by Ann Aptaker
I lean back into the soft embrace of the pillows, light a cigarette, and let the tobacco soothe me body and soul. I’m enjoying the smoke and my solitude—my first moments alone since I examined the Dürer on Drogan’s tug more than six hours ago—when Vivienne swooshes in, her deep purple satin robe billowing around her like a storm cloud.
At thirty-two, Vivienne still isn’t finished being beautiful, and with her perfect bones molded by a century or so of privilege and breeding, she probably never will be. She has big green eyes like those of a palace cat, and full rosy lips that missed their calling in the better brothel trade. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair is tousled from sleep, with wild strands curling down her cheek and highlighting the real zest in Vivienne’s beauty, a bloodline inheritance that seeps through from her up-from-the-gutter great-grandfather, Malachi Trent, founder of the family dynasty. He was a brawler from the slums who had the brains to recognize the efficiency of steamships over sailing vessels, and the brute personality to steal his first ship and then kick competitors out of the way. Brutishness has since been bred out of the Trent line, but there’s still something of the back alley in Vivienne, some vestige of the raw, vulgar life of the old New York slums. It’s in the fullness of her body, the sinuous but slightly savage way she moves. It’s a trait she’s not even aware of, which makes it twice as delicious.
I get up from the sofa to greet her. Nearing me, she says, “If you’re showing up in the middle of the night, it can’t be good.” That stings, even though it rides on a voice velvety as fine wine.
“Well, hello to you, too.”
“So why are you here at this ungodly hour, and what kind of trouble did you have to get into to get that nasty bruise on your chin?” She says this as she sits down on the sofa, a move earthy and graceful at the same time, her body carving its curves around her, but touching down light as air on the sofa cushions. The woman makes me dizzy.
“Hannah Jacobson is dead.”
Vivienne’s “Oh—?” is part whispered, part choked. “Well…I mean, she was elderly and I guess she—”
“She was murdered.” I’m still standing when I say it but sit down next to Vivienne when she reaches for my hand, clutches it, like grabbing a lifeline. She’s holding tight enough to make the tips of her fingers go white, which makes her red-polished nails look even redder.
Slowly and with the difficulty that comes from dealing with rotten news, she asks, “Do you know who killed her?”
“No, and the cops don’t know much either, except that someone cut her. Cut her face to pieces, too. And the Dürer I delivered to her tonight? Gone.”
The mention of the Dürer grabs Vivienne’s attention. “Cantor, do the police know about the picture?”
“No, but they know I had some connection to Mrs. J. They know I didn’t kill her, but they’ll knock themselves out trying to tie me in to it.”
“Please, you’ve got to keep the police from learning about that watercolor.”
“And keep your name out of it?” I say, more cruelly than I intended.
Dropping my hand and shrinking from me as if I suddenly smell bad, Vivienne leans back against the floral pillows but keeps her eyes on me, those big green eyes full of reprimand for my inexcusable nerve in talking back to my betters. Frankly, her high society act gives me a chuckle.
Slowly, though, that haughty look in her eyes softens, darkens with emotions turned inward. Almost sighing but not quite, she says, “Yes, of course you’re right. I shouldn’t be so cavalier about what happened to Hannah Jacobson. She really was a sweet old thing. But you must understand, Cantor, I can’t allow my name to be mixed up with anything sordid.”
“Oh, come on, Vivienne. The Parkhursts and Trents before you supplied New York with some of the city’s juiciest society scandals. They found ways to ride out the notoriety, and so can you. Look, I’ll do what I can to keep your name out of it, but let’s face it—you come from a long line of scoundrels. There was even a murder, if I’m not mistaken.”
“It was a duel,” she says, defending the family honor with a sniff.
“Maybe in your neighborhood. Under the boardwalk we called it a shootout.”
All she does is tsk and wave the comparison away, though weakly. Maybe sticking a fancy word like duel onto a plain old murder clogs the slum bloodline in Vivienne’s veins. Anyway, the society snootiness is gone, or at least mellowed, replaced by the nervousness of a woman who feels vulnerable and isn’t accustomed to the feeling.
