The lady in the silver c.., p.1
The Lady in the Silver Cloud, page 1
THE LADY
IN
THE SILVER
CLOUD
A STEWART HOAG MYSTERY
DAVID HANDLER
For Alec Koffman, sole proprietor of the Franklin
Typesetting Co. on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood, USA
THE LADY IN THE SILVER CLOUD
CHAPTER ONE
By a simple twist of fate, the single most beautiful automobile in all of New York City was driven by a man who, without doubt, ranked as the honorary captain of the Big Apple’s All-Ugly team.
But, please, let me start out by telling you about the car. It was parked at the foot of the awning outside my ex-wife Merilee’s luxury prewar apartment house on Central Park West when Lulu and I rode the elevator down to the lobby that day for our regular noon walk in Central Park. This was a regal, gleaming 1955 maroon-and-silver Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud that I’m talking about. Since it was presently 1993 that meant the damned machine was thirty-eight years old, yet it was so spotless it looked as if it had just rolled off the showroom floor. In case you’re wondering, 1955 was the very first year that Rolls-Royce decided to phase out the Silver Wraith in favor of the Silver Cloud. Only about 2,200 of them were built, and of those only a fraction were made with left-hand drive for American export. I couldn’t imagine that any of them were as gorgeous as this one, which was owned by Muriel Cantrell, an exquisitely delicate, silver-haired lady in her early seventies who happened to be one of Merilee’s three sixteenth-floor neighbors.
Muriel had lived there in her jewel box of a one-bedroom apartment since the 1940s. According to Frank the doorman, that made her the building’s longest-tenured resident. Muriel was vivacious and extremely set in her ways, Frank had informed me. Mondays she drove to her stylist’s salon on West Fifty-Sixth Street to get her hair done. Tuesdays she went shopping either for shoes or for one of the elegant Chanel suits she favored. Wednesdays she took in a Broadway matinee or a movie with her equally classy septuagenarian friend Myrna, who would come into the city for the day from her home in Great Neck, Long Island. Thursdays Muriel visited her lawyer to handle any financial matters that needed attending to. Fridays she drove to Great Neck to play bridge with Myrna and two of Myrna’s neighbors.
Mind you, Muriel never drove the Silver Cloud herself. That job belonged to her chauffeur, Bullets Durmond, who was waiting for her on a sofa in his customary black suit, white shirt, and black tie as Lulu and I made our way across the lobby. Paul was his given name, but he was called Bullets by one and all because he’d been shot in the head way back when he was working as a bouncer in Atlantic City—and had a bullet hole in the left side of his forehead and a matching hole on the right side. Same bullet. Somehow, he’d managed to survive aside from a slight stammer, which absolutely no one ever teased him about because even though he was over sixty now, and no doubt slower than he’d once been, Bullets was still six feet four, weighed at least three hundred pounds, and was the owner of the hugest fists I’d ever seen. Also the most battle-scarred face, one that had been on the receiving end of knives, broken bottles, the aforementioned bullet, and enough punches that his nose, which was the approximate size and shape of an Idaho spud, had been squashed so many times that it no longer qualified as a breathing duct. The man was strictly a mouth breather, and so heavy chested and wheezy that I could hear him from twenty feet away. He had cold, heavy-lidded eyes and did not seem to know how to smile. According to Frank, word was that Bullets had been mobbed up for most of his adult life, some of which he’d spent behind bars.
The big man didn’t acknowledge my presence as I strolled past him, Lulu ambling along beside me. He never did. As I paused to exchange small talk with Frank at the reception desk, the elevator door opened and dainty little Muriel emerged wearing a pink Chanel suit and clutching a black alligator pocketbook.
“Why, good day, Hoagy,” she exclaimed, her big blue eyes gleaming at me. “How are you on this lovely afternoon?”
“Couldn’t be better. And you, Muriel?”
“I’m in the most wonderful mood,” she said, in a voice that had been carefully cultivated to remove whatever trace of working-class accent it once harbored. Lulu let out a low whoop to greet her. Delighted, Muriel bent down and patted her on the head. Her nostrils flared ever so slightly. “I gather you still have her on that same diet.” By which she meant 9Lives mackerel for cats and very weird basset hounds.
