kind of emotional about the old building.” “And what happened to your doorman? You said he was shot. What were the circumstances? Was he mixed up in something illegal?” “No, nothing like that,” she said, relaxing over her cup of espresso. “Doesn’t this have a wonderful aroma?” “So what happened to him? What’s the story?” “Well, he was a nice old joe who had lived in the basement forever. Then he went on social security, and we really didn’t need a doorman any longer, but he liked to put on his old uniform once in a while and open car doors and collect a few tips. It was a long coachman’s coat down to his ankles – made him feel important, I guess. But it had turned green with age, and the gold braid was tarnished, and some of the buttons were missing. Also he’d forget to shave. We called him Poor Old Gus. He was a sad sight, but he sort of fitted the Casablanca image, you know – a character! People used to drive past and laugh. He was written up in the Daily Fluxion once. Then one night some kids – high on something, I guess – drove by and shot Poor Old Gus dead!” Qwilleran frowned and shook his head in abhorrence.
“Is everything all right?” asked an anxious voice at his elbow.
“The food and service were perfection, Miss Roop,” he assured her. “Give my compliments to Roberto.” “Oh, thank you. That will make him very happy. Do you still have your kitties, Mr. Qwilleran?” “I certainly do! And I brought them to the Casablanca with me.” “Would they like a treat from our kitchen?” “I feel safe in saying that they would be overjoyed.” Qwilleran and Amber walked home under the gaslights – she carrying a half-empty bottle of wine and he carrying a foil package folded decorously into a cream-colored napkin. They walked along a street almost deserted except for a woman airing a pair of Dobermans and two men walking together with purposeful stride, swinging long-handled flashlights.
“That’s our Junktown patrol,” Amber said. “They’re volunteers. You might like to take a turn some night, just to see what it’s like.” “Be glad to,” said Qwilleran, recognizing a subject for his newspaper column. “Are they ever called upon to handle any… incidents?” “I don’t think so. Mostly they discourage crime just by being there. They shine their flashlights, you know, and blow their whistles, and talk on their portable phones.” When they reached the Casablanca and entered through the heavy black doors, Qwilleran noticed the black paint-covered brass fittings that the management no longer cared to keep polished. Only the bronze door of the Countess’s elevator retained its original burnished beauty.
Amber said, “I’d invite you in for a nightcap, but my apartment’s a disaster area. I’m ashamed of it.” “Thanks anyway,” he said. “I’ve had a long hard day on the road and in the elevator shaft, and I’m ready to turn in.” He was glad of an excuse; he had had enough of Amber’s company for one evening. He would have preferred the preppy Mary, or the mysterious Countess, or even the affable, dictatorial Mrs. Tuttle. He pictured her as a subject for his column.
Old Red was in operation, and it took them to the eighth floor, where he walked Amber to her door and said a courteous goodnight, thanking her for her company and the indoctrination.
“Sorry I couldn’t give you much information,” she said, “but Mary will call you tomorrow. We’re awfully glad you’re here, Qwill.” She gave him a lingering look that he pretended not to notice.
He walked up the remaining flights, and when he arrived at Fourteen (which was really Thirteen), the door of Old Red was slowly closing. Someone was going down… or had just come up. Unlocking his door and reaching for the light switch, Qwilleran discovered that the foyer and other rooms were already lighted, although he distinctly remembered leaving the apartment in darkness, except for the bathroom.
“Who’s here?” he demanded.
Koko and Yum Yum came running. They showed no symptoms of terror, no indication that an intruder had threatened them. They were simply aware that Qwilleran was carrying a packet of veal, scallops, and squid. Yum Yum rubbed against his ankles voluptuously, while Koko stood on his hind legs and pawed the air.
Ignoring them, he moved from room to room, warily. In the library both the desk lamp and a floor lamp were unaccountably lit – as were a pair of accent lamps on the foyer console, the buffet lamp in the dining room, and the bedlamps in both sleeping rooms. The French doors to the living room were closed, as he had left them, and the area was in darkness, likewise the kitchen. He examined closets, then went out on the terrace and explored its entire length, passing the French doors of 14-B. His neighbor’s blinds were closed, but light glowed through dimly. The huddled mass in a dark corner of the terrace turned out to be a cluster of large empty plant pots.
Qwilleran stroked his moustache in puzzlement and returned to 14-A. Who could have entered – and why? Did someone know he was being taken to dinner by SOCK? Did they have a key to his apartment? But why would they leave all the lights blazing?… unless they were interrupted and made a quick getaway.
At that moment he heard the door of 14-B open and close. He rushed out to the elevator lobby, but there was no one there-merely the evidence that Keestra Hedrog had put her rubbish container outside the door.
Mystified, Qwilleran returned to the kitchen to give the Siamese a taste of squid; the chef had wrapped enough food for three days. But he was too late. The cream-colored napkin lay on the floor, and the foil wrapper was open and licked clean, while two satisfied gourmands sat nearby, washing up, with not the slightest indication that they felt any guilt.
On the contrary, they seemed proud of themselves.
5
“YOU GUYS HAD a picnic last night!” Qwilleran said grudgingly on Monday morning as he opened a can of boned chicken for the Siamese. ” After stuffing yourselves with all that food, you don’t deserve breakfast!” Yet, Koko was prowling as if he had fasted for a week, and Yum Yum was clawing Qwilleran’s pantleg.
“What I want to know is this: Which one of you two turned on all the lights?” While he was dining at Roberto’s with Amber, Koko or Yum Yum or both of them had discovered that most of the lamps in 14-A had touch-switches, and the scamps had run from one to the other making them light up. No doubt they expected to make this a nightly romp, but Qwilleran foiled them. Before retiring he cat-proofed all the lamps by turning off thumb-switches or disconnecting plugs, at the same time making the observation that touch-switches were not practical in households dominated by felines.
After that he had some difficulty in falling asleep. He was not accustomed to a waterbed, and he lay there expecting to drown… listening to the periodic clanking of the radiators as the boilers sent up another burst of steam…
hearing the drone of traffic on the nearby freeway… counting the number of police and ambulance sirens… wondering why the helicopter was hovering overhead… recognizing an occasional gunshot. He had lived too long in the country.
Eventually he fell asleep and slept until the yowling outside his bedroom door told him to shuffle out into the kitchen and open that can of boned chicken. While searching for the can opener, he discovered a Japanese slicer with a tapered blade and light wood handle, similar to those in the mushroom paintings. He carried it into the gallery – as he preferred to call the sunken living room – to compare, and he was right. Koko followed him and sniffed the bloodstain, opening his mouth and showing his teeth.
“Get away from that!” Qwilleran ordered, and put his shoulder to the bar once more to cover the stain. Then he changed his mind. It was an awkward location for a bar. He nudged it back again into a more suitable position and covered the stain with a rug from the library – an Indian dhurrie in pale colors that blended with the mushroom carpet.
Shooing the cat from the gallery, he closed the French doors.
Yum Yum was now batting some small object about the floor of the foyer. Koko might have a notably investigative nose, but Yum Yum had a notably meddlesome paw. Rings, watches, and coins – as well as bottle caps and paper clips – were within her realm of interest, and any sudden activity that gave her pleasure was suspect. This time it was an ivory- colored tile less than an inch square – not exactly square but slightly rectangular, and not ivory or ceramic but a light- weight wood in a smooth, pale finish. Qwilleran confiscated it, to Yum Yum’s disappointment, and dropped it in his sweater pocket.
While waiting for the computerized coffeemaker to perform its morning magic, he ate a tangerine and speculated that the bowl of fruit had been Mary Duckworth’s idea; she remembered that winesaps were his favorite apple and that lobster sent the Siamese into orbit. Did she have romantic memories of their previous association? Or was this thoughtful gesture a political move on behalf of SOCK? He could never be sure about that woman. Circumstances had thrown them together in Junktown three years before, and she was haughty and aloof at first, but she had relaxed briefly on one unforgettable Christmas Eve.
After that they went their separate ways. At what point they would resume their acquaintance remained to be seen. Three years ago he had been a stranger in town, down on his luck and trying to make a comeback. Now he was in a position to buy the entire inventory of her antique shop, as well as the Casablanca and most of Zwinger Boulevard.
When she phoned him that morning, however, there was no hint that she entertained sentimental memories. She greeted him in the crisp, impersonal way that was her normal manner of speech.
“Good to hear your voice, Mary,” he said. “How was your Philadelphia trip?” “Immensely successful. And your journey down here, Qwill?” “Not bad. It’s hard to get used to the smog, though. I’m used to breathing something called fresh air.” “In Junktown,” she said loftily, “we don’t call it smog. We call it opalescence. Are you comfortably settled in your apartment?” “Settled but not necessarily comfortable. More about that later. But the cats and I appreciate your welcoming gift, and I don’t need to tell you that dinner at Roberto’s was superb.” “Yes, Roberto is a perfectionist. He uses only the best ingredients and takes infinite pains with the preparation. He actually imports water from Lake Como, you know, for baking the rolls.” “I noticed the distinction,” Qwilleran said, “but I traced it to one of the Swiss lakes. That shows how wrong one’s palate can be.” He said it facetiously, knowing that the literal antique dealer would take him seriously, and she did.
She said, “You’re wonderfully knowledgeable about food, Qwill.” “When can you and I get together, Mary. I have a lot of questions to ask.” “The sooner the better. Could you come to my shop this afternoon around four o’clock? We can have a private talk. The shop is closed on Mon- days, so we won’t be interrupted.” Qwilleran agreed. That would give him time to buy supplies for the cats, reorient himself in the city, and have lunch at the Press Club. But before leaving the apartment, he brushed the silky fawn-colored coats of the Siamese, all the while plying them with compliments on their elegantly long brown legs, their gracefully slender brown tails, their incredibly beautiful blue eyes, and their impressively alert white whiskers. They listened with rapture displayed by their waving tails.
Then he tuned in the radio to check the weather prediction. In doing so he learned that four houses on a southside block had been torched by arsonists over the weekend; a co-ed had been strangled backstage at the university auditorium; and a man had killed his wife and three children. The weather would be clear but chilly.
“They call this clear?” Qwilleran said scornfully as he peered out the window at the smog-filtered sunlight.
He walked to the Carriage House Caf‚ for ham and eggs, wearing a Nordic sweater and field jacket and his Aussie hat. Its brim had a dip in the front that complemented his large drooping moustache and made women turn to look at him.
At the restaurant he found not a single familiar face. The patrons – gulping breakfast or reading the Morning Rampage with their coffee – were all strangers, and they were better-dressed than the former denizens of Junktown.
Much had changed in three years, but that was typical of inner cities. In Moose County nothing ever changed unless it blew away in a high wind. The same families went on for generations; the same storekeepers managed the same stores; and everyone knew everyone else. Not only that, but the eggs tasted better up north, and when Qwilleran paid his check at the Carriage House he noted that ham and eggs cost two dollars less in Pickax.
On one of the side streets he found a grocery store where he could buy a ten-pound bag of sterilized gravel for the cats’ commode, gourmet canned goods for their meals, and white grapejuice for Koko – further evidence that Junktown had upscaled.
He was becoming accustomed to surprises, but when he walked back to the Casablanca he was shocked to see a painted sign on the vacant property across the street where a row of old buildings had been demolished. The sign featured an artist’s rendering of a proposed building spanning Zwinger Boulevard – actually two towers connected by a bridge across the top, somewhat like the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.
“Site of the new Gateway Alcazar,” the sign proclaimed. “Offices, stores, and hotel. Space now leasing.” One of the two towers obviously occupied the Casablanca site, and Qwilleran considered it an example of gross nerve! He made a note of the firm promoting the project: Penniman, Greystone & Fleudd. He knew of the wealthy Pennimans and the civic-minded Greystones, but Fleudd was a new name to him. He could not even pronounce it.
At the Casablanca a stretcher was being loaded into an ambulance, and Qwilleran inquired about it at the manager’s desk.
“An old gentleman on Four had a heart attack,” said Mrs. Tuttle as if it were a routine occurrence.