I almost feel sorry for her. Vivienne Parkhurst Trent doesn’t know how to survive weakness. She wasn’t bred for it. It’s interesting to watch her flounder in this unfamiliar territory, her attitude shifting from her usual haughty command of the room to that of a woman trying not to go weak in the knees. The pampered princess is gone, replaced by a worried Everywoman forced to face a threatening world. “It’s not just personal scandal that worries me, Cantor,” she says. “Well, not too much, anyway. It’s the damage the scandal will do to my professional reputation. If I’m connected in any way to the stolen Dürer, I’d be ruined as a scholar. The museum would bury me.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “After all the canvases and crockery I’ve brought them on your say-so? You can’t wander around the place without tripping over something I’ve risked my life to get for them. Listen, if this Jacobson business blows hard enough to lift your skirts, guess who’ll get caught hiding under there? Those guys at the museum will have a helluva time staying hidden behind your legs. And, anyway, even if they do make you the scapegoat, you won’t starve, Vivienne.” I spread my hands around the elegant room.
The look she gives me is the kind I usually see after I’ve given some puffed-up brawler a slam to the gut or a wallop to the jaw and they can’t believe I did it. “Damn you, Cantor! Maybe you don’t care that I’d lose everything I’ve worked so hard for, but I do. I’ve given my whole life to earning respect for my work. I’ve even passed up marriage—three times, I’ll have you know—so I’d have no other claims on my time.” The marriage news nearly floors me, but I don’t let on. She’s angry enough at me as it is, points a scolding finger at me and says, “You’ve been around the art game long enough to know how tough it is for a woman to get a curatorship, even with my doctorate and a research and publishing history that stands up to anything those bearded troglodytes at the museum ever wrote. Money didn’t buy my curatorship at the museum, Cantor. I earned it.”
“I know that, Vivienne.”
“Do you? I wonder. Now give me a cigarette.”
There aren’t many pleasures in life as sweet as being told off—and deserving to be told off—by a beautiful woman in a shimmering satin robe that’s clinging in the right places and sliding revealingly in others. The temptation to make my move and maybe finally get to see Vivienne’s bedroom, or run the interesting risk of getting slapped in the face, is becoming as impossible to ignore as light strokes to the groin. But I’m here about the ugly business of murder, and that’s a lousy pretext for romance.
So I just take my lighter and my pack of smokes from my pocket and offer Vivienne a cigarette. “All right, we’re even now,” I say. “Didn’t mean to be so rough on you. I’m just tired. It’s been a helluva night.” She cups my hand between hers when I light her cigarette. Her touch is soft as silk and slips away too soon, those red-polished fingernails glinting in the lamplight. I wonder if Vivienne has the slightest idea how difficult she’s making it for me to maintain my good manners and keep my hands to myself.
I figure I’d better do the smart thing and bring the conversation back to business. “Think, Vivienne. Did anyone else know that you were working with Mrs. Jacobson before she signed on with me? She has family here in New York. Did they know?”
“I’ve never met her family. And if she mentioned my name to them, she didn’t say. Oh God, I hope not.” Leaning toward me, cigarette smoke catching lamplight as it curls along her cheek, she says, “You know, I liked Mrs. Jacobson, Cantor. I rea
lly wanted to help her. I tried my best to get her family’s art back. You believe me, don’t you?”
“Any reason I shouldn’t?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay then, we can still help Mrs. Jacobson. We can honor her memory and we can help each other, too. I can help keep the cops away from you and you can help me track down the Dürer.”
“Well, yes, of course, whatever I can do. Just what do you have in mind?”
“Listen, you’re more than likely acquainted with all the interested parties in town. And frankly, I don’t know if Mrs. J was killed for the picture or if the killer saw it in the living room and stole it as an afterthought or if it was the killer who stole it at all. But if we want to keep the cops out of our hair, we’ve got to figure out this business before they do. So try to remember, Vivienne. Did Hannah Jacobson ever mention anyone who seemed too inquisitive? Did she seem frightened?”
“Frightened? No, she seemed like the sort of woman who was on an even keel.”
