Private Dick Casefile 01 - Lily White Rose Red

here. Married men tend to feel guilty that they can’t be seen out with you, so they’re good to hit up for jewelry and flowers.”
    “Did she get a lot of flowers?”
    “Yeah, there was this one palooka, sent a new bunch everyday.
    But he never signed his name, just ‘Love, B.’ I think she liked it at first.
    Then she said he was getting obsessed, like stalking her, you know?” She leaned forward and helped herself to my untouched sandwich while I thought about Barry Jazz Morgan, who couldn’t risk being seen in public with a white girl.
    “And you never saw this guy?”
    “I saw her getting into a car one night, after work,” Suzy said.
    “You know the make or color? License number?”
    “It was dark, but I think it was a black Ford.” Great, not too many of those around. I was driving one myself.
    “Any other guys?”
    “Yeah, she liked to keep a bunch of men on tap, just in case. But the other guys came and went. This ‘B’ was in it for the long haul.
    Then one day he sent her a bunch of dead flowers.” She shuddered.
    “Creepy.”
    “And she talked to you about this guy?”
    “No, I snuck a peek at the cards.” Suzy giggled, like she’d pulled off some complicated undercover operation instead of leaning over to glance at a posy on the next table. “Except she did seem upset the day the dead flowers came. Turned white as a sheet and said she might have to give him the slip. Find another place to work. When she didn’t show up I just figured that’s what she did.”
    “And she would have had no trouble doing that?” Waspishly, Suzy said, “I might, but her? No way. She was the choreographer’s golden girl.”
    “And why was that?”

    60

    CATT FORD

    “Because Miss Lily McIntyre recommended her. You know—”
    “Yeah, I know who she is.”
    “Who doesn’t? But she’s it , you know. Everyone knows Miss McIntyre, and she knows everyone in Vegas. Everyone important, that is.”
    “Anything else you can remember about Miss Saint-Ville?
    Anything that made her different?”
    “Oh, yeah, she had her own apartment. The rest of us room with other girls, and trust me, she couldn’t afford a cold-water on the salary we get here. One of the boyfriends must have coughed up handsomely.”
    “Can I take a look at her dressing table?”
    “Help yourself, but the manager came in and tossed her stuff when she didn’t show up for work.”
    “You remember the name of the florist who delivered the flowers?”
    “You think I’m some kind of librarian or something?” Considering the librarians I knew, no, I wasn’t about to mistake this doozy for Charlie or Mrs. Fielding.
    “Wait a minute, it was… Frankie’s, that was it,” Suzy said with an air of triumph for having dredged up that fact. “I remember the two F’s on the card.”
    “I’ll have a look.”
    Suzy was right; they’d cleaned up. I sat down to inspect the drawers. Empty. I saw the corner of a piece of paper that had slid between the mirror and the back of the table and pulled it out. It was a florist’s card, like Suzy had said, with Frankie’s Flowers in a fancy script that linked the two F’s.
    The typed message read: Red roses for my Rose Red. All my love, B . Possessive. Of course, being typed, there was no handwriting for comparison, even if I had something to compare it to.
    “Well, thanks, Suzy. You’ve been a big help.” I stood up to go.

    Lily White, Rose Red: Grey Randall, Private Dick Casefile #1
    61

    Without removing her feet from her dressing table, Suzy arched her back and put her hands behind her, laughing when she unhooked her bra-top. It popped off and hit her mirror, relieved to be out from under the strain. “I could help you more than that, lover. Maybe show you a thing or two.” She gave that little shoulder shimmy again, making her naked breasts sway like ripe fruit.
    Deliberately, I stared right at them and smirked. “Yeah, I can see you have a thing or two to show,” I said and turned away.
    “Hey, Grey! You never said what kind of trouble Margie was in.”
    “The worst kind,” I said over my shoulder.
    Suzy swung her feet down and sat up straight, her face going pale under the stage makeup. “You mean—”
    “Yeah, she’s dead.”

    THAT gave me something to think about. Margie. I wondered if Lily McIntyre ever thought of her protégé as Margie rather than Marguerite.
    And with an obsessive boyfriend in tow, with the initial B. Maybe I was reading Jazz’s sadness