Murder and Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  I step inside the vault, marvel at the treasures there. I spot some of the pieces I’ve added to this hoard: a Caravaggio portrait of a prince from 1605; a sketch by Leonardo in preparation for his circa 1508 painting of Saint John the Baptist; a Fragonard portrait from 1767 of a voluptuous young girl; a preclassical Greek amphora from the Geometric period, around 750 BC; a Roman portrait bust of an aristocratic woman, circa 50 AD; a Neolithic clay pot from China, dated to around 3000 BC; and a filigreed gold and ruby-encrusted cross from medieval Tuscany that the Vatican still won’t admit is missing. In addition to what I’ve brought in, there’s more, much more. The abundance of color and the gleam of jewels, the shine of silver and gold, all of it threatens to overload my senses.

  There’s no unifying theme to all this, no narrative idea to tie it all together. It’s all just acquisition for acquisition’s sake, and now I know why every museum in the country wants it. There’s enough here to enrich every curatorial department in the building: ancient art, medieval art, Renaissance and Rococo paintings, art from Asia, carvings from Africa, pottery from the pre-Columbian Americas.

  “So you see, Cantor, this will be the Garraway legacy. No husband will ever get his hands on it.”

  There was something cold in her eyes, a chill I’d never noticed before. She didn’t love these treasures. She only loved the power and prestige they bring. I’m suddenly sorry I’ve provided any part of it.

  “An impressive collection,” is all I say as I walk out of the vault. I’m not about to insult someone who owes me thirty thousand dollars.

  “Thank you. It’s in honor of my father, so I wouldn’t want it to be anything less than impressive.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ve certainly succeeded. Who else has seen it?”

  “A few museum people here in New York, and a few from Chicago. My representative has shown photographs to important curators elsewhere. As a matter of fact, I’m expecting someone shortly.”

  “No doubt you’ll place it in a major institution.”

  “When the time comes.”

  “Speaking of time,” I slip in with a nod to my wristwatch, “I have to—”

  “Oh yes, of course. I don’t mean to keep you. Let’s go back into my office and complete our business.”

  Yes let’s.

  • • •

  An envelope stuffed with thirty thousand dollars creates quite a bulk in the inside pocket of my overcoat, so I’m anxious to get back to my office and lock the cash away in the wall safe behind my desk. Judson will record the transaction in code in the ledger books and figure in his cut and Rosie’s and Red Drogan’s. Another Cantor Gold operation will come to a satisfying end.

  Too bad it comes on a less than satisfying day. Sure, I’m happy that I’m thirty grand richer than I was this morning, but the morning brought murder and cops to my doorstep. No amount of money is going to fix that. It sure as hell can’t ease the kick to my guts over Lorraine Quinn ending up dead and bloody an hour after she left my bed. The woman never did me any harm. On the contrary, she gave me plenty of pleasure and a few hours relief from the pain of that wound that won’t heal. And the thirty g’s can’t get rid of the irritating problem of having a homicide cop bent on hanging the murder on me.

  I figure I have to do two things to make that situation better. One is to find out all I can about Lorraine Quinn in order to set Huber up with another suspect, and the other is to drown my guilt-ridden mood over Miss Quinn’s death. I hope to do the former with whatever information Judson digs up, and then maybe a night at the Green Door Club, tossing back tumblers of Chivas scotch and dancing with a pretty woman, can take care of the latter. Maybe the crowd at the Green Door can even fill in what I don’t know about Lorraine Quinn.

  These thoughts accompany me down the front stairs to the street, where my luck seems to be returning as a cab comes around the corner. I quickly hail it, but I needn’t have bothered. The cab stops in front of the Garraway place. I guess it brought the next salivating museum representative Eve mentioned she’s expecting. I hope the guy’s prepared for equal amounts of the big chill and the big thrill.

  But stepping out of the cab is no guy. It’s one of the few women curators in New York, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. Standing in the street in a softly swinging red wool coat trimmed in black chinchilla is a spectacular woman who’s reached the pinnacle of the museum world by the twin blessings of family lineage and hard work. The family name, Parkhurst Trent, got her through the door. Her brilliant mind and dedicated work resulted in becoming a respected expert in European Renaissance paintings, hired by the top museum here in New York. And the fact that she’s a stunner probably didn’t hurt. Such is the way of the world.