“May I leave my groceries here while I go for a walk?” “Certainly,” she said. “Be careful where you go. Stay on the main streets.” Qwilleran had acquired the walking habit up north, and he headed for downtown on foot, proceeding at a studious pace in order to evaluate the streetscape. Ahead of him stretched the new Zwinger Boulevard with its trendy buildings: glass office towers like giant mirrors; an apartment building like an armed camp; the new Penniman Plaza hotel like an amusement park. The thought crossed his mind that the Klingenschoen Fund could buy all of this, tear it down, and build something more pleasing to the eye.
He was, of course, the only pedestrian in sight. Traffic shot past him in surges, barreling for the next red light like race horses bursting out of the gate. At one point a police car pulled up. “Looking for something, sir?” asked an officer.
If Qwilleran had said, “I’m thinking of buying all of this and tearing it down,” they would have sent him to the psychiatric ward, so he flashed his press card and told them he was reporting on the architecture of inner cities in the northeast central United States.
Next, discovering an office building with shops on the main floor, he bought a handbag for Polly and had it gift- wrapped and shipped with an affectionate enclosure. It was called a “Paris bag,” something not to be found in Moose County, where a “Chicago bag” was considered the last word.
He also entered a bookstore called “Books ‘n’ Stuff,” that stocked more videos and greeting cards than books.
Furthermore, its supermarket lighting and background music discouraged browsing. Qwilleran had his own ideas about the correct ambiance for a bookstore: dim, quiet, and slightly dusty.
Downtown he passed the Daily Fluxion and would have dropped in to banter with the staffers, but the formidable new security system in the lobby was inhibiting. He kept going in the direction of the Press Club.
This venerable landmark on Canard Street had been remodeled and redecorated. It was no longer the hangout where he and Arch Riker used to lunch almost every day at the same table in the same comer of the bar, served by the same waitress who knew exactly how they liked their burgers. None of the old crowd was there. Everyone seemed younger, and there was a preponderance of ad salesmen and publicity hacks on expense accounts – a suit-and-tie crowd.
He was the only one in the place who looked as if he had arrived on horseback. He ate at the bar, but the corned beef sandwich was not as good as it used to be. Bruno, the bartender, had quit, and no one remembered Bruno or knew where he had gone.
As Qwilleran was leaving the bar, he recognized one familiar face. The portly and easygoing Lieutenant Hames of the Homicide Squad was lunching with someone who was obviously a newsman and probably the new reporter on the police beat; Qwilleran could identify the breed instantly. He stopped at their table.
“What brings you down from the North Pole?” the detective asked in his usual jocular style.
“The developers are evicting me from my igloo,” Qwilleran replied. “They’re building air-conditioned condos.” “Do you guys know each other?” Hames introduced Matt something or other from the Fluxion’s police bureau. The name sounded like Thiggamon.
“Spell it,” Qwilleran requested as he shook hands with the young reporter.
“T-h-i-double g-a-m-o-n.” “What happened to Lodge Kendall?” “He went out west to work on some new magazine,” said Matt. “Aren’t you the one who gave the big retirement bash for Arch Riker? I missed it by two days.” “You’re entitled to a raincheck.” “What are you doing here anyway?” asked Hames.
“Spending the winter with crime and pollution instead of snowdrifts and icebergs. I’m staying at the Casablanca.” “Are you nuts? They’re getting ready to bulldoze that pile of rubble. Do you still have your smart cat?” “I sure do and he’s getting smarter every day.” “I suppose you still indulge his taste for lobster and frog legs.” Qwilleran said, “I admit that he lives high, for a cat, but he saved my neck a couple of times, and I owe him.” Hames turned to the new reporter. “Qwill has this cat that can dig up clues better than the whole Homicide Squad.
When I told my wife about him, she bugged me until I got her a Siamese, but ours is more interested in breaking the law than enforcing it. Pull up a chair, Qwill. Have some coffee. Have dessert. The Fluxion’s picking up the tab.” Qwilleran declined, saying that he had an appointment, and went on his way, thinking about the proliferation of Hedrogs and Thiggamons, like” names out of science fiction. Moreover, the bylines at the Fluxion were getting longer and more complicated. Fran Unger had been replaced by Martta Newton-Ffiske. At the Morning Rampage Jack Murphy’s gossip column was now written by Sasha Crispen-Schmitt. Try saying that fast, he thought: Try saying it three times.
In a critical and slightly grouchy mood he pushed through the lunch-hour crowds on the street, finding most of the pedestrians to be in a mad rush, tense, and rude. The women he evaluated as chic, glamorous, and self-consciously thin, though not as pretty or as healthy-looking as those in Moose County.
Returning to the Casablanca too early for his. appointment with Mary Duckworth, he went for a ride, extricating the Purple Plum from the parking lot’s tire-bashing cracks and craters and driving to River Road, his last address before moving up north. His old domicile and the tennis club next-door had been replaced by a condo complex and marina, and he could hardly remember how either of the original buildings looked. Too bad! He chalked up another score for the developers and drove back to the Casablanca, hoping it would still be there. What he found was a revised situation in the parking lot. His official slot, #28, was still occupied – not by the green Japanese car but by a decrepit station wagon with a New Jersey license plate. Someone else had pulled into #29, so he wheeled the Purple Plum into #27. After a morning of disappointment, indignation, and other negative reactions, Qwilleran was none too happy when he left for Mary Duckworth’s antique shop.
The Blue Dragon still occupied a narrow townhouse, handsomely preserved, and a large blue porcelain dragon (not for sale) still dominated the front window bay. That much had not changed. Nor had the entrance hall with its Chinese wallpaper, Chippendale furniture, and silver chandeliers. There was a life-size ebony carving of a Nubian slave with jeweled turban that had not yet sold, and Qwilleran glanced at the price tag to see if it had been marked down. It had gone up another two thousand dollars, Mary’s credo being: If it doesn’t sell, raise the price.
As for Mary herself, she still had the sleek blue-black hair and willowy figure that he remembered, but the long cigarette holder and the long fingernails were no longer in evidence. Instead of an Oriental kimono, she wore a well- tailored suit and pearls. She shook his hand briefly and glanced at his Nordic sweater and Aussie hat. “You look so sportif, Qwill!” “I see you haven’t sold the blackamoor,” he said.
“I’m holding it back. Originally it stood in the lobby of the Casablanca, and it will appreciate in value, no matter what happens to the building.” “Do you still keep that unfriendly German shepherd?” “Actually,” said Mary, “I don’t feel the need for a watchdog, considering the new atmosphere in Junktown. I was able to find him a good home in the suburbs, where he’s really needed. Come into the office.” She motioned him to sit in a wing chair.
Its tall, narrow proportions labeled it an antique, and he glanced at the price tag. He looked twice. At first reading he thought it was $180.00, then realized it was $18,000. He sat down carefully.
“Before we say another word,” he began, “would you explain the dark line that makes the Casablanca look like a refrigerator? It’s just above the ninth floor.” “There was a projecting ledge there,” she said, “and the city ordered it removed. Portions of it were falling down on the sidewalk and injuring passersby. Our architect maintains it can be safely restored, and it should be restored, being an integral part of the design. Meanwhile, the building management is reluctant to spend money on cosmetic improvements because – ” “Because the building may be torn down next week,” Qwilleran interrupted. “Everyone chants that excuse like a Greek chorus, and they may be right. This morning I saw the sign announcing the Gateway Alcazar. The developers seem to be supremely confident.” “Aren’t you appalled?” Mary said with a shudder. “The audacity of those people is unthinkable! They’ve even contrived a publicity story in the Morning Rampage comparing their arched monstrosity to the Arc de Triomphe!” “Well, the Pennimans own the Rampage, don’t they?” “Nevertheless, Roberto wrote a letter to the editor calling it the’ Arc de Catastrophe.’ If your Klingenschoen Fund comes to our rescue, we shall be eternally grateful.” “What do you know about Penniman, Greystone and F-I-e-u-d-d? I don’t know how to pronounce it.” “Flood.” “What’s their track record?” “Fleudd has recently joined them, but the Penniman and Greystone firm has been in real-estate development for years. They’re the ones who wanted to tear down the Press Club.” “The media clobbered that idea in a hurry,” Qwilleran recalled. “Has the Daily Fluxion come to the support of SOCK?” “Not with any conviction. They merely fuel the controversy. The mayor and the city council have made statements in favor of the Gateway Alcazar, but the university and the art community support SOCK.” “How about your father? What does he think about saving the Casablanca?” Mary raised her eyebrows expressively. “As you know, he and I are always at odds on every issue, and his bank has already agreed to lease space for a branch office in the Gateway building. Ironic, isn’t it?” “Tell me about the Countess,” he said. “So far no one has mentioned her name.” “She is Adelaide St. John Plumb. Her father was Harrison Wills Plumb, who built the Casablanca in 1901. She was born on the twelfth floor of the Casablanca seventy-five years ago, with a midwife, a nurse, and two doctors in attendance, according to the story she tells and tells and tells. She’s inclined to be repetitive.” “Did she ever marry?” “No. She was engaged at an early age but broke it off. She adored her father, and they were very close.” “I see… How does she react to all this brouhaha over her birthplace?” “That’s a curious situation,” Mary admitted. “I believe she enjoys being the center of attention. The promoters make her large offers and ply her with gifts, while SOCK appeals to her better instincts and makes pointed references to her father – her ‘dear father.’ She procrastinates, and we stall for time, hoping to find an angel. Do you play bridge?” Jolted by this non sequitur, Qwilleran said, “Uh… no, I don’t.” “How about backgammon?” “Frankly, I’ve never liked games that require any mental effort. What is the reason for this interrogation, may I ask?” “Let me explain,” said Mary. “The Countess has one interest in life: table games – cards, Parcheesi, checkers, mah-jongg, anything except chess. Roberto and I stay in her good graces by playing once a week.” “Does much money exchange hands?” “There’s no gambling. She plays for the pleasure of competition, and she’s really very good. She should be! She’s been playing daily all her life, beginning as a young child. Did Amber tell you that the Countess is a recluse?” “No, she didn’t.” Qwilleran’s vision of Lady Hester Stanhope flashed across his mind.
“Yes, she lives in a world of her own on the twelfth floor, with three servants.” “Surely she goes out occasionally.” “She never leaves the building or even her own apartment, which occupies an entire floor. Her doctors, lawyers, hairdresser, dressmaker, and masseuse all make house calls.” “What’s her problem? Agoraphobia?” “She claims to have trouble breathing if she steps outside her door… You don’t play dominoes?” “No! Especially not dominoes.” “Scrabble?” He shook his head. “Does this woman know I’m here – and why?” “We told her you’re a writer who inherited money and retired to the country, and you’re spending the winter here to escape the bad weather up north.” “What was her reaction?” “She asked if you play bridge.” “Does she know I used to write for the Fluxion?” “There was no point in mentioning it. She never reads newspapers. As I said before, she has created a private world.” Qwilleran was convinced he had discovered Lady Hester in the flesh. He said, “Does anyone know of my interest in buying the Casablanca?” “Only Roberto and myself and the architect. And we confided in Amber, of course, when I had to leave town.” “Since the Klingenschoen board of directors won’t even hear about this until Thursday, I don’t want my possible involvement to leak out.” “We understand that.” “I’ll be filing stories for the Moose County paper while I’m here, and I’m thinking that a column on the Casablanca could make a good kickoff. Will the Countess object to being interviewed?” “I’m sure she’ll enjoy the attention, although she’ll want to talk mostly about her dear father.” “‘Who handles the business end of the Casablanca?” “A realty firm, with her lawyers as intermediaries.” “Is she interested in the tenants?” “Only if they have good manners and good clothes and play bridge. To break the ice, I’d like to take you to tea on Twelve. She pours every afternoon at four.” “First,” Qwilleran said, “I want to know your architect’s appraisal of the building. As of this moment I don’t believe it shows much promise.” Mary handed him a bound copy of a report. “There it is! Two hundred pages. Most of it is technical, but if you read the first and last chapters, you’ll have all the necessary information.” Qwilleran noted the name on the cover: Grinchman & Hills, architects and engineers. It was a well-known firm.
