Quick & Dirty

by Stuart Woods

  He walked back into the living room and looked at the wall of pictures; they were thickly hung. Without counting, he estimated fifteen or twenty. The space where the van Gogh had hung had not been filled; it was between a Matisse still life and a Utrillo Paris street scene.

  He checked the wall with the pictures for a secret panel, then the same with the bookcases. Nothing. He went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet doors, one by one, then he checked the freezer.

  “What are you doing naked in my kitchen?” Morgan’s voice said.

  Stone jumped, then turned to find her behind him, also naked.

  “I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, and I felt a little peckish.”

  “How about some cheese?” she asked.

  “Perfect.” She lifted a bell jar and put the stand on the table, exhibiting a Saint-André, a Humboldt Fog, and a Pont-l’Évêque. “Choose something,” she said, sitting down with a box of crackers and a cheese knife in her hand.

  Stone chose the Pont-l’Évêque and sat down. “This chair is cold,” he said.

  “It will warm up in a minute.” She found an open bottle of red and poured them both a glass. “This will help.”

  “You’re right, the chair is getting warmer,” he said.

  They finished their cheese. Stone wondered if she had seen him searching her apartment. “What time does your maid come in?” he asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because I don’t want to be seen naked in your kitchen, eating cheese,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, she doesn’t get in until around six-thirty, and she leaves at one. Let’s go back to bed,” she said. “There’s something I’d like to do to you.”

  There was, and she did.

  • • •

  ON THE WAY out of the building, Stone stopped at the front desk.

  “Good morning, Mr. Barrington,” one of the men said.

  “Good morning. Mrs. Tillman asked me to check and see if a FedEx package had arrived for her or Mr. Tillman—”

  “Not this morning, sir. Not yesterday, either.”

  “I was about to say that this would have been about eighteen months ago.” He mentioned the date. “They were expecting something, but it never arrived.”

  The man produced a ledger from under the countertop and looked up the date. “No, sir, nothing arrived on that date, or the days before and after.”

  “FedEx says it was signed for by a doorman.”

  The man shook his head firmly. “No, sir, we log in every package that arrives.”

  “Thank you.” Stone went home, annoyed.

  26

  AFTER BREAKFAST STONE went back to his house and entered through the street door.

  “Good afternoon,” Joan said.

  “It’s ten past nine.”

  “Your mail and messages,” she said, handing them to him.

  “Do I detect a whiff of disapproval?” Stone asked.

  “I don’t disapprove of anything you do,” she replied. “Even when it’s stupid.”

  “Oh, thank you.” He went to his office. The message on top was from Arthur Steele. Stone called his direct line.

  “Good morning, Stone. Have you found my picture?”

  “Not yet, Arthur, and I’m going to need another ten days.”

  “That’s a negotiating tactic,” Steele replied. “You want another week.”

  “No, Arthur, I need another ten days. I know your deadline won’t expire before then. You were just building in an edge. I also know that your eighteen months runs not from the day of the theft, but from the day a claim was filed.”

  Steele ignored that. “Are you making progress?”

  “Yes, in the sense that I’m eliminating possibilities.”

  “Oh, all right, you can have another ten days,” Steele said, “but that’s about it.”

  Stone knew the “about” meant he had longer than that. “Thank you, Arthur. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up before Steele could ask any further questions.

  Joan buzzed. “Art Masi to see you.”

  “Send him in.”

  Masi came in looking desolate and flopped into a chair. “I’m done,” he said. “I can’t meet your deadline.”

  “It’s all right, Art,” Stone said, “I got us another week.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “Never mind, I got it. We’re making progress, Art, don’t be discouraged.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be discouraged? Every idea I’ve had has been a dead end.”

  “You’re eliminating possibilities, Art.”

  “Name a possibility I’ve eliminated.”

  “Mark Tillman didn’t commit suicide. That was a possibility.”

  “How do we know that?”

  “Because he wouldn’t send himself a package containing a sixty-million-dollar work of art if he didn’t expect to be there to receive it.”

  “He would have expected his wife to receive it.”

  “Then he would have addressed it to her.”

  “It wasn’t even insured.”

  “Not with FedEx, maybe, but his household insurance covered it as a listed piece of art, and because it’s listed, he wouldn’t even have to pay a deductible.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Oh, by the way, I checked with the doorman this morning, and he says they never received a FedEx package for Tillman on or about that date.”

  “But FedEx says a doorman signed for it.”

  “They don’t know the doormen—anybody could have signed for it.”

  “How about the maid?” Art asked.

  “Nope, she’s there mornings only, gone by one o’clock. The doormen never delivered it to the apartment.”

  “You think the doormen are art thieves?”

  “Maybe. They know more about what goes on in the building than anybody else, including who owns important art.”

  “Okay, I’ll investigate the doormen.”

  Stone handed him a card. “This contains the names and numbers of everyone who’s employed by the building. I took it from a tray on the front desk.”

