by Marlowe Benn
He lifted the fallen strap of her dress.
“She didn’t exactly come to me. When I went up to see what had happened, she was there. Kneeling beside his body.”
CHAPTER 24
Julia jerked upright. “What?”
Wallace clasped her knee. “You must swear on whatever’s holy that you won’t repeat any of this. It would only make things worse for Eva. I’m serious, Julia. Promise me.”
“Of course.” She twisted to face him. “What happened?”
He took another deep breath, gathering his thoughts. “When I left Carlotta’s that night, I ran into Senator James. He and I went on to the Half-Shell. After Eddie’s late show—he was in fine form that night—we retired to my office to discuss a few matters over an excellent bottle of Scotch. The next thing I knew, Bobby Hobart’s on the telephone. I could hardly understand him. He said Timson was dead, shot. He wanted my help.”
So Kessler had been right about Wallace’s political ambitions. No wonder he was circumspect about helping Eva.
“I rushed back there, grabbed the keys from Bobby, and ran upstairs. I unlocked the door and saw Leonard, obviously dead, with Eva beside him.”
Julia held his forearm as she listened.
He stroked her fingers, perhaps to loosen their grip. “Poor kid. She was hysterical.”
“Did she have a gun?”
“No. I didn’t have time to think of much, but I did check that. I told her to hide in the alley until I could get to her. She ran into the bedroom and disappeared.”
“So you knew about the back staircase?”
Wallace massaged his jaw, roughening the new day’s beard. “I did then. She told me that’s how she got in.”
“Any sign of the manuscript?”
“No. Leonard’s holster was on the chair, but his gun was gone and the safe was empty. Otherwise the place didn’t seem disturbed. I hustled downstairs to send Edgar around for Eva in the alley. I had him take her to a flat in the Lester, a building I own on West 146th.”
He smiled faintly. “It’s a flat I keep as a favor for friends who need a place their wives don’t know about. The car had just turned out of sight when the cops came roaring up, as they do. I told everything—almost everything—to the precinct men and then to the detective from the homicide bureau.”
“Hannity,” said Julia. She felt herself relaxing. Everything Wallace was telling her matched what she knew from Kessler and Jerome. He might have lied to her about his roles—his quite illegal roles—in helping both Eva and Jerome escape, but he hadn’t. True to his word, he’d shared everything about his involvement in the matter, which was considerable.
In doing so, he’d placed complete trust in Julia. She now knew enough to destroy his reputation and credibility, at least with Kessler and the police, which would cripple his political ambitions. It was a gift, she realized, a gesture of good faith in her and in their budding relationship. He was repaying her suspicion with humbling candor.
“Hannity,” he affirmed. “Then Kessler showed up, and he wanted the whole story too. They were nervous as cats, knowing the place could blow sky-high.”
As if remembering that fear, he wrapped a protective arm around her.
Julia breathed in a lungful of that intoxicating scent, then freed herself and stood. Not yet. She couldn’t think clearly when he was so close. “You didn’t tell the police you saw her?”
“No. She was terrified, but not with guilt. I’m convinced she didn’t kill him.”
So he’d lied to the police too. Of course—his own neck was on the line for helping her escape. Even so, that lie had saved Eva from certain arrest, and he’d freely admitted it. His trust was breathtaking.
Julia felt an urge to take his face between her hands, to feel the muscles of his jaw. She turned and paced to the windows. “When did you see her again?”
“I had to bide my time. Until they checked with James, I was a major suspect. When he finally cleared my story, Kessler asked for my help. I promised I’d try to keep a lid on Bobby and his men. The place was a tinderbox.”
She nudged aside the heavy velvet. The sky was starless. “And Eva?”
Wallace joined her and swept back the drapery. They were high above the park, above cresting waves of treetops. On the avenue below, a few headlamps plied the dark pools between streetlights. “I got to the Lester about nine that night. I told her I could help only if she let the police question her. It was risky, but we had no choice. The next morning she walked into the local precinct like she’d promised, and they carted her downtown.”
He let the curtain fall into place with a dustless rustle. “You know the rest.”
