“Sam, how did you go? Have we found our boy?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” he said to her. “I didn’t find anyone with his description. Actually that’s not such bad news considering the blokes I did find. Some of them were rather mangled.”
She hadn’t thought it would be that easy, but it had been worth a shot. “Righto. Change of plans, then. We’re going out tonight, Sam,” Billie announced. “Will that check okay with your dance card?”
“No problem at all. I have no, er, card.”
“It will be in a couple of hours, around ten,” she added, glancing at the clock.
“Where shall we meet? The morgue?” he asked.
She laughed. “No, the death house will have to wait.” Sam had not yet had occasion to visit the morgue, and Billie in fact preferred to make those visits solo. “We have something more interesting to pursue. And more lively. Meet me back at the office, will you? Ten o’clock sharp? Oh, and wear the jacket.”
There was a pause down the line. “The white jacket?”
“Yes, dear Sam. The white jacket. Tonight is black-tie. We’ll be mixing with the high end of town.”
Billie hung up and reheated some leftover casserole on the stove. It was, at best, below average, and the dirty dishes were depressing to look at afterward, an unfortunate price to pay for something that had tasted pretty lousy. Housework and culinary pursuits had never been Billie’s forte, but she managed well enough on her own. Forlack of a wife or maid, or any prospect of either, Billie cooked merely to sustain herself, treating the work more as a chore than the art form it could be. She saved her art for other mediums, content to experience great food in restaurants, or when dining with her aristocratic mother. So it was with mild distaste that Billie slid the empty plate and cutlery into the sink under some tepid water and promised herself she’d clean up later. She had, after all, no one to impress but herself, and the possibilities of her case seemed more important by half. Fortunately she’d managed to purchase a bar of good dark chocolate—it had been terrifically hard to hunt out during the war—and she savored a single square in small nibbles, leaning against the kitchen counter in a kind of temporary ecstasy. Her palate recovered, she tied her hair up with a scarf and peeled off her remaining silk underthings, leaving them on her bed. She had started to feel a sticky heat out in Stanmore, or perhaps it had been all those heavy looks. In the city she didn’t arouse quite so much attention, at least not when wearing a skirt suit and oxfords.
With a smile Billie showered under a stream of warm, clear water and washed the day off. Oh, how she’d missed these showers in Europe. Her flat, like the others in the building, had modern conveniences. So many of the places she’d stayed with Jack had been spartan and lacked hot water, let alone a shower. Some had even lacked a roof.
Jack.
Billie recalled the first time she’d clapped eyes on the British correspondent, he with his ever-present Argus camera, her friends in Paris regaling one another with stories of his recent triumph, surviving a light airplane crash and smuggling film past Nazi German officers in tubes of toothpaste and shaving cream. He’d covered theannexation of Austria into Nazi Germany earlier that year, and the recent Nazi march into Sudetenland after Prime Minister Chamberlain’s disastrous part in the Munich Agreement. He was relaxed on that first meeting, wine in hand, blushing modestly as the others bragged on his behalf about his exploits, and watching his lean face and those bright hazel eyes, Billie had been hooked. Even now she could see him sitting there across the café table, his shirt slightly undone, his face glowing and almost tanned despite the autumn chill, lips reddened by the wine, head bowed slightly as he squirmed under the weight of their praise and playful teasing. She could see him so vividly in her memories that he was almost there, close enough to touch. He spoke of what he’d witnessed, of wanting to return next to Vienna. When he did go, Billie was with him.
And now she recalled the feeling of his body under hers, those pale chest hairs, the warmth of his skin, her fingers running over him, bodies intertwined. All around them was cold darkness, and in the distance air-raid sirens. It was just him, just Jack and Billie, the rest of the world seeming not to exist in those moments, and in his irresistible accent he would softly say her name, “Billie, Billie...”
She swallowed and, closing her eyes, ran a hand down her body, tempted to touch herself. Her fingers caressed her slim, softly rounded belly, her velvety pubic hair. How long had it been? Well over one year. No. Now over two years, in fact, she realized with a kind of horror. Her chest began to ache and she shook herself gently, hand retreating. Where was he? Was he really gone?
Stop.
There was no time for diversions or longing. Frowning now, Billie turned off the tap, toweled herself vigorously, and slipped into a pale peach dressing robe with a nipped waist and long, flowinghem. The silk felt lovely against her bare, clean skin. These were the sensual pleasures she had at her disposal. Simple luxuries. She’d not had this silk robe when she was in Europe, nor Savon de Marseille to soap herself. But she’d had Jack.
Stay on track, Walker. Stay on track.
