The phone rang, and we both shot to attention. I sucked in a lungful of smoke, snatched up the receiver, and croaked, “Yes?”
“It’s a go,” Sabrina said. “Tony wants to meet you and Abby tonight after the eight o’clock show, just as we discussed.”
“Good,” I said, giving Abby the thumbs-up.
“You should arrive at the Copa at seven sharp,” Sabrina continued. “Tell the man at the door your names are Gina and Cherry—those are the names I gave Tony. You can decide for yourselves who’s who, but make sure you remember the names and use them whenever you introduce yourselves to someone or speak to each other. Gina and Cherry. The doorman will be expecting you and the maître d’ will show you to your table.
“He’ll probably seat you up front, near the band and the dance floor, so that Tony can watch you while you’re watching him perform. He likes to observe the effect he has on women. It turns him on. So, bat your lashes a lot and try to look as if you’re about to swoon. And show plenty of leg and cleavage. He likes to examine the merchandise closely before making a purchase.”
Ugh.
“Order your dinner as soon as you’re seated,” Sabrina went on, “and eat it as fast as you can, because once the show starts, you
must
give Tony your full attention. If you don’t, he’ll get miffed, and he might change his mind about seeing you after the show.”
“Sounds like you’ve been through this before.”
“A couple of times, with a couple of different girls. One of them ate a stalk of celery during his opening number, and he had her kicked out at intermission.”
“Nice guy,” I grunted, mulling over this new information. “Did Melody ever annoy him in any way?”
“Not to my knowledge. She was aware that Tony has a quick temper, so she was always on her best behavior. And as long as she was properly respectful of him, he treated her with the utmost respect in return. At least that’s what she told me.”
I took a drag on my cigarette and exhaled loudly. “I wonder if she was properly respectful last Monday night.”
“Good question,” Sabrina said, her voice turning to stone.
“Did Corona say anything to you about Melody?” I asked. My pulse had quickened to a staccato beat. “Did he try to schedule a new date with her?”
“No,” Sabrina said, sighing heavily. “Her name never came up.”
Chapter 26
“OOF!”
I GASPED, AS ABBY FASTENED THE LAST hook on the back of the excruciatingly tight, waist-length, strapless push-up bra she was making me wear. “Undo this torture device immediately! I can’t breathe! My ribs are all crunched together, and my breasts are rammed so high they’re blocking my nasal passages.”
“Stop whining, Paige! Sabrina said we have to show a lot of cleavage, and this is the only way you can swing it.”
“Who cares about
my
cleavage? In that puny excuse for a dress you’ve got on, you’ll be showing more than enough for both of us.” (I wasn’t exaggerating, you should know. The scoop neck of her purple satin sheath was cut so low her own scoops were boldly bobbing in the breeze.) “And if you think I’m going to wear anything that revealing,” I added, “you’ve got another think coming. It’s cold out, Ab! I want something warm and cozy and—
“
Mmmmph!
” I grunted, as she pulled a skintight, sleeveless, and, for all intents and purposes, chestless black cocktail dress down over my head and roughly zipped it up the back.
“There!” she said. “Now turn around and let me see.”
“Are you kidding? The skirt is so tight I can’t move.”
“Shut up, or I’ll cut a slit up the side.”
I groaned and turned around. “Forget about it, Abby. I’m not going anywhere in this skimpy thing. It’s nothing but a long swimsuit. Only Esther Williams would wear this dress! I feel like a goddamn mermaid, and I’m
walking
like one, too.” To prove the truth of my words, I took a few baby steps forward, waving my arms for balance and advancing about an inch.
“Stop clowning, Paige!” she squawked. “It’s getting late. We have to be at the Copa in one hour, and I haven’t even put your makeup on yet.” She frowned intently, shoved my hair back off my face, and began rubbing pancake foundation into my skin so hard it hurt.
“Ow!” I complained. “
Now
who’s being serious and impatient? You’re no fun anymore, you know that? I was just fooling around a little—trying to lighten things up and have a few laughs. A little silliness never hurt anybody, you dig?”
If Abby noticed that I was mocking her and throwing her own words back at her verbatim, she kept it to herself. She just finished applying my makeup—pink rouge, red lipstick, icky blue eyshadow, etc.—vigorously and without comment. Then, after pinning my hair up in a taut little bun, she yanked a curly blonde wig down over my head and mashed it in place.