Julia rested two fingertips in the gap between her lips as she thought. She barely registered the faint pressure when Wallace kissed her hair. “What about Jerome Crockett?” she asked. “Where did he fit in?”
“My men got him out of sight that morning too, because Eva begged me to, but I’m not convinced he’s as clueless as he lets on. He’s a smart man. He could be playing a hand I can only guess at. But as long as he stays put and keeps his head down, he can’t do her any harm.”
“What do you know about her manuscript?”
“I know it’s missing. I know Eva’s worried about it. Beyond that, nothing. Why?”
“That manuscript has to be the key. It must be why Timson was murdered.”
He brushed hair back from her face, fingers lingering above her ear. “If I knew anything, I’d tell you. We just have to hope, for Eva’s sake, that Kessler turns up something.” He tilted her face to make certain she understood the import of his words.
She did—the all-important we—and met his kiss. But before a corner could be turned, she pulled back. “And now?”
“And now each day Eddie does his Ethel magic, Carlotta’s settles down a bit more. I doubt they care much anymore who shot Leonard—or why, for that matter. Sometimes it’s best just to move on, as I keep trying to convince Kessler. But if I can’t, and nothing turns up by next weekend, you heard me say I’d help them search.” He touched his nose to hers. “I lied, Julia. A whopper.”
She smiled.
“I plan to prove remarkably inept at finding her. I hope she can rely on your bungling as well.”
She smiled again. At last they were where she’d hoped to be from the start, on the same side, working together to find a safe path forward for Eva.
The joke faded as somewhere water pipes labored awake. Someone was about.
“Mrs. Hoskins,” Wallace said. “She gets up at a ghastly hour every morning to take care of God knows what all.”
Julia thought of the hallway of closed doors. “You must have a large household.”
“Just four. Mrs. Hoskins, plus Edgar and Archie and my man Farraday, but he sleeps at the other end of the apartment.”
“It seems large enough for more.”
“There’s space for six, I believe, though for all I know Mrs. Hoskins grows orchids in those rooms. She’ll be bustling in here soon.” Wallace took her hand. “Come. Let me show you the rest of the apartment.”
He led her down the long hallway with its ornate wainscoting to the north end of the apartment. As they approached a beautifully carved pair of walnut doors on their right, he swept open a door to their left. Julia admired a large windowless billiards room, pungent with tobacco. He gestured her around the hallway’s bend. The carved doors remained closed, ignored. Why? Surely another wondrous room lay beyond them. Why pass it by? Was this the place? Was Eva inside, just yards away?
Julia steadied her voice. “What’s in that room?”
“Only my library. Off limits, I’m afraid. My important papers are in there.” He led her on to a final pair of even more magnificent carved doors. These Wallace swung open. It was a grand bedroom, presumably his own. The bed was gargantuan, a continent of ecru satin that may have once served a French duke or Italian count. Here were more seascapes, one almost certainly a Turner, and a collection of Chinese bronze figures P
hilip would envy.
Wallace watched as she moved about the room. A deep oriental carpet hushed all sound. As she loitered in front of the Turner, he joined her, hands on her shoulders. “Satisfied?”
She laid her cheek on his knuckles. “Why won’t you tell me?”
He laughed. “Because I care about her, and you.” More quietly he added, “Julia?”
Even now it was a question. The choice to stay or go was hers.
Oh yes. She was past the point of rational choice, except for one thing. She drew him back down the hall to the locked doors. “In there.”
He gave another short laugh. “Curiosity over comfort?”
From his pocket he pulled a ring of keys. They jangled loudly as he sorted them. Was it deliberate? Julia strained to listen but heard only the rattling keys. Was Eva crouching on the other side, afraid? She couldn’t know who was coming or if it meant Wallace’s betrayal. But if she was there, she was silent.
Wallace found the key. He threw back first one heavy bolt, then a second. He pushed open the doors, and Julia saw a magnificent panorama of red streaks bleeding into the predawn sky. The drapes had not been drawn, and a chill glazed the air. Nothing stirred. No one was there.
