An hour later, Long had refilled his glass a few more times and was clearly inebriated. He returned to the sofa with his whichever drink and my third. I’d continued to take only sips, and to pour most of my scotch into the bowl of flowers when he turned his head away from me, but I was getting a bit of a buzz.
Drinking had never been a part of my social life. Enjoying a glass of red wine at dinner in a restaurant or if I had guests at home was the extent of my alcohol intake. In spite of my attempt to cushion the hard liquor with a Benjamin Franklin breakfast, my stomach was reacting with mild displeasure. I realized that I had to get the information I needed before it surged into violent rebellion.
As we drank, I kept him talking about what interested him, mostly himself and his daughter. The one possibly relevant tidbit he’d revealed so far was that he and Yvette Dupree had never had a romantic relationship.
“Not that I didn’t want to at first, years ago, but she was seeing somebody an’ wouldn’t play naked with ole Gene.” He sighed and drank. “Better this way. If we’da done the nasty an’ then broke up, that would have hurt my baby doll. Angel loves Yvette like a mamma. My wife died, ya know.”
I didn’t know that, but I murmured words of sympathy.
He stared down into his drink for a moment.
“Life’s a bitch,” he said.
This was my chance. “It sure is. A few months ago I had to deal with a woman who tried to destroy me.”
Long grunted. “You shoulda come to me-I know how to handle problems like that.” Long swallowed the rest of the scotch in his glass and got up for a refill. He wasn’t entirely steady on his feet, but he wasn’t stumbling. I was astonished at how much that man could drink and still walk and talk.
He came back with his fresh glass and one for me. As I still held one in my right hand, I reached for the other with my left.
Laughing, he called me a two-fisted drinker.
Long flopped down on the couch and rested his head against the back of it. I put the new drink down on the coffee table and leaned closer to him.
“What did you mean, about knowing how to handle an enemy?”
He chuckled, winked at me, and then stared into space.
“Won’t you tell me, Gene? I went through a really terrible time with her.”
“Couldn’ta been worse than what that rotten snake-bastard-writer did to my baby doll. But I was gonna get him back-an’ get him back good, good, good.” He scowled again. “Then somebody killed Keith an’ we couldn’t go through with it. Damn!”
At last I was getting somewhere-or at the edge of somewhere. I knew I had to dig before the distress in my stomach got worse, so I took a chance and pushed a bit.
Faking awe in my voice, I leaned close to him again and asked, “So Keith was going to help you get back at Roland Gray? That’s wonderful.”
“Woulda been… Jeez, we had a perfect plan…”
I widened my eyes to signal fascination. “What was it?”
“Our plan was why I put together the big charity deal. All that work blew up in my face ’cause some scumbag hadda kill Keith that night. He couldn’ta waited.” Long muttered a curse.
“To organize that spectacular evening as a cover for your plan-Oh! It must have been brilliant,” I said breathlessly.
Long nodded agreement. And swallowed more scotch.
“What was it? The plan. I’m dying to know.”
He stared off into the distance and smiled. “We were gonna frame that Limey f***er for attempted murder.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah, a big wow. A wow an’ a half. We were gonna make it seem like Gray tried to murder Keith. Gray was gonna be arrested. I’d make sure he was smeared in the papers an’ on TV. All over the world. I was gonna leak all kinds of bad things to friends in the media-like how he plag’d-plazer-size…” He couldn’t get the word out and shook his head in frustration.
Helpfully, I said, “Plagiarized?”
“Yep. I was gonna plant the rumor that he plaguered-stole his first book, from a poor dead guy. Maybe a minority.”
“Roland Gray must be a terrible man,” I said. “What were you and Keith going to do?”
Long chortled. “I had the idea an’ Keith came up with the way. Ya know the three dishes the contestants were gonna serve the judges? For judging?”
“Yes?”
“Keith crushed up nutmegs to slip into the pudding Gray was gonna give him. Keith was gonna taste it-then he’d recognize what was in the stuff, an’ accuse that slimy Limey of tryin’ to kill him. An’ I was gonna call the cops.”
“Keith was going to use nutmegs?”
“He said it was a poison.”
I knew that three whole nutmegs shaved or ground up made a lethal dose for a human being, but I never imagined that information would be useful to me. As a nationally syndicated food critic I wasn’t surprised that Keith Ingram knew that morsel of trivia. I grated fresh nutmeg into a lot of dishes, but only a few grains at a time. One whole nutmeg would last me for at least half a year. Was Long telling the truth? Had Keith Ingram really ground up whole nutmegs with the intention of stirring them into Roland Gray’s pudding? If he had…
Movement behind the door across from me, the one that was slightly ajar, caught my attention. I saw a flash of red hair and pale skin. I was sure it was Yvette Dupree. Had she been eavesdropping on us?
Long expelled air with an unhappy groan. “Beautiful plan… But we never got to do it ’cause somebody killed Keith before it was time to taste the dishes.”
No more movement in the crack of the open door. She was gone.
I forced myself to concentrate on Long. “That’s a wild story,” I said.
“You don’ believe me?”
“Well…”
Rising to my implied challenge, he said, “I can prove it.”
“How? Keith is dead.”