Magazines had publicized their projects around the country: an art museum, a university library, the restoration of a nineteenth-century government building. “Not a bad connection,” he said. “I’ll study this thing, and if I have any questions, whom do I call? Grinchman or Hills?” “They’re both deceased,” Mary said. “Only the name remains, and the reputation. The man who prepared the report for SOCK, virtually gratis, is Jefferson Lowell. He’s totally sympathetic to the cause. You’ll like him.” Qwilleran rose. “This discussion has been enjoyable and enlightening, Mary. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for tea with the Countess.” “Time is of the essence,” she reminded him. “After all, the woman is seventy-five, and anything can happen.” She accompanied him to the door, through a maze of high-priced pedigreed antiques. “Do you still have your Mackintosh coat of arms?” “I wouldn’t part with it. It’s the first antique I ever bought, and it’s incorporated into my apartment up north.” He drew a small object from his pocket. “Can you identify this?” “Where did you get it?” “My cat was batting it about the floor in the penthouse.” “It’s a blank tile from a Scrabble set. Blanks are wild in Scrabble. The former tenant was an avid player.” “She was an art dealer, I understand, and that explains some of the peculiar artwork, but why so many mushrooms? Who painted them? They’re signed with a double R.” Mary’s eyes wavered as she replied, “He was a young artist by the name of Ross Rasmus.” “Why did he put a knife in every picture?” She hesitated momentarily. “Roberto says there’s sensuous pleasure in slicing a mushroom with a sharp knife.
Perhaps that’s what it’s all about.” With a searching look Qwilleran said, “I hear she died unexpectedly. What was the cause of death?” “Really, Qwill, we avoid talking about it,” Mary said uncomfortably. “It was rather – -sordid, and that’s not the image we want for the Casablanca.” “You don’t have to be cagey with me, Mary. Since I’m subletting the apartment, I deserve to know.” “Well, if you insist… I have to tell you that she was… murdered.” He stroked his moustache smugly. “That’s what I surmised. There’s a sizable bloodstain on the carpet. Someone had placed a piece of furniture over it for camouflage, but Koko found it.” “How is Koko?” Mary asked brightly.
“Never mind Koko. Tell me what happened to the art dealer.” The words came out reluctantly. “She… her throat was cut.” “By the mushroom artist?” She nodded.
“That figures. He was obsessed with knives. When did this happen?” “On Labor Day weekend.” “Why is so much of this Ross fellow’s work hanging in the apartment?” “Well,” said Mary, selecting her words with care, “he was a young artist… and she thought he had promise…
and she promoted him in her gallery. He was her prot‚g‚, you might say.” “Uh-huh,” said Qwilleran knowingly. “Where is he now? I assume he was convicted.” “No,” Mary said slowly. “He was never brought to trial… You see, he left a confession… and took his own life.”
6
QWILLERAN FELT IN better spirits when he left the Blue Dragon. Koko’s discovery was pertinent: 14-A had been the scene of a murder. That cat had an infallible sense when it came to turning up evidence of criminal activity.
Carrying the Grinchman & Hills report Qwilleran headed for home with a brisk step, eager to start reading. Instead of wasting time on dinner in a restaurant, he stopped at the Carriage House Cafe to inquire about take-out food.
“We don’t usually… do… take-outs,” said the cashier in a distracted way. She was staring at Qwilleran’s oversized moustache. “Are you on television?” Regarding her with mournful eyes under drooping lids, he said in a rich, resonant tone reserved for such occasions, “At this moment I am live – in person – talking with an attractive woman behind a cash register, regarding the possibility of a take-out dinner.” “I’ll see what I can do,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried into the kitchen. Immediately a man with long hair and a chef’s hat peered through the small window in the kitchen door. Qwilleran gave him a cordial salute.
The cashier returned. “We don’t have take-out trays, but the cook will put together a serving of today’s special, if you don’t mind carrying a regular plate. You can bring it back tomorrow. Are you driving?” “I’m walking but I don’t have far to go. What is your special?” “Beef Stroganoff.” “It sounds most appetizing.” “We’ll put some coleslaw and a dinner roll in foil,” the cashier volunteered.
While retrieving his bill clip from his pocket, Qwilleran placed the Grinchman & Hills report on the counter and noticed the cashier trying to read it upside down.
“Grinch… man… and… Hills,” she read aloud. “Is that the script for a movie?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes, but keep it quiet;” he replied in a low voice with a swift glance to either side. “It’s going to be a buddy movie like Bonnie and Clyde or Harold and Maude. I’m playing Grinchman.” Leaving a sizable tip for a happy and flustered cashier, he departed with the bulky report under one arm and a plate of hot food covered with foil, on top of which were balanced two foil packets. “Your coleslaw and buttered roll,” the cashier told him with an expansive display of hospitality. “Open the door for him,” she called to the busboy.
Qwilleran covered the distance to the Casablanca quickly, and a young man held the two heavy doors for him, saying, “Somebody’s gonna eat tonight.” On the main floor there was activity suitable for late afternoon on a Monday. The person seated in the phone booth was telephoning and neither swigging nor snorting. An elderly man using a walker moved down the hall slowly and with extreme concentration. Kitty-Baby, having picked up the scent of the beef Stroganoff, was dogging Qwilleran’s feet. In the vicinity of the desk a young man was swinging a mop across the floor, while Mrs. Tuttle sat at her post, knitting, and Rupert lounged about in his red hat. Despite the tools in his jacket pocket, he never seemed to do much work. Among the persons waiting for the elevator were employed tenants with gaunt end-of-day expressions, the Asian mother with her children, elderly souls complaining about Medicare, and students with an excess of youthful energy, talking loudly about bridges, professors, and final exams. Probably engineering students, Qwilleran guessed.
Rupert caught his eye and nodded toward the elevators. “Both workin’ today.” “A cause for celebration,” Qwilleran replied. While the passengers waited in suspense, reassuring knocks and whines could be heard in both elevator shafts. Old Green was the first to appear, immediately filling with passengers and going on its way. Then the door of Old Red opened, and two of the waiting students rushed aboard. Qwilleran stood back, allowing a white-haired woman with a cane to go next. Slowly, one faltering step at a time, she approached the car, and just as her head and one foot were inside, the heavy door started to close.
“Hold it!” he yelled. One student lunged for the door; the other lunged at the woman, pushing her from danger. As she toppled backward, Qwilleran dropped everything and caught her, while Old Red closed its door and took off.
Instantly Mrs. Tuttle and Rupert were on the scene, the custodian retrieving the woman’s cane and the manager saying, “Are you all right, Mrs. Button?” Set back on her feet but shaking violently, the woman raised her cane as if to strike and screamed in a cracked voice, “That man grabbed me!” “He saved you, Mrs. Button,” explained the manager. “You could have fallen and broken your hip.” “He grabbed me!” “Wheelchair,” Mrs. Tuttle mumbled, and Rupert quickly brought one from the office and took the offended victim upstairs in Old Green, while Qwilleran surveyed the gooey hash on the floor.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Qwilleran,” said Mrs. Tuttle. “Is that your dinner?” “It was my dinner. Anyway, the plate didn’t break, but I’m afraid I messed up your floor.” “Don’t worry about that. The boy will take care of it.” “I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said. Kitty-Baby had been joined by Napoleon and two other cats, and the quartet was lapping it up, coleslaw and all.
“At least let me wash your plate,” Mrs. Tuttle offered.
“It looks as if Old Red is my nemesis,” said Qwilleran as he nodded his thanks to a child who handed him his buttered roll and a man who picked up the Grinchman & Hills report, straightening its rumpled pages.
“Could the boy go out and bring you something to eat?” the manager suggested.
“I think not, thank you. I’ll go upstairs and feed the cats and then go out to dinner.” When he opened the door of 14-A, Koko and Yum Yum came forward nonchalantly.
“How about showing some concern?” he chided them. “How about displaying a little sympathy? I’ve just had a grueling experience.” They followed him into the kitchen and watched politely as he opened a can of crabmeat.
They were neither prowling nor yowling nor ankle-rubbing, and Qwilleran realized that they were not hungry.
“Has someone been up here?” he demanded.
“Did they give you something to eat?” When he placed the plate of food on the floor, the cats circled it and sniffed from all angles before consenting to nibble daintily. Then Qwilleran was sure someone had been feeding them. He inspected the apartment for signs of intrusion and found no evidence in the library or in either bedroom. The doors to the terrace were locked. Both bathrooms were undisturbed. Only in the gallery was there anything different, and he could not imagine exactly what it was. The Indian dhurrie still covered the bloodstain on the carpet; no artwork was missing; the potted trees had all their leaves, but something had been changed.
At that moment Koko entered the gallery and embarked on a businesslike program of sniffing. He sniffed at the foot of the stairs, alongside the sofa, on the gallery level between trees, and in front of the stereo.
“The pails!” Qwilleran shouted. “Someone took the pails!” He hurried to the housephone in the kitchen and said to a surprised Mrs. Tuttle, “What happened to my pails?” “Your what?” she asked. “This is Qwilleran in 14-A. There were plastic pails standing around my living room to catch drips when the skylight leaks. What happened to them? It might rain!” “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she apologized. “The man was here to fix the skylight today, so Rupert collected the pails. I forgot to tell you during the trouble with Mrs. Button.” “I see. Sorry to bother you.” He tamped his moustache. He would have to speak firmly to Rupert about feeding the animals. But his annoyance at the custodian was erased by his admiration for Koko. That cat had known the exact location of every pail!
Now Qwilleran was twice as hungry. Carrying the clean plastic plate he returned to the Carriage House Caf‚.
“Oh, it’s you again!” cried the cashier in delight. “How did you like the special? You didn’t need to bring the plate back right away.” “It was so good,” Qwilleran said, “that I’d like to do it all over again, including that delicious coleslaw and perhaps two rolls if you can spare them.” He sat on a stool at the counter, and the cashier insisted on serving him herself, while the cook waved a friendly hand in the small window of the kitchen door and later sent out a complimentary slice of apple pie.
Thus fortified, Qwilleran returned to the Casablanca, where he found the red-hatted Rupert sitting at the manager’s desk, reading a comic book. “I notice that the skylight’s been repaired,” he said to the custodian.
“Yep. No more leaks.” The man held up crossed fingers.
“How did you get along with the cats when you picked up the pails?” “Okay. I gave ’em a jelly doughnut. They gobbled it up.” “Jelly doughnut!” Qwilleran was aghast.
Rupert, misunderstanding his reaction, excused the apparent extravagance by explaining that it was a stale doughnut that had been lying around the basement for several days.
Controlling himself, Qwilleran said in a friendly way, “I’d rather you wouldn’t give the cats any treats if you have occasion to enter the apartment, Rupert. They’re on a strict diet because of… because of their kidneys.” “Yeah, cats always have trouble with their kidneys, seems if.” “But thanks for collecting the pails, friend. You’re right on the ball!” Then Qwilleran rode up to Fourteen on Old Red and confronted the Siamese. “Stale jelly doughnut!” he said in indignation. “You ate a stale jelly doughnut! And yet you guys turn up your nose at a fresh can of salmon if it’s pink! You hypocrites!” Changing into a warm-up suit, he locked himself into the library to study the Grinchman & Hills report. It appeared to be a formidable task, and he wanted no one sitting on his lap or purring in his ear.
The introduction described the original structure, as Amber had quoted from the SOCK brochure. Then came the chapter on necessary improvements, which Qwilleran condensed on a legal pad as follows:
* Clean and repair exterior and restore ornamentation.
* Restore grassy park on west side and porte cochere on the east.
* Acquire property behind building for parking structure.
* New roof and skylight.
* New triple-glazed windows throughout, custom-made.
* Mechanical update: elevators, heating and air-conditioning, plumbing, wiring, TV cables, and intercom.
* Remove superimposed floorings, false walls, and dropped ceilings.
* Restore former apartment spaces with maids’ rooms.
* Update bathrooms in the character of the original.
* Reinstate restaurant on Fourteen, converting pool area into sidewalk caf‚.
