“Rent the tux for the occasion?” she asked, looking me over, finally stepping to one side, releasing my arm.
I gestured to myself with both hands. “This is mine.”
An eyebrow arched in amusement. “Really? I didn’t know private detectives owned tuxedos.”
I patted under my left arm, where the nine-millimeter was nestled in its holster. “You got to be well-heeled to guard the well-heeled.”
Childish enthusiasm turned her into the tomboy she’d most likely been, growing up. “There’s a
“Tailor on Maxwell Street gave me a special cut. Wouldn’t want to create an unfashionable bulge. ’Specially not when I’m guarding a big-time dress designer.”
Which she was, in her way: Marshall Field’s was the exclusive outlet for the Earhart line of clothing, outfits for sports, travel, and spectator wear, sold under franchise by one merchandiser in each of thirty metropolitan areas. Macy’s had New York.
She had a wry smirk going. “I’m not exactly Coco Chanel.”
“Coco Chanel never flew the Atlantic, not to mention the Pacific.”
The latter had been Amelia’s latest accomplishment, a Pacific crossing from Honolulu to California, a little two-day jaunt in January.
“You see, it’s a routine now, Mr. Heller.” The low, melodic voice was weary and resigned. “I set a record and then I lecture on it…even though I hate crowds. And I sell books—which I do write myself, mind you—and clothes, which I do design myself—and even, Lord help me, cigarettes.”
“Don’t tell me you roll your own.”
“No. I detest smoking. Filthy habit.”
“Then why endorse Lucky Strikes?”
Her smile was as sad as it was fetching. “Because I love to fly—and it’s an expensive obsession.”
Our cage shuddered to a stop, and the pretty elevator girl opened the gate and we stepped onto the sixth floor, and Amelia took my arm again. A handsome young man in a gold and green uniform, looking like a chorus boy in a Victor Herbert operetta, took Amelia’s topcoat and ushered us into the salon’s lavish oval foyer, with its beige oak walls and matching carpet and Regency furnishings.
“Miss Amelia Earhart,” a butler intoned. He had an English accent that was almost convincing.
She swept into the salon with her distinctive combination of self-confidence and humility. Applause—of the fingertips in the palm variety, but applause nonetheless—echoed in the main rotunda. She waved it off and began to circulate, shaking hands, saying little, listening to effusive compliments with the patience of a priest.
The spacious circular room, broken up by curtained-off alcoves, had plump, comfortable chairs for plump, comfortable customers to plop down in around the central, beige-carpeted area, where wafer-thin models in costly clothing normally would do their preening, whirling routine.
Tonight, however, the joint was standing room only. Wealthy women, from younger dolls in slinky sparkly gowns to older gals who seemed to be wearing the dining room drapes, took center stage, their tuxedoed husbands at their sides like personal butlers.
In her casual white sheath with its distinctive black-and-white sash, Amelia would have seemed out of place, had she not been the focal point of wide-eyed admiration. Waiters served champagne from silver trays, waitresses ferried
The most suspicious character in the crowd was probably Mr. Amelia Earhart, that is, G. P. Putnam. There was something wrong with the guy; something that just didn’t fit, though he certainly wore his tuxedo well. He had the tall, broad-shouldered build of an adventurer; but his big square head with its close-cropped dark hair was taken over by the mild features of a college professor, particularly the cold dark beady eyes behind rimless glasses.
And yet, as I’d seen this afternoon as he manipulated everybody at Field’s from the top brass down to the salesgirls, orchestrating the evening like Florenz Ziegfeld putting on a new Follies, he was one glib son of a bitch, whose fast-talking charm was a thin layer over his general disdain for the human race.
So what if he was a con man with a scholar’s puss and the build of a linebacker? He was paying $25 for the evening, better than double my usual rate, so he was okay by me. The job had come in over the phone—he’d called me from his home in Rye, New York, a few days before—and had been a referral from (as he had pompously put it) “our mutual friend, Colonel Lindbergh.”
Right now he was working the room himself, in the company of Field’s amiable president, James Simpson, who was introducing him to Mrs. Howard Linn, one of the local arbiters of fashion.
Stocky, round-faced Bob Casey from the
“And when did you start covering the fashion beat?”
“When Lady Lindy picked up a needle and thread. Did she give the photogs a chance to snap her, downstairs?”
“Sure. She stopped and waved at the crowd. They probably got some swell shots.”
“Great. It’ll be nice gettin’ some pics of her without the lens louse in ’em.”
“Who?”
He jerked a thumb toward Putnam, who was smiling and laughing as he spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Hughston