“I’m afraid so. Just be grateful she doesn’t like to sleep on your head.”
Muriel let out a whimsical tinkle of a laugh. By now Bullets was up on his feet, waiting for her, his tree-trunk arms held out from his sides like a bodybuilder’s.
Frank, who wore a formal, six-button, navy-blue doorman’s coat and matching trousers, a bellman’s cap, and spotless white gloves, hustled to the front doors and opened one for her with a tip of his cap, beaming. Frank O’Brien was in his forties, an apple-cheeked, redheaded Irish American from Queens who took a ton of satisfaction in being who he was—a third-generation luxury apartment house doorman and member of the Service Employees International Union, which was highly prized for its excellent pay and benefits.
Muriel thanked him as she took her dainty strides out the door followed by Bullets, who was so wide that he had to go through the door sideways. Bullets hustled—or at least tried—to the Silver Cloud’s curbside back door, opened it for Muriel, and helped her gently into the charcoal leather back seat. I caught a glimpse of the burled walnut dashboard as he got in front and squeezed in behind the wheel. When he started the engine, it didn’t roar. It purred. And off they drove.
I watched them go as Lulu and I strolled across Central Park West into the park. Muriel was an intriguing figure to me. Extremely private, even secretive. Clearly, she had money, but I had no idea where it came from. All I knew was that she’d lived by herself on the sixteenth floor since the 1940s, owned that fabulous Silver Cloud, and had Godzilla for a chauffeur.
I’d asked Frank what her story was. He’d replied, “George, the night doorman, once asked Bullets that very question. Bullets politely asked him to step outside and, after a brief exchange of words, drove his right fist into George’s side, fractured three ribs, and bruised his kidney. George was peeing blood for a week. He’s never been the same, I swear.”
Which I took to mean that George, whose shift ran from 5:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., had once been an amiable fellow. He decidedly no longer was. I couldn’t get anything more than a sour grunt out of him. I rarely had contact with the building’s overnight doorman, Harvey, an old-timer who was nearing retirement. The overnight shift was traditionally the old-timer’s shift, since the building’s front doors were locked from 2:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m., which allowed Harvey to doze in peace on a sofa in the lobby unless a late-night reveler came home and tapped on the door to be let in. Harvey didn’t really have to be on his feet and alert until 6:00 so as to be of service to early morning joggers, Wall Street titans, and school kids. That was also when a news distributor dropped off stacks of the daily papers, which a high school kid employed by Raoul, the building’s super, deposited outside of each and every apartment door by 6:30. Just one of the perks of living in a luxury building. Frank took over at 8:00 a.m. and stayed until George came on duty. On their days off, or if one of them called in sick or went on vacation, the union provided a rotation of backups, usually eager young guys who hadn’t yet landed a permanent berth and were anxious to make a good impression.
It was a crisp, cool late October day, one of the best times of year in one of the best cities on earth. The leaves were turning color in the park, about two weeks behind Lyme, Connecticut, where I’d just spent a few days on Merilee’s eighteen-acre farm working on my new novel. Or trying to. I ran into a few complications while I was there, including a couple of murders. Maybe you read about it.
Trouble is not my business, yet it always seems to find me.
Which is not exactly what I’d expected ten years back when the New York Times Book Review proclaimed me the first major new literary voice of the 1980s in its glowing review of my first novel, Our Family Enterprise. I was showered with acclaim and riches. I also met and married Merilee Nash, the gorgeous blonde Oscar and Tony Award–winning actress. We were the city’s hottest couple. Lulu even had her own water bowl at Elaine’s. But my sunshine days were short-lived. I got writer’s block, developed a taste for nose candy, then crashed and burned. When Merilee and I had moved into the luxury building on Central Park West, I’d kept my old, crappy fifth-floor walk-up on West Ninety-Third as an office. It was a good thing I had, because it meant I had somewhere to live when she divorced me. She kept our apartment and the 1958 red Jaguar XK150 that we’d bought. I kept Lulu. At my agent’s urging, I’d spent the last decade paying my rent by ghosting celebrity memoirs. I’m not terrible at it. Have three number-one bestsellers to my non-credit. And then last winter—at long last—I got my voice back. Started writing a second novel about my New York City, when I was young and wild, the New York City of CBGB, Max’s Kansas City, and the Mudd Club. The “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” New York City that teemed with prostitutes, rats, pimps, and gangs. My Sweet Season of Madness I was calling it. I’d written the first three chapters over the summer in the guest cottage at Merilee’s farm in Lyme, which she’d kindly offered. My agent, the Silver Fox, thought they were not only terrific but had landed me a contract with a hefty advance.