* Landscape terrace in 1900 style.
* Update basement apartments for staff.
* Redesign kitchen and laundry facilities.
* Preserve owner’s apartment on Twelve as refurbished in 1925.
After compiling this ambitious list, Qwilleran blew into his moustache – an expression of incredulity. Turning to the final chapter he had greater cause for disbelief; the bottom line was in nine digits. He emitted an audible gulp! Such a sum was beyond his comprehension. Despite his inheritance, he still bought his shirts on sale and telephoned long distance during the discount hours. Nevertheless, he knew that the Klingenschoen Fund was accustomed to disbursing hundreds of millions without blinking, and he managed not to blink, although he gulped audibly.
As he mused on the possibilities and problems of such an extensive restoration, the hush of the library was broken by the sound of drumbeats. They were coming through the wall from 14-B. Thump thump thump dum-dum thump dum-dum thump BONG! The final beat reverberated like a Chinese gong. Then he heard a shrill voice, although the words were inaudible, followed by a repetition of the drumbeats.
He went out on the terrace and walked past the French doors of 14-B, but the blinds were closed as before. Next he went out to the elevator lobby and listened at his neighbor’s door. He could hear a voice chanting, then more thumps and a BONG! He was standing with his ear close to the door when noises in the elevator shaft alerted him, and he sprang back just as Old Red debouched a creature with spiky hair, wearing black tights, black boots, a black poncho, and black eye makeup.
“Good evening,” he said to the creature, giving his greeting a neighborly inflection.
Without replying, he or she darted past him, hammered on the door of 14-B, and was admitted amid birdlike shrieks.
The charivari had no effect on the Siamese, who were sleeping soundly somewhere, full of crab-meat and stale jelly doughnut. Qwilleran spent the next two hours in the gallery, however, with the French doors closed and the stereo volume turned to high.
Toward the end of the evening, when the thumps and bongs had subsided, he heard a commotion in the hall: the door of 14-B slamming, a cacophony of shrill voices. He grabbed his wastebasket and opened his front door on the pretext of putting out his rubbish. As he did so, he caught sight of more creatures in black, chattering and shrieking like inhabitants of a rain forest as they boarded Old Red. When they saw him, they fell silent and stared with black-rimmed eyes. The elevator door closed and Old Red descended. Qwilleran told himself with a chuckle that they were members of some kind of satanic cult, and Old Red was taking them down to the infernal regions.
Perhaps it was the sudden silence that roused the Siamese, or their internal clock told them it was time for their eleven o’clock treat. Whatever alerted them, they wandered out from wherever they had been sleeping and performed the ritual of yawning and stretching, first two forelegs and then one hind leg. Koko jumped to the desktop and nosed the Grinchman & Hills report. Yum Yum stood on her hind legs and placed her paws on the edge of the wastebasket, peering into its depths in hope of finding a crumpled paper or piece of string.
“I don’t know about you,” Qwilleran said to the pair, “but I’ve had a most interesting evening. If we do what the architects suggest, this building will no longer look like a refrigerator, and it won’t be a sore thumb on Zwinger Boulevard.
The lobby will be a showplace; the apartments will be palatial; the rooftop restaurant will be exclusive; and they’ll no longer allow cats. How do you react to that?” “Yow,” said Koko, who was now examining the library sofa. It was covered with fake leopard, and he knew it was not the real thing. Industriously, with vertical tail, he sniffed the seams, pawed the button tufting, and reached down behind the seat cushions. Some of his memorable discoveries had been made behind seat cushions: cocktail crackers, paper clips, folding money, pencils, and small articles of clothing. Now he was scrabbling so assiduously that Qwilleran went to his aid. He removed one of the seat cushions, and there – tucked in the crevice between the seat platform and the sofa-back – was an item of gold jewelry.
“Good boy!” he said. “Let me see it.” Engraved discs were linked together to make a flexible bracelet, but the clasp was broken. One disc was engraved in cursive script: “To Dianne.” Another was inscribed: “From Ross.” The remainder bore the numerals: 1-1-4-1, 5-1-1-1, 4-1-3-5, etc. Obviously it was a secret code between the two.
“Okay, this is enough excitement for tonight,” Qwilleran said, “but tomorrow we do a little research on the Labor Day incident.” On Tuesday morning Qwilleran called Jefferson Lowell at Grinchman & Hills, inviting him to lunch at the Press Club, and the architect accepted. There was a certain mystique about the Press Club, and most persons jumped at an invitation.
Before going out to breakfast, he checked the weather report on the radio and learned that the Narcotics Squad had rounded up fifty-two suspects in a drug bust; a judge had been indicted for accepting bribes; and a cold front was moving in.
On his way out of the building Qwilleran was flagged by the manager. She said, “I’m sorry about that commotion last night. Mrs. Button is very old and a little confused at times.” “I understand, Mrs. Tuttle.” “Last year she had an attack, and the paramedics gave her CPR. The next day she accused them of rape. It even went to court, but of course it was thrown out.” “I’m glad you warned me,” Qwilleran said. “Next time I’ll let her fall.” If Mrs. Tuttle appreciated his sly humor, she gave no indication. “I also wanted to tell you, Mr. Qwilleran, that some of our tenants do cleaning – those that are on social security, you know. They like to keep active and earn a little extra. Let me know if you need help with your apartment.” “I’ll take you up on that,” he said, “but don’t send me Mrs. Button.” Then he walked downtown. It was a good day for walking – by urban standards; a light breeze diluted the emissions from cars and trucks and diesel vehicles. En route he stopped for pancakes and sausages, observing that they were twice the price of a similar breakfast in Pickax, and the sausages were not half so good. Moose County had hog farms, and independent butchers made their own sausages. He was spoiled.
At the Daily Fluxion he braved the security cordon and gained admittance to the library, where he asked to see clips on the Bessinger murder. The film bank produced three entries, the first dated the day after Labor Day. Although the victim’s name was spelled differently in each news item, that was not unusual for the Daily Fluxion.
MURDER-SUICIDE JOLTS ART WORLD The violent deaths of an art dealer and an artist Sunday night, apparently murder and suicide, have shocked the local art world and the residents of the Casablanca apartments.
The body of Diane Bessinger, 45, co-owner of the Bessinger-Todd Gallery, was found in her penthouse apartment Monday morning. Her throat had been cut. The body of Ross Rasmus, 25, a client of Bessinger, was found earlier atop a car in the parking lot below the murdered woman’s terrace.
Rasmus apparently jumped to his death after leaving a contrite confession daubed on a wall. His body landed on the roof of a car owned by a Casablanca tenant, who found it at 12:05 A.M. Monday and notified the police.
“I went out for some smokes and beer,” said Jack Yazbro, 39, “and the top of my car was all bashed in. He wasn’t that big of a guy, but it’s a long way down.” Bessinger died between 11 P.M. and midnight Sunday, according to the medical examiner, although the body was not discovered until Monday morning when her partner, Jerome Todd, phoned and was un- able to get an answer.
“I heard about Ross’s suicide on the radio and tried to call her,” Todd said. “When she didn’t answer, I got worried and called the building manager.” The gallery had mounted a one-man exhibit of Rasmus’s mushroom paintings in June.
“They sold poorly,” said Todd, “and Ross blamed us for not publicizing the event enough.” Rasmus rented a loft apartment adjoining Bessinger’s lavish penthouse at the Casablanca. Jessica Tuttle, manager of the building, called him a good tenant. “He was a nice, quiet, serious young man,” she said. “We rented to him at Ms. Bessinger’s recommendation.” It was Tuttle who found the murdered woman’s body. “Mr. Todd called me about not getting an answer on the phone. He was sure she was home, because she had guests coming for a holiday brunch. So I took my keys and went up there. Her body was on the living room floor, and there was a lot of blood on the carpet.” Bessinger had been in the news frequently in connection with the Save Our Casablanca Kommittee, of which she was founder and leader.
Following the news item, a brief obituary had been published in the Wednesday edition of the Fluxion, with a half- column photo of the de- ceased, a vivacious-looking woman with dark shoulder-length hair. Diane had become Diana.
BESSINGER, DIANA
Diana Bessinger, 45, of the Casablanca apartments died Sunday at her home. She was co-owner of the Bessinger-Todd Gallery, founder of the Save Our Casablanca Kommittee, an officer of the Turp and Chisel Oub, and an active worker in local art projects.
A native of Iowa, she was the daughter of the late Prof. and Mrs. Damon Bessinger.
She is survived by one brother and two daughters.
Private services will be held Thursday. Memorials may be made to the Turp and Chisel scholarship fund.
The following Sunday, the art page of the Fluxion carried a commentary by art writer Ylana Targ, with yet a third spelling of the victim’s name. A photo taken by a Fluxion photographer at the Rasmus opening in June showed a smiling “Dianne” Bessinger and a shy Ross Rasmus, posed with one of the mushroom paintings. The byline, Qwil leran noted, was another one of those names that was just as logical spelled backward or forward.
MUSHROOM MURDER HAS NO ANSWERS by Ylana Targ
There is only one topic of conversation in the galleries and studios as Dianne Bessinger is tearfully laid to rest and the ashes of the “mushroom painter” are shipped ignominiously to his hometown – somewhere.
Why did he do it? What caused this talented, thoughtful artist to turn violent and commit such a heinous crime? His suicide is easier to explain; it was the only possible escape from intolerable guilt. Desperate remorse must have driven him over the parapet of the Casablanca terrace.
“Lady Di” was his patron, his enthusiastic press agent, his best friend, who saw merit in his work when no other gallery would take a chance on his monomania for mushrooms.
Once, when asked why he never painted broccoli or crook-neck squash, Ross said meekly, “I haven’t said all I have to say about mushrooms.” Granted, mushrooms are erotic, and he captured their mushroomness succinctly.
Pairing the fleshy fungus with the razor-edge knife, as he did, bordered on soft porn.
Dianne said in an interview last June, , ‘There have been artists who painted soft- ness, crispness, silkiness, or mistiness sublimely, but only Rasmus could paint sharpness so sharp that the viewer cringes.” The knife he portrayed in the paintings was always the same – a tapered, pointed Japanese slicer with a pale wooden handle and a provocative shapeliness of its own.
One shudders to think too much about the actual crime. The motive is all one can safely or sanely contemplate, and that is a question that will never be answered.
Dianne Bessinger was the founder and president of SOCK. It was a passion with her, and she would not want her worthwhile cause to be overshadowed by the notoriety surrounding her tragic death. She would say, “Let the matter fade away now, and get on with the business of saving the Casablanca.” Qwilleran finished reading the clips and patted his moustache. It would be a challenge, he thought, to uncover that hidden motive. It might be buried in 14-A.
7
ON AN IMPULSE, after reading the murder-suicide clips in the Fluxion library, Qwilleran walked to the Bessinger-Todd Gallery in the financial district. It had the same address as the old Lambreth Gallery that he knew so well, but the interior had changed dramatically. At that morning hour the place had a vast emptiness, except for a business-suited man supervising a jeans-clad assistant perched on a stepladder. He turned in surprise as Qwilleran entered, saying, “We’re closed. I thought the door was locked.” “Am I intruding? I’m Jim Qwilleran, formerly of the Daily Fluxion. I used to cover the art beat when Mountclemens was the critic.” “How do you do. I’m Jerome Todd. I’ve heard about Mountclemens, but that was before my time here. I’m from Des Moines.” “I’ve been away for three years. I see you’ve enlarged the gallery.” “Yes, we knocked out the ceiling so we could exhibit larger works, and we added the balcony for crafts objects.” Qwilleran said, “I’m retired now and living up north, but I heard about the tragic loss of your partner and wanted to extend my condolences.” “Thank you… Is there anything I can do for you?” Todd asked in an abrupt change of subject. He was a tall, distinguished-looking man with one disturbing mannerism – the habit of pinching his nose as if he smelled an unpleasant odor.
Qwilleran was adept at inventing impromptu replies. “I happen to be staying at the Casablanca,” he said, “and I would like to propose a memorial to Ms. Bessinger that would help the cause she championed.” Todd looked, surprised and wary in equal proportions.
