Part 17

I watched Joe suspiciously. Fake clothes, fake glasses, fake accent... Now what?

"Hallo, this is tha ship to shore opahraytah. I have a yacht-to-hotel cawl fah Miss Sugah Kane."

From the receiver, I heard the faint, but distinctly Bronx bray of Delores. "Sugar, it's for you. From the yacht."

I moved in closer. I was very interested in this call, despite the possibility that a Chicago mobster might be up here at any moment expecting to do a spot of molesting, and might turn it into a bit of bumping off when he found out who we were. I could hear the teeny, breathy voice. "Hello?"

The Moneybags voice was back. "Hello, my dearest darling. So good to hear your voice again."

I moaned. "Please, Joe, my stomach! You know what too much sugar does to me." I went into the bathroom to check for toiletries and... Well, I'm sensible. I always answer nature before she calls when I'm going on a trip. I halfway listened.

"Well, darling, I'm glad you slept well, but to tell you the truth, I didn't get a wink. Never closed my eyes. Oh, a dream? Tell me about it. Ah, the yacht breaks away and we sail off, with me as the captain and you as the crew. Very romantic."

"They'd both be dead in two days. They're sailors like... like I'm a skirt chaser." I flipped my skirt back down, smoothing it. Well, maybe if there was a really good sale at Saks.

"And what were your chores, my lovely bosun? No, dear, bosun. Bosom is an entirely different thing. Yes, I do think it applies as well. You looked out for icebergs... yes, very dangerous. Sorted my seashells, mixed my cocktails, and wiped steam off my glasses. That sounds lovely. And when you woke up, you wanted to swim right back to me. How sweet. Now, about our date for tonight... I'm afraid I can't make it."

I cracked to door to the bathroom and put my ear to it. Yes, I know that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, but I wasn't listening for gossip about ME, okay? Joe was continuing. "No, not tomorrow night, either. I'm afraid that something has come up and I have to sail right away. I'm going to... uh... to... South America."

Yeah, good choice, Joe. There's no way she can swim after you there.

"You see, I just got a cable from Dad. He wants to consolidate our oil interests in Venezuela, and a merger has been proposed. In fact, I have to propose to make the merger. My dear, what I'm trying to say is that the president of the other company has this daughter..."

I couldn't help it. "Dog!"

"No, actually our tax advisors say she's so-so. You understand it isn't really what I want, but a man in my position has a responsibility to all the little people, the investors who've put up their life savings. Yes, I knew you'd understand."

Sure. Screw you sounds pretty much the same in any language.

I could hear Joe moving around in the bedroom. He must be pacing. Good. I hope he was properly miserable. "I just wish I could do something for you. Yes, those stock tips will pay off if you invest. Did you get my flowers?" Now what? Had he scratched up enough dough to actually do something decent for the poor kid? "You know--the orchids from my greenhouse. The fog finally lifted over Long Island, and they flew them in this morning. They should have been delivered by now."

I thought I heard the door to the hall open. Was he checking to make sure Spats's boys weren't on their way up? Somehow that seemed too practical for Joe when he was busy beating a retreat from one of his part time paramours.

"That's just a little going away present. I want you to know that I'm very grateful for what you've done for me."

I figured it was time for him to cut the malarky, so I grabbed the last of our toiletries and an armload of hotel towels (nicely embroidered SEMINOLE-RITZ. I'm a sentimentalist. I wanted a souvenier.) Joe said, "Oh, the navigator came in. We're ready to cast off."

I dumped the towels in my suitcase and presented my middle finger. "Navigate this."

"It's so hard to get good help these days. What?" He looked a little ashamed. "Thank you, Sugar. Yes, but I think mother will want the Philharmonic to play at our wedding, but thank you. Goodbye, my darling." He hung up and stared moodily at the phone.

I shut my suitcase with a bang. "I don't know about the captain, but the navigator is setting a course for parts unknown and getting his tail out of here."

Joe sighed. "Yeah, let's shove off."

We began to gather up instruments and cases. I picked up my bracelet case, snapping it shut, and started to tuck it in my bosom. I froze, and opened it again. Empty. I stared at Joe accusingly. "What happened to my bracelet?"

He tried to look innocent, and was about as successful as Clara Bow. "What do you mean, your bracelet? It's our bracelet."

"Some how I think that 'it is' should be 'it was', and since when?"

"Don't worry. We did the right thing with it."

I glared. "What did 'we' do? Joe, you're not pulling one of your old tricks?"

"No tricks, no mirrors, nothing up my sleeve. It's on the level this time."

