On the ride up, Rita pinched both sets of Sterling’s cheeks. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”
Sterling looked nothing of the sort. Her curves were as generous as ever. They disembarked on the third floor and followed the train of Rita’s skirt to Room 28. Rita sang while she unlocked it.
Andreas took in the crowded chaos of Rita’s tiny room. Sequins everywhere. “You live here?” he asked.
“I live at the Eden Bar. I eat and sleep here.”
“Rita’s the oldest working lounge singer in Europe. Mr. K’s father saw her singing in Paris fifty years ago and begged her to move here and work for him.”
“Fifty-two years ago,” Rita corrected. “But I was married then. Took me two years to end it. Luckily, I still had the boss’s business card. Klausie paid for my divorce and my first-class ticket here,” she said, putting the needle on a Sinatra record. With a mischievousexpression, she strutted towards Andreas, spun, and wiggled her behind. “You gonna be a man and do something about this zipper?”
“Um,” he said, looking to Sterling for help. She offered him no mercy. If he wanted Rita to talk, he’d have to undo that dress.
He unzipped it, and Rita held it up by the shoulders as she waddled behind her dressing screen. “Can’t have you seeing my girdle,” she said, giggling.
She huffed behind the screen as she undressed. Her hand emerged from the side of the divider, fingers scrabbling for something.
Sterling popped the cap off the American beer she’d nabbed from Rita’s minifridge and handed it to her.
Rita sang and sipped as her shadow danced behind the screen.
“What’s with the elephants?” whispered Andreas.
Statues of them decorated every surface. Rita believed in reincarnation and claimed she’d been a white elephant in a past life, becausean elephant never forgets. Sterling wasn’t sure Rita understood the metaphor. To be fair, shewasa troublesome gift, but a burden people who loved her were happy to bear. She never forgot a story, or lyrics to a jazz standard, or the face of any sorry soul who dared cross her chosen niece.
Sterling patted the white porcelain elephant by her knees. She’d bought it for Rita’s eightieth birthday, and it held pride of place at the foot of the bed. Rita claimed he watched out for any naughty gentleman callers trying to sneak under her sheets.
Rita emerged in a robe more dramatic than the dress she’d been wearing, looking like a woman whose wealthy husband had just died under mysterious circumstances. “You like jazz, Officer?” she asked.
“Um, sure?” he said.
“Lovethe new robe,” said Sterling, distracting Rita before she could demand that Andreas sing along with Ol’ Blue Eyes.
“I sew all my outfits,” she said, shaking her sleeve so the feathers shivered. “I learned from drag queens I worked with.”
She jutted her creaky hip towards the detective, running her hands over the acrylic satin. “Real silk,” she said, lifting her eyebrows suggestively. “Feel.”
He patted her shoulder with one fingertip. “Yes, very soft.” He couldn’t conceal the smile creeping onto his face. Rita had that effect on everyone. “So, you’ve known the owner a long time?” asked Andreas, tapping his foot to the record she’d put on.
“Since he was a baby. I tell you, they had him running around in coattails as a toddler. He could pour a martini before they weaned him off his baby bottle. He’s always been a gentleman.”
“Is he still a gentleman?” asked Andreas.
“I don’t like your tone, young man. The boss is good to me. Don’t disrespect him,” she said, moving her nose an inch from his. “That goes for my niece too.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sterling waved for his attention behind Rita and pointed to her hair, mouthing,Compliment. The. Wig.
“I like your… hair?” he said.
“Why, thank you,” said Rita, softening. “Everyone tells me it makes me look like Tina Turner.” Rita loved when people said that, because it set up one of her favorite stories. She snapped her fingers at Sterling, requesting another beer and one for the gentleman, as she began. “I was in LA in 1994 during the Northridge earthquake, hiding in an apartment with Tina Turner’s piano player…”
Before Andreas reached answers about the night of the murder, he’d have to wander some side streets—and accept that beer. Rita didn’t trust a man who declined a drink, said it meant he was afraid to let his guard down. Andreas took it, slid a few elephants aside,and sat on a clothes trunk. They clinked bottles, saidProst, and by the time his was nearly empty, he was getting answers.
“I left the bar at three, got home twenty minutes later, same as usual,” said Rita, tapping her nails against the bottle resting on her knee. “The lights were out when I arrived but switched on a second or two later. Fernando helped me upstairs. Damn elevator was too cold to move. I could tell his mood was off; he said we had some unwelcome guests. I heard about Hedy the next morning.”
“So you were acquainted?”