“What I envision,” Qwilleran went on smoothly as if he had been planning it for months, “is a book about the historic Casablanca, using old photos from the public library. For text I would rely on interviews and research.” “That would be costly to put together,” said the dealer, withdrawing slightly as he began to anticipate a touch for money.
“There are grants available for publishing books on historical subjects,” Qwilleran said coolly, “and revenue from the sale of the books would go to the Bessinger Memorial Fund. My own services would be donated.” Instead of being relieved, Todd showed increased wariness. “Who would be interviewed?” he asked sharply.
“Local historians, architects, and persons who have recollections of the early Casablanca. You’ll be surprised how many of them will come forward when we broadcast a request. My own attorney remembers eating spinach timbales in the rooftop restaurant as a boy.” “I wouldn’t want anyone to go digging into the circumstances of my partner’s death. There’s been too much notoriety and gossip already,” the dealer said, pinching his nose.
“There would be nothing like that, I assure you,” said Qwilleran. At that moment a glimpse of movement overhead caused him to look up; a Persian cat was walking along the railing of the balcony. “By the way,” he said, “I’m subletting Ms. Bessinger’s apartment while the estate is in probate, and I admire her taste in furniture and art.” Todd nodded in silent agreement. “How long were you in partnership, Mr. Todd?” “Eighteen years. We came here to take over the Lambreth Gallery when Zoe Lambreth moved to California.” “Do you happen to have any Rasmus paintings?” “I do not! And I’m weary of the talk about that fellow! There are plenty of living artists.” Todd pinched his nose again.
“The only reason I asked is that I’m in the market for large-scale art for a house I’m building up north.” Qwilleran was exercising his talent for instant falsehood.
“Then you must come to our opening on Friday night,” said the dealer, visibly relieved as he anticipated cash flow.
“We’re in the process of mounting the show, so the walls are vacant, but you’ll see some impressive works at the vernisage.” “I’m converting a barn into a residence,” said Qwilleran, embroidering his innocent lie, “so I’ll have large wall spaces, and I was hoping for a mushroom painting. Mushrooms seem appropriate for a barn.” Stiffly Todd said, “All his work sold out immediately after his suicide. If I’d had my wits about me, I would have held some back, but I was in shock. They didn’t sell well at all in June. He’s worth more dead than alive. But if you come here Friday night you’ll see the work of other artists you might like. What kind of barn are you remodeling?” “An apple barn. Octagonal.” The barn on the Klingenschoen property had indeed stored apples, and it really was eight-sided.
“Spectacular! You might consider contemporary tapestries. Do you know the sizes of your wall spaces?” “Actually, the job isn’t off the drawing board as yet,” said Qwilleran, being completely truthful.
“Come anyway on Friday. There’ll be champagne, hors d’ oeuvres, live music, and valet parking.” “What are the hours?” “From six o’clock until the well runs dry.” “Thank you. I’ll be here.” Qwilleran started toward the door and turned back. “Tell me frankly. How do you feel about the future of the Casablanca?” “It’s a lost cause,” said Todd without emotion. , “Yet your partner was convinced it could be saved.” “Yes… but… the picture has changed. The building is being razed to make way for the new Gateway Alcazar, which will be the missing link between the new downtown and the new Junktown. I’m moving the gallery there. I’ve signed up to lease space twice the size of what I have here.” Qwilleran consulted his watch. It was time to meet the architect at the Press Club. “Well, thanks for your time, Mr.
Todd. I’ll see you on Friday.” As he walked to the Press Club he told himself that the book project, born on the spur of the moment, was not a bad idea. As for converting the apple barn, that sounded good, too. It would be ten times roomier than his present apartment in Pickax, and the Siamese could climb about the overhead beams.
The Press Club occupied a grimy stone fortress that had once been the county jail, and as a hang-out for the working press it had maintained a certain forbidding atmosphere for many years. The interior had changed, however, since Qwilleran’s days at the Daily Fluxion. It had been renovated, modernized, brightened and – in his estimation – ruined. Yet it was a popular place at noon. He waited for the architect in the lobby, observing the lunch-time crowd that streamed through the door: reporters and editors, advertising and PR types, radio and TV personalities.
Eventually a man with a neatly clipped beard entered slowly, appraising the lobby with curiosity and a critical set to his mouth. Qwilleran stepped forward and introduced himself.
“I’m Jeff Lowell,” said the man. “So this is the celebrated Press Club. Somehow it’s not what I expected.” He gestured toward the damask walls and gilt-framed mirrors.
“They redecorated a couple of years ago,” said Qwilleran apologetically, “and it’s no longer the dismal, shabby Press Club that I loved. Shall we go upstairs?” Upstairs there was a dining room with tablecloths, cloth napkins, and peppermills on the tables instead of paper placemats and squeeze bottles of mustard and ketchup. They took a table in a secluded comer.
“So you’re interested in the Casablanca restoration,” said the architect.
“Interested enough to want to ask questions. I’ve done my homework. I spent last evening reading the Grinchman & Hills report. You seem quite sanguine about the project.” “As the report made clear, it will cost a mint, but it’s entirely feasible. It could be the most sensational preservation project in the country,” Lowell said.
“What is your particular interest?” “For one thing, I lived in that building for a few years before I was married, and there’s something about the place that gets into a person’s blood; I don’t know how to explain it. But chiefly, my firm is interested because the Casablanca was designed by the late John Grinchman, and we have all the original specs in our archives. Naturally that facilitated the study immeasurably. Grinchman was a struggling young architect at the turn of the century when he met Harrison Plumb.
Plumb had a harebrained scheme that no established architect would touch, but Grinchman took the gamble, and the Casablanca made his reputation. In design it was ahead of its time; Moorish didn’t become a fad until after World War One. The walls were built two feet thick at the base, tapering up to eighteen inches at the top. All the mechanical equipment-water pipes, steam pipes, electric conduits-were concentrated in crawl spaces between floors, for easy access and to help soundproof the building. And there was another feature that may amuse you: The occupants could have all the electricity they wanted!” “What do you know about Harrison Plumb?” Qwilleran asked.
“His family had accumulated their fortune in railroads, but he was not inclined to business. He was a dreamer, a dilettante. He studied for a while at L ‘Ecole des Beaux Arts, and while he was in Paris he saw the nobility living in lavish apartments in the city. He brought the idea home. He dreamed of building an apartment-palace.” “What was the reaction from the local elite?” “They tumbled for it! It was a smash hit! For families there were twelve-room apartments with servants’ quarters.
There were smaller apartments for bachelors and mistresses. Horses and carriages were stabled in the rear and available at a moment’s notice, like taxis. Curiously there were no kitchens, but there was the restaurant on the top floor, and the residents either went upstairs to the dining room or had their meals sent down.” “What about the swimming pool?” “That was for men only-and somewhat of a conceit. On the main floor they had a stockbroker, jeweler, law firm, and insurance agency. In the basement there were laundresses and cobblers. Barbers, tailors, seamstresses, and hair- dressers were on call to the apartments.” “And Plumb kept the best apartment for himself?” “The entire twelfth floor. It was designed to his specifications in Spanish style and then redesigned in the 1920s in the French Modern of its day. If the building is restored, the Plumb suite could eventually be a private museum; it’s that spectacular!” Qwilleran said, “Suppose the Klingenschoen Fund undertook to restore the Casablanca to its original character, would there be a demand for the apartments?” “I have no doubt.” “I suppose you’ve met Harrison Plumb’s daughter?” “Only twice,” said Lowell. “The first time was when I asked permission to make the study. I buttered up the old girl, invoked the memory of her dear father, indulged in some architectural double-talk, and got her okay. The second time was when I presented her with a copy of the report-leather-bound, mind you-which I’m sure she hasn’t opened, even though we bound in a photo of her father, arm in arm with John Grinchman. Unfortunately, I’m not a bridge player, so I was never invited back.” “I have yet to meet the lady,” said Qwilleran. “What is she like?” “Nice enough, but an absurd anachronism, living in a private time capsule. She doesn’t give a damn if the front steps are pulverizing and the tenants’ elevators are shot. If someone doesn’t shake some sense into her, she’ll hang on to the place until she dies, and that’ll be the end of the Casablanca. I don’t want to be there on the day they blast.” They ordered the Press Club’s Tuesday special, pork chops, and talked about the metamorphosis of Zwinger Boulevard, the proposed Gateway AIcazar, and the gentrification of Junktown. Then over cheesecake and coffee they reverted to the subject of the Casablanca.
“Let’s draw up the battlelines,” said Qwilleran. “On the one side, the developers and the city fathers want to see it demolished.” “Also the financial backers for the Gateway Alcazar. Also the realty firm that manages the Casablanca. The building is a headache for them; in spite of the low rents, it’s only half-occupied, and the mechanical equipment is constantly breaking down because of age and mishandling.” “Okay. And on the other side we have SOCK and G&H, right?” “Plus the art and academic sector. Plus an army of former tenants in all walks of life who’ve contributed to SOCK for the campaign. Strange as it may seem, there are people who are sentimental about the Casablanca in the same way they love the memory of – say – Paris. It has almost a living presence. It’s too bad what happened to Di Bessinger. She had a lot of drive and – as you probably know – she was set to inherit the building.” “That’s news to me,” Qwilleran said.
“You might say she had a vested interest in the Casablanca. That’s not to discount her genuine love for it, of course.” “Are you telling me that the Countess had named Bessinger in her will?” “Yes, Di spent a lot of time up on Twelve, and it must have been appreciated by the older woman, who – let’s face it – lives a lonely life.” “Tell me this,” said Qwilleran. “If the Klingenschoen Fund makes an offer – and at this point I’m not sure they will – can we be certain that the Countess will sell?” “That I can’t answer,” said the architect. “Mary Duckworth thinks the woman is craftily playing cat and mouse with both sides. She can’t possibly want to see her home demolished, and yet she’s related to the Pennimans on her mother’s side, and they’re financial backers for the Gateway. Do you know the Pennimans?” “I know they own the Morning Rampage,” said Qwilleran, “and as an alumnus of the Daily Fluxion I don’t think highly of their paper.” “Also they’re big in radio, television, and God knows what else. Penniman is spelled P-O-W-E-R in this town. It would give me personally a lot of satisfaction to see that crew get their blocks knocked off.” “This is going to be an interesting crusade,” said Qwilleran. “You understand, of course, that the Klingenschoen board doesn’t meet till Thursday, and at this point it’s just pie in the sky.” The two men shook hands and promised to keep in touch.
From the Press Club Qwilleran wandered over to the public library, one of the few buildings in town that had not changed, except for the addition of a parking structure. It was forty times the size of the library in Pickax, and he wondered if Polly Duncan had ever seen it. She crossed his mind more often than he imagined she would. What would she think of the Casablanca elevators? The tenants? The conversation pit? The mushroom paintings? The gold faucets?
The waterbed? He doubted that she had the objectivity to appreciate a building that looked like a refrigerator.
Browsing through the library’s local history collection, he was gratified to find abundant material on the Casablanca in the years when Zwinger Boulevard was crowded with horses and carriages – later with Stanley Steamers and Columbus Electrics. Photos in sepia or black and white depicted presidents, financial wizards, and theater greats standing on the front steps of the building, or stepping from a Duesenberg with the assistance of a uniformed doorman, or dining in the Palm Pavilion on the roof. Women in satin hobble skirts and furs, escorted by men in opera cloaks and top hats, were shown departing for a charity ball. In the grassy park adjoining the building a bevy of nursemaids aired infants in perambulators, and overdressed children batted shuttlecocks with battledores. There was even a photo of the undersized swimming pool with male bathers wearing long-legged bathing suits.
What interested Qwilleran most were the pictures of Harrison Plumb with his little moustache, probably a souvenir of his Paris days. He was shown sometimes with his friend Grinchman, often with visiting dignitaries, frequently with his wife and three children, the boys in knee pants and little Adelaide with ringlets cascading below the brim of a flower-laden hat. In later photos Adelaide and her father posed in a Stutz Bearcat or at a tea table on the terrace. Qwilleran recalled hearing that the personalities and events of the past seep into the brick and stones and woodwork of an old building, giving it an aura. If true, that accounted for the Casablanca magic that Lowell had tried to describe.
