“No,” I said, lowering my menu. “It’s just… you remind me of someone.”
Amusement twitched her full lips; her pencil tapped rhythmically on her order pad. “An old girl friend, by any chance?”
“Not very original, is it?”
“Not very.”
I was shaking my head, astounded. “But I’m not kidding. You really are a ringer for her.”
The amusement disappeared and the translucent eyes fixed on me, and she stopped tapping the pencil. “That isn’t just a line, is it?”
“No. It isn’t.”
Dark eyebrows-thick, unfashionably so-tightened over the gorgeous, limpid-pool eyes. Her voice was soft- private. “You really cared for her.”
“Yeah. I really cared for her.”
“She isn’t… please excuse me for asking… she isn’t dead, is she?”
“No! No. She’s fine… it’s just ‘us’ that’s deceased.”
She smiled a little. “I get you… Now, what can I get you?”
I ordered a long-standing menu favorite, Pearl’s Special-surprisingly, not a seafood dish, but a porterhouse steak with baked potato-back on the menu now that ration books were ancient history.
In Chicago, the coffee was usually served, like the salad, with the meal; but I asked this lovely waitress to bring mine right away. I took it with cream and sugar.
“Tough guy like you?” the waitress asked, a twinkle in those aquamarines, now.
“What makes you think I’m a tough guy?”
“Miz Kuntz says you’re a private eye, Mr. Heller. A famous one, at that.”
“Make it ‘Nate,’ and there’s no such animal as a famous private eye; or if there was it would be bad for business.”
“Why?”
“Because when people recognize you, it’s darn hard to spy on ’em.”
She laughed at that. “Okay. Cream and sugar, it is.”
“Anyway, don’t you think the world tastes nasty enough, without voluntarily swigging something bitter?”
“You’re right. I don’t even like coffee. Not even with cream and sugar.”
Pearl, from her post at the front of the restaurant, was giving me the evil eye.
“You better pay attention to some of your other customers,” I advised her.
“Maybe I don’t want to,” she said regally, and glided away. That walk; what a walk-like sex on springs…
I glanced over at Pearl, who was frowning at me, and blew her a kiss; she turned away before I could see her smile-she thought.
“So what’s your name?” I asked the lovely waitress, as she delivered my grilled-onion-topped porterhouse, sour-cream-slathered baked potato, and Russian-dressing-crowned head-lettuce salad.
“Well that depends,” she said, placing the plate before me, brushing nicely close, her Chanel Number Five blotting out the rising aroma of the steak; her full lips somehow managed a pixie smile.
“Depends on what?”
“Whether you like Betty or Beth. I’m Elizabeth Short, and both Betty and Beth are short for Elizabeth.”
A silly little joke, which she’d probably told a couple thousand times, but I found it amusing and chuckled accordingly. Goddamn, it felt good to flirt again! I felt human-I felt like me.
“You’re much too poised and chic for ‘Betty,’ ” I said, and she was-inordinately so, for a waitress, to where I wondered if it was an affectation or a put-on. “So I’ll go with ‘Beth.’ ”
“Good choice,” she said, obviously pleased. “That’s my preference, too.” She nodded toward my steaming steak. “The chef said I should mention that’s really, really rare. If you want it cooked some more, just say the word.”
“Much as I’d like the excuse to talk to you again,” I said, carving into the porterhouse, seeing a deep, satisfying red, “this will do nicely-far as I’m concerned, the only way a steak can be too rare is if it’s still grazing.”
Now she chuckled at my silly little joke, and sashayed away.
I was pretty well stuffed from the porterhouse and trimmings, but-looking for an excuse to prolong my relationship with the waitress (and telling myself that her striking resemblance to Peggy had nothing to do with it)-I ordered dessert. The house specialty was a mocha layer cake, one of the restaurant’s fabled slabs of which would probably knock me into a coma.
“Ooooo, I just love chocolate,” Beth said, writing down my order.
“Hey, wait a minute-why don’t you cancel that, and let me take you out for dessert, when you get off? When is that?”
She was frowning, but not in displeasure. “Well, uh… it’ll be fairly late, we’re open until eleven, you know…”
“What’s your favorite dessert?”
“Oh… banana split, I guess. Maybe cheesecake.”
“They’ve got both at Lindy’s. What do you say?”
Eventually, she said yes; and when-just after eleven-she met me in the Morrison’s plush, high-ceilinged lobby, I did a double-take: this lowly waitress was wearing a smart black dress with a pattern of pink roses on the bodice and a leopard fur coat and hat, plus dark nylons and black clutch purse. This was what she’d worn to work?
Maybe her regal, refined manner hadn’t been a put-on.
I offered her my arm and she beamed at me-God, she was stunning… Jesus, she looked like Peggy-and ushered her out into the nippy fall night. She shivered, snuggled close, and covered a cough, so I decided to flag a Checker cab and spare her the walk over to Lindy’s, on West Randolph. Also, I wanted to impress this classy little dame, which I think I did.
We sat in one of the booths under the mezzanine and had a banana split-we shared it, at her insistence-and those blue-green eyes, seeming more blue than green now, were wide with the celebrities and near celebrities frequenting the theatrical restaurant. At a neighboring booth, Eddie Cantor and Georgie Jessel were deep in some noncomical conference over chop suey and cigars; Martha Raye, a frequent Chicago nightclub attraction, was having cocktails with that young singer, Dean Martin; and at a table in the bar, that genial tank of a woman, Sophie Tucker, loud and laughing, was holding court with a trio of fawning young men, eager to light her latest cigarette or fetch her a fresh drink.
Beth hadn’t wanted a drink: her lips touched neither liquor nor tobacco, she informed me rather proudly. She felt both activities were unladylike and “could make a girl look hard before her time.”
She had no such reservations about banana splits, however, and admitted to being “addicted to ice cream,” though her slender if busty figure didn’t betray that.
Already I was mildly smitten with this girl who so resembled Peggy. Dipping my spoon into her dish, sharing the sundae with her, was at once innocent and sensual.
“Am I the only one here impressed by all these famous people?” she asked, as she sipped tea and I stirred cream and sugar into my coffee, our empty sundae dish cleared away. “Nobody’s asking them for autographs, or even looking at them…”
I shrugged. “That would be gauche. You can see celebrities and would-be celebrities in here any time of day and night, show-biz types and newspapermen and big-time politicians… Joint never closes.”
She made a cute face. Those luscious full red lips in the Kabuki mask of her face were startling-would even have been clownish, if she weren’t so beautiful. “I guess I don’t know much about Chicago.”
“Your first time here?”
“I stopped over, a few times before. This is the first I’ve stayed for any real length of time. I came because I had an opportunity to do some modeling.”
“Not surprising, with your looks and grace. What kind?”
“For newspaper ads-hats, gloves, coats.”
I sipped my coffee. “With what agency?”
“Sawyer Agency.”
“ Duffy Sawyer?”