Arms folded, Wallace watched her slowly circle the large room with tall windows on two sides. A massive desk faced them at the far end, its surface orderly. On the floor lay a great white bearskin, its head toward the desk, fanged in a perpetual roar.
“An indulgence of questionable taste,” Wallace murmured.
Julia completed her circuit, avoiding the bearskin. The two interior walls were lined with eight-foot walnut bookcases, all with locking glass doors. They held a mixture of moderately valuable old tomes—no doubt imported by the cubic yard from some destitute European estate library—and several shelves of purely functional volumes: New York state and municipal civil codes and statutes, books pertaining to business and financial regulations and procedures. Dozens of custom-bound file boxes, their leather blind-tooled with Wallace’s distinctive mirrored monogram, filled the lower shelves. Each was neatly identified with a handwritten paper label. His business documents: the leather-coffined ranks of loan contracts and mortgages, the clean carnage of modern hunters.
This was indeed his inner sanctum. A fine layer of dust confirmed no housekeeper had entered in some time. Even so, the man was as orderly and exact in his business records as in his person. Only a few boxes showed signs of recent activity—the dust swiped from the shelf’s edge—yet they were aligned in perfect symmetry with their fellows.
Julia scanned the room again but saw nothing else. No hairpins, no overlooked glove, no trace of face powder.
Wallace unfolded his arms. “Mistrust does not become you, my dear.” He took her by the shoulders for a kiss that pitched her head back, stopped her breath. It was swift and powerful. This time there was no question. No solicitude, no choosing. He thrust his knee between her thighs, and she would have fallen had he not gripped her so tightly their hearts beat like trapped birds against each other. This time was all decision: he’d paid penance enough.
Her dress fell to the floor in a few deft gestures. Gravity shifted, and she too went down, to the island of white fur at her back. The beast beneath her roared. She saw the arch of its tooth, the arch of her foot. With a seize of air, she felt its clench in her belly and its claw in her breast. Then all thought narrowed to the silk sweeping down her calves, the hands sweeping up.
She lurched at the sudden clatter of a telephone bell. Wallace swore, a harsh and vulgar growl. His jaw tightened; his eyes narrowed in subdued fury.
A man’s reluctant voice—the unfortunate Farraday?—came through the door: “Very sorry to disturb you, sir, but Mr. Kessler says it’s urgent.”
CHAPTER 25
Edgar delivered her home, maneuvering the Duesenberg through the maze of dairy trucks and bakery vans. Julia could barely stammer her gratitude before fleeing up the steps to Philip’s apartment. Her head pounded in turbulent confusion—at Kessler’s cryptic summons, at Wallace’s terse retreat, at her need to muster composure (please, God, let her clothing not be too askew) and follow a sleepy Edgar down into the breaking dawn. Every nerve felt stretched to thrumming, tuned to the brink of a great chord and then abandoned.
Not one word had been spoken beyond that profane snarl of frustration. Wallace might have glanced an apology at her, but his weight had already shifted to his knees, his mind already turning to trouble’s greater urgency. His desire had been real, but was it also unremarkable? She felt foolish and unsteady.
She let herself into the dark apartment. From the library came the eerie trickle of a Chopin nocturne. Philip!
Had Kessler found Eva? Was Philip up at this appalling hour to share the news that Wallace hadn’t?
Julia pushed apart the doors. Philip sat in the dark, hunched over the keys. He finished a phrase and lifted his hands. “Good morning,” he said.
“Any news from Kessler?”
He looked at her quizzically. “Should there be?”
Her hopes fell. Kessler would have called Philip had there been a breakthrough. His business with Wallace must have concerned something else. She felt dismay and relief in equal measure.
“Why are you up?” she asked. Her tone was curt with a new suspicion.
“Can’t a man inspect his soul in a private hour?”
Not with her foul temper in the room. “Were you waiting up for me?”
When he lowered his eyes to the keyboard, she leaped at his presumption. “How dare you! I’m not a child. You have no right to monitor my comings and goings. Who I see, and when and how, is of no possible concern of yours. None!” It was histrionic, as shrill as the prickling nerves that Wallace had so powerfully awakened.