And when Merilee left for Budapest after Labor Day to begin shooting a l avish remake of The Sun Also Rises opposite Mr. Mel Gibson, she’d invited me to move back into “our” apartment while she was away. I’d taken her up on it, and for six solid weeks I was up at dawn, head bursting with ideas, fingers tingling to get at my 1958 solid-steel Olympia portable. I’d put on the espresso, crank up the Ramones on vinyl, which was the way it was meant to be played, and get to work in the magnificent office that I’d joyfully discovered Merilee had furnished for me, complete with a signed Gustav Stickley library table, a leather Morris chair for Lulu, and a genuine Hopper oil painting of a craggy Maine landscape for me to stare at when I wasn’t gazing out the windows at my panoramic view of Central Park. I was me again, right down to my two-day growth of beard, old torn jeans, 1933 Werber flight jacket, and Chippewa boots. I was so into the new book that I did nothing but work. Talked to no one except for Frank and the waiters at Tony’s restaurant, my nightly haunt on West Seventy-Ninth Street. After six weeks I’d produced another hundred pages. When I sent them to the Silver Fox, she was even more enthusiastic. “Thrilling” was the word she’d used to describe them.
The autumn air was invigorating as Lulu and I made our way briskly around the rowboat lake. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had such a ton of focused energy. Even Lulu had an extra spring in her step. After nearly an hour, I realized my stomach was growling. I’d forgotten to eat anything that day, which was something Lulu never did. When I headed back to make myself lunch, I found Frank behind the reception desk talking to Raoul, the building’s small, slim, fortyish super, who lived alone in a small ground floor apartment at the rear of the building. Raoul always dressed in a neatly pressed khaki work shirt and trousers. As an added flourish, his name was stitched in red over the left breast pocket.
New York City apartment house superintendents are a special breed. And Raoul, whose family had immigrated to New York from Guatemala when he was a child, was an exemplar of the species, which is to say that he was one slippery little operator. Need a faulty light fixture repaired? Call Raoul. But be sure you’ve made a healthy advance deposit in the favor bank if you want prompt service, such as a suede jacket, cashmere sweater, bottle of rum, plain old cash . . . Raoul wasn’t choosy. He also wasn’t above a bit of subtle blackmail. The man knew things. Was privy to every naughty secret in the building because he’d personally vouched for and placed practically every cleaning lady, housekeeper, and nanny who worked there, most of them young, undocumented Guatemalan migrants who lived with Raoul’s sister in a semidetached house in Astoria. The prettiest of them were expected to provide Raoul with sexual favors. The others kept him supplied him with dirt.
Frank, who was my main source of gossip, had been gleefully sharing with me the latest major dirt about the two other tenants besides Muriel with whom Merilee shared the sixteenth floor. The adjacent park-view apartment belonged to a notoriously ruthless corporate raider out of Harvard Business School named Gary Kates and his rail-thin blonde wife, Olivia Pennington Kates, the celebrated Park Avenue debutante It Girl of the late ’70s who now dabbled at fashion design, interior decorating, and her trendy monthly magazine, Olivia, which was devoted to the art of how to be as gorgeous and fabulous as its namesake.
Lulu, who has impeccable taste in people, detested Gary and Olivia Pennington Kates. And, yes, it was always Olivia Pennington Kates. If Lulu encountered either of them in the elevator, she would growl at them.
Frank had his own reason for detesting Gary, whose most recent corporate raid had bankrupted the venerable national grocery chain that had supplied Frank’s unmarried sister with a well-paying union job, complete with health benefits, for the past thirty-two years. As a result, she’d been forced to move in with Frank and his family.