  “While I’m at it, I’ll see if I can find out why they didn’t see Pio Farina and Ann Kusch enter the building the afternoon of Tillman’s murder.”

  “Don’t bother. Pio and Ann rang Tillman’s bell at the service entrance, and he buzzed them in. They left the same way.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?”

  “Because I’ve spent more time in the building than you have,” Stone replied. “I’ve come to know how it works. I’ll give you an example. Suppose you wanted to buy an apartment in the building. Who would you call?”

  “I’d find out which realtor sold the last unit that went and call her.”

  “No, a waste of time, and very expensive. You’d be smarter to let a doorman know that there’s ten thousand dollars in cash available if you can find the right apartment there.”

  “How would the doormen know?”

  “Because they know everything that goes on in the building. They know who’s having an affair and whether it’s with someone in the building. They know which couple is about to divorce. They know which tenant is chronically late with his maintenance payments, meaning he’s had a downturn in his business and can’t afford the place anymore. They know who’s dying, creating a vacancy. They don’t have to wait for the obituary to run in the Times. Did you know that when the news got out that Marilyn Monroe had died, there was a long line of people waiting to bribe the doorman for a shot at the place?”

  “I didn’t know that,” Art said.

  “The doormen hold the keys to the kingdom, especially in a building as desirable as that one. You find a doorman who has a low credit score, or who owes his bookie too much money, and that will be the
guy who’s helpful when it comes to making a package disappear.”

  “I see your point,” Masi said.

  “Mark Tillman, before he sent the package to himself, would have crossed a doorman’s palm handsomely and said, ‘I”m expecting a FedEx on Wednesday. Don’t deliver it, just put it in my storage unit,’” Stone said. “By the way, did you search Tillman’s storage unit? Every apartment has one, and the doormen have a key.”

  “We had a look around the storage area, but we didn’t have a key to the Tillman unit,” Masi said. He excused himself and left.

  Stone picked up the phone and called Pio Farina’s house in East Hampton. Ann Kusch answered. “Yes?”

  “Ann, it’s Stone Barrington.”

  “Good morning, Stone.”

  “I have a question for you. When you and Pio went to Mark Tillman’s apartment on the day he died, how did you enter the building?”

  “Through the service entrance. Mark said there was some work being done on the elevator, and that it might not be working. He told us to go to the service entrance, call him from downstairs, and he would buzz us in.”

  “And how did you depart the building?”

  “The same way.”

  “Thank you, Ann, that’s all I need to know.”

  He hung up. He had been right when he had told Art that.

  27

  THERE WAS STILL SOMETHING itching in Stone’s brain, something he needed to know that he didn’t know. He called Art Masi’s cell number.

  “Lieutenant Masi.”

  “Art, something I forgot to ask you. When you visited the FedEx store, did you see the signature of the doorman who signed for the package?”

  “No, I just got a printout of the packages they had delivered on that day.”

  “Go back to the store and see if they have a facsimile of the waybill that the doorman signed. If they do, I want to know what his name is. Even if it’s illegible, I want to know that.”

  “All right, I’ll call you back.”

  Stone hung up. What he wanted to know was why the doorman didn’t log in the package, as was their standard practice.

  • • •

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, Art called back. “The guy who signed for the package was Gino Poluci,” he said. “It’s a plain signature, doesn’t look like he signed it in a hurry.”

  “Thank you, Art.” Stone hung up, slipped on his jacket, and got a cab uptown. He walked into the building and saw the doorman he had spoken to earlier at the desk.

  “Good morning again, Mr. Barrington,” the man said. His name tag read “Ralph Weede.”

  “Good morning, Ralph,” Stone said. “Is Gino Poluci on today?”

  “No, sir, he’s off, he’ll be back at work tomorrow.”

  “Ralph, I need your help with something.”

  “Of course, Mr. Barrington, what can I do for you?”

  “You recall that I asked about a package that was delivered here after Mark Tillman died?”

  “Yes, sir, we had no record of it.”

  “Ralph, I’m an attorney, and I represent the Steele Insurance Group, who have the household insurance on the Tillman apartment.”

  Ralph’s eyes narrowed a tiny bit. “Yes, sir?”

  “There was something in that package that I need to look at. The company is offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward to anyone who can produce it. Does that interest you?”

  “Well, sure, Mr. Barrington,” Ralph said cautiously. “Since you’re a lawyer, can you tell me if there’s any legal liability attached to having some knowledge of that package?”

  “No liability whatsoever, Ralph, I just want to see the package, and I’ll produce the ten thousand in cash within the hour.”

  “Tell you what, let me have a look in Mr. Tillman’s storage unit,” Ralph said. “I’ll get the key.” He walked to an open door behind him, disappeared inside for a minute or so, and came back with the key. “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” he said to somebody in that room. He walked back to where Stone stood. “I’ll go have a look.”

  “I’ll have a look with you,” Stone said.

