Downtown Strut: An Edna Ferber Mystery (Edna Ferber Mysteries) by Ed Ifkovic Read Free Book Online Page A

blinking red, though the “H” and the “C” were darkened, making the grubby little eatery somewhat comic.
    Out loud I read: “arry hang’s.” Roddy showed me that grin.
    I felt Jed stir at my side, and I sensed his discomfort. I’d forgotten to introduce him, and I didn’t care to.
    “Let me say hello to Bella,” I said purposely.
    An edge to his voice. “Edna, there’s a cab,” Jed pointed. “You said…”
    “It’s New York,” I protested. He turned his body away from us, his back to Roddy. “There’s always a cab, Jed.”
    Roddy didn’t seem happy that we were joining him because his body tensed up and he kept nodding like a broken puppet. Nervously, he strode ahead, walking quickly, telling us over his shoulder that Ellie knew where to find us. When he got to the door of the chop suey joint, he opened but immediately closed it so that the bell clanged, then clanged again, and he stepped back toward us. “Bella’s waiting with me.” Why was he repeating the line? His face drawn, he was looking at Jed, unhappy. Said, the redundant line came across as an apology.
    Inside the tiny restaurant, too brightly lit and too cluttered with stacks of cardboard boxes piled against one wall, Bella watched us approach her table. She didn’t look pleased, stiffening her body and closing up her face. I saw her bite her lip. Not happy, the beautiful young woman. She was dressed in a sea-green spangled dress, something designed for a night club, and her face glowed eerily in the off-light because of the heavy makeup she’d applied: thick glossy scarlet lipstick, circles of peach-colored rouge on her cheeks, her large wonderful eyes lined with a dark shadow. I thought it strange makeup for a person not going onto a stage, though I knew many young girls now liked the excessive look, the fair sex freed from Victorian constraint and small-town girl dictates. Yet somehow it all worked because of her lithe graceful body, her velvety skin, and, I supposed, her assumption that men would naturally look at her. She offered us a faint smile that was, of course, no smile at all.
    As we shuffled into wire ice-cream parlor chairs, circling her, she turned her body away from that of Jed Harris.
    “Have you two met?” I began, glancing from her to Jed.
    Jed spoke quickly. “At your apartment. Yesterday. Don’t you remember?”
    “Oh.” My oracular monosyllable was worthy of an award. Roddy looked at me strangely.
    “We can’t stay,” Jed added, folding his arms around his chest.
    Bella ignored him and asked Roddy, “How was Ellie?” But there was an edge to her voice, hinting not only rivalry, I suspected, but outright dislike.
    Watching her closely, Roddy answered by nodding his head up and down. “From what I could hear from outside the stage door—beautiful.”
    “Of course,” Bella sneered. “Perfection.”
    After Roddy ordered coffee for everyone, he turned to me. “Bella is an actress, you know. Writer… and actress.” But I already knew that, so I figured he was talking for Jed’s benefit, though he never looked at him.
    “A lot of good it does me.” Bella pushed a plate of cold chop suey away from her—it looked as though she’d nibbled barely a corner of it—to rest in front of Jed. He stared at the congealed, unappetizing mess with disgust.
    “In time,” Roddy assured her. I could tell he didn’t know how to maneuver this awkward small talk. The muscles on his neck pulled taut, dark.
    Bella looked into my face. “Everyone promises me the stars, but I seem to get only stardust in my eyes.”
    “Does Ellie act, too?” I asked.
    “No,” Roddy answered too quickly. “But can she sing!”
    Bella melodramatically rolled her eyes upward with no attempt to conceal her obvious annoyance. She reached across the table and took a cigarette from Roddy’s breast pocket. Deliberately, she held it out toward Jed, pointing it at him, waiting for a light, but Jed, who’d been fidgeting with matches