  As I come down the steps, the woman seems surprised to see me, then not surprised at all. Her softly coiffed waves of shoulder-length brunette hair shimmer below a red hat edged in chinchilla. Her big green eyes— probing, confident, haughty, like those of a pampered cat— regard me with the slightly derisive humor that’s the privilege of the privileged. Her half smile, the lipstick on her frankly voluptuous lips the exact shade of her coat and hat, of course, prefaces her simple greeting, “Cantor.” Her voice, even though just two little syllables, flows smooth as soft silk.

  “Vivienne,” I say, with a tip of my cap.

  “Adding to the Garraway collection?” she asks.

  “In my modest way,” I answer.

  “There’s nothing modest about you, Cantor.”

  “Except when I’m around you, Vivienne.”

  She likes my answer, at least I think so. It’s hard to tell with Vivienne. She has the breeding that allows her smile to remain cool and aloof, but there’s a spicier element, too, a bloodline that runs from her up-from-the-gutter great-grandfather, Malachi Trent, a brute who founded the family dynasty by brawling, bullying, and bribing his way to creating a maritime shipping fortune in old New York. Vivienne’s aristocratic Parkhurst breeding and the bawdier Trent bloodline are both evident in her eyes and in the way she moves her body, even the way she’s standing here in the street: chin up in high society arrogance, one hand on a thrust hip in a manner better suited to a streetwalker.

  “Oh my god,” she says, which I think is a rather harsh response to my feelings about being in her presence. But I realize she’s not looking at me. She’s looking up at the door to the Garraway house.

  I turn and look up, too. Desmond’s in the doorway, his eyes wide, his face tight, his butler’s getup askew. I can’t tell if the poor guy is relieved or surprised to see me still in front of the house. He finally raises his arm, stiff as a stick, awkwardly waves me to come inside, but casts a leery eye on Vivienne.

  “It’s okay,” I tell Desmond when Vivienne and I are up the stairs and at the door. “I can vouch for Miss Parkhurst Trent. Eve was expecting her.” I leave out that I’ve worked with Vivienne before, supplied her museum with some of Europe’s finest Renaissance and Baroque artwork.

  Nodding his acceptance of my assessment, the old thief leads us inside and upstairs, back to Eve’s office. His hand shakes when he opens the office door.

  My life of crime has hardened me to many things. I’m no stranger to violence, no Nervous Nellie in the face of death. But seeing Eve Garraway face down in a pool of blood on her office floor, a fancy knife with a carved ivory handle plunged deep in her back, shakes me to my core.

  The Sumerian votive statue is smashed to pieces beside her.

  Chapter Four

  A day that started off with two slaps to my face has rolled into the horror of two women dead at my feet. My whole world is tilted at a dizzying angle with nothing to grab onto to right it. And the breath that usually moves freely in and out of my lungs now stings, as if tainted with deadly poison. Wherever I breathe, someone dies. I’m afraid that my next exhale might poison Vivienne.

  Until I realize that she’s not beside me. Only Desmond and I and the corpse of Eve Garraway are in the room. I might figure that the murder
scene is too gruesome for Vivienne to bear, except I know that she’s a first-rate huntswoman, a crack shot who’s been known to bring down game, skin it, gut it, and have it served at her table with a savory sauce and fine wine. I know it because Vivienne’s skill with a rifle saved my life one night a few years ago after an art deal gone bad. She put a bullet into the forehead of a guy whose gun was aimed at me, and she did it from across the room, calm and calculating as a jungle cat. Vivienne Parkhurst Trent may have a society belle’s poise but she has Malachi Trent’s spine.

  My assessment’s right on the mark when she walks back into the room, cool as a Park Avenue cocktail. “I’ve telephoned the police,” she says, her voice steady.