Following his two-hour immersion in the gentle, elegant past, Qwilleran found the whizzing traffic hard to take. He walked home briskly because a cold breeze was blowing, and Zwinger Boulevard, with its high buildings, functioned as a wind tunnel. It had been called Eat Street by the Fluxion food editor, and Qwilleran counted a dozen ethnic restaurants not to be found in Moose County: Polynesian, Mexican, Japanese, Hungarian, Szechuan, and Middle Eastern, to name a few.
He intended to try them all. He wished Polly were with him.
It was the end of the day, and tenants were converging on the Casablanca by car, bus, and taxi. Qwilleran, the only one to arrive on foot, checked the parking lot, hoping that his space might be vacant, but this time a 1975 jalopy was parked in #28.
As he joined the miscellaneous crew trooping through the front door, a man with a reddish moustache hailed him.
“Hi! Did you move in?” “Yes, I’ve joined the happy few,” Qwilleran acknowledged.
“What floor?” “Fourteen.” “Does the roof still leak?” “I’ll know better when it rains, but they claim to have fixed it yesterday.” “You must have connections. They never fix anything around here.” He ran ahead to catch the elevator, and only then did Qwilleran realize that he was the friendly jogger who had helped him on his arrival Sunday afternoon.
In the lobby were workmen in coveralls carrying six-packs, boisterous students with bookbags, women dressed for success and carrying briefcases, and elderly inmates with canes and bandages and swollen legs. Together they created the atmosphere of a bus terminal and a hospital corridor.
Most tenants stopped in the mailroom to unlock their mailboxes, after which they looked sourly at what they found there. Upon entering the crowded cubicle, Qwilleran had to dodge a large hairless man wearing a T-shirt imprinted “Ferdie Le Bull.” Next, a middle-aged woman in a sequin-studded black cocktail dress, looking anxiously at a handful of envelopes, collided with him.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Well, hello!” she said in a girlish voice, regarding his moustache appreciatively. “Where have they been hiding you?” There was no mail in Qwilleran’s box. It was too soon to hear from Polly, and other letters were being intercepted by his part-time secretary.
Rupert was standing by as if expecting an emergency, his red hat having the visibility of a fire hydrant. Mrs. Tuttle was sitting behind her desk, knitting, but keeping a stern eye on the engineering students. And among those waiting for the elevator was Amber, carrying a bag of groceries and looking tired.
Qwilleran asked her, “Is there an engineering school in the vicinity? These kids are always talking about bridges.” “They’re from the dental school,” she said. “Qwill, meet my neighbor on Eight, Courtney Hampton. Courtney, this is Jim Qwilleran. He’s got Di’s apartment on Fourteen.” The young man she introduced had square shoulders, slim hips, and a suit of the latest cut. He glanced at Qwilleran’s boots and tweeds and said with a nasal twang, “Just in from the country?” Amber said, “Courtney works at Kipper & Fine, the men’s clothing store. What have you been doing all day, Qwill?” “Walking around. Getting oriented. Everything has changed.” “The Casablanca will be the next to go,” her neighbor predicted. “Don’t unpack your luggage.” “I wonder what’s on TV tonight?” Amber said with a weary sigh.
“As for me,” said Courtney with a grandiose flourish of eyebrows, “if anyone is interested, I… am playing bridge.
.. with the Countess tonight.” “La di da,” said Amber. Both elevators arrived simultaneously, and the crowd surged aboard, separating Qwilleran from the other two. As Old Green reluctantly ascended, it performed a sluggish ritual at each floor, first bouncing to a stop, then listlessly opening its door to unload a passenger, after which it waited a long minute, closed its door in slow motion, and crept upward to the next floor. No one spoke. Passengers were holding their collective breath.
It had been a long day, and Qwilleran was glad to be home, but when he opened the door of 14-A he was met by a blast of heat. The radiators were hissing and clanking, and both cats were stretched full-length on the floor, panting.
“What happened?” he demanded. “It must be 110 in here!” He hunted for a thermostat and, finding none, grabbed the housephone. “Mrs. Tuttle! Qwilleran in 14-A. What happened to the furnace? We’re suffocating! The cats are half cooked! I expect the window glass to melt!” “Open the windows,” she said calmly. “Your side of the building heats up when a cold wind comes from the east.
We don’t have much control over it. The apartments on the east side are freezing, and the furnace works overtime to try to get them a little heat. Just open all your windows.” He did as he was told, and the Siamese revived sufficiently to sit up and take a little nourishment in the form of a can of red salmon. As for Qwilleran, he lost no time in going out to dinner. It occurred to him that he should invite Amber; she looked too tired to thaw whatever was in her grocery bag, and the temperature in her apartment might be insufferable, whether she lived on the frigid or sweltering side of the building. Yet, he disliked her line of conversation, and he believed that too soon an invitation might encourage her. In his present financial situation he had to be careful. Women used to be attracted to his ample moustache; now he feared they were attracted to his ample bank account.
Feeling guilty, he went to the nearest restaurant on Eat Street, which happened to be Japanese – a roomful of hibachi tables under lighted canopies, against a background of shoji screens and Japanese art. Each table seated eight around a large grill, and Qwilleran was conducted to a table where four persons were already seated.
He often dined alone and entertained himself by eavesdropping and composing scenarios about the other diners.
At the hibachi table he found a young couple sipping tea from handleless gray cups and giggling about the chopsticks.
The man was cloyingly attentive, and his companion kept admiring her ring finger. Newlyweds, Qwilleran decided. From the country. Honeymooning in the big city. They ordered chicken from the low end of the menu.
At the opposite end of the table two men in business suits were drinking sake martinis and ordering the lobster- steak-shrimp combination. On expense accounts, Qwilleran guessed. (He himself ordered the medium-priced teriyaki steak.) Upon further study, pursued surreptitiously, he decided that the man wearing a custom-tailored suit and ostentatious gold jewelry was treating the other man to dinner, his guest being a deferential sort in a suit off the rack and a shirt too loose around the neck. Also, he had a bandage on his ear. They were a curious pair- employer and employee, Qwilleran thought, judging by their respective attitudes. He had a feeling that he had seen that ear patch at the – Casablanca – in the lobby or in the elevator. The man in question suddenly glanced in Qwilleran’s direction, then mumbled something to his host, who turned to look at the newcomer with the oversized moustache. All of this Qwilleran observed from the corner of his eye, enjoying it immensely.
Conversation at the table halted when the Japanese chef appeared-an imposing figure in his stovepipe hat, two feet tall, and his leather knife holster. He bowed curtly and whipped out his steel spatulas, which he proceeded to wield with the aplomb of a symphony percussionist. The audience was speechless as he manipulated the splash of egg, the hill of sliced mushrooms, and the mountain of rice. Steaks, seafood, and chicken breasts sizzled in butter and were doused with seasonings and flamed in wine. Then the chef drew his formidable knife, cubed the meat and served the food on rough-textured gray plates. With a quick bow he said, “Have a nice evening,” and disappeared.
Qwilleran was the only one who used chopsticks, having acquired virtuosity when he was an overseas correspondent.
Watching him in admiration, the bride said, “You’re good at that.” “I’ve been practicing,” he said. “Is this your first time here?” “Yes,” she said. “We think it’s neat, don’t we, honey?” “Yeah, it’s neat,” said her groom. When Qwilleran left the restaurant it was dark, and he took the precaution of hailing a taxi. It was mid-evening now, and the main floor of the Casablanca was deserted. Most of the tenants were eating dinner or watching TV. The students were doing their homework, and the old folks had retired for the night.
As Qwilleran waited for Old Red, the door opened. The young woman who stepped out could only be described as a vision! She had a model’s figure and an angel’s face, enhanced by incredibly artful makeup. He stared after her and confirmed that she had also a model’s walk and an heiress’s clothing budget. He blew copiously into his moustache.
After Old Red, scented with expensive perfume, had transported him to Fourteen, which was really Thirteen, he greeted the Siamese in a daze, saying, “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve just seen!” “Yow!” said Koko, rising on his hind legs. “Sorry. No samples tonight. How’s the temperature? A little better? I apologize for the sauna. How would you guys like a read?” Shedding his street clothes gratefully and getting into his pajama bottoms, Qwilleran intended to read another chapter of Kinglake’s Eothen. It may have been his imagination, but the Siamese seemed to enjoy the references to camels, goats, and beasts of burden. Their ears always twitched and their whiskers curled. It was uncanny. So the three of them filed into the library, Koko leading the way with tail erect as a flagpole, followed by Yum Yum slinking sinuously, one dainty foot in front of the other, exactly like that girl in the lobby, Qwilleran thought. He brought up the rear, wearing the bottoms of the Valentine-red pajamas that Polly had given him the previous February.
The library was the most livable room in the apartment, made friendly with shelves of art books and walls of paintings. The furniture was contemporary teakwood and chrome created by big-name designers whose names Qwilleran had forgotten. He dropped into an inviting chair and turned to chapter ten, while Yum Yum turned around three times on his lap and settled down with chin on paw. Koko had just assumed his posture of eager listener when a slight noise elsewhere catapulted both cats out of the library and into the foyer. Qwilleran followed and found Koko scratching at something under the door. An envelope had been pushed halfway underneath.
There was no name on it, but it contained a sheet of heavy notepaper embossed with a W, and the following message had been written with an unsteady hand: “Welcome to the Casablanca. Come down and have a drink with me – any time.” It was signed by Isabelle Wilburton of apartment 10-F, the one who wanted to sell her baby grand piano.
Qwilleran growled into his moustache and tossed the note into the wastebasket, being careful not to crumple it.
Crumpled paper was like catnip to Yum Yum, and she would retrieve it in three seconds. All his life it had been his compulsive habit to crumple paper before discarding it, but those days were gone forever. Amazing, he thought, how one adjusts to living with cats. A few years before, if anyone had suggested such a thing, he would have called that person a blasted fool.
Back in the library he turned once more to chapter ten, but a slight quiver on his upper lip caused him to put the book down. He passed a hand over his moustache as if to calm the disturbing sensation. “Let’s sit quietly and think for a while,” he said to the waiting listeners. “We’ve been here for forty-eight hours and I’m getting some vibrations.” The fact that someone had been murdered on the premises did not bother Qwilleran; it was Koko’s interest in the incident that alerted him. That cat knew everything! First he found the bloodstain under a heavy piece of furniture, and then he found the gold bracelet buried in the upholstery of a sofa. Koko had an instinct for sinister truths hidden beneath the surface.
Qwilleran himself, after reading the newspaper I accounts, questioned the motive of the “nice, quiet, young man” who brutally knifed his benefactor, his “best friend,” to whom he had given a gold bracelet inscribed with an intimate code.
Ross may have blamed the gallery because his paintings failed to sell, but that was a weak excuse for murder. It was Todd who gave the Fluxion that frail scrap of information, Todd with his nervous habit of nose-pinching. What did that signify?
The news that Di Bessinger had been named heir to the Casablanca also raised suspicions in Qwilleran’s mind.
Many powerful interests op- posed her. It was definitely to their advantage to have her out of the picture. Even her own partner disagreed with her on the preservation of the old building and was now planning to move the gallery to the Gateway Alcazar. But none of this explained the role of Ross Rasmus as the hit man.
“What’s your opinion, Koko?” Qwilleran asked.
The cat was not listening. He was craning his neck and staring toward the foyer. A moment later there was a frantic banging on the front door. Qwilleran hurried to the scene and yanked the door open, catching a wild-eyed woman with fists raised, ready to pound the door panels again. She screamed, “The building’s on fire!”
8
JUST AS THE woman from 14-B screamed “Fire!” Qwilleran smelled smoke and heard the sirens.
“Don’t take the elevator!” she cried as she dashed for the stairwell in a terrycloth robe.
