Corman could feel the room closing in around him. In his mind he saw Trang grinning happily as he and Lexie toasted each other behind the beaded curtain of a dark, Oriental den. Quickly, he riffled through his other pictures, found the one he wanted and pressed it toward Scarelli.
“What’s this now?” Scarelli asked, without reaching for it.
“Take a look,” Corman said.
Scarelli reluctantly took the picture and stared at it without enthusiasm. “What the fuck is this?”
“A button.”
“She throw that out, too?” Scarelli asked in mock horror. “Ain’t life a fucking tragedy?”
“Look where it is.”
“By a window,” Scarelli said. “So what?”
“It was on the ledge of the window she jumped out of,” Corman told him.
Scarelli glanced toward him. “I repeat, Corman, so what?”
“That button came off her dress,” Corman said.
“Yeah?” Scarelli asked teasingly. “What about it? You’re thinking murder, right? Some bastard heaved her out, and in the process, ended up with a button in his hand.”
“It’s possible.”
“Yeah, great, but who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was she a hooker?”
“No.”
“So we’re not talking some Shriner with a mean streak?”
“No, nothing like that.”
Scarelli thought about it for a moment. “What was her name?”
“Sarah Rosen.”
“Jewish girl,” Scarelli mused. “Could have been a twisty little thing.” He smiled. “That’s something, at least.”
“She was starving,” Corman said. “She’d been selling blood to feed the doll. There were empty cans of Similac all over the place. She was living in a burn-out.”
Scarelli handed Corman the picture, leaned forward and dropped the side of his face into his open hand. “Could it be that this kid just got a screw loose somewhere along the way?”
Corman glanced at the picture hopelessly. “Maybe.”
Scarelli grinned impishly. “Well, that’s the way it is with a lot of things, right?”
“So, you’re not interested at all?” Corman asked.
Scarelli hedged a moment. “Well, that’s not exactly what I’m saying.”
“What is?”
“What you need is a suspect, Corman,” Scarelli told him. “It doesn’t have to be that solid. You can finesse that sort of thing.”
“Finesse?” Corman asked. “Finesse what?”
“The mystery element,” Scarelli said. He took a swig from the glass. “A mystery element’s what I need. If I had that, I could invest some time.” He shrugged. “The rest is nothing to cheer about.”
“Okay,” Corman said.
Scarelli leaned back and looked at him carefully. “Now as far as this mystery thing is concerned. Come clean, okay? You got anything or not?”
“Just the button.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s early,” Scarelli said almost to himself. “These things take time.”
“I don’t have any time,” Corman told him.
“You don’t?” Scarelli asked. “How come?”
Corman didn’t feel like going into his own troubles. “Nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this,” Scarelli said. “If you get something good, I could run with it mucho pronto.” He laughed. “You know what they call me in the trade? Deadline Scarelli. You know why?”
Corman shook his head.
“Because I’m a professional,” Scarelli said. “I get my stories in when I say I’ll get them in. Nothing stops me. Booze, women, forget it. Some movie star butt-naked wouldn’t matter to me if I was working a deadline.” He glanced toward the television monitor that faced him from across the room. “Not even the ponies.”
Corman leaned toward him. “If I came up with a suspect, something interesting, how long would it take for you to get a deal?”
Scarelli kept his eyes on the monitor. The horses were at the starting gate. “The track’s pretty wet,” he said to himself. “Have to watch a couple races to figure out the bias.”
“A day?” Corman asked insistently. “A week?”
Scarelli looked at him. “With Deadline Scarelli?” he said with a wink. “The fall of a sparrow, my man, the blink of an eye.”
The bell rang at Belmont, sending the horses slogging across the wet track. Scarelli’s eyes immediately swept over to the television monitor. “The blink of an eye,” he repeated absently, his own eyes locked on the horses’ flight.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
GROTON WAS SITTING in one of the enormous high-backed chairs which dotted the lobby of the Waldorf. Plush carpet spread out in all directions. Two huge porcelain vases rested on either side of the lobby, both of them overflowing with sprays of silk flowers. As Corman strolled across the lobby, it was hard for him to imagine that the place itself had once been a potter’s field, and after that, the site of a women’s hospital. Much was buried under the marble floor, deeply buried. Except for still surviving photographs, it was all beyond recall.
Groton had taken a chair near one of the vases. He looked as if he’d been sent down to make sure no one used it for an ashtray.
“You the guy they sent?” he asked as Corman came up to him.
Corman nodded and sat down.
“So you talked to Pike?”
“Yeah.”
Groton took a long drag on his cigarette. “He tell you the problem?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“I told him he could do that,” Groton said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“No.”
Groton shrugged. “Even before I knew, you know, for sure, I said to myself that I was going to take it like a man. What else can you do?”
Corman smiled quietly.
“Nobody’s problem but mine, anyway,” Groton added. “I never connected, you know? You got a kid, right?”
“A daughter.”
“That’s good,” Groton said with a casual nod. “Somebody to do the crying for you.” He crushed the cigarette vehemently into the stainless steel ashtray beside his chair, lit another, glanced at his watch. “They’ll be having us in pretty soon.”
“Having us in?”
“Inviting us to the party,” Groton told him. “You wait until everything’s set up. That’s the way it’s done.” He thought a moment. “And another thing, there’ll be a shitload of food spread around. Don’t eat any of it until you’re invited to. They usually invite you, but wait until they do. A beat like this, you got to have manners.” He took