“What about the Dürer? Anyone besides Mrs. J ever show excessive interest in it? Maybe someone who knew the Jacobsons before the War?”
She stubs out the half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray on a side table and shakes her head. “I really don’t know much about her former life or who she knew in those days, Cantor. You know, before the War the Jacobson collection was written about in a number of scholarly journals. I even wrote an article about it myself.”
“Yeah, I read it.”
“You did?” She looks at me like she just found out I read something beyond the Daily Racing Form.
“Sure. Don’t be so surprised. I do my homework,” I say, diverting the insult. “It’s just good business. Now, you were saying about Hannah Jacobson?”
A little less haughty now—but only a little, which is okay by me, since a bit of haughtiness looks good on her—she says, “Yes, well, that article is how Mrs. Jacobson knew about me, why she thought I could help her get her family’s art back. The problem was that after the collection was confiscated by the Nazis and the pieces dispersed, God knows where, the thread of information was broken. Most of the scholars who’d followed the Jacobson holdings turned their attention to more accessible collections. So I don’t…” Her own attention wanders off then makes a slow U-turn and arrives back with a light in her eyes. “You know, there is someone who just might know if there’s been any under-the-table interest in the Dürer. Max Hagen.”
“Of the Pauling-Barnett auction house? Now there’s a guy I’d like to do business with, but he’s never let me anywhere near him.”
“I’m not surprised. Max can be very exclusive in his associations, and he doesn’t like to take risks. And believe me, you really are risky business, Cantor. But even though he doesn’t do business with you, he knows all about you. He even told me he’d love to get his hands on the Dürer, but not through you.”
“Oh, really?” I say, sarcasm dripping from me, thick as molasses. It’s meant to cover my annoyance at being snubbed by Hagen, but it’s not quite doing the job. “Just how did Hagen know I was bringing in the Dürer? Only you, Hannah Jacobson, and three other people in all of New York knew how the job worked, and those three work for me. They don’t even know Hagen and wouldn’t betray me to him if they did.” I lean a little closer to her, bringing the last of it home for the kill. “So why’d you do it, Vivienne? After all our deals together, I thought I could trust you.”
She shrinks away from me with the hurt feelings of a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “You can trust me, Cantor. I’ve never betrayed you, and I didn’t now. Not really. I know Max. He’s as discreet as stone when it comes to acquisitions, so I knew he wouldn’t blab about it. And I did it for Hannah Jacobson, anyway. Max said he had a buyer who would’ve made her a terrific offer, enough money to set her up for life. I told you, I really liked her. I wanted to help her!”
I let all that work through me, sort itself out into pieces I can handle, in part because I have no choice—I need to keep working with Vivienne if I hope to track the Dürer and maybe Mrs. J’s killer—and in part because I’m a sucker for her gorgeous green eyes and everything that’s behind them and below them.
So I soften my attitude a bit and say, “I assume you can get me to Hagen?”
“Of course.” I suppose I’m flattered that she seems relieved to be back in my good graces. Anyway, an interesting smile slides across those brothel-worthy lips when she says, “For a price.”
“Yeah? What sort of price? Maybe a Michelangelo you want me to put in your hands?”
“No, not a Michelangelo.”
“What then? What little gem are you asking me to risk my life for, Vivienne?”
“It’s not your life I want you to risk. It’s your equilibrium.”
“My equi—? Don’t tease, Vivienne. All I need you to do is introduce me to Hagen, then you can be safely out of the rest of it. We can go to his office when the auction house opens this morning, say our hellos, and then you can say your good-byes.”
“No, not at the auction house. Max won’t see you there. It’s too public. But he’s having a small gathering this evening at his place. Very select, very discreet. Do you have a dinner jacket?” She fingers the lapel of my suit and says, “Yes, of course you do,” almost in a whisper, and strokes the silk fabric slowly, even tenderly, then suddenly stops, as if she’s afraid she’ll wake the pinstripes and they’ll rise up and snare her.
Before I can get a grip on Vivienne’s first-time-ever intimacy with me or catch my breath at her abrupt stop, she’s up from the sofa and almost to the door, calling over her shoulder, “Do something about that ugly bruise on your chin, Cantor, and be here at eight tonight. Escort me to Max’s party. That’s my price.”