“Ugh! Do I
have
to wear this mop?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer to that question. “It’s so uncomfortable! It feels like my cranium’s been carpeted.”
“Would you rather have it shot full of holes?” Abby said, with a sniff. “If Tony the Tiger is the murderer, and if he recognizes you from any of your past newspaper photos tonight, your skull will be a bloody breezeway by tomorrow.”
“I get the picture,” I said, wishing that I didn’t. The image was a bit too graphic for my taste.
“Besides, you look really cute like this!” Abby bubbled, fluffing the short blonde curls and arranging them around my face. “You don’t look like yourself at all. You look just like Janet Leigh!”
“Harpo Marx is more like it,” I grumbled.
“Oh, hush. You’re such a kvetch.” Abby finished styling my fake hair and sprayed it with something smelly and sticky. Then she took a pair of sky-high black patent pumps out of her closet and insisted that I put them on.
“But I don’t want to!” I whined. “My feet hurt. I’m going to wear my new ballerina slippers.”
“Oh, no, you’re not,” she said. “You have to look really sexy tonight—like a hot, high-class call girl—
not
like a gawky, flat-footed preteen. Put those heels on, and come downstairs right now. We’ve gotta go, Flo!”
Abby was having fun. You could tell by the way she bounced down the steps, slipped into her fur-trimmed purple satin coat (it came with the dress), and then twirled over to the door like an Arthur Murray ballroom dance student.
I was in perfect misery. You could tell by the way I dragged myself down to the kitchen, shoved my cold, naked arms into the sleeves of Abby’s gray chinchilla jacket, trailed my former friend down the stairwell to the street, and then shivered, lurched, and wriggled—like a bare-breasted, fin-shackled mermaid out of water—toward the uptown IND.
THE COPA WAS AT 10 EAST 60TH STREET, JUST a few steps off Fifth Avenue. When Abby and I turned the corner and headed for the entrance, we saw that the entire block was crammed with long, shiny limousines, honking taxicabs, and town cars discharging prosperous-looking men in tuxedos and bow ties, and beautiful women in jewels and furs. Scads of shouting newspaper photographers were engaged in fierce combat for position and the chance to pop another batch of blinding flashbulbs.
Tony Corona was packing them in.
“Follow me!” Abby whooped, happily pushing her way into the fray. I tucked my chin to my chest and stayed as close behind her as I could, hoping nobody would poke their elbow in my eye or—worse—take my picture. (When you’re on a dangerous undercover hunt for a killer—and trying to keep your mission hidden from your overly protective, short-tempered detective boyfriend—photographic exposure in the press can be hazardous to your health. Wig or no wig.)
Jostling and shoving and yelling “Hot stuff!” at the top of her lungs, Abby thrust her way up to the entrance of the club with me wobbling right behind, huddled as close to her hindquarters as a kid riding piggyback.
“Hi, handsome!” she hollered at the doorman. “I’m Gina, and this is Cherry!” She leaned to one side, forcing me to show my face (which was surely beet red from embarrassment).
“You’re expecting us, right? We’re Mr. Corona’s guests for dinner and the show.”
The doorman didn’t say a word. He just arched one skinny black eyebrow, nodded his ham-sized head, pulled the door open a few inches, and shooed us inside.
I was shocked at how quickly we’d been allowed to enter. Abby and I were now sauntering—
without
male companions— across the luxurious, potted palm-lined lobby toward the glittering, welcoming gates of the most famous nightclub in the world, while scores of Manhattan’s most fashionable, celebrated, and properly escorted wives, girlfriends, actresses, models, and socialites were still being screened for admittance.
It’ s cool to be a cookie with connections,
I mused to myself,
but being a call girl with a well-connected madam takes the cake.
AFTER BEING SEATED AT A FRONT-ROW TABLE (as Sabrina had predicted), and immediately ordering our dinner and drinks (as Sabrina had advised), I turned and swept my gaze around the glitzy interior of the club. The decor was classy and Cuban, with white tablecloths, red velvet chairs, and glistening mirrored walls. There was an elevated bandstand, a small hardwood dance floor, a lofty, wraparound mezzanine, and several enormous floor-to-ceiling columns shaped as palm trees. Their trunks were pure white and their leaves were bright gold.