“Ask the police, or whoever has his clothes. Just ask ’em wha’ they found in Keith’s pocket.” He let out another long, heavy breath. “A beautiful plan-Keith was gonna accuse, an’ the police would have the pudding tested an’ found the nutmeg-the proof Gray was tryin’ to kill Keith.”
“It was brilliant, but there was an obvious hole in the plan. What if Gray had been making a baked chicken, or a meat dish like Tornados Rossini-Keith couldn’t have stirred nutmeg into those.”
Long grinned at me with boyish pride. “We thought of that. All the celebrities had to turn in copies of their recipes a week before the contest. We said it was so the hotel chefs could prepare enough for the audience to taste. If Gray’d wanted to make something that wouldn’t work for us, he would have been asked to switch to a soup, or a stew-a dish with lots of liquid.”
My stomach had begun to roil, and talking about food wasn’t helping. I shifted in my seat, trying to ease the discomfort. Didn’t work. Trying to will the nausea away, I focused on Long. Although I thought his scheme was ridiculous, I said, “That was clever. Unfortunately, a good defense attorney would have cleared Gray.”
“In time, sure. But it woulda cost Gray big-time. Big, big-time. Tha’s what I wanted, to make the bastard suffer.”
The battle between the scotch and my breakfast was reaching a climax. There was a bitter taste on my tongue and what was in my stomach felt as if it was trying to come up. My scalp was suddenly damp with perspiration. If I didn’t get out of that room quickly I was afraid that I was going to throw up all over Eugene Long’s living room.
I stood. “It’s late. I’ve got to go.” My voice sounded breathy in my ears. My stomach seemed about to explode. I started toward the elevator, although I had no idea how I would open it.
Long got up, took a few long strides, and was beside me in the hall. He pressed a button and the elevator doors parted.
“I’ll talk to Tina,” he said. “ ’Bout your show.”
I nodded. The only word I could manage to get out was, “Good.”
Suddenly the elevator began to descend-fast. I leaned against one wall and clapped my hands over my mouth as gorge rose into my chest.
Silently, I pleaded, Please, God, don’t let me throw up in this elevator!
As soon as my stomach and I landed on the lobby floor I practically flew into the ladies’ lounge.
I just made it to the nearest stall, where I knelt over the toilet bowl and heaved. And heaved…
When I was finally able to flush, I got up off my knees and staggered to the nearest of the sinks. I’d just scooped a handful of cold water into my mouth to rinse it out when I heard a soft voice behind me.
“Are you all right?”
Nodding, I spit into the sink, splashed more water into my mouth, and spit again.
“I was just coming in and saw you rush in here. You were all bent over and looked sick. There’s a doctor in the hotel-can I get her for you?”
I shook my head. “No, but thanks.” I glanced up into the mirror above the sink and realized that the woman who was concerned about me was Tina Long.
“Sit down,” she said, indicating an upholstered chair between the stalls and the sinks.
Still a little shaky, I did as she suggested and watched in surprise as she pulled paper towels from the dispenser, wet them in cold water, and came over to me.
“Your mascara ran down your cheeks, from all that barfing.” She dabbed gently at my face with the damp towels.
Because of her kindness to a stranger, I was revising my opinion of Tina Long. I had to admit that I was ashamed of myself for making the tabloid stories about her the basis for my judgment of this young woman I had seen at the gala, but never met. The extravagant, party-girl tales might be true, but they were only part of the truth.
With Tina leaning over me, and my eyes at the level of her neck, I had a close-up view of the necklace she was wearing. Six letters hung on a thin platinum chain. Outlined in tiny diamonds, they spelled out the word “Poppet.”
Tina Long straightened up again. “All clean. You look okay, but just one more thing.” She reached into the small clutch purse that she’d put down on the sink counter and withdrew a tiny bottle. She aimed it at me and gave a little squirt. Cologne. A delicate floral scent.
“Now nobody can smell what happened, but you should change your clothes as soon as you can.”
I stood, no longer wobbly. “Thank you for everything.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I couldn’t help noticing your necklace,” I said. “Is that word ‘Poppet’?”
“Cool, isn’t it? I love it. That’s what my mother-person calls me.”
Outside the entrance to the Olympia Grand, I stopped beneath the canopy and took a few deep breaths of fresh air. A uniformed valet approached and asked if I wanted him to bring my car around.
“No, thank you. I’m parked nearby.”
With no tip to be had from me, he headed for a couple just exiting the hotel. The man handed him a claim check and the valet scurried off toward the garage.
I’d expected to park at the hotel, but I’d spotted-and took-an empty space on Oakwood Drive, the side street just before I would have turned into the entrance.
It was almost noon. I hoped I’d put enough quarters into the meter because parking fines had become so expensive I couldn’t imagine why the city couldn’t balance its budget.
Luck was with me. As I came close to the Jeep I saw that the meter had indeed expired, but there wasn’t any ticket on my windshield.
I unlocked the door and started to climb into the driver’s seat when instinct told me something was wrong. Stepping back from the vehicle, I realized that my Jeep was sitting lower than it should have been.
Then I saw the reason for it: My tires had been slashed flat.
Fear shot through me like the jolt from a cattle prod.