Her choice of clothing this evening had to be strategic. Billie padded to her bedroom and opened both doors of her generous satin maple wardrobe. She stood on the round Persian rug and pondered what she saw inside, as a surgeon might look over a case file.The Dancers.She had not been there for some time, but she recalled the rarified atmosphere. Billie had to fit in, look appropriately glamorous yet not stand out. This was no time for her suits and trench coats, but anything too bold could attract unwanted attention. She needed something fashionable, but something that didn’t particularly catch the eye. Nothing overly daring, though a little daring was certainly preferable to gauche. An emerald dress with beading beckoned, and she pulled the hanger out, turned the garment this way and that in the light. No, the beading was too much, the neckline too low now that she’d regained her curves after Europe. With rations finally easing, she’d soon fill it out dramatically. For a date with Jack? Certainly. For tonight, no. She replaced the dress. After some consideration she pulled out a dark ruby dress, silk and cut on the bias. She’d altered it and fitted it with shoulder pads when the fashion came in. It had a neckline that skimmed across the clavicle and a nice V-shaped cutout at the back. It suited low shoes, but really it was too clingy to wear her Colt underneath. It would stand out a country mile. The weapon would go in her handbag. Yes, the outfit would do. She hooked the hanger over the edge of the wardrobe, sat before her mirrored vanity, and started to prepare a convincing evening look.
Billie powdered her face, darkened her lash line a touch, and reached for her small black bottle of Bandit, the perfume designed by one of Paris’s finest and most famous perfumers, Germaine Cellier. She swept her dark hair up and applied the leathery, sensual scent to her naked nape. Bandit had sprung up two years earlier, in 1944, launched by the haute couture designer Robert Piguet, his runway stalked by mannequins in dark masks and red lipstick, brandishing knives and revolvers, the whole scene loaded with sexual innuendo and resulting in some considerable controversy. Billie had been dedicated to it ever since. That launch was one of Billie’s last memories of Paris, and one of the better ones. Not long after, she’d got word of her father’s condition and had flown home to be with him, arriving too late to say good-bye. Jack was still missing and the war came to an end and nothing was the same. Things wouldn’t be the same, she reminded herself. Couldn’t be the same.
She lifted her stick of Fighting Red to her lips. Some Einstein in marketing was discontinuing the color, she’d heard, so when this stick was gone she’d have to find a new favorite. Jeep Red was not getting near her mouth, as far as she was concerned. Jeep? It brought memories to mind of wounded soldiers and falling shells. The telephone’s ring broke her concentration and Billie crossed to the pink bedroom phone on her nightstand. She sat down on the edge of the bed, smoothed her robe, and picked up the receiver. It could be Sam, hopefully not backing out of their evening commitment, but if not, she could guess who it was.
“Darling, I knew you’d be in,” the voice on the line said. “There’s something I’d like some help with.”
Billie took a deep breath and slouched back on the bed. Her eyes darted to the small clock of her pink celluloid vanity dresser set. Shewasn’t ready for The Dancers yet but didn’t need to be either. She supposed she had a little time to spare. “Okay, but I’m not in all night. I’m going out on a job,” she stressed. “See you shortly.” She hung up.
Billie completed a rushed lipstick job, blotted her lips, scrutinized herself in the mirror, and, reasonably satisfied, pulled on her foundation garments and slipped into the sleek red gown. A turn at the full-length mirror told her she would pass, though her neck was bare and her hair needed work, particularly at the back, before she faced Sydney’s top end of town. Anyway, her first task was to talk with Ella. She still had plenty of time to get to the office and meet her assistant, if she could keep the length of this visit to a minimum.
Five
Billie Walker took the stairsto the next level of the building and sauntered down the corridor to the large corner flat. The door was unlocked. Familiar as she was with it, she knocked and entered almost in the same breath and found the Baroness Ella von Hooft in her favorite spot before the large window, her lady’s maid, Alma McGuire, pouring her a sherry in a delicate crystal glass with a pair of strong, steady hands.
Alma nodded to Billie with a bob of her curled and neatly pinned silver and strawberry hair, and the ever-elegant Ella turned and spotted her daughter. “Darling, it’s been weeks since I saw you,” she exclaimed.
“Mother, it’s been since Sunday,” Billie corrected her. The baroness did have a flair for the dramatic. “And we live in the same building, after all. I’m hardly in Berlin.” She walked over to the settee and bent to give her mother a kiss on her scented cheek. As usual, she smelled pleasantly of Chanel No. 5, a staple she clearly had no intention of giving up, no matter her financial circumstances.
“Don’t call me that,” Ella said with a wave of her manicured hand. “Mother.You know how I hate it. It makes me feel old.”
Billie sighed.