*
I haven’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours. I’m exhausted from swinging in the wind in the harbor, and from the cops, the murder, Vivienne, the night. By the time I get home and crawl into bed, my bones drag along like lead pipes and my mind feels like dead space. The only thing I’m aware of as I fall asleep is that my bedsheets still smell of Rosie and me.
Chapter Five
“Get up!” stabs in my ears. My eyes pop open as the rest of me is yanked from my pillow by a gorilla pulling me up by the neck of my undershirt.
The gorilla is a thug named Screwy Sweeney. His stupid eyes and lumpy face are so close to mine his hat brim is squashed against my forehead. His stinking breath clogs my nose and throat with the stench of cheap cigars.
I fight like hell to push him off, but he’s got the bigger hands and the better angle. I can’t budge him. Screwy’s a stubborn galoot who earned his moniker after too many bruising bouts as a bottom-of-the-card fighter screwed his brains up, which makes him the best kind of thug: big muscles, powerful hands, too stupid to think for himself.
These days, the guy doing Screwy’s thinking is a hissing snake named Jimmy Shea, the Mob’s enforcer around the waterfront. Jimmy and his gang of cutthroats make sure the Big Boys get their bags of cash, and unless you want a bullet in the head, your throat slashed, or your brains bashed in, you don’t hold back from skinny Jimmy. He’s thin as a crowbar and just as hard, with ice-blue slit-like eyes, murderer’s eyes that I hope won’t be the last eyes looking at me but might, because he’s sitting in my bedroom, opposite the foot of my bed. His fedora’s on his lap and his coat’s open, exposing a badly tailored gray suit that can’t hide the bulge of his gun under his jacket. Sure, Jimmy’s got enough dough for better threads, he’s just cheap.
“Good morning, Cantor,” he says. His wheezy, high-pitched voice is as sociable as wind whistling through a dark alley.
“So far”—I manage to rasp through Screwy’s tightening grip on my undershirt, strangling my neck—“there’s nothing good…about this morning. Get Screwy off me…and maybe there’ll be a…slight improvement.”
Jimmy lets me gag a little bit longer before he finally calls it off. “Let ’er go, Screwy.”
My head snaps back against the headboard when the galoot lets go of me, adding another indignity to my already undignified wake up. Getting Screwy’s hands off my neck and escaping the stink of his cigar breath does improve the morning, but not by much. There’s still the problem of Jimmy Shea in my bedroom. “How’d you get in here, Jimmy? My building super isn’t the sort of guy who opens apartments to just anybody. Or maybe you left him lying bloodied in the hall, or did Screwy just break my door down.”
Jimmy doesn’t crack a smile or even bother with a nasty sneer. His attitude just stays flat and cold and hard. “Nah, nothin’ so showy,” he says. “Just like you, Cantor, I know a useful thing or two. Little inconveniences like locks don’t stop us, do they.”
“No, I guess not. All right, so you picked the locks downstairs and on my front door. Couldn’t you just ring my doorbell?”
“I rang. I got no answer.”
“Maybe I wasn’t home.”
“Maybe you was still in bed. Maybe I was interruptin’ somethin’. You got a hot reputation, according to some.” He says this through a humorless grin so thin and sharp it could shred my bedsheets. I pull the sheets a little tighter around me while he keeps talking through that razor-like grin. “How’d you get that bruise on your chin, Cantor? Rough trade, maybe?”
I’ve learned to ignore the crap people throw at me about who I am and who I bed. I don’t give a damn what they think. I don’t give a damn what Jimmy thinks. It’s his smarmy way about it, though, that makes me want to bash his teeth in. But even with bashed-in teeth he’d be able to talk, and the first words out of his mouth would be to tell Screwy to break my neck.
My bedside clock reads just a few minutes after eight, which gives me an excuse to change the subject. “I didn’t know you were such an early riser, Jimmy. I thought big shots like you lie around with breakfast in bed.”
“I’m a busy guy, Cantor. I can’t let the day slip away from me. Can’t let people slip away, either.”