“I’m not the sort who complains about family obligations,” Frank had confided in me, “but she’s fifty-one, she’s lost her health insurance, and now she needs an operation. Some kind of tumor in her female parts. Guess who has to pay for it. Me. I’ve got a son who’s a freshman at St. John’s, a mother-in-law who’s in a nursing home in the Bronx. My roof leaks and I can’t afford to replace it. I’ve never had money trouble in my life, but because of that bastard Gary I’m hanging on by my fingernails. How does a guy like that live with himself? Doesn’t he realize what he’s doing to other peoples’ lives?”
“He realizes it. He just doesn’t care.”
I was telling you about Frank’s latest major dirt: The large, airy apartment behind Merilee’s, which enjoyed an Upper West Side view all the way to the Hudson River, belonged to Alan Levin, a schlubby little guy with curly salt-and-pepper hair who was a Juilliard-trained pianist and composer. Alan’s greatest ambition in life was to be the next Stephen Sondheim, and he’d been composing his debut Broadway musical for so long that I distinctly remember he’d been working on it way back before Merilee kicked me out. But give the guy credit. He was still at it. And he was well connected. His live-in girlfriend, Gretchen, was a production coordinator in the office of her father, one of Broadway’s top three producers. Besides, Alan was no slouch. Slouches don’t live on Central Park West. He’d made a fortune composing jingles for TV commercials. Chances are that if you’d ever eaten a carton of yogurt, swallowed a bottle of soda pop, flown in an airplane, driven a car, or needed a laxative, one of his catchy jingles had gotten stuck in your head.
According to one of Raoul’s sources—Gary and Olivia’s housekeeper—Alan’s girlfriend, Gretchen Meyer, was about to break up with him and move out because she’d just discovered that Alan had been having sweaty nooners several times a week with Olivia in one of the Kates’ guest bedrooms. It wasn’t so much that Olivia had an uncontrollable case of the hots for Alan. Harrison Ford he was not. It was more like she was getting even with Gary. The word on the society grapevine was that he was having a steamy affair with the fashion world’s hottest nineteen-year-old Brazilian fashion model. They’d met when she appeared on the cover of Olivia’s own magazine. Supposedly, Gary had no idea what was going on between Olivia and Alan. Yet, I should say. I had zero doubt he would find out soon enough.
“Just the man I wanted to see,” I said to Raoul as he stood there at the reception desk with Frank.
“Good day to you, Mr. Hoag,” he said in that ingratiating, slightly unctuous way of his. “How may I be of help to you and Miss Nash?”
“The kitchen sink drainpipe has started to drip down into the cupboard below.”
“Of course. I’ll send for a plumber right away. Anything for Miss Nash. How is she?”
“I spoke to her last night. She said the filming is going great.”
“I’m a fan of that Mel Gibson. He’s my sort of fellow.”
“And what sort of fellow is that, Raoul?”
“If he sees something he wants he takes it—just like that,” Raoul said with a snap of his fingers. “I admire such men, don’t you?”
It was a rhetorical question, apparently, because he didn’t wait for an answer. Just opened the door behind the reception desk and left me alone there with Frank.
Although not for long.
“Oh, hell, him again,” Frank muttered as someone came in the front door.
I turned to discover that him was a pint-sized teenaged kid, maybe fifteen. I doubt he would have been more than five feet tall if he stood up straight, which he didn’t. His shoulders were hunched, his eyes fastened to the floor.
“Who’s that?” I asked Frank as the kid crossed the lobby toward us.
“Trevor, the grandson of Muriel’s older sister, who passed away. He’s a total mooch. Has a major attitude problem, too.”
“Need to see my aunt,” he mumbled in Frank’s direction. His eyes were still on the floor.
“She’s not here, son,” Frank said politely. “Out shopping.”
“Well, then I need for you let me into her place.”
“Sorry, I can’t do that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means no, son.”
“Why not?” Maybe fourteen. He was positively whiny.
“Your aunt Muriel has instructed me that I’m no longer to let you in when she’s not home,” Frank stated firmly.
