Lady Slings the Booze Read online

  I controlled my face and walked forward again, sticking out my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Ladyship,” I said. And I was going to add, “My name’s Joe Quigley,” and kiss her hand, but she spoiled it by taking my hand in both of hers and bursting into very girlish laughter.

  “Bless your heart, grandson,” She said. “Flattery like that will get you a hell of a lot.”

  I started to say, “Excuse me?” but decided I had done enough of that tonight. “Ma’am?”

  “Let’s start over, dear. I’m Ruth.”

  “Oh. I need to see Lady Sally McGee.”

  “Who doesn’t? Pardon me, dear, but are you a member?”

  “Not yet.” She started to look sad, so I tried, “Uh…I was sent by the most hated man in New York.”

  It worked. “Of course. We’ve been expecting you.” She took my trench coat off me and made it disappear. I never noticed her take my hat, but a while later I didn’t have it. “This way.”

  Do you know how strange it feels to follow a senior citizen—and realize you’re watching her butt? She was some granny. I found myself thinking maybe I’d buy her a drink on the way out.

  Go ahead, laugh. You’ve never met her.

  We went through another door—just as tough as the outside door; I don’t know how she got it to open for her—and down a long hall. The carpet was expensive, but didn’t overdo it like the other one. The lighting was so indirect I couldn’t spot the source. The air smelled funny. Kind of nice. Halfway down the hall, corridors branched off to left and right. I glanced to either side as we passed and saw two doors—with knobs—in each wing, numbered D-1 through D-4. They were set far apart from each other: big rooms. Next to each door was a tiny peanut bulb, and two of them glowed like rubies. Except for them, the place felt like a pricey hotel in midtown Manhattan. There was even a room service tray outside one of the doors. As I passed, a hand and bare arm came out of that door at low level and deposited a teacup on the tray; I heard someone speaking in what sounded like Russian.

  At the end of the hall was an elevator—which did have an electronic lock keypad. Ruth tapped out a code, and the doors slid apart. I failed to catch the code: she had fast hands for an old woman.

  “Her Ladyship will receive you in—” Ruth began, then pressed a finger to what I had taken for a hearing aid. “—the Boys’ Bedroom, thank you, Mary. I have to stay here, Mr. Quigley, but you’ll find it: the second door on the left,” she finished. She held the door for me.

  I hadn’t told her my name. “Thank you, Ruth.”

  “You’re welcome. Has anybody ever told you you look a little bit like—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Enjoy your stay.”

  There certainly was that possibility. I got in. The building was four stories tall, but there were only two buttons in that elevator. I pushed the top one, the doors slid shut, and I rose.

  On the way up I tried to remember a quote I heard in a bar once, something about wondering what the guys who make the wine drink, and how good it is. I mean, a guy who can screw eight million people every day, the place where he goes to get screwed himself must be something pretty special, you know?

  This definitely beat staking out midtown fleabags with a Polaroid during lunch hour…

  2. The Jane…

  “When I told my father I wanted to be an artist, he said I must be ‘queer.’ I finally told him, ‘Mother was right. You are an asshole.’”

  — JONATHAN WINTERS, quoted by Glenn Esterly, TV Guide, 16 March 1991

  THE elevator opened again, and right away I had to do the control-the-face-and-walk-forward bit again. There was a little naked guy in the hall.

  Well, for a second, anyway. And practically naked. Leather bondage straps crisscrossed his upper body, and he wore a little thing like the front half of a loin cloth, and felt slippers. His face made me think of Jiminy Cricket. He was about fifty and maybe five-five. He was carrying a big pile of clean white sheets and pillowcases in his arms. A good investigator can see that much in a split second.

  Which is all I got. The instant he saw me he let out a squeak like a mortified mouse and vanished.

  I was out of the elevator a half second later and looked both ways but he was gone. His shadow was just making the turn to the right, hurrying to catch up. Maybe Tinkerbell could sew it back on for him.

  I gave my head a little shake to settle my brains, and went to the second door on the right.