  My annoyance is matched by Desmond’s alarm. Though he doesn’t know about the murder of Lorraine Quinn at my doorstep, he knows all about me. He knows about my criminal life. He knows that the cops would be only too happy to put me away for whatever they can make stick. With all that knowledge in his own outlaw mind, he grasps the situation fast. “Cantor,” he says, his bony frame tense under his butler’s duds, his thin voice edgy, “you must leave here immediately, before those blue-coated rascals arrive.”

  “Sure,” I say, “but before I go, Desmond: tell me, did you hear anyone come into the house? The place has a back garden, yes? Did you see or hear anyone roaming around back there?”

  “No, no one,” he says, his voice cracking as if he might break down and cry.

  “What about any strange sounds around the house? Like someone hiding inside, waiting for Eve to be alone?”

  “No, I didn’t hear anything after you left. As far as I know I was alone in the house. Except for Miss Garraway, that is.”

  If I didn’t know any better, I might raise an eyebrow about Desmond being the only other person in the house besides Eve. But an old pro like Desmond, an ex-con who knows the ropes, wouldn’t set up a murder that fingers him as the killer. And besides, the guy’s so loyal to the Garraways he’d probably walk in front of a truck to save Eve’s life.

  He says, “Listen, Cantor, after you left, I went to the kitchen to organize the lunch order from the Plaza. Miss Garraway has a standing order for them to supply lunch and dinner each day if she’s not dining out. After that, I went upstairs to talk to Miss Garraway about other household business. Like I said, I . . . I heard no one else, saw nobody, just Miss—” The poor guy can’t even look at Eve on the floor. Fixing a watery, worried eye on me instead, he says, “Leave here, Cantor. You must leave here now. The young lady and I will handle the blue devils.”

  I start to walk out, but Vivienne grabs my arm. “Just a minute, Cantor. Why are you worried about the police? You were outside with me when— oh,” she stops short. “Yes, of course. The police might think you killed Eve before you left the house. But what motive would you have?”

  First Desmond and then Vivienne look at me as if horns are slowly sprouting from my head. I can guess what’s on their minds, so I take my cap off to give them a better look. I even smile, a wiseacre smile that lets them know I’m on to them.

  There’s something especially snide in Desmond’s eyes. He knows to forget all that honor among thieves baloney. In the crime world, it’s grab what you can, kill if you must, and don’t trust anyone.

  I keep my smile, but back it up with a steely stare at Desmond and Vivienne. “I don’t have any motive. None. But I had thirty thousand reasons to be very happy with Eve Garraway,” I say, and pat the bulk where the thirty grand resides in my inside pocket, “and high hopes for an equally fruitful future. So you two can just ditch your crummy suspicions. And you, Desmond, you should know better. People like us never kill the golden goose. Well, almost never.” I put my cap back on.

  He snickers at my reference to the suspicion widely held in the underworld that he’d knocked off a guy who’d paid him to knock over a telegraph office back in the old days, before his career as a bank thief.

  Vivienne says, “Desmond, you’re sure you heard no one else in the house?”

  A gravelly answer arrives. “Yeah, what about it, Desmond?” The familiar croak of Lieutenant Huber twists deep in my gut.

  Desmond was right. I should’ve scrammed when I had the chance.

  That chance is gone. I’m trapped in this room between a dead woman on the floor and the narrowing stare of Lieutenant Huber throwing equal amounts of surprise and cold triumph at me. “Well, look who’s here. How many women are you gonna kill today, Gold?”

  “You tell me, Huber. You’re the one keeping a tally.”

  There’s so much accusation all over Huber’s bony face that I half expect his brown eyes to turn red. Instead, his stare grows even colder, as brittle as dead leaves in winter. He says, “All I know is this is the second time today some dame has wound up dead and bloodied, and whaddya know, you’re inches from the body. And I bet your fingerprints are all over that knife in her back.”

  “You’d lose the bet.”

  “So you wiped ’em. You’re a pro, Gold.”

  “And maybe so is whoever killed Eve. My bet is you won’t find any prints at all.”

  Vivienne grabs my arm, looks at me with confusion, and for the first time in all the years I’ve known her, fear. “Cantor? What is he talking about? What does he mean this is the second dead woman today?”

  Before I can even open my mouth to answer, Huber slaps Vivienne’s questions aside. “And who would you be, missy?”