The band was playing a rumba, and the tables were filling up fast. Several couples ventured onto the floor to dance. “Hey, bobba ree bop!” Abby shouted to me above the music. Torn between watching the dancers and checking out the people who were quickly filling up the tables around us, she was twisting her head in all directions at once. “This is the living end!” she cried. “The air’s so thick with excitement you could slice it like a turkey.”
“Right,” I said, feeling far more nervous than excited. I had been to the Copacabana once before—when I was working on my very first
Daring Detective
story—and it had been a crazy, dangerous, hair-raising experience. I hoped tonight’s expedition wouldn’t turn out the same way.
“Hey, look upstairs!” Abby squealed, gaping toward the mezzanine in sheer delight. “It’s Gordon MacRae! Yummmm. He’s so handsome, it’s shameful. And what a sexy voice he’s got! Whenever he sings, my ovaries melt. He’s probably making the rounds tonight, showing up at the hottest nightspots to promote his new movie,
Oklahoma!
. . . Oooh! Wow! Guess who’s sitting over there!” she sputtered, eyes shifting toward a different spot in the balcony. “It’s Kirk Douglas! And he’s sitting next to Lana Turner! Holy smoke! Aren’t they both married to somebody else? I wonder if they’re having an affair!” She couldn’t have been more elated if James Dean had suddenly come back to life and sat down at our table.
“Cool it, Ab—er, Gina!” I hissed. “Get a grip on yourself. You’re acting like a starstruck bobby-soxer instead of a wicked woman of the world. And you’d better calm yourself down right now, kiddo, because a lot of famous people will be here tonight. And since they’ll all be sitting in the mezzanine—which, according to the gossip columnists, is reserved for VIPs—you need to keep your starry eyes fixed on the dance floor. Especially after the show begins,” I cautioned. “We can’t afford to offend our generous and demanding host.”
“I get your drift,” Abby said, wrenching her gaze away from the upper level and happily focusing it on one of the two champagne cocktails our waiter had just placed in front of us. “Here’s to life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice!” she warbled, holding her glass up for a toast.
“Cheers,” I said, clinking her cocktail for good luck, trying to suppress my nagging fear that we were headed for a nasty night.
ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER—AFTER we’d devoured our Waldorf salads, broiled lobster tails, lyonnaise potatoes, and chocolate éclairs (well, we had to keep up our strength!)—the bandleader brought a torrid tango to a heart-throbbing climax and then signaled for a drumroll. The spotlights mounted in the golden leaves of the palm trees closest to the dance floor began to flash and spin, prompting the lingering hoofers to return to their seats.
It was showtime.
Suddenly, without any introduction or fanfare, eight gorgeous young women wearing silver dresses and silver flowers in their hair pranced onto the dance floor. These were the celebrated Copa girls—the uniformly tall, slinky, and ultrabuxom beauties often referred to in the gossip columns as “Manhattan’s choicest” (which I thought made them sound more like meat than showgirls, but maybe that was the point).
The band struck up a snappy cha-cha and the girls began to dance—four in front, four in back—swaying their hips to the music and shaking their shoulders to the beat. Their dresses were strapless, and even more revealing than Abby’s and mine, so every little shimmy caused a turbulent undulation of exposed flesh. All of the men in the audience were mesmerized. Some of the women, too.
I, on the other hand, was in agony. I had to pee so bad I thought I would pop. Knowing Corona would be making his entrance soon, and that I couldn’t possibly last through his entire performance without relieving myself, I decided I’d better make a run for the bathroom while I had the chance.
Jumping to my feet, but crouching as low as I could to avoid obstructing the audience’s view, I leaned over and announced my intentions directly into Abby’s ear:
“Gotta go to the loo, Sue. Be back in a few.”
She was having such a good time, she barely noticed my rhyme. Or, for that matter, my frantic departure.
Chapter 27
THE LADIES’ ROOM WAS EMPTY—AND IN VERY short order, so was my bladder. (Word to the wise: If you’re in a crowded nightclub and you want to pee in private, hit the john during showtime.) I wasn’t alone in the elegant lavatory for long, however. As soon as I stepped out of the stall and over to one of the pearl white porcelain sinks to wash my hands, a tiny Negro woman in a black dress and a starched white apron appeared out of nowhere with a white linen hand towel draped over her skinny arm. She smiled and handed the towel to me at the exact moment I needed it.