  I saw the little ruby light lit up beside it, but I went in anyway. Then I controlled my face, walked forward…stopped, said, “I beg your pardon, Your Eminence. Carry on,” and walked backward, until I was in the hallway again. The door shut itself, and I wiped sweat from my forehead.

  Damn, Ruth had said second on the left…

  I gave my head a large shake to jumpstart it, and retraced my steps to the elevator. I counted two doors to the left, three times, went there, counted again, and knocked this time.

  “Come in, Mr. Quigley,” said a feminine voice with whiskey throat and a high-class British accent.

  I took a deep breath and went in.

  And fought my face and walked forward—

  Look, it was not a perfect replica of my room in my parents’ house back when I was a teenager. No better than eighty percent accurate. I used to pin up the Playmate of the Month at the foot of the bed, for example, not on the ceiling. And the bedspread was different, and now I think of it the window was on the wrong wall. But it was close enough to make me want to gape. It even had the bunk beds, and the Brooklyn Dodgers pennant…

  The room had two occupants.

  The first one I took in was the woman against the far wall. Did you ever see that bodybuilder Jayne Mansfield married? If you put both of them in some kind of mad scientist machine and combined them, you’d get what I saw standing at parade rest. She was almost as big as me. She was oiled, like a recoilless rifle. She wore sweatpants, and a tank top muscle-shirt, to which she was totally entitled, and gold bands around each bicep, black tennis shoes with steel toes. Her haircut made her look like Joan of Arc after a long course of every hormone supplement there is. She had bodyguard’s eyes. No: Secret Service eyes. They can kill anybody they want. I kept my hands very still at my sides.

  This was, you will understand, sort of the backwards of what I was expecting. Maybe Mike Hammer himself could have managed to maintain an erection in that woman’s bedroom. But even he wouldn’t have tried to do anything with it. Not without a direct order. I watched her for a full five seconds, until I was fairly sure she had no immediate plans to collapse my ribcage for any reason, then showed her my back teeth for a moment and turned to her companion, seated at the desk on the right.

  Considerable improvement…

  Did you ever see that movie A Pocketful of Miracles? Where Dave the Dude drops a bundle turning broken-down old Apple Annie into a Countess for a day, so she won’t disappoint this daughter that’s been in Europe for the last twenty years? Well, the way Bette Davis looked when they got done making her over—not the Before, the After—that’s what this woman looked like. If she walked into the White House the same time as a bunch of tourists, the staff would cut her out of the pack and take her right up to the Oval Office without even asking her name. Buckingham Palace, same deal. Before I could stop myself I pulled my tie up, loosened it again, buttoned the collar button (for the first time since I’d owned the shirt), pulled the tie tight again, and buttoned my double-breasted. She couldn’t have seen the wrinkled bit of tie that now hung below the knot in the back, but I was painfully aware of it. I could feel dirt under my fingernails, and behind my ears. I could feel my ten o’clock shadow growing.

  And I could feel something else growing too, in my pants—even though she wasn’t showing much more skin than any other Countess would have. I mean, she had impact.

  She had hair so red I decided no one would dye it that color, in upswept waves. Her gown was greener than the stack of money it must h
ave cost, and left one shoulder bare. Impressive cleavage. I guessed her at fifty or so, but like Ruth downstairs in terrific shape, right down to the skin on the backs of her hands. In the right light, you’d have thought thirty-five, no trouble. Even the wrong light wouldn’t have put you off, either. She had something she wasn’t ever going to lose. No detectible makeup. Wedding band on one hand, a diamond the size of a salted whole peanut on the other. Emerald necklace and earrings. Twinkling eyes. One eyebrow raised slightly, apparently permanently. She’d seen it all, and enjoyed most of it.

  I wanted to bow. But I didn’t want to look even a little bit like I might be reaching for my armpit, not with that Amazon watching. I kept my hands at my sides, clicked my heels and bowed like Eric von Stroheim. “A pleasure to meet you, Your Ladyship,” I said.

  This time I had the right one. “So I’m told,” she agreed throatily, “and I won’t argue. Welcome to my House, Mr. Quigley.”

