“Not many, here.” Marge Lanerd trilled the high keys plaintively. “She’s from Minnesota, originally, but she bought a big place down in the Kentucky Bluegrass, when she isn’t in a show or on the road she spends practically all her time there. Her agent, Mister Walch, might put her up at his place.”
The producer vetoed that. “First place, Keith lives at the Gotham Athletic, which isn’t coeducational. Second place, she wouldn’t go to him for help; they’re always squabbling about publicity or contracts. He stays away from the studio about half the time because that Syrian maid of hers squawks about his making her nervous before a performance.”
“The maid,” I said. “This Nikky what’s-her-name.”
“Narian,” MacGregory answered.
“Where’s she from?”
“New Orleans, I think.” He shrugged. “She’s Tabasco, with a touch of T.N.T. Battles with me because I don’t have a private dressing-room for ‘her baby’ — goes at the boss all fire and combustion because he let the D.A. bottle her up in that hotel suite—”
“You can include me in that list, dear.” Marge smiled unhappily. “Nikky was ready to claw my eyes out this afternoon. She’d have done it, if Tildy hadn’t scolded her in Syrian—”
“Arabic,” MacGregory said.
“Yair.” I gave the phone back to His Haughtiness. “Well. We know she’s still in town. So Mister Lanerd couldn’t have gone out of town with her. Expect you’ll be hearing from him any minute.” I was lying by the clock. But it didn’t seem right to inflict my suspicions on Mrs. Lanerd. She had enough of her own to contend with.
It was just eleven by the neon-circled clock on Dave’s Place when I crunched the gravel of the parking oval under my tires. Just three hours since Ada’d showed me a spot of oil on a pillow slip.