Lady in the Lake(60)

Only one fur that she knew about, but furs sounded better, more substantial.

Mr. Gordon walked to the bar, took Maddie’s glass of vermouth. “On the house,” he said. “If you leave now. If you stay, you won’t be able to afford it. You cannot afford to stay here.”

She knew he was a powerful man. But as a white woman, she believed she trumped him, even on his own turf. He wouldn’t hurt her. “And if I don’t leave?”

Mr. Gordon turned to the bartender. “Spike? Please see her out. Now.”

For the first time, the bartender, Spike apparently, seemed discomfited. He had probably escorted many men, even a few women, from the premises. But he did not know how to approach Maddie, how to touch her. Perhaps the expectation was that she would be cowed and leave on her own. If so, then she was proud to call their bluff. Shell Gordon had put her drink back on the bar. She picked it up and sipped it.

Spike sighed, flipped up the pass, and crossed to her side of the bar. He was tall and powerfully built. He could drag her from the stool easily. But he seemed reluctant to put his hands on her. He reminded Maddie of a cartoon dog, maybe one she had seen when Seth watched Donadio. Fang, the dog was called, or something like that. Fang had a raspy voice, like this man.

“Miss—”

“Mrs.” It seemed more formidable, being married. Besides, technically, she was.

“You have been asked to leave.”

“I don’t think you have the right to refuse someone service.”

“I most certainly do,” Shell Gordon said.

“Then call the cops,” Maddie said.

“You think I won’t?”

“Oh, I think you will. I’d love to know what the complaint is.”

“We don’t serve unescorted women at the Flamingo. It’s not that kind of place.”

Maddie laughed, and this seemed to infuriate Shell Gordon more than anything she had said.

“The Flamingo is a club with standards,” he said, the color rising in his skin, which wasn’t much darker than Maddie’s. “It’s a place for gentlemen—and gentlewomen. Some of the best acts in America have played the Flamingo. It is my club and I make the rules. You want to come see one of our fine musical acts, you come back with a gentleman. Assuming you know any.”

Maddie assessed the situation. She could stage her own sit-in, but to what end? “I’m happy to leave, if Mr.—what was your last name, sir?—will walk me to my car. It’s not the safest neighborhood these days.”

“Take her out, Spike.”

Outside on Pennsylvania Avenue, the sky still light, the weather warm and sultry, Maddie doubled down on her lie: “It’s some blocks away. Sorry.”

He grunted. She let a block pass in silence, then said: “Did you like her?”

“What?”

“Cleo. Did you like her?”

“Sure. Everybody did.”

“Except the man who killed her, obviously.”

Silence.

“Would you tell me one thing about her, anything? A detail I can’t know from reading things.” She waited a beat. “And going to the morgue.”

Another long silence, until she despaired that he would ever speak. But then: “She was like a poem.”

“What?” She hadn’t expected any response, much less an answer that was at once tender and provocative.

“There was a poem they made us memorize when I was in school. I never understood it. But it was about a woman, whose looks went everywhere.”

“‘My Last Duchess.’”

“That sounds right.”

“‘She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.’”

He shrugged.

“She had a date the night she disappeared. That’s not up for dispute. You told the police that she had a date. You described him, described her, in great detail. But there was another man, right? A man you saw more often, just not that night?”

“Look, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“I wish you’d tell me how.”

“You’re picking up rocks, but there’s nothing under them. The other man she was seeing—he didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“How can you be so sure?” She figured she had two or three more blocks before she had to confess she didn’t have a car. Maybe she could pretend ownership of one on the street, fumble for keys. “Look—when I was young, much younger, I had a secret. There was a man, a married man. He could have ruined my life. He almost did but I got lucky. If her married boyfriend’s not part of her story, then that’s that. But there is a boyfriend, isn’t there? And everyone seems terrified of people knowing that. Why?”

“Just leave her be. Please.”

“Tell me one thing that no one knows about her. Just one.”

He thought for a moment. “She wouldn’t want you to be making trouble for him. She cared about him.”

“Was she in love with him?”

“I said what I said. You think about words too much. They’re just—words.”

Maddie could have said she cared about Milton, still. It wasn’t the same as love. It was barely in the same universe.

“I feel like you know more than you’re telling me.”