He jammed the cats unceremoniously into their carrier, grabbed his pajama top, and started down the stairs, assuming that the boilers had over- heated in their battle with the bitter east wind. Other tenants joined the downward trek at every floor, most of them grumbling and whining.
“Why are we doing this? The building’s fireproof,” one protested.
“My husband’s watching football on TV, and he won’t budge,” said a woman. “1 say: Let him burn!” “Smells like burning chicken to me,” said another.
“Did they ring the firebell? I didn’t hear it. My neighbor banged on my door. They’re supposed to ring the firebell.” “Betcha ten bucks the Countess ain’t walkin’ down.” By the time the disgruntled refugees reached the main floor, the lobby was filled with a hubbub of voices raised in alarm or indignation, while Mrs. Tuttle tried to calm them. They were a motley assemblage in various states of undress: women with hair curlers and no makeup; hairy-legged men in nightshirts; old tenants without their dentures; bald tenants without their hairpieces. Qwilleran was conspicuous in his red pajamas. A few persons were clutching treasured possessions or squawling cats, and the Siamese in their carrier yowled and shrieked in the spirit of the occasion. Among the refugees was a man in a washed-out seersucker robe that might have been purloined from a hospital. He had thinning hair, a pale face, and a white patch where his right ear should be; Qwilleran recognized his fellow diner from the hibachi table.
Fortunately for the underclad residents, the lobby was on the warm side of the building. Those from the cold side were threatening to bring their mattresses and sleep on the lobby floor. Mrs. Tuttle was doing a heroic job of controlling the crowd.
Then an elevator door opened, and firemen in black rubber coats and boots, carrying red- handled axes, stepped out. “Go back to bed, folks,” they said, grinning. “Only a chicken burning.” The tenants would have been happier if it had been a real fire.
“What! I walked down six flights for a chicken?” “I knew it was a chicken. I know burning chicken when I smell it.” “Somebody put it in the oven to thaw and went out to the bar and forgot it.” “Whoever done it, they should kick ’em out.” “They’re gonna kick us all out pretty soon.” The crowd began to disperse, some boarding the elevators and some heading for the stairwells, while others hung around the lobby, welcoming the opportunity for social fellowship.
The Siamese, following their rude experience among angry tenants and complaining cats, were understandably upset. Qwilleran, too, was restless and perhaps slightly lonesome, although he would not have admitted it. He considered it too late to call Polly but took a chance on phoning Arch Riker. “How’s everything in Pickax?” he asked his old friend.
“I wondered when you were going to report in,” said the editor. “Everything’s just the way you left it – no snow yet.” “Any world-shaking news?” “We had some excitement today. One of the conservation officers spotted a bald eagle near Wildcat Junction.” “What did you do? Put out an extra?” “I’ll blue-pencil that cynical remark. You talk like city folks.” “Have you seen Polly?” “Yes – at a library meeting tonight. She showed slides of her trip to England. She told me she’d heard from you.” “What’s happening at the paper?” “Hixie sold a full-page ad to Iris Cobb’s son: He’s going into business up here.” “Watch her! He’s happily married,” Qwilleran said.
“And we ran a notice in the sick column that old man Dingleberry is in the hospital for observation.” “Of the nurses, no doubt. That old rou‚ is ninety-five and thinks he’s twenty-five.” “What about you?” asked Riker. “What have you been doing?” “Nothing much. Dropped into the Flux office today… Had lunch twice at the Press Club… Bumped into Lieutenant Hames. There’s a whole string of new restaurants on Zwinger that you’d like, Arch. So far I’ve tried North Italian and Japanese. Why don’t you fly down for a few days?” “Can’t right now. There’s a special edition coming out for deer season, and we’re sponsoring a contest for hunters.
What do you think of the Casablanca?” “Not bad for an old building, and the sunsets from the fourteenth floor are spectacular.” “That’s one thing the city does well,” said Riker. “Sunsets! That’s because of the dirt in the atmosphere.” “My apartment has a skylighted living room, a terrace, a waterbed, gold faucets, and a library of art books that you wouldn’t believe.” “How do you do it, Qwill? You always luck out. How do the cats react to the altitude?” “No complaints, although I think Koko is disappointed by the scarcity of pigeons.” “Have you decided about the restoration?” “I’ve done some research and had a couple of conferences. Today I met with the architect, and next I’m going to meet the owner of the building, so it’s coming right along. You know, Arch, what we have here is King Tut’s tomb, waiting to be excavated.” “Well, stay out of trouble, chum,” said Riker, “and don’t forget to send us some copy.” After delivering this upbeat report, Qwilleran felt better, and he retired, allowing the Siamese to share the waterbed because of their disturbed state of mind. Yum Yum particularly liked the sensation.
On Wednesday morning he telephoned Mary Duckworth. He said, “I’ve read the Grinchman report and I’m ready to meet the Countess. When can you arrange it?” “How about this afternoon at four?” “How do I dress?” “I’d suggest a suit and tie. And she doesn’t permit smoking.” “No problem. I’ve given up my pipe,” Qwilleran said. “I found out the smoke is bad for the Siamese.” “I’ve given up cigarettes,” she said. “My doctor finally convinced me the smoke is bad for antique furniture. Have you talked to Jefferson Lowell?” “We had lunch. Nice guy.” “Are you convinced, Qwill?” “I don’t know as yet. Where shall we meet?” “At the front door a few minutes before four. One is always prompt when calling on the Countess.” Before having his hair cut, his moustache trimmed, his good gray suit pressed, and his shoes shined, Qwilleran checked the weather on the radio and learned that a woman shopper had been abducted from a supermarket parking lot; a jogger had been beaten by hoodlums in Penni- man Park; and rain was predicted, clearing in midafternoon. He taxied around town to do his errands, had a quick lunch at the Junktown deli, and returned to 14-A early enough to spend a lit- tle quality time with the Siamese. He proposed another chapter of Eothen, and the cats followed him into the library, but Koko had other ideas. He jumped to the library table and started pawing furiously.
Koko was known to be a bibliophile, and on the six-foot library table there were large-format art books reproducing the work of Michelangelo, Renoir, Van Gogh, Wyeth, and others, although the cat usually preferred small volumes that he could easily knock off a bookshelf.
“What are you doing, you crazy animal?” Qwilleran said.
Koko had found a long flat box among the art books. It looked like leather, and it was labeled “Scrabble.” The blank tile found by Yum Yum had obviously strayed from this box. Opening it, Qwilleran found a hundred or so small tiles, each with a single letter of the alphabet. The sight was like a B-12 shot to one who had won all the spelling bees in grade school and had been an orthographic snob ever since. He sat down at the desk, opened the game board, and read the rules out of sheer curiosity.
“This is easy,” he said. Scooping up a handful of tiles at random he spelled words like QADI and JAGIR. Years of playing a dictionary game with Koko had given him a vocabulary of esoteric words that he had little opportunity to use.
Soon he was building a crossword arrangement on the board. It began with CAD, grew to CADMIUM, and intercepted with SLUMP. This connected with EGRETS and OLPE.
The Siamese watched, patiently waiting for their quality time, but Qwilleran was fascinated by the lettered tiles and the small numerals that gave the value of each letter. All too soon it was time to put on his gray suit and meet Mary Duckworth on the main floor. Before leaving the apartment, he slipped a piece of fruit in his suitcoat pocket.
“You look splendid!” she said when they met, although she gave a brief qualifying glance at the bulge in his pocket.
They rang for the private elevator at the bronze door and rode up to Twelve in a carpeted car with rosewood walls and a velvet-covered bench. The ride was no faster than Old Red or Old Green, but it was smoother and quieter.
On the way up, Qwilleran mentioned, “You knew that Di Bessinger was going to inherit the Casablanca?” Mary nodded regretfully. “Who gets it now?” “Various charities. Qwill, I don’t know what you’re expecting, but the Plumb apartment may come as a surprise.
It’s done in vintage Art Deco.” They stepped off the elevator into a large foyer banded in horizontal panels of coral, burgundy, and bottle green, defined by thin strips of copper, and the floor was ceramic tile in a metallic copper glaze. Everything was slightly dulled with age. A pair of angular chairs flanked an angular console on which were two dozen tea roses reflected in a large round mirror.
Mary pressed a doorbell disguised as a miniature Egyptian head, and they waited before double doors sheathed in tooled copper. When the doors opened, they were confronted by a formidable man in a coral-colored coat.
“Good afternoon, Ferdinand,” said Mary. “Miss Adelaide is expecting us. This is Mr. Qwilleran.” “Sure. You know where to go.” The houseman waved a hamlike hand toward the drawing room. He had the build of a linebacker, with beefy shoulders, a bull neck, and a bald head. The Countess’s live-in bodyguard, Qwilleran guessed, doubled as butler. “She was late gettin’ up from her nap,” the man said, “and then she had to have her hair fixed. She fired the old girl that fixed it, and the new girl is kinda slow.” “Interesting,” said Mary stiffly. The drawing room was more than Qwilleran could assimilate at a glance. What registered was a peach-colored marble floor scattered with geometric-patterned rugs, and peach walls banded in copper and hung with large round mirrors.
Mary motioned him to sit in a tub-shaped chair composed of plump rolls of overstuffed black leather stacked on chrome legs. “You’re sitting in an original Bibendum chair from the 1920s,” she said.
His gaze went from item to item: The tea table was tortoiseshell; all lamps had bulbous bases; the windows were frosted glass crisscrossed with copper grillwork. Everything was somewhat faded, and there was a sepulchral silence.
Ferdinand followed them into the drawing room. “You never been here before,” he said to Qwilleran.
“This is my first visit.” “You play bridge?” “I’m afraid not.” “She likes to play bridge.” “So I have heard,” said Qwilleran with a glance at Mary. She was sitting tight-lipped and haughty.
“She likes all kinds of games,” said the houseman. “Is it still raining?” “It stopped about an hour ago.” “We had some good weather this week.” “Very true.” “I used to wrestle on TV,” said the big man.
“Is that so?” Qwilleran wished he had brought his pocket tape recorder.
“I was Ferdie Le Bull. That’s what they called me.” The houseman unbuttoned his coral coat and exhibited a T- shirt stenciled with the name. “You never saw me wrestle?” “I never had that pleasure.” “Here she comes now,” Ferdinand announced.
Adelaide St. John Plumb was a small unprepossessing woman who carried her head cocked graciously to one side and spoke in a breathy little-girl voice. “So good of you to come.” Brown hair plastered flat against her head in uniform waves contrasted absurdly with her pale aging skin, a network of fine wrinkles. So did the penciled eyebrows and red Cupid’s-bow mouth. She was wearing a peach chiffon tea gown and long strands of gold beads.
Her guests rose. Mary said, “Miss Plumb, may I present James Qwilleran.” “So happy to meet you,” said their hostess.
“Enchant‚!” said Qwilleran, bending low over her hand in a courtly gesture. Then he drew from his pocket a perfect Bosc pear with bronze skin and long, curved stem, offering it in the palm of his hand like a jewel-encrusted Faberge bauble. “The perfect complement for your beautiful apartment, Mademoiselle.” The Countess was a trifle slow in responding. “How charming… Please be seated… Ferdinand, you may bring the tea tray.” She seated herself gracefully on an overstuffed sofa in front of the tortoiseshell tea table. “I trust you are well, Mary?” “Quite well, thank you. And you, Miss Adelaide?” “Very well. Did it rain today?” “Yes, rather briskly.” The hostess turned to Qwilleran, inclining her head winningly. “You have recently arrived from the east?” “From the north,” he corrected her. “Four hundred miles north.” “How cold it must be!” Mary said, , ‘Mr. Qwilleran is spending the winter here to escape the snow and ice.” “How lovely! I hope you will enjoy your stay, Mr…” “Qwilleran.” “Do you play bridge?” “I regret to say that bridge is not one of my accomplishments,” he said, “but I have a considerable aptitude for Scrabble.” Mary expressed surprise, and the Countess expressed delight. “How nice! You must join me in a game some evening.” Ferdinand, wearing white cotton gloves, placed a silver tea tray before her-cubistic in design with ebony trim – and the hostess performed the tea ritual with well-practiced gestures.
