The Last Embrace Read Online Free Page B

prostitute your daughters for a Hollywood role?
    There was an awkward silence and Lily feared she’d spoken out loud. Then Mrs. Potter said, “I suppose you’ll want to see her room.”
    She started up the stairs, leaving Lily no choice but to follow. In the winding upstairs hallway, Lily heard a Victrola playing swing jazz. There were closed doors on either side. They walked along a faded carpet runner patterned in cabbage roses.
    At the last door, Mrs. Potter paused.
    “Kitty had the turret room,” she said. “I have a hard time letting it, the girls say it’s haunted. That’s nonsense, of course.”
    Mrs. Potter’s eyes narrowed. “Now, before I open this door, do you have any proof you’re who you say you are? We can’t be too careful and there’s already been people snooping around, asking questions that are none of their business.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t rightly know. I run them off when they don’t explain themselves. The only one I let in besides the police was the man from the studio, and he was polite and showed me ID.”
    “What was his name?”
    “Clarence Fletcher.”
    “Did he take anything?”
    “Not that I saw. And I only left him alone a minute when I went down to pay the dry cleaner’s.”
    Ample time to shove a diary down his shirt, Lily thought.
    “So the studio’s worried too?” she said.
    Mrs. Potter spoke through gritted teeth. “Maybe the studio don’t know everything. Maybe she’s passing time with someone from another studio. So how about it?” She held out a hand.
    Lily brought out a letter from Mrs. Croggan and her passport. The landlady examined the letter and flipped through the passport, absorbed in the colorful entry stamps of foreign nations.
    “You been in a lot of Communist places.” She eyed Lily with sly interest.
    “I was a government file clerk in the war.”
    “Those stamps’re more recent than that. You sure you’re not a Red spy?”
    No, I was a spy for our side.
    “They kept me on after the German surrender. The Marshall Plan…I just got my discharge papers.”
    The landlady dug a ring of keys out of her pocket. “I been up here once to make sure she wasn’t in bed, too sick to call out. And the police, they was here all of two minutes. Found no sign of foul play and left, not before the young one asked Louise to go out dancing.”
    She turned the key and pushed. They entered.
    The small room had curving walls and a coved ceiling. The hot still air smelled of newsprint, cigarettes, talc, and stale perfume. Photos of movie stars adorned every wall. The only furniture was a plump armchair, a tall skinny bookcase, and a dressing table on which sat a large bottle of Arpège. Lily wondered if Doreen had a wealthy admirer.
    Mrs. Potter pointed out the radiator, where stockings, silk panties, and a lace brassiere had been left to dry. “Does this look like the room of a girl who isn’t coming back? Or that?” She indicated the dressing table, where cold creams and potions lay next to a tortoiseshell brush.
    “Well, that about covers it.” Mrs. Potter began herding Lily out.
    “Please,” Lily said. “I’d like to stay here until I find Kitty. I’m new to the city and—”
    Mrs. Potter crossed her arms. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    “But I’m a family friend. And you said the rent’s paid through the month.”
    Mrs. Potter said nothing. She wants me to offer her money, Lily realized.
    “What did Kitty pay you?” she asked.
    “Twe—eh, excuse me, thirty-five dollars a month.”
    She’s just bumped the price up fifteen dollars, Lily fumed. But she reached for her wallet, realizing that Kitty’s room was the perfect headquarters for her mission. The landlady counted the bills, then folded and tucked them inside her brassiere.
    “Where did she sleep?” Lily said, looking around.
    Mrs. Potter gave a short bark. “Ain’t you never seen a Murphy bed before?”
    She walked to the far wall and threw open a cupboard door,