  She sounded…well, not drunk: nobody with a British accent that classy ever sounds drunk. Not even really what you’d call high. Elevated, maybe. One sip past a happy glow. Merry…“It’s certainly a very impressive place, ma’am.”

  “Yes, it is. You must see it later.”

  What had I just been doing? Never mind. “I’d like that. Uh…I frightened a little naked guy with an armful of linen out in the hall; I hope he wasn’t an important customer or something.”

  Lady Sally McGee’s eyes twinkled. “My fault. I had Mistress Cynthia instruct Robin not to let you run across him until you were acclimatized—so naturally he tried to earn a spanking. Don’t worry about it. And don’t mention it to Cynthia, when you meet her: that’ll teach him! Let me introduce Priscilla. She is the bouncer here.”

  Ah. “Ah.” Not one of the whores. “Not one of the working girls.”

  “Of course she’s a working girl; you don’t think she bounces people for free, do you? But no, she is not presently one of my artists.”

  They called them “artists” here, huh?

  Heroic actions aren’t always something you can see. Right then I did a heroic thing nobody else knew about. I kept myself from saying, “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.” It took some doing, but hey, I’m a professional.

  “Hi, Priscilla,” I said as politely as I knew how. “I’m Joe Quigley.”

  “Hi, Joe,” she said, in a friendly enough way. She didn’t offer to shake hands, but I didn’t mind that a lot.

  “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Quigley?” Lady Sally asked. On the messy desk, sitting on a Math textbook—the very one I’d never read, by God!—were two glasses with stems and a bottle. The kind of wine with a cork, and nothing on it in English anywhere.

  I’d have preferred even cheap bourbon. But I can’t turn down a free drink; I’ve got my license to think of. “Tenderly, ma’am.”

  She smiled for the first time. “Then I’ll entrust you with one.” She poured, doing that little twist thing after each one, and handed me a glass. I did another Von Stroheim as I took it, and touched my glass to hers. Our eyes met, and I lost track of where I was for a moment…

  Toast, toast, toast…nothing trite, nothing corny, nothing crude. There went most of my repertoire. I remembered one I’d heard a wise old barkeeper say once, and used it: “To all the ones who weren’t as lucky.”

  Her eyes widened slightly, and then got a faraway look. “Yes,” she said in that husky Tallulah Bankhead voice, “I will drink to that.”

  So we did.

  It wasn’t wine at all. It was some kind of berry juice, a kind I didn’t know, and it was very tasty for something nonalcoholic. Delicious, actually. I finished it thirstily, and set the glass down again. I thought about a cigarette, and decided against it.

  “Well,” I said, “you know why I’m here, Your Ladyship. And that makes one of us. I can’t say I’m in any hurry at all to get down to business, but I do like to know what I’m goofing off on. Do you want to…excuse me—” I broke off and held up one finger, because just then the berry juice began to hit me. I closed my eyes momentarily, locked my knees and went inside, gauged the impact—about like an ounce of fine brandy, it felt like—made the necessary adjustments, and opened my eyes again. “—to tell me about the job, or shall I just hang around the place until I de-douche it? Deduce it. Up to you, but the meter’s running.” There; I had it under control.

  She looked impressed. I realized she had sandbagged me…and I had passed the test. “You’re quite right, Mr. Quigley. Your time is valuable. Do sit down and we’ll get right to it.”

  I pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it. “Call me Joe.”

  “Certainly, Joe. And I’m Sally.”

  “Yes, Your Ladyship.”

  “About the job, then, Joe…”

  And then silence descended for maybe ten seconds.

  Finally she frowned and finished her own berry juice. “What I want you to do, in essence, is to find the Little Man Who Wasn’t There. Without letting any of my clients or artists know that he isn’t.” She blinked and glanced down at her glass. “I’m sorry, that’s not very clear—”

  It was more or less what I’d been expecting to hear. “Sounds straightforward to me,” I said. “Can you give me any leads on exactly where he ishn’t? Isn’t?”

  She blinked again, and then rallied. “Well, I can give you some specifics on where he hasn’t been so far. But of course there’s no way of knowing where he won’t appear next. More elixir?”