“Mr. Qwilleran is a writer,” said Mary.
“How wonderful! What do you write?” “I plan to write a book on the history of the Casablanca,” he said, astonishing Mary once more. “The public library has a large collection of photos, including many of yourself, Miss Plumb.” “Do they have pictures of my dear father?” “Quite a few.” “I would adore seeing them.” She tilted her head prettily.
“Do you have many recollections of the early Casablanca?” “Yes indeed! I was born here – in this very suite – with a midwife, a nurse, and two doctors in attendance. My father was Harrison Wills Plumb – a wonderful man! I hardly remember my mother. She was related to the Pennimans.
She died when I was only four. There was an influenza epidemic, and my mother and two brothers were stricken. All three of them died in one week, leaving me as my father’s only consolation. I was four years old.” Mary said, “Tell Mr. Qwilleran how you happened to escape the epidemic.” “It was a miracle! My nurse – I think her name was Hedda – asked permission to take me to the mountains where it would be healthier. We stayed there – the two of us – in a small cabin, living on onions and molasses and tea… I shudder to think of it. But neither of us became ill. I returned to my home to find only my father alive – a shattered man! I was four years old.” Ferdinand’s clumsy hands, in white gloves the size of an outfielder’s mitt, passed a silver salver of pound cake studded with caraway seeds.
The Countess went on. “1 was all my father had left in the world, and he lavished me with attention and lovely things. I adored him!” “Did he send you away to school?” Qwilleran asked.
“I was schooled at home by private tutors, because my father refused to allow me out of his sight. We went everywhere together – to the symphony and opera and charity balls. When we traveled abroad each year we were entertained royally in Paris and always dined at the captain’s table aboard ship. I called Father my best beau, and he sent me tea roses and cherry cordials… Ferdinand, you may pass the bonbons.” The big hands passed a tiny footed candy dish in which three chocolate-covered cherries rested on a linen doily.
Qwilleran took the opportunity to say, “You have a handsomely designed apartment, Miss Plumb.” “Thank you, Mr…” “Qwilleran.” “Yes, my dear father designed it following one of our visits to Paris. A charming Frenchman with a little moustache spent a year in rebuilding the entire suite. I quite fell in love with him,” she said, cocking her head coquettishly. “Artisans came from the Continent to do the work. It was an exciting time for a young girl.” “Do you remember any of the people who lived here at that time? Do you recall any names?” “Oh, yes! There were the Pennimans, of course. My mother was related to them… and the Duxbury family; they were bankers… and the Teahandles and Wilburtons and Greystones. All the important families had complete suites or pieds-…-terre.” “How about visiting celebrities? President Coolidge? Caruso? The Barrymores?” “I’m sure they stayed here, but… life was such a whirl in those days, and I was only a young girl. Forgive me if I don’t remember.” “I suppose you dined in the rooftop restaurant.” “The Palm Pavilion. Yes indeed! My father and I had our own table with a lovely view, and all the serving men knew our favorite dishes. I adored bananas Foster! The captain always prepared it at our table. On nice days we would have tea on the terrace. I made my debut in the Palm Pavilion, wearing an adorable white beaded dress.” “I enjoy that same view from my apartment,” Qwilleran said. “I’m staying where Dianne Bessinger used to live. I understand you knew her well.” The Countess lowered her eyes sadly. “I miss her a great deal. We used to play Scrabble twice a week. Such a pity she was struck down so early in life. She simply passed away in her sleep. Her heart failed.” Qwilleran shot a glance at Mary and found her frowning at him. Furthermore, Ferdinand was standing by with arms folded, looking grim.
Mary rose. “Thank you so much, Miss Adelaide, for inviting us.” “It was a pleasure, my dear. And Mr. Qwillen, I hope you will join me at the bridge table soon.” “Not bridge,” he said. “Scrabble.” “Yes, of course. I shall look forward to seeing you again.” Ferdinand followed the two guests to the foyer and whipped out a dog-eared pad and the stub of a pencil. “Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is full up,” he said. “Nobody’s comin’ tomorrow. She needs somebody for tomorrow.” He looked menacingly at Qwilleran. “Tomorrow? Eight o’clock?” It sounded less like an invitation and more like a royal command.
“Eight o’clock will be fine,” Qwilleran said as they stepped into the waiting elevator. Once in its rosewood and velvet privacy they both talked at once.
He said, “Where did she find that three-hundred-pound butler?” Mary said, “I thought you didn’t play games, Qwill.” “Her hair is like Eleanor Roosevelt’s in the Thirties.” “I almost choked when you handed her that pear.” “She doesn’t even know that Dianne was murdered!” As they stepped out of the rosewood elevator on the main floor, the workaday crowd was pouring through the front door. They stared at the privileged pair.
Qwilleran said, “I’ll walk out of the building with you, Mary. I want to check the parking lot. I’ve been here since Sunday, and five different cars have been parked in my space.” As they approached the lot he asked, “May I ask you a question?” “Of course.” “What do you think was the artist’s motive for killing his patron?” “Jealousy,” she said with finality. “You mean he had a rival?” “Not just one,” she replied with a knowing grimace. “Di liked variety.” “Were you friendly with her?” “I admired what she was trying to accomplish, and I admit she had charisma, or people would never have rallied around SOCK the way they did.” Qwilleran stroked his moustache. “Could there have been anything political about her murder?” “What do you mean?” They had arrived at the entrance to the parking lot, and Mary was looking at her wristwatch.
“We’ll talk about it another time. Perhaps we could have dinner some evening,” he suggested.
“If we arrange it for a Sunday or Monday,” she said, adopting her usual businesslike delivery, “I’m sure Roberto would like to join us.” Qwilleran said it would be a good idea. He had lost his personal interest in Mary. Yet, it was a remarkable fact that she was the only woman Koko had ever actively approved. The cat discouraged Melinda, antagonized Cokey, and feuded openly with Rosemary. As for Polly, he tolerated her because she had a soothing voice, but he endorsed Mary Duckworth because she was an opportunist, and so was he! Koko knew a kindred spirit when he sniffed one. Also in her favor was the entire case of canned lobster she had given the Siamese three years before. That’s the way it was with cats!
While Mary returned to the Blue Dragon, Qwilleran zigzagged his way through the parking lot, avoiding potholes filled with rainwater. To his surprise, slot #28 was finally vacant. Now he could move the Purple Plum into its rightful space. He pulled out his car keys, but there was something wrong with the purplish-blue metallic four-door parked in #27.
It appeared to have sunk into the ground! Actually, it had four flat tires.
9
WHETHER THE TIRES of the Purple Plum were slashed or the valves were loosened, it made no difference to Qwilleran.
In high dudgeon he strode toward the building entrance. Halfway there he stopped and considered: If he left the scene, someone could pull into the lot and turn into his legal parking space. He returned to #28 and stood between the yellow lines – or lines that had been yellow once upon a time. He took up his position with a belligerent stance and folded arms and fierce expression made more intimidating by his rambunctious moustache.
The first car to pull into the lot was a BMW. Hmmm, Qwilleran murmured to himself. What was a BMW doing in the Casablanca parking lot? The driver parked several slots away and walked slowly toward the building entrance. It was a woman. She walked seductively. She was dressed exquisitely. She was the vision he had seen in the lobby the night before.
“Excuse me, miss,” he said in his richest, most mellifluent tones. “Are you going into the building?” He was glad he was wearing a suit and tie.
“That was my intention,” she replied in a silky voice.
He had no time for pleasurable reactions. “Kindly do me a favor,” he asked. “Tell Mrs. Tuttle to send Rupert out here. Someone has slashed my tires.” He gestured toward the dejected vehicle slumped in the adjoining slot.
“Who would have the temerity to perpetrate such a reprehensible act?” she replied.
Qwilleran thought, She’s not real; she’s a robot; she’s programmed; she’s from outer space. Calmly he said, “I was parked in his – or her – space because my own was occupied by someone else, and I suppose he – or she – resented it. Have you had any trouble like that?” “Fortunately I seem immune to hostility,” she replied. “I shall be happy to send the custodian to your assistance.” “Watch out for the puddles,” he advised. “They’re a foot deep.” She gave him a languid smile and walked to- ward the building. In a state of transfixion Qwilleran watched her go, breathing lustily into his moustache.
When Rupert arrived a few minutes later, it was determined that the tires were not slashed. Someone had tampered with the valves, and Rupert knew a garage that would come right over with portable airtanks.
“Who pays for #27?” Qwilleran demanded.
“I dunno.” “Well, as soon as the tires are inflated, I’m going to move my car into my own slot and leave it there for the rest of the winter. I’ll walk, or take the bus… By the way, who is the woman who drives the BMW?” “Winnie Wingfoot,” said Rupert. “She’s a model. Lives on Ten.” “Is that her real name?” “I dunno. I guess so.” If Qwilleran entertained any thoughts of revenge against the reprehensible perpetrator, they were mollified by thoughts of Winnie Wingfoot. He floated up to Fourteen on Old Red, changed absentmindedly into red pajamas instead of his gray warm-up suit, and fed the cats twice. For his own dinner he phoned for pizza.
“Casablanca? What floor?” asked the order taker.
“Fourteen.” “We don’t deliver in that building any higher than Three.” “Send it over. I’ll meet the delivery man at the front door,” Qwilleran said.
He walked down to the main floor for the sake of the exercise and encountered the jogger between Eleven and Ten. The man was running up the stairs. Between aerobic gasps he explained, “Too muddy… round the… vacant lots.” Then he added, “You going… to bed early?” Only then did Qwilleran realize his Freudian slip. He returned to the penthouse and changed from red pajamas into gray warm-ups.
In the lobby a white-haired man was taking his constitutional by walking briskly the length of the hallway and back, swinging his arms and taking exaggerated strides. A few stragglers were picking up their mail. The Asian woman was coming in with her two children, and Amber was on her way out.
“I’ve been trying to get you on the phone,” she said. “Courtney wants me to bring you to dinner at his place Saturday night. You remember – the Kipper & Fine salesman.” “What’s the occasion?” “Nothing. He just likes to show off. He can be a nerd sometimes, but the food’s always good- – better than I cook – and he knows all the gossip.” “I accept,” said Qwilleran without further deliberation.
“Cocktails at six. Come as you are,” she said. “Are you waiting for someone?” “The pizza man. By the way, Amber, I’m ashamed to admit I don’t know your last name.” She said something like “Cowbell.” “Spell it.” “K-o-w-b-e-l. Here comes your pizza, Qwill. Gotta dash. I’m late.” The pizza was good – better than any he had found in Moose County, he had to admit. He gave the Siamese a taste of the cheese and a nibble of the pepperoni. Then he pushbuttoned a pot of coffee and carried it into the library. He intended to study his Scrabble – particularly the scoring rules and the value of the various letters – in preparation for his forthcoming joust with the Countess. He unfolded the board and deployed the tiles on the teakwood-and-chrome card table, then started building crosswords, playing for premium squares as well as high-value words. Koko was on hand, watching the process in his nearsighted way. Abruptly the cat lifted his head and listened. A minute or so later, there was a knock at the apartment door.
No one had buzzed from the vestibule, so it was obviously a resident, and a fantasy flashed through Qwilleran’s mind: It was the beauteous Winnie Wingfoot! Then again, he reflected, it might be Rupert. Nevertheless, he gave. the mirror a quick glance, smoothed his moustache, and finger-combed his hair before opening the door.
A woman was standing there, wearing a fur coat, and it was not Winnie Wingfoot. It was Isabelle, the middle-aged tippler, and she was carrying a bottle. He regarded her without speaking.
“Hello,” she said.
“Good evening,” he replied coolly.
“Like a drink?” she asked, looking flirtatious and waving the bottle. Her other hand clutched the coat, and he hesitated to guess what she might have under it, if anything.
“No thanks, I’m on the wagon, but thanks for the offer,” he said in a monotone intended to discourage her.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“You must forgive me, but I’m working and I have a deadline.” “Don’cha wanna take your mind off your work?” She opened her coat, and Qwilleran’s wildest surmise was confirmed.
