Cold Morning by Ed Ifkovic Page A

generated no such masculine heat, none really, a notoriously sexless raconteur of the old Algonquin Round Table, who had long eschewed romance and intrigue. Obviously he’d missed his calling—he should have been starring on the Broadway boards.
    He had fought me about visiting the hapless Peggy Crispen, who’d shared a room with Annabel Biggs. On the stroll over he’d stressed that I was out of line.
    â€œBut why?” I’d insisted.
    â€œThere is no reason to visit this…this Peggy Crispen.”
    â€œShe was Annabel Biggs’ roommate—and a waitress who worked with her.”
    â€œSo what?” He’d stopped to catch his breath. “You’re already covering on e story, Edna. The one the Times is paying you for. This cheap murder is trivial stuff.”
    â€œI need to look into this story.”
    â€œFor what reason?” Exasperated, he pointed a finger at me. “Backwoods fornication is never original.”
    â€œReally, Aleck.”
    â€œLascivious louts and wanton waitresses.” He grinned. “How Victorian parlor of you.”
    Yet he’d agreed to accompany me, though hesitantly, insisting the wayward corners of small-town Flemington, once we departed from Main Street, were havens of immoral behavior and unseemly conduct. “I was in France during the Great War,” he told me. “I’ve seen the dregs.”
    I’d rolled my tongue into the corner of my cheek. “Well, I haunt the echoey alleys of Broadway, Aleck, where you maintain your warren. So I know firsthand the darkness at the end of the tunnel.”
    â€œYou think you’re clever, my darling. Please leave that to me.”
    Peggy Crispen occupied a small room on the second floor of a yellow clapboard-sided roominghouse a few blocks from the Union Hotel, a residential street behind the Women’s Exchange, whatever that was. A rundown building with peeling boards and hallways painted too many times so that dark, caked-on paint made the corridors cave-like, uninviting. A threadbare carpet on the stairwell, unraveling at the edges. A loose handrailing, the squeak, squeak of old steps. The nervous yip yip yip of a dog somewhere in the building. The aroma of burnt onions from a first-floor room.
    Peggy bowed us into the small room. Faded floral wallpaper—were those gigantic hollyhocks speckling the walls?—the seams splitting. A shabby wool carpet over rough oak boards. An ancient dresser someone had painted a sad orange. A curtain rustled as a breeze seeped through the old, rickety windowsill. A flophouse destination. I felt sorry for Peggy. Two single beds across from each other in the room, one doubtless belonging to the late Annabel. Sloppily made, covers uneven, both beds covered with knotted chenille spreads. A suitcase resting on the coverlet. A small pine table and two chairs by the window. Peggy spotted me looking at the suitcase on the bed, contents spilling out.
    â€œI been packing some of her belongings,” she pointed out. “Don’t know what else to do.” A shrug, helpless.
    â€œNo relatives?”
    She stared at the suitcase. “Nobody’s come forward. The landlord ain’t no help.”
    â€œMy dear, are we interrupting anything?” From Aleck, not me.
    She smiled at him as she jerked her shoulders toward the two chairs. “Sit, I guess.”
    Aleck settled his tremendous body into one of the chairs, which creaked and shimmied. Carefully, he balanced himself, then reached into a pocket to extract a cigarette holder. Peggy nodded toward a pack of Lucky Strikes on the table, and he took one, inserted it. Peggy reached for one and lit hers and his. “Miss Ferber?”
    I shook my head. “No, thank you.”
    â€œWell,” Aleck said to no one in particular, “I may end up on this sad floor.” The chair groaned.
    For some reason Peggy tittered at that and tossed him a quick, approving wave.