  Vivienne’s newly minted fear of me dissolves into the haughty annoyance she was bred to feel for those lesser beings on the public payroll whom her crowd merely considers the help. “My name is Vivienne Parkhurst Trent, lieutenant. And if you don’t explain yourself and your reference to dead women in connection with Cantor, I’m sure the police commissioner will be more than happy to provide the information. He owes me a drink. Perhaps I’ll take him up on it this evening. I’ll be sure to mention your name.”

  I enjoyed that, and so did Desmond, who’s trying to hide the tiny smile his outlaw soul is savoring down to his marrow. Getting the better of cops is always entertaining.

  The expression on Huber’s face goes from cold and hard to pasty. He looks like he’s been force-fed a pill he can’t quite push down his gullet. He not only recognizes Vivienne’s family name, he’s aware of its influence.

  But a cop is a cop, and that badge, especially a lieutenant’s gold shield, gives him plenty of power too. Only a moment ago, Huber looked like he might gag. Now he looks like he could spit right in Vivienne’s face. “I don’t care what you say to the commissioner, Miss Parkhurst Trent.” His smug exaggeration of her name has enough acid behind it to eat through the walls. “Just make sure you get my name right— Huber, Lieutenant Norm Huber— when you tell him about one dead woman at the door of Gold’s apartment building this morning and the other dead woman here on the floor. Oh, and remember to mention that the woman on the floor is the daughter of old Boss Garraway. If I recall, Miss Parkhurst Trent, John Garraway was what you might call a mentor to the commissioner.”

  “And my family financed them both,” Vivienne counters with a smile that could peel the flesh from Huber’s bones. “And now, good afternoon, lieutenant.” Vivienne takes my arm as if we’re on our way to high tea at the Plaza.

  Huber steps in front of us, blocks us from leaving. “You’re not going anywhere yet, not until you answer a few questions. And if I don’t like the answers, the only place you and Gold are going is the lockup.”

  Vivienne says, “I don’t like your tone, lieutenant.”

  “You don’t have to like it, lady. What you have to do is tell me what you and Gold are doing here.”

  The look on Vivienne’s face is a study in umbrage. Umbrage at being challenged by someone so beneath her. Umbrage that such a person would have the nerve. I usually disapprove of snobbishness, but Vivienne’s wielding it like an elegant weapon, and there’s no one I’d rather see her use it on than Huber. “What do you think I’m doing here, lieutenant?” she says. “
I’m a curator, and Miss Garraway is a collector. We had an appointment to discuss acquiring her collection for my museum. Now, if you don’t mind, Cantor and I will be on our way.”

  Huber blocks us again. “I mind plenty,” he says. He shifts his focus to me, pushes his hat back on his head, gives me the full weight of his cop stare. “And what about you, Gold? What was your business here? That broken bric-a-brac on the floor next to Miss Garraway’s corpse have anything to do with it?”

  “I don’t break things, lieutenant. I have too much respect for—”

  “The money those fancy knickknacks deliver to your handbag?” he says. “Oh, my mistake, you don’t carry a handbag, do you.” His smile is so slimy it wouldn’t surprise me to see snakes slither through his teeth.

  I’ve had it with this guy. “If you have any more questions, lieutenant, call my lawyer.” Vivienne’s hand is still on my arm. I clutch it tight while I maneuver us past Huber.

  He says, “Don’t leave town, Gold.”

  • • •

  I hail a cab, intending to take Vivienne to a cozy spot I know nearby where we can chat over coffee, which I’ll tell the waiter to spike with a shot of booze to loosen the knots in my gut. The murder of two women in one morning is tough for anyone to take. Add my guilty feelings about my rotten treatment of Lorraine Quinn, plus the relentless Lieutenant Huber determined to see me fry for the murders of Lorraine and Eve, and it’s fair to say I’m not in the best of moods. It doesn’t help that as soon as we’re in the cab, before I can give the cabbie the address of the spot where a boozed-up coffee is waiting to greet me, Vivienne directs the driver to her museum, that big joint on Fifth Avenue at the eastern edge of Central Park. All I can do is lick my lips, disappointed there’s no scotch whiskey to lap up.