“Something like that,” she said, propping her feet up on the remaining chair and rubbing the small of her back with a sigh. “Lord almighty, but it’s a hell of an achy business, being on your feet all day. I don’t know how Mama stands it.”
“Bea,” Vivian said, her voice rising. “What were you thinking?”
Bea’s expression grew serious at last. “I was thinking that my pal is in trouble and needs help. It wasn’t all that hard to find. Don’t you want to know what he’s lying about?”
“But he could report you to the police,” Vivian said, starting to feel frantic. “You could get arrested yourself, and then what—”
“No, he couldn’t,” Leo said suddenly, a grin spreading across his face. “He already told them he’s never kept an appointment book. How’s he going to report that someone stole it now, even if he figures out who it was? Hell, he might even think it was a cop who snuck in and snatched it.” He shook his head admiringly. “Slick work there, Beatrice. Real slick.”
“Thank you,” she said smugly, returning his smile. It was the friendliest Vivian had ever seen them. “Now it’s Vivian’s turn to say thanks.”
Vivian wanted to protest more. But it wouldn’t do any good. Bea had already taken it. All Vivian could do was hope that Leo was right about Rokesby not being able to report the theft. Vivian swallowed.“Thank you,” she said, her voice coming out a little hoarse. “You’re one in a million, you know that?”
“I sure do,” Bea said. “So, what are you thinking? He bumped off his stepdad to get his inheritance? Bit of a letdown for him, then, how it all shook out.”
“Maybe,” Vivian said slowly as she turned the pages. She glanced up at her friend. “Both Mrs. Buchanan and Corny wouldn’t give the police a straight answer about where they were, right? And being as they’re his family, they’d probably have the best chance to be the ones slipping him poison. And then they got impatient, and…” She trailed off, pushing aside the memories of that morning, and glanced back at the book.
“Right,” Bea agreed as she plonked her feet down on the floor and leaned forward. “So are you going to tell us what the hell is in there that was so important for him to keep secret?”
“Well, you’re not going to like it.” Vivian flipped through the pages until she found the week of Buchanan’s death. “But I’m pretty sure half of it is written in code.”
Bea’s face fell. “What?”
Leo had stood to peer over Vivian’s shoulder, and he grimaced at what he saw. “That’s damned inconvenient.”
“But also damned suspicious,” Bea pointed out. “So maybe we’re on the right track?”
“Maybe,” Leo agreed, looking doubtful. “But not much help if we can’t figure out what it means.” He glanced at Vivian. “What are you thinking?”
Vivian drummed her fingers against the table, a syncopatedrat-a-tatthat jumped around with her thoughts. “Is there any chance we could take this to your pal Levinsky?” she asked, looking at Leo. “He’s the one who mentioned it. Would he—”
But Leo was already shaking his head. “He’d have to stick his neck out pretty far to explain how he got it, and I don’t think he’d riskthat kind of trouble. Not with a new baby at home.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a cynical smile. “And even if he did, if the damn thing is written in code, the odds of anyone trying to figure it out aren’t great.”
“So I still need something more solid to give your uncle,” Vivian said, nodding as she let out a slow, anxious breath. “Okay. Then I need to find someone who knows what the Fifth Avenue folks have been up to recently.” She glanced at her purse, where the letter for Hattie Wilson was tucked away. “And I think I know who might be able to help us.”
TWENTY
“Like hell you will,” Bea snapped for what felt like the hundredth time as she fixed her lipstick in the dressing room mirror, wearing only her step-in, stockings, and the red velvet heels she always wore to perform. “Viv, you can’t ask her for another favor. Look what she already had you do!”
Vivian, seated on one of the couches, kept her gaze fixed on her hands, not wanting to meet Bea’s eyes in the mirror. She had a good reason for looking down—she was fixing a split seam on the back of Bea’s dress before she returned to the bandstand. But they both knew it was an excuse.
“Maybe, but odds are she’ll have our answers. Or she can find them out,” Vivian said, keeping her voice low. It was just them in the dressing room for the moment, but there was no saying when someone else might pop in. “That’s gotta be worth it, right?”
“Maybe,” Bea said, setting aside her lipstick and lighting a cigarette. She blew out an anxious stream of smoke. “Or maybe not. Depends on what she asks you to do next.”
“Might not matter tonight anyway,” Vivian said, tying off the thread and snipping it close before handing the dress back to Bea and packing her sewing things up. “I don’t know when she’s going to send someone for the letter.” She stood, stretching out her back, and plucked the cigarette from Bea’s fingers, taking a quick drag before stubbing it out in the ashtray on the dressing table. “I’ve got to get back out there, and you do too.”
“Don’t do it, Viv,” Bea warned one more time as they opened the door to a wave of music and heat.
Vivian pretended not to hear, lifting two fingers in the barest wave as she dodged toward the corner of the bar where Leo was waiting, nursing a glass of Canadian whisky and paging through Corny Rokesby’s appointment book.
It was half appointment book, half diary, and many of the entries were straightforward: dinner receptions that lasted all night (not enough ChampagneCorny had noted next to that one in a wobbly, drunken scrawl), a week with friends at Great Neck (toasted Martin’s last days of freedom with some excellent Scotch), time in his stepfather’s office (boring but not too boring), regular family dinners (Mother complaining again).
But every so often events would be noted in initials or codes.Ds with GCBsappeared every few weeks. AndXXappeared at irregular intervals with no pattern that they could see, accompanied by the appointment time and what looked like a string of random words, all of them different each time.
The most recentXX(rutabaga coat East River blue) had been at nine o’clock in the morning the day Huxley Buchanan was killed. The nextXX(violet charmer snakebite gin), along with anHLMB,was happening the next night.
“Any luck?” Vivian asked.