Philip swiveled. “I may not be a blood relation,” he said, “but I’m entitled to concern for a friend, a friend who is foolishly straying into territory whose hazards she cannot begin to fathom.”
They rarely spoke of their sibling charade. Until now they’d sidestepped the consequences, or limits, of that ruse. Was she fair to enjoy Philip’s generosity as a brother while forbidding him to behave like one? But surely a brother’s prerogative was grounded in trust and regard more than blood ties per se. Which raised the more fundamental question: They were not related, but were they friends?
It was a question that could only answer itself.
“I am acquainted with men, Philip. I have known many, a few quite well indeed. I can judge for myself who will suit. I can perceive hazards for myself—or declare them to be no such thing.”
She dropped onto the sofa and saw that her left stocking was spiraled hastily up her calf. She crossed her legs, hoping Philip wouldn’t notice. But he would. No one had a keener eye. And even a child could see she’d had a disastrous night. She’d lost her hat to the Half-Shell’s hellish heat, and her crumpled frock no doubt reeked of perspiration and cigarettes. She couldn’t bear to face his wry teasing about her failed evening.
But he said nothing. He looked rough too. Barefoot, he wore loose trousers under a black dressing gown. His hair fell into his eyes, despite frequent swipes to push it away. He too had not slept, or only badly. They were a fine pair, and yes, she realized, however unlikely and uncertainly, they were friends.
“I am an adult,” she repeated, temper mostly spent. “Why is it so hard to trust a woman to choose her own company? I might choose badly, as anyone might. But let me choose for myself. I can survive mistakes. I have survived plenty already.”
“No doubt. It’s this particular mistake I cannot swallow. I’m sorry, but I can’t say more than that.”
As he spoke, his eyes rested on the large oil portrait of Lillian Vancill hanging over the mantel, beside that of his putative parents, Milo and Charlotte, with him as an infant. The sisters had always struck Julia as two versions of the same brunette beauty. Lillian glowed with a robust energy, glinting with defiance as if daring the painter to capture her unladylike
forward tilt and slightly parted knees beneath a bright-red dress. In contrast, Charlotte was almost ethereal, a guttering flame (she’d be dead seven years later) to Lillian’s blazing torch.
“It must be terrible to grieve in secret,” Julia said quietly, not sure if this was a subject she was allowed to broach. They’d never really spoken of his true parentage.
Philip nodded so slowly she might have imagined it. “She claimed to be a hussy, you know, at least in her diaries. She brandished the word like a trophy. I can only imagine how she earned it.”
“By speaking her mind,” Julia said, remembering the sharp-tongued old woman. “Breaking the rules. Even the biggest rule of all—the one you saw fit to remind me of just now.”
“Celibacy, you mean?” Philip colored slightly. “You know that’s not my concern.” Julia marveled: the man who could stare down most social conventions blushing at the delicate subject.
“But yes,” he went on, “she broke the rules.” He dipped his head to acknowledge himself as living proof. “And with considerable relish, it seems.”
Julia hesitated. This was fragile territory; did she have the right to nudge into his privacy? No—if he wished to say more, he would. She would welcome his thoughts but not prompt them.
“She was a wily thing, sly no end.” He contemplated the glowing tip of his cigarette. “What secrets the old gal had. And like a puffed-up young strut, I never thought to ask about them. ‘Spinster aunt,’ my eye. What rubbish to assume she led a dull life.”
His expression was solemn but not guarded. The usual hank of black hair hung down his forehead like a stiletto grazing his right eyebrow. His cheekbones cast sharp shadows in the low light. It struck her again that with a slick of oil he could pass for Nijinsky himself.
“You might be the son of a sheik,” Julia said.
Philip’s eyes widened at the teasing speculation. “Old Milo would turn in his grave. Imagine leaving his fortune to an Arab urchin.” He coughed through a wry smile. “Pardon me. Half his fortune.”
Julia smiled too. They’d come a long way, to speak lightly of their old battle. “Reason enough for her silence. Just think of the scandal.” And the swooning, she added silently.