  “You’d need three words to say anything sweeter,” I said, and accepted another few fingers. “Okay, I’m in. What’s my cover?”

  “Well,” she said apologetically, “I’m afraid you’ll simply have to pass as a new artist. If you think you’re up to it…”

  “NOW wait just a damn minute!” I said.

  She looked surprised. “Do you have a problem with that? From what…our mutual friend said, I’m afraid I took the liberty of assuming you’d—”

  “In the first place, what the hell do you mean by that crack about, ‘…if I’m up to it…’?”

  “Ah, I see. Pardon me, I misspoke myself. I meant to say, ‘…up for it…’ I’m always getting my propositions mixed—damn it, there I go again: I meant prepositions. Blame it on the elixir. Reminds me of the time I came before a judge who was fond of…uh…English studies, and managed to end my sentence with a proposition. Be that as it may, Joe—”

  “And in the second place—” I tried to interrupt.

  “—the job pays fairly well,” she went on. “Over and above your regular two hundred a day and expenses, of course.”

  “What the hell do you think I am?” I demanded.

  She looked confused. “In the words of the ancient jape, I thought we had settled that, and were dickering over the price.”

  “Listen here, Your Ladyship: I’m a private dick, you understand the distinction? Find yourself another boy!”

  “One of my specialties, as the bishop confided to the actress. Come now, Joe—be honest with me: have you really never once fantasized about turning pro some day? Developing the talent God gave you? Never felt that by rights they ought to have to pay you for it? I warn you that if you say no, I shall be forced to assume some tragic accident has cost you certain standard male equipment—”

  “Jesus, Lady—”

  “—your ego, I mean. You haven’t ever thought about it?”

  I made the instant subconscious decision to be candid. Maybe I didn’t care if I offended her any more, or maybe I just didn’t want to lie to her. “Sure I have,” I said. “That’s why I don’t want any part of it. In the first place I’d hate the impersonality, the commercialism, and in the second place I’d hate the constant pressure to get it up, and speaking of that you know just as well as I do what kind of women have to pay for it, and as for crabs and clap and so on I already took that class, thank you, and most of all if I was to start charging for it, at fair market value, there wouldn’t be a woman in Brooklyn who could af
ford it!”

  I broke off, even though I had a few more points to make—because she was staring at me, apparently dumbfounded.

  After a few seconds of silence, she managed to find some words. “Joe, are you familiar with the phenomenon Samuel Delany calls ‘rupture’?”

  “Hey, I never get that carried away.”

  “There it goes again. Rupture occurs when you think you are in the middle of a conversation with someone…and suddenly discover that you’ve merely been making noises at each other, that there is a previously unsuspected chasm between you beside which the Marianas Trench is a pothole. We have come to a point of rupture, Joe. You don’t know what I mean, and I’m not sure I understand what you said. I think we must be using different maps.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Either that, or you’re a real jackass.”

  I did what PIs always do when insulted: shrugged and went for a wisecrack. “Not much point in being a fake jackass, is there?”

  “Ask the man who sent you here.”

  That reminded me that The Man would be upset with me if I blew this commission—and he had succeeded in scaring the shit out of me. “Touché. Okay, let’s rewind to where we went wrong and start over. What were you really asking me to do, when I thought you wanted me to ‘Rent-A-’Rection’?”

  She shook her head. “It won’t help, I tell you. We’ve got different maps. The street I’m pointing to doesn’t exist on yours.”

  “Okay. How do I get one of your maps?”

  “You’ll just have to draw your own, I’m afraid.”

  I sighed. “Look, Lady, I’m not trying to be difficult. But how the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  Priscilla spoke up. “Map-making isn’t hard. Just tricky.”

  “I’m listening,” I said politely.

  “Four stages. The obvious three are: look around you carefully, record what you see, and integrate it. It’s the very first part that’ll trip you up, and it’s the most important of all.”

  “It’s the whole thing,” Lady Sally corrected. “The other three happen automatically; you couldn’t stop ’em if you tried—once you do the first thing.”