"Like that tower in Pisa?"

Right about then the door opened, and Sugar wandered in. Wandered is the right word. She seemed kinda aimless--stunned. She went to the dresser and started digging in the drawers. "Where's that bourbon?" Joe quickly stepped in front of the suitcases, and hid them.

Well, I knew what was wrong, but I couldn't very well tell her I'd heard her 'millionaire' dumping her. "What's wrong, Sugar?"

"I don't know. Suddenly I have a terrrible thirst." Joe pulled the hot water bottle out of the suitcase behind him and offered it. When she reached for it I spotted my diamond bracelet on her wrist. I pointed. "How did you get that bracelet?"

"You like it?" She held it up, admiring the flash as she swigged from the rubber neck of the hot water bottle.

I glowered at Joe. "I always did."

"Junior gave it to me. It must have thirty stones."

"Thirty-four."

"He's going to South America to marry some other girl. That's what they call high finance."

"That's what I call a louse. If I were you, Sugar, I'd throw that bracelet right back in his face." Well, it could work.

"He was the first nice guy I ever met in my life--and the only one who ever gave me anything," she said sadly. Behind her back I made 'shame-shame' motions at Joe. Okay, I could live without the bracelet. She deserved some compensation for her run-in with Hurrican Josephine.

Joe said quietly, "You'll forget him, Sugar."

"How can I? No matter where I go, there'll always be a Shell station on the corner." She swigged from the hot water bottle again, hiccupped, and said "I'll bring this back when it's empty," then left.

Even though I'd decided Sugar deserved the diamonds, I still had to rake Joe over the coals a little more. "You crazy? The place is crawling with gangsters, gangrene is setting in, and you're making like Diamond Jim Brady. How are we going to get out of here? How are we going to eat?"

Joe sounded grim. "We'll walk. And if we have to, we'll starve."

"There you go again with the 'we'. I'm getting kind of tired of this, Joe. When we get somewhere safe, I think it's time to re-evaluate this relationship--partnership--friendship--whatever the hell it is." I grabbed my case and headed for the door.

He grabbed my arm. "Not that way." He pointed toward the window. "We don't want to run into Spats and his chums."

"Great. You're always getting me to crawl out windows, Joe. Somehow that doesn't seem like a firm base for a relationship." He went onto the balcony, and I started to hand out instruments and cases, sniffing, "Osgood alwasy takes me through the front door."

Jerry slid down the pole first to the balcony below us, and I handed down the gear, then climbed down to join him. Idle curiosity can get you killed. Things might have turned out a lot different if I hadn't taken a minute to peer through the venetian blinds into the room, just to see who was there.

I ended up looking right into the eyes of one of Spats Colombo's goons. Two of the others were playing cards, and a third was buttoning up the spats of the man himself. The goon who was looking out the window said "Look, it's those two broads from the elevator."

Spats looked up as the second goon gave us a lascivious grin and a wave. "Hey! Join us."

Oh, yeah, right. And why don't I just take off all my clothes and run naked through the exercise yard of a Turkish prison? Joe and I exchanged looks and dived for the pole leading down, knocking our hats and wigs cockeyed. As we slid down I said, "They'll have a clear shot! We better hide instead of running!" Consequently we plastered ourselves up against the wall and tried not to breathe. I, for once, was grateful that I was flat chested: the less that stuck out, the better.

Above us we heard, "What's the matter with those dames?"

Then Spats's voice. "Maybe those dames ain't dames." I heard him dragging something in off the balcony. "Same faces, same insturments. Look at this. See the holes in this bull fiddle? There's your Valentine card."

"Those two musicians from the garage!"

Our goose was so cooked you could have fed it to Tiny Tim on Christmas. "They wouldn't be caught dead in Chicago, so we'll finish the job here. Come on."

There was the thunder of footsteps, and the door slammed. Joe and I looked at each other again. "They'll be in the lobby," I said. "Come on. Time to invade enemy territory." We climbed back up and went into the now empty room. "Okay, what do we do now?"

"First thing we got to do is get out of these clothes."

"Sex, sex, sex! Is that all you can think of?"

"Jerry! Out of these and into something less conspicuous."

"Oh. Sorry."

Joe opened the hall door cautiously and peered out. Spats and the boys were nowhere to be seen, but the elevator was just opening, and we both cringed back. However, it was the fresh kid bellboy, wheeling that old guy in a wheelchair, blanket and all. He drove past us and entered a room.

I looked at Joe. He looked at me. We nodded. Slipping out of Spats Colombo's room, we sneaked across into the other room.