  Ralph hesitated. “Nobody’s allowed down there but the tenants and the doormen,” he said. “I don’t want to get in any trouble.”

  “Ralph, the only way you can get into trouble is by not telling me the truth,” Stone said.

  “This way, sir.” He led the way to a door that opened onto a stairway and walked down the stairs. The storage units were neatly divided into rows, and he walked down one, then stopped. “Here we are,” he said. “Fifteen A.” He opened the padlock securing the door, swung it open, and switched on an overhead light. Fluorescent lamps blinked on.

  Stone followed him inside. The room was about twelve by fifteen feet and contained several pieces of furniture stacked on top of each other. There were some lamps, no shades, a rolled-up carpet, and a few pictures in bubble wrap. “Just a minute,” he said to Ralph. He went through the pictures: two portraits, what appeared to be a Hudson River School landscape, and an abstract painting. No van Gogh.

  “Let’s continue,” he said to Ralph. There was a clothing rack filled with zipped-up covers, then, at the end of the aisle, two steel filing cabinets and a large steel cabinet. He tried to open them. Locked. “Do you have the keys, Ralph?”

  “No, sir, we just keep keys to access the unit. We don’t have keys for anything inside.”

  Stone reached for his own keys, which included one for his office files. He tried it in the locks and had no luck.

  “No package,” Ralph said. “Are you satisfied, Mr. Barrington?”

  “No, Ralph, I’m not. I’m going to have to come back with a locksmith.”

  “Why don’t you just ask Mrs. Tillman for the keys?” Ralph asked.

  “I don’t want to trouble her, Ralph, and I don’t want you to, either. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll be discreet.”

  Stone took two hundreds from his pocket and handed them to the man. “For your trouble today,” he said. “I’ll come back with a locksmith, and we’ll see if we can get you the ten thousand.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ralph replied. “I’m on all day, then off for two days.”

  They went back upstairs. “If I don’t get back today,” Stone said, “I’ll speak to Gino Poluci when he comes in tomorrow and see what I can find out. You can make your own financial arrangements with him.” They parted company. Back on the street, Stone called Bob Cantor, his go-to guy for any sort of technical work, mechanical or electronic.

  “How you doing, Stone?”

  “Pretty good. I need to get into a couple of locked pieces of office furniture. Can you meet me at Park and Seventy-eighth?”

  “Sorry, Stone, I’m in the middle of a major alarm installation, and I’ve got to be finished by tonight. As it is, I’ll probably be here until midnight. How about tomorrow?”

  “Okay,” Stone said.

  “What kind of office furniture?”

  “Standard steel stuff, like you’d see in a hundred offices.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Bob said. “I just don’t have the time today.”

  “I understand, Bob.”

  “Stone,” Bob said, “just about any locksmith can open those cabinets.”

  “I’d rather wait for you, Bob.”

  “Okay, you know best.”

  “Okay.” Stone hung up; he was just going to have to be patient until then.

  28

  STONE MET BOB CANTOR at 740 Park at ten the following morning. A doorman wearing a name tag with the name “Gino Poluci” greeted him at the reception desk. “Good morning, Mr. Barrington,” Gino said. “Ralph called me last night and said you’d like to get into the storage area for 15A?”

  “That’s correct, Gino,” Stone replied. “This is my associate, Bob C
antor.”

  “Oh, yes, we’ve met before, haven’t we? You’ve done some security system work here.” The two men shook hands.

  Gino got the key and led them down to the storage unit. Stone found it apparently undisturbed from the day before. “Back here, Bob,” he said, leading him to the three pieces of office furniture.

  Cantor knelt and produced a key ring containing a couple of dozen similar keys, and he began working his way through them, inserting them into a filing cabinet lock. “If we get one that works, chances are it’ll be keyed to all three pieces,” he said. “If not, then I’ll have to do some picking.” Nothing he had worked.

  Stone watched as Bob took a small zippered case from his shirt pocket and chose two of a number of lock picks.

  “I made these myself,” Cantor said, “cut and ground from hacksaw blades.” He started on a filing cabinet, and after a minute or two, he opened the drawer.

  “Go ahead and finish all three,” Stone said, standing back and giving him more room.

  Cantor had all three done very quickly.

  Stone knelt and began going through the file drawers, first looking for the painting itself, then glancing at the names of files. This drawer was mostly old tax returns. He went through the second drawer in the cabinet, then did the same with the second filing cabinet. All that remained was the larger storage cabinet. He swung the door back to reveal a stack of reams of printer paper. On top rested a FedEx box. Stone picked it up gingerly, by the corners: it was addressed to Mark Tillman. It was empty. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go back upstairs.”

  “Find what you’re looking for, Mr. Barrington?”

  “I found the FedEx box, but not the contents.”

  They went back up the stairs. As they arrived at the desk a man in a FedEx uniform placed an envelope on the desk and gave Gino an electronic box on which to sign. Stone watched as the doorman scrawled his name: only the G and the P were legible; the rest was a scrawl.