"According to my reliable source," Auntie Lil confirmed.
T.S. sighed. Auntie Lil never gave away a name when the chance to show off a "reliable source" arose. She had seen All the President's Men once too often. But he had no doubt that her source probably was reliable. Which wasn't the same as being infallible. "Maybe they made a mistake," he warned her. "The police might have gone to the wrong apartment."
"That's what I want to check out." She was scanning the signs of the decrepit handful of bars that dotted the Westside Highway. Most were carved out of abandoned warehouses or deserted terminals. "What a colorful neighborhood!" she cried out gaily, but her attempt fell flat. Both T.S. and Herbert were distinctly uneasy. It was as if Hell's Kitchen had abruptly given up its fight for respectability. Only danger, dirt and drunken dreams could be found along this particular stretch of lonely sidewalk.
"Why would someone choose to imbibe at such a place?" Herbert Wong wondered out loud. They had found the Westsider. It was a corner bar with windows thickly coated over with black paint. The sign, faded and dangling from a single chain, slapped against the side of the building with a dull thud every time a truck roared past— which was frequently, since the only barrier between the bar and the Westside Highway was a narrow concrete sidewalk.
Inside the Westsider was even less uplifting. For starters, it smelled sour, and old, like the bottom of a long forgotten keg of beer. The floor was cracked linoleum and coated with a sticky scum that made little sucking noises every time they lifted their feet. A row of torn fake-leather booths lined one wall and the tables between the ripped, overstuffed seats were marred by years of scratched-in initials and vaguely disreputable stains that were clearly visible even given the almost nonexistent lighting. The bar was nearly as dark as a tomb and only slightly more lively. A television at one end blared championship wrestling. The only other patron was a toothless old man perched at one end of a long bar. He was sucking down a juice glass full of watery draft beer as he watched the televised action. Occasionally, he'd grunt with satisfaction or hoot in glee at a particularly nasty body slam.
The bartender was a barrel-shaped woman clad in a too-tight yellow knit shirt and bright blue polyester pants. She wore black glasses of a cat-eye style popular thirty years before. Her obviously dyed blonde hair swirled above her head like the top of a frozen custard ice cream cone. Some sailor had left her there in 1944, T.S. decided, and never looked back.
Engrossed in the wrestling, the bartender hardly looked up when they entered. Apparently, a little old lady dressed in expensive clothes and accompanied by an impeccably clad Asian gentleman and middle-aged executive type was not an unusual sight around the Westsider. Nor did the bartender seem interested that, between them, they were hauling seven pocketbooks.
"Hear no evil, see no evil," Herbert remarked.
They chose the booth closest to the door where the air was a little bit fresher. T.S. piled the pocketbooks into a heap in the middle of the battle-worn table.
"Drinks?" Auntie Lil suggested brightly.
"Not without an inoculation first," T.S. declared.
"Where do we begin?" Herbert picked up a small green suede bag. "Examine the contents and guess which one is hers?"
"No. We can do better than that," Auntie Lil decided. "The other actresses insist that Emily always carried a matching handbag. She was wearing a light blue dress with black trim that day."
"Are you sure?" T.S. asked. Last time he had seen Emily, she was wearing a rubber sheet and nothing more. Details on her dress had flown right out the window after that.
"It was a Walter Williams original," Auntie Lil announced confidently. "First appearing in his Fall '59 line. Available at Saks and Bergdorf Goodman's in New York. And at selected finer establishments across the country. Retailing at $130, which was not peanuts back then."
Herbert hee-heed quietly as if he had just heard an irresistible joke and T.S. had to be content with rolling his eyes. He should have known better than to question her ability to remember a dress.
"So, it was either this black one here…" she placed it to one side and continued, "or this black one. Possibly this brown one, though I would certainly disapprove. The white one is out. She had better sense